If we’ve learnt anything about the COVID-19 pandemic, it is that history may not repeat but it does have a habit of popping its head up and asking, ‘Remember me?’
The history of Australian government is characterised with good intentions marred by parochialism and petty power struggles that serendipitously led to reasonable if not ideal outcomes.
A century ago, states began closing their borders as the Spanish Influenza pandemic kicked off in earnest in Australia in January, 1919.
Being an enormous island at the bottom of the world, Australia had the benefit of watching the Spanish Influenza pandemic unfold almost everywhere else and sensibly decided to take steps to diminish its impact on what was then our four million population.
The pandemic’s origins were probably somewhere in the continental US. Kansas City may have been ground zero for the Spanish Flu pandemic. It certainly wasn’t Spain. The pandemic merely assumed its Castellano nomenclature because it infected the Spanish monarch, King Alfonso XIII early doors. He survived it and was probably lucky to do so. The Spanish Royal Family genealogical chart was more stick than tree and monarchs came and went displaying the type of inbreeding we see in French bulldogs today.
Many of Alfonso’s countrymen and women dropped like nine pins. A lot did not get up. The influenza strain scaled the borders into war torn France and then into England not long afterwards and it was away.
The first diagnosed case came from a US military base in Kansas City. But virologists are uncertain if that US serviceman was Patient One. More than likely US servicemen entered Europe with one strain of the flu only for it to mutate into the nasty Spanish variety
A century later and we still can’t be certain what kicked off a pandemic that killed an estimated 50 million people, more than double the number of deaths, military and civilian, from World War I.
Back in Australia, great meetings between the states and the Commonwealth took place. Seven days’ quarantine was required for anyone entering the country, including many returning servicemen from Europe.
With several ceremonial strokes of the pen, the states happily ceded control for the national management of the pandemic to the Commonwealth. An agreement was signed in Melbourne in November 1918 just weeks after armistice, giving the Commonwealth the capacity to close state borders based on reports of outbreaks from the states’ Chief Medical Officers.
The country was ready. All things being equal, we could not have been better prepared.
And then it all went to hell in a moment.
In January 1919, a soldier was diagnosed with Spanish Flu in Sydney and, as was required under the November agreement, New South Wales notified the Commonwealth and the state was proclaimed infected. The problem was the soldier had travelled by train from Melbourne but as the Victorians had not informed the Commonwealth, New South Wales angrily closed the borders and sent its own wallopers to prevent any crossing of the Murray.
The agreement was hurled into the bin and from then on it was every state for itself.
Queensland closed its borders. Where crossings of the Tweed were permitted it came at a price and tourists and returning soldiers were required to quarantine in camps and enjoy the Queensland sun banged up while enduring enforced injections and ten minute stints in a respiratory chamber. The Queensland government knocked out a women’s toilet. Ah, Queensland. Beautiful one day, a leper colony the next.
It may have made some sense to close off Tasmania It probably made sense to isolate Tasmania which subsequently suffered relatively few infections and just 171 deaths. But the Tasmanians were unhappy with iso and many protested insisting that quarantine of travellers across the Bass Strait be reduced from seven days to four. Tasmania may have been spared the
The South Australian government shut its borders and ad hoc camps were established that the state refused to even acknowledge let alone ensure decent accommodations.
When NSW put the shutters up, Western Australia was cut off from the rest of the country at least by rail amid the predictable calls for succession.
There and in the Northern Territory, death rates in remote indigenous communities from Spanish Influenza were as high as one in two.
Across the country, returned servicemen were denied their homecoming parades. Family reunions were delayed which set many servicemen to seething. After what they had endured on The Western Front, who could blame them? Many jumped quarantine, only to find churches, theatres and worst of all, pubs shut.
If it sounds like COVID-19 management by the states is a routine rerun of history, you’d be wrong because Victoria did not impose any restrictions on its people. Wearing face masks was encouraged but not mandated and there were no restrictions on travel interstate which wasn’t of much use because the borders were closed by wallopers from other states.
