1069 Can the EU be Fixed? Will Brexit lead to a new English-speaking Union?

Can the EU be Fixed? Will Brexit lead to a new English-speaking Union?

Newsletter published on October 24, 2019

(1) Can the EU be Fixed?
(2) Brexit: implications for Australia and New Zealand
(3) Brexit: Securing a New English-speaking Union? By F. William Engdahl
(4) Eurosceptics - Soft & Hard, Left & Right
(5) Cloner for Windows Backups
(6) Leunig anti-Vaxx cartoons; Mummy was busy on Instagram

(1) Can the EU be Fixed?
by Peter Myers, October 24, 2019

Voters in EU countries are increasingly supporting anti-EU parties, yet
the elites running the EU have made no effort to conciliate them by make
the EU more democratic, less globalist, and less hostile to traditional
social values.

In principle, EU integration is a good idea; that's why the process got
this far. But rather than being a bottom-up process driven by "the
people", it has been a top-down process driven by a tiny group of
Internationalists.

At present, the European Council runs the EU. This is like an Upper
House. It appoints the Executive (Commissioners), the head of the
Central Bank, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs. The Lower House, ie
Parliament, cannot initiate legislation, and merely has a ratifying role.

This is not Dictatorship, not Democracy. After the recent elections, the
new EU Commissioner was selected by the European Council.

It's as if the EU has been set up as a Regional Government functioning
as part of a World Government.
This is the agenda of H. G. Wells.

That's why the people feel that it's not "theirs".

Can it be re-designed in a bottom-up way, by the people?

Measures which might save the EU include

- direct election of the President
- direct election of any Upper House (which the European Council is now)
- directly elected Parliament/Congress to be able to initiate legislation
- abandonment of "treaties" which constrain Parliament; Parliament to be
in charge, instead
- a Central Bank publicly owned, controlled by Parliament and serving
the public good, not serving the Finance sector, directly funding
projects as needed without debt
- abandonment of open border immigration. Asylum-seekers picked up on
ships would be unloaded at the port they left from
- abandonment of open-door Trade policies; scrutiny of lobbyists as
foreign agents
- abandonment of Neocon foreign policy, reconciliation with Russia
- abrogation of tax-free status of Foundations engaged in political
activism, lobbying, regime-change

These are MY thoughts; I hope that readers, especially those living in
Europe, will contribute THEIRS.

We also need to discuss how the EURO and the ECB could be changed.

(2) Brexit: implications for Australia and New Zealand
by Peter Myers, October 24, 2019

The exit of Britain from the EU could lead to the re-formation of an
English-speaking Commonwealth.

Britain's entry into the EEC and then the EU severed the tie with
Commonwealth countries. Australia and New Zealand were forced to find
new partners, mainly in Asia. They are increasingly defined as 'Asian'
countries - for example, the Wall St Journal classifies us that way.

Mass immigration has transformed our demographics. Feminism has reduced
the white birth-rate; and when baby-boomers die off, the demographic
change will be much more striking.

These changes had their good side, and many of the migrants are people
of good character, but the question in many minds is "what are the limits?"

They are concerned that mass migration from China and India could
overwhelm our culture.

The Brexit vote and the election of Trump have resonated with
Australians who seek to strengthen Tradition and restrain the Culture War.

In recent weeks it has occurred to me that Britain and other
English-speaking countries might draw together into a bloc, as they used
to be. The Uhnited States and Canada would be part of it.

Today I found that F. William Engdahl wrote on that theme in 2017 (item 3).

But I don't agree with Engdahl's quote from H. G. wells, "The British
Empire had to be the precursor of a world-state or nothing".

Wells was a Communist who cloaked his true agenda; but today's
Globalisation, with its Green Left values, fits it well.

Wells was an outsider from the Rhodes group. He was pushing for World
Government, but  that would have been a limitation on their power. The
Rhodes group were for an English-speaking block that was sufficiently
powerful to be unconquerable.

The Rhodes group relied on Jewish financiers for their funding. Today,
about 25% of CFR members are Jewish, and many have been pushing Neocon
policies which entangle it in Mideast wars but weaken the USA, as Trump
says.

