From The New York Times
Expelling Rahul Gandhi From Parliament, Modi Allies Thwart a Top Rival

By Alex Travelli and Suhasini Raj 

“The expulsion of Rahul Gandhi is a devastating blow to the once-powerful Indian National Congress party. He and several other politicians are now in jeopardy through India’s legal system.

NEW DELHI — Rahul Gandhi went to battle against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in elections four years ago waving the banner of India’s multi-sectarian tradition and characterizing Mr. Modi as a dangerous Hindu nationalist who would whittle away the country’s democracy if he remained in power.
A Modi landslide in that 2019 vote all but buried Mr. Gandhi and the storied party his family had led for generations, the Indian National Congress.”

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Rahul Gandhi is the son of Sonia Gandhi, previous leader of the INC, and Rajiv Gandhi, the former PM of India who was assassinated in 1991. Rahul is the grandson of Indira Gandhi, former legendary PM of India and freedom fighter Feroze Gandhi, and the great grandson of Jwaharalal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, who was Indira Gandhi’s father.

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“On Friday, Mr. Modi’s allies moved to finish the job: Officials disqualified Mr. Gandhi from his seat in Parliament, just a day after a court found him guilty of criminal defamation — over a line at a 2019 campaign speech in which he likened Mr. Modi to a pair of prominent “thieves” with the same last name. The move came before he had any chance to appeal.

The sentence in that trial, two years in prison, happens to be the statutory minimum penalty that renders a sitting member of Parliament ineligible for office.
New national elections are scheduled to take place early next year, and whatever luck Mr. Gandhi and his lawyers find in court, the defamation verdict seems likely to keep him and Congress mired in legal defense for years to come.”

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From ABC Australia
‘Who is Chris Minns? What you need to know about the incoming NSW premier.’

by Ruby Cornish 

“A practising Catholic who no longer drinks”.

“When COVID-19 lockdowns ended he gave up drinking alcohol, and says he’s been sober for more than a year.
“I feel fantastic. You’re in charge of your moods, you get your mornings back, you’ve got a bit more energy to get through the day,” he told commercial radio station 2DAY FM in February.”

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From Pedestrian TV.
‘What Chris Minns’ Star Sign Tells Us About The Next 4 Years Of His Reign As NSW Premier’

 

by By Michael Di Iorio

“Let’s explore what having another Virgo man in charge (Chris Minns is Virgo, as is the ex premier Dominic Perrottet) means for the next four years. 

Keep in mind that Virgo men are very different to Virgo women. One is tolerable and astute and the other is a man.”

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From 9News
Sanity Has Gone  (our title)

 

by Adam Vidler

“With our customers shifting to digital for their visual and music content consumption, and with diminishing physical content available to sell to our customer, it has made it impossible to continue with our physical stores,” 

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Silicon Valley Bank

Is this the start of the fall of capitalism?

From Guardian:

“The collapse of SVB has triggered turmoil in the global banking sector, as investors query whether new systemic problems have built up in the years since the global financial crisis of 2008. Credit Suisse was forced into a takeover by Swiss rival UBS last week after its share price tumbled.”

“The failed Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) will be mostly taken over by First Citizens, a North Carolina lender, and its collapse will cost $20bn (£16bn) in deposit insurance payouts, US regulators have said.
First Citizens will take on all $119bn in deposits and loans from the entity set up after SVB’s collapse earlier this month.”

From NPR:
5 things we learned from the Senate hearing on the Silicon Valley Bank collapse


From VOX:
What it looks like when a country doesn’t trust its banks:

“If you can’t rely on your bank to have your money when you need it or your government to keep things stable, it can wreak all sorts of havoc on society and on the economy. Just look at what happened in the US with Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse. It’s sparked widespread concern about the soundness of the US banking system despite the federal government’s best efforts to shore up confidence. The fear of contagion is strong, as America’s crisis is now spreading into Europe and the risk of recession seems to be on the rise once again.”

“Argentina, like every country, is its own unique beast with a distinct set of political, economic, and historical issues that tend to render its economy a bit of a consistently inconsistent mess. There’s no one explanation on why it is the way it is, or how to fix it. But it’s worth backing into the bigger picture here, an issue that matters whatever the context: the question of institutional trust.”

Argentinians are literally storing actual dollar bills under their mattresses, the latter is the only metaphor here.

 

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“A City of Sydney councillor wants to allow dogs to roam free in Australia’s oldest park to cater for the new pets that have arrived in inner-city Sydney in recent years.”

Dog owners have the run of the place. Dog owners are everywhere. I’m not anti dog-owner. I have many dog-owner friends… but… They were once wolves, if you want them to run around freely… let go of the leash permanently.

This from SMH, the same ol same ol exaltation of a no colour world.

More than the story it’s a comment left under the story that really 
“I love my camel coat, had it for 8 years, and with pale skin I look and feel like a million dollars in it, no bronzer required.”

Frankly, camel coloured coats look better on skin with colour.

from BBC SCIENCE FOCUS:

“around 5,000 tonnes of new material falls to Earth every year from space. So, it is a statistical certainty that a million years ago, some of the atoms destined to form you were trapped in asteroids, flying through space on trajectories that would eventually collide with Earth.”

We are all stardust. Well, some are clearly space debris… just joking.

Till next time.