Country Independent

Promoting Competition in Policy for Rural, RR Australians. John is a policy advisor to cross bench members of parliament.In the second half of his first century

[North Ages @NorthAges]

The Westness brooch-pin formed part of a Viking-Age grave disturbed by a farmer at Westness, Rousay, Orkney, #OTD in 1963. It is silver decorated with gold, amber and glass. The grave contained the remains of a young woman and newborn child. 📸National Museums Scotland

[Henry Winkler @hwinkler4real]

Marion is my friend , was an extraordinary acting partner , Marion is so wise and HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO you, You are a loving Human

[Gillian Fennell @stationmum101]

I went to David Jones last week to buy a pair of jeans - I tried on about 20 pairs and the ones I did want they didn't have in my size (I'm a 12-14 nothing unusual). Tried at Myer - couldn't even get someone to serve me. RM Williams - blocked at the door by a security guard and then only had 2 styles available and none in my size. I think these shops are doing it to themselves.

[Dr Helen Fry | WWII Historian @DrHelenFry]

Did you know that the first women to land on the Normandy beachhead in June 1944 were nurses of Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Nursing Service?

Their task was to establish a field hospital for 600 wounded soldiers.

They succeeded.

Please remember these heroines who saved lives:

[Ineluctable Chris @BoveFromAbove]

🤣🤣🤣

[Auschwitz Memorial @AuschwitzMuseum]

26 October 1892 | A Pole, Zygmunt Surewicz, was born in Dobrzyniewo. A lawyer.

In #Auschwitz from 15 August 1940.
No. 2949
He perished in the camp on 23 March 1942.
---

Online lesson "Poles at KL Auschwitz”: https://t.co/cQHmqJ4wQw

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

How many Americans know that for eight straight years after September 11, Japanese warships stood in 120-degree heat in the Indian Ocean to pump 135 million gallons of free fuel into the U.S. Navy?

After the twin towers fell in 2001, American carrier strike groups raced to the Arabian Sea to strike terrorist strongholds in Afghanistan.

Why could American warships not simply pull into Middle Eastern ports to refuel? Because just one year earlier, suicide bombers in a small boat had blown a forty-foot hole in the destroyer USS Cole in Yemen. Entering port meant risking ambush and losing days off the front line.

Within weeks of 9/11, the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force dispatched its fleet oilers, including JS Towada, JS Tokiwa, and JS Mashu, ten thousand miles from home.

Sailing side by side with U.S. destroyers and cruisers at twelve knots across heavy ocean swells, Japanese sailors shot steel cables across the water and winched thick rubber fuel hoses into American tanks without spilling a single drop.

From December 2001 to January 2010, Japanese crews completed 939 underway refueling operations. They delivered 510,000 kiloliters, roughly 135 million gallons of fuel, plus 11,000 tons of fresh water, entirely paid for by the Japanese taxpayer.

On the final day of the mission in January 2010, American sailors lined the rails of their warship in the blazing sun, took off their caps, and saluted the Japanese crew as the hoses were uncoupled for the last time.

True loyalty does not ask for a camera. It holds the line for eight years in the sun.

[The English Oak Project @TheKentAcorn]

Ancient English Woodland is not just about the trees. It’s the soil

Thousands of years of an undisturbed ecosystem quietly getting on with adding layer

[Sall Grover @salltweets]

There seems to be some confusion amongst some people, so I will explain it as clearly as I can:

Australia’s sex discrimination act was created for women, on the basis of our sex. When it was enacted in 1984 (ominous year, in hindsight) employment was a big part of it.

There was a part of the act, section 7D, that allowed “special measures” where things exclusively for women weren’t even classed as discrimination, basically when it was being a woman is what actually mattered in the situation. Specific employment/opportunity provisions and… woman-only spaces fell/fall into this category.

In 2013, the Gillard amendments introduced “gender identity” while taking the definitions of woman & man out of the act. Sex was never defined, but in a normal world it didn’t have to be. It could only have meant one thing (a mistake, again in hindsight).

By the time the trans absurdity hit fever pitch, Australian institutions were captured. This included those meant to be the custodians of the SDA. Suddenly, all they cared about was “gender identity” aka transgender ideology.

When the Tickle v Giggle case came along, it started with an Australian Human Rights Commission complaint. To settle it, aka not have it advance to federal court, I was expected to just agree with transgender ideology. I don’t.

