It looks like it is time for Labor to be let back in to do their damage, political correctness overdrive like the bad old days of Julia Gillard. Then there is tax, tax, and more tax, which should interest the punters out there in the ‘burbs:
  https://joshfrydenberg.com.au/latest-news/21149/?fbclid=IwAR3BU2Ew30nOoogO_QFChoyg_cylpeAA18aiCurEVAWX-8Ccz1sozkHWX7Q

“THE HON JOSH FRYDENBERG MP Treasurer MEDIA RELEASE Media contact: Danielle McKay — Office of the Hon Josh Frydenberg MP — 02 6277 7340 The Hon Josh Frydenberg MP | Treasurer | MELBOURNE 24 January 2019 DEATH TAXES – YOU DON’T SAY, BILL! Facing growing pressure over Labor’s disastrous housing and retirees taxes, Bill Shorten today sought to deflect attention by flippantly remarking that the next thing they say will be “that Labor wants to introduce death taxes.” You don’t say, Mr Shorten! Indeed, it was Shorten’s Shadow Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh who wrote an article titled “Bring Back the Inheritance Tax” in which he enthusiastically states: “From a pure economic rationalist perspective … what is often not recognised is that inheritance taxes are also an efficient form of revenue raising” Andrew Leigh, New Matilda, 7 March 2006 Dr Leigh, who will be responsible for crafting tax policy were Labor to be elected, has written extensively on the subject, including a paper titled “Toying with Death and Taxes”. But it is not only Labor frontbenchers who believe in the death tax.

     America is really being swamped by migrants, not just from South America, but even from Africa.
  https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/04/25/mexico-300000-migrants-traveled-through-country-in-2019-including-from-africa-asia/#

     A recent Gallup poll found that immigration was seen by voters as the most important issue, more important than the economy, but Trump, contrary to every electoral promise, ignores this. Any politician, even from the Left, would be voted president in 2020, if he/she vowed to deal with the immigration problem, but after Trump, how could anyone be trusted?
  https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/04/25/gallup-gop-voters-rank-immigration-as-most-important-problem-in-u-s/

     This is from the mainstream press, so we can imagine that the real world would be starker and grimmer:
  https://news.yahoo.com/africa-coloured-community-nostalgic-apartheid-035505085.html

“It is all about the blacks. The 'Rainbow Nation' is a big lie!" complained Dalene Raiters, a South African mother from the "Coloured" community. "We are not black enough," added her sister who has also been unemployed for years. "We are not part of this country. We were marginalised during the apartheid and even now," lamented Dalene, getting into her stride about the discrimination of which she insists she is a victim. "Our people live like mushrooms. Four generations under the same roof," said Elizabeth Raiters, seated in the living room of the family home in the majority "Coloured" township of Eldorado Park, an outlying suburb of Johannesburg. In total, nine people -- soon to be 10 with a baby due -- live in the property, which has a small bedroom and a hut in the yard. Elizabeth applied for social housing to ease the squeeze -- but that was 17 years ago, and failed. She is convinced it is because of the colour of her skin. Apartheid legally divided South Africans into groups of whites, blacks, Indians and "Coloured," a term meaning people deemed to be of mixed race. The remnants of system were swept away a quarter-century ago, and today the notion of race remains as discredited as is segregation. Yet the term "Coloured" is still widely used today -- and complaints of exclusion are common.

     I really love India. I have been there a few times over the years, and yes, there is desperate grinding poverty, but the people seem to me to live on regardless of whatever happens in the world. There is a spirituality about the place that I did not find in China, which struck me as grossly materialistic, like atheistic Australia. Let’s not even talk about the US. But, I recently read this article cited below written by an Indian about the state of the Indian elections, and had some of my optimism shattered, as  leading Indian journalist Jayant Bhandari is saying that Indian politics is even more corrupt than the West, as hard as it is to believe, and that India is falling away into chaos.

