In September 2015 the Australian government decided that it was joining the US-led “coalition” to fight in Syria in what was described at the time as a war against the terrorist group ISIS (also known as ISIL, IS or Daesh). The decision was purportedly made following the receipt of legal advice as to the legality under international law of Australia joining that particular war. It was subsequently revealed that the government had received the legal advice a year earlier than when it said it was “waiting” for the advice.

Charlie Chaplin was astute. He knew why Albert Einstein was feted by the crowds at the opening of "City Lights" in 1931. No one understood Einstein but his work and that of his fellow physicists had opened the doors to a new understanding of reality, which for many was still like fantasy and fairy tales. 

Einstein was well-known to be absent-minded and going to the patent office where he worked in his bright floral slippers. He then moved to the US to escape Nazism.

The NDIS was planned as a social justice issue by a fair minded Julia Gillard. As she lost the prime Ministership to Rudd himself replaced by Tony Abbott who promised to implement it, some people though that it would be okay. But as soon as Tony Abbott took on the project, NDIS became a mangled affair. 

I know of many disabled people who have had dreadful times and unresolved needs from the Abbott/Turnbull NDIS. How do they (Abbott and Turnbull)  do it? How can they do it?...

It's like the opening to a joke: a Jew and a Muslim go for a walk and discuss politics. But this is for real.

In writing this I will probably be accused of again drawing too much attention to Tony Abbott. That is in fact precisely what I’m doing, and with some satisfaction, I might add.

A new American TV documentary series is rewriting the history of the Vietnam War, says John Pilger.

To finish my week’s theme on “commongoodism” I take you back to 2015 when the darling of the Murdoch journalists was suggesting that all you really needed to be successful in politics, was a degree of sorts.

One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts has admitted to signing a form which said he was a British citizen, but says he did so without reading the document.

Morgan Freeman's latest publicly stunt permanently stained his legacy after the famous actor decided to join the fake news industry by passing off a blockbuster script as a true story.

There are times when I have a little doubt in the half-nuts that serves me as brains. 

Spoon-fed by clever Dick, dirty Wolfo and devious Rummy, Bush, Blair and Howard may not have had any knowledge that the intelligence they were getting on Saddam’s WMD’s was FAKE.