As I view videos of ICE agents roaming the streets of US cities, I am asking myself, how has society totally abandoned the principles of freedom and respect? The US President is supposed to protect the Constitution of the United States, despite the efforts of Bullshit Barbie Karoline Leavitt, only the most MAGA devotee believes this.

In 30 years time, when the United States and the world in general look back at the Trump era, there should be some serious soul searching going on. Americans bang on about freedom, they name ships, spacecraft and aircraft after it. They have the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, this is all rubbish of course, they have totally abandoned the notion and principles of freedom.

Instead, they have poorly trained paramilitary groups roaming the streets with masks on detaining anyone who is not white. As I see it, these are poorly educated white nationalists being given a licence by the Trump Administration to act in a racist manner. This is an inherently a racist organisation that has been given legitimacy by Trump’s hate policies.

These ICE agents are smashing vehicle windows and dragging anyone out who they believe is not a citizen. They are throwing US citizens to the ground, arresting and detaining them. I am watching videos where former military personnel who have served in American wars are detained and arrested. Is this the United States they fought for? I seriously doubt it.

This is more akin to the brownshirts that terrorised Germany in the 1930s. We saw the rise of nationalism in Germany in the 1930s, these conditions created during the punitive period where Germany was crippled by a restrictive and unfair surrender treaty. This was a forced surrender agenda designed to restrict Germany that created the conditions that led to the second world war.

The United States is not operating under any such restrictions, they are not a defeated nation burdened with excessive war repatriations. Just this Trump narrative where they blame immigrants for all of society’s woes, this is a well practiced internal enemy that would be described as an easy target. The United States has some serious issues, taking the easy approach and targeting immigrants solves very little.

David Littleproud has been driving an enormous wedge in the Liberal and National coalition. He did it immediately after the election loss and he is doing it again, the disunity is destroying the opposition. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese must be loving this mess, he knows there is not an effective opposition, he can plan for the next election. The Liberal/National Coalition lost a record number of seats to the incumbent Albanese Government despite a multitude of mis-steps, the losses are not looking like they will be reversed any time soon.

One has to ask, what is going on in the National Party? I am also asking if David Littleproud is the right person to lead the party. The National Party will not govern in its own right, so they need to work with the Liberal Party. National Party policies might work in rural areas, to form government they need the Liberal Party to win inner city seats and we know the Liberal Party is losing inner city seats to the more moderate Teals. I was hoping the move away from the Peter Dutton disaster of becoming too conservative was learned, it clearly was not and the same mistakes look to be repeated.

David Littleproud has to take a look at the strategic outcomes of what the Coalition needs to achieve to win government. He is not offering any leeway here, David Littleproud is making the Coalition unelectable. In another two years time when Australia heads off to a general election, this infighting will drive voters away. Maybe not to the Labor Party, but to independents who will not align to the Coalition, who would want to align themselves with infighting and dysfunction. Conservative voters are switching to One Nation, this is not a great outcome for anyone, there is no moderate opposition policies, the Teals have won all the inner city seats away from the Liberal Party and they are well funded and look likely to hold these seats.

It was difficult to get a grasp of what was happening in Iran, with the internet blackout there was no news at all getting out. We knew there were protests in the streets, we were initially unsure of what force the government forces were using, we learned it was deadly force, they were shooting protesters. We are hearing government forces are going door-to-door searching for VPNs, this is to stop uploading footage. Eventually this will get out, the blackout will eventually be lifted and mobile phone footage will be released to the world. 

Iranian women are brave, where they stand up in public and remove their head scarf, that is either very brave or extremely reckless. This appears to be a student led resistance, the young people see an opportunity, they are organising protests and getting out on the streets. This is not just in Tehran, but all the major centres in the country.  From all the Iranians I have met, they are nice people. Sure, we have Iranian government interference in our internal issues, such as state sponsored antisemitism, but we know this is government agencies and not the people. 

Through some footage that has escaped the blackout, we are hearing terrible stories of the government crackdown on protesters. There are discussions of hundreds of deaths, to a couple of thousand deaths to possible ten to twelve thousand deaths. The footage of bodybags is not just concerning, this is devestating, the Iranian people are trying to force regime change, many of these brave people will not enjoy the freedoms they are fighting for.  

In a return to Trump’s stupid Gaza plan, he has asked nations to put up a billion US dollars to join a Board of Peace to rival the United Nations. Naturally, this Trump led board will be without the charter, purpose, vision and authority to pursue any meaningful outcomes.

