Tech oligarchs have become uber-wealthy in the internet era as platform technology enables seamless reach into global audiences to reap rich returns.

Yet financial success depends on a number of factors, only one of which is personal smarts. Others are: timing, luck, other people’s ideas purloined and prior technical platforms. Questionable origins shadow Microsoft and Facebook as well as acquisitions. Legal challenge against tech giants appears insurmountable, as the innovator of what has become Google maps discovered.

Under prevailing values attainment of uber-wealth, by bequest or smarts, elevates a person to an elite level of prestige that is a multiplier of admiration and opportunity, where sins tend to be ignored or forgiven; few criticise. Favourable narrative prevails. Differing earns cancelling, ghosting, loss of job, reputation and personal threats. Just ask Trump.

Sanctimony of the moneyed  

With their income and assets often exceeding the GDP of many countries, oligarchs begin to wonder what to do with wealth they cannot possibly spend on themselves. More money and power attracts, especially when clothed in the virtue signalled by addressing climate change, “the great moral challenge of our times”.

Promoting and investing in “solutions” to climate change allows them to preen to the global elite at Davos World Economic Forum and at Glasgow COP 26 just how much good they are doing and how virtuous they are. Never mind that 400 private jets line the tarmac at the same time our energy bills increase at an accelerating rate to service their indulgence.

How often have we been told that the science of climate change is “settled”; yet any scientist of worth knows that the very basis of science is challenge to hypothesis, leading to deeper knowledge and greater innovation.

Science is never settled; only the acceptable political narrative is settled, as we found out about COVID as the lies, betrayals and cruelty become exposed.

Climate catastrophe is no different. Many wealthy people were sucked into the advertised Teal election narrative of real action on climate change by what leading journalist Janet Albrectson called posh thickos. For them an increase in the energy bill is of little consequence. Even Simon Holmes `a Court  investment of $200 million in the Teal campaign is small bikkies for a return in political power and revenue from the $20 billion gravy train of subsidies and incentives in renewables. As Queensland Senator Gerrard Rennick said, “I keep following the science and all I find is money”.

As a reality check:

• The climate is always changing; whether humans are responsible for the minuscule levels of CO2 remains debatable. Even whether CO2 is responsible for climate change is debatable.
• Climate change has become a cultish marketing ploy to marshal global control, sanctimony and money. Fear has driven evolution from greenhouse gas, to global warming, accelerating to climate change/crisis/catastrophe.
• Renewables are only possible with despised mining, manufacture and transport and huge taxpayer subsidies: one windmill needs 300 tons concrete, 220 tons steel, lithium, cobalt and oil.
• Lifespan of renewables is between 10-20 years despoiling landscape and ecology. No satisfactory disposal methods have yet been developed.
• $billions in taxpayer subsidies for “renewables” expands as calls for further subsidies for transmission to the grid. Next will be subsidies for demolition and disposal.
• South Australia, Europe, Great Britain and California are living examples that renewables are unreliable. Base load power (from coal, gas or nuclear) is essential for a 1^st world economy to keep the lights on, affordable and making stuff.
• Renewables are supposed to produce cheaper energy, yet have resulted in rapidly accelerating price rises on top of the double whammy of taxpayer subsidies. Paying twice for unreliable, expensive energy is not only foolish, but also a security risk.

Green Murder

Professor Ian Plimer, geologist, earth scientist and prolific author, has published a new book, Green Murder: a life sentence without parole. A blurb for the book explains the futility of pursuit of Net Zero:

It has never been shown that human emissions of the gas of life drive global warming. Large bodies of science that don’t fit the narrative have been ignored by IPCC, COP and self-interested scientists paid by taxpayers. A huge subsidised industry of intermittent unreliable wind and solar electricity has been created based on unsubstantiated science. The same hucksters now want subsidised hydrogen, costly inefficient EVs, subsidised mega-batteries and other horribly expensive tried and failed schemes to impoverish people, create unemployment, transfer wealth and enrich China. Germany, Texas, California and the UK had a glimpse of Net Zero with blackouts, astronomically high electricity costs and hundreds of deaths. We once had reliable cheap electricity and now that governments have gone green, we are heading for hard economic times.

In this book I charge the greens with murder. They murder humans who are kept in eternal poverty without coal-fired electricity. They support slavery and early deaths of black child miners. They murder forests and their wildlife by clear felling for mining and wind turbines. They murder forests and wildlife with their bushfire policies. They murder economies producing unemployment, hopelessness, collapse of communities, disrupted social cohesion and suicide.

They murder free speech and freedoms and their takeover of the education system has ended up in the murdering of the intellectual and economic future of young people. They terrify children into mental illness with their apocalyptic death cult lies and exaggerations. They try to divide a nation. They are hypocrites and such angry ignorant people should never touch other people’s money. (or children, I would add).

The greens are guilty of murder. The sentence is life with no parole in a cave in the bush enjoying the benefits of Net Zero.

Sanctimony at our cost

People wanting to do the right thing sign up to support candidates touting they will save the world by buying into the climate catastrophe cult. Doubled energy bills for unreliable supply soon bring a reality check that the workers and poor cannot afford such a ridiculous frolic, while the sanctimonious wealthy bask in comfort, virtue and money.

