Saturday 2 June 2018

Introduction

Terence Mills
May 29, 2018, at 9:46 am

Bernard Keane from Crikey sums up Barnaby Joyce: 

Barnaby Joyce has always been effective at exploiting the media. He had a product that they lapped up: a confected “authenticity”; the accountant and Riverview alumnus posed as a salt of the earth, true blue old-style Nat, complete with Bjelke-esque gabble. Journalists loved the maverick pose and then when he surrendered that in a quest for the leadership of his party, they loved his “plain speaking” and his readiness to offer a quote on anything. Joyce became the front bar monarch reigning with a schooner instead of a sceptre in the local pub. He was good copy, and he knew it. He and the media existed in a perfect symbiotic relationship.

That Joyce was entirely without substance, a man of poor judgement, a man given to the making extraordinarily damaging statements off the top of his head, a believer in kooky conspiracy theories, rubbish science and half-arsed economic ideas, never troubled the media. Few questioned his rise to the deputy prime ministership; few wondered how good an idea it was that a man of such apparently limited intellect — and little to no common sense — should be a key figure in cabinet. “Best retail politician in the country” we were told, a bloke who could channel rural Australia like one of those overpriced, taxpayer-funded irrigation channels Joyce got for his irrigator mates channelled water.

John Millar

Most people claim to be looking forward to their day in court so they can clear their name..Cash is seemingly aware of the penalties for lying under oath and that her day in court will do everything BUT clear her name. It is already manifestly clear that she repeatedly misled parliament, normally a sackable offence by itself. And using taxpayer funds to defend her unlawfully appointed ABCC chief is unjustifiable in any pub.

That Greg Hunt, like others in cabinet, has not been sacked is but a reflection of the lack of power the Prime Minister has. How Ministerial standards have deteriorated since John Howard came to power.

Controversies

John Lord

Planning a celebration. Taking my wife out for lunch. Good food, a bottle of Merlot.
Good government starts today. We are just so happy.

Paul Bongiorno

We are a sad country when we think indefinitely detaining innocent refugees and their families is a vote winner. Sick, disgusting and immoral.

On Adani

The Turnbull Government has found another way to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars into the project.

They plan to use government credit agency EFIC to pump the project full of money via the backdoor, handing over huge sums to Adani’s subcontractors.

The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope. #HelpOthers

Barnaby Joyce is to receive $150.000 for a silly sordid interview about his moral weakness yet victims of sodomy and child rape are to get the same amount under the redress scheme. Work that out.

Malcolm Farr

It’s always fascinating to hear a debate between Hanson and Mathias Cormann, two people for whom English is a second language.

Barry Tucker

Barnaby Joyce has joined the call for the fed govt’s acquisition of Liddell power station in order to re-sell it to Alinta.

Barnaby says the power station must be used for its intended purpose — which was to burn coal.

Yet another crisis. As I said last week, they come with Trumpish frequency.

Kelly O’Dwyer

After the decision to have the citizenship by-elections on the same day Labor’s National Conference you could hardly describe the Speaker as independent.

Did Bill Shorten give 100,000 dollars to Get Up without authority from the AWU Union?

We are desensitised now. We read these articles and feel weary. We struggle to comprehend why these elected representatives behave so unethically and immorally as we race out the door to catch the train to our casual job.

The Poll Bludger

Top Tweets of the week

Lloyd Bakeley

The softly spoken Greg Hunt, just another nasty Tory Tosser…that is how they speak to one another privately about Wimmin. #got #caught #out #slime #bag

Barnaby Joyce 7/2/18

And so it’s a private matter and I don’t think it helps me. I don’t think it helps my family. I don’t think it helps anybody in the future to start making this part of a sort of a public discussion. So, as much as I can, I will keep private matters private.

Lynlinking

Craig Kelly to cause trouble if Libs dump him.