The first nation bumped from the invite list is Canada, if it wasn’t so funny it would be serious. Taking a look at the initial nations signing up to Trump’s Board of Peace are countries trying to align themselves with Trump. The only issue is most of their citizens have been banned from entry into the United States by Trump. It is not difficult to identify their motivation, just like the renaming of the John F. Kennedy Center of the Arts, the Trump class battleships he wants to resurrect or the Triumphal Arch, this board of nations is to be a shrine to himself.

So, apart from Canada [uninvited after Carney hinted to Trump to forget it] the major western nations of the world are non-committal. The United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany, Poland, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy. Of course Hungary signed up, Victor Orban could not pass up this opportunity to cosy up to his hero, Donald Trump. Announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the major NATO nations are still reeling after the disrespect shown by Trump for their support of the United States or the pressure on Denmark to sell Greenland to the United States.

The Executive Board consists of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, his real estate and golf buddy Steve Wikoff, son-in-law Jarrad Kushner, Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and a few other hand selected picks. Naturally, Donald Trump himself is the Chairman, yeah, really, you cannot make this stuff up. There is a representative from the World Bank, some more Trump lackies

The countries involved so far include Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Morocco, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Bahrain, Turkey, Mongolia, Indonesia, Argentina, Bulgaria, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Paraguay, Morocco, Kosovo, Azerbaijan, and Israel. Now there is a line-up of nations with a strong human rights record who can dictate to nations with strong human rights records. Whilst this board is initially looking at the Gaza reconstruction, Palestine is not represented, they are likely to be displaced from the region as this is really a major real estate project, the Palestinians are likely to get in the way.

What I am not seeing is the Nordic nations of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark. Well, Denmark are under threat of invasion by the Chairman of the Board of Peace right now so I can see why they might be a little hesitant. The Western European nations are noticeably absent, but then again, they are busy preparing to send troops to Greenland to starve off an invasion by the Chairman of the Board of Peace. I also note Iran is missing from the acceptance list, at time of writing the US Fleet was steaming to the Persian Gulf region to continue bombing Iran, so I can see why they might be reassessing their invitation.

I cannot say I am a fan of the Donald Trump plan of turning Gaza into a Mediterranean resort strip, that may well be one of the dumber ideas he has had, and boy has he had some dumb ideas. Of course, he thinks it is brilliant, he will not let this idea go. Donald really thinks the Palestinian people will give up their homeland so he can create a resort town complete with golf courses. Trump dispatched his real estate developer mate Steve Witkoff to negotiate a deal, this was always going to be a disaster.

The sooner Hamas was eradicated and the remaining hostages returned, the sooner the rebuilding will begin. I would doubt even the most ardent Hamas supporter would have envisaged the level of destruction in Gaza. Hamas were unwilling to hand over the remaining hostages, at the time rumoured to have only 20 alive with the remaining 26 deceased. Hamas were tricky, they were not returning the deceased bodies, Israeli authorities performed DNA analysis and refused to accept Palestinian bodies they claimed were Israeli.

Egypt has been training Palestinian forces to take over the security of Gaza, this training is occurring at Egyptian military academies. The recruitment for the Gazan security force is to come from the West Bank, there will likely be some Gazans in that cohort. Israel will be unlikely to support he Palestinian Authority as they claim they are supporters of terrorism. Previously, Hamas has returned immediately after Israeli forces have withdrawn from Gaza.

It is likely Israel would object to a Palestinian peacekeeping force, Israeli spokespeople have openly stated they do not want the Palestinian Authority to control Gaza in post-war Gaza. The majority of the force will come from Egypt, with Jordan and the United Arab Emirates supplying personnel. I would think all nations are in agreement, Hamas will not be represented in the new Gaza security force.

In what that can be only described as another Trump disaster, calling into disrepute the NATO commitment in Afghanistan. The NATO countries that sent troops to support the United States after they were attacked in the 9/11 terrorist attack. Pretty much the whole of the developed world came to support the United States, this was a multilateral coalition to root out terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.

I am waiting for George W. Bush to come out and refute Trump’s statement. We saw Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden at Dick Cheney’ funeral. Donald Trump was told to stay away, that tells us all we need to know. We all know Donald Trump is unfit to be President, even former Republican Presidents and Vice Presidents refuse to deal with Donald, they are happy to meet with Democrats, but refuse to interact with the current Republican President. That says to me the respect former Democrat Presidents are held in and the lack of respect for Trump.

