Have you heard of National Mining and Related Industries Day? No? That's probably because it isn't a thing, except in the mind of Gina Rinehart, who recently celebrated this imaginary occasion by flying planeloads of her favourite sycophants into Moomba gasfield in South Australia so she could quote herself and her new besties, Elon Musk and Donald Trump.

It’s that time of the year again. Friday Hut Road from The Buttery has been renamed Santa Claus Lane and dozens of colourful Santas, gnomes and sleighs – one pulled by six white kangaroos – have appeared by the roadside. 

The best case scenario for the next Donald Trump administration is that he will treat the presidency as a get out of jail free card, and spend the next four years playing golf and firing people, in between dispensing tax cuts to the ultra-rich. The worst case scenario is that he will turn the world's biggest economy into the newest and best-armed autocracy.

As Australia slavishly follows the worst American precedents, along with its presidents, it's worth keeping an eye on the worrying state of democracy in that country.

The ¢o$t of living and ¢orporate profit$

Last week the world had a taste of the kind of chaos which was predicted, but failed to eventuate, 24 years ago. This time the millennium bug couldn't be blamed. Instead, a tiny human coding error temporarily paralysed banks, airports, media outlets and other organisations around the planet, connected by the cloud of data that binds us all.

Australia’s Federal Court has granted the eSafety commissioner a two-day legal injunction to compel X, Elon Musk’s social media platform, to hide posts showing graphic content of the Wakeley church stabbing in Sydney.

The Echo loves your letters and is proud to provide a community forum on the issues that matter most to our readers and the people of the NSW north coast. So don’t be a passive reader, send us your epistles.

After acquiring Twitter for $44B, the world’s richest individual is now trolling its users, and removing people’s accounts he doesn’t like.