     This is a lengthy piece, but one of the most honest assessments of a person’s nation that I have ever read. Mr Bhandari debunks the media hype about India as an emerging super power, and puts the case that the place is essentially falling apart with decay everywhere, just like the West, with the same cancerous forces of destruction operating there. Hopefully, though, after the Great Collapse, India will regain its spiritual greatness and live on as it has for millennia. Or, like everything else, it will just be darkness and decline, which may be more likely. It is tragic when a great people fall, just as we in the West have fallen.
  https://internationalman.com/articles/the-decline-of-india/

     With all the homeless in the west one would have thought that if the Pope wanted to relieve the church of $500, 000 he could spend that money at home. But, no, the religion of migration says otherwise:
  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6962193/Over-1-000-migrants-break-southern-Mexico-detention-center.html

“Pope Francis has donated half a million dollars in aid for migrants apprehended along the U.S. - Mexico border. The funds will be distributed among 27 projects promoted by sixteen Mexican dioceses and religious congregations, which requested assistance in continuing to provide food, lodging, and basic necessities to the migrants.  Vatican News claimed the aid would specifically help more than 75,000 people who arrived in Mexico in 2018 as part of six migrant caravans. The funding comes as more than a thousand migrants broke out of a detention center in southern Mexico on Thursday evening, authorities said, in a fresh sign of how a surge in arrivals has stretched the country's resources to the limit. Peter's Pences provided the funding, which allows the Pontiff with the financial means to help those who are suffering as a result of war, oppression, natural disaster, and disease. In a statement Peter's Pence said: 'In recent months, thousands of migrants have arrived in Mexico, having traveled more than 4,000 kilometers on foot and with makeshift vehicles from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. 'Men and women, often with young children, flee poverty and violence, hoping for a better future in the United States. However, the US border remains closed to them.' The Catholic Church currently hosts thousands of migrants in hotels within the dioceses or religious congregations, providing basic necessities, from housing to clothing.”

     If there must be mandatory vaccinations, and all the hysteria we see in Australia and the United States, with people virtually vaccinated at gun point,
  https://therefusers.com/students-forcibly-vaccinated-at-gunpoint-in-private-schools-express-tribune/

what about the more laid-back Japan? It should be wiggling out the door with disease, but it is not:
  https://www.lewrockwell.com/2018/10/no_author/692225-2/

     Open border socialists types always like to take the high moral ground because they personally do not have to pay the costs of their promiscuous, pathological altruism. There is also a vast hypocrisy in the system, such as the universities, which while opening advocating all sorts of socialism, will use their obese security guards, usually dressed in play school police uniforms, to kick homeless people off campus. I recall seeing one such police-wannta be scream at a homeless Aboriginal man collecting cans and bottle from a bin. Yet, in buildings not too far away, politically correct academics would be lecturing on white racism. Would these same lecturers dip into their pockets to support a homeless Aboriginal person? Well, I have seen a notable academic who has made a good living off of the white guilt gravy train quickly cross the city street by the university when a homeless Aboriginal person moved in their direction. The universities are hypocritical to the core.

     A good illustration of this large-scale social hypocrisy is the elites and their response to homeless people, and here I have been inspired with insights from Uncle Len, Len Hart, our own dispossessed majority member. The wealthy basically consider that the poor are “unclean,” contaminated, even if they mouth off Leftist ideology in their law jobs or whatever. Evidence:
  https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-29/wealthy-elites-freak-out-homeless-hordes-take-over-west-coast-neighborhoods

     Just reporting the facts, without saying whether or not this is a good or bad thing, which is something we are lucky to still be able to do. How I miss the world of the 1950s, a golden age.
  https://www.3aw.com.au/victorian-council-to-remove-australian-flag-in-favour-of-gay-pride-flag/

“The Australian flag will be taken down from the Woodend clock tower next month, with the Macedon Shire Council voting to fly the rainbow LGBTQI+ pride flag instead. The Macedon Ranges Shire Council voted to fly the rainbow pride flag at the council offices in Gisbourne and Kyneton, and the clock tower in Woodend. There is only one flagpole at the Woodend clock tower, so the Australian flag will be lowered to allow the rainbow pride flag to fly. At the council offices in Gisbourne and Kyneton, Torres Strait Islander flags will be lowered to accommodate the rainbow pride flag. The rainbow flags will be flown from May 13 to May 20 to acknowledge the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersexism and Transphobia.”

