Media

Hitler and Mussolini exercised direct legal control over the media, using official censors and shutting down opposition media outlets^1,2. Trump cannot do that because a free press is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the US Constitution³. Instead, Trump relies on delegitimising the current media, and using his own or sympathisers’ media outlets to push his narrative. Indeed, recently some of his oligarchs have bought newspapers, television and other media networks to alter the coverage of the news to favour Trump⁴.

One common epithet Trump uses when referring to media outlets that do not pander to him is ‘fake news’ and he has stated that the press are the ‘enemy of the people’. This was a common theme in Nazi Germany when referring to undesirable people such as Jews, Gypsies, political dissidents, trade unionists, and the disabled⁵.

The epithet ‘fake news’ is redolent of the early days of the Nazi regime in Germany, where Hitler used the word Lügenpresse (lying press) to describe media organisations that disagreed with him. This term has also reappeared in Germany recently with the rise of the far right AfD party⁶.

Religion

Like Mussolini and Hitler, Trump has recognised the influence organised religion has and has sought to harness it to bolster his own influence. Hitler and Mussolini obtained the acquiescence of the churches (mostly Protestant and Catholic respectively) using diplomatic agreements or using policy concessions. Mussolini signed the Lateral Treaty in 1929 recognising the independence of the Vatican City, and making Catholicism the sole state religion, among other favours⁷.

Hitler’s Reichskonkordat of 1933 guaranteed freedom of the Catholic faith, required clergy to stay out of politics and forced the dissolution of the Catholic Centre Party⁸. However, the fractured Protestant church in Germany was a different kettle of fish. So, the Nazis attempted to create a state Reich Church under the leadership of the Nazi Bishop Ludwig Müller to unify the different branches of Protestantism. This enabled the Nazis to use a group called the ‘German Christians’ within the Reich Church to promote Nazi ideas. However, by 1937 Hitler was forced to return control of the church to the previous Protestant leadership in return for a promise that they would stay out of politics⁹.

While Trump had no state church to coerce into acquiescence, he focused on ingratiating himself with the white evangelical sector that fell for his nationalist and anti-secular messaging. He touted himself as a defender of religious liberty and appointed Supreme Court justices who would later overturn Roe v. Wade, a long-held goal of the religious right. He surrounded himself with evangelical advisors and often invoked Christian symbols and rhetoric in rallies. In addition, he pleased Christian Zionists by recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and exempted religious employers from certain rules, and by being very anti-science and anti-education, two bugbears of the religious right¹⁰.

The wealthy

With regard to Mussolini and Hitler, as well as Trump, the wealthy and their corporations knew they had little to fear and much to gain by cooperating with them. All three railed against some ‘elites’ but all delivered policies that proved beneficial to the economic elite. Mussolini’s administration banned free trade unions and has been described as instituting ‘corporatism’. Each of the 22 ‘corporations’ comprised assorted companies in an industry and were responsible for the administration of labour contracts and promotion of that industry. This system was organised and coordinated by a central corporative committee, largely run by the Fascist Party¹¹.

Like Mussolini, Hitler banned free trade unions, and fostered a crony alliance with industrialists¹². Trade unions were eradicated and replaced by entities that served the regime’s totalitarian objectives. This subjugation of the working class led to the regime’s control over the economy and society¹³.

Despite populist rhetoric, including the laughable ‘I am your voice’ when talking at rallies in front of his MAGA gullibles, Trump’s economic policies strongly favoured the wealthy and their corporations at the expense of labour. His Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, slashed the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, delivering a windfall to large companies and their shareholders. The law also doubled the estate tax exemption (benefiting wealthy heirs) and created special tax breaks for business income that disproportionately benefited high-earning owners¹⁴. Trump also oversaw broad deregulation, getting rid of some environmental and labour regulations, to the delight of several industries (coal, oil, banking etc.)^15-17

While Trump often rails against ‘globalists’, he is allied with the globalists of big business, to the extent that the stock market’s rise became a bragging point, and he even boasts that he has made billions since returning to office, adding laughably, “I’m doing it for the country, not me”¹⁸.

Nationalism

Hitler, Mussolini and Trump have all used populist rhetoric, portraying themselves as champions of the common people against alleged corrupt elites and dangerous outsiders. Hitler vowed to restore German honour, which had been undone by the traitors of 1918; these were the politicians who had prematurely ended the First World War and established the German democratic republic. For Hitler, the Army had not been defeated on the battlefield but had been undermined by political treachery at home¹⁹. Over time, this morphed into blaming non-Aryans, especially Jews. This led to widespread discrimination, imprisonment, and the genocide of the Holocaust²⁰.

Mussolini evoked a return to the greatness of the Roman empire, aiming to transform the nation into a dominant Mediterranean and African empire largely through conquest. He blamed ethnic minorities, especially Slavs and Jews, who he said were threats to the country’s unity and power^21,22.

Trump has used the phrase Make America Great Again, which is redolent of Mussolini’s rallying drivel. But like Hitler and Mussolini, he also scapegoated groups of people, such as Mexican and Haitian immigrants²³, and has used ICE to kidnap brown people and imprison them in concentration camps without due process, many of whom have been deported, while some have died. Some have been apprehended as they were attending the immigration court to go through legal processes. In the past there have been about 8,000 deportations per month of people in the US apart from those being apprehended at the border. This has now risen to about 19,000 people deported from within the US²⁴. In Trump’s second iteration, his language has become more like that of the two dictators, referring to his political opponents as “vermin” referring to them also as “Communists”, “Marxists”, “Fascists” and “radical left thugs”. He also referred to immigrants as ‘”invaders”²⁵, and that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” another phrase redolent of Hitler²⁶.

Opposition

All three of these despots justified repression as necessary for national survival. In this they all show parallel impulses in refusing to accept legitimate opposition.

Mussolini quickly attempted to crush all political opposition. By 1926, opposition political parties were banned, newspapers critical of him were shut down and outspoken opponents were exiled or murdered. He established a secret police force, OVRA (Organization for Vigilant Repression of Antifascism), which spied on, infiltrated, and eliminated anti-fascist elements. Thousands of dissidents such as liberals, socialists, communists and anarchists were imprisoned without trial²⁷.

Hitler’s regime set the standard for total suppression of dissent. Upon taking power in 1933, the Nazis banned all other political parties and dissolved the Reichstag’s opposition. The Gestapo (secret police), along with the SS, arrested, imprisoned, or executed anyone who voiced opposition or was suspected of disloyalty. The first concentration camps, such as Dachau (opened 1933), were filled with political prisoners: communists, social democrats, trade unionists, journalists, clergy who spoke out, and later anyone whispering dissent. Hitler also eliminated potential rivals within his own movement. In the 1934 ‘Night of the Long Knives’, he purged nazis he distrusted, thus warning all that even internal opposition meant death. Throughout nazi Germany, there was no tolerance for free speech, independent organisations, or protests – criticism of the Führer or the Nazi Party was a crime. Even jokes about Hitler could land you in prison²⁸.

Trump is fortunately constrained by a constitutional system, much as he tried to corrupt it by stacking the Supreme Court. He could not outlaw political parties or imprison critics at will, but he has tried to weaponise law enforcement and the courts to intimidate opposition voices. In addition, there have been threats to intimidate voters by stationing ICE around voting stations, probably as a way of deterring minorities from voting, for fear of them being kidnapped and imprisoned or deported²⁹.

Unless the November 3 mid-term elections hand the Democrats control of the House of Representatives and the Senate, so that the excesses of the toddler-in chief are heavily constrained, the US will be in deep trouble. Congress must also go after those in his cabinet who have clearly ignored court orders, ordered war crimes, murdered people, traduced the constitution, or otherwise broken the law. If they don’t, it will be a green light for every malignant narcissist in the country to try the same sort of demolition of democracy. The fact that someone like Trump could run for office demonstrates that the US political system is not fit for purpose. Given that the constitution was written in the late 1700s when travel was by horse and communication was by horse-delivered letter, and slavery was legal, and the fact that it has had only 27 amendments (including some very stupid efforts; guns, prohibition) in a quarter of a millennium, this is unsurprising. It needs to be fixed so that no wannabe dictator can ever be elected again, and no members of the House of Representatives or the Senate, can be so cowed and gutless such that they do nothing about the multifarious crimes perpetrated by people like those in the Trump regime.

Sources

1. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-press-in-the-third-reich

2. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/history-censorship-italy/

3. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/freedom_of_the_press

4. https://www.freepress.net/news/right-wing-trump-friendly-billionaires-are-buying-mainstream-media

5. https://www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/enemy-people-trumps-war-press-new-mccarthyism-and-threat-american-democracy

6. https://grady.uga.edu/research/lugenpresse-the-lying-press-and-german-journalists-responses-to-a-stigma/

7. https://www.britannica.com/event/Lateran-Treaty

8. https://www.britannica.com/event/Concordat-of-1933

9. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zp3p82p/revision/4

10. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-energizes-conservative-christians-with-religious-policies-and-assaults-on-cultural-targets

11. https://www.britannica.com/topic/corporatism

12. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/may/18/nazi-billionaires-book-hitler-bmw-porsche

13. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/387867611_Trade_unions_under_Nazi_rule_How_Nazis_destroyed_trade_unions_and_attempted_to_create_an_obedient_workforce

14. https://equitablegrowth.org/six-years-later-more-evidence-shows-the-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act-benefits-u-s-business-owners-and-executives-not-average-workers/

15. https://vjel.vermontlaw.edu/top-ten/2026/2026/01/environmental-destruction-through-deregulation/

16. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-trump-administrations-abandonment-of-the-ilo-harms-workers-both-at-home-and-abroad/

17. https://apnews.com/article/labor-department-deregulation-worker-safety-wages-223309692fecb3721ef377154e7689ed

18. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-wealth-stock-market-trading-b3045815.html

19. https://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/trial.htm

20. https://insightsnack.com/scapegoats-how-fascists-use-minority-groups-to-seize-power/