Today, the English-speaking economies have been ruined by Globalisation.
It has hollowed them out, just as mass immigration has changed their
demographics.

The Jewish faction in the Rhodes group has changed its politics. The
structure has remained the same, but the values have been reversed. The
racism of the past has given way to its opposite today.

Life many other former writers for Executive Intelligence Review,
Engdahl omits to mention any Jewish factor. Yet both George Soros and
the Rothschild-owned Economist came out powerfully against Brexit and Trump.

Webster Tarpley, another former EIR writer, omits Mossad from any
discussion of 911.

I do not wish to be overly critical of Engdahl. His work is valuable,
and he is not the only writer who skirts the Jewish issue. It is fatal
for many; only outsiders talk about it. But I mention it as a corrective.

Engdahl says that the banks of the City of London have been pushing for
Brexit. That is contrary to my impression. My reading is that the City
has been overwhelmingly pro-Remain. I hope that Engdahl will provide
evidence.

Engdahl also says that the British Monarchy is pro-Brexit. I have not
seen any sign, one way or the other. But I note that the Queen had to
give up Land Rovers (the traditional kind) because they no longer comply
wtrh EU law. I hope that Engdahl will supply some evidence in this
matter too.

(3) Brexit: Securing a New English-speaking Union? By F. William Engdahl

http://www.williamengdahl.com/englishNEO3Apr2017.php

Brexit: Securing a New English-speaking Union?

By F. William Engdahl

3 April 2017

It’s becoming clear that there is a far more ambitious strategy behind
Great Britain’s exit from the European Union, the so-called Brexit. Far
from a reluctant government led by Prime Minister Theresa May, forced to
listen to the Vox Populi of the majority of voters in 2016 who voted to
exit the European Union, signs emerge of a far more devious well-planned
strategy at the highest levels of British power, including the House of
Windsor and the powers of the formidable City of London financial
institutions. Britain is ditching the EU as a failed option, and seems
to be intent on building a new English-speaking Union together with the
United States and with the nations of the Commonwealth–the former
colonies of the British Empire prior to 1914 .

The British have a long and varied history, emerging from their
surprising defeat of the mighty Spanish Armada in 1588 to go on over the
course of three centuries to become the most powerful empire on earth,
until a Great Depression of 1873 followed by two devastating world wars
in the 20th Century, forced her patriarchs to swallow hard and accept a
junior partner role with the 1945 dominant power, the United States.

Their decision to join the European Monetary Union in 1992 went against
that tradition of staying outside the Continental European fray, a
tradition of remaining an Atlantic power, utilizing their Anglo-American
"special relationship" that had been built during the war years by
Churchill with Roosevelt. When the US circles deliberately destroyed the
British possibility to join the emerging Euro through the agency of a
"lone assassin" hedge fund operator named George Soros in 1992, it was a
clear signal that Wall Street and Washington would not permit the
enormous financial power of the City of London, fused with that of
Germany, France and the Continental economies, to challenge the hegemony
of the US dollar and of Wall Street.

Now the Brexit negotiations between the EU Commission and the British
government have taken on an air of bitter acrimony from the side of the
EU, if not outright sabotage. Not the least because the British
precedent is giving others the notion that an exit might be an option.
However it seems that Brussels smells a deeper agenda afoot from London,
one that could easily spell the end of the misbegotten Euro project and
with it, the EU as we know it pre-Brexit.

Stock Exchange Merger Dead

On March 29, symbolically the same day that Prime Minister Therese May
formally presented her government’s plan for Brexit, the European
Commission in Brussels announced that the planned $31 billion merger of
Frankfurt’s Deutsche Boerse and the London Stock Exchange was dead.
There is a huge power struggle here as well. The real issue in the
merger was where the ultimate control would lie—London or Frankfurt– of
what in trading volumes would become a financial trading goliath of a
world dimension. The merger would have created a mega-exchange. The
Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI), which is produced twice a year on
behalf of the Qatar Financial Centre Authority, currently ranks London
as number one, ahead of New York. Frankfurt is the largest EU financial
center on the Continent.

The proposed merger collapsed in effect when the EU put severe
conditions for London in order to allow approval, terms which London
refused. The real issue, however, was not that London sell off part of
its business in France. It was where the control would reside, and
London insisted it be clearly based in London.

