The poverty level in Australia is $ 433 a week, but few people on social security benefits get that, and the millions doing casual work, and exploited foreign labour would also fall below it. Even so, people who live about the poverty line are falling increasingly into debt, with Australia’s personal debt being the highest in the world, the ratio of household debt to income more than doubling between 1995 and 2015, going from 104% to 212%, according to the 2015 OECD data.  Thus, if the average person earns $80,000 net, they are spending $169,600 per year. That is not usually luxury spending but just getting by, with the myriad of expenses that having a family brings, especially having children.

         The mainstream media not only selectively distorts facts, but now they distort even images!

Your editorial "Crunch time for Brexit deal" (15/1) correctly states that the UK's House of Commons must honour the 2016 referendum decision to leave the EU. Unprovable claims that a majority of the British people would now vote to "Remain" should be ignored. Devious attempts to secure a second referendum or sabotage a "no deal Brexit" should be rejected as dishonest. Scare prophecies of what a "no deal exit" would involve should be resisted as lacking credibility.

Despite Judith Ireland's scepticism ('Nothing sacred to see here', 19/1), Australia Day has now indeed become 'a precious national celebration.' It is an important ritual festival supportive of traditional Australia which is under siege from those who seek to undermine its culture and political order. The majority of Australians recognise that 26 January 1788, marking the constitutional beginning of our nation, is a significant date which should be annually honoured with gratitude to our forebears.

Susan Rennie engages in much special pleading to try to justify a change of date for Australia Day ("Darebin not anti-Australia Day, just January 26"). She claims that the City of Darebin Council is "simply opposed to celebrating our national identity on a date that is not inclusive and respectful of First Nations peoples." In reality the council seeks to change Australians' sense of that identity and, eventually, the very nature of our constitution and political order. 

If the British government had produced a deal that involved a genuine Brexit, it would have gained acceptance in the House of Commons this week, possibly by a similar margin to that by which May's motion has been defeated; and there would be no crisis. It seems clear that the government has been captured by pro-EU forces and corrupted. This is the latest stage in the deceit that has been worked on the British people since the "Common Market" strategy of half a century ago.

     The Democrats and other cultural Marxist want to put president Trump in jail for having sex with some porn star, and allegedly paying her to keep quiet, even though many of them are the most sexually depraved people on the planet, or at least vicious:
  https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2018/12/28/kathy-griffin-to-trump-shut-the-fck-up-and-prepare-for-prison/

     Never mind that this is not illegal but a consenting act between adults, and that Bill Clinton has serious rape allegations. But, in the absurd world of Western collapse, this inversion of reality is to be expected. Now enter into this political scene, ageing film star Angelina Jolie, who now may make a presidential run:
  https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2018/12/28/angelina-jolie-hints-at-u-s-presidential-run/

     What has Europe done to deserve such rapid destruction, coming unstuck on all fronts?
  https://www.barrons.com/articles/europe-economic-crisis-is-coming-51545951011?

     Oh, I found a neat summary of this tale of economic woe to make life easier for our long-suffering eyes:

“Summary: Europe faces a huge future recession not because of intermediate factors like falling imports, but because its consumer spending is falling. The “yellow vests” could not wish for a better exoneration: the regulatory, class warfare based tax-and-spend welfare state ran out of money to steal from the wealthy alone, and so has begun to take from the middle class in order to support its diversity underclass (mostly Roma/Pakistanis, Muslims, Africans, Turks, Eastern Europeans). This means that people have less money and their daily expenses are higher, which drives down consumption. It took a few decades to see the results, but now we are at the point where government has dried up the well of its own citizens, who are most likely supplementing their purchases with more barter, gardening, and under-the-table cash jobs in order to avoid the dying economy.

     It would not be Christmas without the progressive degenerates waging the cultural war, and that means attacking the symbols of Christmas, bah humbug:
  https://vdare.com/posts/war-on-christmas-war-on-whites-war-on-white-christmass

     The story here is a bit involved and hard to summarise, but basically we know what it is; a white Christmas even one with snow is “racist,” because “white” is “racist.” Ok, that is what they say, why should I care how debating terms are arbitrarily defined? Let’s ask Uncle Jack.

