born in the Land of The Long White Cloud

Greens ning-nong #1

Greens ning-nong #2

Comrades,

Gawd, this mob of Green Senators are dead-set ning-nongs, aren't they?
First it was the Senator for NSW, Lee Rhiannon - who is an interesting piece of work, has form, and a long history in the dark arts in the NSW Parliament - who gets thrown out of the Greens' party room for daring to suggest she might think about not backing a sleazy deal with the Govt. on something-or-another, as if it's some great schism.
But really it's all about the strong NSW Branch attempting to tell the thick-witted National Executive what to do.
Oh no!
Out you go, we are the Federal Greens, and we are entitled.
You have to sometimes wonder if they have more than a sole existence for being, when in fact the Greens have sunk from the high's of the Great former Senator B.Brown of Tasmania's days into a mire of their own making; unreformed Trot tree-hugging yuppie flip-flops who would struggle to rustle up a policy platform on anything between all nine of them.
And then comes along the Senator for Western Australia Scott Ludlum who somehow kinda forgot that he had dual Australian/New Zealand citizenship and was therefore prohibited from sitting in the Parliament.
Christ on a bike!
He was born in the Land of the Long White Cloud.
Fleeing across the Tasman at age three is a fairly poor excuse.
s.44 of Constitution is, on first reading, as plain as plain can be on this one.
The founding fathers threw in another "race card" there, fully intending to keep any feelthy foreigners out of the hallowed halls of power.
Can't have these appalling sub-humans with their mits on the levers, oh no siree.
It was the dawn of the White Australia policy, "yellow scares" - too many ching-chongs in the country after the Gold Rush, and Kanaky all over Queensland slaving on sugar plantations, that sort of thing.
See the now repealed Immigration Restriction Act 1901.
The Constitution still graciously invites New Zealand to be part of the Federation, but until such time as they accept the offer, they can't sit in Canberra.


44. Any person who -
(i.) Is under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or citizen of a foreign power___shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a Senator or a member of the House of Representatives.


Never did get the idea behind dual citizenship, anyway.
What is it good for, apart from a passport dodge?
What useful purpose does it serve?
You are either one thing, or you're not, surely?
So, of course, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth among some Greens as Senator Ludlum was forced to promptly resign from the upper house and apologise to all and sundry for being a complete & utter eejit.
Nine years on the public payroll, he was.
Nine years.
If you were him, you'd have to be worried that someone would go you under the little known s.46 of the Constitution:

46.
Until the Parliament otherwise provides, any person declared by this Constitution to be incapable of sitting as a senator or as a member of the House of Representatives shall, for every day on which he so sits, be liable to pay the sum of one hundred pounds to any person who sues for it in any court of competent jurisdiction.


As far as I know, the Parliament has not otherwise provided.
That sent everyone rushing in a mad scramble to check their family trees, to make sure there were no niggers in the woodpile to surprise them in the dead of night.
But, wait, there's more.
Then the Senator for Queensland Larrissa Waters finds out that she forgot that she has dual Canadian/Australian citizenship; only now vaguely remembering something that her parents told her that she could opt to be both Canadian and Australian at the age of 21, and would automatically be regarded as being so, but she didn't do anything about opting out of the Canadian option.
Didn't occur to her, or anyone else for that matter, during the whole six years she's been sitting the Senate.
Six years.
Lord, help us.
That is no less than four Senators who have now resigned in the term of this Parliament after being found out under s.44 since Trumble's debacle of a Double Dissolution that produced an even more hopelessly fractured Senate when the whole exercise was designed to keep the riff-raff out of the joint.
Give me strength.
Just ask Bob Day [bankrupt] and Rod Culleton [convicted crim] what they got up to last week.
I'm sorry, Scott & Larrissa, but I'm not sorry.
Tell me one highlight of yr now in tatters political 'careers', just one will do.
What a rag-tag bunch of charlatans.
Really?
The law is the law.
The Miracle of Democracy is not that hard, stupid.
I'm speechless.

the fighting is over now

Comrades,

It's more than a year ago now that I bemoaned the senseless destruction of the world famous Aleppo market, a UNESCO World Heritage Site - by far the largest covered ancient market in the world - the magnificent thing was thirteen kilometres long; building started in the 15th century and was more or less completed in the 17th; jammed packed with many thousands of shops selling everything under the sun that you could possibly imagine.
The fighting, that should never have happened, is over now, but the Old City of Aleppo lies in ruins.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-13/army-drone-footage-shows-destruction-in-old-aleppo/8114558

A staggering crime.
It is by far and away Obama's biggest regret of his Presidency; doing nothing about Syria when he was given the chance.
It "haunts" him.
Little wonder.
No-one won.
37 thousand dead in Aleppo alone, out of 400,000 nation-wide, and who knows how many millions of refugees.
By any measure, it is truly a modern day catastrophe on a grand scale.
Pointless.
Appalling.

And yet, amid the rubble of war, the indomitable human spirit emerges in the most unlikely ways:




Bless.


Photo: Zein Al Rifai/AFP.

