(0800) Morning all … finally light, sky nondescript as usual. (1006)
13. Well yes
However, in the UK, the regulations to be complied with are beyond bearable. Sensible regs are one thing but this is almost mania.
12. Downunder politics is worth a glance
In ordinary times, the Labor vote is reckoned at around 40% and an outsider would wonder why … even today, Gough Whitlam is still widely admired, ditto Bob Hawke. The equivalent of the UK Conservatives, wet and dry, are Menzies’ legacy Liberal Party, which illustrates that the US and Aus definitions of that word are widely divergent. Their vote is usually around 30-35%.
To become a govt, therefore, they’ve always needed a coalition partner … it’s been the Country Party, now National … the farmers, the landed gentry, at around 10%. Then a whole host of mainly leftwingers on the ballot paper. There was a third larger party too, which varied greatly over the years.
Labor is red, “Tories” are blue, the third party usually yellow … did they copy the UK or the other way around? That’s as far as I can remember it.
This was interesting to me this morning:
Why say “disappointment” when they were designed to be the blue component of the Uniparty? Jonathan Swift had it nailed long ago … red-blue, blue-red, take turns, nothing changes except a lot of bombastic rhetoric.
Thus it has always needed a charismatic, flamboyant figure to say no to them. In the US, the chance is that DJT did not decide to go third party but part of the Uniparty … 🍿🍿🍿
“Gough Whitlam is still widely admired”
Is that in spite of, or because of, being on the payroll of the USSR? Or has the Oz public been kept in the dark about that?
But then how many British people know that Michael Foot accepted Moscow gold?
……
JH: Indeed. The Oz public are not very savvy, politically … babes in arms … e.g. Gallipoli.
They are great mugs about Gallipoli because they assume “casualties” equals deaths. I first learned this in a conversation with a Kiwi who laboured under the same misapprehension.
I have also met Aussies who simply refuse to believe that more British troops died there than Aussie, and that more French troops died there than Aussie.
There’s a lot to be said for Aussies but accuracy doesn’t appear to feature much in their opinion-forming.
……
JH: Uh huh.
“The King’s Gambit”
Sitrep Mwerx 18/2/25
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohQRlJ1fSD8
……
JH: 👏🏻. Thurs morn.
Look who else is at M-a-L with DJT recently. The one in the middle.
https://t.me/realKarliBonne/287517
……
JH: Dear oh dear.
Indeed, and he’s stood next to Lt. General Mike Flynn of all people. One’s a hero the other’s a zero.
Went looking so here’s The Donald praising Mike at Mar-a-Lago the other evening:
https://x.com/MAGAVoice/status/1892019355900121281?
Continuing on these are Green Berets who will be working with Mexican Naval Marines to take on the cartels – considered the least corrupt of Mexico’s forces. On the other side of the border a battalion of the US 10th Mountain Division has moved into Fort Huachuca, Arizona. One more thing, a source from Langley; as reported in the New York Post, is saying the CIA is pulling resources out from the Ukraine border and down onto the US-Mexico border. That is all.