As readers know I am a critic of China, but a fair one, not someone driven by pathological hatred. Thus, all criticisms must be based on facts. Hence, consider the outrage that liberals are exhibiting over China sentencing  drug smuggler Robert Schellenberg to death, for conspiring to smuggle 222 kilograms of methamphetamines from China into Australia. Western critics in Canada are saying that this is a payback for Canada prosecuting chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou. Well, so what if it is? China is quite within its rights to make its own laws and police them how they see fit, and surely we do not want these drugs in Australia. If we don’t like it, and I don’t, then stay out of China, and most of all, don’t do drugs. It is simple; if one objects to Chinese buy ups, then you cannot then impose such standards upon China, that is actually “racist” and discriminatory. Hence, I support China executing the drug dealer, and making whatever laws it sees fit for dealing with Westerns in its own country. Now we know where we stand.
  https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/schellenberg-china-drugs-sentence-death-1.4977808 

     Longer term readers will know that I am an ex-Catholic, one that has fallen away because of the political correctness of the present Pope. A few Catholic readers have kindly sent letters, saying that I should not despair, that this will all pass, and things will eventually get back to normal, like any trial in life. Thank you for this, I sincerely hope it is true, and that this Pope does not do irreparable damage to the Church. I am not the only person experiencing this “dark night of the soul”:
  https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/01/16/analyst-popes-sagging-popularity-signals-fading-trust-in-globalism/

“The approval rating of Pope Francis declined all over Europe during the course of 2018, a new analysis observed Wednesday, in large part because of his ever-less popular pro-immigration stance and other globalist positions. Among German Catholics, the pope’s popularity plummeted by a staggering 20 percentage points in one year, notes analyst Francesco Galietti, who runs the political risk consultancy Policy Sonar, and with Francis at its helm, the Catholic Church as a whole also suffered a drop of 9 percent in its approval rating among the same constituency. In Italy, as well, support for the Argentine pontiff waned in 2018, Galietti observes, with surveys indicating that the pope’s approval rating fell by five percentage points over the course of the year, from 77 to 72 percent. Francis’ decreasing popularity in Italy has been offset by growing popularity for the reigning populist, Eurosceptic government, and in particular its most charismatic member, interior minister Matteo Salvini.

     The new class say that the information tech highway is all clear and that no-one has placed landmines on the tracks. Ask Google though what they have got up to under the cover of electronic darkness:
  https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/01/16/google-youtube-search-blacklist-smoking-gun/

“In sworn testimony, Google CEO Sundar Pichai told Congress last month that his company does not “manually intervene” on any particular search result. Yet an internal discussion thread leaked to Breitbart News reveals Google regularly intervenes in search results on its YouTube video platform – including a recent intervention that pushed pro-life videos out of the top ten search results for “abortion.” The term “abortion” was added to a “blacklist” file for “controversial YouTube queries,” which contains a list of search terms that the company considers sensitive. According to the leak, these include some of these search terms related to: abortion, abortions, the Irish abortion referendum, Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters, and anti-gun activist David Hogg. The existence of the blacklist was revealed in an internal Google discussion thread leaked to Breitbart News by a source inside the company who wishes to remain anonymous. A partial list of blacklisted terms was also leaked to Breitbart by another Google source.”

     Here is all the recent news fit to print on what is happening with the much used chemical, Roundup. First spray is that  Monsanto released ghost-written papers dealing with the safety of this chemical, which is a scientific no-no:
  https://www.naturalnews.com/2018-12-09-monsanto-released-ghostwritten-papers-safety-of-their-pesticides.html

“The academic journal Critical Reviews in Toxicology has issued corrections to articles that it published reviewing glyphosate’s safety. According to the corrections, Monsanto failed to fully disclose its involvement with five articles printed in the journal entitled, “An Independent Review of the Carcinogenic Potential of Glyphosate.” Not surprisingly, the articles concluded that the chemical was not likely to cause cancer in humans. It turns out that the review was written by experts overseen by a consulting firm that Monsanto hired. In a rare “expression of concern,” the journal’s publisher, Taylor & Francis, admitted that the authors of the review didn’t explain why they were not transparent when the article was submitted and went on to outline some of the wrongdoings. This confirms what Natural News and other independent news outlets – not to mention many Roundup Cancer attorneys – have been saying for many years: Monsanto ghostwrites science and deceives the public to make it appear as though its top-earning herbicide does not actually cause cancers like non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

