Covid On The Northern Beaches:
The Northern Beaches of Sydney saw an unwelcome guest show up for the Christmas holidays in the form of 17 (as of 9AM Friday) covid cases as a result of community transmission. The jump to 17 cases came after an aged care worker and a musician tested positive and then decided to ditch the post-covid test mandatory isolation period to go to cafes, the beach, and even do a spot of shopping. A lot of people are saying that they are a "typical Avalon couple", but if this behaviour from people is typical of the area, it's a great disservice to those who have turned up in droves to get tested.
With that said, it does present a couple of hiccups that should be addressed such as the gaping chasm that separates the orders put forward by NSW Health, and examples set by NSW LNP government. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian didn't isolate after her test, and LNP's spectacular talking toilet Stuart Ayres who went on ABC's Q and A to suggest that the isolation mandate was merely a suggestion and asymptomatic people need not worry about it. We see this quite often with conservative types, like conservative evangelical and Pentecostal Christians who treat the four gospels are merely a recommendation and not critically important to their faith as a whole.
Questions have been raised about the treatment of the Avalon couple at the centre of the cluster, given how their anonymity has been made such a priority as opposed to the young girls who made national headlines for crossing the border in breach of quarantine. It's enough to make one wonder if there's a) a major racism problem with certain media outlets (right, Rachel Baxendale?), and b) if white / rich white people are treated differently to people outset that particular demographic (they absolutely are).
As of Friday morning I haven't seen any wanted posters plastered over the internet or commentary calling for these people to be sent back to where they came from, publicly flogged, and worse... which would absolutely have been a thing if they were, you know... brown.
It's fairly well known that I'm a fan of the saying "eat the rich", but I'm going to be a little annoyed if covid bounces through them before I even get a chomp.
China Puts Australia Over Its Knee... Again:
The escalating trade war between China and Australia hit a new low with China banning the importation of Australian coal. This wouldn’t be so embarrassing if Scott Morrison hadn’t built his political career around his coal fetish and obsessively bending over for the mining sector’s fat and dirty…*ahem!* moving on!
It’s curious that the government has made such a big deal over this given how little tax the mining companies actually put into government coffers. What it sounds like is a whole lot of caterwauling from LNP donors who are losing out on a bunch of money to buy their fifteenth mega yacht. At least they have fresh and cheap top quality lobster to dine on.
The LNP commentators over at Murdoch are still pretending that this is all a spat over a meme posted on Twitter after the release of the Brereton report that revealed Australian soldiers had engaged in the murder of Afghan civilians. Of course, they all lack the self-reflection skills to work out that it goes back further to the way the LNP and Murdoch commentators talked about China after the outbreak of covid. I think anyone expecting them to actually make this connection is expecting way too much from the self-absorbed sycophants who are the voice for our so-called “quiet Australians”.
Donald Trump's Electile Dysfunction:
American President Donald Trump has lost the election yet again with the US Supreme Court throwing out his case, making him an even bigger disappointment in the Trump family than Eric. It makes me wonder what it must feel like to have spent so much time and money to set the board up to win, and used every underhanded and treasonous trick in the book, to have it all crumbling down in such a spectacular fashion like it has. If I were someone who actually cared about the welfare of former president (impeached) Donald Trump, I’d make sure he had access to the lifeline number.
Of course, the only solution left for Trump is a violent overthrow of the government when Biden’s inauguration happens, and it’s here we will find out whether the second amendment die-hards are prepared to support the guy who wants to sleep with his own daughter and is currently responsible for as many deaths from covid as roughly 100 9/11’s, and still no twangy country song for this mess (the 300k dead Americans, not the Donald and Ivanka thing, ew).
This whole situation raises an important question about what happens in the aftermath of the rapist in chief’s reign of terror: while America has dodged a bullet in the form of a far-right government that didn’t appear from as “out of nowhere” as people think, it does now have a Supreme Court stacked with enough Republicans to overturn important rulings such as Roe v Wade, which is going to restrict women’s access to important healthcare on the grounds that their religious beliefs trump the health and safety of American women.
Or, if you’re a cynic, it looks like a bunch of men are now celebrating the possibility that women are going to be forced to carry the children to term that even they didn’t want to stick around for. It’s the worst kind of marking of one’s territory… you know, there’s not even a way I can find to spin this that’s even remotely humorous. We’re celebrating a Biden/Harris win, but these are going to be some really dark days for women and minority groups in the longer term, because we all know how patriarchal cultists feel about the domination of things they don’t agree with, and it never works out well for the minorities.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/12/donald-trump-wisconsin-court-case-2020-election
And now for some weather:
The weather for this week has swung between bloody hot, bloody cold, and bloody wet. Queensland is flooding (again) and almost an entire island in Queensland has been on fire. So far this is an improvement on last year where basically the entire eastern seaboard was in flames. I suppose this might be due to there being nothing left to burn this year and what’s burning currently is just stuff that was missed in Scotty’s Summer of Handshakes and Dead Koalas.
The Obligatory Lefty Call To Action... Well, Signatures:
Please take a moment to sign the below petition calling on the Australian government to drop the charges against David McBride, the whistleblower who brought the war crimes outlined in the report to light. It seems strange that these charges are still being pursued when it looks like the government only sought punishment to cover up both the war crimes committed and their own embarrassment.