Energy security is paramount to sovereign security, yet self-interest (money, virtue and political power) prevails:

• Mike Cannon-Brookes (Atlassian billionaire) bidding on AGL to hasten closing coal fired power generators, opening up vast solar farms and putting up the price of energy
• Simon Holmes a Court funding the Teals to swing the election against sensible energy policies
• Joe Biden shutting down the Keystone pipeline, leases, oil and gas and production that enabled the USA to be a self-sufficient net exporter; now begging rogue states for production – all move the population forcibly to “green energy”, while gas and food prices double.
• Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook tipping $400million into vote harvesting to ensure his preferred candidate, Biden, got over the line, so he can feel good about saving the planet.
• Bill Gates posturing at WEF Davos on control of global populations by unelected bureaucrats with surveillance algorithms under the proposed WHO pandemic control push
• Jack Dorsey of Twitter, who cancelled the President of the USA and manipulated algorithms to influence an election, yet kept the Mullahs of Iran on his platform. A takeover bid by Elon Musk sent staff and the Twitterati into conniptions
• Twiggy Forrest who has done a lot of good with his billions, gets carried away on “green hydrogen” requiring even more taxpayer subsidies to bring to realisation.

Good on these philanthro-capitalists who have made a fortune providing goods, service and employment. Globally they are recognised and richly rewarded. However, they have only one vote, same as us. Our knowledge and opinions, especially when well informed, are every bit as valuable as theirs.

Best if they stuck to their lane, listening more than pontificating, recognising the wisdom and rights of others. They are neither elected nor accountable.

Free and open debate is a better solution than cancelling, gaslighting and dismissing “deplorables”. Money breeds sanctimony rather than good sense.

We’d all like to save money, make money, or have sufficient to live on comfortably. Amongst the many options available to us, one way to meaningful savings is having equipment, organisations and agencies fit for purpose – i.e. using them in the way intended for maximum efficiency, making sure they do their job. Regular review and maintenance contribute to smooth, useful operation.

Sometimes, though, over time, the purpose becomes clouded as new participants become involved forcing agendas in their own interest contrary to the original purpose. Many become disadvantaged, often at great cost. 

United Nations

The UN is a classic case of organisation no longer fit for purpose. Established in San Francisco on 26 June 1945 with 66 members, the organisation has grown to 193 today. The original charter to maintain peace, dignity and equality on a healthy planet has been amended three times in 1963, 1965 and 1973.

Well, the peace and dignity objectives have been lost as China has weaselled its way into a position of power and influence, now heading four of the 15 principle agencies; membership of the Human Rights Commission; as well as holding a veto vote on the UN Security Council.

Russia, also a permanent member of the Security Council, operates counter to the UN objectives by supporting and defending the rogue Syrian regime and invading Ukraine, Chechnya and Georgia.

The UN appears powerless or unwilling to expel or deter Russia or China. So many decisions have become politicised against the west, probably because the West cares about maintaining reasonable world order. Blatant examples, all requiring great bureaucracies, global travel and useless reports are:

• WHO’s reluctance to concede the pandemic originated in a Wuhan lab, causing millions of deaths worldwide, disrupting lives and economies, despite the basic principles of the right to health and well-being for all people, as outlined in the 1948 Constitution; adopted by the International Health Conference held in NY in 1946 and entered into force on 7 April 1948.
• Preponderance of the UN General Assembly to adopt resolutions against Israel, the only functioning democracy in the Middle East: 17 this year, compared with six for the rest of the world; law fare and war fare aimed directly at the right to existence of the Jewish state, indicating anti-Semitism that drove the Holocaust is alive and well at the UN;
• Distorted findings of the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) which consistently falsely condemns Australia for alleged mismanagement of the Great Barrier Reef; and
• Total indulgence in the Climate Catastrophe cult.

In so many ways the UN demonstrates it is no longer fit for purpose: inability or unwillingness to reign in, deter or expel rogue states such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s treatment of Uighurs, Syria’s attacks on its own people; while making regular, useless rebukes to compliant states like Australia and Israel who pay their way.

Expansive growth of the gravy train of unaccountable bureaucracies attached to the Assemblies, Councils, Secretariats, Courts and working groups merely lengthens the distance between purpose and effectiveness. Time to cancel subscription to start collaboration between democracies.

Their ABC and other media

Their ABC runs parallel with the UN in loss of purpose. Refunded in the Budget for another $4.5b over the next four years, the ABC is no longer fit for purpose. In defiance of its Charter to provide unbiased news service to all Australians , the ABC runs as a Green/Left sheltered workshop, with very little of interest to over 90% of the population, who no longer tune in. Time to sell the ABC off to the staff to indulge their interests at own cost. 

Similarly other media and social media have become partisan activists rather than their intended purpose as purveyors of news. Take the contemptuous treatment of Donald Trump for years over the false Russian collusion hoax that plagued his presidency, shielding the Biden laptop story from news until now, when the election is over and the Biden family corruption is being laid bare; and the cancelling of Trump from Twitter, Facebook and other social media, while the Mullahs of Iran and CCP are OK. People are waking up to the betrayal and exiting the media. Share prices are in decline.

Woke Corporations

Corporations these days are mostly owned by shareholders who expect management to maximise returns while responsibly complying with accepted community social standards. Management under capture of The Great Reset defer not to shareholder value, but preen amongst global elites indulging in useless virtue signalling on Climate Catastrophism, intersectionality on race, gender, political correctness, conspicuous compassion or political interest. Never mind facts!

Even as I write, Disney has expressed outrage at Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Bill which precludes Transgender sexual indoctrination of children Pre-K to Year 3 (4-8 year olds). Reasonable most people would think. Parents don’t want their children sexualised (groomed) at such an early age. Yet furore has been whipped up by LGBT Advocacy Groups dishonestly labelling it the Don’t Say Gay Bill.