Whether by coincidence, the same day Brussels vetoed the
London-Frankfurt merger, Britain formally presented its Brexit plan. The
EU is making it clear they will make it as onerous for Britain as
possible. EU officials suggest Britain may be forced to pay as much as
60 billion Euros on leaving the EU and will be forced to continue
accepting EU tax, environmental and labor laws if it wants to have an
eventual free trade pact with the EU. The combined volume of the other
EU economies comprise by far Britain’s largest trade partner, taking 46%
of British exports last year.

I want to suggest there is a far more threatening geopolitical
background to the Brexit that’s not being talked about, and that that’s
what is really behind a de facto guerilla war going on between Britain
and the remaining EU, a war which could decide the future of the Euro
single currency itself in the next several years as well as the shape of
our geopolitical world power "balance" to use a favored British expression.

English-speaking Union?

The German online newspaper, Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten (DWN),
presents an intriguing argument that the Brexit was not only pure
democracy at work. Rather, they point out that the most powerful
factions within the British establishment were quietly exercising their
influence via British media and elsewhere to shape that Brexit vote.
They argue, convincingly, that British leading circles had reached a
consensus before Brexit to exit the failing EU that was forcing Britain,
once the world hegemon, to become an inconsequential player in a drama
being shaped in Brussels. Now, argues DWN, Britain will seek to rebuild
itself anew as a World Power using its historical British Commonwealth
network of nations to be the foundation.

It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. Britain’s Royal Commonwealth
Society is planning to open a branch in the United States, with a view
to one day bringing America into the multi-nation group as an "associate
member." According to a report on February 23 in the conservative
British Telegraph newspaper, Michael Lake, Director of the Royal
Commonwealth Society said he had written a formal letter last December
to then-President-elect Trump, hand-delivered by British Brexit leading
voice, Nigel Farage, former leader of the UKIP party. Lake told the
Telegraph that opening a branch in the US, "would further Britain’s ties
with America, developing new connections between two countries who
already share a common language." Lake said that Britain seeks to
reinvigorate the British Commonwealth as an alternative to the top-down,
supranational EU structure. The aim of the Commonwealth is to promote
"mutually advantageous" links with "reliable friends" around the world
on everything from business to defense.

By leaving the EU, Britain is free to negotiate bilateral free trade
agreements with Commonwealth partners such as Australia or the USA free
from the constraints of agreements approved by the 28 (then) member
states of the EU.

With this new freedom of maneuver, British banks will not be bound by
the EU bank legislation such as the onerous bank "Bail-in" law passed
last year that could require bank depositors and shareholders rather
than taxpayers to bear costs of a new (and inevitable) new EU banking
crisis. Further, the British Pound, which is a member of the select IMF
Five of major reserve currencies along with the US dollar and Euro,
Japan Yen and China Renminbi, will be free to join efforts of Washington
and Wall Street to attack and ultimately bring down the
highly-vulnerable Euro. Britain’s Pound is the third largest global
payments currency after the dollar and the Euro. If Britain, free from
the restraints can bring down the Euro, the Pound could become a major
gainer–currency war with Britain on the side of Washington against the
fragile Eurozone with their Italian, Greek, Spanish and other problems.

Britain, in collusion with the United States, formally or informal,
could well present a formidable challenge to world peace. Britain is a
nuclear power with full intelligence-sharing cooperation with
Washington, something denied Germany. Britain deploys its military
around the world in concert with the USA. Britain is historically the
geopolitical opponent, in two world wars, of Germany and of Russia and
of China going back to the 1840s Opium Wars.

The current machinations of Britain call to mind their project, put
forward by one of the more strategic thinkers of the British Empire
prior to outbreak of World War II, H.G. Wells. In the late 1930s when
the smell of world war was unavoidable, Wells and his friends in the
highly influential British Round Table, notably Lord Lothian who went on
to become Britain’s Ambassador to Washington, put forward a radical
strategy. Wells termed it, an order dominated by a "great
English-speaking English-thinking synthesis, leading mankind by sheer
force of numbers, wealth, equipment and scope."

