Weaponisation

I have flown
to star-stained heights
on bend and battered wings
in search of
mythical kings
mythical kings
sure that everything of worth
is in the sky and not the earth
and i never learned
to make my way
down
down
down
where the iguanas play

Dory Previn

Attention was elsewhere, with all the dramatic changes occurring in far off America, changes which once we would have known little about, and changes which much of the Australian population knew little about in any case.

In the flurry of announcements following the instalment of Donald Trump as President was the $500 billion to accelerate the development of AI, which was already accelerating at a remarkable rate, and which not only threatened but was already altering the development of us all, the humans at the base of the pile.

In Australia, a callow, shallow echo of all that was happening elsewhere, victims rather than leaders, a propagandised unquestioning population, a sad echo, you would have to say, and yet, here in this beautiful land, other things also stirred. And we awaited. And we were here.

The intelligence operatives had been and gone in a flurry he deliberately ignored, cut off, refusing to respond, buried under the humus of the passing days.

It was an election year. The increasingly unpopular "Albo", that would be the Right Honourable Anthony Albanese, whose appalling, let's say atrocious government, was on the nose with the electorate, with his own party, and no doubt, one could only speculate, with his inner circle. A dank smell of failure that circled and then filtered out across the country. I wouldn't want to be him and have to face the electorate, after all his betrayals.

Far off birds rose from an ancient swamp. Far off in time and space, the lone  pterodactyl which had haunted him before, there in the last ice age, her partner disappeared, her chicks having died of starvation as she looked out on a frozen world, sometimes appeared in the flow of everything. But mostly it was just birds rising from a swamp. An ancient echo.

And Elon Musk saying that soon humans will be but one percent, or less, of intelligence on Earth. One percent or less. Rare, discarded, unvalued, and in this headlong rush no one thought to take care. 

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Labor accused of putting US relations at risk with attack on Trump’s gender policy

The Albanese government has been accused of picking a fight with Donald Trump and endangering Australia’s most important relationship after a senior cabinet minister claimed the President sowed division with his Executive Order recognising only two genders.

ABC 

Albanese to announce $10,000 cash for apprentices who build homes in National Press Club election pitch

By political reporter Tom Crowley

• Topic:Housing Policy

5h ago5 hours ago

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will return to the National Press Club almost a year to the day since he revealed changes to stage three tax cuts. (ABC News: David Sciasci)

In short: 

Apprentices who work in residential construction would get a $10,000 cash bonus under an election policy to be launched by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the National Press Club on Friday.

The government has set aside enough for just over 60,000 apprentices, although a similar scheme for green jobs attracted only 2,200 applicants.

What's next?

The press club address will mark one year since Mr Albanese used a similar appearance to unveil changes to the stage three tax cuts.