Read more: The Great Calendar Kerfuffle: From Bushfires to Bare-Chested Heroes
The history of kerosene and the subsequent development of the oil industry is a fascinating journey......
Read more: From Whale Oil to Global Power: How Kerosene Ignited the Oil Revolution
From the Valley of Death at Balaclava to today’s policy corridors, the brave bear the cost while those issuing orders remain untouched.
It’s a timeless tragedy: those at the top blunder, and those below pay the price.
On October 25, 1854, during the Crimean War, the Charge of the Light Brigade saw British cavalry ride headlong into a Russian artillery maelstrom because of garbled orders from distant commanders. The result was catastrophic — a brutal collision of courage and incompetence.
Today, that same script is being replayed on a grander, more insidious stage. Policies like Net Zero, unchecked immigration, and the DEI machine are the modern equivalents of orders shouted from the hilltops. Elites in boardrooms, parliaments, and bureaucracies dream up sweeping edicts — sold as moral imperatives or economic saviours — while ordinary people bear the cost: soaring bills, fractured communities, and eroded trust.
The Charge of the Light Brigade wasn’t just a battlefield blunder; it was a symptom of deeper systemic failure — the product of tangled ambitions, confused communication, and competing empires. To understand its lesson for today’s policy missteps, we must first look at the war that birthed it.
Read more: From Cannons to Bureaucracy: Who Pays When Leaders Blunder?
Imagine women, beaten, humiliated, raped repeatedly in Nazi-run brothels, stripped of their dignity, and sent to their deaths in Auschwitz. This was not fiction. This was horror. This was real. And this is the history behind the name Joy Division.
In a world still scarred by the October 2023 Hamas attacks that slaughtered more than 1,200 Israelis, symbols of suffering demand reverence, not recklessness. Leaders must understand the weight of history, the memory of trauma, and the responsibility of visibility.
Yet on October 22, 2025, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stepped off a plane - fresh from a meeting with Donald Trump - wearing a black Joy Division T-shirt. He has worn it before: at a 2022 Gang of Youths concert, skulling a beer to cheers, and again on a 2023 diplomatic trip to China.
Fans cheer “DJ Albo” for his relatable, music-loving persona. But this is no harmless fashion choice. It is a pattern of indifference to history’s deepest wounds.
Read more: Why Albanese’s Joy Division Shirt Is a Moral Failure
By Roderick (Whiskers) McNibble, Ratty News Senior Correspondent, via Carrier Galah from the Orange Floatplane
(Fuelled by Whiskers Dynamic Propulsion and a Whiff of Unfiltered Emu Brew)
Filed live from the creaky stage of Dusty Gulch’s Town Hall, where the bin chickens are fluffing their feathers for a standing ovation – or a strategic retreat – and the galahs are garbling lines like it’s opening night at the Censorship Cabaret.
The news landed in Dusty Gulch like a firecracker in a tin shed: Maurice E-Duck, the town’s longtime avatar of electronic caution, is flapping off into obscurity. Dusty McFookit toasted freedom with extra Emu Brew.
But the locals know better than to cheer too soon - the real mind behind the pond has always been Prentis Penjani, waiting in the wings for this exact moment. And that moment is on the horizon.
Read more: The EDuck was the decoy. Prentis is the conductor. The final act’s begun
By Roderick “Whiskers” McNibble, Senior Correspondent (and dance adjudicator)
Crikey, mates and matesses - you’d think a town as small and conspiratorially aware as Dusty Gulch would be immune to scams by now. But no. Once again, Maurice EDuck and Prentis Penjani, those two smooth-talking prophets of piffle, have reminded us that Australia is out for a duck because Trump knocked it out of the park.
Dusty Gulch is still recovering from last Friday night’s spectacle at the Dusty Dingo, where Trevor the Wallaby took to the bar ... literally ... to debut his brand-new titanium knees. He stomped, he twirled, he Riverdanced and Appalachian-clogged until the sawdust lifted. The crowd roared, the jukebox shorted, and old Mavis from the CWA clog dancing committee fainted into a keg of Emu Brew beer. It was a night to remember.
But just as the knees were warming up, so too were the rumours. Word reached the Dusty Dingo Pub that the shiny new metal in Trevor’s legs came from Dusty Gulch itself .. or rather, from the soon-to-be “Critical Minerals Extraction Zone No. 47,” recently approved after the historic handshake deal between President Donald Trump and Australian Prime Minister Magoo.
Intrigued? You should be. This is a tale that could wag the tail off a rat living in a wombat burrow, reporting news to the world via carrier galah and orange biplanes fuelled by whiskers dynamic propulsion......
Read more: Trevor the Wallaby’s Titanium Two-Step and the Great Rare Earth Rush
I have often pondered why mankind decided to go after the humble whale. After all, the whale was out there, in the ocean, minding his or her own business and wasn't really causing any problem. Unless you were a seal, krill or plankton. In which case, you probably had a civil rights claim or two.
Yet this gentle giant ( as far as humans are concerned ) was not bothering anyone. All the whales wanted to do was what they have done since God first had a great idea " I think I'll make a whale. " and the whales just cruised around, having babies, blowing bubbles and migrating to warmer places and having a jolly old time.
