lev.lafayette's blog

Dear Mr. Marape,

I read with interest some time ago (Sydney Morning Herald, 2019/05/30) your interest in reviewing PNGs natural resource wealth, and am interested in how this review is developing.

I have some background in the subject through formal studies in public economics and environmental science, as well as many years of informal studies and advocacy.

In particular, I am interested in the economic and environmental success of those jurisdictions which have applied site-rental approaches and public ownership of resources.

Do not forget.

An active participant of Greece's resistance to the Nazis, Glezos is best known for tearing down the Nazi flag from the Acropolis in 1941 as occupying German forces conquered Athens.

Some of you may have come across a pieced entitled "12 Experts Questioning the Coronavirus Panic". And I'll give them some credit; they've actually found twelve people who, as they put it "contradict the official narratives of the MSM, and the memes so prevalent on social media". Ooh, so this is the alternative narrative, is it? When the weight of mainstream scientific opinion is up against twelve, perhaps we should give them equal consideration?

Australia has its fair share of colourful politicians, and Craig Kelly is certainly one of those sufficiently colourful (in the yellow journalism sense) to be a frequent guest on Sky News, for example. After the 2019-2020 bushfires, he notoriously referred to Laura Tobin as an "ignorant Pommy weather girl" who had "no idea what she's talking about", despite her university degree in physics and meteorology. For his own part, Craig Kelly completed high school.

In 2005 a horrific video showed a raccoon dog clubbed, hung upside down, and then skinned. The skinned animal is then thrown on a pile to die.

A year ago the Australian government declared that the Bramble Cay Melomys was officially extinct. This little rat animal on a 5-hectare island some 50 kilometres off the coast of Papua New Guinea. Whilst it was once numerous, surveys in 1998, 2002, and 2004 estimated that the population was less than a hundred. Affected by sea level rises and increased tropical storms, surveys in 2011 and 2014 found no trace of the animal. Finally, in 2015 a rescue mission was sent. But by then it was too late; there was none left.

This is going to rattle the establishment a bit.

With 96% of first-preference votes tallied on Sunday, Sinn Féin had 24.1%, with Fianna Fáil on 22.1%, Fine Gael on 22.1%, Greens on 7.4%, and small leftwing parties and independents comprising the rest.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/09/sinn-fein-to-try-to-form-r...

It would a fascinating proposition of the democratic left; left liberals, social democrats, democratic socialists, mutualists, ancoms, etc realised that the populist and establishment right were the bigger enemy. Well, a genuine attempt has started,Progressives Unite 2020, to bring to gether the competing Sanders and Warren camps for the US Democrats. But disagreements are deep even when appeals to unity are made; as one Facebook interlocutor put it:

Stefan Molyneaux has recently made a plea for help. I'm not even going to link it, because he doesn't deserve the views. But the essence of his problem is that if he does make enough money from various social media supporters, he would not be able to find a normal job in mainstream society because One search and it would be functionally impossible. Yes, apparently Stefan is upset that his own words, his racism, his conspiracy theories, etc might reduce his job prospects. Apparently the free-market capitalism which Stefan so readily advocates has spoken.

Sarah Morgan recently discovered an old newspaper from 1969 which contained the following advertisement:

It seems appropriate to compare this will minimum wage rates.

Minimum Wage Australia, 1969 c$1.39
Rent of a 2 bedroom flat, Drummond Street Carlton: $21 pw.
Hours worked to pay for 1 week's rent: 15.12