     Last year the generally Left Polity Press published the book  by Salvatore Babones, The New Authoritarianism: Trump, Populism, and the Tyranny of Experts. Dr Babones is an America academic with an position  in Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Sydney. What is of interest to us is the central thesis of the book, that there has been a potential conflict between liberalism and democracy throughout the Western political tradition. At present, liberalism is on the rise, if not out of control, but he does see merit in the presidency of Donald Trump in stopping the overwhelming influence of liberalism, and turning the pendulum back towards democracy. The subtitle of the book mentions the tyranny of experts, and here the central conflict between liberalism and democracy gets murky, because the technocrats are neither liberal, nor democratic, but, as I see it a sui genesis power group. The politically correct liberal is guided by fanatical ideology, but the technocrat is concerned solely with social control and the smooth operation of the social control mechanisms. However there is an alternative position that should be considered:
  https://www.counter-currents.com/2019/01/trump-vs-the-tyranny-of-experts/#more-89408

“Babones is correct that modern liberalism requires deference to expert (or pseudo-expert) authority. The people are the passive recipients of those rights the experts deem them to possess. As the domain of rights expands, experts end up making more and more of the decisions in an ever-increasing number of the most important aspects of public life: economic policy, criminal justice, what’s taught in schools, who’s allowed to enter the country, what diseases will be cured, even who will have the opportunity to run for elective office. The areas reserved to expert adjudication seem only to expand. Previously depoliticized domains rarely return to the realm of democratic determination. University instruction, medical research councils, disaster relief agencies, courts of law and (in America) the Federal Reserve Bank are just some institutions financed by government (i.e., taxpayers) but protected from democratic political oversight. In every case, the rational is that only those with the relevant professional expertise should be permitted to make decisions effecting such institutions.

     I previously covered the story about water being “discovered” on the moon, but here is an earlier story that I forgot to write about sooner, about water being discovered on Mars, and how there is a conspiracy angle to the story, which immediately causes my shell-like ears to prick up:
  https://www.rt.com/news/447139-mars-water-ice-images-esa/ 
  https://www.naturalnews.com/2018-07-26-nasa-announcement-of-liquid-water-on-mars-confirms-reporting-for-years.html

“After years of denial, NASA finally admitted in 2015 that “liquid water flows intermittently on present-day Mars.” NASA said at the time: “It took multiple spacecraft over several years to solve this mystery, and now we know there is liquid water on the surface of this cold, desert planet.” It will be interesting to see what remarks they make about the discovery of a persistent body of water on Mars – if they even acknowledge it at all. Experts say the new findings should put the debate over the presence of liquid water on Mars to rest for good. It’s something that Natural News has been talking about for many years, with Mike Adams commenting in articles and interviews about NASA’s politically motivated cover-up of the existence of water and life on Mars. Natural News has written about the discovery of microbial life on the planet in 1976 with the NASA Viking lander, something the agency scrambled to explain away by calling the instrument’s integrity into question. Nevertheless, onboard gas chromatography backed up the findings – although that was covered up, too.”

     Now the corporates are showing their true colour, namely red, and openly engaging in the cultural wars. Where better to start then to attack men where it hurts, namely, the face:
  https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/01/14/pg-urges-men-to-lose-their-toxic-masculinity-in-gilette-razor-ad/

“Proctor & Gamble is urging men to shave their “toxic masculinity” in a new ad for Gillette razors. The ad shows men fighting, cooking barbecue, and verbally harassing women, interspersed with news reports about the #MeToo movement. A new ad from P&G razor brand Gillette encourages men to reexamine themselves and the way that they raise young boys. The ad, which is called “We Believe: The Best Men Can Be,” is essentially a two-minute broad generalization about the way that men act and think.”

     Here is an insightful article discussing various “signs” which are now occurring that should give any thinking person pause, to well, to think. Plagues of locusts, that sure is Biblical, and things like the shifting of the Earth’s magnetic field, must have a divine sign, if my geological theology serves me well.
  http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/signs-of-the-times-a-plague-of-locusts-hits-mecca-and-earths-magnetic-pole-is-experiencing-a-sudden-shift_01142019

“A massive swarm of locusts plagued Mecca, Saudi Arabia, earlier this week, prompting authorities at Islam’s holiest site to launch a cleaning operation to remove them. Videos posted to social media showed the insects swarming around cleaners and worshipers in the city’s Grand Mosque, where millions of Muslim pilgrims congregate every year. “Specialized teams have been directed to work in the fight to eliminate these insects,” authorities in Mecca said, according to the Al-Araby Al-Jadeed news site. “We have harnessed all efforts available to speed up the eradication of the insects in the interest of the safety and comfort of guests of God’s house,” the authorities said.”