Disney aims to overthrow the law introduced by a democratically elected government with which the vast majority of people agree. Greetings from “ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls” are being changed to “friends”. By seeking to avoid getting offside with the 1% of the population who may be Transgender, Disney chooses to offend the rest of the population, on the advice of the bright young things ensuring diversity from the HR department.

Necessity of including every kind of diversity in every production spoils story lines, diminishing both merit and popular appeal. People switch off.

A share price declining by 20% in the last year is likely to go lower as government representatives, fed up with Disney’s woke posturing, remove privileges like renewal of copyright on key Disney characters like Mickey Mouse and rights to self-government on their 25 hectare site in Florida. Go woke, go broke!

Disney Corporation has lost sight of the original purpose of its founder, Walt, who truly wanted to entertain his daughters.

A pox too, on all those woke corporations caught up in the Climate Catastrophe cult, who, like Disney, betray their real audience – their shareholders and general public – by refusing to finance and insure businesses that have serviced our prosperity and keep the country running. Those banks and insurance companies, no longer fit for purpose, lose out as projects seek funding elsewhere and self-insure.

Education

Despite the $billions invested in education, standards have continued to decline at a rapid pace, showing poor fit for purpose. Many things can be blamed for acceptance of 30-40% functional illiteracy: poor student discipline, scatter brains from too much screen time; inadequate teacher training and unsuitable curriculum.

Only now are meaningful changes being made to ensure students can write properly, write a sentence with correct spelling, grammar and punctuation as might reasonably be expected; and comprehend what has been written. The curriculum is being taken back to phonics and parents, dismayed by standards, are seeking tutoring to fill known gaps to make learning fit for purpose.

Health Bureaucracies

Growth of health bureaucracies now outstrips front-line health service provision, confounding delivery, incurring costs and delays. Just when technology should be increasing efficiency, an overload of bureaucrats creating make-work rules to justify existence clog the system, pressuring health professionals, extending waiting lists and ambulance ramping, defeating the purpose of the service.

Parenting

Expansion of the dominion of experts and extended education has clouded the parental role of ensuring their child moves from total dependence at birth to be capable and competent in making adult decisions by age 18 years in keeping with the civic expectations under law. In my book Becoming, this transition is spelled out in some detail.

For parents to be fit for purpose in educating their children, experiences need to be provided for the child to make decisions and accept responsibilities along the way in readiness for young adulthood.

Households

Most of us have little control beyond our own life and household. It may be timely to reflect on how well we use our own goods and equipment to ensure we get the best from them to ensure they are fit for purpose.

Out of the many current issues, I have chosen just three which have been widely reported: the death of Kumanjayi Walker, the “renewables” business and the election of Joe Biden as President of the USA. From seemingly innocuous origins each of these subjects had profound impacts on many people.

Kumanjayi Walker

The whole tragedy of Kumanjayi’s life and death began when his pregnant mother drank alcohol. It ended when he was shot three times by police officer John Rolfe in the Northern Territory in 2019, sending reverberations throughout black and white communities.

FASD (Foetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder) is rampant in Aboriginal communities, decades on from a paediatrician’s impassioned pleas to do something about Indigenous infant mortality and morbidity, (low early stage brain growth resulting from poor nutrition). Both FASD and poor early nutrition hamper normal brain growth that can never be regained. For unborn Kumanjayi, his mother’s drinking was both a life and death sentence. Being unwanted, except by his grandmother, did not help.

Learning and discipline are difficult for those with FASD, resulting in uncontrollable behavioural problems, often harming those around him. A long rap sheet of dysfunction accumulated over Kumanjayi’s short 19 years. Attacking police with an axe was one of the later episodes.

Controlling violent outbursts for the safety of others involved the law. Yet police have been trained in de-escalation to accommodate outbursts. For instance, police backed off after the axe incident, which was recorded on body-cam for those coming afterwards.

Constable Rolfe and his partner were surprised to find Kumanjayi at his grandmother’s place, late evening when they went to arrest him. When Rolfe was stabbed in the shoulder with scissors, he drew his weapon and shot the offender, shooting twice more as the offender threatened his partner’s life.

Kumanjayi died that evening, unable to be attended by health professionals because the community had destroyed the health centre at Yuendumu. Elderly white nursing staff at risk had left under a hail of rocks, only adding to this tragic saga.

The death of a black man at the hands of a white policeman at the height of the #BlackLivesMatter political movement generated high volatility, blame and resentment quickly became political. Chief Minister of the Northern Territory joined the chorus. Within days Constable Rolfe was charged with murder and relieved of duties awaiting trial.

At his recent trial, Rolfe was exonerated, releasing a new wave of black disgruntlement at white man’s law.

Yet at the root of this story is the sad truth that drinking alcohol while pregnant, a seemingly innocuous pursuit, can have long-term implications for health, wellbeing and prospects of innocent children born, social disruption wrought upon others and the groundswell of inter-racial hatred so practised. Blaming whitey does nothing to help individuals and communities who stand to benefit from improvements to order, education and health care by those who put their lives on the line to face the challenge. As Indigenous woman Jacinta Price advises, Indigenous communities must themselves step up and be responsible.

“Renewables” business

Original worthy concerns to care for the environment have been distorted by taxpayer subsidies to encourage positive action. A global gravy train of opportunism now despoils the environment intended to protect and penalises the poor and businesses which should benefit. Unchecked under climate catastrophe mania, a worthy ideal has become a serious threat to our national security.

The word “renewables’ is couched in parenthesis, because they are not. In fact it is merely a slick marketing label to draw investors into an industry entirely reliant on taxpayer subsidies that is neither reliable nor sustainable.

