Welcome to the Mysteries One and All
He picked through every last apartment, trying to find someone who had been there half a century before, and found no one.
The entire part of town he had once treated as his own backyard had been overlaid, and overlaid.
And even the last few remaining elderly people, those he had known in his mind's eye all those years before, were gone.
A new day. A new world. A new dawn.
The last time this turbulent onslaught had been about, he had found a couple of stray old souls in their final apartment boxed years. But now, even they were gone.
Overlaid by the rich. The prosperous. The self-assured. And yes, as he wandered in secret through those multi-million dollar apartments, he could also find sorrow, grief, sadness and distress; alongside the puppy love an all night's rousting, the aftermath of the glow, he could find plotting little weasels, the industrious; mostly the self-assured. He had watched in envy as they went about their self-contained, self-confident lives; and had once been confident of them all, had known in their rock solid grip on the Earth, or some sort of normality, that they possessed something he did not.
Well, that had changed.
They went about their lives. And he knew, now, the discordant nature of destiny.
Mostly, in this part of town, apart from the ubiquitous QR scans every time you entered an establishment, and the overheard conversations of fear, hysteria, concern or contempt, there were few signs of the Covid melodrama that the politicians had not just hopelessly mismanaged, but that the Prime Minister had let unleash chaos on the country.
"We've been leaderless for a year," a friend said, someone barely concerned with politics at all.
Others were waiting in the wings. Others could feel the lazy flap of wings overhead, as the new wave of protectors eliminated every threat, resourcefully, meticulously, methodically. Their strange grapple mouths, their arrays of sensors, their linkages to the hyper-mind and the hyper-hive,
"Go away, you disgusting man," a mad woman shouted in the street outside the hotel.
We would walk with you. We will be with you. We are the mysteries. We are here and everywhere. We were born in your life and will forever be, have forever been. We are the mysteries.
He wound down into the street, he unfolded into pedestrian values, utterly nonplussed by the total lack of morality in the governing bodies, their total lack of credibility or intellectual rigour, their lack, full stop, of any coherent level of dignity or decency.
The madness in the country continued unalloyed. His own situation was seen with approaching, increasing complexity.
There would be a reckoning for those who had destroyed the country.
And above, above, that truly alien technology, awoken through their life times, breathed and sensed and moved above the waters.
HEADLINES
Conservative outlet Epoch Times demonetized by YouTube
The conservative-leaning Epoch Times has been demonetized by YouTube, allegedly on the grounds that it had promoted material contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election.
"YouTube demonetized the Epoch Times and related accounts last week," said publisher Stephen Gregory. "This is the latest example of big tech suppression of free speech, a step on the road to communist-style censorship."
YouTube acknowledged the decision on Tuesday, saying that the outlet had "repeatedly" violated its community guidelines.
The far left-wing watchdog Media Matters also ran an article on Tuesday criticizing the Epoch Times for its coverage of the presidential election.
"A network of associated YouTube channels promoted various 'Stop the Steal' events and right-wing election misinformation on the video sharing platform prior to the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and they have downplayed the riots and obfuscated details about them since," said Media Matters.
The watchdog company also argued that the Epoch Times was started by Chinese religious dissidents from the Falun Gong spirituality movement "whose anti-Communist agenda lends itself to right-wing ideology and conspiracy theories."
The Epoch Times, however, says it is an independent business that, while it was indeed started by Falun Gong practitioners, "neither represents Falun Gong nor is owned by it."
"Beginning in the summer of 2000, the founders of The Epoch Times sought to pit honest, factual reporting — the truth insofar as they were able to discover it — against the lies, disinformation, and censorship of the Chinese Communist Party," said the company last fall. "They had a powerful reason for doing so: as Falun Gong practitioners, they were targets of the Party's latest round of religious persecution. Family, friends, and colleagues were endangered as the full weight of the communist state was brought against them."
Larry Elder, a well-known African-American conservative who runs a video series for the outlet, also commented on YouTube's demonetization decision.
"We have to build our own infrastructure, our own social media platforms. The only answer is not to b----, moan, and whine about how how unfairly we're being treated, not to run to the government to pass more regulations," said Elder. "The answer is to build our own platforms. And we have been asleep at the switch."
Biden revokes Trump order that shielded U.S. power grid from Chinese involvement
https://www.traveller.com.au/australia-state-border-closures-on-australia-day-2021-we-no-longer-seem-united-h1tkf3
Australia state border closures: On Australia Day 2021, we don't seem one or free
On this Australia Day I'm feeling a little less Australian than I did a year ago, though with January 26 mired in increasingly bitter and understandable controversy and resentment (which seems to fester yet more profoundly each and every year), I'm not even sure how I should feel anymore. While nothing could possibly compare to how Indigenous people must feel, Australia Day this year offers an opportunity to reflect on another growing, pandemic-driven divide in our country.
That Australia has managed to contain COVID-19 better than almost any other nation is a subject of pride that at times has muted into hubris. I wonder whether it's come at a long-term cost to our national cohesion and identity, in that the pandemic has fermented the sort of parochialism and provincialism that has always been at the heart of our federation.
This is just stupid. You cannot run a country when any authority can call a lockdown and restrict the freedoms and businesses of hundreds of thousands of people. This is absurd and most be controlled.
It proves that this bloke can't run a country dunny, and yet he's in charge of a whole state, just put the sick person completely away from everyone else, and let all the rest go on with their lives, SIMPLES, we sure have some dopes with too much power.
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton says Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan will need to “properly explain” the rationale behind locking millions of people down over just one coronavirus case. Following a quarantine breach in Western Australia, greater metropolitan Perth, the Peel region, and the South West regions have been forced into a five-day lockdown. Under the new hard lockdown, there are only four reasons to leave one’s home which include essential shopping, medical or healthcare needs – including compassionate requirements – exercise for only one hour with one other person, and work if you cannot work at home.