Still it flies in the face of the People’s Republic of Victoria today where one might expect one day to see a large wall traversing the Murray visible from the lunar surface. Construction funded by you know who.
But here’s the thing, immunologists with the benefit of 100 years of hindsight will tell you that state border closures on the mainland made no difference to the spread of Spanish Influenza in 1918-19.
Of course, there was no air travel and clearly less traffic crossing state borders than there would be now but the fact remains, the states ignored expert opinion then and did as they pleased, driven more by a sort of Sheffield Shield of hollow boasts and bitter recriminations which infected our history then and taints our present now.
It might be that the COVID-19 track and trace programs the states have in place are limited by the old jurisdictional bunfights which really would be a case of history repeating. If so, they should say so rather than deflect questions with specious reasoning and contradictory medical opinion.
In the end, Australia suffered 13,000 deaths from Spanish Influenza. The toll was low, almost negligible compared with the great cost to the nation of the staggering casualty rates from the battlefields in western Europe in what was then referred to as The Great War.
Just as then it is difficult to understand now why state premiers pulled the drawbridges up. It is even harder to figure why they remain up today. What we do know is our state premiers don’t bother too much with history.
This pandemic has a way of turning accepted truths on their heads.
We’ve all seen or heard commentators supportive of the Swedish approach, donning the Nordic gold cross on blue background in beanies and scarfs to cheer them on.
There has been a bit of nonsense spoken about the Swedish approach. It has been driven largely by happenstance rather than design. The Swedish Constitution does not allow for lock downs by political edict.
There is encouragement to social distance, for people to work from home especially if they are in high risk categories. Usage of Stockholm’s public transit system is down 50 per cent whereas in Sydney in April it was down almost 90 per
Nevertheless, the theory from the barrackers goes that Sweden’s economy is churning on throughout the pandemic. Bars and restaurants are open. Everyone is having a good time.
I am sad to say, the data is coming in now and it is not looking good.
A Danish study released earlier this week revealed that Danish consumers in lockdown conditions similar to those in Australia and elsewhere around the world reduced their spending by 29 per cent. In Sweden with no mandated lockdown, it was 25 per cent.
The study was taken from 860,000 people across both countries who are active customers with Danske Bank, the second largest bank in Scandinavia and measured spending of EFTPOS and ATM transactions, bill and invoice payments and cash withdrawals. It is broadly representative of both populations.
The fact that all three authors of the report are economists might give us pause. You could put four economists in a room for a couple of hours and they would emerge with six different theories. The fact that all three authors are Danish economists might speak of a bit of Scandinavian one-upmanship.
People keeping social distances at a shopping centre in Stokholm. Picture: AFP
But the data doesn’t lie. The difference between two like countries, one with lockdowns, the other without, indicates the difference in consumer spending was next to nothing.
The study shows people will naturally reduce their spending in times of pandemic. It is the virus itself not the lockdown which causes the greatest harm.
Sweden’s central bank, the Riksbank, provided two possible scenarios for the country’s economic outlook for the remainder of the year, based on two models for the extent of the pandemic, one with recovery commencing in the third quarter, the other with the effects of the pandemic continuing into 2021.
In the first scenario, gross domestic product is predicted to contract by 6.9 per cent in 2020 before rebounding to grow 4.6 per cent in 2021. In a more negative prediction Sweden’s GDP could contract by 9.7 per cent with recovery limping along at 1.7 per cent in 2021.
The forecasts in Denmark from Danish Financial Institution, De Økonomiske Råd adopted the same two scenario approach, one with the affects of the pandemic easing this year forecasting a 3.5 per cent decline in GDP in 2020, the other more gloomy scenario, a 5.5 per cent decline.
On these figures, it would seem Sweden has taken all the risks for no economic benefit.
