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Recent weeks have seen the deaths of former NSW Liberal Premier and federal Finance minister, John Fahey, and former Labor federal minister, Senator Susan Ryan. They were both exemplary public figures who not only made a major contribution to Australian public life but did so in a way that drew praise from all sides of politics.
The river flooded during the battle, surging so wide, so deep, that two days of eager slaughter were postponed. I won't polish away 80 years of tarnish. The brass cartridge still grips its bullet just the way you found it while walking your dogs. A misfire.
The China story, described this week by the ABC’s Director of News Gavin Morris as ‘the story of our times’, defies simplistic renderings, however much a significant part of Australian-based commentary masquerades as such. The rapid revolutions of the modern media cycle do not permit much nuance or lengthy historically informed pieces.
The Palestinians, and Arabs more generally, have gotten used to this sham of semantics and pretences of peace, watching on as America continues to fund and support Israel’s occupation of Palestine and its projection of military power in the region with impunity.
With the killing of Soleimani, the US has signalled a redrawing of accepted lines in international combat and diplomacy. Most significantly, the killing will be a lightning rod for attacks this decision was meant to prevent even as it assists Iranian policy in expelling any vestige of US influence in Iraq and the broader Middle East.
In a turn of events predicted since he announced his candidacy for President, Donald Trump has been impeached. But this impeachment, and even Trump's removal from office, will do nothing to quell the reality that the world is actively electing aggressively oppressive candidates, not only despite their violence, but also because of it.
The fact that they so easily turned their attention away from the lives of the people threatened by fire to brawling about their own virtues and lack of them offers little hope that the lives of Australians will count with them when they reflect on the causes and the proper response to the fires.
Here, al-Baghdadi seemed to reprise a previous villainous role: that played by Osama bin Laden, the recognisable face of Al-Qaeda. It was similar in another respect: slaying the symbolic head might provide some form of catharsis, but it would hardly redress the logistic realities on the ground.
All of this has the hallmarks of danger. Previous US administrations have been cavalier with using stretched evidence, to justify military action. The region still labours with the fantasies that drove the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The dangers of misreading also extend to the cognitive failings of US foreign policy in the Middle East.
Bolsonaro has no interest in stopping the fires. As a declared anti-environment leader, he sees the largest rainforest of the world as a huge potential for investment. He promised to open the region to the development of agribusiness, so the fires consuming the Amazon are just part of the deal.
The media often portrays climate change as a political issue. But politicians are the least trusted messengers for climate information. They really turn off the public. The most trusted are scientists, firefighters, farmers and weather presenters. Of these, only weather presenters have a large audience and are already skilled communicators.
The debate around climate change shows the danger in believing we humans are principally rational. History gives example after example of how our biases can make us do very irrational things. In the words of Dan Ariely, our species is 'predictably irrational'. It is helpful for us to know this, so that we can become better.
25-36 out of 200 results.