The wet season deluge continues in Far North Queensland where landslides have closed major roads, with drivers stuck in floodwaters and a flood watch alert in place for hundreds of kilometres of river systems. Cairns has received more than 200 millimetres of rain since 9am yesterday, while Kuranda, to the west of the city, has received more than 300mm. Several major far-north roads have been closed due to landslides and fallen trees. A 60-year-old driver became stuck in floodwaters in the Cairns suburb of Clifton Beach just before 7am, but was able to escape the car before help arrived, according to the Queensland Fire and Rescue Service. Emergency Management Queensland regional director Wayne Coutts said there had been several jobs this morning, mainly leaking roofs.

By now you've probably all  heard about the firing of those base personnel at Minot Air Force Base in Minot, North Dakota.  The area

The post DONT PANIC, ITS JUST THERMONUCLEAR BOMBS appeared first on The Giza Death Star.

Socialists taking other people's money. We're making the superannuation system fairer for 99.5% of Australians. pic.twitter.com/xX1ZVQrRiV Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) March 6, 2023 Great comments.

READ MORE AT ADVANCE 

Corporate Australia has its priorities back to front.

What event have our CEOs celebrated the most over the last few years? Read More

Thanks for the tip Michelle! Introducing Jeremy's Chocolate. We have two kinds: HeHim and SheHer. One of them has nuts. If you need us to tell you which one, keep buying Hershey's.https://t.co/pf5NnLcosppic.twitter.com/jmRKTNNwag Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) March 3, 2023

This week on Yeah Nah Pasaran! we talk to Kate Burns [Twitter]. Kate is an LA-based writer and anti-fascist researcher with a particular interest in Christian extremism. Recently, Kate wrote Preaching Fascism: Inside San Diegos Awaken Megachurch (Left Coast Right Continue reading

In response to Victorian Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes announcement addressing Victorias bail laws, the Human Rights Law Centre calls on the Andrews Government to listen to Aboriginal organisations and expert advice, and commit to wholesale bail reform as recommended by Coroner McGregor following the preventable death in prison custody of Gunditjmara, Dja Dja Wurrung, Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta woman Veronica Nelson. 

Thousands of people continue to be funnelled into Victorias prisons following knee-jerk amendments to Victorias bail laws. Since 2018 the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in prison has almost doubled, and right now a staggering 43.9% of people in prison are unsentenced and awaiting a hearing or trial. 

These bail laws, particularly the reverse onus provisions, were found by the Coroner to be incompatible with the Victorian Charter of Human Rights. 

The Attorney-General's announcement outlined only the first step towards bail reform. The Human Rights Law Centre is calling for the reforms to include: 

1. Repealing the reverse-onus provisions in the bail laws; 

2. Creating a presumption in favour of bail for all offences, with the onus on the prosecution to demonstrate that bail should not be granted due to there being a specific and immediate risk to the physical safety of another person or the person posing a demonstrable flight risk;  

3. Inserting an explicit requirement in the bail laws that a person must not be remanded for an offence that is unlikely to result in a sentence of imprisonment; and 

4. Repealing the offences of committing an indictable offence while on bail, breaching bail conditions and failure to answer bail.  

Amala Ramarathinam, Acting Managing Lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre says: 

The Andrews Government must get bail reform right. The changes announced so far are the absolute bare minimum, and they fall far short of the reform needed to stop the harm these laws are causing. 

Victoria has some of Australias most dangerous and discriminatory bail laws that are needlessly removing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and women from their families and funnelling them into prisons to be warehoused on remand.  

The Governments announcement doesnt measure up to the recommendations made by the Coroner following the investigation into the death in custody of Gunditjmara, Dja Dja Wurrung, Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta woman Veronica Nelson.  

The Andrews Government must ensure there is a presumption in favour of bail as a starting point in all cases, and that no one is held on remand for charges that are unlikely to ever result in a sentence of imprisonme...

Sometimes the fastest way to answer an email is to not reply to it.

Email can take up a massive amount of time. Americans spend about 172 minutes checking their personal emails, and around 149 minutes checking their work emails, per day on average. By reducing how long it takes you to write an email, you could open up hours of time every day. You could also potentially free yourself from the evening shift: that pesky post-dinner period where you do the task you couldnt complete earlier because your day was consumed with emails.

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Be nice if they at least made sense. This is their definition of 'hate'. Sydney: Group of middle eastern men chanted the 'Lord's Prayer' & 'Hail Mary' as they walked on King Street in Newtown. The intimidating display came amid calls for The Project to be cancelled after gay comedian...

Contributed by Jim Hayes

More Than 100 countries have Agreed to sign a new treaty to protect the high seas. They have signed a new agreement at the United Nations to reverse biodiversity loss.

The legally binding treaty commits signatories to ensure sustainability. It has taken 15 years to reach agreement on a policy that is an important part of a broader ambition that involves global effort to restore 30 percent of the worlds land and sea by the end of the decade.

Photo from AFP

It covers like fishing restrictions, international shipping routes, rejigging deep sea mining, and a better sharing of resources.

A major sticking point has always been the commercial interests that rely on the maximum exploitation of resources. This is one reason the discussion has gone on for 20 years.

On the other hand, changing global community attitudes have pushed the other way, increasingly pressuring governments to act, until something had to be done.

Another issue has been the insistence of poor nations that they should not be the ones to bear the brunt of the cost of conservation. They argue that it is the richest nations that have caused the most damage and can afford to shoulder the greater responsibility. They also put that trich nations should do much more to foster sustainability by transferring technology to others.

Greenpeace says 11 million square kilometres of ocean must be put under protection every year until 2030 to meet the target.

Countries must formally adopt the treaty and ratify it as quickly as possible to bring it into force, and then deliver the fully protected ocean sanctuaries our planet needs, said Laura Meller, a Greenpeace oceans campaigner who attended the talks.

Ocean...

The scene is unforgettable and unforgivable: an elected official, the deputy prime minister of Australia, cutting loose about a fish species introduced into the country by his ancestors, and demanding their annihilation. During the near-lunatic display by Barnaby Joyce, even his own colleagues betrayed embarrassment and alarm at the full-throated shrieks of carp, carp. With crazed eyes and crimson face, Joyce went on to assure fellow parliamentarians that viral weapons will be deployed against the common carp, otherwise known as Cyprinus carpio. The cannonade of ecological warfare had been announced, though preparations for the war had long been in progress.

In 2017, the Sydney Morning Herald ran a piece befitting the great terror pieces that fret and agitate at the unknown and unseen. Today no one really knows how many are in the rivers of our eastern states and particularly the Murray-Darling, but if you were to say 10 million, few aquatic scientists would contradict you.

The carp is inherently consumable, traditional in a number of cuisines, and central to a number of religious rites. But in Australia, the murderous kill comes before sound and sensible management, vengeful destruction before the understanding. As with every species introduced into the vulnerable space of Australian ecology, thuggish retribution for ones failings is a default position, the cover for human error and incompetence. Often, that retribution is of a colossal, industrial scale, marked by poisoning or viral delivery, connived in by the scientific and political establishment.

The language used to demonise the relevant species never strays far from hyperbole. Federal MP Gavin Pearce stated a few examples in a 2020...

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As a spokesperson for concerned Australians, we were deeply disturbed by the recent disrespectful comments made about Jesus on the Project show on channel 10. Read More

Iranian government using poison gas on school girls in different schools at different cities. The officials do not provide any answers. Hospitals are not permitted to provide any medical records to the parents or anyone else. The number of school girls and those girls who are hospitalized. The smell of gases are so strong that one can smell them hours later.

There are a lot of dysfunctional habits that will destroy your relationship, however, after decades of research, Dr. John Gottman has found one major contributor. The even crazier thing is this likely is not what you had imagined.