As the war in Ukraine has demonstrated to the virtue signalling Europeans, shafting energy self-sufficiency in coal, gas and nuclear to Russian oil and gas has left their national security terribly exposed. Europeans are now firing up their coal, gas and nuclear plants once more.

For decades energy policy has been captured by the environmental movement which has challenged us globally to clean up our act and conserve our ecology. Coal, gas and oil which have, for two hundred years, brought billions of people out of poverty and fed our prosperity, are deemed evil by the climate cultists.

Any business for “renewables” does not stack up well enough for a business loan at the local bank, getting by on global climate mania. For instance, all require despised mining to manufacture and transport; ecology and environmental aesthetics are destroyed by vast swathes of solar and wind farms; energy is lost in transmission from remote sites; and waste management after a short lifespan has yet to be resolved. No doubt even greater subsidies will be demanded to get rid of the failing machinery of “renewables”.

In the meantime, our power bills have multiplied; families are under energy distress unable to pay their bills in time; businesses have closed because energy is unaffordable; and worst of all, running down our base load power leaves our nation’s security exposed, like Europe, to the will of dictators who do not follow the simple green mantra to save our planet with so called “renewables”.

Good intentions leave us critically exposed. Emotion and greed have prevented us from thinking through this issue.

Election of Joe Biden

Election of Joe Biden from his Delaware basement as President of the USA, with WOC (woman of colour) Kamala Harris as his VP is far enough from our shores to be of little interest to many in Australia. After all, Presidential elections in the world’s foremost democracy occur every four years with much hullaballoo.

What has been truly surprising is the rapid speed at which, by fiat rather than parliamentary debate, former President Trump’s policies have been reversed and global order threatened. Every anti-Trump step Biden has taken has weakened America.

Biden has taken USA from energy self-sufficiency under Trump, to begging dependence on Russia, Venezuela and OPEC countries. Shutting down oil and gas production on federal land and closing the Keystone pipeline from Canada has had damaging effects on supply. Gas (petrol) prices have risen, fuelling inflation as transport costs of goods increase.

We are baulking at petrol price rises here too as a result. Under Biden’s Green New Deal policies, everyone (except privileged elites) is expected to catch the electric bus or walk.

At grave risk is the global currency, as Saudi Arabia refuses Biden’s calls, dealing directly with China in Renminbi rather than US$ and India trades with Russia in Roubles.

An ignominious, chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan left soldiers dead and wounded and $85billion military equipment behind.

Biden immediately stopped work on the southern border wall. Contravention of federal laws opening up the border has allowed almost 2 million undocumented people from over 100 countries to cross into the USA in the middle of a pandemic, many dispersed by bus and plane in the middle of the night to cities across the nation.

Drug and people smuggling and child prostitution cartels have been active. Fentanyl from China, through Mexico has resulted in over 100,000 Americans overdosing a year.

Weak leadership in the USA has emboldened autocrats whose system challenges democracy: Putin invaded Ukraine; China threatens Taiwan and the Asia Pacific; Iran, back at the nuclear negotiations, threatens everyone especially Israel; and Kim Jong Un from North Korea rattles his ballistic missiles for attention. In his better years as VP to Obama, Obama knew you “could always rely on Joe to fxxk things up”. Now, in serious senile decline, Biden poses a threat to this own country and endangers the world, including Australia.

Playing the diversity card appointing a black woman as VP has been equally disastrous. Cackling, incompetent Kamala is a totally embarrassing lightweight, which would not matter, except we are all at risk, economically and on national security.

Perhaps woke billionaire tech oligarchs who invested $hundreds of millions to manipulate the 2020 election to put Biden in the White House didn’t think things through. Or maybe they did, and the unfolding disastrous change in world order is part of their plan for a new world order.

The most we can do is be aware of consequences and think through decisions we make and actions we take to ensure maximum benefit to all and any harm is minimised.

It’s almost a hundred years since my mother Nelly Dean and her sister Rita became stars of fledgling women’s sport. With a cohort of others they broke down barriers for women in athleticism, sportswear and competition across track and field, basketball, hockey, cross country and lifesaving. Both became state champion athletes and at 18 years Rita equalled a world record for 220 yards.

Regularly they and their accomplishments featured on the sporting and social pages in photographs and news copy, some of which Nelly wrote herself. Early women athletes had strong practical and financial support from men within sports and those interested in advancing women’s endeavours. In time these stellar sporting sisters turned their hand to coaching, mentoring and administration.

Since then we have applauded as women expanded participation into other traditionally male sports not limited to: soccer, rugby union and league, AFL, basketball, cricket, tennis, cycling and rowing. Performance, pay and patronage for women continue to grow. Our lives are richer for it.

New Sporting Battles

A century on the battle for free and fair participation for women in sport has to be fought once more as males claiming, or transitioning to be female, encroach upon women’s competition, dressing rooms, toilets and athletic opportunities. Floodgates to gender fluidity opened by the Marriage Amendment Act, bolstered by the Human Rights Act and every favoured woke rainbow interpretation caught us on the back foot, athletically speaking.

Following the 2019 issuance of Trans inclusion guidelines by Sport Australia and the Australian Human Rights Commission, games are to be reorganised on the basis of self-declared gender identity, at risk of uncapped financial penalties. Risk of injury and unfairness to women and girls has been subjugated to demands for Trans inclusivity. Female sporting codes must seek formal exemption for conducting their sport as they have for a hundred years. Bureaucratic stupidity knows no bounds!! I know how silly bureaucracy can be because I once supported a Retirement Village established 25 years earlier for residents over 55 years, yet had to prove to the Human Rights Commission they were not discriminating against younger persons!

