Telstra users from Sydney to Coober Pedy hit by outage

Reports are emerging of a major Telstra outage potentially impacting countless Aussie customers of the telco.

Reports are emerging of a major Telstra outage potentially impacting countless Aussie customers of the telco.

According to popular site Downdetector, there was a massive spike in reports of outages beginning shortly after noon on Wednesday afternoon.

It appears to be affecting access to internet, phone and wifi.

Frustrated users have taken to social media to slam the outage, with the company yet to respond.

It is not yet known what has caused the latest outage, or how widespread the problem is.

However, individual users from Rose Bay in Sydney’s east to Coober Pedy in South Australia have confirmed outages in their areas.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/telstra-users-hit-by-outage/news-story/0c38161350925708fd0c70e4da252459

>>18754003

Centrelink's online services down across country for some users

Centrelink's online services are down across the country for some users, with a huge spike in outage reports this morning leaving many frustrated.

According to Downdetector, reports of outages began early on Wednesday at around 1am.

Outage reports soared into breakfast time, when they peaked at about 8.30am, before taking a dip and rising again shortly after 10am.

Responding on social media, the Commonwealth Bank said they were "aware of the problem" affecting some users.

"We apologise to customers affected," the bank said.

Downdetector said "it is common for some problems to be reported throughout the day" but only the service only "reports an incident when the number of problem reports is significantly higher" than the typical volume for that time of day.

https://www.9news.com.au/national/aussies-report-online-centrelink-services-crash/08e6bd86-2cce-4778-ba72-014a1214823e

Mexican navy seizes over eight tonnes of liquid meth disguised as tequila

The Mexican navy has seized over eight tonnes of liquid methamphetamine hidden in 11,520 bottles of tequila intended for export, it said in a statement.

Authorities located 8640 kilograms of the drug using sniffer dogs and a chemical identification system, after inspecting a container housing 960 boxes and the tequila bottles at the port of Manzanillo — a city on the western coast of Mexico.

Samples were then taken to a navy laboratory for further analysis where they were confirmed to be meth, and the drugs were seized.

Already this year, the navy has seized and destroyed approximately 103 tonnes of meth, its statement noted.

Meth is a highly addictive stimulant that usually takes the form of a powder or crystals, although it is often dissolved into solutions to make it harder to detect during transport before it is made into crystals again for consumption.

In 2021, more than 32,000 Americans died from overdoses involving psychostimulants, primarily meth, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

https://www.9news.com.au/world/thousands-tequila-bottles-containing-liquid-meth-seized-mexico/503d316d-5ad4-4fa2-b81b-45366f6d1a15

Chief Justice Roberts Declines to Testify Before Congress About Supreme Court Ethics as Democrats Harass Clarence Thomas

Chief Justice John Roberts declined to testify before Congress about Supreme Court ethics as Democrats ramp up their harassment campaign against Clarence Thomas.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin asked Roberts to voluntarily testify on Supreme Court ethics on May 2 after ProPublica published a nasty hit piece on Clarence Thomas.

The Democrat-media complex is harassing Clarence Thomas because the ultimate goal is to expand the Supreme Court.

Earlier this month Propublica launched an attack on Clarence Thomas because he took vacations with a billionaire Republican donor.

Clarence Thomas and his wife, Ginni were treated to lavish vacations by Harlan Crow, a prominent Republican donor.

Last month the federal judiciary changed the rules and said private jet travel paid for by others must be disclosed.

Clarence Thomas released a statement on his private jet travels paid for by Harlan Crow.

“Harlan and Kathy Crow are among our dearest friends, and we have been friends for over twenty-five years,” Thomas said in a statement.

This wasn’t good enough.

In an unprecedented move, Senator Durbin attacked the judicial branch and demanded Roberts testify on ethics reform.

Justice Roberts declined and said it is important to preserve judicial independence.

“I must respectfully decline your invitation,” Roberts wrote in a letter, which was signed by all 9 justices to Senator Durbin and released by a Supreme Court spokesperson.

“Testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee by the Chief Justice of the United States is exceedingly rare as one might expect in light of separation of powers concerns and the importance of preserving judicial independence,” Roberts added, according to CNN.

Durbin shot back and said it’s time for Congress to hold the Supreme Court accountable.

“Make no mistake: Supreme Court ethics reform must happen whether the Court participates in the process or not,” Durbin said.

“It is time for Congress to accept its responsibility to establish an enforceable code of ethics for the Supreme Court, the only agency of our government without it,” Durbin added.

CNN reported:

Chief Justice John Roberts has notified Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin that he won’t testify at an upcoming hearing on Supreme Court ethics, instead releasing a new statement signed by all nine justices that is meant to provide “clarity” to the public about the high court’s ethics practices.

“I must respectfully decline your invitation,” Roberts wrote in a letter to Durbin, which was released by a spokesperson for the high court Tuesday.

“Testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee by the Chief Justice of the United States is exceedingly rare as one might expect in light of separation of powers concerns and the importance of preserving judicial independence,” he added.

Without addressing Durbin’s specific concerns over ethics Roberts simply attached a “Statement on Ethics Principles and Practices” to which he said, “All of the current Members of the Supreme Court subscribe.”

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/04/chief-justice-roberts-declines-to-testify-before-congress-about-supreme-court-ethics-as-democrats-harass-clarence-thomas/

NYT Highlights Chinese COVID Censorship After Facilitating Chinese COVID Censorship

After years of downplaying the likelihood of a lab leak and amplifying scientists with conflicts of interest, The New York Times published a piece Sunday claiming to have “found” evidence of a Chinese censorship campaign about COVID-19.

