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Is AUKUS a boondoggle?
Boondoggle: “An informal term for an expensive and wasteful project, especially one funded by the public.” – Cambridge Dictionary. I’d come across the American word ‘boondoggle’ and was puzzled by this bizarre verbal mishmash. What did this weird word mean? I looked it up, and found the word was used by Americans to describe wasteful…
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Good riddance to bad rubbish idea
It was with great relief at the 19th June extraordinary council ‘budget’ meeting that the majority of councillors walked back from the brink of forcing a regional landfill (“mega dump”) on the Blakebrook community. What a relief! What a victory! Let’s celebrate! At this meeting, the 2026-2027 budget included a ~$1.3 million line item to…
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Finding true ground in the landscape of love
Dr. Wendy Sarkissian’s Hold Fast: Navigating Personal and Climate Grief with a Reconciled Heart is a work of extraordinary courage and intellectual rigor. It is rare to find a book that so seamlessly integrates the “inside voice” of private mourning with the “outside voice” of global activism. As someone whose life has been consecrated to…
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RDT is a wicked weapon in the drug war
I have more contact with Legalise Cannabis’s NSW MP Jeremy Buckingham than any of our other elected politicians. Possibly because I’m in his state, but also he’s the most hippie of the four. He has a piece of paradise in the Bellingen valley and could easily be there picking oranges in his orchard and doing…