The shining light of redemption comes in the form of what Sweden’s Chief Epidemiologist, Dr Anders Tegnell, this week predicted was herd immunity in Sweden’s capital, Stockholm “within weeks”.
For the record, as of yesterday there were 28,583 diagnosed cases of COVID-19 in Sweden with a population of 10.3 million. There were 10,188 diagnosed cases in Stockholm with a population of 975,000. The death rate in Sweden is 342.6 per million people, lower than France (414.78), Italy (514.5), the UK (488.6) and Spain (579.7), but higher than Denmark (92.0).
The Swedish approach to COVID-19 is to promote herd immunity in the absence of a vaccine. Many immunologists believe it may not be possible given SARS-CoV-2’s novelty and potential for mutation.
A woman walks through the Kungstradgarden in Stockholm. Picture: AFP
What is starting to become understood is the rate of COVID-19 infection needs to be around 70 per cent for herd immunity to kick in.
In another study published earlier this week, this one of an epidemiological investigation by the Pasteur Institute, 4.4 per cent of the French population – or 2.8 million people – were found to have been infected with the SARS CoV-2 virus. The official number of recorded cases as of yesterday was 180,000. The study showed the infection rate is estimated at 15 times that of the number of diagnosed cases.
In Australia, Chief Medical Officer Professor Brendan Murphy puts the figure at around ten times the recorded cases of infection, somewhere around 70,000. It may actually be a lot less given the dribble of diagnosed cases across the nation in the last week.
Putting the French study figures across New York City’s recorded cases, there is an infection rate of 63 per cent. Still too low for herd immunity to occur and look at the carnage: 27,463 deaths as of yesterday. And those are just the deaths that occur in hospitals.
People enjoy the warm weather as they sit at Kungstradgarden in Stockholm. Picture: AFP
As an aside, there is another study, or series of studies that confirm there have been no recorded cases of transmission from children aged 10 or below anywhere in the world.
That’s around 3.3 million Australians. They should be at school. They need to be taught face-to-face to continue the development of critical literacy and numeracy skills and they need to continue peer group interaction to develop critical social and emotional skills.
But let’s get back to Sweden. For herd immunity to occur in Stockholm alone, there would need to be 690,000 people infected or 67 times the number of recorded or diagnosed cases to date with a death rate at 0.005 per cent.
Herd immunity in Stockholm in weeks? It seems most unlikely.
The Swedes undertook their unusual approach to the pandemic not on the basis of reducing economic hardship but because their health experts genuinely believed that it offered the best possible health outcomes for the Swedish people.
What is clear is, Sweden’s barrackers have got the first part of the equation wrong. Sweden is headed for a similar size descent in economic activity despite not mandating lockdowns or social distancing.
The second part of the equation, the development of a regionally restricted herd immunity is as yet to be seen but in the unlikely event that it does come, it will have come with at least as much economic misery as there is anywhere around the world.
This column was first published in The Australian 15 May 2020
Watching that old end of world movie with Chuck Heston, The Omega Man. The anti-technology cult led by Anthony Zerbe was going to burn Heston the scientist alive on a mound of books and devices–including a wheel.
I think it’s an Extinction Rebellion recruiting clip.
Extinction Rebellion was only set up in 2018 but they’ve single-handedly managed to p**s off 99% of the public with their stupid antics which only highlight their lack of maturity.
Those dozy kiddies have lost all credibility in the very real world of legally protesting a cause worth fighting for. XR is a joke.
But, they seem to avoid arrest, when arrested, they avoid conviction, and in the rare times they don’t, some magistrate reduces the fines as they can’t afford it.
Leave them glued to the road. Paint them yellow. Put witches hats around them, and drive away.
I saw an ETU protest up here years ago. They marched in a circle outside an electorate office, placards held aloft, chanting. The TV crew packed up, after which the protestors all left.
I agree Bella. XR are nothing to do with the environment and more to do with Marxism.