21. https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/mussolini_benito.shtml

22. https://scroll.in/article/1081753/make-italy-great-again-mussolinis-rise-and-fall-shows-how-democracy-dies-by-a-thousand-cuts

23. https://www.newsweek.com/trumps-full-list-racist-comments-about-immigrants-muslims-and-others-779061

24. https://www.npr.org/2026/10/23/nx-s1-6012356/a-new-study-gives-us-a-clearer-picture-on-how-many-people-have-been-deported

25. https://www.npr.org/2023/11/17/1213746885/trump-vermin-hitler-immigration-authoritarian-republican-primary

26. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-says-immigrants-are-poisoning-blood-country-biden-campaign-liken-rcna130141

27. https://www.swansea.ac.uk/history/history-study-guides/what-was-the-impact-of-fascist-rule-upon-italy-from-1922-to-1945/

28. https://countercurrents.org/2026/08/how-nazi-germany-silenced-dissent/

29. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/01/trump-homeland-security-markwayne-mullin-polling

One of those people was Prue MacSween, who said on Xitter (pronounced ‘shitter’) on October 19^th:

“After this shocking [Helen Haines] (alleged) attack, some commentators are saying this is the time for Albanese to step up. That it is his John Howard Port Arthur moment & he now has to lead the nation. Given he is the man who cannot speak the words “Islamic Extremism” & who I believe is responsible for the growing intolerance & hatred & rise of anti_semitism, I think that is virtually impossible. We cannot forgive or forget what he has created in this country. He is no leader. Never was. Never will be.”³

Many of the replies are very pointed and hilarious. The much respected Paul Bongiorno was restrained in replying “You pathetic small person”. Jansant was less restrained with “just fuck off Prue.”³

Sebastian Marchmain Reborn made me giggle with “It’s not ‘alleged’ you stupid gin soaked pitiful excuse of a person. It’s fact [Helen Haines] is in HOSPITAL. You wouldn’t remember what you did last week. You are a despicable caricature of a sentient human being. This has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with “Islamic Extremism”³.

Teresab hit the nail on the head with: “Absolutely appalling. You truly are a horrible person. You are an example of everything that is wrong in this country. Like Hanson, you constantly spread misinformation, hate and division and when that rhetoric leads to horrible outcomes, you pretend it’s someone else’s fault.”³

Prue MacSween is a television and radio presented and commentator and is a right wing nutjob⁴.

Yassmin Abdel-Magied, a Sudanese-Australian engineer, who made comments about Anzac Day (for which she apologised) was the subject of a comment by MacSween. In 2017, during an appearance on right wing radio station 2GB with host Chris Smith, MacSween said: “She has fled the country and is blaming all of us. “She says she’s been betrayed by Australia and didn’t feel safe in her own country. Well actually she might have been right there, because if I had seen her I would have been tempted to run her over, mate.”⁵

She was criticised for this and defended her comments as simply a joke, and attacked critics with: ”To all you festering, humourless Twitter ferals. Go tell someone who cares. Last time I looked this was a country of free speech. Get a life.⁶

So, if I said “someone should drown Prue MacSween, by stuffing her in a chaff bag and dropping her out at sea”, MacSween would realise it was a joke and would defend my right to suggest such an end to her malignance.

Sources

1. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cmgr8q88r5eqo

2. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm5ynk1g88kwo

3.

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prue_MacSween

5. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jul/12/conservative-commentator-run-over-yassmin-abdel-magied

6.

It was reported that Priebus and Sean Spicer, then White House spokesman both resigned supposedly because of Scaramucci’s appointment², although a spokesman for Priebus has denied this³. In much of his time, short as it was, Scaramucci railed against ‘leakers’, and it was, ironically, leakers who the New York Times relied on to report his dismissal¹.

After Priebus and Spicer had left, John Kelly, a former general was appointed Trump’s chief of staff³, and it was he who dumped Scaramucci after 10 days in an effort to reinstate some discipline into the White House staff³. After his short tenure in the job, a 10 day stint started to be called a ‘Scaramucci’ or a ‘Mooch’, which had been his nickname from his years in Wall Street.

Leap forward just over 9 years and after the professional liar, Karoline Leavitt, had resigned from the job, it was given to Katie Zacharia, another blonde white woman. Zacharia has a law degree, and soon after graduating, worked in China (2011-2013) in a law firm, and as a commentator on Faux News and Newsmax, another far right outlet, and more recently became a senior communications adviser at Trump Media and Technology Group which runs Trump’s social media outlet Truth Social^4,5.

She has referred to herself as a lawyer and elsewhere she has been referred to as an ‘attorney”. The only problem was that she failed the California Bar Examination, and was not licensed to practice law in any of the 50 states of the US. In California, calling yourself a lawyer without having a licence is a crime⁶.

After a disastrous first press briefing which lasted all of 14 minutes (only about a third of the time of a usual press conference), and a series of stilted media interviews, including on Faux News where she had admitted she had failed the Bar Examination, Trump basically told her that the job was ‘not for her’⁷.

So, now we have a Zach which is about half a Mooch. You have to laugh.

Sources

1. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40684697

2. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-22/donald-trumps-press-secretary-sean-spicer-resigns/8733790

3. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/28/trump-fires-white-house-chief-of-staff-reince-priebus#:~:text=Priebus%20told%20the%20Wall%20Street,now%20lost%20a%20chief%20of

4. https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/national-international/questions-new-white-house-press-secretary-katie-zacharia/4167493/

5. https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/katie-zacharia-trumps-press-secretary-152927176.html

6. https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/national-international/questions-new-white-house-press-secretary-katie-zacharia/4167493/

7. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c6e3xnjlz12do

In Canada, more than 3.7 million hectares have been burnt, which is nowhere near the horrendous fire season on 2023 when over 15 million hectares had been burnt. In addition to first in northern Canada, large fires have also burnt large areas of Alaska, northern Siberia. These are particularly concerning because they burn peatlands and boreal forests, which store vast amounts of Carbon and Nitrogen^4,5. Indeed, the peatland fires can ‘overwinter’ underground and can reignite in spring⁶.

Satellite observations from the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service indicate that global biomass burning emissions during the first half of 2026 were among the lowest on record largely because fire activity in parts of Africa and Asia was below average⁷.

I wrote about the coming El Niño just over a month ago and the Bureau of Meteorology had predicted unusually high temperatures for October to December⁸.

It turned out that Australia has experienced its second hottest September on record, with the average temperatures being 2.7 degrees C above the long term 1961-1990 average⁹. Some places in South Australia have recorded their hottest September days on record, in some places, the temperatures have been 10-15 degrees C above average¹⁰.

This augurs for a very hot 2026-2027 Summer, with almost the whole of the country having an 80% chance of exceeding the median maxiumum temperature between December and February¹¹.

We just had blinds installed on our northwest facing balcony. We’ll probably need them.

Sources

1. https://www.euronews.com/2026/08/13/wildfires-in-europe-is-2026-already-the-worst-year-on-record

2. https://eu-space.europa.eu/news/observer-summer-fire-how-copernicus-monitored-europes-2026-wildfire-season

3. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-26/deadly-wildfires-france-spain-evacuations/106959442

4. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001670612500196X

5. https://arctic-council.org/news/impacts-of-wildfires-on-permafrost-and-peatlands/

6. https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/21425/

7. https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/copernicus-global-biomass-burning-emissions-2026-their-lowest-level-2003

8. https://www.blotreport.com/2026/09/15/the-coming-el-nino/

9. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/oct/05/australia-weather-el-nino-climate-crisisseptember-record

10. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-29/sa-september-high-temperatures-records-broken/107208004

11. https://www.bom.gov.au/climate/ahead/outlooks/

The RAPID is a series of arrays of moorings which have been in operation for over 20 years. It is designed to measure the variability of the AMOC². This RAPID system has observed an AMOC weakening of about 1.0 Sverdrup* per decade from 2004 to 2023³, although the variation is large. Despite this variation, the trend can be clearly seen in published data^2,3. While the values obtained from RAPID have not reached ‘unfamiliar’ values, they are consistent with the predicted weakening of AMOC from climate modelling. This suggests that ‘unfamiliar’ values would appear by 2040, and that previously ‘unknown’ values would appear by 2060³.

A recent study has suggested that the weakening of the AMOC can be explained by the meltwater from the Greenland Ice Sheet and Canadian glaciers, and indicates that the AMOC is likely to continue to weaken. Greenland has lost 5,900 billion tonnes of ice in the last 24 years. That amount is equivalent to the whole of the state of New South Wales covered in ice 8 metres thick^4,5.

This fresh meltwater flowing into the subarctic ocean is less dense than salty seawater, so less cooling waters descend into the ocean depths. This reduces the southward flow of deep, cold waters in the Atlantic, and thereby weakening the Gulf Stream, which is the main northward flow of warm waters at the surface⁴.

Recent climate modelling suggests that the AMOC will weaken by another 30% by 2060. However these estimates do not take into account the meltwater flowing into the subarctic ocean. If this meltwater is added to the climate projections, that 30% weakening could happen in the next 14 years, i.e. by 2040⁴. This will disrupt the current climatic system, leading to harsher winters in Europe, and drier conditions in the northern tropics. In the southern hemisphere summers could be hotter and wetter⁴.

What would the collapse of the AMOC, unlikely though it may be, mean for the planet? It would be terrifying.

*Sverdrup: This is a non-SI unit, named to honour Norwegian oceanographer and meteorologist Harald Ulrik Sverdrup (1888-1957), and is used for quantifying large-scale volume transport by oceanographers, meteorologists, and atmospheric physicists. In this case it refers to the volumetric rate of transport of water in ocean currents. Its symbol is Sv and 1.0 Sv is equivalent to volume transport of one million cubic metres per second⁶.

