Blogotariat

There is a piece in the AFR this morning looking at cash hoarding.

US companies carry an estimated $US1.35 trillion ($1.49 trillion) of idle cash, and Australian firms have around $71 billion sitting in the bank.

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On Wednesday we saw the mainstream media embrace the tactics of the prosecution in the criminal trial of Craig Thomson and seek to further trash Thomson’s name and reputation.

In what is often described as “Trash” or “Gutter Journalism” we saw pictures of prostitutes and brothel interiors and ridiculous tales of alias names and prostitutes with fake names.

What did any of this prove? Nothing

What relevance did it have to the case? None

“Holden has made the decision to pull out of Australia as early as 2016, according to senior Government ministers.

The ABC has been told the announcement was supposed to be made this week but has been put off until early next year.”

The ABC, 6th December 2103

No wonder the number of intercepted boats has gone down. They’re not being intercepted! All their paying passengers are getting to the mainland unchallenged, thanks to the dimwittedness of Sovereign Borders and its two-star general, and thereafter travelling first class …

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This map gives some idea of the geographic positioning of the vast Galilee Basin, one of the greatest untapped coal reserves in the world.

This map locates it in relation to some well-known towns.

Late Final Extra. This day!

World News. Libertarian conference 2014. See also Events (just under the evil dwarf in the photo).

Posts of the week. Andrew Bolt as “collateral damage” for anti-hate speech.

This article by David Sirota first appeared in an American publication, In These Times. Although it talks about the US, the educational crisis has hit Australia too with conservatives in both major parties blaming teachers, the curriculum or too much money for falling standards. As the article argues ‘if we were serious about education, then our education discussion wouldn’t be focused on demonizing teachers and coming up with radical schemes to undermine traditional public schools.

As expected, the British PM David Cameron has asked Li Keqiang to agree to a formal dialogue on cyber security. Not that Cameron had a choice. Before he left Englnd he was in some trouble about his decision to license some £600m in cryptographic equipment to China. Bit like giving high grade automatic weapons to a bunch of terrorists. Cameron also had to play catch up with the US that started such a dialogue a few months ago.

An article in reporting this in The Guardian was introduced with the phrase:

More thread.

A new Global Mail tool for navigating who says what in Australia’s federal parliament.

I’ve seen a number of interesting things in relation to road safety lately, some of which have caused me to revise my thoughts.