It has been said to me by more people than I can remember, that ‘laughter is the best medicine’. In the past, I have often wondered if indeed it is true to some extent. However, given the appalling injustice in the world these days with the continuing war in Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza, I can attest that it certainly does help in retaining your sanity; in fact, I suspect I am depending on it.
As anyone who has been online in recent years will tell you, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has developed into a very different war with drones forming a huge part of the Ukrainian arsenal. The types they use range from something like your average commercial hobbyist drone that you can buy in almost any toyshop to something approaching a converted light aircraft1.
Because of my particular palaeontological expertise, in 1999, I was asked to be involved in a project with the Northern Territory Geological Survey (NTGS). They were about to begin remapping several 1:250,000 geological map sheets in the Northern Territory portion of the enormous Georgina Basin.
While I never thought I would witness a genocide in my time on this planet, there have been several; one of the worst, and happening now, is the appalling genocide perpetrated by Israel on Palestinians in Gaza. Numerous organisations have called this a genocide1 and now the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory has delivered their report. They have found that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip2.
Many years ago, acquaintances of ours, Peter and Ria Gill, owned a restaurant, Peaches1,2, in the Canberra suburb of Campbell and we would occasionally dine there. The food was wonderful and the wine list was spectacular.
The Murdoch media, or Newscorpse as it is sometimes called, is notorious for lying to its readers and listeners, as I have demonstrated many times. Some examples are given in the sources below of bald-faced lies, lies by omission, complete inventions, spin and assorted other drivel1-30.
The organisation also is about denialism. It denies climate change31-39, Covid-1940-44,