I wish I could say I completely understood the magnitude at the time, but it’s almost impossible to. You think you do, but you don’t really until it hits you like a bus.

But what I did know, instinctively, was that if I folded, I couldn’t live with it, nor would it help because all it signaled was that “we” would just accept it if threatened. I found myself in a position to challenge the absurdity, and I did, because I knew not doing it would have been worse no matter what.

Obviously, everyone knows now, the courts ruled against me in every way they could. From what a woman is, to 7D, to damages. I lost - and have lost - everything.

But what does it mean to everyone else in reality?

It means the sex discrimination commissioner told the court that the ordinary meaning of woman includes men who claim to be women, and the court accepted that. Men who claim to be women are women in Australia, via the only legislation they have to validate it.

It means that for every aspect of the SDA, per the SDC’s demand, woman includes men who claim to be women. From employment to women only spaces to pregnancy protections, because of section 7D.

Did we warn about this in our court submissions and arguments? Yes. That was actually our entire case. You can read it. It’s all publicly available.

The high court said that we would have no possibility of success. We were arguing that women is adult human female and this matters in, tada, section 7D. That was it. The high court said “hell no way”. The high court is captured too.

As it stands, due to legal precedent, a special measure for women based on sex does not provide a defense to gender identity discrimination. That means that all special measures for women fall to gender identity, which will only be used by men who claim to be women, and includes - tada - employment, and women only spaces.

It means that men who claim to be women have more rights than actual women, while simultaneously taking away our rights.

I don’t know how many more times I could say the “Tickle v Giggle” case is about more than “just” one app, I’ve been saying it for almost 5 years, but I will continue to do it until everyone understands. They wiped women’s rights off the map.

It’s a f—ing mess. It doesn’t work. It’s incoherent. It’s ideological. It writes women out of law. It’s corruption. It’s totalitarian. It’s bullsh-t.

It’s the test of any government: are you ok with legislating a lie?

[Britain's Lost & Living Pubs @Britains___Pubs]

Iron Duke pub Christian St & Hunter St. Liverpool, March 1916. Female road sweepers whilst the men were fighting WW1.

[Margaret Joseph @MmarianneJoseph]

I always find such "decisions" so peculiar. Basically the old pool had to be upgraded (sensible) but it is odd a Council member woke up one day and decided "Let's ditch war memorial name/status that has stood for 60 years." Who has the time to indulge such random thought bubbles?

[Adam Coffey @AdamCoffeyNT]

Hondas - the way of the future 🤣💪

[NSW Police Force @nswpolice]

Can you help us find Alexander?

MORE INFORMATION ➡️ https://t.co/vX2soP3dN5

[Into The Forest Dark @ElliottBlackwe3]

We need a world where more such stunning doors are created

[Rick @colonelhogans]

Ex Vietnam veteran.

Ex Navy Seal.

Ex Wrestler.

Ex Minnesota Governor

Jesse Ventura:

“My whole family has fought at war for this country.

Here’s the part that pisses me off Hasan:

I did two tours, 17 months, so did my brother. Southeast Asia.

That was at the same time Donald Trump was running and hiding like the coward he is.

Why didn’t he join us in the Vietnam War?”

Hasan Piker: “He had bone spurs”

Jesse Ventura: “Never stopped him from golf, did it?”

[Yarg Barkley @BarkleyYarg]

Another MAGA dumbshit gets put in his place.

[charlotte @itsJoanLu]

This is how it’s done! ✊ Howard Buffet, who is the son of the Omaha Oracle Billionaire Warren Buffet, has just donated $1.4 billion to Ukraine.🇺🇦

[Subashan @SubashanM]

@cityoftoronto 30 km/h is still too high. I think 5 km/h is ideal.

[Ronni🧂Salt-WhoWroteGunnawahYeahThatOne @RonniSalt]

Here it is in a nutshell.

The #NACC is - as I keep yelling - not a corruption investigation unit at all. It's not.

It's a public-service, education & teaching unit.

A very expensive $80 million a year one, that does no corruption investigation at all but instead, 'educates'.

[Quentin Dempster @QuentinDempster]

Yes @PatMcGorry the effective diagnosis and treatment of mental illness is now a public safety and health challenge following the Helen Haines attack. 👇This appears certain to emerge in the coming prosecution of Mr Nugent.