Open Thread-Mon 25 Oct 2021
3,502 responses to “Open Thread-Mon 25 Oct 2021”
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Today I attended the CBD of Sydney to drop off to the Supreme Court Registry a couple of Probate summonses with original wills for grants of Probate. Our usual service provider who lodges these things with the Court advised it no longer does such manual work (or was that menial work)
So I thought. well I’m here so I’ll go to the Court registry myself — went through the screening (my shoes beeped wildly, did the QR thingy but then the gentleman on security wanted to see my vaccination status. Well that was a hitch, he said I could post the documents in – to which I said ” I don’t trust Australia Post with Original wills, would you?’ then it was suggested I courier the documents in — well there you go — the Supreme Court building is off limits to the unvaxxed — I wonder what they’ll do with the unvaxxed defendants/plaintiffs when subpoena habeas corpus summons their appearance before the Judge?
Anyway it will be a nice little outing tomorrow with my granddaughter who’ll enjoy the beauty of Hyde Park in bloom while her Dad does the Probate lodgements – all works out well in the long run , I get time with my little grandie and know there’s been a work around on the tyranny.
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It was the voters who gave Bob Hawke & Labor the 1987 victory.
Sir Joh faced the same situation as Trump, first he had to beat his own party. Sinclair & Howard came out harder against Bjelke-Petersen than Labor ever did.
Sir Joh’s policies would have seen him as PM. (& would have seen Howard into political oblivion)
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The Oz gives Twiggster a tongue-bath:
Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest creates climate for green hydrogen energy revolution
Andrew Forrest in London to push his green energy plans. He says that under his revolution ‘we have complete sovereignty over energy at all times, and it’s made here by local punters. Why wouldn’t you do it?’
JACQUELIN MAGNAY
EUROPE CORRESPONDENT
@jacquelinmagnayAustralia’s richest man, Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, has spent four years studying and preparing for this moment: convincing the world that green hydrogen is the future.
At the very time Prime Minister Scott Morrison has achieved a commitment to net zero by 2050, Dr Forrest, the Fortescue Mining Group chairman, is pushing to transform Australia into a hydrogen pioneer ahead of COP26.
“This is the age of water now, not the age of oil,’’ he likes to say, taking a line from his mother, Judith, who quizzed him about why he is turning away from Pilbara iron ore to hydrogen.
“I talked her through the economics and the fact that if you couldn’t make eliminating global warming profitable it probably would never be eliminated,” he told The Australian this week.
“I told her how I was going to do it and she said, ‘This is the oil-versus-water argument’ and I have never forgotten. I would much rather be in that water corner than a polluting fuel from the bowels of the earth corner.’’
In the past few weeks in phone calls from London, the billionaire founder of Fortescue has been steering politicians, including from the National Party, to come on board to net zero in 2050 and to support his green revolution.
Dr Forrest says he has never worked harder in his life than while trying to stop global warming after taking a “hellish four-year” PhD in marine science in 2019 to understand the impact of warming oceans. He said those on the land, from farmers to miners, are often misportrayed because they are the “most innovative people’’.
He has shown sceptical politicians how farmers, frustrated with the soaring cost of fertiliser, can benefit if fertiliser plants use green hydrogen, sourced locally, rather than imported gas.
Practically, he will spend $400m converting the Brisbane plant of Incitec Pivot to green energy, keeping 400 local jobs. It will produce about 50,000 tonnes of renewable hydrogen, which will be converted to green ammonia for domestic and export markets. Dr Forrest said such examples of industry “underscores the whole sovereign risk of energy, which Australia suffers’’.
“So, our future, our standard of living for ourselves and the kids, are being determined by people who we will never meet and they will probably never visit,” he said. “Why would you do that if there’s one shot? We have complete sovereignty over energy at all times, and it’s made here by local punters. Why wouldn’t you do it?”
Here in a central London street, Dr Forrest, 59, is making waves ahead of the UN climate conference, which starts on Monday in Glasgow. The players — from royalty to billionaire investors and global business leaders — pay attention when one of the world’s biggest miners and industrialists is in tune with European sentiment that carbon emissions have to go.
