Another 26th of January is on our doorstep. Only a few more sleeps before we gather our daggy thongs, search out the shorts with the flag plastered all over them and order in a few slabs, a keg or 3 and assemble around the barbie at the appointed hour ( normally around 11 am ) to tell a few mate jokes and have one too many.
We'll dust off the cricket bat and ball while the missus makes the salads and the kids are reminded that beer always lives in the bathtub on Australia Day." Oi ! Get your Dad a beer! " will resonate around this great dusty island and we will pull each other's leg and tell jokes about who had a convict in their ancestry.
Read more: Today's Eulogy is to Australia. Goodbye you beautiful bastard
New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has resigned after months of rumors.
Ardern, whose popularity has plummeted during the last six months, told us “she had nothing left in the tank.” In her resignation speech, she called on Labour Party ministers to consider which reform areas should be priorities and which should be scrapped as Labour moves to try to wipe some controversial policies off its plate.
Read more: Money Makes the World Go Round But Water Feeds the People?
Sometimes you get an email and think " Wow! I never knew that! " Here is such a one.
When baseball greats Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig went on tour in baseball-crazy Japan in 1934, some fans wondered why a third-string catcher named Moe Berg was included. Although he played with five major-league teams from 1923 to 1939, he was a very mediocre ballplayer. But Moe was regarded as the brainiest ballplayer of all time.
In fact Casey Stengel once said: "That is the strangest man ever to play baseball."
When all the baseball stars went to Japan, Moe Berg went with them and many people wondered why he went with "the team."
It is over 250 years since Captain Cook's discovery of the east coast of Australia and it's worth asking ... what was Cook doing here?
He certainly wasn't looking for Australia (or New Holland as it was then known) as Europeans had known it existed since the 1500's.
Like many other Europeans before him, Cook was searching for the fabled land of Terra Australis.
Read more: Captain Cook - A brief history of the Inevitable Colonisation of Australia
Read more: Australia is Australia and we should defend her as we would defend our Mother.
The so-called Aboriginal "Voice" is a king-size scam by the Labor Fabian/Marxists.
There is no official publication of what powers the Referendum will give to the Aboriginals, other than Anthony Albanese saying that it will have no power to veto Parliament, and Linda Burney, the Minister for Indigenous Australians, saying it will only be an advisory group. However, in a speech given in 2022 at the Garma Festival, referred to at the end of this article, the Prime Minister gave three points which prove conclusively that a referendum will be entirely unnecessary, and no more than a political scam.
I wonder, when and if, people will know what they are voting for.
Really.
One’s personal character should be a life-long investment.
When a politician offers you something at other people’s expense, remember these words of the poet John Dryden: “Better to shun the bait than struggle in the snare.”
Dryden’s admonition would have saved us a lot of trouble if we had applied its insight consistently to our economic and political thinking. The failure to do so has produced one disaster after another. This, I believe, is a character issue. Just as Christmas is a core spiritual foundation of Christianity, so too should personal character be a core foundation of our lives—and one we should champion on more days than just December 25.
It is so tragic. What a terrible place that we inhabit.
We all want to turn the clock back to days when boys were boys and men were men.
Women were elegant and nurturing mothers. Children were respectful and the family unit was a given, not an oddity.
Yet we have so many elephants in the room these days. What a shame. Because the real elephant in the room is a change to our Australian Constitution.
I would not normally comment on matters published on other sites. However, the thrust of the article was a denigration of Australia’s supposed subservience to the United States starting with our involvement in WW2 and gradual acceptance of American culture following WW1.
If I have any comment to make I make it on the offending site but in this instance a comment posted on social media prompts me to break my own rules. I do not subscribe to it as a commentator. The reason being that I have run out of patience with having to conform to the regimes of user name, password, PIN number, one time PIN number and other requirements of identification I refuse to take on anymore.
The council man was adamant:
“The Law must have its way,
The shed you built is not approved
It must come down today.”
“No doubt the shed is safe and strong
And no one has complained,
But plans and rules must bind us all
Or anarchy will reign.”
On ANZAC Day we remember the fallen, the brave, the heroic. But behind every name…
181 hits
Magic happens everywhere and goodness, wonder and delight can be found alive and well throughout…
82 hits
How many people around the world have been warning about the danger we are in? …
95 hits
Two names. Two battles. One legend. At Chunuk Bair and Lone Pine, ANZAC soldiers faced…
348 hits
It has been truly said that Australia arrived in Gallipoli as six separate States and…
297 hits
By Roderick (Whiskers) McNibble, Investigative Reporter Extraordinaire The Ratty News Foreign Desk | Special Report…
291 hits
There are men who live great adventures and there are men who write about them.…
331 hits
When life collapses and the weight of grief threatens to bury us, we have two…
320 hits
He was short, wiry, and came from the dusty outskirts of Clermont in rural Queensland.…
380 hits
As the sun rises on another ANZAC Day in less than two weeks, and an…
236 hits
Some memories shimmer in the mind like a heat haze, half mischief, half magic. This…
238 hits
For over five years now, this blog has grown into more than just a place…
238 hits
In a stunning turn of events, Roderick “Whiskers” McNibble - microphone-wielding rat and founding fur…
300 hits
How did it happen? How did a failed artist and fringe political agitator rise from…
289 hits
What happens when the battlefield goes silent....but the war doesn’t end? When soldiers come home,…
388 hits
John B. Calhoun’s “rat utopia” experiments of the 1960s, designed to be paradises with unlimited…
287 hits
Throughout history, religion has been hailed as a guiding light, a beacon of morality and…
318 hits
In a fast-changing Australia, where new cultures and identities weave fresh threads into our ever…
271 hits
When I was a young lass, I was a fencer. No, not the farming type…
296 hits
By Roderick (Whiskers) McNibble, Ratty News Investigative Correspondent Heard Island, Antarctica - A once-quiet expanse of…
388 hits
In a world obsessed with competition, the most powerful alliances are often overlooked, those between…
298 hits
Fear has always been the most powerful weapon of control, whether wielded by governments against…
273 hits
On a chilly October night in 1938, millions of Americans huddled around their radios, unaware…
250 hits
The exact origins of April Fools’ Day remain unclear, but historians have traced it back…
285 hits
In 1653, Oliver Cromwell stormed into the Rump Parliament and, with a fury that still…
348 hits
They didn’t need guns, tanks, or barricades. The revolution came silently.... through legislation, compliance, and…
280 hits
By Rodererick Whiskers McNibble, Chief Investigative Reporter – Ratty News In a week of shocking…
337 hits
At first glance, trees seem the epitome of urban charm, offering shade on sweltering summer…
361 hits
When our leaders and politicians sign us up to these global accords, declarations and agreements,…
346 hits
In the 1950s, thalidomide was hailed as a medical breakthrough - a safe sedative that…
266 hits
For as long as humans have walked the earth, the issue of abortion has existed…
355 hits
Throughout history, political leaders have risen to power with grand promises of reform, stability, and…
317 hits