     President Bolsonaro, called the Trump of Brazil, has kept his election promises, unlike Donald Trump. He is moving to remove the restrictive gun laws that were put in place in 2012. Brazil has a high crime rate, and the ordinary people are tired of being raped, robbed and murdered; Brazil has the highest number of murders in the world:
  https://www.wsj.com/articles/brazil-has-an-idea-to-fix-rampant-gun-violence-more-guns-11546315200 
  https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/01/02/brazils-jair-bolsonaro-hoodlums-already-have-guns-time-to-level-playing-field/

     The previous Brazilian gun ban was a “declaration  of war against an unarmed population.”
  https://www.foxnews.com/world/venezuelans-regret-gun-prohibition-we-could-have-defended-ourselves

     I have a distant and near faded memory of a bit of popular culture nonsense, Art Linkletter, Kids Say the Darndest Things. I typed this before doing a Google check, and the result is: wow, I got it right! This was a radio show, later developed into a TV series hosted by Black American  Bill Cosby. Say that name is familiar, where have we recently hear that? Oh, that’s right, he is a famous rapist:
  https://www.vox.com/2018/9/25/17896250/bill-cosby-andrea-constand-sentence-sexual-assault-prison 
  https://www.vox.com/2018/4/26/17272470/bill-cosby-trial-verdict-guilty-sexual-assault-andrea-constand

     Anyway, professors also say the darnest things, because, they are basically  infants in tax payer child care centres known as universities, also evil institutions. Anyway, here is my choice of maddest uni. raves, and froth at the mouth:
  https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-12-24/five-most-outrageous-professor-statements-2018

     As usual the future rushes up to us, with the decadent universities being the first to show the decline. Now white males are a minority being put in the diversity net, and soon this will be the case for the entire society, as it falls apart:
  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/12/09/universities-launch-drive-recruit-white-males-low-numbers-give/

“Universities are setting targets to recruit more white male students after low numbers meant they are now classed a “minority group”. Essex and Aston Universities have become Britain’s first non-elite institutions to write the target into their official recruitment plans, putting white males on a par with Black students and women engineers. White British students are in a minority at roughly one in ten institutions, according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency. Meanwhile on certain courses such as pharmacy, business and some science degrees, more than seven in 10 students is from an ethnic minority. In 2016-17, 27 per cent of the UK undergraduate intake were white males, down from 30 per cent in 2007-08. Oxford University has previously announced a drive to attract more of the group. Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI), which has released a report on the plight of young men in education, told the Mail on Sunday: 'When putting together our report, we were shocked to find so few higher education institutions had these sorts of targets. “The problem is so evident and we've continued to go backwards.” "Some people oppose this whole agenda - we were told we were wrong to look at gender and should care only about class.” The Institute’s report calls for more foundation year courses preparing students for studying a degree as a means of encouraging more young men to apply.”

     I have been reporting for some months on the frightening military advances made by Russia, but China is competing in the scary stakes, now having almost science fiction weapons, mounted and ready to roll:
  http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/war-ready-chinese-warship-set-sail-armed-with-electromagnetic-railgun_01022019

“The Type 072II Yuting-class tank landing ship Haiyangshan has set sail for possible testing in the open ocean.  The navy warship is equipped with what appears to be an electromagnetic railgun. According to Science Alert, the weapon mounted on the warship was seen along the Yangtze River at the Wuchang Shipyard in Wuhan earlier this year. According to a separate report by Task & Purpose, the latest photos of the test bed ship, which appeared on social media a few days ago, show the ship mounted with the suspected railgun on the vessel as it roams the high seas. China’s futuristic electromagnetic railgun may already be the most powerful cannon to ever roam the high seas and is ahead of schedule. New photos appear to show the railgun perched on the bow of its test ship at sea. Chinese media outlets, such as the state-affiliated Global Times, revealed in March that nearly two months after the first pictures of what was dubbed the “Yangtze River Monster” showed up online, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy is “making notable achievements on advanced weapons, including sea tests of electromagnetic railguns.”