In deference to self-declared gender demands we use “correct” pronouns, change language and meaning of words, indoctrinate children with false biology, foster an alarming mania of gender dysphoria, allow female-identifying into women’s prisons or into girls’ bathrooms where they have raped girls and women, now without protection or privacy. In the USA college women are missing out on athletic scholarships, being defeated by broad-shouldered (fe)male swimmers (transitioning). Innate male body structure and strength cannot be matched by females.

Thank goodness there are people like Liberal Senator Claire Chandler, who championed the Save Women’s Sport Bill endorsed by the PM. The Bill simply asks that males not play in female sport and ensures volunteers and local clubs don’t face legal action or penalties if they offer single-sex women’s sport. Good on the Senator! Of course she has aroused the wrath of Equality Australia, which campaigns for Transgender rights, which emotionally portrays the Bill as hateful and bigoted.

Acceptance vs Activism

From being a fringe issue affecting a very small percentage of the population, gender fluidity has come to dominate policy, agenda and debate as a result of aggressive Trans activism. Like Equality Australia, Trans activists emotionally evoke hatred and bigotry as they have with this Bill.

No one is safe. JK Rowling, a strong supporter of the LGBTQ community, has been ostracised for recognising two biological genders, and excluded from 25^th anniversary celebrations of the first publication of the Harry Potter series which she created. Beyond silly! None of the precocious offended would have the opportunities afforded them without her genius.

Most people accept biological sex as male or female, just as we have come to accept the LGTIQ+ identifications, marriages and celebrations of Gay Pride. No longer are these issues. Instead of imposing risk and unfairness upon women and their sporting clubs, Trans activists would do well to initiate their own sporting category, the same way that women and disabled have spent years gaining recognition. Such an initiative would receive broad community support, just as have Gay Pride parades and SSM.

It’s a travesty to continue to prosecute a war for recognition and acceptance that has already been won. Trans activists are like the Japanese soldier emerging out of the jungle decades after the war ended, still fighting. Gay communities are accepted: dampen activism that divides. Support for women and girls does not mean bigotry towards Trans.

Religious Freedom Act

Last week’s Religious Discrimination Bill, intended to fulfil former PM Malcom Turnbull’s promise at the passing of the SSM Bill, to protect religious freedom, failed to pass the Senate, having been undermined by voting down of Section 38(3) of the Sex Discrimination Act.

The package of Bills were intended to allow faith-based schools operate according to their charter, much the same as girls and women’s sporting clubs serve their patrons. Again, the gay activist lobby and some MPs interpreted the Bills as contravening the rights of gay students or teachers, without evidence of such having been the case. Being for Christian conservative values does not mean hostility against others: quite the opposite.

Once more protection for the schools and churches from outrageous, damaging legal action for doing their stated job was made secondary to the “rights” of a very small minority, already accommodated with compassion. Yet claims abound that the Bills threaten to wind back the rights and hard-fought protections of LGBTQ+ people, women, people with disability and even other people of faith, by allowing people to use religion to discriminate against others. Gay author and commentator Douglas Murray would call it monomaniacal – ever mad about one thing, hyper offended.

Practice of religion is a personal matter. For as long as I can remember people in this country have been free to declare and practice their faith regardless of what faith that might be. Consequently churches, temples, synagogues and mosques have sprung up all over the country to service communities’ needs.

Earlier conflicts between Catholics and Protestants waned as formal church attendance declined. Ecumenism brought Christians to closer understanding and value of each other’s position as keepers of the message, as Christianity came under savage attack from the woke, post-truth, anti-conservative elite.

Certainly Judeo-Christian values imbued in our Constitution provide and protect freedoms we enjoy, making this country an attractive one to visit and live. Destruction of the spirit and essence of our foundation is likely to result in concomitant destruction of our way of life.

As reported by priest, barrister, author and advocate Frank Brennan, three years ago, Archbishop Mark Coleridge, the President of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, told the Parliament: ‘Catholic schools do not use the exemptions in the Sex Discrimination Act to expel or otherwise discriminate against students on the grounds of sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex status.’

Ms Ann Maree Rebgetz, Board Director of Secondary Principals Australia told the parliamentary committee: ‘Catholic secondary principals have a strong moral compass in relation to the treatment of secondary students in our schools. They believe that inclusivity, as a gospel value, must reign supreme in the treatment of their clientele. This translates into the safeguarding of all students, and particularly those students who are in a minority and may feel marginalised. Religious schools should not be able to discriminate against students on the basis of their sexual orientation and identity.’

When marking the 50th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, Pope John Paul II called for a collective examination of conscience. He spoke of ‘the tendency of some to choose one or another right at their convenience, while ignoring those which are contrary to their current interests occurs too frequently. Others do not hesitate to isolate particular rights from their context in order to act as they please, often confusing freedom with licence, or to provide themselves with advantages which take little account of human solidarity.’

On gender and religion the battles have been won. Solidarity derives from the realisation we are all in this life/country together. Broad scale acceptance of diversity diminishes the needs for activism blighting the rights of others. Come out of the jungle. It’s safe. The war is over.

Science is constantly evolving. We know that earth is round, not flat as once believed, and that earth is not the centre of the universe. Proof developed by scientists revealed these facts, though not without controversy at the time, often at threat of imprisonment or death from ruling powers. Yet facts prevailed, as they must now. Facts once known cannot be unknown.

