Australia finds itself in new territory, grappling with a relationship based on shared economic interests but, as China brandishes its meddling authoritarian ways, at ideological odds. The latest revelations are a major wake-up call for Australia to ensure it protects itself, and its way of life.
These are the lead stories on The Age Online website. Preservation of our way of life you would hope is more important than foreign trade.
Bo ‘Nick’ Zhao was in trouble financially when he said he was approached with a million-dollar offer to become China’s man in Federal Parliament. ASIO released an extraordinary statement late on Sunday about the latest revelations.
The Morrison government has assured Australians the nation’s domestic spy agency is investigating claims from a potential Chinese defector that China tried to get a spy elected to Federal Parliament.
The election was seen as a test of community support for protests that continue after five months, with establishment figures campaigning on the need to restore stability.
I’m disgusted by the idea that Michael Bloomberg or any billionaire thinks they can circumvent the political process and spend tens of millions of dollars to buy elections.
If you can’t build grassroots support for your candidacy, you have no business running for president. https://t.co/jyIBVXUToj
A week after Paul Keating mocked democracy and accused Australia’s intelligence agencies and journalists of conspiring to invent espionage claims against China, charges of Beijing-ordered murder and an attempt to install a Chinese agent in federal parliament have been aired tonight by 60 Minutes. ASIO has confirmed the latter is being investigated. Meanwhile, one possible orchestrator of assassination – Wang Liqiang – has sought political asylum after making a sworn statement to ASIO about his alleged activities on Australian soil. China has already dismissed Mr Wang as a fraudster. They could hardly say anything else. The second bookend to this diplomatic and national security crisis – Keating’s speech to the Australian Strategic Forum last Monday being the other – is an interview with outgoing ASIO chief Duncan Lewis to be published this week in Quarterly Essay. Reports say he will accuse the Chinese government of using “insidious” interference operations to “take over” Australia’s political system. The timing of these events is interesting to say the least.
Friday’s roundtable on vaping was one of the more interesting White House discussions on a matter of contentious public policy for a long time. Industry representatives, medicos and parents’ groups gathered amidst growing concerns in the US about deaths and illness allegedly caused by e-cigarettes. At least 50 fatalities and 2000 hospitalisations have been linked – albeit loosely at this stage – to the increasingly voguish product. Some critics want an outright ban on vaping, some a ban on flavoured e-cigarettes (thought to be enticing to minors) and some want, at the very least, a nationally imposed age restriction on sales. Participants debated the pros and cons for Donald Trump’s edification with aggressive gusto. That was a break from recent convention. Meetings chaired by the President are usually subdued, if not staged and precious.
The most interesting aspect of the debate was the known attitude of Trump himself. He is not only a lifelong teetotaler but also a lifelong non-smoker. He has never smoked a cigarette. He attributes this dual abstemiousness to the death of his alcoholic brother, Fred Trump, at 43. Fred was an aficionado of both habits. Encouraged by the First Lady – whose roving interests include the health and well-being of children and teenagers – in September the President announced a ban on flavoured e-cigarettes. Given his personal predilections, this came as no surprise and was applauded by the health lobby.
No vaping front in the war on drugs, after all
He now appears to have changed his mind. Lobbied by manufacturers who say a flavours ban will cause serious job losses and disadvantage adults who vape as a way to quit conventional smoking, he is limiting policy change to an age limit (21) on purchases. In doing so, he echoed the concern voiced by others about dangerous “counterfeit” alternatives flooding the country. Sitting alongside Trump on Friday was Mitt Romney, one of few men as puritanical regarding drugs. He pointed out that tobacco-quitting adult vapers are not interested in flavours anyway. That put the lie to the industry’s customary narrative about being in the quitting business. They are, of course, in the habit business.
