In 1992, I went to Russia and Kazakhstan on what was supposed to be an Australia-USSR science agreement exchange program visit (the USSR had ceased to exist at this time, so the Australian government paid for the whole trip). A Russian researcher had come to Australia to work with one of my colleagues and me in 1990. We had moved into a new house a week before I hopped on the plane to Moscow, leaving behind my partner and our two little boys aged 6 and 3.
I know that not a huge proportion of Americans know what is going on beyond the borders of the US, and this was brought home to me recently, when I was reading something about the massive No Kings protests in myriad cities and town across the US. One source I read estimated that about 13 million people demonstrated.
As most people will have seen, in various places around the US, people in neighbourhoods have turned out to harass the Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) as they attempted to pick up assorted people for detention or deportation1.
Annus horribilis is a Latin phrase that means “horrible year”. While it was initially used in the year 1891 in an Anglican publication to describe 1870, the year in which the dogma of papal infallibility was defined in the Catholic Church.
We bought an electric car; not a swasticar, but a Hyundai Kona. We have had it for three months and up until today had only driven it about 1500 km. On Friday we drove to Sydney to see family, and never having driven more than about 20 km in one hit, a drive of some 350 kms was taken on with some nervousness.
Universal Basic Income (UBI) is an income support policy under which all individuals receive a regular unconditional cash payment from the government, regardless of employment status or income level. In other words, every adult citizen (and sometimes children, at a lesser amount) is granted a basic stipend periodically, with no means test or work requirement attached.
Neoliberal economics began when a group of economists (Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, Frank Knight) met at the Swiss resort of Mont Pèlerin to draft what they hoped would become the dominant economic model. Their model was inspired by the pro-market writings of classical economic liberals such as Adam Smith (1723-1790) and David Ricardo (1772-1823).
One of the things about the shemozzle of the Trump regime which makes me laugh, is some insular muppets who probably don’t have passports and only vaguely know where Europe is, have been asking: “Has the Democratic Party shifted too far to the left?” Compared to most other western democracies, the Democratic Party would be considered to be right wing, while the Republican Party are now mostly far right, supporting as they do, a half-witted malevolent oligarchy.
After the Liberal Party’s crushing defeat in the weekend’s federal election, it wasn’t going to be long before the recriminations started. However, it is probably useful to go back to the election result to see how extraordinary it was. It is the first time since World War 2 that a first term Australian federal government has had a swing towards it rather than away from it.