     Most of us writing at this site on the race/immigration issue are pretty pessimistic about the survival prospects of the West, if mass immigration continues. But we are not the only ones, and Italy while in the past being at the German level of terrible, is now leading the way back to sanity:
  https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-01-14/europe-could-collapse-over-migration-says-italy-pm-salvini-insists-paris-berlin

“Italy's Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, said on Monday that the European Union risks collapsing unless it is able to find common ground on mass migration. "If we continue to stall without a shared path, we risk bringing down the European building," Conte remarked at a press conference discussing a recent meeting in Rome with European Home Affairs Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos. Avramopoulos also met with Italy's Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, who has led the country's tough stance against NGO-operated migrant transport ships across the mediterranean to Italian ports. Salvini, speaking with RAI's Tg2 bulletin, Salvini knocked France and Germany for "dictating legislature" over the past decade, adding that he and his allies in other EU countries "want to change Europe, not destroy it," reports Bloomberg.”

     After the mass deaths of about 100 million people from communism in the 20th century, after all the disasters that socialism has brought to South American countries like Venezuela, one would have thought that if the human primate had a grain of rationality, that socialism would have been junked long ago. Sure, they say that socialism works in the Scandinavian countries but this is only a game with words, since what we see are various grades of welfarism within the framework of capitalism, which may or may not work. Those pushing for socialism in America, want to go much further, and unfortunately, there are plenty of sheeple willing to see the institution of private property eliminated, or diluted:
  https://www.foxnews.com/politics/americans-warming-to-socialism-over-capitalism-polls-show?fbclid=IwAR0QFRjrXienkKk5wPV0JCVfA5inBVb5GT6xnwyO2x8HSS2E8atkeTMXNH0

“Politicians calling themselves "Democratic socialists" have made very-visible gains in the past year, with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joining Congress on Thursday and Sen. Bernie Sanders becoming a party icon with the status to bring policies like Medicare-for-all into the mainstream. But the trend goes well beyond those two, as polls show American voters across the country – in particular, young people and Democrats – increasingly warming to socialism over capitalism. The shift is a recent phenomenon, and reflects a dimming view of capitalism more than anything. Back in 2010, 68 percent of young people, 18-29 years old, said they approved of capitalism, while 51 percent said they approved of socialism, according to Gallup. Fast-forward to August 2018, and that same age group backs socialism over capitalism, 51 percent to 45 percent. Democrats, meanwhile, were evenly split between capitalism and socialism back in 2010. But now, 57 percent say they hold a positive view of socialism, compared with just 47 percent who say the same for capitalism. The trend extends to high school students, according to a YouGov poll released in November, which found 14-17-year-olds split 50-50 on whether socialism or capitalism is better. Americans as a whole, however, still prefer capitalism 56 percent to 37 percent.”

     Here is a story about political correctness in science, as James Watson, co-discoverer of the nature of DNA, that is the double helix structure, is now under attack by the New Inquisition for his defendable views on racial differences in intelligence. Let us consult one of our favourite newspapers, The New York Times, that gives us all of the news fit to print, and not a drop more:
  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/01/science/watson-dna-genetics-race.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimesscience

“It has been more than a decade since James D. Watson, a founder of modern genetics, landed in a kind of professional exile by suggesting that black people are intrinsically less intelligent than whites. In 2007, Dr. Watson, who shared a 1962 Nobel Prize for describing the double-helix structure of DNA, told a British journalist that he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours, whereas all the testing says, not really.” Moreover, he added, although he wished everyone were equal, “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true.” Dr. Watson’s comments reverberated around the world, and he was forced to retire from his job as chancellor of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, although he retains an office there.”

     We do not get this sort of research done in Australia, since our academics almost totally conform to the politically correct catechisms of the present establishment, which accepts mass immigration as a matter of religious faith. But, there is critical deconstructions conducted in the US:
  https://vdare.com/articles/national-data-yes-virginia-it-s-a-national-emergency-out-of-control-immigration-massive-american-worker-displacement

“December’s jobs report, widely hailed because of strong employment growth, also revealed a massive immigration influx, far in excess of estimated legal inflow. And native-born American worker displacement remains close to record highs, continuing an Obama-Era trend that the Trump Administration has totally failed to break. The strong economy is muffling the impact. But what when the next cyclical downturn arrives? American worker replacements are entering the country in near-record numbers: the immigrant population of working age (16 years plus) increased by 1.439 million in December, the fifth consecutive month of 1 million+ growth. There are seasonal trends at work here, of course, so it is particularly alarming that the year-over-year increase this December was larger than in any December since 2008. With legal immigration running at about 1 million per annum, this figure implies a net illegal worker influx potentially in the hundreds of thousands. (In contrast, immigrant working age population actually shrank in the last five months of 2017 when the now-vanished “Trump Effect” seemed to be really taking hold.)”

