Hayley Warden's Profile | The Land

This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to theechidna.com.au With one current and one former president the subjects of arrest warrants, The Echidna presents a list of others who ought to face justice for the crimes and misdemeanours they commit. Kim Jong-un. The Supreme Leader of North Korea's offences include brutalising his own people, disturbing the neighbours with his reckless missile tests and ruining the reputation of barbers north of the 38th parallel with that stupid hair-do. Add to those charges his barking North Korean newsreaders who hector those obliged to watch with the official reasoning behind the Supreme Leader's misdeeds. No one should have to tolerate that. Neo-Nazis. Giving Nazi salutes on the steps of the Victorian Parliament was bad enough but dressing up in skintight black hotpants and T-shirts took the whole sorry episode to a new and confusing low. Just what message were these boys who like camping together in the Grampians sending, preaching hate against trans people while dressing for mardi gras? NSW politicians. If you live in NSW you've been the victim of a relentless election campaign that has offered no vision and no inspiration but has plumbed new depths of mundanity. People are calling it the Bunnings election: "Find a better offer and we'll beat it by 10 per cent." The only frisson of excitement was when the pre-polling began and the end came into sight. The electorate has been bored senseless. Label manufacturers. Not clearly marking shampoo and conditioner bottles is a blatant abuse of human rights for anyone aged over 40, whose eyesight has been ruined by years spent in front of computer screens. The same applies to cooking instructions on food containers, dosage instructions on medications and a whole host of packaging that requires an electron microscope to read. SMS scammers. If the "nongs" in the security establishment - Paul Keating's words, not mine - can winkle out espionage threats and foreign interference surely on that huge budget they can also track down and collar the perpetrators of those incessant texts telling you you've not paid a toll, paid for a parcel, received an unexpected rebate from the tax office or suddenly have a child in need of cash because they've lost their phone. Tailgaters. Usually behind the wheel of giant four-wheel drives with enough driving lights to illuminate a sports field, these nincompoops sit centimetres behind you on the highway, only to fishtail madly when you brake suddenly to avoid driving into a pothole large enough to swallow you both. The inventors of Tik-Tok. The security implications of this Chinese owned social media platform don't concern me as much as the inanity it dishes out. With its torrent of silly and shouty videos, it's making imbeciles of those who are glued to it. Enough already. Tradies who don't show up to quote. "I'll be there Monday," they say, never to be seen or heard from again. And in the unlikely event they do show, they want to charge the GDP of Vanuatu to put up a shelf. Wattle birds. What a cruel trick of nature to evolve a bird which insists on squawking "For example, for example" or "Cos I can, cos I can" outside your bedroom window at the first blush on the eastern horizon every morning. Someone needs to be held to account. HAVE YOUR SAY: For whom or what would you issue arrest warrants and why? Will the arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin make one iota of difference? And will Donald Trump's makeup clash with an orange jumpsuit? Email us: echidna@theechidna.com.au SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: - A child born today is likely to experience three to four times as many extreme climate events in their lifetimes as their grandparents did, a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has found. Temperatures in Australia have increased by 1.4 degrees over the last 110 years and it is more likely than not global temperatures will reach 1.5 degrees of warming in the near term, the Synthesis Report found. - Almost four in five alcohol-related deaths were males and hospitalisations dropped significantly during the first national COVID-19 lockdown in April 2020. Some 1950 Australians died from alcohol-related injuries, and 30,000 were taken to hospital in 2019-20, according to a report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. - A conflict between China and the western world over Taiwan has been dismissed by former Coalition prime minister John Howard as a "silly idea". He warns AUKUS leaders should instead maintain strategic "ambiguity". Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last week stood alongside US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to reveal an ambitious deal, worth up to $368 billion, to acquire nuclear-powered submarines over the next two decades. THEY SAID IT: "In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same." - Albert Einstein YOU SAID IT: The falsehood of weapons of mass destruction that "justified" Operation Iraqi Freedom. Allan says: "I simply cannot understand the politics of the Middle East. I was initially in favour of John Howard's support for the US invasion of Iraq, until I realised what a shambles it was. Whenever I feel inadequate, I remind myself that it took the Americans 20 years of war in Afghanistan, countless deaths and trillions of dollars to replace the Taliban with ... the Taliban!" Bob reminds us of Iraq's actions leading up to the 2003 invasion: "I like your work, but every now and then it misses the mark by just a tad. I'm not in favour of any invasion. Diplomacy must be the only tool. However, I recall that Iraq had previously invaded Kuwait on the pretence that it had 'stolen' Iraqi oil by angle drilling; Western powers had previously backed Iraq in its war with Iran, had sold Iraq much military hardware (including WMD) and still had the receipts. Iraq said that it had destroyed them. Did Iraq have still WMD or not? We'll probably never know." Horst says: "You've touched on one of the most prickly issues and for me it wakes memories from over 30 years ago, of the mainly neo-conservative leaders crowing how the West had won the Cold War instead of looking at the problems brewing in their own plutocracies. Twenty-two years ago, September 11, I felt sick to the stomach, not just about the atrocity committed against the New York Trade Centre, but more so about what the world's superpower of ignorance would do in response to the terrorist attack, and we didn't have to wait long for one of the world's most idiotic acts. I too believe that the invasion of Iraq has set the bad example. Wouldn't it be great if the coalition of the willing had any credibility now in taking the moral high ground against Putin's invasion of Ukraine?" Chris has a completely different take: "It was never about WMD. It was about bringing a psychopath who murdered 300,000 of his subjects, including the Marsh Arabs and the Kurds, to some form of justice, rough or not. Hussein's Baath Party represented only 20 per cent of Iraqis. There were no complaints about the Baath Party ruling by force from our peacemongers, Saddam was their guy. No complaints about the Baath Party draining the marshes from our environmentalists, Saddam was their guy. No complaints about 300,000 odd in mass graves from our distraught compashinistas, Saddam was their type of guy. No complaints about Saddam shooting his two sons-in-law from feminists, Saddam is their kind of guy." Mike from Nowhere Else in Tasmania says: "I did not support the Iraq invasion. I wrote letters to papers at the time. I marched in my local town's anti-war protests. I have not changed my mind. Putin's invasion of Ukraine is utterly disgraceful and all other countries must do everything they can (short of having troops on the ground) to ensure it does not succeed. The fact that the US conducted a similar exercise 20 years ago (with our support) in no way excuses Putin for his utterly immoral actions now." The 20th anniversary of the invasion brought back memories for Timothy from Ballarat: "As a 15-year-old who had The Age delivered daily at school I remember it well. And the discussions at home, resolutely against the prospect of war, in contrast to discussions at school and elsewhere that felt like they mirrored those of the asylum seeker debate with the supporters ascendant in sheer numbers in my country town at least. And then there were the protests; I'd not seen anything like that in my lifetime. And I've never seen anything like them since. I still march in the streets, but I think that taught me that marching in the streets is largely symbolic, and doesn't actually sway those in power when their course is set. Occupying the streets, though. Disrupting the streets. That's a bit different." Old Donald says: "You're spot on: I recall being so sad when cartoonists joked at the expense of Chemical Ali two decades ago, as he repeatedly implored his brave invading interrogators to accept that there were no weapons of mass destruction. Whatever happened to him? He was a thorn in the side of the Coalition of the Willing once they realised they had bombed out. And now Putin faces the same truth: his war is based on mendacity and commercial avarice, with a significant touch of personal aggrandisement to boot. People like Putin don't admit to mistakes, just as our C of the W never has." Julie has harsh words: "I didn't support the war and I marched against it. Damn Howard for supporting it."