That’s a very disheartening thread, dover0beach.

Magpies being Magpies in the Big Apple (just moved on AAP):

Collingwood are attempting to contact Jordan De Goey after the AFL star was arrested and put in a New York holding cell for allegedly groping a woman.

Police say the woman called 911 and De Goey and Dyson were taken into custody, before being charged with forcible touching and assault.…

In Not Waving, Drowning news:

Alec Baldwin calls movie shooting death ‘one in a trillion episode’

As you perhaps would, with your arse on the line – and an open box of assorted ammo on the table.

And rehabilitating for all he’s worth:

“I do know that an ongoing effort to limit the use of firearms on film sets is something I’m extremely interested in,” Baldwin said. “Some new measures have to be taken.”

“I’m not an expert in this field. So whatever other people decide is the best way to go, in terms of protecting people’s safety on film sets, I’m all in favor of and I will cooperate with that in any way that I can.”

Hoping for Deliverance.

Pigsy, overnight:

And I’m glad that DoverCat has bitten the bullet, so to speak, to source the money he needs to keep his Cat going.

Dot, 7.35:

Really? What a load of wank.

The Furniture Shop’s going gangbusters. The last actual post on The Shop was Pigsy’s post overnight which drew Dot’s response. Pigsy cross-posted it on The Shop’s OT. There are no responses.

The last two posts on the OT before that were on 29 and 28 October. No responses. The last post on the OT with any responses at all was from Faulty, which drew two responses on 26 October, both from other Furniture Shoppers.

The Struth Factor board has had no epistles since 23 October. Cardimona’s board – 10 October. A board for the Lib Democrats – 19 November 2020.

Yep, it’s a juggernaut all right.

Mark A puts his lame pics up every 24 hours, which are cross-posted everywhere else anyway. That’s it.

Collingwood are attempting to contact Jordan De Goey after the AFL star was arrested and put in a New York holding cell for allegedly groping a woman.

All De Goeys’s pawn tickets at Cashies on Smith Street are about to expire. He’ll never get somebody else’s power tools back if he keeps this up.

Alec Baldwin calls movie shooting death ‘one in a trillion episode’

dindoo nutin

4 Marks of Irish Influence on Catholic Halloween
National Catholic Register

Baldwin is very interested in improving firearm safety on set.
No need for that.
He only had to check the gun he was handed which is standard practice at all gun shoots and ranges.
Simple rules that even brainless actors should comprehend.

Halloween tip.
Cocktail pickled onions rolled in covered in chocolate look like maltezers.

Poor old Joe, can’t depend on anyone to keep a secret.

Always a problem when you depend on Depends.

Michael Malice
??@michaelmalice??

Imagine being so naive as to believe that Alec Baldwin was the lone gunman

All of us who’ve had the jab are in fact dead.
This blog is a waking nightmare for the unvaccinated.
Dan Andrews died last year in an auto asphyxiation bondage accident. Mistress Sutton misunderstood his direction to tighten as referring to the choker collar he was using rather than Covid rules.

Baldwin is very interested in improving firearm safety on set.

Well of course he’s interested, now. He could be on the pointy end next time and as he’s seen, no amount of smug or tiktok can protect you all the time.

Eight minutes to Repentance Day.

I just want to say – good luck, and we’re all counting on you.

– Leslie Nielsen

all ok in tge west at 2min

Aaaaaand, entirely predictably, nothing.

The japing may begin. Sneering and scoffing optional.

Cackle.

That entire lamentable episode reminded me of Faulty’s ‘two weeks and six days’ commentary on ExCat.

The Bane courts have started in Sydney.
Bosi was right.

Dover Beach/Cohenite:

I don’t think even Trump can turn this around. He did his job by revealing this vile corruption by the swamp but the remedy has to come from elsewhere.

These actions are not the actions of a representative government – they are the actions of a panicked tyrant.
The Brahmin Class all across the world have no bloody clue as to where this ends up. Their only tool is the whip, and every problem looks like a peasant needing a reminder of his place.
How badly have they buggered things up this time?
Worse than WWI?
Worse than WWII?

If the report about the Jan 6 detainees is true, then the States can no longer be regarded as a civilised country, but a failed state. When the great fraud happened, I commented that they no longer had the moral authority to tell anyone else how to govern themselves. The slide into despotism is almost complete.

That country is armed to the gills. Yet nothing happens. Zero pushback in a land of millions.

We, on the other hand, are sparse and helpless. And our leaders have taken their signal from the US experience – they know how powerless we are and will exploit it. Because they can.

