February 28, 2024
1

[On Scott Morrison] History will record, and many will now recall his many failings – his cravenness and inaction in the face of adversity, his ducking of accountability, his claiming of the success of others, his malice and bullying, repurposing taxpayers’ money to cronies and right-wing supplicants – all manifestations of his lack of character.
A shrivelled, one-dimensional intellect, a light-weight incapable of reflection or forethought with underlying smarm and personality defects, mentored by a proselytizing grifter and informed by an eagle painting he was impervious to self-reflection – comfortable in the belief he was the Chosen One.
In his departing sermon presented as a valedictory speech he professed “faith in Jesus Christ, which gives me the faith to both forgive but also to be honest about my own failings and shortcomings” which he then failed to be honest about by neglecting to mention any.
Manifestly unsuited to the job he is a study in how megalomania, verbal diarrhea, treachery and happenstance can reward a shameless fabulist and serial failure. [https://theaimn.com/heres-ya-hat-whats-ya-hurry]

Grumpy Geezer
December 31, 2023
1

The idea that the poor should have leisure and a holiday from work has always been shocking to the rich. In the early nineteenth century, fifteen hours was the ordinary day's work for a man; children sometimes did as much, and very commonly did twelve hours a day. When meddlesome busybodies suggested that perhaps these hours were rather long, they were told that work kept adults from drink and children from mischief. When I was a child, shortly after urban working men had acquired the vote, certain public holidays were established by law, to the great indignation of the upper classes. I remember hearing an old Duchess say: 'What do the poor want with holidays? They ought to work.' People nowadays are less frank, but the sentiment persists, and is the source of much of our economic confusion.

Bertrand Russell
October 28, 2023
1

There is now no conceivable way we can stay under 1.5°C of mean global heating. We probably still had that chance a few years ago, but it has been squandered out of political cowardice, media distraction, apathy, a steady diet of false hope and false solutions, and above all a continued stream of disinformation and legalized bribes from the fossil fuel industry. The more fossil fuel we burn, the hotter the planet will get. This is basic, incontrovertible, unassailable physics. It's a dead certainty. And the people currently in charge are still doing everything they can to expand fossil fuels.

Peter Kalmus
Bitnami