Sources

1. https://www.blotreport.com/2022/11/19/running-amoc/

2.

https://rapid.ac.uk/#:~:text=The%20Atlantic%20meridional%20overturning%20circulation,from%201.2%20million%20power%20plants

.

3. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2025GL115055

4. https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2024/11/meltwater-greenland-arctic-weakening-ocean-circulation

5. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-024-01568-1

6. https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018PhTea..56..377A/abstract

Kleptocracy is a term used to refer to a government in which those exercising political power use that power to enrich themselves, their families and their associates¹.

There is now an enormous amount of evidence that the Trump regime has used the presidency to boost the Trump family’s private financial interests. For example, Trump and his family have derived very large revenues from cryptocurrency ventures while Trump has simultaneously exercised governmental power over the regulatory environment governing cryptocurrencies. Reporting in July estimated US$1.4 billion in Trump-related revenue during 2025, including cryptocurrency, Truth Social and other business interests, while ethics experts warned that his second presidency has produced unprecedented conflicts of interest².

Not only is it Trump and his family with their snouts in the trough, but Steve Witkoff, one of Trump’s Laurel and Hardy middle east envoys has disclosed more than US$100 million in 2025 from an entity connected to World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency entity he co-founded with Trump and his family³.

There seems to be absolutely no understanding of the concept of conflict of interest, to the extent that weakening of ethics laws allows money to flow in large quantities to Trump and his family. Much of this money comes from foreign governments and others seeking to curry favour with Trump⁴.

Kakistocracy is a term used to describe a government in which those exercising political power are the worst, or least qualified people⁵. While it is easy to dismiss Trump and his cabinet of curiosities as comprising people who are stupid (examples are numerous), it is probably more accurate generally to describe them as being selected on criteria other than competence. One of the striking features about the second Trump administration, is the number of people in senior positions who are extraordinarily wealthy, with as many as 57 senior officials being worth over US$100 million. This is more than four times the combined number in the Bush, Obama and Biden administrations⁶.

The Trump regime selects people on the basis of loyalty, wealth, ideology, personal connections or subservience far above selection for competence.

These two types of government, kleptocracy and kakistocracy, are mutually reinforcing, with the desire for personal enrichment leading to the selection of wealthy/loyal insiders, and their concomitant weakening of independent institutions and expertise, leading to the fact that there are fewer people capable of challenging bad decisions. This in turn leads to more poor decisions being made, with a greater dependence on loyalists to cover these up, explain them away or blame them on someone else, which in turn provides greater opportunities for personal enrichment⁷. This is a self-reinforcing political system, and it is characterised by what is termed epistemic failure. This means that it has failed in one or more ways of acquiring and justifying knowledge of something⁸. This explains Trump’s and his cohort of incompetents’ refusal to accept reality and their inability to understand the likely ramifications of his idiotic decisions.

A functioning government needs mechanisms that allow reality to contradict the leader. Such phrases as ‘That policy isn’t working’; ‘the intelligence doesn’t support that conclusion’; ‘that goes against the constitution’; ‘economists think this will cause inflation’; ‘allies are telling you that this will damage the alliance’; and ‘the scientific evidence contradicts your claim’, are never heard in the Trump administration. A healthy administration has the institutions capable of delivering such messages to the decision-makers, and a cult like ‘personalist’ government, where power is largely concentrated in the hands of a single individual tends to progressively eliminate those feedback mechanisms⁹.

This gives you something more dangerous than simple incompetence; i.e. an inability to learn from reality. This is because the system increasingly rewards people who tell the leader what he wants to hear; not that his decisions are idiotic, but that he is brilliant (a stable genius?). Trump and Putin are birds of a feather. For example, Trump is deluded with respect to the Iran war, just as Putin is deluded with respect to the Ukraine war. If Putin isn’t defenestrated soon, he will destroy Russia. Similarly, if Trump is not effectively ousted by the result of the November mid-term elections, the US, as an experiment in democracy is finished.

Sources

1. https://www.chathamhouse.org/2022/07/what-kleptocracy-and-how-does-it-work

2. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-01/trump-financial-disclosure-crypto-gifts-real-estate/106865296

3. https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/steve-witkoff-earned-over--100-million-from-trump-crypto-ent

4. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/how-weak-federal-ethics-laws-enable-presidential-profiteering

5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakistocracy

6. https://www.citizen.org/article/trump-billionaire-boys-club/

7. https://www.demdigest.org/kleptocracy-and-kakistocracy-feed-on-each-other/

8. https://jmlascala71.medium.com/its-what-we-know-that-just-ain-t-so-epistemic-failure-in-software-engineering-6ad0dcb37bdd

9. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-rise-of-personalist-rule/

As of 10 September 2026, a strong El Niño has developed. Indeed, the latest assessment by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) gives a >90% chance of a very strong El Niño¹. How this will affect Australia is yet unclear, because there are other factors to be considered.

Another part of this system which has an effect on Australia’s weather patterns is the Southern Oscillation. This refers to a bimodal variation in sea level air pressure between observation stations at Darwin, Australia and Tahiti. It is quantified as the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), which is a standardised difference between the two pressure measurements. Normally, lower pressure over Darwin and higher pressure over Tahiti encourages a circulation of air from east to west, drawing warm surface water westward and bringing rain to Australia and the western Pacific. When the pressure difference weakens, which is usually coincidental with El Niño conditions, parts of the western Pacific, including Australia experience severe drought, while in equatorial South America, heavy rain can cause severe flooding².

El Niño and the Southern Oscillation are together referred to as ENSO. However the strength of ENSO doesn’t necessarily mean an extreme Australian drought or fire season, as the effect is also dependent on the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) and the Southern Annular Mode (SAM), as well as local sea surface temperatures (SST)³.

The IOD refers to the difference in sea surface temperatures of the Tropical western and eastern Indian Ocean. The IOD is one of the key drivers of Australia’s climate and can have a significant impact on agriculture. This is because events generally coincide with the winter crop growing season⁴.

The SAM, refers to the (non-seasonal) north-south movement of the strong westerly winds that blow almost continuously in the mid- to high-latitudes of the southern hemisphere. This belt of westerly winds is also associated with storms and cold fronts that move from west to east, bringing rainfall to southern Australia⁵.

Currently, a strong El Niño is firmly established, with further intensification during Spring likely reaching a level stronger than the strongest events since 1950 when reliable records began. The Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), a measure of the atmospheric component of the ENSO, rose over the second half of August, but remains strongly negative, well below the El Niño threshold³.

The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) is currently neutral, having eased back from positive into the neutral range over August. However, modelling continues to suggest a positive IOD could develop during the Spring, although the forecast magnitude of the event has decreased in recent model runs³.

The Sea Surface Temperature (SST) analysis for last week of August shows warmer than average waters around most of Australia and mostly near average temperatures to the north. Waters are especially warm along the southern New South Wales and eastern and southern Tasmania coasts, peaking at around 2–3 °C above average. These are forecast to warm over the Spring, especially in Australia’s west³. Globally (60°S to 60°N), daily SSTs have seen the warmest August on record, sitting at 1.32 degrees C above the 20^th Century average⁶.

The long range forecast in Australia for October to December indicates that there is likely to be above average rainfall across much of the west, central and northeast of the continent, and below average in the southeast. Both daytime and nighttime temperatures are likely to be above average, with a 60% chance of unusually high maximum temperatures, and unusually high minimum temperatures⁷.

This strong El Niño is already causing major problems for many people. The Peruvian anchovy catch has failed due to warmer waters in the eastern Pacific causing the anchovies to search for food in deeper, colder waters. Drought conditions in central America have slowed shipping in the Panama Canal, which uses fresh water to fill its locks for each ship to pass. Smallholder farmers in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador have reported crop losses. Indonesia has seen an above average beginning of the wildfire season. Dry weather in parts of southern and eastern Africa, coupled with high prices for fuel and fertiliser caused by the idiot Trump’s war with Iran, is threatening food security⁸.

The big question is how global warming will affect the influence of this El Niño. There are some indications that the effects have started to change. For instance, El Niño events were associated with warmer temperatures in south Asia and northeastern Africa between 1960 and 1990, but since then those parts of the world have had cooler temperatures. Over the same interval, Europe used to be colder during El Niño events; now it is getting warmer⁸. The Boreal Summer has seen one of the worst fire seasons on record for parts of Europe⁹. Such changes could make it much more difficult to predict, and therefore prepare for, likely changes in the weather patterns.

Sources

1. https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.shtml

2. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/enso/technical-discussion

3. https://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/?ninoIndex=nino3.4&index=rnino34&period=weekly

4. https://www.bom.gov.au/climate/iod/

5. https://www.bom.gov.au/climate/sam/

6. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/global-climate-202608

7. https://www.bom.gov.au/climate/outlooks/#/overview/summary/

8. https://www-nature-com.simsrad.net.ocs.mq.edu.au/articles/d41586-026-02826-5

9. https://www.euronews.com/business/2026/08/13/wildfires-in-europe-is-2026-already-the-worst-year-on-record

In her report as the government’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, she attempted to conflate criticism of Israel’s genocide in Gaza with antisemitism. This is her big mistake². This attempt at conflation has demonstrated to all of humanity that Israel is just as bad as the nazis of last century.

The ‘definition’ of antisemitism abused by Segal was that of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). This definition states that: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities”³.

What Jillian Segal seems to have missed is an important sentence in the supporting documentation which states: “However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled [sic] against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic”³. This criticism of Israel is what Jillian Segal attempts to conflate with antisemitism.

The person who drafted the IHRA definition, American Kenneth Stern, has repeatedly argued that it was designed as a working definition for monitoring antisemitism, not as a rule for suppressing political speech⁴. And yet, that is what Jillian Segal wants to do. She wants to be able to monitor universities, cultural institutions and the media, such that all public funding would be terminated if these organisations did not adhere to her interpretation of antisemitism⁵. She has also called for the banning of pro-Palestinian protests, which is just what Kenneth Stern warned against.

