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Advance Party

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  The osprey hovered over the site each morning. The forces stirred. He was at a loss how to deal with any of it. The Iran War began in the Middle East, and how any of it would end was anybody's guess. We, that is Australians, were being fed bullshit at scale, at a massive scale, and the silence that made them weep, the peregrine falcons that would hover over that same site, they, at least, were clear in their intent. While the osprey, four of them now, the parents who had hatched their young out on that pier and now swept above with their offspring, as if all our flying dreams were hatched from despair, because how would you feel, having seen so many dreams and flights of fancy crash land on this barren plain, the one that ran behind our eyes as we exchanged banalities at the dog park. And the osprey soared above. He was welcomed by the victimhood, or the sisterhood, Paul, the editor at the local paper was moving on to a job as press officer for the Kiama Council, and his own rout...

Plundered

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  They came from the mountains and the swamps, crawled out of the sky and over the cliff edges, they were here and there and everywhere; and he, a mere fleck in all of this, could barely make sense of any of it, so overwhelming were the number, so overwhelming the force. The Bible, one of the spiritualists muttered in his sleep, or in a direct message. Who would know, these days? The war in Iran had begun; and he, Old Alex, was instinctively sceptical that any good would come of it at all.  How was it even possible, this madness? How could people be so insane, waste so much money, so much life, so many assets; all squandered in a madness.  Certain people thrive in chaos. Others, perhaps most, go to the wall, or go into hiding.  Here, here this moment with the swirling sky cities and the past and the present; the future historians, almost a common phrase now so transactional was the moment, and they clambered up and clambered into the light, and whispered words of wis...

Headlines

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  MAINSTREAM HEADLINES MICHAEL WEST MEDIA https://michaelwest.com.au/ Chris Minns’ stormtroopers. Guns for graffiti, silence for the dead But there is one now for other hate crimes, as the NSW government confirmed the creation of a permanent, heavily resourced policing unit of around 250 officers. The “Rapid Response Unit”. A specialist, centralised force that will remain on call, equipped with long arm rifles and deployed where needed. It is a standing response to what is being described as a surge in hate-related incidents, with officers positioned at places of worship, major events, and public spaces, visible, armed, and permanent, a continuation of operations that have expanded in recent months. The language surrounding its creation is unmistakable, built on urgency, threat, and the framing of emergency. What exactly is the emergency? The incidents driving this response, while serious and at times deeply offensive, have been overwhelmingly non-lethal, consisting largely of...