If I asked you what the number one relationship killer was, what would you say? Most people would say things like infidelity, a lack of sex, a lack of quality time, and maybe even a lack of trust. However, none of those are the right answers. Gottman, after carrying out a multitude of studies on over 40,000 couples, says contempt is the number one relationship killer.

Gottman also says it is worth considering a total of four problematic types of relationship communication:

1. Contempt.
2. Criticism.
3. Defensiveness.
4. Stonewalling.

Contempt, Gottman says, is the number one predictor of divorce or separation. Contempt is much like hatred. It is a form of communication and a state of mind that can leave your partner feeling unloved and unwanted.

One example of this is lets say that one spouse is trying to talk with someone, but every time they say something, their partner has something underhanded or hateful to interject towards their partner. While we all hold our partners in contempt from time to time, when contempt becomes a regular occurrence, Gottman says the relationship could be doomed.

The odd thing about contempt is that instead of the two partners working together, contempt can push them not only further apart, but also put them in a war zone. However, contempt is not just bad for relationships, research has also pointed out that contempt can harm our health. Based on the research, when people hold others in contempt in their communication, they have a higher likelihood of ending up with a major disease like heart disease or cancer.

If you feel like you and your partner may be holding each other in contempt, it may be helpful to sit down and face negative feelings together. Additionally, if you want your relationship to survive, Gottman says it is of the utmost importance to let your partner know they are appreciated and to be sure to show it on the regular.