Dr Forrest is not only talking about green hydrogen, but putting billion-dollar investments into making it happen.
Some might need a translator when the plain-speaking Dr Forrest talks about “the punters’’ and “the cockies’’, but no one misconstrues his impact and a desire for immediate and practical pathways. He will have two key speaking spots at the COP26 conference to explain his vision.
This month Fortescue Future Industries announced construction of a Green Energy Manufacturing Centre in Queensland with 2GW of electrolysers — which make hydrogen out of water — expected in 2023, as well as making wind turbines, solar panels and electrical cables.
“I put $120m on the table to double the world‘s capacity of electrolysers. I think it’s a pretty small investment. We’re taking that up several times to a billion dollars, because if you have a state which is really encouraging green energy and a great future — which is Queensland — then you need to put the manufacturing there,” he said.
In August Dr Forrest injected $1.03bn in funding to Fortescue Future Industries for future hydrogen investments.
Dr Forrest said that by the end of the COP26 fortnight he wants leaders of the industrial world to have a different understanding of Australia being behind the starting blocks of the green revolution.
“The truth has been denied entry into our country. It allows people to really peddle misinformation of fear,’’ Dr Forrest said.
“And there are still politicians who will stand by a platform of peddling misinformation of fear, whereas the future I see very clearly for the Australian farmer, the Australian regional worker, is at long last their future won’t be pegged to how a couple of sovereign leaders from Russia and Saudi Arabia, wake up with a headache or not and adjust (the price of oil and gas) and impact on whether or not cockies can send the kids to school.’’
He added: “We can make all our energy right here at home’’.
But he wants a level playing field where the “fat’’ billion-dollar subsidies to “old technology’’ are put on a level playing field so that within eight years Australians could be given a choice of buying fossil fuels, or buying green hydrogen, green ammonia or electrification.
“It is important for global leaders to know that Australia will be a huge part of the world‘s green industry revolution, that we will not drop the ball at that, and we will be a major player,’’ Dr Forrest said.
Green energy sovereignty is within the grasp of Australia for the first time and the country will be a competitive supplier to the world.
Australia will quickly catch up and overtake other nations, Dr Forrest said, adding talk of “a transition’’ from fossil fuels to green is illusionary. No one talked about transition from the typewriter to the computer, he argued. The cost of green energy will quickly be on par with fossil fuels.
He said the change will come soon as green ammonia, green electricity and green hydrogen can feed every part of the industrial supply chain — “be it cement, be it steel, be it fertiliser, be it mobility”
“You can answer any of that with electricity, with ammonia or hydrogen, and that can all be pulled down from an infinite source now,” he said.
“So I just want them agreeing. Let’s get on with a practical, implementable solution.”
Translated essential bit:
Forrest wants: “…a level playing field where the “fat’’ billion-dollar subsidies to “old technology’’ are put on a level playing field…”
But how exactly does hydrogen power everything? According to this:
https://phys.org/news/2006-12-hydrogen-economy-doesnt.html
it isn’t energy efficient.
Does that mean he wants paying to convert systems to hydrogen?
Link to the Oz site, where he isn’t doing well in the snake-oil stakes, according to the comments.
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Any similarities are superficial.
Joh & Dan are ideological oppositesSal, forget their nominal party allegiances.
I am talking about their personality traits and style.
Commonalities:-
– ruling the party room with an iron fist;
– converting the police force into a tool of party politics;
– treating dissenting media with contempt;
– flicking government contracts to maaaates and freezing out enemies;
– shutting down public protest.
Seeing the parallels?
Hopefully the final one will also play out.
That is, overreach and fall. -
But he wants a level playing field where the “fat’’ billion-dollar subsidies to “old technology’’ are put on a level playing field so that within eight years Australians could be given a choice of buying fossil fuels, or buying green hydrogen, green ammonia or electrification.
No mention of the “fat” multi-billion subsidies for solar, wind and batteries being on the table? Colour me unsurprised.
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Wont be able to get out with out the vax.
Not necessarily. I think it depends on the receiving country.
