The Post-Partisan Emporium

  The Koala: A Creature for Our Time Adapted from a talk intended for the edification of older students in a secondary school LIBRARIAN OF CELAENO The koala is an arboreal mammal native to Australia, one of that island nation’s most iconic fauna.  Though commonly called a ‘koala bear,’ it is not closely related to ursines, nor indeed is even a placental mammal, but rather a marsupial like the kangaroo, giving live birth to an almost larval offspring which then nurses in a pouch until maturity.  Koalas are medium sized animals, averaging about three feet in length and weighing about thirty pounds or so, with some sexual dimorphism.  They are also retarded. [Image found through Google] As a disclaimer, I use that term in its purely clinical sense, and in no way do I mean to imply anything pejorative about this animal or any person.  I mean only that the koala as a species displays categorically the characteristics of developmental problems related to its cognitive function.  All koalas h

Stavroula Pabst and Max Blumenthal · December 3, 2021 In October 2021, it seemed as though the lockdowns that still paralyzed societies from Australia to New Zealand and Singapore were coming to an end, as these countries threw in the “Zero-COVID” towel following a year and a half of rolling restrictions and closures. But with COVID-19 cases rising in Europe, several countries are implementing lockdowns all over again, often with clearly punitive motivations.  This November, Austria’s government announced that police would enforce a lockdown exclusively against unvaccinated citizens . Following days of massive protests, the policy was extended to everyone, with steep fines and even prison sentences to be imposed on those who refuse to comply, and a compulsory vaccination requirement tacked on for good measure. Next door in Germany, where a new lockdown was announced this December for unvaccinated people , barring them from almost all public places except for pharmacies and su