Sources

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WSP: The Bottom Line

• an In My View article by NIGEL WARD, examining the information vacuum surrounding the out of the blue proposal, made public on 4th January 2023, to amalgamate the Whitby secondary schools, widely perceived as a step towards academisation.

~~~~~

As a long-established scrutineer of, and commentator on, local government conduct, foremost in my mind at all times is that we live in a democracy. Our elected Council members (and, no less so, the paid public servants who are entrusted with the task of carrying out their decisions), occupy positions of public trust. Their duty is to carry out the will of the people.

I would ask readers to keep this in mind as I recount my attempts to discover the rationale behind this hugely unpopular proposal to close Eskdale School.

The North Yorks Enquirer has published approaching a thousand of my articles. Of present interest, and in the present context, I would hope readers may have seen two in particular.

1) On 24th February, my Open Letter to the Co-Chairs of the WSP Board of Governors (Christina ZANELLI and Su CROSSLAND) and the fairly recently appointed WSP Executive Head Teacher (Mr Jamie HENSHAW) sought answers to some of the questions parent and carers of Whitby school children (past, present and future) have been asking me:

• http://nyenquirer.uk/open-letter-wsp/
  

I wanted to know why it was that, in a letter to parents/carers dated 22nd May 2022,  the Co-Chairs had misrepresented the newly-appointed Executive Head Teacher (Mr Jamie HENSHAW) as having, in his previous position, led the Newcastle Academy to an (improved) OfSTED rating of Good.

He did no such thing. Follow the link and you will see that I produced the documentary evidence underpinning this assertion.

Unfortunately, Ms CROSSLAND and Mr HENSHAW ignored my Open Letter, leaving it to Ms ZANELLI to respond, which she did though not from her WSP account; rather, from her Yorkshire Endeavour Trust (YEAT) account. Ms ZANELLI perhaps mistook her desired future for a present-day reality?

In any event, Ms ZANELLI did respond to me, apologising for a genuine mistake, pleading a clerical error as her excuse for the 22nd May 2022 misinformation and excusing herself (and Ms CROSSLAND) on the grounds that they are unpaid volunteers with full time jobs, and as such errors do sometimes occur.

Obviously. But surely, as an honourable man, Mr HENSHAW would have been at pains to correct a misinterpretation that...

BY PETER YIM | MARCH 5, 2023

COVID-19 is the story of how governments around the developed world corralled their populations into the acceptance of novel, draconian measures to combat a virus. The most extraordinary of these measures was the mandating of experimental vaccines to large segments of the population. The vaccines were relentlessly promoted as safe and effective by public health authorities notwithstanding reports of tens of thousands of deaths attributed to the vaccines. In COVID-19, science was exposed as propaganda of the US and other governments.

The question is, how did this happen? How did science, the intellectual centerpiece of western civilization, get reduced to a cheap dictatorial tool?

Part of the answer may lie in Project Apollo; the US program that purportedly successfully mounted manned expeditions to the moon.

There is strong, independent confirmation of successful expeditions to the moon. Retro-reflectors placed on the surface of the moon in the Apollo 11, 14 and 15 missions have been detected at diverse observatories. However, the question of whether these missions to the moon were manned, is much more contentious. Imagery from the missions is unconvincing. Also, the inability of the US government to provide technical background to the missions raises doubts.

The most objective evidence provided by the US government of its claim to have reached the moon with manned spaceflight is a collection of specimens purportedly gathered from the surface of the moon. The collection includes 842 pounds of rocks and dust from the six missions. Studies have not explicitly tested whether the samples were truly from the moon. However, hundreds, if not thousands, of studies have been performed using these samples. The volume of studies alone implies the authenticity of the the samples.

A closer look at these studies, however, finds that scientists struggled to reconcile findings from the moon specimens with fundamental scientific principles. Some of the problematic observations were:

1. One Moon rock has a crystal structure that is typical of rocks formed on the Earth. Development of an explanatory model is ongoing. Investigators suggest the possibility that the particular rock arrived from the Earth as a meteor.
2. Certain meteorites found on the Earth resemble moon rocks. The similarity gave rise to the theory of lunar meteorites by which rocks arrive at the Earth after ejection from the lunar surface.
3. ...

Donald Elley talking to Australias Channel Nine TV for their nightly A Current Affair (ACA) program outside Brian Houstons court case on December 5, 2022

Donald Elley of Bellingen:

March 6, 2023

I appeared on Channel Nine Australias A Current Affair program on December 5, 2022. This was the first day of Brian Houstons court case for the criminal charge of concealing a pedophile. There are two days of the court case left in June this year. The verdict will follow probably one to two months later.

Producer of A Current Affair Steve Marshall asked me in the court gallery to appear on A Current Affair. Wed been chatting about the case prior to it starting. I hadnt met him before and didnt know who he was.

The You Tube video below is of that A Current Affair program.

A Hillsong/ C3 Church watch group republished it. I dont know who they are. Unlike me, they operate anonymously. Theyre afraid of being sued. Im not afraid of being sued by anyone. In fact, Id like Brian Houston, Phil Pringle or anyone who likes to sue me. Then I could counter-...

NEBUCHADNEZZAR EATING GRASS by Australian painter Arthur Boyd

...

...

One of the great mysteries of our time is why anybody would vote for modern Republicans at all well, apart from religious fanatics, hard-core racists, people who believe in space lasers, and those who want to see the US fail. Sadly, there are tens of millions of Americans who fall into one or more of these categories. Still, one would hope that their number is insufficient for the GOP to win any election.

By the way, that isnt to say that Democrats are an overly appealing option, but if you must pick between doing the dishes and getting thrown into a pit of fire ants, you should do the dishes.

Yet, here we are, with Republicans controlling the House of Representatives (in the same way parents control hyperactive quintuplets after an ice cream party) as well as both the entire state legislature and the governorship in 23 states.

If you choose to believe that the aforementioned core GOP demographics do not make up all Republican voters, then how do these candidates get elected? The answer is likely that there is a sufficient number of Americans who believe that Republicans have a plan and that this plan is good for the US.

The people in the first group are a lost cause. If you believe that Donald Trump is a virtuous orange messiah, that caravans of brown people looking for a better life want to replace whites, or that your political opponents are vampires, then there is no hope for you.

Things are a bit different for folks in the second category. Lets call them non-nutjob conservatives. They are convinced (without much evidence) that Republicans are good for the economy, law and order, national security, and values. Many of them likely inherited their beliefs from their parents, or they just watch a lot of Fox News.

Its no surprise that the right-wing propaganda outlet dedicates so much of its coverage ahead of elections to just those issues that appeal to this demographic: lawlessness in America, a decaying economy, insecure borders, and crossdressing liberal teachers who want to turn kids gay.

In other words, they are trying to dupe well-meaning people who love their country into voting for a party that is neither well-meaning nor seems to love the US all that much.

The midterms have shown that there is a level of insanity that these non-nutjob conservatives wont tolerate (but that is fervently embraced by the full-MAGA crowd). 

Chances are that millions of others had to hold their noses to support the curre...

by Dee McLachlan

We Frighten The Pants of Everyone With The New Strain

When do we deploy the new variant

Oh sure its not the government, its just messages from a rogue minister. The evening standard:

The leaked messages of...

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says #SydneyWorldPride sent a message to the world that Australia is enriched by its diversity. Read more: https://t.co/I79e3HDpVt pic.twitter.com/TeifXX8ZSZ SBS News (@SBSNews) March 5, 2023

1.00 AUD = 0.00003 BTC
0.00010 BTC = 3.35 AUD
Converter

Australia has become the first country to recognise psychedelics as medicines, after the Therapeutic Goods Administration took researchers by surprise and approved the psychedelic substances in magic mushrooms and MDMA for use by people with certain mental health conditions. MDMA and psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, will be considered schedule 8 drugs - meaning they're approved for controlled use when prescribed by a psychiatrist - from July this year after the TGA acknowledged there were few other options for patients with specific treatment-resistant mental illnesses. The changes will allow MDMA to be used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, and psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression. They will still be considered prohibited substances ... for all other usages. "Prescribing will be limited to psychiatrists, given their specialised qualifications and expertise to diagnose and treat patients with serious mental health conditions," a TGA statement published on Friday said. Associate Professor David Caldicott, an emergency department doctor who appeared at the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide ... was pleasantly surprised by Friday's decision. "The conditions for which these drugs might be used [post-traumatic stress disorder and treatment-resistant depression] are currently conditions for which you're basically destined to a lifetime of drug use. Whereas the MDMA particularly is used to facilitate psychotherapy, only for a few doses," [said Caldicott].