Agreeing with Cecil Rhodes, the founder of the Round Table’s fraternity,
H.G. Wells stressed that the coming world order must be based on
cooperation, "between all the western peoples and, more particularly,
between all the Nordic peoples," by which he meant Anglo-Saxon and
racially kindred peoples. He insisted that "The British Empire had to be
the precursor of a world-state or nothing," and that that world state
must also be one in which, "Britain must draw the United States into a
closer accord," into a new great English-speaking union. Will it work in
2017? Not likely given the hollowed-out state of both the British and US
economies, the hollowed-out quality of the respective national
politicians. That doesn’t mean the British won’t give it a go. Maybe
boosting US designs in Yemen with SAS and other special UK forces as an
appetizer, then on to Putin’s Russia and China?

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a
degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling
author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine "New
Eastern Outlook"

http://www.williamengdahl.com/englishNEO20Apr2017.php

Is Euroland on Verge of Disintegration? Is Euroland on Verge of
Disintegration? By F. William Engdahl 20 April 2017

The decision last year by a majority of British voters to exit the
European Union was more than a simple vote of the people. The Brexit
campaign was promoted and financed by the most influential banks of the
City of London and by the British Royal House. Far from the end of
Britain, Brexit is far more likely to be the beginning of the end of the
disastrous Euro single currency experiment .

Since the global financial crisis of 2008 little significant has been
done by Brussels or the governments of the 19 member Eurozone countries
to bring the largest banks of the Eurozone into a healthy stability. On
the contrary, even venerable mega-banks like Germany’s Deutsche Bank are
teetering on the brink.

In Italy the world’s oldest bank, Monte Paschi di Siena, is on state
life-support. That is but the tip of an iceberg of Italian bank bad
debts. Today in total Italy’s banks hold Italy’s banks hold €360 billion
of bad loans or 20% of Italy’s GDP, which is double the total five years
ago.

It gets worse. Italy is the fourth largest economy in the EU. Its
economy is in dismal shape so bank bad loans grow. State debt is almost
as high as that of Greece, at 135% of GDP. Now, since the 2013 Cyprus
bank crisis, the EU has passed a stringent new bank "bail-in" law,
largely under German pressure. It stipulates that in event of a new
banking crisis, a taxpayer bailout is prohibited until bank bond-holders
and, if necessary as in Cyprus, its bank depositors, first "bail-in" or
take the loss. In Italy, most holders of bank bonds are ordinary Italian
citizens, with some €200 billion worth, who were told bank bonds were a
secure investment. No more.

German Austerity Medicine Killing Patient

A major problem is that the Eurozone economies have been forced to
impose the wrong medicine to deal with the 2008 financial and economic
crisis. The Eurozone crisis has been wrongly seen as states spending too
wildly and labor costs rising too high. So, under again German pressure,
the Eurozone countries in crisis such as Greece, have been forced to
impose draconian austerity, slash pensions, cut wages. The result has
been even worse economic recession and rising unemployment, rising bank
bad loans. By 2015 Greece’s GDP had declined by more than 26%, Spain’s
GDP by almost 6%, Portugal by 7%, and Italy’s GDP by almost 10% compared
with 2008.

Austerity is never a solution to a state economic crisis. The example of
the German economic crisis that erupted in 1931 in depression,
unemployment and a banking crisis as a consequence of the severe
austerity policies of Chancellor Heinrich Brüning ought to be clear
enough to German authorities whose historical memory seems to have
amnesia today.

Across the Eurozone more than 19 million workers are jobless. Greece,
Italy, Portugal and Spain have a total of an unprecedented 11 million
unemployed workers. In France and Italy unemployment is over 13% of the
labor force. In Spain it is 20%, and in Greece a staggering 25%. This is
all the state of economic affairs more than 8 years after the 2008
crisis. In short there has been no economic recovery in Euroland. Since
2009 the European Central Bank (ECB), the bank of the Euro, has made
unprecedented moves to try to stabilize the banking crisis. They have
only postponed not improved the situation.