So what did the poor whale do to us? Well, let me tell you a whale of a tale and how the Industrial Revolution saved it.
There’s a new chorus echoing through Canberra: “Critical minerals will secure our future.” With fanfare and funding, the Albanese government recently sealed a multi-billion-dollar deal with the United States to ramp up Australia’s role as a key supplier of rare earth minerals - the elements that power electric vehicles, wind turbines, smartphones, and missiles.
On October 20, 2025, President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese shook hands at the White House, creating a glittering new partnership - the U.S.–Australia Critical Minerals Framework.
It all sounds like the perfect marriage of mutual interest - until you look beneath the polished policy language.
We stopped teaching goodness. Now we’re living with the consequences.
There was a time when Sunday School was part of almost every child’s life. In the early 1960s, one in seven children under fourteen went every Sunday to hear Bible stories, talk about God, and learn Christian values. We put on our best clothes and headed off to join our friends in fellowship and safety - in a place of love.
The idea of Sunday School began in 18th-century England. Robert Raikes, a Gloucester printer and philanthropist, saw the suffering of child labourers in factories and mines. Their only day off was Sunday, so he created schools where they could learn to read - first the alphabet, then the Bible.
As Raikes said, “Vice could be better prevented than cured.”
In an Australia grappling with division and a search for identity, it’s time to rediscover Andrew Barton “Banjo” Paterson - not merely as the poet of Waltzing Matilda and The Man from Snowy River, but as a patriot, horseman, and wartime contributor whose life speaks to the strength and unity we need today.
Known for turning the bush into verse, Paterson’s lesser-known story - his wartime service, shaped by a childhood injury that left one arm shorter than the other - reveals a man who overcame limitation to serve his country.
His legacy, from training horses for the Light Horse Brigades to penning poems like We’re All Australians Now, offers a blueprint for rediscovering national pride in 2025.
Read more: Rediscovering Banjo: The Poet Who Taught Us to Be Australians
From Bushfires to Bare-Chested Heroes Our resident Redhead proves that admiration, humour, and a little…
151 hits
In the mid-19th century, a flickering flame of innovation sparked a revolution that would illuminate…
261 hits
From the Valley of Death at Balaclava to today’s policy corridors, the brave bear the…
282 hits
Imagine women, beaten, humiliated, raped repeatedly in Nazi-run brothels, stripped of their dignity, and sent…
487 hits
Prentis Penjani’s Grand Debut – The Duck Was Just the Warm-Up Act By Roderick (Whiskers)…
278 hits
By Roderick “Whiskers” McNibble, Senior Correspondent (and dance adjudicator) Crikey, mates and matesses - you’d…
365 hits
I have often pondered why mankind decided to go after the humble whale. After all,…
358 hits
Critical Minerals: The Deal That Could Turn Australia Into the World’s Quarry There’s a new…
512 hits
In 1775, the U.S. Marine Corps was established to safeguard American ships and interests. …
340 hits
We stopped teaching goodness. Now we’re living with the consequences. There was a time when…
348 hits
In an Australia grappling with division and a search for identity, it’s time to rediscover…
393 hits
Ratty News: Dusty Gulch Dispatch — “When the Ghosts Came Rolling In” Filed by: Roderick…
369 hits
Eighty-one years ago this week, in October 1944, a tall, thoughtful barrister from Victoria gathered…
613 hits
On the evening of October 12, 2002, the peaceful tourist destination of Bali, Indonesia, was…
363 hits
Queensland and much of northern Australia are overrun with cane toads - an invasion so…
353 hits
Some time ago, a young boy visiting Redhead’s house asked to use the “dunny.” The…
400 hits
Have you ever wondered how and why the Youth of today are holding rallies , their…
369 hits
Over the last few weeks I have noticed that people are losing their sense of…
391 hits
By Roderick (Whiskers) McNibble, Ratty News Bureau Chief There’s panic, pandemonium, and political puffery in…
406 hits
Try herding cats sometime. You’ll crouch, whistle, wave treats, and for one delusional moment, think…
398 hits
From Network to today, the prophecy is clear: truth has been turned into a commodity,…
602 hits
I am personally horrified by what has happened since October 2023. This wasn’t just a…
436 hits
Much of Australia’s early slang comes from the convict culture of the late 18th and…
483 hits
In 1925, a small courtroom in Dayton, Tennessee, became the stage for a battle over…
627 hits
Ratty News Exclusive By Roderick (Whiskers) McNibble, Special Correspondent (aisle seat, back row) Reporting from…
419 hits
Back in 2002, an anonymous person sent an email from a disposable email address to…
348 hits
“We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders.” G. K. Chesterton Leonard…
399 hits
Albert Facey’s A Fortunate Life is more than a memoir. It is the voice of…
791 hits
A Journey Through Time: From the Suez Canal to the Speculative Ben Gurion Canal Let’s…
482 hits
I recently watched the film " Captain Philips " on Netflix. I had resisted for…
631 hits