A Castle Hill coffee morning and the "I don't hold a hose" Prime Minister

 

What's going on here then? We were in the Castle Mall shopping centre for our Sunday morning coffee, and there was an excited crowd outside the Medical Centre. Inside was an even more excited bunch of politicians, senior health executives, and the nation's media. It was the launch (pre-launch actually) of the country's COVID-19 vaccination programme.

 

When PM Scotty-from-Marketing went on holiday in Hawaii during the bushfire crises a year ago, he used the excuse of "I don't hold a hose!" Now that there's some good news re the COVID crisis, he's definitely wanting to be in on the action. I feel an election coming on.

Here's a Reuters video. Watch for the bit where our first vaccinee inadvertently(?) gives a disrespectful gesture to them all!

Click here: YouTube/Sky News video

"Just don't do it" won't restock the supermarket shelves

It's 6:55am at Thornleigh Woolworths. There's an orderly queue for the much touted oldies' shopping session. Which is a relief, after all the scary stories about how the oldies could out-monster all the younger shoppers when they put their minds to it!









Inside the store they'd stacked a few packs of toilet paper rolls in the aisle, and your correspondent managed to secure one of the last of them. And a chunk of meat. And a packet of Weetbix,and a few face tissues even.

Off then to Westleigh's Aldi, which turned out to be closed for restocking.

When it reopened, the queue was enormous.

During the morning, our beloved Prime Minister had held a much-awaited press conference about the coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic. He told us to stop this panic buying straight away. "Stop it. Just stop it!". He was very annoyed, and he showed it. "Just don't do it!"




'Scotty from Marketing' as he is sometimes kindly referred to, had showed us once again why he is no longer in marketing. Suddenly the queues are many times longer.

Fuelling our climate crisis: criminal media moguls and moronic politicians

Here's what Australia's so-called national newspaper had to say yesterday on its front page about the bushfires literally burning up the country: Nothing!

Here it is, alongside a selection of international papers:

Photo courtesy of the Guardian Australia. I heartily recommend the Guardian article:
Odd one out

Take a look too at the rather fine reports about the PM's unbelievable incompetence in dealing with the fire emergency, and intransigence regarding climate change mitigation or even acknowledgement usually:
'Climate lunatics' article
'Politics has to change' article
'PR nous deserted him' article

We voted this government in again last May. They're largely uninformed, incompetent fools. They have little knowledge of, or interest in, reality or managing it. They're highly skilled only in managing perceptions. They're the government we deserve. Except it wasn't just a matter of us the voters making our choices. Those choices were 'informed' by media moguls like the one who controls most of the Australian print media. His newspapers have for years now featured daily rants about the non-existence of human-induced climate change and the evils of clean energy. Our commercial radio stations are full of horrendous 'shock jocks' spouting all the same stuff. It's surely been a criminal level of misinformation.

Parliament House

You'd think a political junkie like me would have made it to Parliament House before now. It's only been there for about 30 years, after all. Anyway, I finally made it the other day, and can report that it's quite an impressive building.

I remember clearly when it was being built in the 1980s. There was huge controversy about the billion dollar price tag. At about the same time, they were also building those six dreaded submarines that hardly ever work, and each one of those was going to cost almost as much as Parliament House. (By the way, we've been told recently we have to have a whole new set of submarines, and this time there's to be 12 of them and they're to cost $30 billion, no $50 billion, maybe $100 billion. Who cares, it's only money. And by the way, what are they for, actually? No one's bothered to tell us.)

Back to Parliament House. You get to check out the Senate and the House of Representatives, you pose with your favourite Prime Minister (or Governor General). You inspect Australia's very own copy of England's Magna Carta (read the explanation of its significance - it's nicely written and rather inspiring). And you can stroll on the lawn on the roof.

It was a non-sitting day when we were there. I've a feeling I'll be along again soon, on a sitting day maybe.

Doubt whether I'll find out what the submarines are for though.

* (Actually, Paul Keating was probably the best Prime Minister of them all. Gough certainly had his merits though.)