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on mind-altering drugs from reliable major media sources.

According to the World Health Organization definition, 1.9 billion adults are considered overweight. Of these, more than 650 million people are classified as obese. In Australia, health authorities suggest being overweight is more dangerous to us than alcohol, and only second in "preventable health risk" to smoking. ABS health data claims 67% of Australian adults are overweight, an increase on 63.4% a decade ago. Last year, Australia's former conservative government released a "National Obesity Strategy", concerned Australia was facing health risks of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancers. That government did recognise weight is influenced by complex "social, environmental, and economic factors", but their framework of encouraging "healthy choices" as a remedy unhelpfully individualises a collective problem. First, shaming individuals into weight loss doesn't work. 95% of weight loss attempts fail. Two-thirds of dieters regain the weight they lose. Second, the structural giveaway here is an admission that the poorest "experience the greatest burden of disease linked to excess weight". Our societies have never produced so much food, and the time to prepare it are priced as a luxury, while highly processed items are inexpensive, easy and aggressively mass-marketed. It's not a failure of collective willpower that's jeopardising our health, but a diet of bad food that's culturally familiar, low in nutrition and super available.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on food system corruption from reliable major media sources.

Huge amounts of plastic ends up rivers and oceans every year, harming the environment and potentially also human health. But what if we could pull it out of water with the power of magnets? [Chemistry student] Ferreira became determined to find a solution to remove microplastics from water. He started by designing his own spectrometer, a scientific instrument that uses ultraviolet light to measure the density of microplastics in solutions. "I could see there were a lot of microplastics in the water and they weren't just coming from big plastic breaking down in the sea," he says. It was on his local beach that Ferreira came up with a solution that could extract microplastics from water. "I found some oil spill residue with loads of plastic attached to it," he says. "I realised that oil could be used to attract plastic." Ferreira mixed vegetable oil with iron oxide powder to create a magnetic liquid, also known as ferrofluid. He then blended in microplastics from a wide range of everyday items, including plastic bottles, paint and car tyres, and water from the washing machine. After the microplastics attached themselves to the ferrofluid, Ferreira used a magnet to remove the solution and leave behind only water. Following 5,000 tests, Ferreira's method was 87% effective at extracting microplastics from water. Ferreira is currently in the process of designing a device which uses the magnetic extraction method to capture microplastics as water flows past it. The device will be small enough to fit inside waterpipes to continuously extract plastic fragments.

Note: Researchers from Australia are also finding innovative ways to rapidly remove hazardous microplastics from water using magnets. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.

In the pandemic's bewildering early days, millions worldwide believed government officials who said they needed confidential data for new tech tools that could help stop coronavirus' spread. In return, governments got a firehose of individuals' private health details, photographs that captured their facial measurements and their home addresses. Now, from Beijing to Jerusalem to Hyderabad, India, and Perth, Australia, The Associated Press has found that authorities used these technologies and data to halt travel for activists and ordinary people, harass marginalized communities and link people's health information to other surveillance and law enforcement tools. In some cases, data was shared with spy agencies. China's ultra-strict zero-COVID policies recently ignited the sharpest public rebuke of the country's authoritarian leadership since ... 1989. Just as the balance between privacy and national security shifted after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, COVID-19 has given officials justification to embed tracking tools in society that have lasted long after lockdowns. What use will ultimately be made of the data collected and tools developed during the height of the pandemic remains an open question. Australia's intelligence agencies were caught "incidentally" collecting data from the national COVIDSafe app. In the U.S. ... the federal government took the opportunity to build out its surveillance toolkit, including two contracts in 2020 worth $24.9 million to the data mining and surveillance company Palantir Technologies Inc.

Note: Read an essay by constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead on COVID and the surveillance state. Detroit police recently sought COVID relief funds to install ShotSpotter microphones throughout the city. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.

"Feel safe". https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-05/australia-needs-to-do-more-for-lgbtq-people-feel-safe-loved/102052740 This week, Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced at Sydney's WorldPride Human Rights Conference that Australia would spend $3.5 million as "a start" to support organisations advocating for LGBTQ rights in the Asia-Pacific. "As amazing as the announcement is, we still have so much work to do in...

Over the last week or so, Australian politicians and representatives of the university sector got busy pressing flesh in India, hoping to open avenues that have largely remained aspirational. It was timed to coincide with G20 talks in New Delhi, which has seen a flurry of contentious meetings traversing security, economics and education, all taking place in the shadow of the Ukraine War.

A starring outcome of the various discussions was an agreement between Canberra and New Delhi to ensure the mutual recognition of qualifications. On March 3, the Australian Minister for Education, Jason Clare, stated in a media release that the Mechanism for the Mutual Recognition of Qualifications was Indias most comprehensive education agreement of its type with another country.

Such a mechanism would ensure that Indian students attaining a degree from an Australian university would have it recognised should they wish to continue higher education in India. The release continues to optimistically extol the merits of the mechanism, which would open a world of possibilities to develop flexible and innovative partnerships between the two countries. Minister Clare and his counterpart Shri Dharmendra Pradhan also reaffirmed their wish to establish an Australia India Working Group on Transnational Partnerships.

A number of memoranda of understanding, totalling 11 in all, were also signed, stressing bilateral cooperation between India and Australia in a number of fields, including law and bio-innovation. The developments today, announced the Indian Ministry of Education with certain effusion, will create more opportunities for two-way mobility of students and professionals for the purpose of education and employment, and pave the way for making education the biggest enabler in taking India-Australia bilateral relationship to greater heights and shared aspirations.

The public relations front was also busy with fanfare. Brian Schmidt, Nobel laureate and vice-chancellor of the Australian National University, met students and officials at Sri Venkateswara College of the University of Delhi. His polite welcome was shaded by the more raucous one given to former Australian test cricketer Adam Gilchrist, who acts as the University of Wollongongs global brand ambassador. For such institutions, brands come before brains.

Gilchrists presence was unsurprising, given the zeal with which the university he represents is pursuing a base in India. (The added point here is that Indians are utterly bonkers for cricket.) The soft power of cricket...

...

Rasmussen has a new poll out showing that a whopping 61 percent of all voters, including a stunning 57 percent of Democrats, believe that federal agents played a role in inciting the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021. In answer to the question "How likely is it that undercover government agents helped provoke the Capitol riot," 61 percent of likely voters said it was either very likely (39 percent) or somewhat likely (22 percent) that they had done so. 59 percent of men and 63 percent of women believed that federal agents had "helped provoke the Capitol riot." This major majority of voters who believe the Capitol riot was not simply naturally occurring breaks down among political party affiliation as well, with 57 percent of Democrats saying it is either very likely (34 percent) or somewhat likely (23 percent) while for Republicans the numbers are 51 percent saying very likely, and 19 percent saying somewhat likely. Many across the media of the new right have stated their belief,...

QUAD FMs Joint Statement Hypes China Threats with Clichs; US Pandering to India's Position on Ukraine Crisis May Disappoint European Allies

By Wang Qi

Mar 03, 2023 10:03 PM

Quad Ministers' panel in New Delhi on March 3, 2023 Photo: VCG

The foreign ministers of QUAD countries met on Friday and reaffirmed the grouping's commitment for a "free and open Indo-Pacific," releasing an 18-point joint statement that analysts viewed as lousy clichs with a confrontational mentality, as it singled out Russia and North Korea on regional security issues and played up the "China threat" in a subtle and veiled way.

Considering that no joint statement was reached at the G20 Foreign Ministers' Meeting (FMM) one day earlier, Chinese experts said the QUAD's joint statement further demonstrated that the US has lost patience and confidence in being able to lead the multilateral platform and make use of it.

Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong attended the talks held in New Delhi. Indian media said they were the first talks since they met in September 2022 in New York.

In the joint statement, the four ministers reaffirmed the Quad's steadfast commitment to supporting "a free and open Indo-Pacific," a term linked with the US' "Indo-Pacific strategy," which aims to contain China. 

In the joint statement, QUAD ministers mentioned "challenges to the maritime rules-based order, including in the South and East China Seas."