Follow the money. A trough of money has corrupted science of COVID and climate change. Elites in the trough and media capitalising on fear and click bait have gone along with the narrative, to their eternal shame. We’ve been suckered into being controlled and to pay, to keep us safe.

China’s reluctance to admit that the Wuhan Lab was the source of COVID-19 was supported by the Director-General of the WHO, Tedros Ghebreyesus, who owes his position to China’s endorsement. Corruption caused delays and death of people globally. Who trusts China on anything today? Or the WHO? Or its DG?

As Stephen Covey says in his book The Speed of Trust, the loss of trust can “destroy the most powerful government, the most successful business, the most thriving economy, the most influential leadership, the greatest friendship, the strongest character, the deepest love”.

COVID Catastrophe Science

Understandably, when COVID first broke out, little was known about how it was spread and the impact it would have on people. Rather quickly, science established that the elderly and those with co-morbidities were most affected and should be protected. Children were least at risk.

President Trump moved rapidly to shut down flights from China, finance Pharmaceutical companies to produce vaccines for prevention and assigned a 4-Star General to arrange logistics for distribution. At the same time he explored therapies that could be used to treat those who caught the virus, since implemented by Governor Ron de Santis in Florida, proving effective. For all this he was pilloried by the media, undermined by the Democrats and Dr Fauci, head of the NIAID, who had funded the gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Lab. How many lives has the Trump Derangement Syndrome cost?

Never let a crisis go to waste seemed to be the motto, as governments became ever more restrictive, without disclosing the science behind their dictates. Under ever increasing controls, people lost their jobs, businesses, irrevocable precious family moments in birth, sickness and death, educational opportunities, sport and mental health. Anti-mandate protests indicate the ordinary people have had enough of the narrative purporting to use science that is not settled.

As reported by Adam Creighton in The Australian, nine leading scientists from universities including Oxford, Harvard and Johns Hopkins have urged mandates be dumped in light of evidence they were scientifically questionable, ethically problematic and misguided”. Further, they believe that denying individuals education, livelihoods, medical care or social life unless they get vaccinated does not appear to coincide with constitutional and bioethical principles, especially in liberal democracies. Risks and harms outweigh the benefits.

Facts have trumped fear, eventually. The science has moved on. Authoritarian leaders’ penchant for lockdowns, masks, isolation, vaccination, distancing, closing churches and social venues, proven of minimal value, have passed their use by date. Still the leaders, bolstered by excitable media, cling to their authority. Fearful amongst us who have become hostile to non-compliant of different opinions, are finding it every bit as difficult to let go of divisive attitudes to others.

Fear and threat used to win compliance in COVID have dimmed reason. As Christopher Hitchens said, “You cannot reason a man out of a position that he didn’t use reason to get into in the first place”.

Rather than talk with Truckers’ Freedom convoy protesting mandates, Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, under pressure from Joe Biden, and channelling his alleged father Fidel Castro, has doubled down, enacting autocratic emergency terrorism laws to target finances of the Truckers and those who donated to them. Confiscation of rigs, businesses, fines and imprisonment for those objecting to what is now disproven science. Truckers who kept the country going during the pandemic are now considered terrorist enemy. The world is not flat (although there is plenty of flat land in prairie Canada).

Follow the money: Big government, Big Corp, Big Tech and Big Pharma have all prospered during the pandemic, while small business has been driven to the wall. Watch now for the demand for annual vaccine boosters for everyone from 6 months old into perpetuity, greasing the profits of Big Pharma. Never mind that those who have recovered from the virus have stronger immunity lasting longer than any vaccination. Provisional approval only has been given to the vaccines, which does not guarantee immunity or non-transmission. All that control and hostility has been for nothing.

Climate Catastrophe Science

For 50 years we’ve been subject to an ever increasing crescendo of threat of greenhouse gas, global warming, melting Arctic ice and glaciers and now climate change morphing into catastrophe. Whatever! All failed to eventuate. You’d think we’d learn.

Again, follow the money: Investors in renewables bound for the scrap heap within the decade (the next big waste management crisis); scientists questionably pushing climate change, destruction of the Great Barrier Reef; and vilifying coal, the very commodity that has serviced our prosperity. Even the Bureau of Meteorology has been accused of fudging data to fit the global warming narrative. All have attracted inordinate streams of funding induced by fear, not only of consequences for the environment but of personal censure through the shittersphere.

Facts are beginning to emerge and people are fighting back, at some cost. We owe people like Professors Bob Carter (deceased) and Peter Ridd, sacked by James Cook University for challenging the quality of science being pumped out asserting decline of the GBR that affected the approved narrative and funding streams. The Green Shirts organisation is fighting back against slurs of farming environmental vandalism defending their right to produce. Jennifer Maharosy has meticulously researched BOM data to disclose their fudging. Former environmental activist Michael Shellenberger apologised for “for the climate scare created over the past 30 years.”

Steven Koonin’s book Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What it Doesn’t and Why it Matters, poses that the “we must do something about it or we’ll all die” approach to climate change has more in common with religion than with science. Being settled, science must not be challenged. Shades of Anthony Fauci, claiming he is science and must not be challenged. Kiss the ring!

Personal Science

Staying in charge of our own life and circumstances is not so easy when fear and threats have a major impact on our state of being: all the more reason to be responsible for ourselves.

Know your own circumstances and condition, seek out facts, consider guidelines, measure against your own knowledge and experience, and then make your own responsible decisions. Above all, respect decisions that others make which may differ from our own. Cohesiveness of friends and family will be important in a life beyond COVID and climate change.