Critics are already accusing the President of reversing course to placate mega-donors and a Republican base leery of commercial bans and anti-smoking scolds. The criticism is two-thirds right. There is no doubt the turn-around has a political dimension. But history has its lessons as well as its uses and only a foolhardy President scorns either. That’s the remaining third that mattered. Notwithstanding his own austerity, the President accepted the argument about the risk of bootleggers’ versions and was right to do so. Tens of thousands of Americans died from drinking “Bathtub Gin” and rotgut during Prohibition. All in all, the policy arc on vaping has been a case study in Trump’s modus operandi. As with his prison-reforming First Step Act – the nearest thing to a praised-from-all-quarters initiative during his term – Trump sought to lead boldly on a ‘social issue’ and in a liberal direction (US ‘liberals’ being as pious on smoking as he is). There followed the shouting, the enlightenment and the ‘walk-back.’ Some call it chaos but the end result here is sound policy.
NSW Electricity Strategy: Our plan for a reliable, affordable and sustainable electricity system
Firmed renewables are the cheapest type of new reliable generation.
Today, wind and solar are the cheapest forms of new electricity generation. These technologies are the most environmentally friendly. When paired with batteries, pumped hydro or gas-fired generators, they can reliably supply electricity when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing, and are the lowest cost option to replace power stations as they close.
Businesses and investors are seeing this opportunity. As at October 2019, NSW has more than 100 private sector proposals to build large renewable generators. If built, these generators would total 17,700 megawatts (MW) of generation capacity within the State, and inject $24 billion of investment into regional NSW.
Comments?
On a brighter note, Jo Nova reports that people in the US can continue to use the light globes of choice after 2020 with the reversal of the proposed ban on nasty planet-wrecking incandescent globes.
What about us?
COLLEGE DIVESTMENT IN THE US. A study by the National Association of Scholars finds that the movement is pointless and stupid, undermines intellectual freedom, democratic self-government, and responsible stewardship of natural resources.
Divestment campaigns, now on more than 1,000 American colleges and universities, have adopted tactics that violate the free speech of others. The activists increasingly obstruct fair and open debate by smearing opponents and by bullying other students. The NAS study documents these tactics with case studies of several colleges, including the birthplace of the divestment movement, Swarthmore College.
Wood explained, “The divestment campaigns have been organized by professional activists. Our report peels back the image the campaign projects of an organic student-led movement. In fact, it is a nationally orchestrated campaign with top-down directives.”
The pitch from RE zealots is that the solution to the chaos delivered by wind and solar is giant lithium-ion batteries, of the kind peddled by Elon Musk.
Concurrently, managing director Mark Scott told Senate Estimates that the ABC should ‘follow the weight of evidence’ or ‘consensus’. If sceptics were to be broadcast, ‘they should be robustly questioned, just as the climate scientists are robustly questioned’.
Has anyone ever seen a warmist ‘robustly questioned’ on the ABC? About that time, ABC guru Robyn Williams had Harvard fabulist Naomi Oreskes on his Science Show. She wanted to frighten climate-apathetic families with her forecasts that global warming would kill their pet pups and kittens in 2023. Williams, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, agreed: ‘Yes, not only because it’s an animal but it’s local. You see, one criticism of the scientists is they’re always talking about global things…
I have chosen to save you from a 2,000 word lecture on the importance of language, to instead plead for housework to be done.
If a word of yours appears below without a definition – please provide one. I have neither the time nor the patience to do so. If your word/s have a definition which could be improved upon, feel free (some could do with a sharpening).
Eventually, all words without definitions will be culled in order to improve the quality of the herd.
If you notice an undefined word that has been provided by a Cat who has not blessed us with their presence recently, please help out. You are also free to provide a definition to a word you have not authored, and in many cases, the original author may be grateful for the assistance.
Please also state if your word is a noun, verb, adjective, etc. I see the key goal right now as making the content we already have, more presentable.
This doesn’t mean, however, that new words – within the usual constraints – will not be considered.
While you are browsing, perhaps you might observe how some of the earlier contributions have dated, and that some suggestions are also a wee bit obscure.