     Here is a good one which people ae taking as a metaphor for America, but it is just as relevant to Australia, or Western Europe; an obese man, planning to go out eating and gaming, with all guns blazing so to speak:
  http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/a-metaphor-for-america-700-pound-man-plans-to-eat-and-play-video-games-while-naked-until-he-dies_01072019

“34-year-old Casey King is so obese that he can’t work, he has to bathe outside in a trough like a pig, and he has to rely on his father to constantly take care of him. He now weighs more than 700 pounds, but he just keeps on eating massive amounts of unhealthy food. Just like America as a whole, he has absolutely no self-discipline and absolutely no desire to turn his life around. On some level he understands that he is literally killing himself with his destructive behavior, but he does not have a desire to change. Instead, he told TLC that he “will just eat until I am dead”… Featuring in a TLC TV series called Family by the Ton, Casey said: “I will just eat until I am dead, probably. “I wake up around 12, figure out something I’m going to eat immediately [then it’s] TV, video games, bed — it’s not a lot of activity. Because of the hot weather in Georgia he prefers to skip clothes, wearing only a headset through which he uses to chat to other gamers playing online.”

     Here is my update on the latest bit of globo-commo nonsense from the Pope. Rather than doing what Popes should be doing, commenting on issues such as spiritual decline, this Pope reads like some crazy person from a wacko sociology department, eager to have his head patted by those who run such projects:
  https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/01/07/pope-warns-populism-is-weakening-the-multilateral-system/

“Pope Francis compared today’s emergence of populist and nationalist movements to the days of Nazi Germany in an address to a group of diplomats accredited to the Holy See Monday. The upcoming year will mark the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the League of Nations, the pope said in his annual address, which represented “the beginning of modern multilateral diplomacy, by which states try to remove mutual relations from the logic of oppression that leads to war.” Difficulties with the League of Nations led exactly twenty years after its birth to “a new and more lacerating conflict, which was the Second World War.”

     Here is another example of immigration resulting in cultural enrichment:
  https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/12/29/swedish-police-expert-says-country-akin-to-state-at-war-due-to-gun-deaths/

“Stockholm police expert Gunnar Appelgren has described Sweden as being like a “state at war” following a record number of 44 fatal shootings across the country this year. Appelgren, who serves as the coordinator of the Stockholm police force’s gang conflict programme, said that the situation regarding gun violence was, “reminiscent of some form of state at war,” Swedish broadcaster SVT reports. Police in Sweden have made 299 arrests from the start of this year until November, compared to a mere 58 arrests during the same period the year before. They have also seized around 825 firearms in 2018, up 30 percent from 2017 and the number of hand grenades seized has also risen. The total number of shootings has reduced from 324 in 2017 to 272 in 2018, though the number of fatal shootings has increased. Stockholm’s police have managed to make inroads into the problem of gun violence, the vast majority of which is related to gang crime, reducing the number of fatal shootings from nineteen in 2017 to eleven so far this year. Police say their efforts in calming tensions among gangs in the heavily migrant-populated no-go suburb of Rinkeby are partially responsible for the lowering levels of violence.”

     Talk about feminists being hoisted by their own petard; now we are seeing the end results of the self-destructive illogic of the system working its black magic:
  https://krcrtv.com/north-coast-news/eureka-local-news/organizers-cancel-womens-march-jan-19-due-to-overwhelmingly-white-participants

“The organizers of the Eureka Women’s March in Humboldt County, California, are moving the focus towards an event date on March 9th, in conjunction with International Women's Day, to ensure that the people most impacted by systems of oppression have an opportunity to participate in planning. We failed to have the type of collaboration needed to be inclusive of some of the most underrepresented voices in our community, namely, women of color and people who are gender non-conforming. Our intention with this march is to affect real social change by raising the voices of all women within our community. We recognize the majority of our current leadership team is white, and planning for this event has been centered around our experiences. In recognizing our failure to put enough effort into being more inclusive, we are attempting to make things right by taking this time to create a more balanced leadership team. Our goal moving forward is to ensure the voices of women of color are heard and centered when we come together for the furtherance of the rights and protection of women. Throughout history, women of color have been proven over and over again to be some of the most vulnerable populations. From the suffering of enslaved Black women in early gynecological experiments, to the current epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women across the nation and beyond. Having their voices go unheard can be a matter of life and death, and it is imperative that a safe community is created for everyone.”