Be aware that divisiveness is a tool of intensified control. Just look at how Justin Trudeau PM of Canada, falsely calls up Nazism, racism and pro-Trump affiliation against the Truckers. In the USA, racism is weapon with which to beat up on anyone with a different opinion. Nothing to do with the science we have been called upon to follow.

Follow your own informed science based on common sense.

Two philosophies thread throughout my blogs. Firstly, I try to relate policy understandings derived from analysis of research, reading and listening, to what it means for people on the ground who are not as interested as I am, yet remain affected by policy decisions, often at cost to them. Being informed adds value to life.

Secondly, I aim to build respectfully on the foundation of those who went before us, taking forward what is best and letting go of things no longer relevant. Truth/facts and new knowledge are basic to this philosophy.

These two philosophies stand in contrast to the regressive trend to trash our past and freedoms so hard won, to pledge to new gods of climate change, COVID, gender, colonialism, race and socialism, in which emotion and moral superiority override facts, history and reason.

Like the pin in the pendulum, the blogs are intended as a point of wisdom, which may offend some, yet in time have proven prescient. Check them out and see.

Never Enough! | I Decide

How true has this predictive blog been about COVID and demands of Green’s climate catastrophism that sucker us, not only to loss of democracy but also loss of sovereignty to unaccountable global bureaucrats whose power is never enough. 

Making our Marx | I Decide

We are ever enriched by traditions, modified, not discarded.

Memorable philosophies were built on the gifted legacy foundation of knowledge to which they added greater insight pertinent to the particular era in which they lived.

Invariably, generativity and generosity of spirit pervades their philosophy. Like us, they made their mark seeking to leave the world a better place, richer in understanding.

Misery and poverty of workers, Marx believed, would be overcome by the destruction of capitalism and its wealthy owners. He failed to understand the capacity of both workers and management to change.

Vaccine for Peak Stupid | I Decide

Political advantage masking peak stupid!

That push for renewables was an impossible farce evident from the beginning. So it has proven peak stupid, based on emotions, failed forecasts, facts ignored and faith in the new gods seriously misplaced. Not to mention the opportunity costs of demolition of base load power, failure to allow construction of new power stations, disallowance of nuclear energy development, all contributing to the loss of manufacturing capability and production, weakening this country immeasurably for no benefit. Green lies have made us vulnerable.

Feeding the Crocodile | I Decide

“To sit back hoping that someday, some way, someone will make things right is to go on feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last, but eat you he will”.

I know! I know! None of this has anything to do with us, puddling along in glorious oblivion, anxiously hoarding more toilet paper with every recurring lockdown. Yet each of us has been seriously affected by China’s conscious export to the world of COVID-19, with its accompanying illness, death and economy destroying consequences. Blaming Trump or Scomo is hardly a sensible response: the communist China crocodile has been fattening for decades. The crocodile is coming for us, not the cavalry. Each of us needs to step up and speak up before it is too late.

Don’t believe the Greens | I Decide

Green folly compounds in pursuit of the unsustainable, unaffordable, unattainable (100% renewables) in response to the unprovable (human induced global warming).

Lack of business nous is evident in the absence of a lifecycle business case for ‘renewables’, including mining, manufacture, transport, establishment and maintenance, disposal, subsidies and opportunity cost. Wouldn’t pass muster in a small business application to the local bank, but seems justification for a global scam. 

That’ll see me out | I Decide

In later years, control over what happens can decline rapidly, whether health, sight, hearing, mobility, bladder or teeth, limiting our ability to communicate with relevant others as freely or as confidently as usual. Keeping our memory and marbles are yet other challenges. Limited finances in later years with no further capacity to earn present constraints that override many other factors.

How to deal with illness, death and grief challenges our ability to experience deeply and to let go, taking hope in the spirit of those who we have influenced in life.

The Great Reset | I Decide

Ignoring the wisdom of old, The Great Reset aims to achieve a better outcome, says WEF, the world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed. In short, we need a “Great Reset” of capitalism.

Schwab and other elites are more likely to give us rules than give up power.

The Social Dilemma | I Decide

This blog explores the rise of social media and the damage it has caused to society, focusing on its exploitation of its users for financial gain through surveillance capitalism and data mining, how its design is meant to nurture an addiction for profit (as was cigarette smoking) and its use in politics.

Hidden machinations behind everyone’s favourite social media and search platforms are unveiled in the docudrama, showing that the technology that connects us also distracts us, monetizes, divides, controls, manipulates and polarises us. The promise of connectivity has given rise to a host of unintended consequences that threaten to overwhelm us unless we can address our broken information ecosystem that plagues humanity.

Skin in the Game | I Decide

Nassim Nicholas Taleb claims having skin in the game works better than thousands of laws and regulations to even out the risk/responsibility profile in community, business and government.  It is a simple rule that’s necessary for fairness and justice, and the ultimate BS-buster. Taleb’s reveals insights:

• Minorities, not majorities run the world
• You can be an intellectual yet still be an idiot;
• Beware of complicated solutions; and
• True religion is commitment, not just faith

Mothers’ Day | I Decide

My own mother, born Nelly Dean, was one of a kind who thought outside the box, was smart, vibrant, athletic, witty and capable of clear insight into people and situations. She passed on behavioural traits as well as biological genes.

For mothers, love continues throughout the child’s life. Regardless of the number of children, the ups and downs of family relationships and rivalries, mothers never cease loving and wondering about the wellbeing of their offspring wherever they are in the world, as they stand willing to assist where ever they can. Hurts can be mended, reparation made and peace restored.