It’s time to rise up in support of the Enlightenment, the scientific method and evidence-based policymaking. Let’s rage against the blight of mindless, destructive tribalism.
No one is suggesting if we had a price on carbon there would be fewer bushfires, or it alone would significantly reduce global temperatures, but that does not mean Australia cannot make a difference.
Greens Leader Richard Di Natale says while he is saddened by the loss of life from bushfires in NSW and Queensland, “thoughts and sympathies are not enough”.
Dr Di Natale said for decades it has been known that burning climate changing fossil fuels would lead to more frequent and intense bushfires.
“Yet with Queensland and New South Wales burning, the Coalition government refuses to acknowledge this scientific reality and instead wants to use taxpayer dollars to fund new coal-fired power stations.” he said in a statement on Sunday.
“Every politician, lobbyist, pundit and journalist who has fought to block serious action on climate change bears responsibility for the increasing risk from a heating planet that is producing these deadly bushfires.”
If you are intending to see Knives Out and want no plot spoilers, stop here.
On the other hand, let me tell you about a movie that is as disgusting in its baseline plot as any film I have ever seen. Also 96% from the media critics at Rotten Tomatoes which in itself might give you a clue. And while we normally shy away from Hollywood because of its messaging, this seemed like an Agatha Christie plot-line knock-off, so how bad could it be?
Turned out to be the most far-left looney politically-driven plot I have seen in years, whose underlying thread actually came up quite early on, when the family are sitting around after the death of this wealthy millionaire author whose will they are expecting to benefit from. There they are discussing open borders and migration. And while it was astonishing to see any such thing in the midst of a Murder-She-Wrote kind of plot, it turned out to be what the entire film was metaphorically about. Here’s one of the trailers for a bit of background before I go on. Keep an eye out for a young and pretty girl with an Hispanic look. Her name in the film is Marta Cabrera played by a Cuban actress named Ana Celia de Armas Caso. It is she that the plot ultimately revolves around.
Acclaimed writer and director Rian Johnson (Brick, Looper, The Last Jedi) pays tribute to mystery mastermind Agatha Christie in KNIVES OUT, a fun, modern-day murder mystery where everyone is a suspect. When renowned crime novelist Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) is found dead at his estate just after his 85th birthday, the inquisitive and debonair Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is mysteriously enlisted to investigate. From Harlan’s dysfunctional family to his devoted staff, Blanc sifts through a web of red herrings and self-serving lies to uncover the truth behind Harlan’s untimely death. With an all-star ensemble cast including Chris Evans, Ana De Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, Michael Shannon, Toni Collette, LaKeith Stanfield, Katherine Langford and Jaeden Martell, KNIVES OUT is a witty and stylish whodunit guaranteed to keep audiences guessing until the very end.
So here is the metaphorical meaning of the story, this time by me.
When renowned crime novelist Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) is found dead at his estate just after his 85th birthday, we get to see what a bunch of rotten persons his family really are, so that when the will is eventually read, we are not at all dismayed to find all of the money he had earned from his novels has been given in its entirety to his sweet young Hispanic nurse, who is shown by Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) to be the worthy inheritor of all of the family’s accumulated wealth in spite of the work many in the family had put in to assist this renowned crime novelist over the years. The nurse, Marta, however has a loving heart. At the end she stands on the upstairs verandah of the house she has just been given as part of the will, as the author’s family stand below in the driveway about to drive off pennyless and disinherited. Her coffee cup reads something like, “My House, my land, my coffee.” [If someone has seen the film and can recall the words on the coffee cup, I would be very grateful.]
Am I reading too much into the film? I do not think so. But the very invisibility of the point the film obviously is making and in spades is a major problem in itself. If no one can see it here, I fear they cannot see it anywhere else. But it is the mentality of the left and clearly reflected in the story line and plot.
The most interesting aspect of the debate was the known attitude of Trump himself. He is not only a lifelong teetotaler but also a lifelong non-smoker. He has never smoked a cigarette. He 