Thank you Bella. We are on the same page. When I started to read I was worried you might be a fan. Well done.
Unfortunately they don’t realise, it’s all about how to execute the plan. Big fail on their part.
Of course I’m not a fan. They need to be handed a lifetime ban of glue. That’ll stuff ’em up. 😏
Yes, the so called $60 billion JobKeeper “blunder” should at least be cause for mild jubilation. Especially as there’s now nearly 3 million less folk, than initially estimated, who do not need the financial support. But typically, there’s no sign of rejoicing from those on the left who now call for the so called savings to be spent. Despite a mere money mandarin miscalculation, the left obviously still believe in the magic pudding.
I would think that there are plenty out there, Carl, who do need support but didn’t come into the equation put out by the economic WeltMeisteren. But away you go, just use a monumental cockup as a reason to bag ‘the Left’.
Mich? ….. “bag the left? Heaven forfend TV, that I should wound their susceptibilities!
You’ve got it all wrong mate. I like fighting Tories, that’s what I do. Oops! No, my mistake, that was Albo’s line. He’s the bloke who tiptoes between the raindrops.
Noch ein Scnapps bitte
Many many more unemployed Australians are in desperate need of immediate financial support Carl right now including very small businesses & the Arts who haven’t yet seen a brass razoo from a heartless government.
“Mild jubilation” for a miscalculation?
It’s gobsmacking incompetence but MURDOCHRACY will no doubt have already churned out a dazzling spin on the windfall savings Frydenberg has made. Only Josh can’t do live believable credible explanations but surprise surprise, Corman can.
Who’s the Treasurer again?
Bella, I always enjoy and take note of your heartfelt, down-to earth comments.
But I believe we’ve moved on from Donald Horne’s 1960’s negative view of Australia as being a second rate country, run by second rate people. Of course, there’s always more we can do for those in need. There always will be.
I reckon we’re probably on the right side of nirvana, rather than the wrong side of dystopia.
My kind regards, as always
Carl
Yes, it’s a sobering situation indeed to note that the Aussie grog industry has taken an $8.5 billion hit in loss of revenue for April alone (that’s $8,000, 500,000). The headache pill industry must be nigh on bankrupt.
Apparently China has had no new cases today.
The power of the 75th Congress is unbelievable
You haven’t been listening to the Speaker, have you?
Which speaker is that Dwight.
These days I rarely listen to anything as my hearing is shot.
I depend pretty well on the written word.
I was thinking of the Speaker of 75th Congress. Nancy Antoinette, “Let them eat ice cream!”
She must be hoping Pence and Trump get covid and she gets the keys to the lolly cabinet for a few weeks
Crikey- one would think that not only Josh, but the rest of the country would be delighted to have our debt unexpectedly reduced by $60billion. But no, the people want it all.
There’s something in the water in Canberra. “We don’t have to borrow another $60 billion.”
“Let’s still borrow it anyway and spend it on something else!”
Is there a single MP who ran a business?
True enough, Dwight but what the error does is tell people that the Commonwealth had no problem paying the $60bn and therefore leaves itself open to all manner of agitation from every quarter. It was pretty dumb stuff. The PM and the Treasurer both stated a week ago that 6.1 million were on Job Keeper. That’s almost half the 13.2 million national workforce. How could they not question that? More than 728,000 businesses signed up for JK. 1000 clicked the wrong box or incorrectly filled it with salary rather than numbers on JK. Which means the government had data suggesting 0.14% of registered businesses would claim 46% of the money. How does that get through for a month?
Seems that large percentages of our bloggers do not accept the premise of the question.
Crazy stuff Jack. I was going to apply just to see if they would stupidly give some money to my company. Then I decided no, couldn’t do it. Didn’t even apply for the baby bonus when my daughter was born or register with Centrelink like the hospital wanted me too. Probably could have made a motza, baby bonus, family allowance, stuff like that, COVID allowance, probably a toilet roll length list of stuff a person could claim.