     The US Dumocrats, tools of the psychopathological globalists, are moving quickly now, given their false sense of power to attempt to impeach President Donald Trump, because, well, no one is permitted to have the beliefs that he has, and the deplorables need to be replaced by migrants. There needs to be, in this worldview, more politicians like the Muslim-elect, Rashida Tlab, who talks like a real “lady”:
  https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/01/03/day-one-democrat-to-introduce-articles-of-impeachment-against-donald-trump/
  https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-rashida-tlaib-trump-impeachment_us_5c2fc566e4b0d75a9830a875

“Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who made history this week as one of the first two Muslim American women sworn in as members of Congress, has sent some people into spasms by talking about impeaching President Donald Trump and using a four-letter word in the process. “And when your son looks at you and says, ‘Mama, look, you won. Bullies don’t win,’ and I said, ‘Baby, they don’t,’ because we’re going to go in there and we’re going to impeach the mother**ker,” she told a crowd of supporters on Thursday night celebrating the new Democratic majority in the House. It was entirely predictable that conservatives and Trump supporters would erupt with faux outrage at hearing foul language from a Democrat. And Trump ? the president who famously spoke of grabbing women “by the p**sy,” called Haiti and some African nations “sh**hole countries” and who has even publicly hurled “motherf**kers” himself ? said Tlaib “dishonored her family” with the comment.”

     This item is important because it shows the bias and perpetuation of “false news” by the mainstream media, in this case the New York Times, against President Trump:
  https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2019/01/02/nolte-fired-editor-jill-abramson-rips-the-nyts-trump-derangement-syndrome/

“Jill Abramson, the former executive editor of the far-left New York Times, the same triggered loon who carries an Obama doll in her purse to “comfort” her wounded soul in Trump’s America, is accusing the Times of being a gang of money-hungry hacks who have sold their souls to the anti-Trump Resistance. Howard Kurtz at Fox News reports that in her upcoming book,  Merchants of Truth, Abramson blasts away at her successor, Dean Baquet. “Though Baquet said publicly he didn’t want the Times to be the opposition party, his news pages were unmistakably anti-Trump,” Abramson writes. “Some headlines contained raw opinion, as did some of the stories that were labelled as news analysis.”

     One of the most disgusting, indeed shameful things to be spewed from the university system in the West is a culture of victimhood, which is a by-product of political correctness. People lose their identity as individuals and pursue resources through claiming minority status. Often this means lying about ethno-racial origins, and sometimes these rotters come unstuck. Anyway, there is a new book all about this.
  https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/01/05/sociology-professors-examine-victimhood-culture-in-new-book-2/

“Two sociology professors from across the country teamed up last year to publish a book on “victimhood culture.” The book, entitled The Rise of Victimhood Culture, was published in 2018 by Professor Bradley Campbell of Cal State Los Angeles and Professor Jason Manning of West Virginia University. The book addresses the “victimhood culture” trend that is especially popular on college campuses. Young Americans now proudly exploit their minority statuses for personal gain. Those who support this new cultural development believe that there is something noble about belonging to a minority group. As a result, some young people use their minority status to destroy others for minor and even accidental slights. The book was highlighted by a recent report by The College Fix. The two professors argue that “victimhood culture” is the new source of cultural pride for American youth. In previous eras, pride was derived from one’s financial status, honor, or dignity.”
https://www.thecollegefix.com/two-sociologists-detail-the-rise-of-victimhood-culture-and-how-its-used-for-social-control/

     This article caught my eye; the typical gender agenda attack upon some sacred institution, this time breast-feeding. Saying that breast-feeding is natural, which it is, reinforces gender roles. That to me is a good thing, but for the progressives, it is “unethical,” according to their weird paradigm:
  http://www.iwf.org/news/2803518/Study:-Describing-Breastfeeding-as-%E2%80%98Natural%E2%80%99-Is-Unethical-Because-It-Reinforces-Gender-Roles?fbclid=IwAR0zdWCZM-iKVAlpDoyBhaHoUZ5jRuJDehV1C411Ed17Bl-hLtXCv7C8C2c

