Police Brutality.

We have a problem in this country: The elite is untouchable, sacred. Everything and everybody else is fair game.

Yesterday Victorian Police limited itself to brutalising climate change protesters (other State police have manhandled old men and strip-searched teenage girls, presumably because they could carry WMDs in their vaginas). Today they decided that journalists, including a Chanel Seven reporter, were also a legitimate target. After all, they capture in images scenes Victorian Police don't want the public to see:

Incredible. I was obeying their direction to move to another area. I’m stunned. https://t.co/YsZDIjc9jO

— Paul Dowsley (@pauldowsley7) October 30, 2019

Vic police pushing journo ⁦@pauldowsley7⁩ at #IMARCBlockade ⁦@australian⁩ pic.twitter.com/fJRPBo5YDi

— Tessa Akerman (@TessaAkerman) October 30, 2019

Today I was reporting on #IMARC for @FarragoMagazine. I was not involved in the blockade, just a student journalist peacefully observing. Yet I was still pepper sprayed by police. This police brutality MUST end. @VictoriaPolice pic.twitter.com/CAwufSQGyJ

— Ailish Hallinan (@AilishHallinan) October 29, 2019

Pleas for Help.

Entomology, the branch of zoology focusing on insects, is not a sexy area of research. As a consequence it has been relatively neglected. Yet, insects are vitally important for life.

Alarmingly, they are disappearing worldwide.

So neglected has been entomology that the credit for the first scientific confirmation of that disappearance can be attributed largely to Krefeld-based German amateur entomologists in a 2017 paper.

Australian scientists are attempting desperately to fill that gap. And it needs to be filled.

Climate Change as Threat to National Security.

A whiff of madness surrounds the Morrison freak show, their minions in the Commonwealth bureaucracy and sycophants in the Murdoch press-titute. The term "climate emergency" was banned, declared taboo, anathema. Caca.

And yet, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet

Climate change poses a 'direct threat' to Australia's national security. It must be a political priority

Climate change is expected to increase the severity of natural disasters in the Asia-Pacific region, straining Australia’s ability to respond through humanitarian missions and fuelling more climate migration. Vlad Sokhin/UNICEF handout

Chris Barrie, Australian National University
This is part of a new series looking at the national security challenges facing Australia, how our leaders are responding to them through legislation and how these measures are impacting society. Read the rest of the series here.

The End of the World as We Know It?

To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time an article like Liam Mannix’s “The End of the World as We Know It: Are we on the Brink of a Mass Extinction?” (October 17) sees the light of the day in Australia. (If readers know of similar articles in overseas newspapers considered serious, please, let me know).

That it appears in The Sydney Morning Herald (although it has recently suffered financially, it remains our Antipodean equivalent of the The New York Times), suggests readers should read it.