Today as a result of ECB buying of mortgage bonds, corporate bonds,
state bonds, and asset-backed securities, the ECB balance sheet is more
than €1.5 trillion. The ECB, whose President is Italian Mario Draghi,
has held interest rates in an unprecedented negative interest rates
around -0.4% since June, 2014. The ECB has made clear that negative
central bank interest rates will remain "for some time." This is leading
some to try to convince voters to go to a cashless society as India did
last year with catastrophic consequences and as Sweden, not a Euro
country, has largely done. If banks begin to charge their customers a
fee for using customers’ deposits, an incredible thought for most,
people would simply "take the money and run," into gold or other safe
assets, or cash.

The ECB negative interest rates are a sign of desperation to put it
mildly. With interest rates on bonds across the Eurozone so low, many
insurance companies are facing severe liquidity problems meeting their
future obligations unless Eurozone interest rates return to more normal
levels. Yet were the ECB to end its negative interest rate policy and
its quantitative easing so-called, the debt crisis of many banks would
explode from Greece to Italy to France to even Germany.

A Coming Currency War?

So, to put it gently, the Eurozone is a ticking debt time bomb ready to
blow at the slightest new shock or crisis. We may well see that shock in
the next two years, once Britain has completed its exit from the EU.
Already the new Administration of Donald Trump in Washington has
signaled a potential launch of currency war against the Euro. On January
31, US Trade Czar Peter Navarro accused Germany of using a "grossly
undervalued euro to exploit" the US and Germany’s EU partners. Navarro
went on to call Germany, the core of the Eurozone economies, a de facto
"currency manipulator." Navarro has stated, "While the euro freely
floats in international currency markets, this system deflates the
German currency from where it would be if the German Deutschmark were
still in existence."

Britain with the vast financial resources of the City of London, once
free from the shackles of the EU membership, could well join with
Washington in a full-scale covert currency war to bring down the Euro,
something that would have devastating consequences for the Eurozone
economies. Britain’s Pound is the third largest global payments currency
after the dollar and the Euro. If Britain, free from the restraints of
the EU can bring down the Euro, the Pound could become a major
gainer–currency war with Britain on the side of Washington against the
fragile Eurozone with their Italian, Greek, Spanish and other problems.
Already British Prime Minister Theresa May is in discussions with the
Trump Administration about forging a bilateral US-UK trade agreement and
some in influential UK circles are talking of inviting the USA to become
an associate member of the British Commonwealth. For the US dollar and
Wall Street banks, wounding the rival to the dollar as central bank
reserve currency is a very tempting thought. Now with Britain and the
City of London soon to be free of EU restraints, the temptation might
become reality.

All of this is because of the dysfunctional nature of the entire
Eurozone project, a supranational currency with no democratic elected
authorities to control abuses. The half-way dissolution of national
sovereignty that the Maastricht Treaty introduced with the European
Monetary System back in the 1990s, has left the EU with the worst
combination in event of future crisis.

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a
degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling
author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine "New
Eastern Outlook"

(4) Eurosceptics - Soft & Hard, Left & Right

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euroscepticism

Euroscepticism, also known as EU-scepticism,[1][2][3] means criticism of
the European Union (EU) and European integration. It ranges from those
who oppose some EU institutions and policies and seek reform (soft
Euroscepticism), to those who oppose EU membership outright and see the
EU as unreformable (hard Euroscepticism or anti-European
Unionism/anti-EUism).[4][5][6] The opposite of Euroscepticism is known
as pro-Europeanism, or European Unionism. Euroscepticism should not be
confused with anti-Europeanism, which is a dislike of European culture
and European ethnic groups by non-Europeans.

The main sources of Euroscepticism have been beliefs that integration
undermines national sovereignty and the nation state,[7][8] that the EU
is elitist and lacks democratic legitimacy and transparency,[7][8] that
it is too bureaucratic and wasteful,[7][9][10] that it encourages high
levels of migration,[7] or perceptions that it is a neoliberal
organisation serving the business elite at the expense of the working
class,[11] responsible for austerity[7] and driving privatization.[12]

Euroscepticism is found in groups across the political spectrum, both
left-wing and right-wing and is often found in populist parties.[7]
Although they criticise the EU for many of the same reasons, Eurosceptic
left-wing populists focus more on economic issues (such as the European
debt crisis and TTIP)[13][12][14][15] while Eurosceptic right-wing
populists focus more on nationalism and immigration (such as the
European migrant crisis).[16] The rise in radical right-wing parties
since the 2000s is strongly linked to a rise in Euroscepticism.[17]

