Weekly Wrap 494: Avoiding fires, finding faults, reading court decisions

The Burwood Hotel

My week of Monday 11 to Sunday 17 November was spent in Sydney, apart from just one night. Friends persuaded me to avoid the Blue Mountains on Tuesday’s “catastrophic” fire danger day — though things turned out fine up there — and I stayed down for the rest of the week for a few Health Patrol duties.

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The 9pm Get Some Goddam Perspective

TV screenshot of Julie Bishop, Tony Abbott, George Brandis

For nearly two weeks now, Australians have been more afraid of the fear of the risk of terror that ever before. We’re going to war, and the defence minister is an idiot. But don’t worry about why an event on the other side of the world is suddenly a threat here. We’re going to go butt chugging.

What does any of this mean? Who knows.

But we do hear how terrorism alert rankings serve no purpose beyond encouraging a burst of panic and how we won the war on Thai chilli sauce, as well as the evacuation of the Westfield Burwood shopping centre and how that did not relate to any contemporary issue.

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