What’s hot this breakfast
The Biden administration is getting its non-essential diplomats home from the Ukraine, and urging Americans not to travel there. If there’s any better warning that US intelligence is convinced a Vladimir Putin-directed Russian invasion of the Ukraine is imminent, I don’t know what it is. But President Biden, with his stupid press conference talk of ‘minor’ Russian incursions into her neighbour and former satellite, has made a ‘major’ incursion – invasion and conquest – not only possible, but probable.
Finally, the experts in Australia and abroad, and even within the Xi Jinping regime defender also known as the World Health Organisation, are predicting the rapid washing through of the Omicron variant of WuFlu will reap benefits, in terms of herd immunity, meaning this long international nightmare will soon be over. Certainly, the raw numbers of Covid positives in Australia, and especially NSW and Victoria, have dropped day-by-day since mid-last week. But will catastrophe-talking political leaders in Australia and round the world, let alone their public health and epidemiological advisers, ever let go of their highly successful application of the politics of fear?
Tennis Australia is unapologetic for targeting spectators wearing clothing supporting the disappeared Chinese tennis player, Peng Shuai, claiming political messages aren’t welcome at Melbourne Park. By that logic, anyone entering the premises wearing a Novak Djokovic T-shirt will cop a serve and be asked to leave. But TA’s craven, mealy-mouthed, lip service to not biting the Chinese hand that feeds them, in terms of sponsorship, and their claim to running ‘the Grand Slam of the Asia-Pacific’’ is a humanitarian disgrace.
OK, Australia Day is tomorrow. We get that. But can we stop with all the polls already? Changing the date, becoming a republic, constitutional change for the so-called Voice to Parliament, the flag are all being polled to mark the day, whether by full-on commissioned polling or as online clickbait. They change nothing for the better, and we’re over it.