May 2022 be a memorable one for all of you, and for the right reasons.

On reflection, we can all probably recall incidents when, out of the blue, we have been put on the back foot by accusations made against us, often without basis. Our mind is sent reeling, as we try to make sense of what has been alleged. We are distracted from the thread of discussion and often from life.

Public Service distraction

One incident occurred while I was convening a major project for two government departments. As happens in the public service, leadership of the initiative had been transferred to another who tried to undermine the work. When I called a meeting with both leaders to clear the air and keep the project on track, it was confirmed the objectives jointly set were being met well. Out of the blue one of the leaders then accused me of being unkind to his PA. The accusation sent me reeling to find what could possibly be interpreted as unkindness to a person whom I had made particular effort to support, encourage and affirm.

It was all a lie of course. The PA in question was extremely distressed at having been used as a pawn in the public sector power game in order to regain supreme authority. Against my grain I could no longer afford to have anything to do with her. The leaders continued to undermine the project, which ended up being a major success, for which they took credit. Underlying their malevolence was the public service arse-covering technique of betting each way: success would be to their credit; a failure would be mine.

Family relationships distraction

When mutual humility and honesty would benefit, too often a relationship can be soured by false accusation aimed at asserting domination. “Isolate, humiliate, dominate” is the technique used maintain power over another, to win favour, assets and control, especially in dealings with the Family Court. Sins of youth raised to discolour the character of one party, judged under present norms, invariably shade character failings of the accuser. Family Court courtesans are willing parties in this dance of distraction for destruction – their careers and fortune depend on it.

Green distraction

Greens and Labor pride themselves on their environmental credentials enough to lord over others their moral superiority. Mostly Green policies involve demanding action imposing costs on someone else. Yet any sensible steps taken to ensure sustainability are never enough. Emotion rules, not fact. Emotion wins disciples, funds and publicity from a left wing media mouthpiece, regardless of the cost to others.

Brand morality assured, Greens and Labor are free to distract from the hollowness of their demands by destroying the value of the efforts of others. Who would know of the tremendous efforts farmers make to conserve their vegetation, soils, creeks and livelihoods when Greens and Labor forever damn them? Who would know about the funds, research and commercial efforts invested to conserve the integrity of the Great Barrier Reef, the poster icon for every global warming/climate change catastrophe claim? Who would know of the 200 year positive impact that cheap coal fired energy has had on creating prosperity, bringing billions of people out of poverty,?

Constant public disparagement of major positive efforts and outcomes distracts from malevolence of accusers. Under cover of the great climate scam, nothing less than de-industrialisation and the destruction of capitalism is sought by the Green acolytes, reordering of society as spelled out as utopia in The Great Reset by Charles Schwab, for a world to be run by unelected bureaucrats. Eliminating energy that has helped so much of the world out of poverty in favour of unreliable, unsustainable renewables is a distraction as we are taken back to poverty.

COP26 Glasgow

Every year around 25,000 emperors gather some place in the world to bolster confidence in their global warming nakedness like a Spencer Tunick photograph (picture), as they rail against the ordinary people trying to make a living. Glasgow was this year blessed with emissions from 400 private jets, as well as taxpayer funded flights, accommodation and entertainment.

Predictably, Australia was pilloried for not doing enough to change the climate or save the Great Barrier Reef, despite being one of only a few countries to meet our Kyoto carbon dioxide abatement commitments for 2030. Unjustly demanding more from Australia for this scam to show they are doing something (look over there!), distracts from their own destructive hypocrisy being exercised in the great global corruption and wealth transference scheme. 

Political distraction

With a federal election and Victorian and South Australian state elections due in the next twelve months, we can almost be assured of more of the “look over there” tactics that have proven successful in scaring people into voting one way or another. Take Labor’s 2016 “Mediscare” campaign, using unauthorised Medicare branding to claim the Coalition planned to abolish Medicare. That almost won Labor the election. Or cast a stern eye over the Greens’ constant loud, scary denigration of Coalition efforts to conserve the environment. Greens actually do little for the environment while pursuing destruction of the economy. Look over there! Their tactics work: we are always on the back foot. For change to occur we need to step boldly on the front foot to show a spotlight on the destructive ‘Green’ practices.

As election campaigning cranks up, it would be wise to cast a keen eye over any policies inciting fear. We know fear works. How else would so many have been so compliant over COVID lockdowns. Watch for lies. Dishonesty is inherent in any “look over there” tactics. Examine more closely the organisation making the claims.

China is the greatest proponent of “look over there” tactics, accusing Australia of warmongering, while it builds and equips the largest military on earth and illegally takes over the South China Sea, Tibet, LAC area of India, Hong Kong, and now threatens Taiwan. The tactic is the same disingenuous game, intended to stir fear, incite submission.

Power of Truth

Often I speak of truth/facts being the only basis on which we can move forward together. Truth is an essential component of my Maturity Model for decision making. Courage is needed to reveal truth: that is why lies roll so easily from the tongue of the malevolent. Social and financial disintegration ensues.

In a recent weekly column in The Australian, prominent international economist Henry Ergas wrote eloquently about lies:

Tacitius, one of Rome’s greatest historians, once wrote, unforgettably, that peoples are never more surely enslaved than by the lies of which they are themselves the authors.

With historical objectivity everywhere in retreat, today’s lies about the past can only fuel tomorrow’s nightmares.

Lies, often repeated, like Greens’ “look over there” tactics, become enslaving beliefs, unless tackled with truth and courage from a position of strength. Are we up for the challenge?