In addition to Stern’s warning, assorted courts have come out and said precisely what Segal wants is untenable in democracies and goes against human rights. In 2020 the European Court of Human Rights ruled in favour of French activists (Baldassi and others vs France) who had been prosecuted for participating in a campaign calling for a boycott of Israeli products. The Court held that their activity was protected expression under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Crucially, the Court noted that the activists had not made racist or antisemitic statements and had not incited hatred or violence.

The significance of this is that: A political boycott directed at Israel can constitute protected political expression even though it is explicitly motivated by opposition to Israeli policy^6,7.

Journalist Mary Kostakidis was sued by the Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA) under Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, after her social media posts on Gaza and Israel that incorporated material from the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The ZFA alleged that the material was antisemitic.

The case became significant because the defence argued that the proceedings improperly conflated criticism of Israel’s conduct with racial hostility towards Jews. Justice McDonald dealt with the distinction between political criticism and racial vilification during the preliminary proceedings. On 12 September 2026, the Federal Court proceedings were discontinued by consent, without an order for costs and without a finding of liability. Kostakidis described the outcome as a victory for political and press freedom; the ZFA said its objectives had substantially been achieved through an earlier apology⁸.

Vexatious legal action like that against Kostakidis and others, and the intimidation of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in the Lattouf case, and the attacks on writers and academics such as Randah Abdel-Fattah, are designed to conceal the truth of what is happening in Gaza by curbing free speech⁹.

In the UK, the case of Miller vs University of Bristol also has important ramifications. Professor David Miller was dismissed by the University of Bristol after controversy over his views concerning Israel and Zionism. He believed that Zionism was associated with racism, apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide, and that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians was profoundly objectionable¹⁰.

In February 2024 an Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT) found that he had been discriminated against because of his beliefs. It held that Miller’s belief constituted a philosophical belief protected by the Equality Act 2010. The tribunal distinguished anti-Zionism from antisemitism. It expressly rejected the proposition that opposition to Zionism necessarily amounted to opposition to Jewish self-determination or hostility to Jews¹¹. The University appealed to the EAT, but lost the appeal¹². This is a particularly significant development: anti-Zionism is not merely something that a court says is “allowed” as a matter of free speech; it can constitute a legally protected philosophical belief¹¹.

Several US cases have produced very strong statements against the automatic equation of anti-Israel speech with antisemitism. In the case of StandWithUS Center for Legal Justice vs Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Jewish students and organisations alleged that MIT failed to protect Jewish students from antisemitic harassment during the pro-Palestinian campus protests. The First Circuit court rejected the argument that treated anti-Israel speech as intrinsically antisemitic. The court said that the assumption that one speaker’s anti-Israel speech is motivated by antisemitism cannot justify assuming that all criticism of Israel or advocacy for Palestinian sovereignty is antisemitic. It also rejected the right to suppress anti-Zionist speech merely by labelling it inherently antisemitic^13,14.

In the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) vs Rubio case, Judge William Young issued an extraordinarily strong ruling concerning the Trump administration’s actions against academic organisations and non-citizen academics involved in pro-Palestinian activism. He stated that the government’s conduct was an “unconstitutional conspiracy” to suppress First Amendment rights and blocked retaliation against members of the AAUP and Middle East Studies Association based on protected political activity. Again, this court distinguished antisemitic harassment from protected political advocacy concerning Israel and Palestine¹⁵.

I find it impossible to understand how a group of people who the Nazis tried to exterminate during the 1930s and 1940s because they belonged to a particular religion, could perpetrate the same sort of crime on another group of people, most likely because they in turn belong to a different religion. In addition, I find it imperative that if a person has any sense of justice or any simple humanity, then they should protest however they can against the genocide in Gaza.

Sources

1. https://www.blotreport.com/2026/04/08/is-this-ok-jillian/

2. https://www.blotreport.com/2026/01/27/jillians-big-mistake/

3. https://holocaustremembrance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/IHRA-non-legally-binding-working-definition-of-antisemitism-1.pdf

4. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/13/antisemitism-executive-order-trump-chilling-effect

5. https://blotreport.com/2025/07/16/bogus-report/

6. https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/fre#{%22itemid%22:[%22001-203213%22]}

7. https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/cases/baldassi-others-v-france/

8. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/sep/12/journalist-mary-kostakidis-court-case-zionist-federation-australia-discontinued-by-consent-ntwnfb

9. https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/zionist-vexatious-legal-action-against-kostakidis-will-go-to-trial-after-failed-mediation/

10. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-bristol-67149887

11. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/oct/14/anti-zionist-beliefs-worthy-respect-uk-tribunal-finds-israel

12. https://insights.devonshires.com/post/102o04w/employment-pensions-blog-the-eat-upholds-ruling-that-belief-is-protected-under

13. https://www.ca1.uscourts.gov/sites/ca1/files/opnfiles/24-1800P-01A.pdf

14. https://campus-speech.law.duke.edu/campus-speech-incidents/stand-with-us-center-v-mit/

15. https://www.aaup.org/news/court-rules-aaup-v-rubio-trump-admin-violated-first-amendment

Upon return to Australia from northeastern Syria, two women, both Australian citizens, were arrested at Melbourne airport on charges of crimes against humanity against the persecuted Yazidi community. The two had been detained for several years in Syria following the collapse of the territorial control of ISIS. It is the first time that any person has been charged with crimes against humanity offences under Australian law¹. The prosecutions are under the provisions of Division 268 of the Commonwealth Criminal Code. This division deals with “genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes against the administration of the justice of the International Criminal Court”².

Parts of the international community, including the UN Investigative Team and several national parliaments, have recognised that ISIS committed genocide against the Yazidis, because there were mass killings of Yazidi men and adolescent boys, forced religious conversion, systematic sexual enslavement of Yazidi women and girls, and abduction of younger children³.

The two women arrested on their return from Syria are alleged to have committed the crime against humanity of enslavement of women and girls. This is the first use of this international crimes legislation to prosecute alleged atrocities committed overseas. Only a small number of countries, including Germany, Sweden, France and the Netherlands have used domestic courts to prosecute people for ISIS related crimes against the Yazidis⁴.

During this genocide against the Yazidis, it has been estimated that between 2,100 and 4,400 Yazidis were killed, with nearly half of them executed by being shot, beheaded or burned alive, and the rest of them dying by starvation. In addition, 6,800 were estimated to have been kidnapped, and forced into religious conversion or sexual slavery⁵.

As I have said here previously, there is another group of Australian passport holders who have been shown to have actively participated in the killing of many people, yet you never hear anything about them having the door shut in their faces when they attempt to return to Australia. These evil murderous bastards are holders of Australian passports who have served in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF)⁶.

While the Australian government and the Coalition opposition knew exactly how many women were going to be repatriated from Syria, the exact number of Australian nationals serving in the IDF is not tracked by the Australian government, it has been estimated that about 100 people with Australian passports serve with the IDF at any given time. Indeed, it is impossible to find out how many Australians have served in the IDF, as the government stonewalls Freedom of Information requests. Despite this, it has been estimated that up to 1,000 Australians may have served in the IDF during the Gaza genocide⁶.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) calls what happened to the Yazidis for what it is; a genocide^7-9. However the gutless bastards at the ABC will not call the Gaza genocide for what it is¹⁰. Some people state that impartiality is important for the ABC¹¹, However, with regard to Gaza, this ‘impartiality’ only ever seems to favour Israel and not the people they are murdering in their many thousands. Anyone can see that what is happening in Gaza is a genocide. It has been stated by members of the Israeli government that they want to get rid of all Palestinians¹².

Yet, as many as 40 members and former member of the IDF were allowed to run in the Sydney Marathon. Some of these people had been deployed in Gaza during the genocide, one of whom was a deputy company commander on the Golani Brigade’s 13^th battalion¹³. Why are these genocidaires allowed to visit Australia?

Why will our Foreign Affairs Minister, Penny Wong, refuse to use the word genocide in reference to Gaza, when large numbers of organisations including the UN, as well as Human Rights organisations in Israel¹⁴, have admitted that what is taking place in Gaza is a genocide?^15,16 She gives a lame excuse that she respects the independence of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). This is just more political bullshit, as the final judgement in the case is not expected until late 2027 at the earliest. In the interim, Israel can murder thousands more Palestinians with impunity¹⁷. Why won’t Wong do anything except send a strongly worded e-mail? Is she afraid of the Zionist lobby in Australia? Is she afraid of Mossad? Is she afraid of losing funding for election campaigns from the Zionist lobby?

The ICJ ordered immediate an effective measures to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the ‘risk of genocide’ by ensuring sufficient humanitarian assistance and allowing basic services. However, Israel has done nothing in the two and a half years since that order (January 2004), except continuing to kill Palestinians, and it has now extended the killing into Lebanon¹⁷.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, former Israeli Minister of Defence. Will Australia arrest them if they enter Australia, as we are obliged to do under as we are a member state of the ICC? Wong has used the vacuous phrasing for which she seems to want to be remembered, in stating that Australia would “comply with international law” but did not name Netanyahu or Gallant¹⁸.

Numerous nations have said specifically they will arrest Netanyahu or Gallant if they set foot in their country? These include Canada, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, South Africa, New Zealand, Spain, Ireland, among others¹⁹. Why cannot Australia state it clearly? After all it is simply complying with international law.

I used to have a significant amount of respect for Penny Wong in that she never seemed to get rattled, she seemed to be able, and was apparently on top of her portfolio. Not any more. The gutlessness of this government has disgusted me.

