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So begins Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth, one of the most memorable opening lines in modern fiction.
What follows is even more unsettling. Follett describes medieval boys:
The passage has remained with me for years.
Not because it describes medieval England, but because it describes something timeless.
The boys are not reformers. They are not builders. They are not seeking truth or justice. They delight in destruction. They find amusement in suffering. They wear contempt as a badge of honour.
The uncomfortable reality is that the small boys never disappear.
They are not defined by age.
Some are twelve. Some are fifty. Some occupy positions of authority. Some gather in crowds. Some hide behind anonymous screens.
What unites them is not youth but attitude.
Read more: The Boys Came Early to the Burning - Today's Sunday Sermon
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I sat down to write about what’s happened to Australia.
About the bacon in the supermarket that’s “Made in Australia” from imported pork.
About shipping our coal and iron ore overseas so China can sell it back to us in the form of solar panels and clothes.
About the old Australia I love and do so as a migrant. The one that laughed at The Castle loved Steve Irwin and Dame Edna without apology.
I wrote it straight. No punches pulled. The way we used to talk in the pub.
Then I read it again… and started cutting. Because I was concerned about Hate Speech Laws.... and getting a knock on the door from the Thought Police....
Read more: Australia’s New National Dress: Cotton Wool and Compliance
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Decades ago, women fought for equal rights and the ability to stand on their own two feet in defiance of old traditions.
What I find so sad is that women's rights activists now seem hell bent on crippling women. Men in women's prisons, safe places and toilets. Men forcing women to hide behind veils and robes to stifle them.
Not a word from these female activists. Not one word.
Years, decades and centuries ago, it could be excused. But not today. In this so called enlightened and free and open society, women are free! Free to be slowed down, ridiculed and humiliated by men masquerading as women. What a tragedy.
It is not the men who are allowing or encouraging this horror. No, it is women. White, middle class women and celebrities. And it makes me shrink in shame at what women have done and allowed to be done in the name of so called women's rights.
Read more: The New Foot Binding: How Modern Women Are Crippling Themselves
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By Roderick (Whiskers) McNibble
Senior Political Correspondent, Wildlife Affairs Specialist, and Occasional Lamington Inspector
The nation’s political temperature rose several degrees yesterday after Trevor the Wallaby bounded into the Dusty Gulch Press Club’s famous Thunderdome and delivered what observers described as “thirty years of bottled-up frustration at approximately seventy kilometres per hour.”
Read more: Security Review Demanded After Echidna Protests Spirals into Drop Bear Contingency Fears!
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Rugby fans know the feeling.
Your team has dominated the first half. They've controlled possession, landed some solid hits, and have the opposition on the ropes.
Then the whistle blows.
Halftime.
The players head to the sheds. The coaches make adjustments. The trainers patch up injuries. Everyone gets a chance to catch their breath.
And sometimes that's exactly what the losing side needs.
That's why I'm looking at the new US-Iran agreement with mixed feelings.
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The old saying of " don't let the truth get in the way of a good story " is now pretty much the mantra of the Main Stream Media.
We are living in a time where so many have become the foolish young oysters eagerly walking with those that seek to consume us. The old oyster knew the trap was being set but could not do a damned thing to stop the massacre ahead.
It is clear to me, when reading the poem again after so many years, that the Walrus and the Carpenter were speaking rubbish, yet the young oysters hear without listening to the actual words and ignore the warning signs that everything the Walrus and Carpenter were saying was a sinister trick .
As Simon and Garfunkel sang years ago “ They hear what they want to hear and disregard the rest. “
Read more: Is it Time to Stop Talking About Nonsense? The Walrus and the Carpenter
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THE DUSTY GULCH GAZETTE - SPECIAL THUNDERDOME EDITION
HOTBLACK PENJANI CHALLENGES TREVOR THE WALLABY
By Roderick (Whiskers) McNibble
Chief End-of-Civilisation Correspondent
Dusty Gulch has officially run out of room.
Authorities confirmed yesterday that every available seat, standing position, fence post, ute tray, water tower, roof, tree branch and moderately stable rock within 200 kilometres of the Thunderdome has now been occupied.
Officials had originally anticipated attendance of 50,000.
Current estimates place the crowd somewhere between two million and "all of Australia except Canberra."
And the date has not even been set yet.
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In an age of civil unrest, burning cities, and bitter political division, the words “Give me liberty or give me death” may sound like a relic, until you realise how urgently they still apply.
As Americans mark 251 years since the birth of the U.S. Army, we’re reminded that the republic was not forged by standing armies alone, but by citizens who stood up when the moment demanded it. The militia - ordinary men with muskets, not uniforms - were the backbone of early American resistance. And today, as debates rage over gun rights, government power, and the meaning of freedom, the Second Amendment is not just about hunting rifles.
It’s a living reminder that liberty has always depended on the courage and readiness of the people. This is the story of Cowpens, of cunning and courage, and of how a ragtag militia helped birth a nation - and why their legacy still matters.
June 14, 1775, marks the official birth of the United States Army - the day the Continental Congress, facing the outbreak of revolution, resolved to unify the scattered colonial militias under one command. What began as a desperate act of survival - organising farmers, blacksmiths, and shopkeepers into soldiers - became the cornerstone of the longest-standing military force in American history.
Read more: 251 Years of the U.S. Army: Why Liberty Still Needs Both Muskets and Discipline
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By Roderick (Whiskers) McNibble
Chief Energy Correspondent (Still Not Compensated in Whiskers)
Dusty Gulch residents were today assured there was "absolutely nothing to worry about" after Mrs McFookit's newly opened Asian Fusion restaurant generated enough electricity to power western Queensland, three neighbouring shires, and an unknown object detected somewhere over Windorah.
Today's article will astound you, dear readers.
It certainly left me in a state of shock. And with no whiskers to twitch....
My gob is still smacking. Read on and discover the answer to the strange emergence of the Toad Crisper 3000. All is not as it seemed...
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The Great Gift had finally been made.
Everything south of Caboolture - Brisbane, the Gold Coast, and the entire rainbow-flag-waving, kombucha-brewing, protest-marching metropolitan experiment - has been formally handed over to New South Wales.
A note was attached to the Gateway Bridge.
It read:
"Enjoy the house prices, the traffic, and the endless vegan festivals. Love, Proper Queensland."
And that, dear readers, was that.
What remained became officially known as Queensland Proper.
From Caboolture north and west stretched the real machinery of the state: cane fields, cattle stations, mines, fishing towns, the Reef, and enough open sky to make a man question both his significance and his hat size.
The population was smaller.
The hats were larger.
The conversations were shorter.
And the new capital was Dusty Gulch.
Read more: Brisbane Officially Reclassified As Somebody Else’s Problem
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Magna Carta's Fading Roots: Why "If It Isn't Broken, Don't Fix It" Still Matters
Imagine a steep hillside covered in ancient trees. Their roots grip the soil, holding the earth firm against wind and rain. For eight centuries, one particular tree - planted at Runnymede in 1215 - has helped stabilise the slope of Western liberty.
Its deepest taproot is the principle that no one, not even the most powerful ruler, stands above the law. We call that tree Magna Carta.
Today, supposedly well-meaning gardeners keep pruning and reshaping it, convinced they are making it stronger.
Yet with each cut, some roots loosen. The hillside trembles. And the old adage whispers its warning: If it isn't broken, don't fix it - because there comes a point when constant fixing becomes the thing that finally breaks it.
Read more: Magna Carta's Fading Roots: Why "If It Isn't Broken, Don't Fix It" Still Matters
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