The Australian

Liberal MP Craig Kelly has threatened to quit the government and be an outspoken crossbencher if he is rolled as the party’s candidate for the federal electorate …

Bill Shorten

This is a must-watch. Turnbull is cutting the pension and forcing people to work until they are 70. Just so he can give big business and banks an $80 billion tax handout. So out of touch.

Best read of the week

A comment by Miriam English on my post “Fairdinkum what a mess we’re in”

On the other hand, many cities in USA are moving in the opposite direction, basically telling Trump and his hyper-religious morons to go screw themselves. They are opting for low energy programs and granting immigrants safety. There is a change around the world, where the mayors of cities meet to discuss how they can benefit their citizens and improve life in their cities.

People all over the planet are getting fed up with political and religious extremists. The extremists seem to be unaware that they’re generating a strong movement against themselves.

Yes, inequality is rising unchecked, but anger against those who are obscenely wealthy is mounting, and there will be a reckoning. I hope it will be non-violent, in the form of crushingly strong progressive taxes against them. That will be needed to pay for the universal basic income (UBI), which I think will be necessary in the near future.

Extreme poverty and starvation are being eliminated at a rate never before seen in all history. The well-being of the worlds poorest is improving like never before and this is seeing population growth rates decline. The spread of the internet on cheap mobile phones and tablets ($50 from China) means education is spreading like never before too. The increasingly expensive educational institutions are becoming irrelevant as their qualifications are no longer much use anyway. We are starting to move to a kind of education where people learn simply because they are curious, instead of wanting mere certificates.

While politicians in Australia, USA, and a handful of countries lie about climate change and try to cripple the renewable energy revolution, it has nevertheless become an unstoppable tsunami. Coal has already lost; its advocates just don’t know it yet. Wind and solar power are already the cheapest forms of power and the market is driving it despite our wrongheaded politicians’ attempts to thwart it.

Cheap 3D printers are coming of age. Even though I live below the poverty level here in Australia, I bought one a while back, and have a much better one on order which includes a 3D laser scanner that lets me put an object on its platter and scan its shape into the computer, where I can modify the shape before printing it out if I wish.

I can publish my novels and artwork and computer programs on the internet for free and download thousands of other ebooks, audiobooks, music, videos, and computer programs for free or almost free. I already have 6 novels, 26 short stories, and 4 plays online and am working to finish 2 more novels right now. We’ve never been able to do this before. How will creativity flower when we have billions of people doing this? It will be a new Renaissance.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is getting better at an astonishing rate. When it surpasses us in intelligence, as it is certain to do, we will be able to find solutions to our most pressing problems that currently defy us: How do we prevent corruption in politics? How do we fix the broken thinking that causes religion and other magical thinking? How do we build a space elevator? How do we have a net-zero-energy society while living luxurious lives? How do we stop, and reverse, the destruction of the other lives we share the planet with? How do we fix the climate change problem? How do we prevent people identifying with ideas (the main cause of polarisation and conflict), and instead help them simply be themselves?

There are terrible things happening at the moment, but also wonderful things.

Tim’s titbits

On this day 2 June 2016

On Tuesday 31 May 2016 the first debate of the election campaign between Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and the Leader of the Opposition took place. What follows are my thoughts on it immediately after. Nothing has changed.

The individual can only answer the question of who won the ABC debate and it will depend on his or her particular allegiance to either party. To others with some objectivity, well they may see it as a draw. People from the left like me will score it to the Opposition Leader on the basis of him being more passionate.

My clown of the week

A few contestants this week. On Tuesday I must have had a moment of heightened telepathy when I included these four in my comments about the character of conservative politicians. So, Hunt swears at old ladies, Cash declines, to tell the truth, Hanson loses control of her emotions and her party and Barnaby needs time off to count $150.000.

After much consideration, my weekly award goes to the mild-mannered Minister for Health and lying, who gave a woman of some standing (a grandmother of 71 and Mayor no less) a stream of expletives and then took 6 months to apologise. On top of that, it seems he did the same to the former head of his department.

My thought for the day

“Never in the history of this nation have the rich and the privileged been so openly brazen”