Our accountant applied on our companies behalf, we fulfilled the requirement for lost income albeit only just over the qualifying period.
No idea if they are going to pay up as yet
Jack, I stopped wondering about other’s facility with numbers decades ago when students would regularly give me numbers that couldn’t possibly be right. Efficiency of 127%? A failure rate less than zero? I’ve known too many people who can feed numbers into an equation and not recognize that the result can’t be right. Politicians are people with arts & law degrees, with lower math skills than a carpenter.
But still they were openly quoting a figure of 6.1 mil on Job Keeper. I was talking to a political journo after a Morrison presser where the PM had cited the figure on 15 May and the journo and I both said, ‘That can’t be right.’
This is the back of the coaster estimate from about two minutes research: Three million essential workers including health care and social assistance workers, that’s 30 per cent (some indeed many be public service hires), on Job Seeker 10 per cent minimum (ignore the current unemployment figure of 6.8, that is a real smoke and mirrors exercise), public service workers 27 per cent, let’s knock that back to 20 per cent factoring in essential workers who are also public servants. That’s 60 per cent of the workforce right there. Then we count construction workers nine per cent of the workforce most of whom continued to work through the lockdown. How can an employment minister, treasurer, finance minister, prime minister not know these things? I feel a column coming on.
I think it definitely needs writing. With perhaps a paragraph on why no one in the press gallery picked it up. The policy apparatus here is an omnishambles. Too much done on the back of napkins. This one wasn’t as bad as the NBN, because we’ll never break even on that, but it was the same process–policy on the fly when no one really understands the systemic problem.
When I first started up here, our econ faculty was patting itself on the back because one of our grads was working for Treasury. Back when I was at the University of Iowa it was a top 10 Econ faculty. One of my professors was the son of a Nobelist. Anyways, they wanted their grads at McKinsey, BCG, Charles River or Deloitte.
When I finally started reading Treasury reports on a regular basis, I went “oh my God. ”
What fills me with fear right now is that the pollies are starting to talk about restructuring the tax system–some of it led by the NSW Treasurer. All good. But, there is no way any politician in this country should be left alone in a room with the tax code. If you want a quick example, read the guidelines on depreciating assets.
Rant off.
Actually Carpenter’s do have more mathematical skills than this lot. At least the homes they build are structurally sound for decades due to excellent math calculations while these dills miscalculated to the tune of $60M. 😩
Apologies *$60B
Not too sure your average chippie could handle a few million forms and figure like $64.000.000.000.
They do, however, do a superb job at the micro level
There are situations where efficiency can exceed 100% – heat pumps (i.e. air conditioners) being one (no lectures about the laws of thermodynamics, please).
John L (previous blog)-China does not rate when one considers the USA’s incursions into other nations’ politics and military raids around the world since WWII. I did not say “that we just become a vassal state and do everything that they ask”. You should be more concerned that we have certainly become Trump’s Tea Lady in waiting and do everything the USA asks and have done for 20yrs! The gist of my post was the preposterous stand by Morrison that China’s rhetoric has nothing to do with ‘payback’. That is just bullshit. Sadly this is what it is all about. Your crazy comment that my child will have to learn Mandarin is just that! Do you spend most of your time trawling conspiracy sites on Facebook? Bloody hell, the Libs have been winning elections using The Yellow Peril as a scare since Menzies was first elected. Rudd was branded the “Manchurian candidate” by the Liberals and they did all they could during his time as prime minister to break decades of bipartisanship on China policy. Give it up. Your rant about ‘future generations’ carefully omits climate change which Morrison and his team of terrorists (to use a Liberal’s own words) ignore and pose a much greater threat than the right wing conspiracy rants you make. There are ways of handling China but not the way Morrison does.
