(Image: AAP/Private Media)
(Image: AAP/Private Media)

World at large In the background of the relentless shin splint of the early months of 2022 has been the comparatively low-key stupidity of Clive Palmer suing WA Emperor Premier Mark McGowan for (get this) defamation. The mining magnate has been saying characteristically sane and correct things, such as that he believed McGowan had a “licence to kill” and could murder him without prosecution under the provisions of the legislation* introduced to prevent him collecting compensation for billions in royalties from a mining proposal. Surprised that hasn’t made it into one of his front-page newspaper ads.

WA journalist Emma Wynne spotted a great detail in the case: McGowan’s appearance was moved to March 7 because, as Justice Michael Lee puts it, “the world has now changed, or at least Western Australia has”. Which put Tips in mind of a 1990s documentary about World War II in which the American voice-over solemnly intoned: “And then, in 1941, the world changed.”

*This is obviously a total distortion and overstatement of what the legislation allows. Under the law as it stands, the worst that McGowan can do is have you hauled to Lark Hill Sportsplex where he kicks the shit out of you in front of jeering Rockingham locals.

Stone Cold We’ve already mentioned John Pilger’s views, and joining him in the “ugh, of course” category is filmmaker Oliver Stone, who furnished Instagram with a reading list to cut through the “hysteria of Western media, screaming bloody murder at Putin, omitting key facts when inconvenient … With the help of the Internet, I’ve found some helpful and honest analyses”.

His first stop? Why, it’s only a piece from former diplomat Tony Kevin — who’s been arguing the blame for conflicts between Russia and Ukraine lies largely with the West — on Crikey’s friend Pearls and Irritations! The blog was apparently introduced to Stone by one of his colleagues on the film JFK.

Putin me on It’s hard to remember a time when so much of the world was as united against one pariah state as it has been against Russia in the week since its tanks first rolled over the border into Ukraine. This has manifested in ways big and more… niche. Here are some of the weirder sanctions on the Russian state:

  • The international Judo federation has stripped Vladimir Putin of his honorary presidency, something sure to sting Putin, a black belt in Judo.
  • The Grévin Museum in Paris removed the wax statue of Putin from its collection of world leaders, pulling its dead-eyed head off and putting it in the back room.
  • It’s not a great time to be a billionaire friend of Putin: Alexei Mordashov (co-owner of Europe’s biggest tour operator Tui) and Igor Sechin (chief executive of Rosneft, one of the world’s largest crude oil producers) are among several business people targeted for sanctions by the EU, and Forbes reports that Alisher Usmanov had his $600 million, 512-foot yacht Dilbar seized by German authorities.
  • The conflict has also brought about something else I don’t remember the last time I saw: something new from The Simpsons that, while not strictly a boycott, made me smile:

Putin in the work In fact, the most Russia can rely on right now is high-profile quiet. Whistleblower and bloke who changed everything forever Edward Snowden of course had to seek asylum in Russia after his revelations regarding the US surveillance state. After predicting that Russia wouldn’t invade, he went quiet on the subject, prompting lots of conjecture, which he didn’t have a great deal of time for:

He’s not tweeted since.

At the less edifying end: “actor”, former bringer of high-kicking ’90s justice and serial sexual harassment claim recipient Steven Seagal — a vocal supporter of Putin, who gave the actor a Russian passport in 2017 — has spoken out about the Ukrainian conflict, saying he looks at both sides “as one family” only quarrelling because of some unspecified outside influence.