Posts on sundry matters of life the universe and everything: Culture, Environment, Life, Politics & Government, Science, Social Science and Society, Technology etc.
Much of the last week the debate has raged as to whether our aim in tackling COVID-19 should be suppression or elimination. The debate has involved short memories, the loose use of language, and a false binary. Also the notion that every country should use the same strategy.
PM Scott Morrison will tell you that ‘aggressive suppression’ is the way to go, and that ‘elimination’ would break the economy. He also said that we need a few people getting sick and dying to keep our minds on the job.
Scotty from Marketing did not say it quite that way, but that is what he meant.
What he did was to promise the Democratic Unionist party there would be no border down the Irish Sea, then signed a withdrawal agreement that entails exactly that, and now proposes a bill that would break the very treaty he had signed. Continue reading Weekly salon 21/9→
In recent times China has been much on our minds. In this post I’ve collected a number of diverse articles and radio segments bearing on China and our relationship with China which seemed to me interesting. I’m not attempting to deal comprehensively with mess our relationship with China has become.
Premier Li Keqiang, second only to President Xi Jinping, spent five days in Australia to consolidate the relationship between the two countries. Continue reading China on my mind→
I have been reflecting a little on my intermittent output on this blog. Generally speaking in my life at present my priorities are:
1. health and family
2. work
3. blogging
4. the ALP and LEAN
Then there are other matters to be fitted in, like time for friends, jobs around the house, decluttering (having lived in the same house for nearly 40 years) etc etc. Continue reading Weekly salon 6/9→
Initially we had 77-year-old prison supervisor who worked five shifts last week while infected, but asymptomatic until just a headache in the last two days. Now suddenly we have four more prison workers, and two associates infected. Continue reading Could Queensland outbreak have been avoided?→
Strange things are starting to happen with a Qld state election due in October.
Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath proposed changes to the Crime and Corruption Commission (CCC) Act in state parliament that would carry a six-month jail term for people who published CCC allegations about political candidates during an election period.
During the last week the most interesting piece of information I heard about dealing with the coronavirus was not who is to blame for the mess in nursing homes, or who let the passengers off the Ruby Princess, it was a short interview of Professor Michael Toole, epidemiologist at Burnet Institute, by Patricia Karvelas – Unknown COVID sources have experts worried.
Toole lays down some markers for effective testing, tracing and isolating.
However, that is a bit different from saying that there was direct CIA involvement.
In his Crikey account Rundle points out that in Kerr’s correspondence with the Palace he refers to the refusal of supply as a “deferral”, because supply until the end of November existed. There was no urgency to sack so early, except, as we shall see, supply was not the only story being played out. Continue reading Did Kerr sack Whitlam for the Americans?→
For political reasons, I think no-one will be using the words, but Victoria has opted for virus elimination rather than suppression, slamming the state shut for six weeks. Premier Dan Andrews says the current setting are not working, they might work if they were continued for six months, but they might not.