We always believe that cooperation between countries should conform to the trend of peace and development of the times and should not be confined to exclusive "small cliques," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning. 

"We hope the relevant countries will do more to enhance security and mutual trust among regional countries and safeguard regional peace and stability," Mao said at a press briefing on Friday. 

Zhu Feng, executive dean of the School of International Studies under Nanjing Unive...

<p>&

US sabotage.

Today, Kerry Cassidy video BIG Intel 3/01/23: BOMBSHELL. This video explains the FF in Ohio in an interview with Dr Robert Young. (Dr Young has attracted his fair share of controversy over the years.)</p> <p>The five tanker train carriages contained volatile vinylidene dichloride (and was not vinyl chloride). Dr Young explains the catastrophy of the Ohio derailment. A 100-year catastrophy.</p> <p>Was this orchestrated by humans?</p> <p>The post <a href= "https://gumshoenews.com/dr-young-on-the-toxins-in-ohio/" rel= "nofollow">Train Derailment and Dr Young on The Toxins In Ohio</a> appeared first on <a href="https://gumshoenews.com" rel= "nofollow">Gumshoe News</a>.</p>

Below is a letter from ACT Director of Public Prosecution Shane Drumgold sent to ACT Chief Police Officer Neil Gaughan outlining evidence of corrupt police trying to stop rape charges against Bruce []

Certainty closes the minds of those possessing the Truth from on High. These darlings of the gods may even feel sorry for those benighted Unfortunates with the temerity of disagreeing with them and try to persuade them to see reason to save them from themselves. 

As the blood-stained pages of history amply attest, dogmatists may try to convert, persecute, torture, or even burn their victims at the stake for their own good.  Dogmatic certainty can be a very dangerous thing and turn the powerful of this world into monsters about a difference of opinion.

It is an odd quirk of fate that some dogmatists will try to convert unbelievers not to convince them but rather themselves, since converts strengthen the dogmatists faith in themselves.

Some who adopt such sinister measures of persuasion like burning at the stake may even be prompted not by certainty, but an inner doubt so alarming that they must silence it by projecting it onto their victims to find inner peace to rid the world of these heretics and their own doubts.

Such persecution, torture, and murder have always been the stock-in-trade of dogmatists in dealing with dissent, and especially when they are also demagogues who ascend to power to impose their will on their people, so that dissent becomes treason.

Democracies, on the other hand, know that dissent isnt treason, but the lifeblood of democracies.  A government which oppresses a democratic people is no longer morally legitimate because it has lost the consent of the governed and rules only by force, at times with a fig leaf of legitimacy called the Divine Right of Kings.

Let us consider such a dogmatist-as-tyrant as the very embodiment of this closed-minded certainty:

He is not someone of humility who realizes his own past errors, with the confident expectation that he will doubtless err again; nor someone who modestly affirms his perception of truth and refuses to call it Divine Revelation.

Nor someone who is aware that when several answers are possible, his alone need not be true and allows himself to be counseled by seasoned advisors about which answer is best.

Nor is he someone who realizes that various factors may predispose him to think as he doeshis upbringing, temperament, age, race, social class, religion, nationality, profession, or an uncontrollable lust for power.

Nor someone who realizes that these conditioning factors may be not merely influencing him, but doing his thinking for him, and so he adopts a healthy live-and-let-live attitude toward those who disagree with him.

No, he is none of these, but the Omniscient One, who through some mysterious dispensation has been vouchsafed from above the divine prerogative to know what is right and wrong, true and false, wise and foolish for all men and all women in all times and places. Nay, he is the Enlightened One Himself who, sitting enthrone...

At Russia's Valdai Club meeting - the east's answer to Davos - intellectuals and influencers gathered to frame West Asia's current and future developments. The 12th "Middle East Conference" at the Valdai Club in Moscow offered a more than welcome cornucopia of views on interconnected troubles and tribulations affecting the region. But first, an important word on terminology - as only one of Valdai's guests took the trouble to stress. This is not the "Middle East" - a reductionist, Orientalist notion devised by old colonials: at The Cradle we emphasize the region must be correctly described as West Asia. Some of the region's trials and tribulations have been mapped by the official Valdai report, The Middle East and The Future of Polycentric World. But the intellectual and political clout of those in attendance can provide valuable anecdotal insights too. Here are a few of the major strands participants highlighted on regional developments, current and future: Russian Deputy Foreign...

Late last year, New York City Mayor Eric Adams put into motion a plan expanding the use of force to drug and hospitalize people against their will. While this used to require clear evidence of imminent danger, it now requires only concern that a person may be having delusions or even simply not taking care of their physical health. Some have noted that this is meant to be used as a way to forcibly remove unhoused people from the streets, so its no surprise that advocacy groups and activists expressed concern.

The Consumer Advisory Board (CAB committee) I chair for the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOMH), has also expressed concern. So we pressed DOMH for more information and guidance around the new rules for emergency interventions.

We wanted to listen to the training about the new rules which was given to clinicians and police officers. What were they being told about their expanding roles?

We also wanted numbers. How many people have been detained, imprisoned, or drugged under the new rules? How does that compare to the previous state of things? How was the sprawling bureaucratic superstructure of city government tracking outcomes on the ground in real time?

DOMH answered our call and offered a presentation. But as the presenter arrived, we quickly realized that this presentation could not be the same one that was being given to clinicians and the police. The presentation was straightforwardand without substance. First, the presenter offered no slides, PowerPoint, or handouts. While supplementary materials arent a requirement, data and numbers are when it comes to tracking outcomes in mental health. There were no such figures at the meeting. It seemed as if the presenter waltzed into the meeting and shot from the hip when preparing and delivering this presentation....

HenryMakow.com March 3, 2023

Almost to the day that Russia began their military action against the Ukraine, there was a massive rollback of the virus hoax. Now that Ukraine is all but lost, they are moving on to a new external threat, China.

Does the US government think Americans are going to defend a country that poisons them and sodomizes their children?

by Mike Stone (henrymakow.com)

Exactly one year ago, we discussed the possibility that the virus hoax was being swapped out for the Ukraine war hoax.

You may recall that at the time the country was still in the grip of the virus hoax. Fat, dumb Americans had done nothing to stop it. They refused to boycott the companies pushing it, refused to stop flying, refused to lift a finger in defense of their country. Thanks to them, we were on the brink of full Australia-style concentration camps. Then suddenly it all stopped. Almost to the day that Russia began their military action against the Ukraine, there was a massive rollback of the virus hoax.

No government or ruling body in history had ever voluntarily relinquished the kind of total control that our government had seized over the years 2020 to 2022. Never before in history. For a government as tyrannical and as traitorous as our own to do that was unthinkable.

 

Continues

Forty years ago, Australia had an electricity system delivering cheap, reliable power. That is no longer the case.

The post Australian renewables integration: Part 1 first appeared on Watts Up With That?.

PMID:  Dig Dis Sci. 2022 Dec 20:1-17. Epub 2022 Dec 20. PMID: 36538276 Abstract Title:  High-Intensity Interval Training is Safe, Feasible and Efficacious in Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Abstract:  BACKGROUND: High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) involves bursts of high-intensity exercise interspersed with lower-intensity exercise recovery. HIIT may benefit cardiometabolic health in people with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH).AIMS: We aimed to examine the safety, feasibility, and efficacy of 12-weeks of supervised HIIT compared with a sham-exercise control (CON) for improving aerobic fitness and peripheral insulin sensitivity in biopsy-proven NASH.METHODS: Participants based in the community [(n=14, 5610 years, BMI 39.26.7 kg/m, 64% male), NAFLD Activity Score 5 (range 3-7)] were randomized to 12-weeks of supervised HIIT (n=8, 44 min at 85-95% maximal heart rate, interspersed with 3 min active recovery; 3 days/week) or CON (n=6, stretching; 3 days/week). Safety (adverse events) and feasibility determined as70% program completion and70% global adherence (including session attendance, interval intensity adherence, and duration adherence) were assessed. Changes in cardiorespiratory fitness (VOpeak), exercise capacity (time-on-test) and peripheral insulin sensitivity (euglycemic hyperinsulinemic clamp) were assessed. Data were analysed using ANCOVA with baseline value as the covariate.RESULTS: There were no HIIT-related adverse events and HIIT was globally feasible [program completion 75%, global adherence 100% (including adherence to session 95.47.3%, interval intensity 95.36.0% and duration 96.82.4%)]. A large between-group effect was observed for exercise capacity [mean difference 134.2 s (95% CI 19.8, 248.6 s),0.44, p=0.03], improving in HIIT (106.297.5 s) but not CON (- 33.443.3 s), and for peripheral insulin sensitivity [mean difference 3.4 mg/KgLegFFM/min (95% CI 0.9,6.8 mg/KgLegFFM/min),0.32, p=0.046], improving in HIIT (1.00.8 mg/KgLegFFM/min) but not CON (- 3.11.2 mg/KgLegFFM/min).CONCLUSIONS: HIIT is safe, feasible and efficacious for improving exercise capacity and peripheral insulin sensitivity in people with NASH.CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trial Registry (anzctr.org.au) identifier ACTRN12616000305426 (09/03/2016).