Reporters for the Times “investigated” the silencing of information about COVID-19 in China in the early days of the pandemic, as well as later attempts to flex control over international institutions like the World Health Organization (WHO) and prestigious scientific journals. But many of the narratives pushed by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) actors were parroted in mainstream papers like the Times itself for the first three years of the pandemic.

Articles appearing in the Times have suggested the lab leak is a “conspiracy theory” on numerous occasions. A May 2020 article by national security reporter David Sanger compared then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s consideration of the lab leak theory with former President George W. Bush’s false assertion that there were weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq.

The Times has also relied on analysis and promoted the work of scientists who have clear conflicts of interest regarding the origins of COVID-19. In one case, the paper promoted a study co-authored by researchers Kristian Andersen, Robert Garry and Jeremy Farrar, who each either have financial interests in gain-of-function (GoF) research or collaborated with Dr. Anthony Fauci to suppress the lab leak theory early on in the pandemic.

Another researcher, Edward Holmes, helped author the highly influential “proximal origin” paper early in the pandemic which downplayed the lab leak theory. He was quoted by the Times for Sunday’s piece, which U.S. Right To Know co-founder Gary Ruskin called a head-scratching move.

“The Times article also relied heavily on quotes from Edward Holmes, who may well have participated in a coverup of the origins of Covid-19 through his ‘proximal origin’ article. In other words, an awful choice for a person to hang this story around,” Ruskin told the Daily Caller. “In some ways, it was a worthy article…But the article didn’t mention how much the U.S. government is doing somewhat similar things — burying data and information about the origins of Covid-19.”

Ruskin’s organization, USRTK has been involved in various legal battles with American institutions in an attempt to unearth research and communications that could shed a light on the origins of COVID-19 and gain-of-function research.

Another tactic deployed by adversaries like the CCP and Russia is to play into cultural and political divides domestically in the United States to further their interests. The Times aided in these efforts as well by baselessly linking the lab leak theory and concern about the pandemic to racism.

https://dailycaller.com/2023/04/25/new-york-times-lab-leak-coronavirus-origins-china-coverup/

West turning Ukraine into ‘radioactive landfill’ – embassy

British supplies of depleted uranium munitions show the “ruthlessness” of Western policy in Ukraine, Moscow said

Russia has condemned the UK’s decision to send depleted uranium shells to Ukraine, saying the move marks an “all-out escalation” after the British Defence Ministry confirmed the radioactive weapons were already in Kiev’s hands.

Moscow’s UK embassy issued a statement on Tuesday after senior official James Heappey acknowledged that the British DU munitions had arrived on the battlefield, to be fired from Challenger 2 tanks also supplied to Ukraine.

“James Heappey’s comments are a grim testament to the ruthlessness of the Anglo-Saxons’ policy of all-out escalation of the ‘proxy conflict’ they themselves unleashed in Ukraine,” it said. “He cynically stated that London is not monitoring the deployment of these weapons and has no obligation to eliminate the consequences of their use following the end of the conflict.”

It has by now become self-evident that the West intends this country to become not only an anti-Russian military “shooting range,” but also a radioactive landfill – with all the ensuing grave consequences for the health of local residents and the environment in the region.

The embassy went on to say that the British government would be responsible for the effects of the “toxic ammunition” and could not escape accountability by passing them off to Ukrainian forces.

https://www.rt.com/russia/575340-ukraine-depleted-uranium-landfill/

Joe Biden to visit Sydney with Opera House hosting meeting of Quad leaders

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-26/joe-biden-quad-leaders-sydney-summit-may/102267486

Good dig from 2020

Wayfair and Child Trafficking? The Rabbit Hole Goes Deep.

Wayfair has been accused of being a front for child trafficking through the selling of outrageously expensive items. Here’s how this story leads to a deep and disturbing rabbit hole.

https://vigilantcitizen.com/vigilantreport/wayfair-and-child-trafficking-the-rabbit-hole-goes-deep/

>>18754272

>I bet 100 8kun points

kek

This California town hasn’t had clean drinking water in 11 years

Three or four times a week, Melva Garza and her 40-year-old disabled son throw shampoo, soap, towels and fresh clothes in a bag, pack up their car and make their way to a truck stop eight miles away to take a shower.

She keeps the shower tokens — 50 cents each — stacked next to the truck stop faucet, each one worth three more minutes of water.

The Garzas haven’t showered in their own home in over a decade.

For years, Garza hasn’t turned on the taps that spew only fetid, discolored water into her house. She has 5-gallon jugs strewn about for everything from washing her hands to cooking and cleaning her clothes. She uses her two bathtubs as storage.

It’s a reality the family has faced for 11 years since nitrate levels in San Lucas’ only freshwater well spiked to dangerous levels. Her family is one of the dozens in the small Monterey County farming community that must live daily with the inconvenience, danger and fear of contaminated water — and she is one of the hundreds of thousands of people across the Salinas and Central Valleys who face water insecurity in a state that is the world’s fourth-largest economy.

Hundreds of plastic jugs of water arrive on trucks twice each week, delivered down the town’s dirt roads and paid for by the farming business the state blames for the contamination. The state water regulator — which quickly approved a long-term solution for the town, then scrapped the plan a year later — continues to wrangle with the community about a permanent fix, leaving the town’s residents caught in the middle of a slow-motion standoff over who will pay to restore the water supply.

“I have to leave my home to shower. I have to haul water up to my house,” Garza said. “It’s like living in a third-world country.”

In 2013, the state ordered the roughly 300 residents of San Lucas to stop drinking from their faucets, after nitrate levels spiked in the water supply.

https://americanmilitarynews.com/2023/04/this-california-town-hasnt-had-clean-drinking-water-in-11-years/