The other day I posted a story of a woman who “fled” to the US in the beginning of October. She only needed to do PCR test to get to LA.
Today Obiden introduced the rule that only vaxxed international travelers will be allowed in the US (unless they cross Rio-Grande of course). So, that path is now closed for some of us. -
John of Melsays:
October 26, 2021 at 8:52 pm
Wont be able to get out with out the vax.Not necessarily. I think it depends on the receiving country.
The other day I posted a story of a woman who “fled” to the US in the beginning of October. She only needed to do PCR test to get to LA.
Today Obiden introduced the rule that only vaxxed international travelers will be allowed in the US (unless they cross Rio-Grande of course). So, that path is now closed for some of us.The fed gov has already announced that all out bound passengers will require a vax.
And GLA (Gay Leprechaun Airlines) wont even let you on the plane without a vax + PCR test.
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They have done so damage over the last 60 years. Evil is an understatement.
The New York Times takes the whole enchilada in the evil stakes — The Gray Lady Winked: How the New York Times’s Misreporting, Distortions and Fabrications Radically Alter History by Ashley Rindsberg.
part of the blurb at DymocksThe result is an essential look at the tangled relationship between media, power and politics in a post-truth world told with novelistic flair to reveal a uniquely powerful institution’s tortured relationship with the truth.
Most importantly of all, The Gray Lady Winked presents a cautionary tale that shows what happens when the guardians of the truth abandon that sacred value in favor of self-interest and ideology-and what this means for our future as much as for our past.
Heard Ashley Rindsberg interviewed a few weeks ago by Andrew Klavan – apparently he could not get any publisher to take his book, he may have self-published. The book was a response to Rindsberg learning from William L. Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich that, at the outset of World War II, the New York Times reported Poland invaded Germany.
On the list for Christmas
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rosiesays:
October 26, 2021 at 8:31 pm
Apparently it is correct that Andrews has caved on allowing the unvaxxed access to all retail which those of us without a vaxx passport will also be granted free entry
Had a laugh today.
Dan has totally pissed off the vax resistance.
Then I hear that there has been a quiet change to rules about unvaxxed attending kids supports (Little Athletics etc).
Now allowed.
Nek minnit, Covid Karens are on talk-back complaining about now having to mix with the Great Unwashed. -
Sal, forget their nominal party allegiances.
I am talking about their personality traits and style.Domineering bosses are boss-like.
Gotcha.Though Joh didn’t close down protests.
He didn’t allow them to block the public roadways & ruin normal people’s day.
This is not quite the same.After that, there are many areas where they go in the opposite direction.
eg, taxation, regulation, union power, infrastructure projects, use of resources, allowing people to work, supremacy of individual/collective.The core and very important difference:
Joh worked for a living for Twenty-Two years before entering parliament.
Andrews has never worked a day in his life, & certainly never cooked for himself. -
I was one on about 420 arrested one afternoon in Brisbane in late 1977 (I think) marching against Joh’s law that effectively gave the Government the right to decide who could and could nor protest on the streets of Brisbane.(Stooge Police Commissioner).
We were the darlings of the left and of civil libertarians and got a lot of sympathetic press.
It’s a good indicator of how much freedom we have lost when none of these three groups will speak up for the right to protest anything Covid related.
And it shows that for the left, the media (birm) and the so called civil liberties mob it was never about free speech at all. Sinistra delenda est ! -
You have got to watch this. It’s 10 mins, Rukshan with Tim Quilty, David Limbrick and that female Dr – all of whom refused to provide their vax status. Listen towards the end to Tim Quilty as he describes how the Andrews government refused to give them and the Liberals any notice of the permanent emergency bill and the arrogance of the Andrews government. They found out that the Bill was going to parliament by accident. https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=notif&v=555961545502468¬if_id=1635201114925904¬if_t=live_video_explicit
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@Boambee John
You worked at Russell?
I’m sure you are a good person and I have learned that other folk that contribute here have also walked those hallowed halls.
What fucked me when I first drove there was to see the huge eagle on the pole that I was told the Americans contributed.
