Articles from THE BLOT REPORT
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Racists emboldened
After the racists and their fellow travellers ‘won’ the Voice to Parliament referendum vote by lying to the Australian populace in support of the No campaign1-3, it was predicted by many people that this would embolden said racists and that they would start attacking things such as ‘Welcome to Country’ ceremonies.
More culture war bullshit
In late 2022, the Australian Capital Territory’s (ACT) Legislative Assembly passed laws which will lead to a radical change in drug laws when they come into effect this month. These laws mean that if someone is caught with drugs within an allowable amount in the ACT, they will not face the prospect of gaol or having a criminal record1.
A hard few weeks
It is always difficult when a close relative dies, but when they are in their late eighties and have had a good, happy life, it is not so hard to bear. One of ours died in late July and while there were many tears shed, there was a cremation and a memorial service to organise in another city, because many of her friends and family were, like her, too old to travel. So we, with her ashes, travelled to them.
Done and dusted
We have just been down to vote in the referendum about altering the Australian Constitution to insert the following lines:
“Chapter IX Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples
129 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice
In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia:
Thematic sets of scientific papers
The website ‘arXiv’ is a curated research-sharing platform open to anyone. It was a pioneer in digital open access, and now hosts more than two million scholarly articles in eight subject areas, and is curated by a community of volunteer moderators. It offers researchers services such as: article submission, compilation, production, retrieval, search and discovery, web distribution for human readers, API access for machine readers, together with content curation and preservation.
Some are catching on
A 2017 item came up in my online feed yesterday morning, and because I initially failed to notice the date I chased it up because I have an abiding interest in the stupid stuff the religious say. It was conspiracy theorist David Meade, who suggested that Nibiru (aka Planet X) will crash into Earth and this will be heralded by a ‘sign’ on September 23rd, 2017, six years ago last week. The Christianity Today news site opined that Meade’s ‘story was “Making Christians look silly”.