How badly have they buggered things up this time?

badly. The spiky end was inserted last. It will be painful coming out.

I’m hoping the Virginia election will prove your statement wrong calli.

Hoping! Results on Wednesday morning Australian time.

Custard, I want to be wrong.

I want Neil Oliver to be wrong too.

But in my heart I know he isn’t.

Neil Oliver talks the hard talk, but says he is still available ‘to be persuaded’ if the elites do what they want the rest of us to do and simply subsist. I don’t think I am in that camp, for I can’t yet see any reason to believe there is any looming climatic disaster. What might persuade me is more persuasive evidence, rather than a lot of hair-shirting elites, and a viable theory – and there I don’t see anything particularly compelling to get me on board. I do get his anger and frustration though at the way the current world elites are posturing and forcing us to comply with their dictates while living high on the hog themselves. He does a good job of calling out hypocrisy.

historical vignettes

If you haven’t already Delta, have a look at Muddy’s post on the main page. A few snapshots of the Kokoda campaign in 1942/3, as told by the men on the ground.

Outstanding stuff.

I want Neil Oliver to be wrong too.

I’m hoping that Neil Oliver was thus simply being ironic when saying he was available to be convinced if the elites did some hair-shirt wearing too as well as inflicting it on others. I’m hoping his only problem with climate change is not just that the misery is being forced upon us while being withheld from the elites. He needs to say that there is no reason for the whole things, which perhaps is what he is realling getting at in trying to call out the hypocrisy of the elites. The whole thing is a sham and a scam, it needs exposure as such in scientific and rational argument, and no-one should be undergoing any misery because of such a chimeric and illusory belief.

Scotty played the Porter situation l;ike a Stradivarius..
Porterdidn’t do well as A/G, so he put him somewhere that suited his skillset better.
Porter later moved to the Backbench to avoid disclosing the names of his Litigation funders.
Remember, Porter chose to have his day in Court, then folded at the first hurdle.
Hardly Scotty’s fault.

And no-one, as yet, agrees with me. Interesting.

The whole thing is a sham and a scam, it needs exposure as such in scientific and rational argument, and no-one should be undergoing any misery because of such a chimeric and illusory belief.

Too true Lizzie. A point rarely raised these days is the pointlessness of it all. The majority of opponents to the madness usually still concede the point that (CO2) ’emissions’ must be reduced.

No. They don’t.

I wonder how much wildlife has been strangled and mutilated by the useless blue plastic masks? Another gift from China.

And I notice there is nary a word about the origin of the virus any more.

It’s as if it never happened.

Jan 6 insurrectionists are now white supremacists and black guards and prisoners make life hell for them. Their plight is widely known but nobody does anything. What the hell ? Ted Cruz ? Rand Paul ?

All I can say is Jordan de Goey should be very careful.

And this is what is waiting for anti vaxxers.

I have a theory about De Goey. No requirement for tinfoil. It’s just that Collingwood – having used Dane Swan as a benchmark for naughty-ish sleeve-tatted numpty yet good at footy – keep trying to replicate it with other people, and (so far, at least) they have failed.

Swan was about to have his contract torn up before he really got started at the Pies for playing up in the now-Mongyang CBD. Not groping tarts, but jumping on cars whilst on the gas and so on. Malthouse kept him, saying he saw something in the lad.

Swan went on to be – well, Dane Swan.

Two things happened after that – all the up and comers wanted to emulate Swan by sleeving up and opening sideline T shirt businesses, and the club seemed to think it could do the same thing with all the said up and comers they could with Swan. The problem was that none of the newer crew had the self-discipline to contain themselves, and they didn’t have Swan’s ability to excuse it in the eyes of the club if they did.

Look at De Goey, and to a lesser degree Jamie Elliott. Matchwinners on their day, but every day is not their day – unlike Swan, who kept dragging in elite performances week after week after month after year.

If you are not Dane Swan (or Dustin Martin the chopstick stabber, for that matter) don’t write cheques with their budgets. I don’t care if it was De Goey’s mate instead of him that went around glassing people in New York. No situational awareness. Bye bye Jordan. I hope.

I think Oliver is being careful. He knows it’s a sham and a scam. GB news is being subjected to the same kind of activism that Sky is.

Yes. Point taken there Cassie. Something which we in Australia are also going to be more and more subject to. Which is why I want to see Catallaxy thrive and put forward all opinions; freedom of speech is not very available these days and will only become less so in the rest of my lifetime, I am sure of that.

A point rarely raised these days is the pointlessness of it all.

That’s why Chris Kenny’s piece in the Oz this weekend is such a keeper:

Will the summer scourge of bushfires be a thing of the past? Will floods, storms and sea surges never destroy our communities again?

