The Morrison Wave (Updated).

Courtesy of ABC Online, this is how the COVID pandemic has evolved in Australia since March 2020:

A view of the same data starting now on Dec 1st:

Happy New Year, folks!

The COALition’s Latest Stuff-Up.

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It may be less virulent, but Omicron seems poised to deliver a KO punch to the Australian health service. People are queuing for hours to get the PCR tests; it takes up to five and six days to receive the bloody result and when it comes it’s often mistaken.

Pathology services and hospitals, facing a surge in COVID cases, are running understaffed. This is no doubt a surprise to NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet and Scotty from Marketing, but it turns out that lab technicians, data entry operators, contact tracers, nurses, and doctors also get sick and yet are forced to deal with an avalanche of COVID. That’s when mistakes are made.

Workers’ Mail.

Sam, from the Megaphone Team (Victoria Trades Hall Council), writes that

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GPI just acquired “AR Packaging in the EU for over $1.4 billion”, Sam adds. But now they claim they cannot afford to increase their workers’ wages, forcing their workers to strike. This is particular cruel as Christmas approaches.

The Trap of “Net Zero”?

That chart, from The Conversation article appended below, speaks for itself. It may sound like hyperbole, but that may well be the most important chart I have ever seen.

It takes, however, some explaining to understand what it  says. It is not a comfortable story.

Workers of the World …

Boring intellectuals may recite their inane “ideas make reality” mantra until they are blue in the face. For a while it may – indeed probably will – fool some, but it won’t change much in the long run. It’s reality that drives action, which leads in turn to ideas.

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And so, while a few Aussie hens are still fooled into making common cause with the foxes, workers are re-learning the painful lessons their elders knew well: there is no way around, they need to act. So organise yourselves, and, as the chant says, stand up and fight back.

Bits and Pieces: The Joke’s on Us All.

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I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that with repetition, even the best joke loses its ability to make us laugh. It becomes unfunny.

Or maybe it’s just me. I’m growing older and grumpier.

Either way, for me, jokes like that, clever as they might be, no longer make me smile, let alone laugh.

The unchanging truth such jokes reflect has gone well past the point of being funny.