Tech, Creating Jobs, Tranquility, a better world

The LNP is done. They can't win from here unless black Swan hits Labor. They are too solid, professional & free from controversy. It's unlikely they mess it up from here. Morrison won't give up. But ALL the players in the L/NP are playing a longer game. THIS is important 🧵

The difficulty for Israel with the discovery of a mass grave in Gaza in which it had buried 15 emergency workers was that it could not easily fall back on any of the usual mendacious rationalisations for war crimes it has fed the western media over the past year and a half – and which those outlets have been only too happy to regurgitate. Israel has destroyed Gaza’s hospitals, shot up large numbers of ambulances, killed hundreds of medical personnel and disappeared others into torture chambers, while denying the entry of medical supplies. Israel implies that all of the 36 hospitals in Gaza it has targeted are Hamas-run “command and control centres”; that many of the doctors and nurses working in them are really covert Hamas operatives; and that Gaza’s ambulances are being used to transport Hamas fighters. Even if these claims were vaguely plausible, the western media seems unwilling to ask the most obvious of questions: why would Hamas continue to use Gaza’s hospitals and ambulances, when Israel made clear from the outset of its 18-month genocidal killing rampage that it was going to treat them as targets? Even if Hamas fighters did not care about protecting the health sector, which their parents, siblings, children and relatives desperately need to survive Israel’s carpet bombing, why would they make themselves so easy to locate? Hamas has plenty of other places to hide in Gaza. Most of the enclave’s buildings are wrecked concrete structures, ideal for waging guerrilla warfare. Even the usual excuses, as preposterous as they are, simply won’t wash in the case of Israel’s latest atrocity – which is why it initially tried to black out the story. Given that it has banned all western journalists from entering Gaza, killed unprecedented numbers of local journalists, and formally outlawed the UN refugee agency Unrwa, it might have hoped its crime would go undiscovered. But as news of the atrocity started to appear on social media last week, and the mass grave was unearthed on Sunday, Israel was forced to concoct a cover story. It claimed the convoy of five ambulances, a fire engine and a UN vehicle were “advancing suspiciously” towards Israeli soldiers. It also insinuated, without a shred of evidence, that the vehicles had been harbouring Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters. Once again, we were supposed to accept not only an improbable Israeli claim, but an entirely nonsensical one. Why would Hamas fighters choose to become sitting ducks by hiding in the diminishing number of emergency vehicles still operating in Gaza? Why would they approach an Israeli military position out in the open, where they were easy prey, rather than fighting their enemy from the shadows, like other guerrilla armies – using Gaza’s extensive concrete ruins and their underground tunnels as cover? If the ambulance crews were killed in the middle of a firefight, why were some victims exhumed with their hands tied? How is it possible that they were all killed in a gun battle when the soldiers could be heard calling for the survivors to be zip-tied? And if Israel was really the wronged party, why did it seek to hide the bodies and the crushed vehicles under sand? This is an extract from my latest article. Read the rest here: middleeasteye.net/opinion/graver…

Peter Dutton backs out on Work From Home edict. He is flip-flopping so hard and so fast, if we strap him to a generator we won't need any nuclear power stations. #auspol

Unless unis want to keep paying millions to lose employment cases and pay fines to the OfS, they're going to have to recognise they've been asking the wrong legal commentators for advice. People who miscategorise everything. 1/6 timeshighereducation.com/news/trans-pol…

BREAKING! Congratulations to the amazing @FranceskAlbs who has done a remarkable job. Despite disingenuous efforts to have her fired, the UN human rights council voted to keep hey in the position as UN rapporteur for the Palestinian territories till 2028!

@AaronDodd @AlboMP Maybe he should buy the Panama Canal ports while he is at it :)

Excellent move by @AlboMP - buying back the lease on the Port of Darwin from the Chinese, the lease that the Liberals signed off on. It's good for Australia , good for the NT, and good for National security. #auspol #PortOfDarwin

@GregLBean Interesting, but more so, a list to understand their positions on Gaza.

@stu6162 Or this? x.com/GregLBean/stat…

There were 897 Crossbench Candidates in 2022. I'm betting not more than 10 of them supported the genocide. Let's not do group denigration of the people who might save us from the ALPLNP uniparty who are actually complicit in the genocide.

I don't post often. But my last few posts have had zero exposure. Either my connections are all gone or my reach is eliminated. Its time to go. So long and thanks for all the brbs

@rhysam Globalisation continues. The era of US isolation has begun. We will see a flood of new multilateral free-trade agreements as companies re-orient their exports/imports to compensate for a poorer USA.

The Age of Globalisation is no more. Just a blancmange of selfish stupidity. Time to get those trade routes running in different directions. Farmers are going to cop it worst. Hope the National Party care about their constituents.

@Angry_Staffer But this time its different. Back then everyone was tariffing everyone else. It was across the board. This time its just America isolating itself from the world. Like a lens focussing the heat of the sun, every part of US trade is affected. For the rest its only the US part

I promise you that a global recession can hurt quite a bit. And this isn’t a new thing. It’s a thing we figured out was a stupid fucking idea in the early 1900s.

@CHaesemeyer @stephendziedzic Time for an export tariff?

@stephendziedzic Of course gold is exempt lol

Key take-aways for Aus - no beef ban despite Trump pronouncement - 10% tariff (lowest on offer!) - pharma/gold exempt - zip on PBS/media for now - likely as good a bilateral result as could be hoped for - given looming economic turmoil above might all quickly look pretty marginal

@stephendziedzic In my case, exporting high end tech. Its simple. We will discount the supply contracts (tariff) and increase the service contracts (no tariff). It will work out at about a 2-4% increase in costs for our customers. But as our competitors are copping up to 25% increase, we win.

On the less rosy side: high end Australian manufacturers (plugging into US defence/aircraft/space/medical industries) ie exactly the industries we want to encourage, will have to cop the 10% tariff without any govt support (apparently) unlike ag

@ArtCandee No food poisoning when you are starving I guess. Except people are forced to eat grass.

Seems safe. 🙄

He owns every cent of every price rise and pays a political price for that He also owns every lost export and the layoffs that will result And his grand plan - a tonne of new manufacturing facilities in the USA. They will take years to materialise, if ever Its Lose Lose Lose

This means that Mex/Can can wait it out. Trump initiated the price. So polically, the leaders in Mexico, Canada (or anywhere else) pay a relatively small price. They are strong for protecting their nations. Trump however

The self-immolation of Trumps tarriffs is staggering. Trump's strategy could work (bullying). But even the dumbest bully knows that you don't take on EVERYONE ELSE all at the same time. You isolate individuals one at a time. 1/7