Will our dams always be full, and our rivers never run dry?

Will our crops always be abundant and our cities never too hot or too cold?

Will there be a discernible difference in any of these realities? Will our carbon dioxide emission reductions improve our lives or our environment in any way?

If none of these benefits are expected, why do activists and politicians constantly cite these natural occurrences as a justification for action? If they cannot guarantee improvements, how can they justify action?

None of this is addressed in our public debate, and to ask such ­inconvenient questions is to be branded a climate denier or receive some other inane slight.

The global warming debate involves a complex array of multidisciplinary scientific data, theory and forecasts – and the potential policy responses range into myriad intricacies around energy, economics, agriculture, ecology, science, infrastructure and more – yet the debate lacks intelligent, factual approaches.

We are supposed to adopt drastic action, whatever the cost, and without any assurances it will lead to any beneficial outcomes.

We are asked to swim like lemmings. We are bombarded with propaganda where bushfires, floods, storms and droughts are branded “unprecedented” with little or no facts to back up the claim.

Seldom are the claims tested, and often they are wrong.

Take the 2019-20 bushfires (to prove my point; they now call them megafires) which are often described as “unprecedented”. Well, everything is unprecedented in a narrow sense.

Ever since European settlement, Australia has had many deadlier bushfires, (most recently in 2009 and 1983); we have had bushfire seasons burn greater areas; all the damaged regions had burned previously; and the timing of the fires was not new either. The only unprecedented aspect was that a tragic bushfire season coincided with a highly politicised climate debate.

The Bureau of Meteorology feeds out media releases about broken temperature records, often without volunteering how they rely on revising earlier records downwards. Back in January 2019, the BOM proudly proclaimed a record as Adelaide reached 46.6 degrees, the highest maximum recorded in any of our capitals – except that it was not. Back on January 12, 1939, Adelaide recorded a maximum a full degree higher, but it had been revised downwards by the BOM’s homogenisation of temperature records.

There is too little scrutiny and too little transparency around much of this – such facts should need no censorship or embellishment. Like the pandemic, climate change is an issue where the fearmongering of politicians melds perfectly with the unquestioning sensationalism of some media.

For all the complexities, proponents of climate action want this debate to be a zero-sum game.
Questioning whether climate policies will be effective is now akin to trying to play cricket without taking a knee. You must not think for yourself or try to reconcile costs against benefits.

Incredibly, it is considered sacrilege to ask whether getting to net-zero emissions is possible, how much it will cost, or whether it will make any difference; even though proponents offer next to nothing by way of estimates.

We are told we simply must adopt these policies because if everyone failed to act, we would cook the planet.

So, relentlessly, we pursue a path of absolute uncertainty on costs, practicality and effectiveness – an insane policy path. The only justification provided, without any factual basis or numerical explanation, is that the cost of doing nothing would be higher.

This intellectually callow, politically puerile and practically frightening proposition was put by Labor at the last election, enabling them to lose what many thought was the unlosable election. Bizarrely, the same arguments are now being made by the Coalition government, sacrificing their values and practical disposition on the altar of climate ­conformity.

What rising of mainstream angst has wrought this dramatic about-face, you might ask? What awakening among the communities and families of middle Australia who usually support right-of-centre parties has pushed the Liberals and Nationals into this reversal? The sad and disturbing answer is; nothing. The shift has not come from the grassroots or from the public; it has come from outside.

It has come from the United Nations; the Europeans; the United States; even Chinese communists who are punishing us with trade sanctions; it has come from big business, corporate financiers and capital markets. Even progressives normally would argue against allowing such bodies or sectional interests to frame our national interests or dictate our domestic policies.

Those pushing net zero might be right, and they might be wrong. But voters get little choice because both sides of politics have now ­acquiesced.

The pandemic has shown us how wildly inaccurate modelling can be; and climate models rely on less hard data and more variables than the epidemiological modellers. Reality is a better guide than forecasts.

The past two decades tell us the latest net-zero policies will lead to higher electricity costs and less ­reliable power supplies. Taxpayer grants and subsidies will increase, more jobs will move offshore, China will continue to enrich itself from our resources while not reducing its emissions, and global emissions will continue to increase, so that all of our pain will be for no gain. But on the upside, as a nation we will have taken a knee to the climate gods. In a field where people like to talk about intergenerational responsibilities, we could leave a terrible burden of costs, missed opportunities and relative economic weakness for our children.

