Paul Flynn

Answer: AI steals from artists AI is destroying the environment AI is spreading misinformation at a rapid rate AI is poisoning people AI is taking a lot of energy and we are paying for it AI is using our fresh water AI is being used to create sexually explicit images of people without their consent AI is driving up the price of electronics AI is making people dumb AI has assisted in suicides

I might be overoptimistic, but it does appear as if Trump has just lost it: 1. His war of choice against Iran is an obvious disaster. 2. Trump does not know how to get out of this war, so he is stupidly escalating without chance of victory. 3. Trump has alienated all countries in the world with the exception of Israel. 4. Trump has blown up NATO & other US alliances & even with Saudi Arabia. 5. By prompting Iran to block the Strait of Hormuz, Trump has caused tremendous damage to the global economy. 6. Trump has nothing to offer the US, just cutting benefits. We are waiting for the recession caused by his war on iran. 7. He has started sacking his most loyal appointees because they are also the most incompetent. This is likely to continue. 8. Trump has put the US army in an Iranian quagmire that is likely to get much worse as competent generals protest and resign. Trump = an incompetent & despicable US alone.

Our dependence on foreign oil supplies is our greatest economic and national security risk. We shouldn't be so exposed if we just used the massive energy resources we have. I wrote more in the Daily Telegraph yesterday - and full article below. --- Every day about 80 ships arrive in Australia with freight from overseas. About half of these ships, at least by weight, carry petrol, diesel and other fuels. Because of the Iran war we are getting a hard lesson on how vulnerable we are to this dependency. As hard as the next few months are likely to be it is far from the worst that we might face. This Middle East conflict is not one we are directly involved in. A conflict in the Pacific would put us in much more of a pickle. This week the Page Research Centre, a research body aligned with the Nationals Party, released a report on what we should do to prepare for the risk of conflict in our region. Their report's title highlights the issue, *All at Sea: Fuel, War, and Australia’s Achilles’ Heel*. The problem we have is that any potential adversary can tailor their strategy to cut our sea lanes and smoke us out. This strategy can be effective almost independent of the size of our oil stockpiles. While much of the debate has focused on why we don't have three months' worth of fuel, many sieges have lasted longer than that. Stockpiles can give us breathing space but they are not long term protection. Others have used this debate to push electric vehicles. Some adoption of electrification can help and I love electric vehicles. I would have already bought one but for the cost. There are two major issues with electric vehicles as a solution. First, we do not have enough electricity to service our current needs. Any major expansion of electricity demand cannot be filled by just renewable energy. We would need to build coal, gas and nuclear plants as well. Second, even if we convert our entire passenger car fleet to electric vehicles that would save just 30 per cent of our fuel demand. We can also use more biofuels to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, however, they too cannot supply most of our oil needs either. Australia should never find itself facing an energy crisis again. Australia has more energy resources per person than any country in the world except Saudi Arabia. However, 95 per cent of our energy is in coal and uranium, the two energy sources that the current Labor government refuses to use. Our incoming energy crisis is a choice, not a destiny. It is a choice imposed on us by a net zero obsessed government that has put the pursuit of unrealistic and unachievable global emissions targets above the national security of Australia. Our enormous coal reserves can be converted into oil. Coal to liquids technologies have been used at scale since World War II. South Africa today produces around 40 per cent of its liquid fuels from its coal reserves. China now converts around 400 million tonnes of coal to liquids every year. According to the Page Report we could get such technologies going in about a year. This crisis may end before that but this experience should be a massive wake up call because the next crisis might be much tougher for us. Change is coming. This week even the net zero obsessed Labor Government was forced to rush emergency legislation to subsidise the importation of petrol and diesel to Australia. So, the Labor Government, which has fought a war on fossil fuels for its first four years, has been reduced to desperately using taxpayer funds to support the overseas production of the same fossil fuels they have been saying we no longer need. The Labor Government refused to support our amendments, which would have unwound the prohibitions and restrictions, on the production of oil and gas in Australia, that Labor has inserted into federal law. So we now have the bizarre spectacle of an Australian Government supporting the creation of foreign oil and gas jobs in overseas countries, but the Australian Government won't support the creation of Australian oil and gas jobs in its own country. If it is a good thing to support the importation of fossil fuels from overseas, why is it not a good thing to support the production of fossil fuels here? Domestic production would reduce our dependency on foreign countries too. We are the only island nation in the world that is its own continent. With a continent full of resources we should not voluntarily put ourselves at risk of a modern day U-boat campaign on our shipping lanes. We are a land "girt by sea" but because "our land abounds in nature's gifts" we should never again be so dependent on others as we are now.

The closure of the Hormuz Strait was not only anticipated, it was the plan. Pushing world oil supplies into decline and cutting off China is the opening salvo in the China War. Closure of routes via Greenland, Panama, Hormuz now complete — all part of the plan to choke China economically. The following stages may include:- .. conflict on the Chinese borders with fake separatist wars; .. a US-funded ‘uprising’ in China; .. the divide and conquer of BRICS nations; .. a ‘Gulf of Tonkin’ incident with Taiwan or perhaps with North Korea to draw China out into open conflict; .. then when all this fails to topple China, the only option left is a pre-emptive nuclear attack. Unless the empire is stopped or diverted or persuaded otherwise.