You should be clamouring for the cancellation of China’s 99 year lease on the Port of Darwin. Then you would be closer to home-lovely gift from the Libs I might add. A diplomatic disaster that will last for years and hurt our farmers is not want you want from our biggest trading partner.
Hmm – a very similar reaction to a friend who is a rusted on Labor supporter and very pro-Chinese – almost the same arguments also.
A few fallacies Bassman.
Firstly China is just starting out as a world power.
In the last 5 years they have established bases in Sri Lanka and Pakistan, annexed most of the Sth China Seas, played games around Japanese owned Islands, increased their armed forces considerably, increased their nuclear capability, made unsustainable loans to many small countries to increase their influence, All under Xi.
At the same time on their home turf, they have introduced concentration camps; established 1 political cadre per 200 people; introduced a social scoring system such that if a person steps out of line travel, jobs, education opportunities for children and housing dries up; mounted cyberattacks pretty well everywhere; stolen goodness knows how much IP; though their own incompetence and methodology unleashed Corona on the world; have gamed the WTO rules to the detriment of their trading partners; still class themselves as a developing nation allowing them to ignore any WTO and emission controls (27% of world emissions at last count and you worry about our 2%).
A large section of the Labor party chose to ignore all of this and either overlook it or put some spin on it.
They seem to think that as the economic noose tightens, we will somehow be treated differently to the way the CCP treat their own people – naïve at best much darker at worst.
Any company or country that puts 30% of its sales in one basket is asking for trouble and we are about to get it big time if we do not toe the line.
My statement about speaking Mandarin – I suggest you read up on what is happening to the Uighurs and Tibetans.
To get this information, one does not have to troll the internet. All one has to do to get an objective view as to what is happening is to read the papers without an inbuilt bias that forgives the Chinese and blames the US for everything..
I assume you are aware of what is happening at QLD Uni where there is an attempt to expel a student for using long held freedom of speech traditions at Universities. He supported Taiwan. The vice-chancellor has reportedly received bonuses for increasing Chinese students – the Chinese consul in Brisbane was an adjunct Professor. Qld uni revenues are heavily dependent on overseas students. ( The Chancellor has since moved to clean up the mess but it took probably a front page article in the New York Times, many in the Australian and a threat to go to all the way to the high court to get them to move.)This is what happens when one becomes too dependent on one source of income.
Try using facts Bassy when dealing with China – if our trade dependence keeps growing we become ultimately a vassal state.
The only thing that will prevent that is the US.
And the Barley tariff was payback -you cannot spin it any other way. Maybe not the coal
I reckon that everyone with eyes knows what China is, has been, has been doing and can be. I don’t think that attitudes to China, cooperation with them or almost anything else can be divided along bipartisan lines in regard to Australian politics.
If your opening statement has even a modicum of accuracy TV, BASSY is in desperate need of an optometrist.
Unfortunately TV there are many on both sides of party politics, but mainly on the left, who are prepared to ignore all the short comings and potential dangers.
With the left it seems ideological and money
With the right it seems to be money.
The left’s love affair resonates with their love affair with post war Russia in spite of knowlege as to just how bad Stalin was.
JL, I would say to that, ‘OK, just who is the left?’ I reckon that most Labor voters would not be Stalinists; in fact most these days are probably not even aware of events that far back. In love with post-war Russia? Nyet.
Actually, he died the year before I was born. Do you think that reincarnation is a thing?
Does that mean that the Libs have to agree with the Labor left, TV?
Not everyone wants to see.
I reckon there are a few different camps which run across politics, business, media etc, but the dividing line is not a party political one.
Sigh! Please go back to selling cars.
Tibet 1950
Korea 1950
India 1962
USSR 1969
Vietnam 1979
did they win any?
A fine riposte John L. Facts trump fulminations any day.
Apropos your comments, I read an interesting WSJ article in today’s Aus (25/5) referencing Edward Luttwak (long time military strategist, historian and regime change expert). He seems to believe that China’s ruling elite are getting jittery about Xi’s mo. Well worth a read if you can get hold of it.