“It’s “ethically inappropriate” for government and medical organizations to describe breastfeeding as “natural” because the term enforces rigid notions about gender roles, claims a new study in Pediatrics. “Coupling nature with motherhood… can inadvertently support biologically deterministic arguments about the roles of men and women in the family (for example, that women should be the primary caretaker,” the study says. The study notes that in recent years, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the World Health Organization, and several state departments of health have all promoted breastfeeding over bottle-feeding, using the term “natural.” “Referencing the ‘natural’ in breastfeeding promotion… may inadvertently endorse a set of values about family life and gender roles, which would be ethically inappropriate,” the study says. Unless such public-service announcements “make transparent the ‘values and beliefs that underlie them,’” they should quit describing breastfeeding as “natural.”

     OK dear  feminists, I know that at morning tea, when you eat your cream cakes, you flick on the internet to see if I have written any further critiques of your weird worldview, and laugh at me the  “silly old so and so.” So, now that you are comfortable in your genre gender neutral arm chair, consider this challenge; that a case has been made that men are now the disadvantaged sex in the West:
  https://metro.co.uk/2019/01/04/men-disadvantaged-women-uk-us-europe-scientists-claim-8309361/?utm

“Scientists have invented a new way of measuring gender equality and claimed it shows men are more disadvantaged than women in most developed countries. Researchers from the University of Missouri and University of Essex in the United Kingdom said previous ways of measuring inequality are ‘biased to highlight women’s issues’. Their Basic Index of Gender Inequality (BIGI) instead measures three factors: educational opportunities, healthy life expectancy and overall life satisfaction. The academics calculated scores for 134 nations and used the results to suggest men are more disadvantaged than women in 91 nations.

     Here is an example of society in free fall; the UK army has recruitment ads targeting “me, me, me, millennials, class clowns, binge gamers, phone zombies, snow flakes and selfie addicts.” Did they miss anyone?
  https://www.rt.com/uk/447993-uk-army-recruit-young-snowflakes/
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFGHEZMSek4&feature=youtu.be

“The British Army has come under fire for its latest recruitment drive targeting young people with posters calling on “snowflakes, selfie addicts, class clowns, phone zombies, and me, me, millennials” to join the military. The campaign is a bid to attract young people to join the UK forces by claiming the army is looking for special skills in order to convince young people that their snowflake attitudes, obsession with their phones, and passion for video games make them right for a career in combat. The campaign’s television ads show young people being undervalued in their jobs, and claims the army is looking for such people as it recognises their potential. The drab work scenes are cut with exciting scenes of soldiers delivering humanitarian aid and other military moments. The recruitment drive is targeting 16 to 25-year-olds, also known as Generation Z (those born between 1995-2015), to join the army’s ranks. In the UK, 16-year-olds are allowed to join the army. Between 2015-2016, more than a fifth of new recruits were under 18.”

     Hollywood is big on the banning of the private ownership of firearms, yet in all the Hollywood movies produced, there may be more rounds fired through guns that ever occurred in a war. Actors who have made a living playing tough guy gunmen, proclaim the evils of guns. Just imagine if the same thing as done with cigarettes, that one cried about the evils of smoking, while growing tobacco.
  https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2019/01/06/golden-globes-anti-gun-hollywood-surrounded-by-security-walls-and-armed-guards/

“Anti-gun Hollywood celebrities enjoyed presidential-level protection by barricades, bomb-sniffing dogs, armed guards, LAPD officers, and numerous security checkpoints as they arrived for the 2019 Golden Globes. Security was reportedly ramped up after last month’s triple stabbing at a Manchester railway station on New Year’s Eve. “The recent attacks in Europe only reinforce that nothing can be left to chance tactically and strategically,” a Los Angeles law enforcement official told Deadline. “Our plan is to have eyes everywhere and shut down any possible disturbance that could arise long before it gets anywhere near the venue or the event.”