Sunday 27th of July 2025

Blogs

delivered with 6,640 defects and deficiencies.....

As the Navy embarks on the ambitious AUKUS program, the Auditor-General has handed Defence a ‘C minus’ on the Canberra Class ship-building program. Rex Patrick reports.

Ever since the Navy took possession of the two Canberra-class landing Ships at a cost of $1.5B each, they’ve been mired in controversy about reliability.

 

“Accumulation of defects”. A-G report scathing on Navy shipbuilding

by Rex Patrick

 

angels weep and devils grin to see the pickle we are in.....

Ethics is basically a learned habit of behavior.  —  Aristotle.

Virtue is its own reward.  —  Plato.

Plato:  Welcome, Aristotle!  It’s been a while since I have seen you at the Academy.

Aristotle:  And it is good to see you as well my teacher.  And how have things been?

P:  I hear that you have had the honor of instructing the great Alexander in philosophy and morals.  How has that suited you?

A:  Alexander is a man of action and, ultimately, had little time for philosophic instruction.  And what about your trip to Syracuse?  Have you had the same experience as myself with ___________ or have the gods looked down and smiled upon you and gave you a willing and able “Philosopher-King” to groom in __________?  I am all ears.

 

busy bugs: bombing bastards and birthing a big beautiful bill....

Senate Republicans are racing to pass a budget bill that is pivotal to President Donald Trump's second-term agenda ahead of a self-imposed 4 July deadline.

Party leadership have been twisting arms for an initial vote on the "Big Beautiful Bill" on Saturday, following the release of its latest version - all 940 pages - shortly after midnight.

Rank-and-file Republicans have been divided over how much to cut from welfare programmes in order to cover the cost of extending some $3.8tn (£2.8tn) in Trump tax breaks.

The sprawling tax and spending measure passed the House of Representatives by a single vote last month.

water, an undervalued common good......

A new “water economics” needed to safeguard supplies of domestic water and make it a common good. Australia’s fossil fuels make it a rich “Climate Wrecker”. Carbon capture technologies fail to deliver.

Ask members of the public to list the top environmental problems and I reckon that plastic pollution, climate change and loss of biodiversity will feature prominently. I suspect that shortage of clean, accessible domestic (or fresh) water will get relatively few mentions.

 

Peter Sainsbury

Environment: Australia declared climate change ‘rogue actor’

 

rich big tech mavens seeking military leadership roles.....

Four senior executives at Palantir, Meta, and OpenAI have been formally appointed lieutenant colonels in the US Army following the creation of a “special” unit created for rich Big Tech mavens seeking military leadership roles.

 

US Army appoints Palantir, Meta, OpenAI execs as Lt. Colonels

BY 

 

an oscar for donald trump — for impersonating tom cruise....

On June 22, a large portion of the France 2, 8 p.m. newscast, hosted by Laurent Delahousse, was devoted to the US attack on Iran.

Note 1. Clearly, this was far from a balanced presentation. Laurent Delahousse's tone, like that of his colleagues, was one of fascination, even admiration, for the US operation. It was as if we were back in 1991, at the time of the first Gulf War, when journalists, safely tucked away in their studios, played at scaring each other by inflating the "Iraqi threat" (the world's fourth-largest army), facing an armada representing at least a 100-to-1 power ratio. It was at this time that the first "military experts" appeared on television, in the guise of retired generals, proud of their sudden celebrity.

 

gotham goes up and down the tube.....

I was born and raised in Maryland, which is a pleasant way to be, but I’ll happily admit that New York is the center of gravity for my way of thinking. My father’s family was from the outer boroughs, and the city—New York, that is, unless you say it with capital letters, The City, which only ever means Manhattan—has been the distant background for me since my childhood in the DC suburbs. I lived in the city while I was in grad school and still try to make it back when I can. It’s a fine place.

 

The Great Mamdani Freakout

BY Jude Russo

 

of courage and delusions....

The forms of 19th-century European fictions, including the Russian, have a powerful relation to older Christian stories, from the Bible to Bunyan. The novels meet the old tales with part parody, part dialogue, part rejection and reconstruction.

 

The Idiot
by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by David McDuff

 

 

dealing with the dinosaurs of the 21st century....

The Poetry Of Reality is a podcast hosted by renowned evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins. This is an audio and video experience that tracks our acclaimed protagonist in his navigation of the natural world and his pursuit of truth through scientific curiosity.

 

WELCOME TO The Poetry of Reality

 

the great chinese dumpster fire.....

The ABC has long held a reputation as Australia’s sober, publicly-funded bulwark against tabloid sensationalism – the broadcaster you turn to when you want analysis, not alarmism.

Which is why their recent report “Company in charge of proposed incinerator outside Geelong has direct links to the Chinese government” on a proposed waste-to-energy plant near Geelong reads more like a Netflix drama: Red Furnace – China’s Great Bin Fire.

 

Fred Zhang

No time to dye: ABC’s China bias is licensed to kill credibility

 

not responsible for granddad's crime unless you're jewish.....

The Daily Mail has revealed that the grandfather of Blaise Metreweli, who is expected to become the first woman to lead the UK’s foreign intelligence service (MI6), was a Nazi collaborator who oversaw atrocities in occupied Ukraine.

Metreweli’s father, Constantine, was naturalized in British-administered Hong Kong in 1966. The London Gazette identified him at the time as Dobrowolski, known as Constantine Metreweli, of uncertain nationality.

In a story published Thursday, the Mail confirmed that Constantine was the son of a German-Polish Ukrainian man – also named Constantine – who worked for the Nazis and was implicated in the mass killing of Jews and other atrocities during World War II.

requiem for a potato.....

Suddenly, nothing grew

The crops around the planet died

The air went dry without dew

The wind carried sands that fried

Hot like a Venusian summer

Cold like a Martian winter

 

What happened asked rat number two

Rat number one could not answer

He was dead as two would soon be too

 

We’re completely out of luck

Number two thought, barely cogent

Those nuking monkeys with their muck

Their global warming let run amuck

That mega solar flare coming last night

An asteroid from Jupiter’s Trojan

Falling with its destructive might 

Dislodged by a stray rocket

Of a scientific dumb cadet

And Superman down with Kryptonite

In a ruined movie house on fire

Playing with no noise nor fanfare

All ills at the same time from the orient

the west has been bullshitting since 2003 on iran nuclear programme.....

French President Emmanuel Macron has warned that the international community must act to prevent Iran from leaving the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which prohibits it from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Some Iranian politicians have threatened to withdraw from the NPT in retaliation for recent US and Israeli strikes on the country’s nuclear facilities.

While Macron argued the strikes were “genuinely effective,” he cautioned that the “worst-case scenario” would be Iran quitting the landmark arms control treaty.

cccccp

GOP Senators Present Evidence China Bankrolls Environmentalist Lawsuits To Cripple U.S. PowerBY: ABIGAIL NICHOLS

 

Senators met yesterday for a subcommittee hearing to discuss claims that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), foreign donors, and leftist legal activism are behind a “systematic campaign” to dismantle American energy dominance. 

kiev is full of extraordinarily dumb nazis.....

These thoughts come to you from a bomb shelter underneath my hotel. My mobile tells me another one of Vladimir Putin’s ballistic missiles is headed our way.

I tell you this not for the drama, but to remind you that this is no longer a novelty for millions of Ukrainians.

It has been this way most nights for three years now. Being voyeuristic about it here would be to undervalue the emotional toll it has taken on so many people. I’ll be gone tomorrow, and they’ll still have to endure. 

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