I’ve tried to give a head’s up to Dan Andrews, but he’s not returning my calls.
There is also an .mp4 by a Canadian lady of Chinese hertiage doing the rounds.. Former Miss Canada, Anastasia Lin
I did not see it until after I wrote the above but she eloquently said most of it.
Gutsy lady as the CCP is putting her family in China under a lot of pressure to try to shut her up.
Not dissimiliar to the reports and first hand knowledge I have read about thr CCP’s actions against the Chinese born immigrants in Australia.
The CCP are a very nasty bunch living in their own echo chamber.
Google Miss Canada China oxford union
John L : “though their own incompetence and methodology unleashed Corona on the world”
What does that even mean?
I doubt that anyone outside the Chinese Government knows what happened in Wuhan, and when. If, by methodology, you mean than China deliberately engineered COVID to bring down world economies, I think you’re off your rocker.
As to the broader question of China trying to increase world dependency on its products, I agree totally.
For those who reckon that Covid-19 is just the flu and get on with it
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/05/kawasaki-stroke-why-coronavirus-weirdest-symptoms-are-only-emerging-now-cvd/?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=crm-email::src=ngp::cmp=editorial::add=SpecialEdition_20200522&rid=2FB167F09CCE0F644C796CE2099E576C
A chat with a regular at the coffee shop this morning.
We were both of the opinion that this pandemic is the inevitable result of overpopulation of this planet. It is being ravaged right under our noses and yet we do nothing to curb it. Already there is a panic to restore economic activity to what it was – and with that will come probably increased emissions as industry makes up for lost time. It compares with smokers I think. Unlike the pandemic which was frighteningly immediate and immediate action was therefore taken, the destruction of our planet is happening – but insidiously. So we carry on partying . Out of sight, out of mind.
Pandemics happen in order to cull. To restore some balance. But we will not allow that. So we hide, we pull out all our medical ingenuity to conquer it.
This is controversial, so apologies in advance – but what was life really like for those 90+yr olds old folk in the aged care “facility”.? Was life really worth living? From what one hears about these places, probably not. They may have been relieved to let go – but sadly alone- because we are too afraid of this virus to hold their hand.
My friend and I, and my ecologist daughter, are in agreement that the human race is on the road to extinction. How long will it take? One or two centuries maybe. We will be known as the “Industrial Age” The planet will go on and who knows , one day new beings doing archeological digs will unearth the remains of those cities – long since drowned by rising oceans -that drove us to extinction.
Have a good day all. I’m off for a ride on my bike ! 😊
Been saying it for years Boa.
My favourite saying is ” I can tell you the problem but I cannot give you the solution”
Probably because some idiot might make me part of the solution.
The humans race is like bacteria on a petri dish – keep expanding in numbers, using up all resources and then nothing.
Medicine is, in many cases, into quantity not quality.
One of the canaries in the coal mine is ground water – everywhere it is disappearing.
Punjab, California ( it is so bad here that the ground is collapsing), Miami.
They have taken out so much in Jakarta that it is sinking and the Indonesians are planning to move the capital.
Every time I opine that the planet is overpopulated, the first thing I hear is ‘Are you volunteering?’ But it is.
Who was it who a few months ago mentioned in a speech ‘the myth that endless growth is sustainable’ (or words to that effect)?
Oh, that’s right, the dreaded brat Greta. And correct.
and yet we seem to be better off materially than ever before
Yes, but we *are* shitting in our nest
Boa, it would be ironic if (and its a big “if”) human life on earth expires in the next “one or two centuries”, because we will have more than reached the “Information Age”. So much knowledge, so little wisdom. The question is, has humanity attained the power to destroy itself before achieving the wisdom to ensure it wont?
One of Gandhi’s quotes may be worth considering- “The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.”
