As we shambled into 2021 the PM seemed to be cruising towards an early election against a divided opposition and this week started with Gov news that “The Eagle has Landed” meaning the first batch of the Pfizer vaccine has arrived.
Now in less than a week we are a global spectacle. Starting with ongoing revelations about an alleged rape in the early hours of 23Mar2019 during a drunken escapade in the Parliament House office of the Defence Minister. How the pair of highly paid privileged staffers got through security on a weekend visibly affected by alcohol is yet to be fully explained. The PM claims he first learnt of this two year old saga of secrecy known by so many, only days ago and he has initiated inquiries and reviews amid widespread scepticism that he should have known earlier. Yesterday we had the Defence Minister blubbering in the Senate unable to answer questions.
I also saw news that the GovGeneral’s staff have been doing a “Privilege Walk” – one step forward if you catch a bus – one step backward if you drove your car. The expression – “you could not make this stuff up” comes to mind.
Then we have Facebook cancelling links to many Australian Gov www sites leading to many politicians hyperventilating. You would think the internet did not exist. FB & Google have never paid fair tax here and recently Gov has been trying to get them to pay media orgs for Oz news content that the digital giants make a mega-$motza from.
In the middle of this news breaks that a group of Nationals favour developing nuclear power and I heard of a surprising number of Liberals who want a move towards including nuclear in our energy mix.
While I favour nuclear power (and Australia having “the bomb”) I realise that Green, Labor, NIMBY, State Govs and Indigenous issues would likely stymie any moves towards nuclear power plants – the term “snowballs chance in hell” comes to mind.
Meanwhile our water bureaucrats are firmly anti-dam. Let’s see how our motormouth PM navigates ahead after last week.
It is true that I have no respect for FB nor the MSM, so the fist fight they are currently engaging in, with the fuse lit by Canberra, is just minor amusement.
The MSM is the greatest hypocrite here, though. To see why, just ask the question: “If FB refuses to pay for linking the MSM outlets, why can people not just log into the MSM’s various weebsites ?” That is, simply bypass FB …
Answer: then people would have to subscribe, pay actual money, to the “content creators”. Obviously, not nearly enough people do that, or are willing to do that. So the carpet baggers decide to make some other group pay instead. When this was refused, the indignant squealing may be heard by NASA’s Mars robots.
It is a strange world when leaders of countries become directly involved in pathetic, piddlind issues with social media “barons”.
I used to love our sunburnt country
O/T The kind of BOM forecasting fail Warwick often highlights. This time it’s the evermore Woke Weather Channel’s month ahead weather outlook for the US.
wattsupwiththat.com/2021/02/19/friday-funny-nature-makes-a-mockery-of-month-ahead-model-forecasts/
Sorry OT – remember the Time magazine article earlier this month which explained the nuts and bolts of how the Dems won the US election. The full article is online now.
The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election, Molly Ball @mollyesque Feb. 4, 2021
time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/
You’re right wazz. The media has descended into providing a lot of disinformation on topics that are irrelevant anyway. Meanwhile real problems like our failing electricity grid and increasing water shortages get shoved aside, with the obvious solutions never even seriously considered.
When I posted this ~5 weeks ago I would have laughed at the notion that the PM would continue to be so derided at the end of March.