“On Thursday, March 26, Morrison summoned a handful of senior journalists, one from each mainstream outlet, to meet him in the cabinet room where he would speak frankly about the state of play. He would do this on a handful of occasions during the coming weeks. John Curtin, Labor prime minister from 1941 to 1945, did the same thing during World War II.”

So wrote Rob Harris, the National Affairs Correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age on June 10.

  The US has made Russia an offer it hopes she won’t refuse: accept a new arms control deal including no limits on NATO weapons in Europe, or deal with a modernized American nuclear arsenal on its doorstep.

We have got rid of the real world: what world is left?  The apparent world perhaps? … But no!  Along with the real world we’ve done away with the apparent world as well.

 

Asking questions is fraught with getting answers.

martyrdom

PARIS — In the year after the United States’ invasion of Iraq, a 22-year-old pizza delivery man here couldn’t take it anymore. Sickened by images of American soldiers humiliating Muslims at the Abu Ghraib prison, he made plans to go fight United States forces. He studied a virtual AK-47 on a website. Then he took lessons from a man, using a hand-drawn picture of a gun.

It was an almost laughable attempt at jihad, and as the day of his departure approached, the delivery man, Chérif Kouachi, felt increasingly unsure of himself.

Like dogs, we “need something to do”. Dogs will be trained to volunteer for sheep herding and cattle mustering. 

There were times past when we thought that things were more simple and assured. They were not. The controversies were well-contained and hidden from view.

 

 

When the European Central Bank’s governing council met last week it was expected to do something, or at least say something, about the strengthening of the euro against the US dollar. It did nothing and said little.

The Western genre has long been associated with right-wing and libertarian politics, and is said to promote individualism and free-market economics.

 

In a new look at the Western, however, Ryan McMaken shows that the Western is in fact often anti-capitalist, and in many ways, the genre attacks the dominant ideology of nineteenth-century America: classical liberalism.

 

Trump says he’ll ‘negotiate’ for a third term in office

 

Australia’s Home Affairs Minister, Peter Dutton, warned foreign journalists that they may be investigated if they give a “slanted view” of the country. Meanwhile, cops in Victoria have crushed lockdown protests with an iron fist.

We need to expose the cretin-intentionists (oops, I meant to say the creationists) when they are pontificating about "scientifically" understanding these modern times…