For Boa and others,
SBS on Demand:-
Made In Italy: about fashion world in 1970s Milan – delightful and light;
ZeroZeroZero: not so light and not about flour but cocaine; first episode very tightly scripted….
For Dwight and others: the canard about Federal government response that if you haven’t spent all the (borrowed) money in a hasty programmmed response, just spend away – is nuts!! The object was to achieve a position (avoid depression) rather than to spend for its own sake – and it is not as if the money is just sitting there….
As for the leading celebrities in the Arts etc, instead of complaining about the government not doing enough for those areas, why don’t those individuals ante up with their own money for schemes/films/shows…..?
Was it de Tocqueville or CS Lewis who commented that the worst tyrant can be sated or lose interest but those who pursue rule ” for your own good” are driven to tyranny by a moral conscience that never sleeps?
My local council (Willoughby) has finally permitted tennis courts to open, thereby having put themselves in rarefied company of Marrickville Council which ran its own foreign policy against Israel (BDS). Willloughby simply knew better than Federal or State governments with their own health departments – so presumably ran its own Health ?!! who would have believed we could have these delusional politicians at all levels where ego competes at the expense of the ratepayer/State/national….
Imagine how lucky we shall be to have sport pages and current results to peruse…. & news about anything other than COVID…..
Northern Beaches have also opened the tennis courts.
They would have been motivated by money – they have increased the fees on tennis court so much that within a couple of years most clubs will seek to exist.
The Valuer General has decided to increase the value of land in Duffys Forest ( rural/residential) by 36% despite no such movement in land prices and Council has indicated that rates will go up correspondingly.
Computer Pals in my area will close its doors in 2 years because of the rent the council charges for the grotty little room.
These blasted mega councils are out of control, give the impression that they want community input, and then ignore it. (Northern Beaches in Sydney has a population of 250,000 and a budget of $450 million.) Rates will go up 2.6% next year and they managed an efficiency savings of $3 million or .6% of expenditure. They should be a case study for Dwight’s students as being the most efficient organisation on the planet if that is all the fat they can find.
Just wondering if you’ve noticed how much our council services have improved since the councils were combined, besides the fact that the old Warringah council area does the heavy lifting on the finances.
When my husband used to be on the Northern Beaches Council strategic reference group, it was pointed out by another member that yes, Terrey Hills can be difficult but don’t get me started on Duffys Forest.
Nuff said😄
No I have not Tracy – nothing much has changed around here except rates and fees keep going up and the number of potholes have increased.
I just see a council whose spending is out of control and a Mayor who could convince many people that the sky is not blue but due to state government rules it is actually pink.
Have you got up to speed on the $100,000 Corona Virus memorial that a French’s Forest Councillor has proposed. It is coming out of rate payer’s funding. They have a $2 million slush fund to support the arts.
I would say it is a bit early for it.
Maybe the TH folks are not as complacent as others.
Our councillors now come from Pittwater and I am pretty sure that anything west of the escarpment is muck and mystery to them.
By the way, I do object to the Council spending $1million on a free buss service around Manly and funding that Art Gallery.
So do not get me going on this council.
Into Zero Zero at the moment, Voltaire. Have to concentrate to keep up with the plot!!
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. ” – C.S. Lewis
Living in a nannystate, I always keep that one handy.
Enjoyed that Jack
Hong Kong erupts. How will this end?
Tienanmen Square, the sequel. This time televised live.
You know how the Berlin Wall fell? By accident. Erich Honecker was being interviewed on a radio show in East Berlin, and the there had been rumors that they would allow some family reunions across the barrier. When asked when, Honecker misspoke and said something along the lines of “anytime”. The crowds started forming at Checkpoint Charlie. He gets on the phone to Moscow and Gorby told him in no uncertain terms, the tanks would not roll, unlike in Prague or Budapest.
The gates opened and the Cold War was effectively over.
Xi is still willing to send in the tanks.