Eurobarometer surveys of EU citizens show that trust in the EU and its
institutions has declined strongly since a peak in 2007.[18] Since then,
it has been consistently below 50%.[19] A 2009 survey showed that
support for EU membership was lowest in the United Kingdom (UK), Latvia
and Hungary.[20] By 2016, the countries viewing the EU most unfavourably
were the UK, Greece, France and Spain.[21] A referendum on continued EU
membership was held in the UK in 2016 which resulted in a 51.9% vote in
favour of leaving the EU. Since 2015, trust in the EU has risen slightly
in most EU countries as a result of falling unemployment rates and
accelerating economic growth.[22] Post 2019 election survey
"Eurobarometer" report showed that 68% citizens support the European
Union, the highest level since 1983; at the same time sentiment among
Europeans that things are not going in the right direction in both the
EU and in their own countries had increased to 50%.[23] ...

Hard Euroscepticism ... (also called anti-EU-ism) is "a principled
opposition to the EU and European integration [...]

Soft Euroscepticism is support for the existence of, and membership of,
a form of European Union, but with opposition to specific EU policies
[...] The European Conservatives and Reformists group, typified by
centre-right parties such as Czech Civic Democratic Party, along with
the European United Left–Nordic Green Left which is an alliance of the
left-wing parties in the European Parliament, display soft
Euroscepticism. ...

Some hard Eurosceptics prefer to call themselves "Eurorealists" rather
than "sceptics", and regard their position as pragmatic rather than ‘in
principle’. Additionally, Tony Benn, a left-wing Labour Party MP who
fought against European integration in 1975 by opposing membership of
the European Communities in that year's referendum on the issue,
emphasised his opposition to xenophobia and his support of democracy,
saying: "My view about the European Union has always been not that I am
hostile to foreigners, but that I am in favour of democracy [...] I
think they're building an empire there, they want us to be a part of
their empire and I don't want that."

This page was last edited on 13 October 2019, at 13:13 (UTC).

(5) Cloner for Windows Backups
by Peter Myers, October 24, 2019

Mac users have taken to Carbon Copy Cloner to do their backups.

Windows users are stuck in the slow lane; they are not used to the
cloning kind of backup. Windows offers a free version, System Image
Backup, but the clones it produces are not bootable.

Which means that you need to Restore from the clone back to the internal
drive.

Whereas with a bootable clone, you can boot from it as an external
drive; or replace the internal drive with it.

Just as Mac users have to pay for Carbon Copy Cloner, Windows users
should pay for third-party cloning apps.

This site lists the best ones:

https://www.softwarehow.com/carbon-copy-cloner-windows/

7 Windows Alternatives to Carbon Copy Cloner

BY ADRIAN TRY

UPDATED MAY 15, 2019

What Can Disk Cloning Software Do For Me?

When you clone a drive, you’re making a backup. Not just a normal
backup, but one with some surprising benefits:

If your computer or hard drive dies, you can boot from your clone drive
and keep working. It’s the fastest way to get back on your feet after a
disaster.

Cloning software will allow you to replicate your setup on a computer
with the same or similar hardware. Schools and other organizations do
this a lot.

If you purchase a new hard drive for your computer, a clone backup can
put you back where you left off quickly and without fuss, without having
to reinstall all your apps.

It can give your computer a fresh start. Create a clone backup just
after you install Windows and your apps, and everything’s running well,
and keep it in a safe place. If in the future it breaks or bogs down,
restoring it will make it run smoothly again.

Carbon Copy Cloner offers Mac users the easiest way to get up and
running after a disaster. In the next section, we’ll introduce you to
seven good alternatives (plus a spare) for Windows.

7 Carbon Copy Cloner Alternatives for Windows Users

1. Acronis True Image

Acronis True Image costs $49.99 for a single computer, can back up your
PC or Mac, and includes cloning and imaging. It’s an all-around backup
app that can handle local backups and cloud backups as well as cloning
and was the winner of our Best Backup Software for Windows 10 review. We
recommend it.

2. Paragon Drive Copy Professional

Paragon Drive Copy Professional is a specialized tool for creating clone
drives and migrating your data. It’s licensed for home use and costs $49.95.