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Rainer Shea RAWMs organizers are now working to turn their project into a permanent coalition, and that goal will be advanced by ANSWERs rally on the 18th. This rally represents a strengthening of anti-imperialist unity, especially among Marxists The outcome of these developments could be the full breaking of the monopoly which the ABC left...

Pepe Escobar At Russias Valdai Club meeting the easts answer to Davos intellectuals and influencers gathered to frame West Asias current and future developments. The 12th Middle East Conference at the Valdai Club in Moscow offered a more than welcome cornucopia of views on interconnected troubles and tribulations affecting the region. But first, an important...

ASIA:

 

The major Asian stock markets had a green day today:

• NIKKEI 225 increased 428.60 points or 1.56% to 27,927.47
• Shanghai increased 17.74 points or 0.54% to 3,328.39
• Hang Seng increased 138.08 points or 0.68% to 20,567.54
• ASX 200 increased 28.20 points or 0.39% to 7,283.60
• Kospi increased 4.22 points or 0.17% to 2,432.07
• SENSEX increased 899.62 points or 1.53% to 59,808.97
• Nifty50 increased 272.45 points or 1.57% to 17,594.35

 

 

The major Asian currency markets had a mixed day today:

• AUDUSD increased 0.00267 or 0.40% to 0.67557
• NZDUSD decreased 0.00112 or -0.18% to 0.62058
• USDJPY decreased 0.639 or -0.47% to 136.121
• USDCNY decreased 0.01288 or -0.19% to 6.90722

 

Precious Metals:

• Gold increased 10.81 USD/t oz. or 0.59% to 1,846.81
• Silver increased 0.192 USD/t. oz or 0.92% to 21.081

 

Some economic news from last night:

China:

Caixin Services PMI (Feb) increased from 52.9 to 55.0

Japan:

Jobs/applications ratio (Jan) remain the same at 1.35

Tokyo Core CPI (YoY) (Feb) decreased from 4.3% to 3.3%

CPI Tokyo Ex Food and Energy (MoM) (Feb) increased from 0.1% to 0.3%

Services PMI (Feb) increased from 52.3 to 54.0

Australia:

Home Loans (MoM) decreased from -4.2% to -4.9%

 

Some economic news from today:

India:

Nikkei Services PMI (Feb) increased from 57.2 to 59.4

FX Reserves, USD decreased from 561.27B to 560.94B

 

 

EUROPE/EMEA:

 

The major Europe stock markets had a green day:

• CAC 40 increased 63.90 points or 0.88% to 7,348.12
• FTSE 100 increased 3.07 points or 0.04% to 7,947.11
• DAX 30 increased 250.75 points or 1.64% to 15,578.39

 

The major Europe currency markets had a mixed day today:

• EURUSD increased 0.00153 or 0.14% to 1.06113
• GBPUSD increased 0.00464 or 0.39% to 1.19874
• USDCHF decreased 0.00407 or -0.43% to 0.93813

 

Some economic news from Europe today:...

Welcome to The Daily Wrap Up, a concise show dedicated to bringing you the most relevant independent news, as we see it, from the last 24 hours (3/3/23).
As always, take the information discussed in the video below and research it for yourself, and come to your own conclusions. Anyone telling you what the truth is, or claiming they have the answer, is likely leading you astray, for one reason or another. Stay Vigilant.
(https://www.rokfin.com/TLAVagabond)(https://www.bitchute.com/channel/24yVcta8zEjY/)

https://rumble.com/embed/v28zuli/?pub=2q643

Video Source Links (In Chronological Order)



Protective covers of hazmat tank cars melted in Ohio derailment, NTSB says - The Washington Post
You searched for ohio - The Last American Vagabond
EPA requiring Norfolk Southern to test for dioxins following train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio
Erin Brockovich in East Palestine: 'Something is not right here' - YouTube
New Tab
2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin and the viral infection - ScienceDirect
2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin increases Bovine Herpesvirus type-1 (BHV-1) replication in Madin-Darby Bovine Kidney (MDBK) cells in vitro - PubMed
[Political poisoning with dioxins--a weapon of chemical "disgracefulness"] - PubMed
New Tab
Director Of Columbiana County Humane Society Reveals Ohio Animals Still Suffering From "Poisoning"
(43) Ben Bergquam - Real Americas Voice (RAV-TV) News on Twitter: "More concerning footage today from our East Palestine investigation. Dead deer on the banks of Little Beaver Creek at the point where it meets the Ohio River. I followed the creek from East Palestine, to where it merges with the Ohio River to see how far the rai...

I used to think trauma was something that only applied to people exposed to extreme situations like war, genocide, abuse or crime. Yet, living on planet Earth pretty much guarantees you some trauma. 

Trauma comes from the Greek traumat, which means wound. It is an emotional wounding that results from experiencing or witnessing a highly stressful, horrifying event or series of events where one feels a lack of control, powerlessness and threat of injury or death. This sounds disturbingly similar to what humans are increasingly living through with climate change. 

Being pushed beyond my own limits by the climate crisis forced me to take its traumatic impacts more seriously. As I witnessed the continent where I live burn to the ground during one of Australias worst bushfire events, I felt utterly overwhelmed. Id spent the past decade helping to build the power of the climate movement, hoping to avert disasters like these. It was as though everyones work was burning to the ground, taking lives, homes and livelihoods with it. 

The months that followed were like a dream. I moved through the world numb, unaware that the trauma of the experience had sent me into a dissociative state. As often happens in trauma, my brain switched off my capacity to feel as a way of trying to protect me. 

Previous Coverage

• ...

Hidden tunnel discovered inside Egypt's Great Pyramid at Giza

MEE staff Fri, 03/03/2023 - 11:21

The message from the above Ikea advert should be clear Dont Buy Ikea

Laurence Dollimore Daily Mail March 1, 2023

Almost half of Brits believe ethnic minorities and LGBT communities are over-represented on television, a survey has found.

Some 45 per cent of people in the UK think ethnic minorities are over-represented, while just 26 per cent say they are under-represented, according to the new YouGov poll.

Meanwhile, 44 per cent of Britons believe gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgender people are over-represented on their TV screens. However, there are no reliable figures to show if Britons perceptions about representation on television are correct.

It comes just weeks after a report by the Campaign for Common Sense suggested the unrecognisable to most viewers  as it accused the broadcaster of over-representing minorities.

Meanwhile the marketing departments of 500 major brands said in a 2017 survey that they were focused on promoting diversity to prevent perceived discrimination, with some admitting they had purposefully used fewer images of white and straight couples in their campaigns.

The YouGov survey spoke to more than 1,000 people in each of the seven countries that participated, including the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Chile, the United Arab Emirates and Australia.

It found that out of all the nationalities questioned, Brits were far more likely to believe ethnic minorities and LGBT people were over-represented on TV, reports The Times.

In neighbouring France, for example, just 19 per cent of people believe ethnic minorities are over-represented, while 33 per cent think they are under-represented.

In fact in every other country surveyed, more people believed ethnic minorities and LGBT people were under-represented on TV rather than over-represented a reversal of Britains results.

According to the latest UK census data, released in November last year, ethnic minorities make up 18.3 per cent of the population in England and Wales, while 81.7 per cent of people are white.

Meanwhile 1.5 per cent of Brits aged over 16 identified as gay or lesb...

Homeless people need all the help and support the government can give. Unfortunately, some are left to their own devices and they end up sinking deeper into poverty.

What they need are jobs. When a person feels productive, so many things can change, and these are often for the good.

In a pilot program thats meant as an answer to the homelessness problem thats happening in Kansas City, the state made sure that they were provided with part-time work. This helped many immensely especially when getting the housing they desperately needed.

Kansas City Missouri has also now witnessed a lowering in litter collection because the pandemic slowed down court cases and community service clean-up programs.

By putting 26 of the citys 1,800 homeless people to work, changes happened. They made them clean the streets that they stayed in. This move targeted two issues in one go and they were able to remove more than 67,000 pounds of trash by the time the work time ended and this also gave the homeless workers the ability to consider themselves employed on a housing application.

We really wanted to focus on people...

The Treasurys statements explore the potential forms and implementations of an American CBDC.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has released comments from Undersecretary for Domestic Finance Nellie Liang on the Next Steps to the Future of Money and Payments, addressing CBDCs and the approach the American government is taking to their potential implementation.

The original Treasury report released in September 2022 described the formation of a CBDC working group that would advance work on a CBDC. Liangs remarks confirmed the formation of that group.

One of the central tasks for the CBDC Working Group is to complement the Feds work by considering the implications of a U.S. CBDC for policy objectives for which a broader Administration perspective is helpful, Liang said. To give you a sense of how we are pursuing this work, I will describe our approach to thinking about CBDC options, the policy questions we are attempting to answer, and the kinds of recommendations we hope to develop.

Highlights from this description include a look at the potential forms that a CBDC could take, the potential for a separate retail and wholesale CBDC and the possible core features of the CBDC. Also discussed is the idea that a potential U.S. CBDC, if one were created, would best serve the United States by being intermediated, meaning that the private sector would offer accounts or digital wallets to facilitate the management of CBDC holdings and payments. In terms of technology, a retail CBDC might involve a different architecture compared to a CBDC that is intended solely for wholesale use.

