Posts on sundry matters of life the universe and everything: Culture, Environment, Life, Politics & Government, Science, Social Science and Society, Technology etc.
“Yes we can. Yes we did.” But did he?
Barack Obama bowed out in fine style, with tears and soaring rhetoric, while the Twittersphere went nuts asking, Where’s Sasha? For reasons unexplained his younger daughter was absent.
He was a good man, who served with dignity, diligence, honour, integrity and intelligence. We will all miss him. Continue reading Barack Obama bows out
US intelligence agencies have briefed both President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump that the Russians may well have information that compromises Trump. They don’t have anything they know directly, but they have information from a credible intelligence source which says that the Russians have information about his finances and about himself personally which would compromise him if released.
This may be why they wanted Trump rather than Hillary Clinton. Perhaps they didn’t have anything really damaging on her. They wanted what they call a “useful idiot” to win. Continue reading Trump compromised?
As people most likely know, from 1 January 2017 some 327,000 pensioners have had their pensions adversely affected by changes in the assets test with around 100,000 losing their pensions entirely. Around 50,000 more will have their pensions increased to receive the full pension. The government is doing this to save $2.4 billion over four years, and, they say, to make the pension system more fair and sustainable.
Unfortunately proponents of the changes are framing this as about wealth, whereas it is actually about income. They are also saying that the changes are progressive, whereas the wealthy go completely free and the ones hit are actually hovering close to poverty, when you consider their income. Continue reading ‘Wealthy’ pensioners pinged
Richard Dennis says that the government should be a model litigant, but if a company did what it is doing to recover Centrelink ‘overpayments’ it would be fraud. Continue reading Saturday salon 7/1
Wallerstein usually doesn’t make short-term predictions, but has made an exception in the case of Trump. He says:
Continue reading Wallerstein looks at the world in the era of Trump
The New Scientist has predicted the 10 biggest and most important science stories for 2017 (pay-walled) in their bumper three weeks in one Christmas and New Year special issue. Here are some of them.
In March last year Google-owned firm DeepMind developed the AlphaGo system which defeated one of the world’s best Go players, Lee Sedol. Continue reading Science stories for 2017
Every year 20 million people move from the country to the city in China. Within that group is an urban wealthy class, some 5% of the population, and growing, who are responsible for 19% of household emissions. They want to live in big houses, drive 4x4s and adopt a Western life-style.
The very rich generate 6.4 tons of CO2 per capita per year − nearly four times the national average of 1.7 tons. Costa Rica and Thailand are mentioned as countries at a similar level of development, with only one tonne per capita. Continue reading Climate clippings 195
I had a look at the archive, and last January we were confronted with the question One-third of Australian pensioners live in poverty?, an overheating planet, and groups of men humiliating, sexually assaulting and robbing women around the main railway station in Cologne on New Year’s Eve.
A year later it has become clear that opportunistic, small-scale acts of terrorism are going to be with us for a very long time.
Meanwhile Britain voted to leave the EU, Americans shocked the world by electing Donald Trump, and after eight excruciating weeks of campaigning, Malcolm Turnbull fell over the line, and with a dummy spit on election night, and as one Coalition insider said, “with his authority diminished and his judgment is being questioned on multiple levels”, proceeded to try to govern with a polyglot senate. Continue reading Goodbye 2016, hello 2017
Miranda Devine has the goss:
“I have a lot of respect for Cory, “ she said. “I’d love to work with him or join forces. If Cory wants to take over [One Nation] so be it but at the end of the day it has got to be on the issues that I want to fight for the people.” Continue reading Saturday salon 31/12
Dissatisfaction amongst working-class male voters and their families has been put forward as part of the reason for the recent Brexit, Trump and One Nation successes. This post concludes that, in Australia, some men really are struggling and feel that some of their problems are being ignored by the political establishment. Continue reading Should We be Thinking More About What is Happening to Men?
In the comments thread of the post How Trump won, but what does it mean? I made the comment:
In Ootz’s rejoinder, he suggested that the old left-right dichotomy is not practical nor applicable anymore, and linked to an article Understanding the Determinants of Political Ideology: Implications of Structural Complexity, by Stanley Feldman and Christopher Johnston. Continue reading Political ideology and the left-right divide
My son Mark, who has a better idea about these things than I do, thinks we’ll have Abbott back again as PM, probably about six months before the next election. That way he can blame everything that’s wrong on Malcolm and concentrate on developing some nice slogans for an election, something he’s really good at.
Turnbull has just chalked up his eighth losing Newspoll in a row. By the middle of next year that could be over 20. Around about that time, with another unconvincing budget from ScoMo and Matthias Cormann, we should be due to lose our triple-A credit rating. If Malcolm continues to displease the conservative right in his party he will be vulnerable from that time on.
Newspoll, which looked at October-December as a block, had a few interesting tales to tell. Continue reading Will Turnbull be PM this time next year?