DJ Trump! at the G19

Comrades,

Must say I was rather disappointed in the 2nd World Tour by DJ Trump! compared to the 1st World tour.
No huge cheering crowds for the POTUS this time, hardly even bothered for autographs - [something must be going terribly wrong when he's no longer No.1! on the hit parade] - and somehow even managed to duck some photo opportunities, putting his daughter Ivanka in the hot seat instead, when she by protocol should have been on Mr Merkel's Magical Mystery Tour for G20 spouses and children.
First stop was a brand spanking new whizz-bang Climate Change Centre that the Germans reckon is world class.
Maybe she's not interested in that?
Jolly afternoon tea parties, perhaps?
Or maybe selling her line of shoes into the EU is of more importance?

Of course, the Trumpotus started the tour in Poland, where they have a long history of loving US Presidents to bits [they loved Jimmy Carter the best, and even liked Gerald Ford], but The Donald couldn't attract a full house to his concert to explain to the Poles that Civilization was in danger of being ruined, by whom, he did not know, except that they must be very bad hombres and they certainly wouldn't be Poles, oh no siree.
The Donald says they're the best people in the world.
I don't know what the Polish phrase is for the English expression "big whoop".
I found it a little strange that hearing that everyone's been talkin' about Korea, that there was barely a word mentioned about Fatboy Kim, who insists on not playing nice by setting off a bloody big rocket up and down and into the Sea of Japan [only problem is that The Bomb in N.Korea is still way too big and and way too heavy to be carried as a warhead on an ICBM. The might have The Bomb, but they are yet to work out the trick of miniaturisation. Could take them years.]
I think all that DJ Trump! said about it was that he expected the Japanese to be somewhat upset about it.
China, sensibly, ducked their heads, and took a very low profile.
Hardly heard a word out of Xi Jinping.
But the Leader of the Free World did make a bee line straight for the Mexican president when he arrived in the fair city of Hamburg, telling him that Mexico would "absolutely" [read "very definitely"] be paying for The Wall, to which Señor Enrique Peña Nieto replied "well, you can go and shove that idea clean up your arse, Big Boy, and, by the way, you need to lose weight. Too many American hamburgers. Want a taco bowl instead?"

No one really knows if My Mate Vlad has met DJ Trump! before.
The Donald can't seem to remember whether Ol' Putes turned up at a Miss Universe contest in Russia or not - he thinks he did and "it was great" - but the sneaky rusky aint saying.
But it appears that the Leader of the Great & Glorious Russian Empire had seen this bloke before, by the way he looked at the POTUS and went straight for the handshake with his hand on top to avoid it being crushed by a meat mallet.

Still, after a free and frank exchange of views, the only thing they could agree on was to better define the Rules of Engagement in Syria, to prevent each other's warplanes being shot out of the sky if they intruded on each other's air space, which had already been worked out by the diplomats behind closed doors in the first place.
Brilliant work there, Don.
What about the poor suffering children?
Let's leave that to the United Nations, eh?
But perhaps the hero of the hour was that old Christian Socialist from Luxembourg, Jean-Claude Juncker, who suggested that if the US wanted to impose a tariff on EU steel imports, then the EU would simple retaliate by slapping an equivalent tariff on bourbon, which accounts for about the same in the terms of trade.
Simple.
How'd making bourbon become unaffordable in Europe go down in the Trump heartland as thousands of distillery workers wide are thrown out of their jobs in a desultory fashion without so much as a German sausage and the company losses start to pile up?
Not too well, you'd expect.
Always thought Wild Turkey was too expensive anyway.
"If you want to be petty about it, we can mess with your booze and see how you like it" was a fair translation of what Juncker said.
So, that was the end of that.

I don't think in the end that the whole shooting match conference ever released a joint communique because with DJ Trump! wasting the space he occupies no-one could agree on anything of an any import at all.

It'd all be enough to drive a man to drink, as it's all becoming beyond a joke.
The Pundits are saying that the G20 should now be re-named the G19, on account of America's increasing irrelevancy on the international multilateral stage, with the Free World now ruled by a policy-vacant, stupid-as-shit and as dumb-as-fuck psycho who's a determined, complete and utter, enrvionmental vandal, among many other things.
At age 71, it don't mean a thing to him; he won't be here for 'end of days' as the planet is smothered by our own crapola.
Couldn't give a blue root.
So that'd leave Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the European Union in the diplomatic mix, as the USA casts itself adrift, and vanishes into the vortex of stoopid isolationism; poor, broke, and busted.
Everywhere else?
Boomin' baby.
Just boomin'.

Craves.

PS. It was pleasing to see Hamburg turn on a first class riot for the occasion with protestors throwing rocks at the police who responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannon, against some fairly solid resistance by the demonstrators, while "gangs of masked anarchist yoofs" went about torching expensive German cars and Gov't offices, then looting an IKEA sore, stealing all their flat pack furniture and Allen keys, before setting fire to the joint.
Outstanding work, there.
Only in the Miracle of Democracy.