But it looks like a replica from the Nuremberg stadia and always frightens the shit out of me.
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So, I read the phys.org article on hydrogen linked above, and have determined that the science writey mans has declared that the renewable orthodoxy is less shit than the green hydrogen dream.
But the rather large Pink Elephant in the room is that the renewable orthodoxy is still infinitely more shit than the status quo, particularly if nuclear supplements and eventually supplants coal and gas as the primary baseload power source. And coal and gas instead become the basis of liquid fuel self-sufficiency in Oz…
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JC:
JC says:
October 26, 2021 at 10:06 amIf they are the major suppliers they’re also vulnerable to buyers going elsewhere and the Chinese lose their investment.
It’s not a monopoly if the barrier to entry isn’t gated up by the state .You are missing a fundamental fact, JC.
Time.
These industries aren’t set up overnight, you should be aware of that. Even if they are coming from a mothballed state, they take time to run up to full production of the product, construct the trade routes, the vehicles to carry the raw materials and to train the personnel to operate the machinery. -
Can my pet get COVID and do they need a vaccine?
An unserious people wither then disappear from history.
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But the rather large Pink Elephant in the room is that the renewable orthodoxy is still infinitely more shit than the status quo, particularly if nuclear supplements and eventually supplants coal and gas as the primary baseload power source
Rex we all know renewables have never been carbon neutral but wait till the cleaning up of decommissioned projects begins. Solar panels have quantities of toxic metals in them. I will say one thing, bet that clean up costs are not on the beneficiary. The fly tipping will be legendary once local tips start filling up with them.
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Pedro the Loafersays:
October 26, 2021 at 9:17 pm
Don’t underestimate Twiggy Forrest.If he is putting cash on the table for R&D on hydrogen, he is expecting a huge ROI from the taxpayer.
I would be intrigued to know what proportion of his wealth has come from taxpayer subsidies/never repaid taxpayer “co-investments”. Certainly this latest brain fart will involve subsidies for the solar and wind power he is babbling about “investing” in.
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Flying Pigs
What fucked me when I first drove there was to see the huge eagle on the pole that I was told the Americans contributed.
But it looks like a replica from the Nuremberg stadia and always frightens the shit out of me.
Australian-American memorial. IIRC, put up to commemorate the Battle of the Coral Sea. Known to the unkind as Phallus in Blunderland.
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Calli:
It’s probably been put up already, but this is “Peaches – PD 4341” Incident report as demanded by the office. -
Joh was going to prison for a very long time if he didn’t die.
Bullshit.
Hmm. Joh died 12 years before the cabinet papers came out.
Was it legal for a premier to make a trade deal with the head of state of a communist country before the fall of the Berlin Wall?
Heck, Bosi might have even had him tried for treason in a “People’s Court”.
On top of that light hearted jab at the Joh tragics, they were covering up prostitution racketeering.
No different to the mafia. The cops were the soldato & associates.
No other head of government has been involved with this in Australia. Wran & Askin might have been on the take, but not like this.
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I have done a bit of work on Twiggy projects over the years.
Unlike many other big miners, he always paid his bills on time and was very generous with bonus payments if he was happy with the project outcomes.
He is being painted as a “green loon” lately, but it can’t be denied that he is a very shrewd businessman who can sniff a profit in the air long before his competitors.
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As regards Joh Bjelke Petersen, there can be only one of two conclusions:-
1. He was complicit in rampant police corruption; or
2. He was incredibly inept to have that level of corruption going on under his nose and not know about it.
I would agree with Roger.
He and Andrews are stamped from the same mould.I can’t comment on items 1 or 2 but there’s one ENORMOUS difference between Joh and Dictator Dan. Corrupt or not, Joh actually tried to advance his state. When was the last time (if ever) that Dan did anything beneficial for Victoria and Victorians? Was it when he sold out to China, or threw $1b away cancelling a road or perhaps when he turned his citizens into moles and their capital city into a desert. Do tell.