It is too soon to judge the electoral repercussions of all this. While Scott Morrison and Barnaby Joyce will have dismayed large sections of the electorate and squandered a huge policy advantage over Labor and the Greens, there are many other factors that might encourage their supporters to hold their nose and tick the ­Coalition box.

Not least of these is that at the election Australia will be one of the world’s most vaccinated nations, with one of the lowest pandemic fatality rates and having suffered some of the least economic damage. Having marshalled the country through the pandemic, Morrison will be able to mount a strong case that voters should stay the course.

Still, whoever wins, we face a deepening of our energy upheaval. Labor and the Coalition both promise to further erode our once crucial economic advantage of cheap and plentiful energy.

It is unfathomable that we should end up here after all we have seen domestically, in Europe and in China. That we have signed on to this emissions-reduction crusade without championing ­nuclear energy at home or abroad just underscores how this is playing out as an issue of symbolism and morality rather than practical outcomes.

For all the complexities, proponents of climate action want this debate to be a zero-sum game. The activists present two simple propositions, and they have been highly successful in having them adopted by politicians, media and the public.

When it comes to the threat, they say global warming is bad and will visit catastrophe upon us, any benefits are either denied or ignored. So we are left with the ­absurd presumption that in all the varying and evolving climatic, ecological and geographical history of the planet, the global average temperature, shorelines and environment that existed in 1990, or perhaps 2005, were deemed to be optimal.

When it comes to solutions, there is an obsessive focus on reducing carbon dioxide emissions from industrial processes, preferably with renewable energy or ­deindustrialisation rather than through hi-tech responses. This must occur in wealthy countries rather than in those with the highest emissions, and it should involve a significant transfer of wealth to poorer nations.

Net zero by 2050 is held out as our salvation. In Australia, we might still love our country, but it would no longer be sunburnt; ­apparently we would keep our sweeping plains and ragged mountain ranges but skip the droughts and flooding rains.

If this is not what the climate activists claim, then why do they us all weather events to press their case? Are they offering a Truman Show-world of contrived and controlled weather?

This mindset is dangerous ­because it insinuates the wrong responses. It would be madness, for instance, to suggest climate policies – rather than large, cleared areas – can protect people and houses from the inevitability of bushfires.

The superficiality of the debate is borne out in opinion surveys showing most voters support an energy mix of 100 per cent renewables plus storage – something that is simply impossible to ­deliver. We now have fantasy policies promising fantasy results to deliver us into nirvana.

We must not question this because the alternative is face even higher costs and/or destroy the planet. We have bipartisan agreement on the most costly and radical economic and social policy agenda ever envisaged with no guarantee of beneficial outcomes and based on the flimsiest of public debates – we might well have passed our evolutionary peak.

Yes, areff. All the more reason to be very very careful about such matters.

I don’t drink and drive. Neither should the shadow AG.

Whitlam’s clown show was limited to Canberra.

It has metastasised.

Neil Oliver. Deadly wordsmith, no need to raise his voice, you sense the deep anger. Only a fool would underestimate him.

1990 was a glorious finals series to attend.
Beating the Bombers senseless both times and then off to Vic Park for the happy hour.
I was young and freshly single….good times!

Only a fool would underestimate him.

Yes. Uptick there.

I appreciate him and do not underestimate his abilities.

Climate Change (CAGW) and COVID

Both the above have one thing in common: It’s never been about the science

Dunno, I’d nominate the Whitlam Government.

Ah yes, I remember them well.

It’s a close run thing, but the electorate were not as much inside the tent then.

1990 was a glorious finals series to attend.

I was in the (Australian, FNQ) jungle. Didn’t even know the result for three weeks afterwards.

Yesterday I had a whinge about Smith’s low energy trolls.

Now I know why they were assigned to him.

It’s almost as if he didn’t want the job.

And I notice there is nary a word about the origin of the virus any more.

It’s worse than that Calli. After grudgingly admitting it came from the Wuhan virology lab they’re now walking that back. At the same time they’re trying to reignite Wussians!. This mendacity is reaching heights I’ve never seen anywhere before.

US intel says may never know of Covid-19 origins (30 Oct)

US intelligence agencies said on Friday they may never be able to identify the origins of Covid-19, as they released a new, more detailed version of their review of whether the coronavirus came from animal-to-human transmission or leaked from a lab.

ABC News Takes the Prize — for Dishonest Journalism (29 Oct)

Never mind that Special Counsel Robert Mueller led just one of the deeply resourced investigations that failed to get the goods on Trump, ABC News is here to tell you those ludicrous stories about peeing Russian prostitutes and billion-dollar bribes just might be true.