--

Photos: vetted by the German Foreign Ministry.

what happens when the arse falls out of oil

The Miracle of Democracy has gone to shit in Venezuela, that's if there was any real one in the first place.
Presidential supporters launched a surprise attack on the lightly-guarded Opposition-dominated Parliament with crowbars, sticks, stones and fireworks, leaving four injured and hundreds really scared in a seven hour Mexican stand-off.
A fantastic 206th Independence day in Caracas as President Nicolas Maduro simultaneously held a military parade with tanks rolling through down town.
The whole place has gone down the toilet politically and economically; gangs of yoofs battling the riot police daily, nut jobs stealing helicopters and firing grenades at the Supreme Court building, that sort of thing.
And it's no small thing either, no siree, about 90 dead over the course of three months of anti-Govt protests.
Maduro, with the backing of the military of course, is making a constitutional power grab, and will probably succeed, even though the joint is an uttter economic basket case.
A 400% annual inflation rate, smuggling and black marketeering are rife, and yet they are sitting on one of the largest oil reserves in the world.
Suddenly it becomes not a very nice place to live.
Daily violent death on the streets, wages become progressively worthless, foods in short supply, guns everywhere, and everything becomes unstable.
But, hang on, didn't the same thing happened during the "oil shock" some 30 odd years ago?
Never mind Maduro's aim of complete abrogation of any attempt at a Democracy - you need a Strongman.
The country has form, but nothing as bad as this.
That's what happens when the arse falls out of oil.

I remember how Hugo Chavez was very fond of donating huge quantities of free fuel oil to the poor and the pensioners of New York City to heat them through the bitter winters as long as it was clearly marked "Gift of Venezuela", so no money would ever change hands.
The Bush Boys hated it, shat them to tears, but they couldn't do a dang thing about it.
Looks like those days have well and truly gone away.
Dead, buried, and cremated.

Photo: The Associated Press.

it's official - baby boomers and old hippies completely off their chops

Common or Garden Pot-Bellied Piss-Suckers,

Even though it should have been declared lost a long time ago, the 'war on drugs' becomes increasingly futile as the population ages, and the income gap between rich and poor widens.
But how do you declare Peace?
There was a big cocaine bust in Melbourne the other day, http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/06/30/australian-police-disrupt-international-drug-cartel-7-men-arrested and the words falling from the lips of senior fed cops were arresting.
They were saying that because the stuff is illegal it's their problem, but people should wake up to themselves that they are being ripped off blind, with Australians paying some of the highest prices in the world for illicit snakey substances.
[It's well known that in salaries of $100K+, a "Sydney premium" is added to cover the ridiculous cost of rent/real estate and cocaine].
Have you seen the cost of a gram of coke lately?

http://www.havocscope.com/black-market-prices/cocaine-prices/

The cops said we should change our wicked ways forthwith, because we're obviously being targeted by some pretty nasty folk who can see a very sweet dollar in it.
Even Blind Freddy can see there's an 8,500% mark-up to be had there, even if you bought the gear at the source retail - at wholesale, the sky's the limit for the crims.
The cops also pointed to the fact that Australia, per capita, is the biggest illicit drug consumer in the world, and that we should get a grip and put a stop to that.
Is that right?
The entire world, the total planet?

http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/global-drug-survey-2017-finds-australians-are-the-biggest-bong-users-pay-most-for-cocaine-20170523-gwb2jd.html

[just by-the-by...the "ice epidemic/scourge/crisis/disaster" of course is a myth; super-speed being only the fourth drug responsible for ambulance call outs, behind booze, valium, and panadol, for fuck's sake. Smack has dropped off the map, because you can get all the opioids you like at the chemist shop].
The police more or less admitted they are out of their depth against the cocaine cartels; these people are ruthless and very clever - they have lawyers, guns, and money...and drones.
And yesterday, the Feds were not at all surprised to turn up $A1.6M in cash in a cheap suitcase while turning over a warehouse in Wetherill Park, as they were looking for something else:

Oops, no lines taken off the streets there.
Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place big time, and they know it.

In the meantime, while the conservative Yoof of Today are seemingly eschewing the pleasures of fine vintage red wine and fruity lexia goon, and declining to stick the cone in the boiling billy as much as they should be, spoiling the business model, us baby boomers and old hippies are choofing our heads off something stupid on the weed, and getting as pissed as, on a rather regular basis.
We lost interest in Temperance/Prohibition way back in the day.

"When we think about who experiences harm caused by alcohol, most people think about young people. However, Australian data show the rate of risky drinking among young people has been decreasing, while risky drinking among older adults has been increasing. The consumption of cannabis shows a similar trend."
https://theconversation.com/older-australians-drinking-on-the-rise-and-they-dont-know-the-risks-50660

Why does this not surprise?
No-one will thank my generation in the little history books, so we might as well forget all about it, leave it to our children, and just get completely off our tits; we're cashed up and we're entitled.
I've been saying for years now there will be big money to be made in the retirement villages and nursing homes of the future that offer hot tubs, an on-site bong room decorated with Bob Marley posters, and a fully stocked bar complete with quality top shelf.
Anyone know any venture capitalists?