3. EaseUS Partition Master

EaseUS Partition Master 13.0 includes cloning of hard drives and
partitions. It can also modify partitions with no data loss, and restore
lost partitions. A free edition supports drives up to 8TB, and a Pro
Edition is available for $39.95.

4. MiniTool Drive Copy

MiniTool Drive Copy Free is a free and easy-to-use tool that can copy
your data from drive to drive or partition to partition.

5. Macrium Reflect

Macrium Reflect 7 Free Edition is a free backup, disk imaging and
cloning solution for commercial and personal use. It includes a task
scheduler and can create clones of your drive while Windows is running.

6. AOMEI Backupper

AOMEI Backupper Standard 4.6.2 is a multi-talented, free tool that will
back up, sync, and clone your Windows system, apps, and data. It’s easy
to use and suitable for both home and business use. In our review of The
Best Backup Software for Windows 10, Thomas found it to be the best free
backup system for Windows.

7. DriveImage XML

DriveImage XML v2.60 is free for personal use (a commercial version is
available for $100). You can copy directly from drive to drive, and
backups can be scheduled. Your drive can be cloned while Windows is
running, and DriveImage can also be run from a bootable CD.

8. Clonezilla

Here’s an extra suggestion I’ll give you for free that’s a bit
different. It isn’t a Windows app—it runs on Linux—but bear with me
here. Clonezilla has a cool name, runs from a bootable CD, can clone
your Windows drive, and is absolutely free. It’s not the best option for
beginners but works well. I used it successfully some years ago to clone
a Windows server that was on its last legs.

So What Should I Do?

That’s a long (and incomplete) list of Windows cloning programs. Which
one is the best choice for you?

If you’re looking for full-featured backup software that can also clone
drives, I recommend Acronis True Image. It’s a great all-around backup
solution that’s worth paying for. Two good free alternatives are AOMEI
Backupper Standard 4.6.2 and Macrium Reflect 7 Free Edition.

But if you’d rather use a specialist app that only does cloning and
won’t cost you anything, give MiniTool Drive Copy Free or DriveImage XML
v2.60 a try.

Finally, if you’ve realized it’s time to have a careful look at your
complete PC backup strategy, check out our review of The Best Backup
Software for Windows 10. It contains some excellent advice about backing
up your PC, as well as recommendations of the top Windows software.

(6) Leunig anti-Vaxx cartoons; Mummy was busy on Instagram

cartoon: Leunig mass medication.jpeg
https://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/7d8e18184bdfd2766238ccda5df4d2d2

cartoon: maternal instincts that contradict what science thinks
https://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/a9c16fea98580aaba1a3fe5d46d3f07f

article Leunig mass medication
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/cartoonist-michael-leunig-compares-mandatory-vaccination-to-fascism-in-antivax-cartoon/news-story/42b32d00cfd73b40338408703685d109

Mummy was busy on Instagram

cartoon:
https://static.ffx.io/images/$zoom_0.462%2C$multiply_1%2C$ratio_1.776846%2C$width_1059%2C$x_0%2C$y_0/t_crop_custom/w_800/q_86%2Cf_auto/bad5452a7a7c3073a76ef8650159fb259d9627f2

article: Mummy was busy on Instagram
https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/digitally-distracted-parenting-a-modern-day-hang-up-20191024-p533rt.html

Digitally distracted parenting: A modern day hang-up

By Melissa Cunningham

October 24, 2019 — 5.42pm

Most parents have felt the twang of guilt that comes with scrolling a
mobile phone in the presence of their children and now there is a term
for it - digitally distracted parenting.

The perennial conversation about how much screen time is too much
shifted sharply this week from teenagers and children to their parents.

First, Victorian parents were told to put away their phones when their
children were in the water at public pools as part of a campaign to stop
drownings. Brunswick Baths put up a sign: ‘Watch Your Child, Not Your
Phone’.

The reports likely inspired Michael Leunig's cartoon published in The
Age on Wednesday that suggested some mothers love their smartphones more
than their children and set off a social media storm.

The cartoon prompted a quick and fierce backlash with many dubbing it
sexist, condescending and judgmental of mothers.