When the United States was attacked by terrorists dubbed 9/11, NATO invoked Article 5 and stood with the United States. This is the only time Article 5 has been invoked, NATO quickly organised and had a significant presence in Afghanistan. NATO collectively had 130,000 troops deployed with the United States, Italy and the United Kingdom providing the bulk of the troops. Germany, Poland, Denmark, Romania, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Spain, Norway, Sweden and Finland were active in Afghanistan, this is not an exhaustive list.

According to Trump in a Fox interview, he stated they were there but “they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines” in what could be considered the ultimate insult by a President who himself avoided military service. Denmark [7.82], the country Trump was threatening to invade to secure Greenland had the same deaths per million as the United States [7.96], the United Kingdom [7.25] with only Georgia [8.42] having a higher death count ratio. I hope the former Democratic Presidents come out along with George W. Bush and make statements to restore the reputation of the United States.

I don’t have a whole lot of Penfolds in my cellar with the exception of the St Henri shiraz being the only multiple bottles. I have just a few Penfolds bottles stashed away now, they are pretty expensive these days. They are easy to identify though, the red bottle seals make them easy to identify laying in the racks, they are not grouped together so I have to search a bit.

Checking now, I have a 1996 and 2005 St Henri left, along with a 2012 vintage 407 cabernet sauvignon and a 2009 Bin 28 shiraz. With the fruit matured in old seasoned oak vats, there is really no imparting of oak flavours, the St Henri shiraz is fruit driven. Typically the St Henri is matured for 14 months in 2000 litre old oak casks. They reckon the St Henri is opulent and fruit driven when young, developing into soft earthy style mocha flavours as the wine ages. I am struggling to remember when I have ever opened a young St Henri, most of my experiences are vintage wines.

The St Henri was created in the early 1950s with the first commercial vintage released in 1957, this shiraz offers a counter to the famous Grange shiraz. Unlike the now famous Grange that is snapped up by collectors, the St Henri remains reasonably priced. Whilst a famous shiraz, the 2006 St Henri is a blend of 89% Shiraz and 11% Cabernet Sauvignon and the 1996 is a shiraz. The St Henri is a varietal wine with fruit sourced from the Adelaide Hills, Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale regions.

With a couple of searches, I found a 1996 St Henri priced at $319 and the 2006 priced $160 at Dan Murphy’s. The St Henri really took on a renaissance in the 1990s, this is when both Penfolds and the shiraz became popular again. The 2020 is the current release and priced at $134 once again at Dan Murphy’s as I try to keep wine pricing consistent with retailers to provide an even pricing comparison.

For me, booking.com as an accommodation booking website is finished. I could not believe it, we had two mobile phones running side-by-side under the same search conditions finding totally different pricing structures.

The only difference was, I was already logged in via my account as I was a pretty good customer over the years. She did not have an account, so maybe she was receiving discounted prices to secure an account. The prices I was offered compared to her was startling, percentage wise, the pricing differential exceeded 25% adding a couple of hundred dollars to a five-day stay.

I contemplated using her account to make the booking, then I decided to search the same Singaporean hotels using agoda.com to find they were cheaper again. So what I have learnt from this episode is to use booking.com as a search tool and then make the actual booking with pagoda.com, such is the distrust of this website.

The first time I tried Beck’s I was a little surprised, the flavours were not what I was expecting. Not that I minded, it was a pretty good surprise, we were around my sister’s house where we were all watching the football, it was a pre-season game where we snatched victory in the final couple of minutes of the game. So this was a memorable day for a number of reasons. 

Beck’s is a pilsner so a little lighter in colour and flavour than a traditional lager beer. That is fine as long as you know what you are letting yourself in for. The palette is light, has plenty of dryness and for me, hints of coffee flavour. I was surprised and thought it was pretty good, not that I would be drinking this all the time, just something different.

Doing a little reading, the brewery has lowered the alcohol volume from 5% to 4% after it was purchased by Anheur Busch, the brewer of Budweiser – oh no. I now have to work out if I first had the older beer, the one that everyone raved about or the new recipe, the one that everyone complained about.

There are now plenty of complaints about the new Beck’s now it has been purchased by the owners of Budweiser. Sure, they sell plenty of beer in the US, it is not universally liked by anyone who isn’t American, it has a lousy reputation and have them purchase a great German brewery and start playing around with the recipe – this isn’t good.