Mike Toole #I stand with Ukraine and Palestinians

My enduring memory of the Manosphere doco was the concept of "one-sided monogamy" and that some women were on board with it. FFS.

I'm in the cheap seats again. I've been devouring the many excellent articles on the Iran war in The Atlantic. A recent piece identified 10 different, often contradictory, rationales for the war espoused by Trump Administration idiots. Pure chaos.

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Melbourne crowned the best city in the world Melbourne has been crowned the best city in the world for 2026 in Time Out’s list of the 50 best cities, beating London and New York.

A compliment to my home town Melbourne from Time Out.

www.theage.com.au/national/vic...

No response to my post, Jenny?

Well done. I'm in my default cheap seats. I watched Louis Theroux's Netflix documentary "Inside the Manosphere." It's hard to watch these ghastly men, but with wise, intelligent Louis Theroux as a guide, it's bearable.

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Followed by a documentary on Marvin Gaye, whom I saw in concert in Paris in 1976.

I'll be joining you again today. Last night, SBS was brilliant. The topic on Insight was "Is debate dead?" A memorable quote: "Free speech requires the right to speak and the obligation to listen." Dateline covered the successful Gen Z revolution in Nepal.

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It's been a long time, but I'll be joining you in the Penthouse. In 2008, WikiLeaks released documents that showed Mojtaba Khamenei made 4 visits to London for treatment of erectile dysfunction. Let's hope he brings his impotence to his role as Iran's Supreme Leader.

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I'm staying put in the cheap seats where I'll have a mimosa to celebrate my Magpies winning their first game of the AFL season against a strong St Kilda team.

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I almost joined you, but made the wrong choice, so I'm back in the cheap seats. I watched an excellent SBS documentary about Emilie Schindler, the wife of Oskar. She saved many lives but was forgotten until she was in her 90s. Oskar was a terrible husband.

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It's hard to 'like' this horror.

He's appointed her as special envoy to the "Shield of the Americas," whatever that is.

I'm back inside the clubhouse in the cheap seats for a Saturday mimosa. While I welcome the sacking of the proud puppy murderer, Kristi Noem, Trump has replaced her with a thug who once tried to start a fight in the Senate. Dog help Americans.

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BTW. I postponed my Cairo trip until May.

Bad luck today, so I'm trudging home from the phantom bus stop. When I'm asked what symbolises the difference between Melbourne and Sydney, I reply, "Kyle and Jackie O." Beloved in Sydney, despised in Melbourne. No one will miss them here.

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Yes, I'm thinking carefully about my options. I can always postpone the trip until May or beyond. I don't think Iran has a beef with Egypt. There are no US bases in the country.

I hope the weather is fine for your morning while I'm in the cheap seats. I'm getting nervous about my upcoming flight to Cairo via Doha (21 March). I haven't cancelled, hoping Qatar Airways will help me find an alternative route. Oman? Riyadh? Istanbul?

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I'll be joining you today for a Moet. Last night, I welcomed back two favourite shows on SBS. Insight had a lively debate on migration by a diverse group of Aussies. Dateline was a chilling depiction of life in Minneapolis during the ICE siege. Well done, SBS.

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No, Polya and Hill are not respected. Hundreds of experts ridiculed their paper, given that there were only 200,000 children under five in Gaza, according to the 2017 census conducted by Palestinians.

And I trust the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, which did the most recent census in Gaza.

How can you count the deaths of children who didn't exist? I trust the Gaza Ministry of Health figures backed up by the UN.

Before the war, there were only 200,000 children under five in Gaza. So, how could twice as many be killed?

Those figures were convincingly disproved by WHO during the polio vaccination campaign in 2024. All children in Gaza were counted, and certainly 380,000 children were NOT killed. Of course, too many children were killed. But, you should think twice about spreading disinformation.

No, there are not a lot of countries that do this. Homosexuality is illegal in many countries, but they don't publicly execute gay teenagers. Only Iran does that.

I don't support the US/Israeli bombing. But don't forget the Iranian regime has killed tens of thousands of its own people this year. I guess you're okay with that.

I totally oppose the bombing but would love to see the regime overthrown by the Iranian people.

A reminder of the cruelty of the Iranian regime. These two 16 year old boys were hanged because they were gay.

I'm back in the cheap seats with a mimosa. The ABC documentary Diabolical was stunning. After a drip feed of information over the years, this doco was a succinct, clear-eyed summary of the whole sordid Epstein story, with a focus on the victims.

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I almost joined you, but I will have to make do with the cheap seats. Yesterday, I found the best TV channel to follow the mayhem in the Middle East was France 24 International. Non-partisan, neutral, excellent journalism. It's on one of the SBS channels.
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I'll be at the tipple van away from TV. I've lost count of how many times I've woken to find a Middle East war has been launched by America. It seems our world has been hijacked by a handful of evil old men. Dog help us.

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