Sources

1. https://acij.org.au/joint-statement-yazda-and-acij-welcome-historic-crimes-against-humanity-charges-for-australians-conduct-against-yazidi-in-syria/

2. https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2004A04868/latest/text/2

3. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/08/ten-years-after-yazidi-genocide-un-syria-commission-inquiry-calls-justice

4. https://www.ibanet.org/War-crimes-Universal-jurisdiction-secures-convictions-for-genocide-against-Yazidi-people

5. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5423550/

6. https://blotreport.com/2026/05/29/australian-killers/

7. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-03/yazidi-refugee-preserving-culture-after-genocide/104158818

8. https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/religionandethicsreport/father-nabil/105729442

9. https://www.abc.net.au/religion/watch/compass/the-yazidi---people-of-the-peacock-angel/10142330

10. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/26/australias-abc-staffs-concerns-over-gaza-bias-revealed

11. https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/news/72159-abc-chief-is-right--impartiality-is-paramount-when-reporting-the-israel-gaza-war

12. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/sep/07/israeli-ministers-brutal-plans-palestinians-gaza

13. https://johnmenadue.com/post/2026/09/protesters-challenge-idf-presence-at-sydney-marathon/

14. https://www.btselem.org/publications/202507_our_genocide

15. https://blotreport.com/2025/09/22/punishment-for-genocide/

16. https://www.foreignminister.gov.au/minister/penny-wong/transcript/radio-interview-triple-j-hack-dave-marchese

17. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/02/israel-defying-icj-ruling-to-prevent-genocide-by-failing-to-allow-adequate-humanitarian-aid-to-reach-gaza/

18. https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/we-will-comply-with-international-law-on-netanyahu-arrest-wong-20241125-p5ktdl.html

19. https://theconversation.com/many-of-israels-western-supporters-indicate-they-would-arrest-netanyahu-will-australia-and-nz-follow-suit-244500

This convergence started with the rise of Thatcher in the UK and Reagan in the US and was enthusiastically copied by the Hawke-Keating Labor government in Australia. It has continued subsequently when governments noted that the wealthy could be replied upon to make very generous donations to their respective election campaigns. As a consequence, people’s future depends little on who is elected to govern.

Where has this led? We have suffered deindustrialisation as manufacturing jobs have disappeared overseas, a decrease in union membership and a concomitant decrease in the relative power of employees, a widening regional inequality, a widening overall wealth inequality, and decreasing housing affordability, among other factors. This has caused people to feel helpless and left behind, and has provided fertile ground for the far right to pump up grievances against those who have nothing to do with these problems. These include: immigrants, unionists, the unemployed, gay people, transsexuals, and anyone else they can convince the gullible to hate.

Trump

Perhaps the worst example of this is the Trump takeover of the Republican Party such that they are now complicit in his corruption, bigotry and stupidity, not to mention war crimes. Trump sucked in the gullible by flogging them MAGA caps, and told them ‘I am your voice”, while giving tax cuts to his wealthy donors. Back when I started blogging, during the first months of the idiot Trump’s first term, I knew he was a conman, a liar, and a narcissist and wanted, like most despots, to be president for life. I finished with a short paragraph stating: “All US Senators and Representatives, upon taking office, swear to support and defend the Constitution. Maybe they should read their oath of office again. They seem to have forgotten what it means”².

What amazes me is that so many Americans are seemingly incapable of spotting such a charlatan despite his constant lying, his pandering to the wealthy, and his clearly evident corruption, as well as his paedophilia. The only conclusion I came to was that Trump gave them the licence to be bigots, thugs and paedophiles (as so many of them seem to be)³, because he hated the same people they hated. These were the people listed above.

To state that he is their voice, while making life more difficult and more expensive for the average punter, beggars belief. And the fact that the red cap wearing denizens of the MAGAsphere believe him is even more astonishing, given that the wealthy have donated over three quarters of a billion dollars to his cause. These donations are often in exchange for lucrative government contracts, and yet these MAGats still believe him. You have to stand in awe at this mind-boggling gullibility.

Farage

In the UK, Farage was one of the leading voices in the Brexit referendum in which his lies about Europe convinced enough of the gullible to vote to leave the European Union. Farage was the long time leader of the UK Independence Party, whose railing against the European Union pressured then PM David Cameron to call the referendum. Farage’s story was all about national sovereignty and the control of immigration. After the Referendum, Farage formed the Brexit Party in 2019 to pressure the government after the withdrawal was delayed. To this end, he led the ‘Leave means Leave’ march. Farage reported that the Brexit Party at that time received about £750,000 over ten days mostly from small donations from people who wanted to see “the rebirth of democracy” in the UK. Again, the gullibility of the average punter is astonishing. The Brexit Party rebranded itself as the Reform Party soon after⁴.

There was much talk at the time by people who wanted to remain the the EU, that leaving it was all about the wealthy avoiding the tax-avoidance laws for member states, however this does not seem to be the case⁵.

What I suspect is that the wealthy want to avoid tax by keeping those in power who will decrease their tax burden, and given that the Conservatives seem to be in Johnson mediated downward spiral, then Reform seems to be the place to go for the wealthy⁶.

This downward spiral is demonstrated by the number of former Conservative politicians, including former ministers, who have defected to Reform. These include Braverman, Caulfield, Holloway, Jenrick, Zahawi, Rosindell, Kruger, Dorries and Anderson⁷.

One funny thing about this is that Farage has said that he would limit further defections from the Conservatives because Reform is not a “rescue charity” for panicked Conservatives who can see their careers going down the gurgler⁸. You have to laugh.

Hanson

In 1996, Pauline Hanson was disendorsed by the Liberal Party for her ‘controversial’ (read racist) comments about Aboriginal people. However, because it was only a short time before the 1996 election the ballots could not be changed and she was still identified on the ballot as a Liberal Party candidate. She won that election for the federal seat of Oxley and entered the federal parliament as an independent⁹. She was laughingly referred to as the ‘Oxley moron’ by some at the time.

In 1997 she joined forces with some experienced political operatives and the One Nation party was born. It is referred to herein as One Notion because that is what it was based on; fear of others. At the 1998 election Hanson lost her seat and the single One Notion candidate who won a seat was found to be ineligible due to holding, ironically, foreign citizenship⁹.

Hanson was sent to gaol for electoral fraud in late 2003, after much effort by the Howard Government’s minister Tony Abbott. After 11 weeks in the pokey, Hanson’s conviction was overturned and she was released. She ran for parliament unsuccessfully another nine times, but was successful on the tenth effort in 2016. Despite her mantra in the late 90s being ‘we are in danger of being swamped by Asians, her mantra in the second coming is ‘We are in danger of being swamped by Muslims⁹. As I said, it is one notion.

With the rapid decline of the Liberal Party, which experienced its worst electoral result since the 1940s at the 2025 federal election^10,11, after its ham-fisted campaign and its adoption of some Trumpesque idiocy¹².

Hanson has received enormous support from billionaire Gina Rinehart to the tune of a light plane, and enormous donations, even to the extent of somehow coercing her ever reliable mouthpiece in the parliament, Barnaby Joyce, to join One Notion. Like the Conservatives in the UK, Joyce realises that the Liberal Party and with it the coalition with the National Party is in a downward spiral which may be existential, so he jumped to the nearest ‘rescue charity’.

Commonality

What do all three of these charlatans have in common?

1. They portray politics as a struggle between decent, hard-working ordinary (white) citizens and a corrupt establishment of politicians, bureaucrats, academics, journalists, judges, or international organisations. This allows them to turn complicated political disagreements into a simple story: “we are the people; they are the corrupt establishment”. However, all of these parties accept enormous amounts of funding from the extremely wealthy and their corporations. In political theory, the ‘elite’ are a small group of powerful people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege and political power or skill in a society. However one should never suggest that people like Bezos and Zuckerberg (US), Harborne, Hosking, Tice (UK) or Rinehart (Australia), belong to the elite. These parties use the word ‘elite’ to solely to refer to people who are knowledgeable and able and in this they refer to bureaucrats, academics, scientists, journalists, judges, lawyers, and whoever else they disagree with¹³.

2. They claim that immigration is the cause of innumerable problems such as housing unaffordability, crime, unemployment, cultural change, pressure on public services and loss of national identity.

3. They effectively claim that the nation you knew is disappearing, and outsiders or elites, or both, are responsible.That can be particularly powerful when demographic or cultural change is rapid, which it isn’t; it is just perceived to be. This is perhaps epitomised by Hanson’s shift in demonization from Aboriginals to Asians to Muslims to Transgender people. This is simply a maintenance of the idea that people not like ‘us’ are threatening our nation.

4. Like Trump (make America great again) and Farage (we want our country back), Hanson wants to “take our country back”. They all hark back to a better time when real men wore hats and women knew their place, when the assorted countries supposedly had greater prosperity, security, and social cohesion, and you tipped your lid to the boss. Never do they tell you that during those times the taxes on the wealthy were much higher.

5. They all state that despite many problems of modern nations being complex, they have simple answers, and they state that it all gets down to immigration, the elites and the establishment causing all your problems.

6. They all create a sense of urgency by referring to immigrants or asylum-seekers as being part of an invasion by criminals, terrorists, and those who want to impose sharia law.

7. They all create a sense of distrust in institutions such as universities, mainstream media (despite their supporters owning much of it), the courts, public servants, international organisations and scientists. These are all depicted as members of the elite establishment who don’t understand ordinary people or who are part of the huge conspiracy running the world.

8. ‘Authentic’ idiotic or racist statements by the leader give the racists and the idiots in the general populace permission to be racist and idiotic. In this regard, they look upon ‘political correctness’ as censorship or even oppression, rather than just the system whereby being offensive to particular groups is frowned upon. That is why Hanson has opposed Australia’s racial discrimination laws.

9. Often these parties blame ‘globalists’, and mostly this refers to international organisations such as the UN and the WHO. Hanson has often blamed globalisation for numerous problems in Australia, seemingly not realising that it was the wealthy and their corporations who were in the forefront of globalisation; these are the very people who donate to such political parties.

Trump, Farage and Hanson are part of a peculiar phenomenon in the Anglophone world, where they pretend to be antiestablishment, but are funded by the establishment of billionaires and their corporations to keep the status quo.