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I can’t comment on items 1 or 2 but there’s one ENORMOUS difference between Joh and Dictator Dan. Corrupt or not, Joh actually tried to advance his state. When was the last time (if ever) that Dan did anything beneficial for Victoria and Victorians? Was it when he sold out to China, or threw $1b away cancelling a road or perhaps when he turned his citizens into moles and their capital city into a desert. Do tell.
Yeah. So I said Dan is way worse than Joh was. The non-Joh tragics actually agreed.
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ZK2A:
The Times view on Afghanistan’s food crisis: Hunger in Kabul
There is a moral duty to extend aid to the country as it scrambles to avoid famine
Monday October 25 2021, 9.00pm BST, The TimesNo.
They worked hard to get the West out of their country.
And now their people are starving. I feel sorrow for their plight especially for their kids, but they refused to fight for their freedoms and rights, so they can sleep in the cockroach and fly ridden beds they created for themselves.
See how well praying five times a day fills your bellies.
Good riddance. -
VIC: State of Emergency Forever
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Lb39c7cQiw
Premiered 2 hours ago
Discernable
26.3K subscribers
Shadow Minister for Local Government and Resources Richard Riordan MP spoke to us today on the outrageous dictatorial powers Daniel Andrews is forcing through parliament.Richard also reassured us of the Liberal Party’s commitment to scrap these totalitarian laws if elected.
Discernable will be studying Bill and making a complete explainer video as soon as possible, so we can all understand exactly what is happening in Victoria.
In the meantime, you can read a draft bill here: https://www.smh.com.au/interactive/hub/media/tearout-excerpt/4025/591316B.D12-(1).pdf
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Don’t miss your chance to ridicule Muddy on AdamCat!
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A couple of weeks ago the Facebook empire was taken down globally for a number of hours.
Since yesterday, Foxtel streaming via IQ5 boxes has been taken down with the error message: ‘you are not a subscriber’.
This evening, streaming from Netflix is unavailable because ‘you have too many watching under your subscription’ (which we don’t).
Feels like someone has hacked the back-end accounting systems of Foxtel and Netflix in order to disable their services.
Someone is saying: we can do this.
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Mike Pompeo: We are talking about pronouns, not Americans
Former CIA director slams Biden administration for misleading public on the thousands who have a right to return to the U.S. from Afghanistan on ‘Hannity’ #FoxNews #Hannity -
The cops were standing over casinos, SP bookmaking and brothels back in the 1920s when Joh was a teenage yokel down on the farm.
Ah yes. All organised crime in Australia goes back to the 1800s.
Not the ‘Ndrangheta, but the Rum Corps.
All pollies get to be “made” in the Rum Corps.
You genius, fathead Case.
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but Bosi worries you
It worries me that a) people might be drawn to any alternative other than the current incompetent shambles, and b) more importantly, Mr Bosi’s idea of a justice and/or legal system is this:
I am my own authority, and you will submit to me just as you will submit to the other millions of Australians.
Mr Bosi’s ‘We The People’ appears to consist of Bosi himself and whichever family members are in favour at any given time. So yeah, it worrying. But it doesn’t worry me as such. Yet.
You really think Adam Bandt or Fiona Patten wouldn’t just love having that sort of power, over and above what they already have?
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Hmm.
When I said people might be drawn to any alternative other than the current incompetent shambles just now, please do NOT interpret that as any support whatsoever for Andrews.
I would seriously be okay with him doing 25 on the top in Barwon.
Firing squad? Well, no, but then again I don’t live in Victoria and haven’t had to endure his monstrous destruction.
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Our Foxtel is still out and a thousand apologies are being offered but no explanation.
Ok, I say, we’ll get something on Netflix, and lo and behold, Netflix says too many others are using our subscription so that’s out too. No-one else that we know of has access to our subscription.
Hairy mumbling about cyber attacks at the level of subscribers. Anyone else got this?
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You really think Adam Bandt or Fiona Patten wouldn’t just love having that sort of power, over and above what they already have?
You really think they won’t and don’t have it already????
Why you think it won’t pass…
KD… and I’m sure the degree of difficulty would be a ‘tad’ difficult but get your Mum up there with you????
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You really think they won’t and don’t have it already????
