Courage, Strength, Determination
It feels like a miracle sometimes.
"He's exactly where we want him to be." Pinned to a canyon wall in a graveyard of malcontents.
Another great idea gone to waste.
Between the great indifference and the showers of ghost birds, flurrying down either to protect or to haunt, it was true: nothing that happened here, at this juncture, really mattered to them.
The preening of the appalling Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was just another drip into a curdled time, the posturing of the conservatives who had been so appalling in office but might yet resuscitate themselves, the battles over record immigration and the Indian Inundation, as it was being called, now he understood why the future sadhus and holy men of Australia had such an Eastern connotation, incense, chanting, tents, all of the madness of India brought here. But what did cut through was the assassination of the Houthis during Ramadan. The killing of military men during the holy month of Ramadan, the season of feasting and fighting.
Men who were prepared to die for their beliefs.
It was a terrible mistake, he knew it from the beginning; and the instant US scandal of the release of the communications on Signal of the Yemen attack and the "accidental" inclusion of what was often regarded as a Deep State or CIA front, The Atlantic Magazine, meant it blew up in their faces almost immediately.
Who could forget a jubilant Defence Secretary, Hegseth, celebrating those deaths? You can bet the Islamic world and the ancient gods and prophets they conjured would not forget.
In Australia, well, Australia, sold out from under us, hocked to the highest bidder, plundered by corporates and foreign governments alike, overseen by a hapless and heartless ruling class while the BG's of the world suggested there would be no real need for humans within 10 years, when evil infested the highest reaches of the species, well, what did it matter what happened here. What did it matter who won the next election, likely to be called today.
THE GREATER STORY
SKY NEWS
Cheaper energy, a cut to the fuel excise, lower immigration and more affordable homes for Australians are some of the key items Peter Dutton outlined in his budget reply ahead of the federal election.
GUARDIAN AUSTRALIA
Peter Dutton promises ‘significant funding commitment’ to defence – as it happened
ABC
The prime minister will head to Government House tomorrow to call the federal election for May 3.
With both Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton laying down their competing visions for the next term of parliament, the pair will now ready for a five-week campaign where they will seek to convince voters each is the right person to lead the country.
SBS
The federal government has accepted new COVID-19 vaccine advice, as experts urge Australians to roll up their sleeves amid concerns over "vaccine fatigue".
Health Minister Mark Butler confirmed the government had accepted the latest advice from the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) and stressed that vaccination is the most effective tool to prevent severe illness or death from COVID-19 and influenza.
Influenza vaccines will be available from early April and are free, through GPs and pharmacies, for:
Anyone aged 65 and over
Pregnant people
First nations people (above six months old)
Children aged six months to five years
People with medical conditions that increase risk of complications
The recommendations for a free vaccination against COVID-19 include:
Every six months for anyone aged 75 and over every six months
Every 12 months for people aged 65 to 74
Every 12 months for severely immunocompromised children aged 5 to 17 and adults aged 18 to 64
NEWS
US politics live: Journalist who leaked White House texts punches back after ‘scum’ vitriol
After copping a beating from the Trump camp following the administration’s astonishing amateur hour, one US journalist has doubled down.
THE NEW DAILY
Peter Dutton has promised Australians cheaper electricity bills as a key plank of a wide-ranging budget reply Thursday night that sets up an election fight over the cost of living.
However Dutton’s much anticipated speech was overshadowed by speculation that the Prime Minister is set to call the federal election as soon as Friday.
MACRO BUSINESS
However, Dutton promised to cut boondoggle funding to renewable projects.
We will end the reckless $20 billion Rewiring the Nation Fund…
We will scrap Labor’s nearly $14 billion of production tax credits for green hydrogen because it is not going to work.
Dutton also promised to cut the federal bureaucracy so that money can be invested in front-line public services:
We will reverse Labor’s increase of 41,000 Canberra-based public servants – saving $7 billion a year.
That’s money we can provide back to the Australian people in frontline services.
The growth rate of public servants under this Government in Canberra is about three times it was under the Rudd-Gillard Government.
Cutting waste in the bureaucracy is positive, as long as these workers are not merely replaced with consultants.
SPECTATOR AUSTRALIA
Every now and then I do a ‘welfare check’ on Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen, who fled X to the safe space of BlueSky.
It is here, in the relative digital calm, that he posts his ‘big ideas’ for the future of Australia. My personal favourite? The one where he’s holding up a surfboard made from wind turbines, implying this might be the solution to the mounting pile of trash discarded by the green energy industry. You can almost see the government-mandated ‘learn to surf’ programs threatening on the horizon to address the oversupply of surfboards.
The Minister must be getting lonely in his sanctuary of silence, because he posted a photograph inviting people to ‘ask him anything’ on Reddit.
Budget bonfire of green vanities
Road to ruin runs on green hydrogen
Jim Chalmers’ fourth budget – the one he didn’t want to deliver before this year’s election – presents a grim picture of the damage Labor has done to Australia’s economy in the last three years.
The budget forecasts gross debt will cross the trillion-dollar threshold in the next financial year, and a sea of red ink extends as far as the Treasury boffins can see.
That’s despite record tax revenue, thanks to a boom in the price and volume of fossil fuel exports during the energy crisis created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Mining is estimated to contribute $121 billion in federal corporate tax revenue from mid-2022 to mid-2025, with coal contributing $39 billion to federal government coffers and gas paying $22 billion in federal taxes.
Labor is using that windfall revenue to finance a green energy Ponzi scheme with no prospect of economic viability.
CRIKEY
KPMG exposed for dodgy Hobart stadium report
Economist Nicholas Gruen has rubbished the work of big four auditor KPMG for the Tasmanian government on the controversial proposal to build a new stadium in Hobart.
21
Sydney Morning Herald, Age and AFR subscribers’ personal data leaked online
Thousands of Nine newspaper subscribers have had their names, contact details, addresses and information about payments accidentally left online for anyone to access.