     This is for me, the saddest story to be dumped in my waste paper bin this week. I cried my eyes out, used up an entire roll of toilet paper (can’t afford tissues, which are too flimsy anyway):
  https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/lifestyle/2019/04/melbourne-vegan-caf-that-charged-men-18-percent-surcharge-to-reflect-the-pay-gap-closes-down.html/?utm_source=amerika.org&ito=amerika.org&fbclid=IwAR3IxlheRSM5f9SDmmH2Qvl_DyM24rwSWK9Wz3gHH79AAn2FqcErZ3u5qqU

“A "woke" vegan café in Melbourne's trendy suburb of Brunswick says it will be closing down. Handsome Her, a café advertised as a safe space for women and lesbians, made headlines in 2017 when owner Alexandra O'Brien announced a controversial business plan. One week every month, Handsome Her charged men 18 percent more than women. The excess charge was donated to women's charity. The café also prioritised seating women before men during this week. However, the vegan eatery has announced it will close on April 28, after just two years of business. "When we opened Handsome Her in 2018, we expected that perhaps we might make a stir through our brazen and public discussions of structural inequality," the café announced on Facebook. "The man tax blew up the internet, an idea we didn't think was too radical and yet the way the world responded showed us how fragile masculinity is and solidified the necessity for us to confront and dismantle patriarchy," the post continued.

     Unlike the rest of the West, the Eastern European countries are waking up to the problems of the New Order:
  https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2019/04/26/poland-lgbt-gender-ideology-threat/

“LGBT campaigners’ demands such as ‘gender ideology’ and the promotion of alternative sexual lifestyles to young children at school present a serious threat to Poland, the head of the nation’s ruling party has said. Speaking at a conference organised by the group Catholic Action on Wednesday, Jaroslaw Kaczynski denounced ”an attack on the family and children”, following the signing of a 12-point ‘LGBT + Declaration’ by Warsaw’s liberal mayor. “We are dealing with a direct attack on the family and children… the sexualisation of children, that entire LGBT movement, gender,” he said, denouncing ‘gender theory’ which claims that sex is a social construct and that people can ‘choose’ their own gender, and which the Warsaw Declaration says must be promoted in schools. “These ideologies, philosophies, all of this is imported, these are not internal Polish mechanisms,” Kaczynski told the conference in Wloclawek.

     Not every day, but most days, Paul Craig Roberts has some insightful dark things to say, and this is a time of darkness, unparalleled. The appropriate metaphor for our times is decay, and the idea that a fish rots from the head first pretty much sums up how cultural Marxism has wormed through the institutions, to putrify all before it.
  https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2019/04/26/washington-has-destroyed-western-liberty-the-era-of-tyranny-has-begun/

“A fish rots from the head. In the Western world rot is accelerating. The rot in Washington is swiftly spreading to state and local governments and abroad to the Empire’s vassal governments. Washington’s attack on journalism represented by the illegal arrest of Julian Assange has now spread to France. The US government’s policy of sanctions against sovereign countries that do not follow Washington’s orders has spread to the state of New York, where the governor has threatened sanctions against financial institutions that do business with the National Rifle Association. In France the vassal president Macron has ordered three journalists — who revealed that Macron’s government knowingly and intentionally sold arms to Saudi Arabia and the UAE to be used for the slaughter of women and children in Yemen — to report for police questioning. The report proves that Macron’s government deliberately lied when it said it was unaware that French weapons were to be used for attack rather than defense use in violation of the Arms Trade Treaty of 2014. The journalists are under investigation by the French gestapo for “compromising national defense secrets.”

     The bad; talk about the police state; two million New Zealanders have a police alert next to their name, even for having a gun licence. Think about what the Aussie cops have!
  https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12222308

     The bad; this is terrible racism: slim people think that fat people are somewhat sub-human, a shocking prejudice.
  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-6887481/Slim-people-overweight-people-evolved-human-shocking-study-finds.html

     Covering American politics, as a mirror for the West, takes a heavy toll on one’s soul, at least if one still clings to any faith that this can be pulled out of the fires of hell, not too badly scorched. Take Trump’s latest outburst. Not able to stop illegal immigration, he now wants to charge the illegals a processing fee. Surely it would be better to have nuclear war with Russia and global nuclear annihilation, than to continue to put up with this fool! At least the apocalypse would be interesting!
  https://apnews.com/54b8fb5b14ad42de9c2a8c2235ad324e