     With the undermining of traditional manhood ideas, boys may be turning to adopting female ideals, although not necessarily going transgender. There does seem to be some biological road blocks here, but do not worry, there is an answer to questions like: how do I as a boy menstruate, i.e. have a period?
  https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/12/16/schools-eight-year-olds-boys-periods/

“Schools in Brighton have been ordered to teach children as young as eight that people “of all genders” can have periods, as well as to install sanitary waste disposal units in every toilet room. The instructions were included in guidelines published by the local council earlier this month on ‘Taking a Period Positive Approach in Brighton & Hove Schools’, which assert there is “more work to do across all settings to prevent and reduce stigma related to periods and talking about periods”. Under the subheading ‘key messages’, teachers are told to stress to pupils that “trans boys and men and non-binary people may have periods” as well as that “periods are something to celebrate and we can see this in ceremonies and celebrations across the world.”

     Articles are appearing detailing the diseases that the illegals at the US border are bringing. This is significant because the progressive elites want open borders, with no restrictions on anyone or anything. Presumably, the diseased will have full access to the healthcare system, maybe before locals, as many are desperately ill. And, if these people are admitted, I agree that denying them full health care would be a violation of rights. But, where does this all lead?
  https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/dec/31/number-sick-kids-soars-border/

“Border authorities are referring 50 people a day for urgent medical care, including tuberculosis, flu and even pregnant women about to give birth, a top official said Monday, saying it’s unlike anything they’ve ever seen before. Most of those in need of care are children, and a staggering 28 percent are under age 5, having been dragged along for the trip by parents who in many cases are hoping to use the children as a shield against speedy deportation from the U.S. The numbers were released after a full review was done of all children in the custody of Customs and Border Protection in the wake of two illegal-immigrant children who died in U.S. hospitals in December. CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said most of those needing help were ill when they arrived at the border, and some appear to have made the initial decision to leave even while ailing. “Many were ill before they departed their homes,” the commissioner said. “We’re talking about cases of pneumonia, tuberculosis, parasites. These are not things that developed urgently in a matter of days.”

     There has been many conspiracy theories circulating about the various sex scenario the progressives get into, with conservatives often “freaking out.” This story adds to the confusion:
  https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-01-08/second-dead-body-found-la-home-wealthy-democratic-donor/

“For the second time in 18 months, a dead body has been found at the home of Ed Buck, a prominent LA-based Democratic donor who once ran for the West Hollywood City Council, according to reports from a local TV station. KTLA reported that the body of a man in his 50s was found by police shortly after 1 am on Monday. Buck's attorney said the deceased was an old friend of Buck's who died of an overdose after ingesting drugs at another location. "From what I know, it was an old friend who died of an accidental overdose, and unfortunately, we believe that the substance was ingested at some place other than the apartment," Buck’s attorney, Seymour Amster, told the newspaper. Buck was home at the time the man died. While the circumstances of the latest death aren't entirely known, the previous death, which occurred in July 2017, was that of a 26-year-old man who had been working as a prostitute when he died of a methamphetamine overdose in Buck’s apartment.

     This one is starting to get a bit old in terms of news, like that carton of milk in your fridge. Can you get one last drink from it, or should you give it to the cat? If the cat does not drink it, then down the sink it has to go. Speaking of waste:
  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/22/opinion/muslim-christian-trump-supporters.html

“At Bellarmine, an all-boys Catholic school in San Jose, Calif., I was often the token Muslim and probably the only person who began freshman year thinking the Eucharist sounded like the name of a comic book villain. I eventually learned it’s a ritual commemorating the Last Supper. At the monthly Masses that were part of the curriculum, that meant grape juice and stale wafers were offered to pimpled, dorky teenagers as the blood and body of Christ. During my time there, I also read the King James Bible and stories about Jesus, learned about Christian morality, debated the Trinity with Jesuit priests and received an A every semester in religious studies class. Twenty years later, I can still recite the “Our Father” prayer from memory. Growing up, I’d been taught that Jesus was a major prophet in Islam, known as “Isa” and also referred to as “ruh Allah,” the spirit of God born to the Virgin Mary and sent as a mercy to all people. Like Christians, we Muslims believe he will return to fight Dajjal, or the Antichrist, and establish peace and justice on earth. But it was everything I learned in high school that came together to make me love Jesus in a way that made me a better Muslim. Even though I don’t personally celebrate Christmas, the season always makes me think of his legacy of radical love. This year, it’s especially hard to understand how Trump-supporting Christians have turned their back on that unconditional love and exchanged it for nativism, fear and fealty to a reality TV show host turned president.”