fraud

In 2017, Professor J. Alex Halderman demonstrated to the Senate Intelligence Committee that it was very easy to rig Dominion voting machines. The corporation had then overhauled its machines in order to guarantee the integrity of the ballots.

During the 2020 US presidential election, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (Republican) encouraged residents of his state to vote by mail and provided Dominion machines for those who were determined to vote in person.

President Donald Trump had contacted Secretary Brad Raffensperger by phone. Their conversation was recorded and cherry-picked excerpts were used against him; Mr. Raffensperger insisted that President Trump had pressured him to modify the Georgia results.

clown

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has admitted he needs more “focus” in the looming federal election campaign but has assured government MPs he can lead them to victory if they showed more discipline after the events of last week.

“You haven’t seen me as focused as I can be, yet, and you will see it,” Mr Morrison told Liberal and Nationals colleagues on Tuesday in one of their last meetings in Canberra before the campaign.

“I know where we’re going and we’re going to get there.”

gray

OffGuardian has gone off. Gone off the planet… 

It has been demonising sciences without any understanding and no care for proper information for far too long. OffGuardian is sick. Off...

Gus already complained to OffGuardian boffins a while back in regard to an OffG article:

Here is a link: https://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/33148

wef

The World Economic Forum, the exclusive talk shop that meets yearly in Davos, is at it again, this time looking to drive a wedge between the races. This begs the question: Why are capitalists so gung-ho about ‘Marxist’ ideology?

Once upon a time, in some mythical ‘golden age’, the only thing common folk had to fear whenever the robber barons met for a weekend of cocktails at some remote resort was that a further deterioration of living standards would quickly ensue. Those happily predictable days are over.

win...

Rules-based order? What the F**k is Blinken talking about? The US makes its own rules.

Sometimes the hypocrisy of the US government, especially when it comes to foreign affairs, is just too much to let pass.

The latest example of this is the Ukraine crisis, where the US pretty much stands all alone (unless you count Britain’s embattled and embarrassed Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who parrots US policy like a trained bird), accusing Russia not just of preparing for an “imminent invasion’ of Ukraine, but of violating international law and “rules-based international order,” as Secretary of State Antony Blinken likes to put it.

reagan

The deal was that NATO would not go East...

But the US media, especially in Europe are rewritting history:

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Some myths go back millennia.

This myth, if it is one, goes back to 1990 -- and just over three decades later, it continues to form a central grievance in Russian President Vladimir Putin's testy narrative about Moscow's ties with the West.

It's the question of NATO expansion -- an unhealed scab that, with Russian-Western relations at their lowest ebb since the Cold War, has been picked off yet again and is now bleeding into public view.

ratings

Apparently, the Channel 9 sixty minutes special on Scott Morrison as a very ordinary family guy did not rate very well. It was beaten in the ratings by a repeat(?) of Vera on ABC/TV. TV execs pour over this data, which means nothing much to ordinary mortals, with a fine toothcomb for advertising moneys allocation. Despite saturation press and advertising to make you salivate at the prospect of seeing sausages being burnt, the sauce was stale. 

Not only Scott Morrison is a very very very ordinary family guy, he is a dangerous politician as well. 

Jenny, Scott and the kids didn't rate as well as Nine would have hoped, beaten by a world-weary British cop and some very cute dogs.

sink

It looked for all the world like a “kitchen sink” strategy to throw everything at Albanese to see what might stick – and a calculated response as the Prime Minister’s standing and character has declined (according to published polls) over a sustained period of time.

The free-ranging assessments of Albanese are also an attempt to define the small-target Opposition Leader in the minds of voters.

In appearing alongside his wife, Morrison’s media minders will be hoping this is the interview that begins to smooth the Prime Minister’s sharp edges and flaws – which have been on full display over the past few months – and humanise him ahead of a budget in March that will springboard into a poll expected in May.

bugs

Raised by Wolves centers on "two androids, Father and Mother, tasked with raising human children on Kepler-22b after the Earth was destroyed by a great war. As the burgeoning colony of humans threatens to be torn apart by religious differences, the androids learn that controlling the beliefs of humans is a treacherous and difficult task."[7]

Is this biblical?

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pope 

Rod Dreher hollifully panics with beatitude...

That’s okay… Here he goes:

As important as it generally is to vote conservative, we are not going to vote ourselves out of this crisis. The core of it is cultural. Do you see American conservatives producing a vital culture today?

sov

As the last of the skeleton staff abandoned Australia’s embassy in the Ukraine, Prime Minister Scott Morrison warned the border standoff with Russia is reaching boiling point.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne said the government has directed the departure of embassy staff to a temporary office in Lviv with the build-up of Russian troops on the border.

“The situation is deteriorating and is reaching a very dangerous stage,” Mr Morrison said on Sunday.

“I want to send a very clear message on behalf of Australia … that the autocratic, unilateral actions of Russia, to be threatening and bullying Ukraine, is something that is completely and utterly unacceptable.”

higgs

In philosophy we often travel with circular arguments at the start of which we have to make assumptions. The elasticity of these arguments make for the ebbs and flows of the questions that plague human nature and our busy-ness. We’re curious. But we don’t like not knowing. If we have no way of knowing, we invent a story, a reason, a purpose, a decree, a religious system. Science is a work in progress, and as explained in the attached comment, is an honourably self-correcting endeavour. 

dumb...

Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline takes diplomatic center stage as tensions continue to mount over Ukraine. RT’s Ben Swann explains why the US isn’t too keen on the project’s completion. Wirtschaft Aktuell publisher Dr. Eike Hamer discusses how Germany is caught in the crossfire and is weighing alternative energy suppliers in case Russia decides to turn off the spigot.

koalas

The Australian Koala Foundation has called for a koala protection act and legislative action to curb land clearing.

It warns koalas are also in danger in Victoria and South Australia.

“This change in status, unfortunately, is nothing but a token gesture that results in no legislative change to save the koala,” foundation chair Deborah Tabart said.

“Behind all the photo opportunities and political rhetoric they (the federal government) continue to approve the destruction of koala habitat.”

Ms Ley pointed to chlamydia vaccines for koalas, the use of drones to surveil populations and habitat restoration as ways governments were working to protect the marsupial.

rot

Sometimes it is hard to keep up, so let's just quickly recap the political week.

It started with revelations that the Deputy Prime Minister thought the Prime Minister was a "hypocrite", "a liar" and that he had "never trusted him".