According to Yuri Shvets, who was posted to Washington by the USSR in the 1980s, Donald Trump was cultivated as a Russian asset over 40 years and proved so willing to parrot anti-western propaganda that there were celebrations in Moscow. Shvets was a key source for American Kompromat, a book by journalist Craig Unger. Shvets, a KGB major at the time, had a cover job as a correspondent in Washington for the Russian news agency Tass.
Alaric DeArment wrote an article in The New Republic in early 2023, where he noted that Americans from marginalised communities were looking to leave because of a rise in gun violence and far right (read Trump’s MAGA horde) politics. He wrote this article not long after he applied for German citizenship through his mother’s side of the family1.
After what happened in the US on January 20th and subsequently, I have found myself constantly scrolling through assorted writings on Substack, where a large number of reasonably literate Americans, and some very astute Australians (e.g. John Quiggin, Tim Dunlop) are fulminating, or at least aghast at the idiotic petulance from the Mango Mussolini. I also recently heard this sort of scrolling being appropriately termed ‘doomscrolling’.
The Mango Mussolini has refused to rule out economic pressure or military action to take over Greenland. Greenland is currently one of the two autonomous territories of the Kingdom of Denmark; the other being the Faroe Islands1. Inhabitants of both of those territories are citizens of Denmark and as Denmark is part of the European Union, they are therefore European Union citizens2.
Back when I was at university studying palaeontology, while quaffing our numerous cups of coffee during the day, I and a colleague used to muse about the ideal palaeontological job we wanted, and it usually came down to working at the Bureau of Mineral Resources, Geology and Geophysics (BMR) in Canberra. We didn’t think it would ever happen, and that we would initially be the most highly qualified ‘check-out chicks’ in a local supermarket.
In my last post on this blog, which was written almost two months ago, I stated that while I hadn’t posted anything for about a month, I was ‘getting back into it’1. That was overly optimistic.
As readers will know, we are downsizing and have three beds to get rid of before we move. While you can sell a bed frame/base fairly easily, it is difficult to sell a mattress, and charities like The Smith Family, The Salvation Army or St Vincent De Paul will not take them. So, the only options seemed to be to take it to a place called Soft Landing in an industrial suburb where they are recycled. Fees apply1, and I have heard from another source that this will cost you about $50.