     Then we have the dude groping Joe Biden who is likely to kick Trump out of the White House, who is openly in the pocket of the Chinese:
  https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/04/29/ssteve-hilton-china-is-funding-biden-family-businesses-with-billions-of-dollars/

     The US Democrats are still pushing ahead to impeach Trump, because, well, anyone they don’t like must be destroyed by any means necessary. The Russians stole the election from Hillary has become an article of cultish religious faith, held regardless of the lack of evidence produced by their side. But reflecting on this, talk show host rush Limbaugh has said that it is Hillary who should be roasted over the political-legal coals:
  https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2019/04/23/rush-limbaugh-hillary-clinton-needs-to-be-investigated-indicted-and-in-jail/

“This is the irony: Hillary Clinton is who tried to rig a presidential election, Martha,” Limbaugh said. “Hillary Clinton and her pals in the Obama Department of Justice and their pals in the FBI — they are the ones who colluded with the Russians. They are the ones that gave us this entirely bogus Steele dossier. You want to talk about irony — for Hillary Clinton to be talking about impeaching Donald Trump. Hillary needs to be investigated, she needs to be indicted, and she needs to be in jail, and any of her co-conspirators in this whole sordid affair, which amounted to nothing more than a silent coup to overturn the election results of 2016. Hillary Clinton talking about Trump — you talk about sour grapes. This is a woman who has been rejected by the American people twice, rejected by her party in 2008, she had to rig the primaries against crazy Bernie in 2016 to get the nomination. She is the last person who ought to be listened to about what ought to happen to Donald Trump.”

     It is the usual; an academic saying the right things that the establishment wants. Can any of them ever oppose anything? They are so predictable, embracing globalism, always, even the analytic logical types. The philosopher in question is Oxford’s Nick Bostrom, who once wrote a famous paper arguing that the universe could be a computer simulation. Now he really gets weird:
  https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-25/global-government-and-mass-surveillance-needed-save-humanity-expert-says

“Last Wednesday, Bostrom took the stage at a TED conference in Vancouver, Canada, to share some of the insights from his latest work, “The Vulnerable World Hypothesis.” While speaking to head of the conference, Chris Anderson, Bostrom argued that mass surveillance could be one of the only ways to save humanity – from a technology of our own creation. His theory starts with a metaphor of humans standing in front of a giant urn filled with balls that represent ideas. There are white balls (beneficial ideas), grey balls (moderately harmful ideas), and black balls (ideas that destroy civilization). The creation of the atomic bomb, for instance, was akin to a grey ball — a dangerous idea that didn’t result in our demise. Bostrom posits that there may be only one black ball in the urn, but, once it is selected, it cannot be put back. (Humanity would be annihilated, after all.) According to Bostrom, the only reason that we haven’t selected a black ball yet is because we’ve been “lucky.” (source) In his paper, Bostrom writes, If scientific and technological research continues, we will eventually reach it and pull it out. Our civilization has a considerable ability to pick up balls, but no ability to put them back into the urn. We can invent but we cannot un-invent. Our strategy is to hope that there is no black ball.

     If it is true that diversity is a strength, and homogeneous societies therefore inferior to them, then South Africa would be a superpower, and China and Japan, backwaters. Not so:
  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-17/south-africa-s-decline-worst-of-nations-not-at-war-model-shows

“South Africa’s performance on a range of social, economic and governance measures deteriorated more in the past 12 years than any other nation not at war, according to Eunomix Business & Economics Ltd. The decline is likely to continue as the country wrestles with the consequences of nine years of worsening corruption and policy paralysis under former President Jacob Zuma, the Johannesburg-based political-risk advisory company said. The fragility of the economy may also limit the tenure of his successor Cyril Ramaphosa, who faces his first national election on May 8, it said. “There is the strongest likelihood of him being a one-term president,” Claude Baissac, the head of a Eunomix, said in an interview. “He is starting with a very weak economy, the weakest of any president since Mandela. He is also starting with a fairly weak hand from a political standpoint.” An index of security, governance, prosperity and welfare indicators shows South Africa slumped to 88th out of 178 nations in 2018 from 31st in 2006, according to an analysis of the country’s prospects by Eunomix. The company advises some of the biggest mining companies operating in the country. South Africa’s decline in ranking is only been superseded by conflict-riven countries such as Mali, Ukraine and Venezuela and its peers now include Colombia, Jamaica, Latvia and the Philippines, compared with Portugal and Slovenia in 2008.”