*Financialisation: This is a term sometimes used to describe the development of financial capitalism during the period from 1980 to the present, in which debt-to-equity ratios increased and financial services accounted for an increasing share of national income relative to other sectors. It is tied to the transition from an industrial economy to a service economy in that financial services belong to the tertiary sector of the economy.

Sources

1. https://blakandblack.com/2025/04/22/australias-political-uniparty-donor-influence-and-the-threat-to-democracy-and-economy/

2. https://blotreport.com/2017/05/11/president-life-trump/

3. https://blotreport.com/2025/03/28/paedophile-regime/

4. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Reform-UK

5. https://www.politax.com/post/was-brexit-about-tax-avoidance

6.

Democracy for Sale

75% of Reform UK’s donations have come from just three rich men

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is more reliant on super-rich backers than any major party in modern British political history…

Read more

a year ago · 251 likes · 3 comments · Peter Geoghegan

7. https://bestforbritain.org/reform-uk-defections-resignations-tracker/

8. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gv9gyxgjjo

9. https://stories.theconversation.com/the-making-of-one-nation-pauline-explained/

10. https://blotreport.com/2025/05/09/where-to-now-2/

11. https://blotreport.com/2025/05/05/they-wont-learn/

12. https://blotreport.com/2025/04/30/trumpesque-liberal-party/

13. https://blotreport.com/2018/11/10/elites-and-the-gullible/

This was par for the course for MacArthur. He was a vain, aloof, pompous commander who showed no concern for the troops under his command. He tended to surround himself with yes-men. His vanity was demonstrated by his declining to wear a regulation cap, with his having extra gold embroidery, and the cap’s supporting wiring removed. On 22 February 1942, President Roosevelt reluctantly ordered MacArthur to abandon his hard-pressed army in the Philippines and assume the office of Supreme Commander, South West Pacific Area (SWPA) with headquarters in Australia. Roosevelt believed that General MacArthur had personally compromised the defence of the Philippines through serious errors of military judgment, but MacArthur had promoted an image of himself in the United States as a hero and brilliant general, and Roosevelt came under enormous public pressure to save MacArthur and give him a new command. MacArthur ordered his starving and desperate troops to fight on to the end, and gave them false hope of survival with a cruel lie that substantial military relief would soon arrive from the United States. While he fled to Australia, his army went into Japanese captivity, from which only about half would survive^2,3.

As the Australians fought their desperate retreat through the jungles of New Guinea, General Douglas MacArthur sat in his comfortable office unaware of the terrain the Australians were fighting in, and also being unaware that the Japanese far outnumbered the Australians. After the disastrous collapse in the Philippines, MacArthur needed some sort of victory to salve his ego. To protect his own prestige, he scapegoated the soldiers on the ground rather than admitting the campaign was difficult. There were also systemic intelligence failures at his headquarters. MacArthur’s staff continually underestimated the strength of the Japanese forces, leading him to believe the Australians were retreating from a much smaller, inferior enemy. In reality, the Australians were facing elite, combat-hardened Japanese veterans of the Malaya and Philippine campaigns.

Furthermore, MacArthur had absolutely no comprehension of the conditions in New Guinea. Commanding from his comfortable headquarters initially in Melbourne and later in Brisbane, he was detached from the realities of jungle warfare. He expected conventional flanking manoeuvres and rapid advances, ignoring the fact that the Kokoda Track was a precipitous, muddy, disease-ridden footpath winding through the Owen Stanley Mountains. The terrain was so severe that moving supplies and evacuating the wounded relied solely on native Papuan carriers and pack animals¹.

Now, moving forward almost 90 years, the USS Abraham Lincoln, an enormous Nimitz class aircraft carrier has been at sea for about nine months without a break, and the crew of some 5,000 are starting to fray around the edges, with a severe mental health crisis leading to several sailors having to be restrained from seemingly committing suicide by throwing themselves overboard. When asked by a reporter if this deployment had gone on for too long, Trump replied “No, no, no, not nearly long enough.” Hegseth, the Secretary of Defence maintained that reports from the ship and from family of crewmembers have “completely misrepresented” the conditions and morale. However, it does seem that food has been a problem, with some sailors reportedly losing weight from lack of it⁴.

Perhaps more to the point is that one sailor said: “The main reason this deployment is so worse [sic] is because we were not supposed to come out here and fight a war. At first when we learned that we would be doing combat operations it was intended to be a 2 week thing. But unfortunately that became a 7 month thing… They told us it was to help Iranian protesters, then they told us we are out here to denuclearise Iran, now it’s to support a blockade. The purpose of even doing this is inconsistent …This is a big let down with consistent extensions that affects our loved ones who have their lives on hold until we return”⁴.

There are also rumours that when a spokesman for the head of Central Command came to speak to the crew, he was met with a chorus of boos and had water bottles thrown at him. This is believed by some to have precipitated something of a mutiny, in which several sailors died. This has not been confirmed. Indeed, it has been denied by Central Command.

That is what happens when you have narcissists at any level, giving orders to troops. The troops are simply cannon fodder to serve the ego of the person giving the orders.

Sources

1. https://www.quora.com/Why-was-MacArthur-so-critical-of-the-Australian-troops-under-his-command-in-1942-43

2. https://www.battleforaustralia.org/battaust/MacArthurinAustralia.html

3. https://samilitaryhistory.org/vol042fw.html

4. https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/cnns-pamela-brown-delivers-gripping-account-of-conditions-morale-onboard-the-uss-abraham-lincoln/

The SYPAQ Corvo Precision Payload Delivery System (PPDS) is an Australian-designed fixed-wing drone that became widely known as the “cardboard drone” because much of its airframe is made from waxed, reinforced foamboard, (a waxed cardboard-like material) rather than conventional composites or metal. It was developed by Australian company SYPAQ Systems as an inexpensive, expendable logistics aircraft before being supplied to Ukraine².

The material is exceptionally low cost, and can be shipped as a kit in a flat-pack, and assembled where it is needed. It is very lightweight, very cheap to manufacture and despite being made out of foamboard, it can operate in rain. The wings are attached to the fuselage using rubber bands!³

The Corvo PPDS is a small autonomous aircraft that has a payload of about 3 kilograms, a range of up to 120 kilometres and can fly autonomously without requiring input from controllers. The operator plans the route before launch and then lets it go. It can also return and land autonomously².

The drone was originally designed for precision logistics, not as a weapon. It was intended to simply be a system to deliver such things as ammunition, medical supplies, food, batteries, radios, spare parts and anything else to remote sites. It was a way of delivering these things without putting lives or expensive vehicles or helicopters in danger².

It has been used in Ukraine for just over three years and in addition to its logistics delivery, the Ukrainians have adapted it for reconnaissance, and have modified some of the PPDS aircraft to carry explosive payloads for one-way attacks on military targets. Ukrainian forces reportedly used the PDDS cardboard drones in an attack on an airfield in Kursk Oblast in western Russia in August 2023. The attack damaged a Mig-29 and four Su-30 fighter jets, two Pantsir anti-aircraft missile launchers, gun systems, and an S-300 air surface-to-air missile defence system³.

Its advantages include: very low cost, rapid production using simple materials, easy transport, decreased radar signature compared to metal drones, and autonomous operation (overcoming jamming). This is part of a shift away from small numbers of large expensive aircraft toward large numbers of cheap autonomous drones. As I noted in a previous item on small to very small drones⁴, where this will end is anyone’s guess.

Sources

1.

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sypaq_Corvo_Precision_Payload_Delivery_System

3. https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-australian-made-cardboard-drones-used-to-attack-russian-airfield-show-how-innovation-is-key-to-modern-warfare-212629

4. https://blotreport.com/2026/05/31/insectoids/

Rhyming slang is a form of slang in which a word or phrase is replaced by another phrase whose last word rhymes with the original word. Often, the rhyming word (e.g. “farm,” “strife,” “Quist,” “bread”) is then omitted, making the expression opaque to outsiders. Hence the befuddlement of my American china.

For example:

Loaf of bread = head, as in ‘use your loaf’.

Trouble and strife = wife, as in ‘my trouble is waiting for me’.

Dog and bone = phone, as in ‘use the dog and bone’.

Captain Cook = look, as in ‘have a captain cook at that’

Butcher’s hook = look, as in ‘have a butchers at that’.

Dead horse = sauce, as in ‘do you want some dead horse on your pie?’

Adrian Quist = pissed (i.e. drunk), as in ‘don’t give him any more, he’s adrian’.

Barry Crocker = a shocker, as in ‘he had a barry crocker of a game’.

Jimmy Brits = the shits, as in ‘he gives me the jimmies’.

Billy lids = kids, as in ‘where are the billy lids?’

Buckley and Nunn = no chance, as in ‘he’s got buckleys’.

Pat Malone = alone, as in ‘I’m on my Pat tonight’.

Ginger ale = tail, as in ‘why is the car behind me up my ginger?

China plate = mate, as in ‘how are you going, china?’

Merchant banker = wanker, as in ‘he’s a bit of an merchant banker.’

Joe Blake = snake, as in ‘watch out for joe blakes around here’

Noah’s Ark = shark, as in ‘the beach is closed because they spotted a noah’s ark’.

Optic nerve = perve, as in ‘have an optic at that sheila’.

Oxford scholar = dollar, as in ‘you couldn’t lend me a few oxfords could you?’

Pen and ink = stink, as in ‘there is a hell of a pen and ink here.’

Pork pie = lie, as in ‘did you tell a porky?’

Jimmy Grant = immigrant, as in ‘is he a jimmy grant?’

Brown bread = dead, as in ‘he’s upset because his mate is brown bread.’

Reg Grundys = undies (underpants), as in ‘don’t forget to pack some reggies’.

Snake’s hiss = piss (urinate), as in I’m dying for a snakes’.

Plates of meat = feet, as in ‘that lad has big plates of meat’.