Right now, Pigsy, they don’t have the legislative power to execute someone for ‘political warfare’, whatever that is. And that’s exactly what Bosi wants. It’s in his manifesto. That he actually calls a manifesto.
I’m sure the degree of difficulty would be a ‘tad’ difficult but get your Mum up there with you????
Mum was up here about five or six years back (with the old man). Waaaay too hot for both of them, and Mum freaks like a French Bulldog whenever there’s thunder, so no. As nice as it would be.
Besides, she reckons she’s staying in the ancestral seat where all her social networks and friends are, and where her bowling club is. Fair enough too, I reckon.
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Anyway, I’m off to bed. Still not completely recovered and have 3 ultrasounds in the next ten days.
It has been a glorious Spring day in Sydney. Our Jacaranda tree is large and spreading and is at its blue/mauve best during its glorious flowering, which wafts lightly scented blossom aromas into our rooms. I have spent the day quietly marvelling at the natural beauty surrounding me and enjoying our two fledgies who are now spilling over their nest, the urge to flight coming upon them. Not yet, I caution them, not yet. I passed the time dreaming and read the ‘Life’ series on this week’s Speccie which arrived in the post this morning. Rodney Clarke’s Low-Life piece was very simple but poignant. He has serious cancer and was doing some house sitting for a woman who abruptly departed from life recently in this place, her long-term domicile, her things left behind. A chill in the Spring air.
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Rex we all know renewables have never been carbon neutral but wait till the cleaning up of decommissioned projects begins. Solar panels have quantities of toxic metals in them. I will say one thing, bet that clean up costs are not on the beneficiary. The fly tipping will be legendary once local tips start filling up with them.
Oh yes.
And there will be a great many embittered Upper Middle Morons whose feed-in tariff dreams were reduced to dust the moment their panels finally crapped out and the economics of replacement with more became unworkable.
In fact, I’d wager the sharp price increases in solar panels now appearing thanks to China’s power crunch and anti-smog crusade prior to the Winter Olympics might already be exposing the rotting underbelly of the Green Solar Dream…
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Hairy mumbling about cyber attacks at the level of subscribers. Anyone else got this?
yep. your passwords are leaked by numerous sites. If you are like most people you recycle passwords or have variation on a theme.
Apple and google will tell you if you go into security setup which of your accounts it knows about that have been compromised based on known leaks.
hackers cross correlate your known passwords with netflix logins and voila, free netflix. You have to call netflix to get your account back.
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One of the more surreal moments I remember from living in a cheapish on Adelaide Terrace a few years back, was watching the very good Forward Scout Films’ DVD doco series on the SASR one rather foggy night in midwinter, only to then hear the clatter of big helicopter rotor blades.
I went out the front door to see and hear several Blackhawks fly overhead, silhouetted against the fog by the red of their anti-collision beacons.
171 SQN (and presumably the Cats themselves) were conducting night flying training serials over the CBD, blacked out.
Pretty damned spectacular.
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Quinton De Kock withdraws from South Africa team as players ordered to take knee
By Afp
AFP
9 minutes ago October 26, 2021
No CommentsQuinton de Kock has withdrawn from South Africa’s Twenty20 World Cup match against the West Indies “for personal reasons” after the country’s cricket board ordered players to take the knee.
Skipper Temba Bavuma said the star wicketkeeper-batsman, a former national captain, had made himself unavailable on Tuesday due to “personal reasons” in their crucial Super 12 match in Dubai.
The decision raised eyebrows as De Kock, 28, had previously refused to take part in the anti-racism gesture that has become a regular feature in most sporting events.
“The Cricket South Africa board on Monday evening unanimously agreed to issue a directive requiring all Proteas players to adopt a consistent and united stance against racism by ‘taking the knee’ prior to the start of their remaining World Cup matches,” said a CSA statement.
“Concerns were raised that the different postures taken by team members in support of the BLM (Black Lives Matter) initiative created an unintended perception of disparity or lack of support for the initiative.
“After considering all relevant issues, including the position of the players, the board felt that it was imperative for the team to be seen taking a united and consistent stand against racism, especially given SA’s history.”
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