The tradition of holiday shopping has long been an economic boon to businesses across the country. Sales soar, setting hearts aglow both behind the till and beside the Christmas tree.

    What the Olympics need is a clean start. By that I don't mean a "pure" start, as opposed to a "dirty" one, or any of the other uselessly simplistic terms used by the World Anti-Doping Agency to perpetuate its junk science. I mean a complete philosophical, ethical and scientific rethinking. The kind resisted by conflict-of-interest-riddled anti-doping bureaucrats, whose superficial "banning" of Russia from competition would be more meaningful if WADA was any better than, well, Russia.

The mid-year fiscal and economic outlook (Myefo) released on Monday reveals in bold just how pointless is a surplus and how weak the Australian economy has become over the past year.

Mr Morrison remains under fire from critics for failing to take stronger action on climate change.

Over €40 million ($44 million) is the price tag for the funds the German government has earmarked for celebrating Ludwig van Beethoven's 250th birth anniversary year. The year of celebrations begins on Monday, December 16 — believed to be his 249th birthday — and ends on December 17, 2020. 

The world has already warmed by 1.1 degrees compared to pre-Industrial Revolution levels. The IPCC believes that meeting the 1.5-degree target would require an extremely ambitious effort, requiring that the world halve its CO2 to roughly the level of 1979. And we would have to do so by 2030, just 10 years from now.

   We have been potty-trained to believe. It has become second nature. When we don't believe, the system has ways to spin us around with various fears and things to buy at bargain prices. Religions have been the supreme users of the propaganda techniques, but since the advent of "democratic" secularism, propaganda had to be restructured into a new illusion of well-being.

And so say all of us: see: http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/964

The propaganda is based on giving us "the news"....

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Second, it means the promise of God to the Church of a new Exodus and homecoming: an arrival at the apocalyptic place of final justice. If eternity is the divine name, then now, human names given baptismally in the name of Christ are eternal.

“There are no climate change deniers around I can assure you,” Rupert Murdoch said last month at News Corp’s annual general meeting.

Nicola Sturgeon maintained throughout the election campaign that she did not want to see Boris Johnson returned to Downing Street as prime minister. 

The U.S. military is training Saudi Arabian pilots here in States, who later leave to slaughter Yemeni civilians thousands of miles away. Unfortunately, some of that violence was turned against us, when a Saudi trainee killed three American sailors at Pensacola Air Station on December 6.

WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, is due to appear in court on Friday, as the United States seeks extradition for the publisher who faces up to 179 years in jail on charges of espionage. But not everyone agrees with the way that the Wikileaks co-founder is being treated - as John Steppling, journalist and philosopher, explains.