In his piece for Bitcoin Magazine, Mark Goodwin described how Bitcoiners may have spent so much time looking for CBDCs, we missed the private-entity stablecoin monster right in front of our eyes.

The Treasurys released remarks suggest that a CBDC may well come on the backs of private entities, with major incentives to participate. The United States has gotten serious in regards to its consideration of a CBDC. And all this just as legislation has been introduced by Republican lawmakers that would prohibit the Federal Reserve from issuing a CBDC directly to anyone.

Although this bill may not have much of a chance of passing, notable is the specific angle of preventing a Federal CBDC, potentially leaving free those intermediated by private parties.

The remarks also described how a CBDC is one of many directi...

Talisman Sabre

Manver der Serie Talisman Sabre werden von den Streitkrften Australiens und der Vereinigten Staaten seit 2005 alle zwei Jahre gemeinsam abgehalten. Regelmig nehmen Land-, Luft- und Seestreitkrfte beider Staaten teil. Zudem werden Truppen aus weiteren Lndern eingebunden. Die bungsserie gilt als das grte gemeinsame Militrtraining der USA und Australiens. Manverschaupltze sind gewhnlich der Bundesstaat Queensland im Nordosten Australiens sowie das vor dessen Kste liegende Korallenmeer. In der Vergangenheit kam es mehrfach zu Protesten, weil das Manver unter anderem das Great Barrier Reef zu schdigen droht.[1] Vor zwei Jahren waren rund 17.000 Soldaten aus sieben Staaten an der bung beteiligt. Im Jahr 2017 probten alles in allem rund 30.000 Militrs aus den USA, Australien, Neuseeland, Kanada und Japan das grte Landemanver unter Beteiligung australischer Truppen seit dem Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs. Ein beteiligter US-Offizier kommentierte Talisman Sabre 2021 mit dem Hinweis, das Manver habe gezeigt, dass die Vereinigten Staaten gemeinsam mit Verbndeten am Pazifik in der Lage seien, schlagkrftige Marineeinheiten zu formen und zwar binnen Tagen.[2]

Luftbewegliche Operationen

An Talisman Sabre 2023, das laut Angaben der australischen Streitkrfte vom 21. Juli bis zum 4. August stattfinden soll, nimmt zum ersten Mal Deutschland teil. Wie die Bundeswehr mitteilt, wird neben Krften des Seebataillons und der Luftwaffe ... eine Infanteriekompanie des Heeres zu der Kriegsbung nach Australien entsandt.[3] Dort solle sie unter anderem unter Fhrung eines australischen Groverbandes in einem herausfordernden Szenario luftbewegliche Operationen durchfhren. Dies geschehe in Zusammenarbeit mit weiteren Partnern in der Region. Genannt werden neben den USA und Australien Japan, Sdkorea und Indonesien. Laut Berichten nimmt an dem Manver auch Frankreich teil, das Sttzpunkte und Truppen in seiner Kolonie Neukaledonien im Sdosten des Korallenmeers unterhlt.[4] Darber hinaus ist es den Vereinigten Staaten offenkundig gelungen, drei Staaten aus der pazifischen Inselwelt Neuguinea, Fidschi und Tonga in die bung Talisman Sabre 2023 einzubinden.[5] Das ist insofern von einiger Bedeutung, als der eskalierende Machtkampf zwischen den USA und China lngst die Pazifikinseln erreicht hat (german-foreign-policy.com berichtete [6]).

Koloniale Welten

Mit der Beteiligung an Talisman Sabre 2023 baut die Bundeswehr ihre Prsenz in der Asien-Pazifik-Region weiter aus. Den Anfang hatte die Fregatte Bayern gemacht, die im August 2021 zu einer ausgedehnten Asien-Pazifik-Fahrt aufbrach und bis zu ihrer Heimkehr im Februar 2022 unter anderem Australien, Japan und mehrere Pazifikinseln besuchte, darunter die US-Kolonie Guam. Guam ist ein zentraler US-Sttzpunkt beim militrischen Aufmarsch gegen China.[7] Die Fregatte Bayern hatte zuvor einen Tankstopp auf Diego Garcia eingelegt, einer In...

In his online article How America took out the Nord Stream Pipeline, Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh sees the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea as a collaboration between Norway and the United States. Based on the testimony of a whistleblower, Hersh situates the planting of C4 explosive devices by U.S. Navy Divers under the cover of the BALTOPS 22 international naval exercise in June; according to Hersh, the explosive devices were triggered by a Norwegian Navy P8, which dropped sonar buoys for this purpose on September 26th, 2022.

First of all, it should be noted that neither the U.S., nor Russia, nor European states have been able to present any valid evidence of perpetration, so Seymour Hershs theory must be taken seriously. Unfortunately, however, his article fails to provide any evidence. Whats more, in addition to minor weaknesses in content, important questions remain unanswered: for example, Hersh does not address why the attack took place on September 26 of all days, why the detonations occurred 17 hours apart, and fails to mention the dark ships described by Jerry Javornicky.

The major event BALTOPS 22, with which Hersh links the attack, took place between June 5th and 17th, with the participation of over 45 ships and over 75 aircraft from 16 countries, including Germany, Poland, Sweden, Norway, the Baltic States, the United Kingdom and the United States. NavyMil reported that Scientists from five nations brought the latest advancements in Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV) mine hunting technology to the Baltic Sea to demonstrate the vehicles effectiveness in operational scenarios. A June 12th NATO article is even more explicit: In support of BALTOPS, U.S. Navy Sixth Fleet partnered with U.S. Navy research and warfare centers to bring the latest advancements in Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV) mine hunting technology to the Baltic Sea to demonstrate the vehicles effectiveness in operational scenarios. Experimentation was conducted off the coast of Bornholm, Denmark, with participants from Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Pacific, Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) Newport, and Mine Warfare Readiness and Effectiveness Measuring (MIREM) all under the direction of U.S. Sixth Fleet Task Force 68.

These publications confirm in essence the scenario described by Seymour Hersh. BALTOPS 22 is also conceivable as the setting for the attack. However, it should also be borne in mind that th...

Former US marine Daniel Duggan accused of training Chinese pilots is a victim of the United States governments political dispute with China.

The post Doing Washingtons Bidding: Australias Treatment Of Daniel Duggan appeared first on OrientalReview.org.

The increasingly shabby treatment of former US marine Daniel Edmund Duggan by Australian authorities in the service of their US masters has again shown that the Australian passport is not quite worth the material its printed on.

In January this year, Sydneys Downing Centre Local Court heard that Australian Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus accepted a request from the US before Christmas to extradite Duggan. Duggan is no longer an American citizen, but Canberra has often regarded this as irrelevant when it comes to the US-Australian alliance.

In a 2017 indictment unsealed on December 9, Duggan is accused by prosecutors of using his expertise to train Chinese fighter pilots to land on aircraft carriers along with eight co-conspirators working at a South African flight school. It is also alleged that the US State Department warned him to apply for written authorisation to train a foreign air force in 2008, which is a requirement of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). The allegation here is that he went ahead without securing authorisation, thereby breaching trafficking and arms control laws between 2009 and 2012.

Duggan has been held since October. In the finest traditions of Australian justice, he is being confined in conditions that suggest presumed guilt. His lawyer, Dennis Miralis, has stated at various points with some exasperation that his client is presumed innocent under US law. Duggans wife, Saffrine, insists that her husband is a victim of the United States governments political dispute with China.

This presumption has also been sorely tested by Duggans detention in a two-by-four-metre cell at the Silverwater jail, which also houses convicted terrorists. Miralis can only assume that the New South Wales Department of Directions has been all too willing to follow instructions delivered from on high.

Earlier this month lawyers for Duggan made a submission to the UN Human Rights Committee challenging these conditions. Their submission argues that the authorities have failed to protect Duggan from inhumane and degrading treatment, failed to segregate him from convicted inmates, violated his right to adequate facilities to enable him to prepare his legal defence, and denied his right to confidential communications.

The submission also references the assessment of a clinical psychologist who visited Duggan in the Silverwater prison. The psychologist...

This clip didnt seem real at first. But the laughter, combined with a profoundly disturbing scene It reminded me of something. Its been a while, but Oliver Stones gruesome satire of TV in Natural Born Killers might as well be running in prime time. Via: Australians vs. The Agenda:

Some years ago, an old man of about 85 years of age was admitted to a British hospital. He kept on insisting that he didnt have time to be hospitalised because his mother needed him. The staff didnt believe him. But he told the truth. His mother was one of the oldest people in Britain, and she was dependent on her sons help. The story appeared in the BMJ as a warning about distrusting what people tell their doctors.

I went on a lecture tour in North America after I had published my book about deadly medicines and organised crime in the drug industry and lost my way at a large hospital in Baltimore. I couldnt find the auditorium and the organiser of the meeting didnt answer her phone. I strolled around in despair while the time for my lecture was rapidly approaching.

As a last resort, I addressed the reception at the hospital. As I was in a hurry, I bypassed a large queue of patients and explained to the receptionist that I was not a patient but a doctor scheduled to give a lecture in a few minutes time.

Please go to the end of the queue, she replied with a stone face. I repeated that I was a doctor and asked for help to find my colleague who worked at the hospital.

