assange/voltaire

Rock legend Roger Waters tells RT why we ‘should build statues to Assange’

Rock legend and activist Roger Waters told RT that the prosecution of Julian Assange is a “charade”

 

On Monday, Julian Assange was granted permission to appeal the British High Court’s decision last month to allow his extradition to the US, where he is wanted on charges of espionage and revealing state secrets. The WikiLeaks co-founder faces up to 175 years in jail if found guilty on all counts.

Speaking to RT, Waters called the decision a “small victory” in Assange’s years-long legal battle, arguing that he “should not have spent a single day” behind bars.

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bench

When is an exclusive not an exclusive? When it runs in The Australian. Pearls and Irritations had the real Paul Keating exclusive over the weekend.

 

Rupert Murdoch’s The Australian is at it again: “Exclusive – Paul Keating has launched a scathing attack on Britain, saying Australia’s oldest ally suffers from ‘delusions of grandeur and relevance deprivation'”. What’s the scam?

The scam is the Keating story ran in John Menadue’s Pearls and Irritations, exclusively, two days earlier. Somehow, Rupert’s rag ran a page one Keating “exclusive”, a page two Keating “exclusive” and a story on its opinion pages, all bagging Keating and failing to give attribution to earlier press reports, the actual exclusive.

confucius...

In April 1998, Sony Corporation chairman Norio Ohga made world headlines with his comment, “The Japanese economy is on the verge of collapsing.” In reality, nothing in Sony’s experience supported such an assessment. On the contrary, its business boomed right through the 1990s. More generally, Japanese industrial corporations continued to gain share from American rivals. Yet they all talked as if Japan was a hopeless basket case.

Even the president of Toyota Motor, Hiroshi Okuda, joined in, suggesting Japan could cause a “world-wide financial crash.” This despite the fact that Toyota’s sales soared fully 95 percent in the 1990s. Between 1989 and 2019, Toyota went from little more than one-quarter of General Motors’ revenues to nearly twice G.M.’s.

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The iconic flag that has become a symbol of Aboriginal Australia is now freely available for public use, after its designer agreed to transfer copyright to the Commonwealth following long negotiations.

julia

The Australian Republic president should be a Woman, an Atheist and a Red Head.

Or an Aboriginal Woman or Man...

Or Julian Assange...

 

Or Kylie Minogue...

 

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Barnaby Joyce has apologised for claiming “people aren’t dying” of Covid in Australia, while also blaming consumers and businesses for hoarding rapid antigen tests.

The deputy prime minister made the comments on Monday, the first day that priority groups were due to gain free access to RATs, although supply shortages will likely result in a delay of a few weeks before they are widely available.

 

Joyce told Radio National the “best test of a competent government is that people don’t die” and that Australia has one of the lowest death rates from Covid-19 in the world.

turmpth

In the West, when we’re in a court of law, we are made to swear to tell the truth, on a bible. The bible is the least truthful of all books ever written, but we “believe” it is nothing but the truth. It feels like a traditional joke, as if we were avoiding hell by swearing truthfulness on a book of lies. 

 

The bible is full of lies — elegant lies. They explain "everything" with "infinite error", to reiterate the words of Bertolt Brecht… 

 

It would be better for an atheist to swear to tell the truth on a work by Albert Camus, by Dostoyevsky or by Joyce James.

 

winston 

One could be tempted to parallel Chamberlain appeasement of Hitler with those, like German Vice-Admiral Kay-Achim Schönbach, who are trying to “respect” Putin. This could not be further from reality. Putin is not Hitler. While Hitler wanted war. Putin wants peace. While Chamberlain wanted peace, the West wants war. And this is the status of the world today. 

 

dumbplomacy...

The focus of Australia’s reinvigorated friendship with the UK and US exposes the true purpose of the new partnership: global military expansion and buy-in on Cold War 2.0. It’s nothing to do with making the world a better place.

In past years, treaties were often a force for good. A deal signed by two or more parties cemented a friendship, committed each other to the pursuit of common objectives, and somehow, even in just a small way, made the world a better place.

But things have changed dramatically over the past decade and treaties seem to have become something very different. No longer focused on ambitions such expanding trade or opening borders to everyone’s benefit, the goals seem based more on anxiety and paranoia. The language is more hawkish, the posturing more aggressive.

altlas 

We live in a MODERN world where we could not live without "managing" electrons… nor photons. We know electrons well or do we? We know photons or do we? Do we still need to discover what else these little beasts can do and what other particles do?… Or are we just happy with having a smartphone that talks to us via Siri in a whatever soft reassuring female voice that, coming from a little machine, would frighten a man from the middle ages? Should we go back to swinging from tree to tree? This of course isn’t enough for physicists. THEY HAVE TO KNOW the purpose of particles. Who can blame them? But should we stop them, knowing some geezers can make atomic bombs using the knowledge? TOO BLOODY LATE, SIR...

 

fury...Ex-US soldiers with alleged neo-Nazi links arrive at Ukrainian front line

 

The soldiers of fortune shared pics and footage of them sporting combat gear at Ukrainian army positions 

At least half a dozen former US military servicemen have landed in Ukraine amid rapidly escalating tensions in the east of the country.  

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 Reports suggest that one of the animals was spotted in a tree off Route 54 soon after the crash and was swiftly apprehended. Yet, three more primates remain at large. A helicopter was engaged in the operation to help with the search for the missing creatures.

A vehicle carrying 100 monkeys to a lab collided with a dump truck off Interstate 80 near Danville, Pennsylvania on Friday, American media reported. According to the State police, at least four apes managed to escape the truck and has went missing.

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The senior Tory said these dark arts tactics had “intimidated” backbenchers and broke the law.

His astonishing tirade - made in Parliament - poured yet more petrol on the raging civil war engulfing the Tory Party.

But Boris came out swinging against the claim, insisting he had “seen no evidence” to support the allegation.

While his Cabinet ally and attack dog Nadine Dorries said Mr Wragg was peddling “nonsense” and just “attention seeking”.

huntEXCLUSIVE: Morrison and Hunt's tricky denial of RAT requisitions

 

As Australians struggle to access RATs tests, Greg Hunt and Scott Morrison have publicly denied allegations of stockpiling. Michelle Pini and David Donovan report.

‘This is a reaction to the COVID s*** storm we’re all experiencing together! Please rest assured that you will receive your goods, as soon as possible.’