     A bit of anti-Christian philosophy from two Muslim brothers who claimed that Australian law did not apply to them:
  https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2019/04/18/the-cross-belongs-in-the-dustbin-of-history-muslim-brothers-claim-islam-exempt-from-law/

“Two Muslim brothers who claimed Australian law did not apply to them or their religion have been fined for contempt of court. Mustapha and Diaa Kara-Ali reportedly laughed and began abusing the judge as the punishment was handed down in Sydney’s Land and Environment Court, after they were found guilty of felling trees without council permission. The brothers had tried to argue the Islamic organisation they ran, Diwan Al Dawla, was exempt from Australian law on religious grounds and they were free to develop their rural retreat – which included clearing native trees – as they saw fit. In sentencing the two men on Thursday, Justice Terence Sheahan said the pair only engaged in the court process “following my reluctant decision to have you arrested … to address the problems you’ve created”, describing their contempt of the court as “flagrant”. In his published reasons, Justice Sheahan said the brothers’ claim they do not have to comply with Australian law is false.

     I stumbled onto the article below, could not find the author’s name but some good points are made about the way violence does not go away from human society, because human nature is human nature. Of course, the Leftists deny this, being sociological determinists, but they are dead wrong, and one could end up dead and wrong, believing their rhetoric:
  https://www.theburningplatform.com/2019/04/16/dancing-on-the-crumbling-precipice/

“Human nature never changes. We aren’t better or worse than the billions of people who have proceeded us on this earth. We are all susceptible to the vices which have plagued mankind for eternity: pride, greed, anger, envy, lust, gluttony and laziness. We are also capable of elevating our society through exercising displays of courage, applying justice fairly, prudently managing our affairs, treating others with respect, and acting charitably towards mankind. As Solzhenitsyn noted in his masterpiece, Gulag Archipelago, “the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being”. The violence in our nature is ingrained in our makeup as human beings. The Bible details our violent nature in the Garden of Eden, with the murder of Abel by Cain, his brother.

     I did not know what a “loonie” was until I read this story, but now I know just what a loonie is:
  https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/loonie-lgbtq-1.5107077

“The Royal Canadian Mint unveiled a commemorative loonie Tuesday to mark what it called a key milestone for lesbian, gay, transgender, queer and two-spirited people, with the government saying the coin symbolized progress while highlighting the work that still needs to be done to advance equality. Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau was amongst a number of dignitaries who gathered in Toronto to unveil the new one-dollar coin that pays tribute to Parliament's passing of legislation that "initiated the decriminalization of homosexuality in Canada" in 1969. The coin, which is now in circulation, combines the words "Equality-Egalite" with the work of Vancouver-based artist Joe Average. "For too long, people didn't listen. They didn't extend compassion or empathy or understanding," Morneau said. "Because of that, years ago, people made it a crime to love in Canada. We made being yourself a punishable offence."

     Much of our reporting on the theatre of the politically correct absurd in the universities comes from America. But Australian universities are quickly catching up:
  https://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/white-students-may-be-seen-but-not-heard/news-story/eae6465ad65876f0c8cb971e6cf90cff
  https://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/ban-on-white-males-speaking-suggested-at-melbourne-university-seminar/news-story/60836a42ac2f18597a27b1ab0ebd9716

“Tensions have flared at the University of Melbourne after a workshop suggested “white males” and those who look like “Liberal voters” be forbidden from speaking during classes in a bid to dismantle privilege. Participating students at the “How privilege manifests in tutorials” workshop held last week were told that “white, male students” and “students resembling Liberal voters” should be discouraged from speaking to provide more space for women and non-binary people to contribute to discussions during tutorials. The workshop was part of the university’s “Radical Education Week”, which is organised by the University of Melbourne Student Union’s Environment ¬Collective. Other workshops included “Why & How to Be Less ¬Employed”, “A School Striker’s Experience” and “Climate vs Capitalism: Eco-socialism as an Alternative”.