How it is

[happy daze john in oz]

One doesn’t like to speak ill of the dead but now that the Year of Our Lord 2023 has been consigned to history’s cemetery, I can safely say that on New Year’s Eve I was glad to celebrate its passing.
It was without doubt one of the more divisive years in recent history thanks to a referendum that we never had to have.
Twelve months ago we were warned a No vote would send a “bad message” to the world. That was the first of the many insults to our intelligence that we had to endure. It was left to Ray Martin to kick the final own goal for the Yes case by suggesting that the reason people couldn’t understand it was because they were either stupid or dickheads.
It was the year when our faith in our once treasured Flying Kangaroo crashed and burnt as CEO Alan Joyce slipped out the back door lugging a massive remuneration package.
Next month it is in federal court facing hundreds of millions of dollars in fines for allegedly indulging in false, misleading or deceptive conduct in selling tickets for “ghost” flights. How was it ever allowed to come to this?
The ABC had a shocker, sacking 40 people from its news division including its effective and non-left leaning Canberra political editor Andrew Probyn and then proudly announcing that it was hiring “cultural guidance advisers.”
What does a cultural guidance adviser do? According to managing director David Anderson they “connect content makers with appropriate resources to make culturally informed decisions.” You couldn’t make it up if you tried.
Meanwhile ABC staff continue to push political agendas with headlines such as ”ABC Sacks Summer Host Over anti-Israel Activism” exposing a serious but all too familiar failure of management to manage.
There were brighter moments such as when Victorians heard from the government that by banning them from cooking with gas, they’d be saving $1700 a year.
The point was then made that as the average gas bill was less than $1700, it was difficult to see how people could save more than they were spending.
Across the Tasman, cracks appeared in the woke wall as Kiwis realised that Saint Jacinda Ardern’s much vaunted legacy, she who performed the miracle of having a child AND a job, was a mirage.
Its new conservative government has told teachers to focus on literacy and numeracy, restore balance to the history curriculum and ban transgender indoctrination from the classroom.
The government will introduce mandatory sentences and boot camps for hardened young offenders, public signage must be primarily in English rather than Maori and plans for a Maori court system, health system, upper house or parliament, the protection of Maori seats in parliament and compulsory Maori history in schools have been ditched.
Albo, take note.
Back home, Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen took off to trumpet Australia’s net zero, fossil fuel free future at the COP28 gabfest in the UAE. We can only hope he was out of the room when COP president Sultan Al Jaber said a phase out of fossil fuels would not allow sustainable development “unless you want to take the world back to caves.”
He also said Adnoc, the national oil company, was increasing production to a billion barrels a day and by 2050 would still be pumping 850 million barrels a day. Over to you, Chris.
Back in Oz, visiting American author Sarah Churchwell said Australians needed to “have a conversation with ourselves about our colorism and the internalised white supremacy that Hollywood has indoctrinated us with.” I knew there was something I’d forgotten to do.
There was one event in 2023 that now casts its dark shadow into 2024 and it’s the ongoing and increasing anti-Semitism now on display in our cities.
I never thought I’d see such mindless hatred on display in our streets, people chanting “from the river to the sea” and urging the violent destruction of the Jewish state and all who live within it.
A new year of itself prospers hope and as we wish each other health and happiness in 2024 it is worth remembering that to continue to enjoy a life that is the envy of the world, it falls to us all to do what we can to make sure it stays that way, not only for us but for our children to follow.





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[Doug Hardie]

A very concise synopsis of the year gone by. You could almost use it for any western society in the world . There are some people in the media who call this a cultural war . I don’t subscribe to that view as all the division is sown by way of a by product of liberalism where well meaning people edit or revise History to suit their inflated sense of fairness. It is the same as communism which seem like a good idea on the surface but degenerates into a bun fight of control politics which ended up adrift and on the rocks .
Doug IMHO

[happy daze john in oz]

One only has to look at the mid east situation and listen to the crap from all sides involved to know there is no result worth worrying about.
Those who want to will do what they want and stuff the rest of us.
Of course they may stuff the world up at the same time but that will not matter to them.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

John.
When we lived in NZ the first time My mother-in -law asked us if we were going to let our kids learn Maori, the Father-in -law said what the Hell for, they only have 15 letters in their alphabet, it would twist their mouths; that they would never be able to speak English properly again. they never invented the wheel, by the time he finished berating her I was in stitches. It was one of the few countries where the natives where dying out when the white man found it, , gees, they where reduced to eating each other, perhaps they want to get back to eating Long Pig again.
Ds

[happy daze john in oz]

Well according to the head of UN this morning the world is on the edge of what will be a very challenging times ahead.
One assumes he talks of the Mid East situation though that was not mentioned.
Maybe after the bomb goes off he will be more direct.