Warwick farm = arm, as in ‘what’s that under your warwick?’¹

Its emergence has been traced to the 1840s, in the east end of London when the locals were trying to make a living through various means and required a way to communicate so that passers-by, particularly anyone from the police, would not be able to understand what they were saying².

Rhyming slang was a well-known linguistic phenomenon in Australia in the first years of the 20th century, and that it had been around for some time with its origins in the cockney dialect of east London. The very first example of an Australian rhyming slang term (jimmy grant = immigrant) can be traced back to 1844. This very early date takes Australian rhyming slang as far back as it origin in London. In John Camden Hotten’s Slang Dictionary, published in 1859, it is stated that rhyming slang had only been observed ‘twelve to fifteen years’ before. Many of the rhyming slang terms found in Australian English are also found and have their origins in the speech of London’s east end³.

Rhyming slang has fascinated me and while I do not use it often, I do occasionally, and most of the instances I list above are familiar.

Sources

1. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Australian_English_rhyming_slang

2. https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Cockney-Rhyming-Slang/

3. https://slll.cass.anu.edu.au/centres/andc/rhyming-slang-australian-english

Murdoch hack Caroline Overington made a complete fool of herself when complaining about being forced to buy EVs².This was followed by another Murdoch hack Chris Kenny showing he had little idea how long it takes to charge an EV³.

Recently, a study by researchers at the University of Queenslend (UQ) involved collecting dust from balconies on homes around Brisbane and analysed that dust for chemicals associated with tyre wear, showing that traffic related pollution travelled from the streets to residential environments. The study provides the first quantitative evidence of tyre pollutants on people’s balconies, including a chemical called 6PPD-Quninone. This chemical is used in tyre production and has caused mass salmon mortality when it made its way into waterways⁴.

So what did the Murdoch media do? What they always do; they lied. Brisbane’s Courier-Fail ran a headline implying that Electric vehicles were producing toxic tyre dust that was being found on balconies. The UQ study did not investigate whether the tyre particles came from EVs or fossil-fuelled cars.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Media Watch program noted that:

1. News Corp’s reporting incorrectly connected the findings to EVs.

2. After complaints and scrutiny, the Courier-Mail changed its headline and amended the story.

3. The revised version acknowledged that the Queensland study did not investigate electric vehicles, although it continued to speculate that heavier EVs could contribute more tyre wear in future⁵.

There was no mention of trucks, buses, large 4 wheel drives or anything else that weighs more than my Kona EV. This is just another case of the Murdoch media lying to its readers. The irony is, that the person the Murdoch media supports in the US, the Mango Paedo, has added to the uptake of EVs in Australia and many other places by his idiotic bombing of Iran^6,7. You have to laugh.

Sources

1. https://blotreport.com/2019/04/08/more-electric-madness/

2. https://blotreport.com/2019/04/01/murdoch-ruperter-caroline-overington-is-an-idiot/

3. https://blotreport.com/2019/04/06/the-shallow-end-of-the-kenny-gene-pool/

4. https://news.uq.edu.au/2026-07-microplastic-tyre-pollution-found-brisbane-balcony-dust

5. https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/episodes/toxic/106962438

6. https://blotreport.com/2026/03/25/thanks-taco/

7. https://blotreport.com/2026/07/18/the-taco-effect/

Early in the speech he referred to the Tripartite Pact, the agreement signed in Berlin three months earlier between Germany, Italy and Japan, which created the Axis powers of World War II infamy. This agreement was signed in part to prevent the US from entering the war². Roosevelt also noted that it was also designed to prevent the US interfering with or blocking any expansion of these three nations, because they would then “unite in ultimate action against” the US¹.

Part of the speech attempted to dispel complacency. Roosevelt laid out the current situation in the world war where Nazi Germany had taken over much of Europe and Britain (and India and the Commonwealth) stood alone. He pointed out the flaws in the US isolationist argument, which believed that even if Britain fell, the US would still be safe because of the expanse of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. He refuted this by saying that modern technology had effectively reduced the distances across those oceans, noting that there were “planes that could fly from the British Isles to New England and back again without refuelling”¹.

Roosevelt also decried the prewar British policy of appeasement and suggested that the only solution was to help Britain, which he called “the spearhead of resistance to world conquest”¹.

Now, here we are again, with a dictator attempting to return to the ‘golden days’ of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, by engulfing the former parts of it who do not want to be engulfed. He started in the Caucasus, and more recently moved onto Ukraine. He annexed parts of eastern Ukraine as well as the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. This annexation was strongly condemned by the US and Europe, both of which implemented targeted economic sanctions, visa restrictions, asset freezes, suspension from the G8, as well as bolstering NATO’s eastern defences³. While this could not be considered appeasement, it clearly did not send a strong enough signal to Putin, as Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022.

The US and Europe responded to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine by isolating Russia economically, providing unprecedented security and financial assistance to Ukraine, and reinforcing NATO’s eastern flank. Large numbers of weapons were provided, including Javelin anti-tank missiles, other missile systems, air defence systems and artillery, along with intelligence sharing.

Like Britain in late 1940, Ukraine is now the spearhead of democracy, as it resists Putin’s lust to recreate the USSR. With Trump’s denial of continued support from the US in anything like the level extended during the Biden administration, the US has gone from being the arsenal of democracy, to being seen as the arsehole of a rapidly declining democracy.

Sources

1. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/fireside-chat-9

2. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tripartite-Pact

3. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/06/us-eu-sanctions-obama-russia-ukraine-crimea

The yacht is still impounded in Italy. The Anti-Corruption Foundation, a Russian watchdog group which publishes research into Russian government officials’ alleged illicit behavior, claims the owner is Putin².

The Graceful, an 82 metre yacht also linked to Vladimir Putin and valued at up to $120 million, was spotted off Denmark’s coast heading toward Istanbul. The vessel had been off public tracking systems since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. The yacht’s sudden appearance comes amid heightened Kremlin security measures and geopolitical tensions, including NATO warnings of potential Russian aggression against the Baltic states³. In its journey through NATO waters it was escorted by a Russian destroyer, Severomorsk, and a patrol vessel, Voevoda, and signals a possible strategic relocation of assets. The move also coincides with increased personal security for Putin. The Russian convoy was being shadowed by Danish and German patrol vessels⁴.

Yet another superyacht, the 71 metre Victoria has also been spotted heading to Turkey from the Russian Krasnodar Krai coast of the Black Sea⁵. The yacht transited the Bosphorus Strait on the morning of June 28, anchoring briefly in Istanbul’s Pendik district before proceeding toward the prestigious Aegean resort city of Bodrum. While the Victoria is formally valued at approximately $30 million and registered to corporate structures belonging to billionaire oligarch Gennady Timchenko, a close friend of Putin, investigative reports have revealed the vessel is actively used by Putin’s immediate circle⁶.

Lastly, there is the Olympia, a 57 metre yacht reportedly given to Putin in 2005 by the oligarch Roman Abramovich. It is the only yacht of the four remaining in St Petersburg⁷. There are also several other yachts linked to Putin, but those listed above are the most notable⁸.

Why the secrecy? Because Putin officially reports only a modest state salary and basic real estate assets, so his name is never directly on the registration documents for these yachts. Instead, they are supposedly owned by friends or high-ranking loyalists who act as fronts. Furthermore, many of these vessels had their tracking systems deliberately shut off to evade international sanctions following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Some of them have been moved out of range of Ukrainian drones.

While the desire to get them out of range of Ukrainian targeting seems to be a reasonable explanation for their recent travels, it is enticing to think that they may be positioned so Putin can blow through from the mess he has created with his misadventure in Ukraine. This may be a race against his defenestration, a demise suffered by so many of his former colleagues.

Sources

1. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-07/italy-seizes-superyacht-scheherazade-russian-government/101046540

2. https://megayachtnews.com/2026/01/seized-russian-owned-yachts/

3. https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/insight/putin-s-120m-superyacht-sails-past-denmark-with-warship-escort/gm-GM9460E4CA

4. https://www.superyachttimes.com/yacht-news/putin-yacht-graceful-ais-in-denmark

5. https://ua.news/en/world/superiakhta-victoria-poviazana-z-putinim-priamuie-do-turetskogo-kurortu-bodrum

6. https://united24media.com/world/another-putin-linked-superyacht-sails-to-turkey-following-gracefuls-voyage-20318

7. https://war-sanctions.gur.gov.ua/en/transport/ships/176

8. https://www.kyivpost.com/post/24431

I looked up the incubation period of the most recent Covid strains and it seems that symptoms usually start 3 to 4 days after infection, but this can range from 2 to 14 days². So, it is most likely that I picked up the virus in Sydney, as we had been in Sydney for the 4 days before the symptoms appeared. As we had been with family in Sydney, we told them all, so they could keep tabs on themselves and their kids.

I have had one day of feeling really shithouse, the next day when I did the test, I was a little less shithouse. Today, as I write this, I am nearly back to normal, although feeling tired. Tomorrow (Sunday), I should be back to normal.

One concerning thing about having a second dose of Covid is the increased likelihood of developing what has been termed ‘Long Covid’³. Avoiding Long Covid is very wise. A former colleague of mine suffered from it and he was restricted to the couch for 6 months, with extreme fatigue and weakness.

Sources

1. https://blotreport.com/2023/08/03/it-finally-got-us/

2. https://www.cdc.gov.au/diseases/covid-19#symptoms

3. https://blotreport.com/2022/12/29/even-longer-covid/

When our turn came we drove into the recently vacated slot, plugged the car in and went to the cafe to have lunch. The car app stated that the charge from about 46% to 90% would take about 50 minutes. However, the charging rarely takes as long as the app suggested, and probably took about something like 40 minutes; plenty of time for lunch and a coffee.

The fact we had to wait for a charging station was very much a surprise, as that had never happened to us before. The person to blame for this is, of course, the Mango Paedo, who, in his amazingly stupid attack on Iran in February 2026 caused the Iranians to close the Strait of Hormuz, as his national security advisors had suggested would happen. This caused the price of petrol and diesel to increase dramatically, and concomitantly, the attractiveness of EVs to increase.