Please go to the end of the queue, the robot replied. It didnt matter to her how much I begged for help. She likely thought I was a psychiatric case with a delusion that I was a doctor, as she didnt tell me that the hospital information desk was close by.

I arrived at the auditorium right on time after having asked a friendly person in the corridor where the hospital information desk...

The acclaimed Palestinian writers Susan Abulhawa and Mohammed El-Kurd were invited to the Adelaide Writers Festival, South Australia, but have encountered a storm of false defamation from Zionists, pro-Zionist Mainstream media  and pro-Zionist politicians. Susan Abulhawa has also been falsely defamed for her humane, pro-peace views on the appalling Ukraine War. The eminent anti-racist Jewish Australian Festival Director, publisher  Louise Adler, is standing firm against this ferocious Zionist attack on free speech in Australia.

Palestinian writers Susan Abulhawa and Mohammed El-Kurd have been falsely defamed for alleged anti-Semitism and hate speech for criticising the century-long genocidal abuse of indigenous Palestinians by Zionists. However anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism because a large body of anti-racist Jewish scholars condemn racist Zionism, Israeli Apartheid, Apartheid Israel, and the century-long and  ongoing Palestinian Genocide (2.2 million Palestinians killed by violence, 0.1 million, and imposed deprivation, 2.1 million).

Thus anti-racist Jewish American scholar Professor Bertell Ollman (New York University): The Zionists are the worst anti-Semites in the world today, oppressing a Semitic people as no nation has done since the Nazis. Likewise anti-racist Jewish Canadian writer Naomi Klein: There is a debate among Jews Im a Jew by the way. The debate boils down to the question: Never again to everyone, or never again to us? [Some Jews] even think we get one get-away-with-genocide-free cardThere is another strain in the Jewish tradition that say[s], Never again to anyone.

Famed  anti-racist Jewish and non-Jewish writers and scholars Tariq Ali, Russell Banks, John Berger, Noam Chomsky, Richard Falk, Eduardo Galeano, Charles Glass, Naomi Klein, W.J.T. Mitchell, Harold Pinter, Arundhati Roy, Jose Saramago, Giuliana Sgrena, Gore Vidal, and Howard Zinn have condemned [Israels] long-term military, economic and geographic practice whose political aim is nothing less than the liquidation of the Palestinian nation (Google Jews against racist Zionism and Non-Jews against racist Zionism). Indeed 25% of US Jews and 38% of those under 40 say that Israel is an apartheid state.

Despite a century-long Palestinian Genocide and successive mass population expulsions (800,000 in the 1948 Nakba or Catastrophe, and 400,000 in the 1967 Naksa or Setback), today 7.5 million Indigenous Palestinians represent 50% of the 15.0 million Subjects of Apartheid Israel (while 7.0 million Jewish Israelis represent only 47%), but 5.5 million Occupied Palestinians (73% of the Indigenous Palestinian Subjects of Apartheid Israel) cannot vote for the government ruling them i.e. they are subject to egregious Apartheid as recognized by major world and Israeli human rights organizations.

Each year Israel violently kills about 500 Palestinians and a further 4,000 die a...

Resource businesses are booming in the vast steppes of Kazakhstan. Oil, gas, iron, copper, and uranium extracted by state-owned enterprises and joint-ventures with the energy majors and mining giants of the world comprise the core of a thriving export economy. Thanks in part to a welcoming investment climate and the ongoing Nurly Zhol (Bright Path) infrastructure modernization program, the country is developing into an important conduit for east-west commerce, harkening back to centuries past when the Silk Road was the main vein of world trade. But in the backyard of a debilitated Russia and in the pathway of an ascendant China, Kazakhstan is warming into a hotspot of geostrategic interest in and of itself, as it seeks a way out from becoming entrapped between its two assertive neighbors.

Last year brought distinct challenges to Astana, with high inflation sparking civil unrest, and Vladimir Putins invasion of Ukraine throwing regional supply chains into disarray. Many Kazakhstani commodities either transit Russia or undergo downstream processing there before entering world markets. These deep industrial ties are as much a legacy of the Soviet era as they are a reality of Kazakhstans remote, landlocked geography. Russia maintains a strong paternalistic relationship with its former satellite states, but its present alienation from the West is forcing that dynamic to evolve.

Kazakhstani President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev perturbed the Kremlin last February by denying its request for his militarys participation in Ukraine, despite the fact that just one month prior, he had solicited the aid of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) to quell domestic protests. Tokayev has since gone further in distancing himself from Moscow by banning the ubiquitous Z and other Russian military symbols, canceling the May 9th Soviet Victory Day parade, and even declaring that he would not recog...

eek comfort where you can, even if its in a dumpster
Have someone explain it to you like youre a toddler
Read more on ways you can help, even though there are none
Read Wittgenstein
Eat Life cereal
Have more questions than answers
Dance like nobodys watching
Change your password to Spiderman
Count backwards by sevens
Shout, How did we get here? during Happy Hour
Grade preschoolers artwork
Google Breathing for Beginners
Watch Shark Tank wearing pyjamas
Send TikToks to your therapist
Jump start your exercise
Nourish yourself by getting rid of mirrors
Re-create Grandpas famous lasagne
Learn how to make a prettier pie
Read a thesaurus
Lose yourself in the produce aisle
Stay connected with candy floss
Sit down to write an actual letter
Make your own Self-Care list
Sign off and repeat tomorrow.

This started as an erasure poem from an NPR article on self-care during the war in Ukraine. A few of the suggestions remain. I was reminded of a crisis centre whose response to my suffering was always to tell me to drink milk and have a bath. Most self-help out there seems equally absurd to me

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The post Self-Care For Dummies by Jill M. Talbot appeared first on Mad In America.

The reality of the climate crisis makes it clear that we must leave the oil in the soil and the gas under the grass, as the Oilwatch International slogan goes. The fossil fuel industry knew this before anyone else. Yet the industry continues to seek new extractive frontiers on all continents in what has been labeled a fracking frenzy by campaigners. 

In Australia, unconventional fossil gas exploration has been on the rise over the last two decades. Coal seam gas wells have been in production since 2013, while community resistance has so far prevented the threat of shale gas fracking. The climate crisis and state commitments under the Paris Agreement means that the window for exploration is closing. But the Australian economy remains hooked on fossil fuels and the industry claims that fossil gas is essential for economic recovery from COVID, green growth and meeting net-zero targets.  

The Northern Territory, or NT, government is particularly eager to exploit its fossil fuel reserves and wants to open up extraction in the Beetaloo Basin as part of its gas strategy. The NT recently announced a $1.32 billion fossil fuel subsidy for gas infrastructure project Middle Arm and greenlighted the drilling of 12 wells by fracking company Tamboran Resources as a first step towards full production. 

Gas exploration is inherently speculative with high risks. The threat of reputational damage is high enough that large blue chip energy companies like Origin Energy a major player in the Australian energy market are turning away from shale. This leaves the field to smaller players who are willing to take a gamble in search of a quick buck. This is precisely how Tamboran came to prominence in Australia. After buying out Origin Energy in September 2022, Tamboran is now the biggest player in the Northern Territorys drive to drill.&nbsp...

By many counts, Putins invasion of Ukraine has been an unparalleled mistake. He has united Europe and the West against this regime. He has, to quote NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg gotten more NATO, not less. He has turned a country that was relatively polarized and divided on the issue of Russia relations as recently as the 2010 presidential election into a country that is overwhelmingly in favor of prosecuting the war to its end. And it has lost tens of if not hundreds of thousands of its soldiers on the battlefield over the past year.

What does Russia want from Ukraine that would justify such a steep price?

There are signs that Moscow itself might be having a hard time coming up with an answer. Over the past year, the Kremlin has vacillated between initially trying to get rid of the Nazi regime in Kyiv, to protecting the citizens of the Donbas from Ukrainian forces and expanding their hold on Zaporizhzhia and Kherson as new territories.

In his Stalingrad anniversary memorial speech, Putin laid out Russias desire for victory, comparing it to the defeat of the Nazis in WW2. One interpretation could be that Russia seeks the absolute surrender of Ukraine and the creation of a new client state. Russias superficial pursuit of negotiations, which has been viewed as insincere by both NATO and Ukraine, would appear to contradict this to a domestic audience. Unconditional surrender, after all, requires no negotiation.

The creation of a client state, however, could require up to 800,000 Russian soldiers to occupy the country and support the client government. Russia would have to devote a significant amount of economic, political, and military resources to maintain that situation. And if the lessons from Afghanistan are to be learned, Russia would very likely find itself in a quagmire if they attempted to absorb the whole of Ukraine.

Thus, a more likely desire falls under Russias quest for self-defense. Most Russians who support the war claim it is an act of self-defense, namely, that NATO sought to destroy Russia and would have attacked it in any case regardless of whether Russia attacked Ukraine. This....

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Today James gives you a sneak peak of the "Lifestyles of Liberty" VIP (Very Independent Producer) webinar that will be hosted by Richard Grove of Autonomy on March 5, 2023 by previewing his presentation for the event.