Its new documentary, “Out of the Shadows,” provides a platform for the alleged author of those and other consequential fantasies, Christopher Steele.

Amazing. More proof that the Left lies about absolutely everything.

I’d question that the Victorian cops targetted Tim Smith.
For all they know, Liberals might get up next year, Smith would [a] been A/G and their career prospects look terminal.
The problem was:
He crashed into another car, they’re obliged to get a sample, and that’s it.
As far as Government critics getting hunted by the Queensland cops in the 70s & 80s, it mighta happened to the odd lawyer or journo, but it never happened to members of the Opposition.

I wonder if VicPol might just have had an eye out for one of Premier Pig’s more acerbic and energetic critics.

Very astute speculation – this is no doubt the case.

All the more reason to be very very careful about such matters.

Also very astute. If you want to position yourself as Dictator Dan’s gadfly, you’d better make sure you aren’t easily swatted. This chump should have been dotting every ‘i’ and crossing every ‘t’ in both his public and private life. His reckless behaviour has strengthened the Andrews government.

Thanks for your service to the repressed people of Victoria, you absolute idiot.

See what Andrews has done to Victoria, and Victorian minds, in making presumptions of institutionalised corruption an automatic reflex?

Turns out the schickered Mr Smith came to police attention after bouncing off another car and powering through a wall while 0.130 over the limit.

Smith has every reason, however, to regret how standards have changed. When Henry Bolte drove off the road pissed as 40 men, somehow all the police documents went missing and the court case was dismissed.

After dinner with friends I believed I was under the legal limit to drive home

If he was double the limit, I’m calling bullshit on him believing he was under the limit. In which case, it’s probably something he has done before. Silly man.

Because Smith made it easy for them doesn’t necessarily mean he shouldn’t have been careful, areff.

I doubt that he would be actively surveiled for this exact purpose, but geez – if you go out of your way to make trouble for a government in possession of a compliant, political police force then you’ve got rocks in your head.

Turns out the schickered Mr Smith came to police attention after bouncing off another car and powering through a wall while 0.130 over the limit

If this is true, I highly doubt this was his first rodeo. Clown.

CL has a photo of Smith up on his blog, the guy’s an obvious sot.
.013 isn’t high for a professional drunk, but what’s the story about hitting the parked car and crtashing thru a wall?
Another car involved, by any chance?

I have only support for Neil Oliver calling out the hypocrisy of elites, but worry he might be a bit of a believer still (hard not to be so in the British theatre world), in spite of disliking his kids being forced to eat insects.

Or he’s doing irony well. And I hope he was just being ironic.

Neil Oliver coasts down under
Nov 29, 2013

Chinese military to soon surpass US, Russia: General John Hyten | China News | WION

if only they were butterflies

This kiddie is thoroughly locked down, poor thing. He isn’t a butterfly but is quite colourful.

Eating vast quantities of Cafe honey-mash (#14 on the menu). He can’t fly at all, unfortunately, and is lacking the larger wing feathers. I have no idea how he got to my back neighbours’ yard. I wouldn’t’ve thought there would be a nesting site there that rainbow lorikeets could use.

Ermagerd. Diana all over again. Damn you, mysterious emissaries of hidden powers!

Was Diana a pisspot?
It runs in the family, you know.

So did the old thief really have an ‘accident’ at the Vatican? No 1 and No 2?

1. Peak Australia was to my young mind, 1988.
2. Did Smith hit a little red car?
3. Was the agent of foreign influence a mechanic cum lawyer called Manuel Utz?

Licence supended for accumulation of Points?
No licence to travel to and from work.
Supended for DD?
No worries, here’s your brief, have a nice day.

However, I do recall an incident involving Mrs Daniel Andrews….the details of which were “covered up”? Or maybe I’m wrong.

At Blairgowrie. Police ‘forgot’ to breathalyse. iirc at teenager was injured. Another Mornington Peninsula ‘incident’.

Guys, I may have told you a few times I come from a Catholic family.

This will make sense to given my ancestry. My father was Irish and I was named after my mother’s hometown in Poland.

I will soon start publishing on here under my own name. (Yes I am doxxing myself).

A fine afternoon to you all my friends.

Sincerely,

Lesko Brandon.

Cassie of Sydney:

However, I do recall an incident involving Mrs Daniel Andrews….the details of which were “covered up”? Or maybe I’m wrong.

Would that be the treadlyist of no appearance incident?
Nah.
Never happened.

Did Tim Wilson get a No Conviction Recorded or do you have to be Emma Walters (i. e. Mrs Setka) five times over the limit and speeding with kids in the back seat to qualify for that?