While only about 2% of cars on the road in Australia are EVs (BatteryEVs and Plug-in hybrid EVs), the percentage of new car sales which were BEVs alone in the fourth quarter of 2025 was about 9.25%. The feature of this sales data which struck me was that in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) the proportion of new car sales which were BEVs in the same period was about 21%!²

However, since the idiotic Trump ordered the bombing of Iran, battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid EVs (PHEVs) accounted for almost 30 per cent of all new vehicles sold in Australia in May, with BEVs alone more than doubling year-on-year to account for 20.6 per cent of the market. With a total of 21,303 BEVs sold in May, that averages out to 687 battery electric vehicles were sold per day, or the equivalent to about 29 sold every hour or roughly one sold every 2 minutes.

When including PHEVs, Australians purchased 30,618 rechargeable vehicles. And when expanding the data to include all types of hybrids, all electrified vehicles accounted for 46 per cent of all new vehicle sales, according to the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI). In the ACT, for a long time the market leader in EV adoption in Australia, sales hit 36.5 per cent in May, taking the total share of EVs in the existing fleet to 4.7 per cent³.

When we drove a diesel Mazda for a decade and occasionally had to wait in a queue to fill its tank with fuel, nobody seemed to whinge that the infrastructure was not up to par. However, the fact that EV sales have rocketed has shown that while the infrastructure can currently cope, with the rapid increase in EV sales, it won’t be long before the waiting times become too long to be acceptable for the average punter.

Sources

1. https://blotreport.com/2025/06/10/electric-travel/

2. https://blotreport.com/2026/03/25/thanks-taco/

3. https://thedriven.io/2026/06/04/an-ev-is-being-sold-every-two-minutes-in-australia-act-hits-36-5-pct-electric-share/

If Infantino expected to set this up as a perpetual prize, anyone who is asked to receive it should turn it down, because being in the company of Trump as a recipient, makes the prize as rancid as the contents of Trump’s adult nappies. Maybe Infantino was angling for a swag of cash by way of crumbs from the Trump corruption machine. Who knows?

So what did Infantino do next other than sit in the stands looking like a spare knob at a knocking shop? When asked by the Mango Paedo to interfere with a referee decision in the game between the US and Bosnia-Herzegovina, which led to one of the US goal-scorers, Folarin Balogun being sent off, Infantino replied: ‘Yes sir! Immediately.’ Not only did the Mango Paedo whine about the red card, but he questioned the referee’s integrity (pot, kettle, black!), to the extent that FIFA had to defend the referee. This decision allowed Balogun to play in the following game, in which the US played Belgium.

Infantino’s decision prompted criticism from Belgium’s football association, Europe’s top football body (UEFA), former FIFA head, Sepp Blatter, numerous top former players and many others. Critics argued that overturning a red card suspension after direct political intervention undermined the integrity of the tournament and set a dangerous precedent. The Belgian football association also accused FIFA of effectively killing any chance for it to challenge the global sports body’s decision. Hours later, FIFA rejected Belgium’s appeal against its decision².

You know that if Sepp Blatter comes out stating that you have gone too far, you really have overstepped the mark, because Blatter, when head of FIFA, was forced to resign because of a huge corruption scandal. Infantino replaced Blatter³.

So, it was with a great deal of trepidation that I watched the game between the US and Belgium. In the first few minutes of the game, it was clear that the Belgian team were technically superior and the first goal was scored by De Ketelaere in the ninth minute. Belgium up 1:0. Tillman scored for the US in the 31st minute from a free kick, aided by a deflection off the wall which wrong-footed the ‘keeper, Courtois. All square 1:1. Two minutes later, De Ketelaere, struck again. Belgium up 2:1. Belgium’s two goals were lovely, well constructed from crosses not far in front of the ‘keeper which could partly be put down to inexpert defending. After half-time, things in the goal-scoring department got weird. US keeper Freese came way off his line to meet a long ball but his attempted kick only found his foot digging into the turf, with the ball instead ending up in the possession of Vanaken, whose shot from about 20 metres out, beat defender Ream. Belgium up 3:1. Try as they might, the US could not slot another one into the net. However, in extra time, substitute Lukaku, whose career has been all about scoring goals for top clubs like Chelsea, Everton, Manchester United, Inter Milan and Napoli⁴, obtained the ball from another defensive cockup in the corner of the field and slotted it past the keeper to hit the net just inside the far post. Belgium up 4:1⁵.

I have rarely enjoyed a soccer result as much, not since John Aloisi’s winning penalty in a shootout against Uruguay to send Australia to the 2006 World Cup⁶.

We were having lunch at a restaurant when the game reached its last 20 minutes or so, and kept abreast of the score as the minutes ticked down. The people at the table next to ours were doing the same, and their beaming smiles were almost as wide as ours when full time came. Belgium won 4:1. When we got home, we watched the highlights on SBS⁷. I might watch them again some time.

As they keep saying ‘everything Trump touches, turns to shit’. And so it continues. It seems that Trump will eventually fall after the November midterms, if not before. The sooner the better for the US. Infantino needs to fall too. He has brought the game into disrepute through his actions, and it is clear that the governance of FIFA needs to change so that corrupt bastards like Blatter and Infantino can never get anywhere near positions of authority.

Sources

1. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/sports/article/2026/06/23/fifa-peace-prize-awarded-to-trump-by-infantino-sparks-controversy-within-football-organization_6754800_9.html

2. https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2026/7/6/why-fifas-balogun-red-card-suspension-after-trump-call-is-so-controversial

3. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-03/sepp-blatter-resigns-as-fifa-president/6516718

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romelu_Lukaku

5. https://www.espn.com/soccer/report/_/gameId/760507

6. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11-16/socceroos-uruguay-world-cup-qualifier-20-year-anniversary/106010284

7. https://www.sbs.com.au/sport/video/fifa-world-cup-2026-highlights-usa-v-belgium-round-of-16/arih72rzw

Initially, there are twelve groups (A to L) each of four teams. Those four teams play each other and a team gets three points for a win, one point for a draw, and none for a loss. At the end of the six games the two teams with the most points go through to the 32 team knockout stage. As those only make up 24 teams, another 8 highest ranked third place teams from the group stage are also able to go through.

The group stage comprises 6 games for each of the 12 groups, which makes for 72 games. Then there are 16 games in the round of 32, 8 games in the round of 16, 4 games in the quarter-finals, 2 games in the semi-finals, a final game and a playoff for third place. So, all up, that is 104 games. It is a massive undertaking.

The expansion to 48 teams has meant that some national teams which would have had very little if any chance of getting to the World Cup have reached the tournament. These include the team from Curaçao, a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which occupies an island some 65 km off the coast of Venezuela. It has a population of 155,826 (as at the 2023 census)¹. This is less than a third of the population of Canberra. Unfortunately, Curaçao did not make it past the group stage being beaten 7:1 by Germany, drawing 0:0 with Ecuador, and being beaten 2:0 by Côte d’Ivoire.

The other team which surprised me was Cabo Verde. It is a nation comprising ten volcanic islands. They are named after Cap Vert, the westernmost point of land of continental Africa, which is in Senegal². The Island nation is located between 600 and 850 kms west of Cap Vert, and has a population of about 530,000³.

Surprisingly, Cabo Verde made it into the round of 32, by drawing 0:0 with Spain, drawing 2:2 with Uruguay, and drawing 0:0 with Saudi Arabia, thereby coming second in their group behind Spain. They lost to Argentina on July 4^th, but gave them a run for their money.

Australia made it through the group stage too, beating Türkiye 2:0, losing 2:0 to the US, and drawing 0:0 with Paraguay, and coming second in Group D behind the US. Next, Australia then played Egypt, who came second in Group G behind Belgium.

I have played lots of sports over the years, especially cricket, squash and snooker, in addition to soccer, but have never been very good at any of them. However, I enjoyed playing all of them, mostly because I did so with mates. However, I have always been fascinated by players who excel in their sports, and seemingly have talents I do not possess. Some of those in this tournament I have seen before in other tournaments or the occasional game I have seen from the English Premier League. They include Lionel Messi, from Argentina⁴. He is the best soccer player I have ever seen and I have seen players including Pele, Johan Cruijff, Franz Beckenbauer, Diego Maradona, and Michel Platini among others. Messi’s ability is astonishing, and some of his work can be seen on YouTube⁵. He has just tuned 39 and is nearing the end of his career.

Some of the others who excel include: Cristiano Ronaldo from Portugal who is now 41 and will likely retire very soon⁶; Mohamed Salah from Egypt who, at 34 is getting toward the end of his career⁷; and Kylian Mbappé from France, who is only 27 and is at the peak of his abilities⁸.

Watching them will be fun even if, because of the time difference, I am still in my pyjamas sucking in my first coffee of the day. Salah did play for Egypt against Australia on Saturday, after recovering from an injury in an earlier game, and was a bit of a handful. Unfortunately Australia lost the game on penalties after exhausting extra time without another goal. A cruel way to go, but that is the game.

One feature which has struck me about this World Cup is some of the legs and arms covered in tattoos, and some bizarre hairstyles. There are mohawks, mullets, man buns, man buns with mullets, one bloke has what looks like steel wool with a streak of rust through it, another has what looks like a badger skin lying crossways on his head, yet another has very short back and sides with cream fluff all over the very top of his head, another looked like he had week-old road-kill on his head, while another looked like he had a very large caterpillar crawling up the back of his neck onto the top of his head. While it is difficult to work out what almost all tattoos are supposed to be, some look like a scattering of gum leaves on cream tiles.

Sources

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curaçao

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Verde

3. https://population.un.org/dataportal/data/indicators/49/locations/132/start/2026/end/2026/table/pivotbylocation

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_Messi

5.

6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cristiano_Ronaldo

7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Salah

8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kylian_Mbappé