WASHINGTON — A scene like one right out of “Ted Lasso” unfolded at Monday’s White House press briefing as actor Jason Sudeikis, who plays the show’s namesake soccer coach, fielded a question from the fictitious sports critic Trent Crimm.

The lighthearted exchange came as several cast members made an appearance at the daily press briefing to talk about mental health, a popular theme on the hit Apple TV+ show.

THE INTERVIEW BY SARAH FERGUSON OF THE RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR TO AUSTRALIA ON 20/03/23 WAS A DEMONSTRATION OF BEAUTIFULLY EXPLOSIVE ANGRY AGGRESSION, MAGICAL MISUNDERSTANDINGS, LOVELY BIAS AND NORMAL GRANDSTANDING OF GUTTER JOURNALISM FROM THE AROMATIC SEWER MEDIA OF AUSTRALIA. 

(The necessity of a work on Snobs, demonstrated from History, and proved by felicitous illustrations:—I am the individual destined to write that work—My vocation is announced in terms of great eloquence—I show that the world has been gradually preparing itself for the WORK and the MAN—Snobs are to be studied like other objects of Natural Science, and are a part of the Beautiful (with a large B). They pervade all classes—Affecting instance of Colonel Snobley.)

BY THACKERAY

The nuclear holocaust looms behind the war between Russia and Ukraine.

Europe, the continent that has seen the highest number of deaths in armed conflicts over the past hundred years, is heading towards an even more dire future. As in the 1930s, the apology of fascism is made in the name of democracy and the apology of war is made in the name of peace.

by Boaventura de Sousa Santos

In March 2003, the United States launched an invasion of Iraq on false pretenses and without a clear long-term strategy. Twenty years later, it is repeating many of the same mistakes in Ukraine.

This time, however, the stakes are much higher. The United States is no longer the undisputed superpower that it was in the early 2000s. Two decades of failed military interventions abroad, poor economic governance at home, and dysfunctional culture wars have significantly undermined its potential.

In June 1971, at the height of the Vietnam War, a US government military analyst with the Rand Corporation and senior research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dr. Daniel Ellsberg1, released to the “New York Times” and “Washington Post” what became known as the “Pentagon Papers”,....

— 47 volumes of confidential records comprising some 7000 pages of secret government reports that documented the US involvement in “dirty tricks” and illegal actions under the Presidencies of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon.

20 years ago, on 20 March 2003, the US, the UK, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq in an illegal act of aggression. As with all wars, we were told this one would be quick. The pretext for the invasion was – despite authoritative doubts raised at the time – claims about the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction. There were no such weapons in Iraq, although plenty of them in two of the invading nations. After on-again off-again ADF deployments, the last Australian troops finally left the country in June 2020.

By Sue Wareham

For three years now, the debate over the origins of the coronavirus pandemic has ping-ponged between two big ideas: that SARS-CoV-2 spilled into human populations directly from a wild-animal source, and that the pathogen leaked from a lab.

Through a swirl of data obfuscation by Chinese authorities and politicalization within the United States, and rampant speculation from all corners of the world, many scientists have stood by the notion that this outbreak—like most others—had purely natural roots.

Japanese and German defense ministers, Yasukazu Hamada and Boris Pistorius, have agreed to cooperate in the military sphere and conduct joint drills, as well as start preparations for the realization of an acquisition and cross-servicing agreement (ACSA), media reported on Saturday.

Hamada and Pistorius discussed the deployment of the German armed forces in the Indo-Pacific region and joint exercises during the first visit of a Japanese defense minister to Germany in 16 years, Japanese news agency reported.

Both sides confirmed their readiness to prepare the legal basis for the ACSA agreement between the Japanese and German military.

“Right now, when we are facing a difficult situation in ensuring security, international interaction is necessary,” Hamada was quoted by the news agency as saying.

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Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has claimed that the US-led invasion of Iraq was more justified than Russia’s ongoing military operation in Ukraine, despite all of his pre-war justifications since being proven false.

Speaking to Germany’s DPA and two other European news agencies, Blair stated that the invasion – in which 46,000 British troops took part – was justified by Saddam Hussein’s domestic repressions and regional conflicts, and his use of chemical weapons against the Kurds.

“At least you could say we were removing a despot and trying to introduce democracy,” Blair said.

ONE COULD BE AT A LOSS TO UNDERSTAND... WE, OF THE LOUNGE-CHAIR PEACE BRIGADE, COULD BE DERANGED ENOUGH TO THINK THAT CAPTAIN RUSKY HAS LEFT A WINDOW OPENED SO THAT FLIES CAN BE ATTRACTED TO THE MEAT GRINDER SO THEY WILL DROWN IN THE VINEGAR.

AS MENTIONED BEFORE, A GERMAN FRIEND SHOWED US HOW TO GET RID OF FRUIT-FLIES, BY HAVING A BOWL WITH SOME VINEGAR (ONE NEEDS MORE THAN VINEGAR, ETC) MIXED WITH A TOUCH OF DETERGENT AND WATER IN IT... IT WORKS.

Lest we forget the consequences, today we recall the great lie of ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ in Iraq which led to the smashing of that country and the slaughter of hundreds of thousand of innocent men, women and children.

Peace Rally – Address, 18 March 2023 

By John Lander

When the lie was revealed, our precious alliance with America was used as justification for joining the ‘Coalition of the Willing’, which ought to be called the ‘Coalition of the Killing’.

The coalition of the killing continued in Afghanistan for 20 years, based on the lie that Afghanistan was the fountainhead of Islamic terrorism around the world.

Note that the word “lie” sits at the heart of the word “Alliance”, which is itself a lie.

An attack on a Russian aircraft in neutral space would be a declaration of war, said Anatoly Antonov, Russia's ambassador to Washington.

« Intentionally attacking a Russian aircraft in neutral airspace is not only a crime under international law, but also an open declaration of war against the greatest nuclear power. “, he warned.

by Bruno Bertez

« An armed confrontation between Russia and the United States would be radically different from the proxy war that the Americans are waging from a distance against us in Ukraine..

We are in room 20, on the 2nd floor of the Central Museum of the Armed Forces in Moscow. Pictured are the remains of the CIA's U2 spy plane, shot down on May 1, 1960 over Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinenburg) by S-75 Dvina surface-to-air missiles. Its pilot, Francis Gary Powers, far from swallowing the cyanide capsule that had been provided to him and not destroying the plane, preferred to parachute.

by Fausto Guidice

The missiles also shot down a Mig-19 which had chased the U2, Powers was first mistaken for a Soviet pilot, then the misunderstanding cleared up. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and then traded in 1962 for William Fischer, a KGB spy who had remained silent as a grave under interrogation.

Regular readers of this journal will be dismayed at the breakneck speed at which Australia is party to the goading of a potentially catastrophic war in our region. With Western mainstream media in anti-China mad dog mode, both sides of the aisle in Canberra sleepwalking, and with nothing at all to win and everything to lose, it seems the only ones who can save us from ourselves are the Taiwanese.

By Guest author Graham Pickering