Every year, the federal government offers what is called ‘acreage’ (old American habits die hard) in the areas (‘blocks’) beyond state jurisdiction (i.e. beyond 3km from the coast) for petroleum exploration companies to explore for gas and oil deposits in offshore sedimentary basins.
Regular readers of this blog maybe remember our travails with our internet connection from a couple of years ago, where it took months to actually fix the problem, with many technicians seemingly not knowing what the problem was1-3.
Now it has started again. Coincidentally, this arrived from Telstra a few days ago:
There has been a lot of stuff in the media about the laughable attempt by Gina Rinehart to have a painting by renowned, Archibald prize-winning Aboriginal artist, Vincent Namatjira, removed from the National Gallery of Australia.
Over two months ago, I was issued (dated March 8) a fine notice from the New South Wales (NSW) government, alleging I had stopped my vehicle in a taxi zone. As I noted at the time, it was incorrect, as the available image of the rear of the offending vehicle showed a Nissan with NSW registration plates, whereas my vehicle is a Mazda with Australian Capital Territory registration plates.
After the Second World War, with the demise of Nazi Germany, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) occupied most of eastern Europe, and in most of these countries they installed puppet communist governments. In Germany itself, the western allies (USA, UK, France) occupied what became West Germany, while the USSR occupied what became communist East Germany. In addition, the former capital of Germany, Berlin, was divided up between the USSR, USA, UK and France.
Some days ago, one of the asylum-seekers released by the decision of the High Court after what has been called the NZYQ ruling, one Majid Jamshidi Doukoshkan, 43, was one of several people charged over an alleged home invasion and robbery in which 73-year-old Ninette Simons and her husband were attacked. Ms Simons was struck unconscious, requiring hospitalisation with head injuries, while her husband was tied up during the attack1.
Some days ago, I saw a meme someone had posted which was obviously from a rabid racist, but it does demonstrate the nexus between the far right and the religious, something I have written about here before, if only peripherally1.
One Matt Walsh, an idiot right-wing nutjob from the US, posted something on Twitter (or X as it has now been renamed by its idiot owner): “Remember when they spent years telling us to panic over the hole in the ozone layer and then suddenly just stopped talking about it and nobody ever mentioned the ozone layer”.
On April 27th, South Africa celebrated the 30th anniversary of the end of apartheid, as it is 30 years since the beginning of the first democratic elections in which all South Africans could vote. That vote ended white minority rule, elected Nelson Mandela president, and brought massive positive changes in human rights, housing, education, healthcare, freedom of movement, and more.