Open Thread- Mon 1 Nov 2021
2,962 responses to “Open Thread- Mon 1 Nov 2021”
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Are you challenging that, Top Ender?
I think he already did, gypsum-snorter.
And you lost the argument the moment you logged on and started to type.
Please change your script- This one is boring?
May we know more about that Dread Pirate Theodorrrrrrr Detmerrrrrrrs (Yarrrrr!) and his dastarrrrrrdly plan to sink the HMAS Sydney with the Whiiiiiiite Suuuuuuuub?
Or about your time-travelling exploits to pre-Federation Brisbane, and the Brisbane River’s pristine sandy bottom?*
* AKA Where the hell did you get a licence to operate a Time Machine from, when you clearly failed the aptitude test?
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Breaking up with M. Micron and his $90bn submarines by text because White House press schedule and ‘no pickup’ in Paris was pretty extraordinary.
But the usual suspects are currently bronzing themselves:
Morrison accused of worsening rift with French government after leak of Macron text
Scott Morrison has been accused of putting his personal political interests ahead of healing Australia’s diplomatic rift with France, after the leaking of a text message from Emmanuel Macron to the prime minister.
By:
Penny Wong
Albanese
Kevin Rudd
Michael Trumble
The GrauniadAll conveniently ignoring the facts that:
• Micron knew the deal was on the skids; and
• Micron put his own political interests first and publicly and deliberately called Morrison out as a liar.
Rudd (and bff Turnbull) are also stabby over Morrison’s affront to President Poopy, by backgrounding on the failure of the Administration to give the old lizard a proper briefing.
No winners.
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The Liberal’moderates’ show their colour again:
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Really who gives a fuck about our ‘diplomatic relations with France’. I thought the approved line was “Australia’s future is in Asia”. Actually I think Japan, Taiwan and South Korea are much more important allies or should be anyway. While France is controlled by a puppet of the EU-Globalist-UN-Marxist-Soros cabal, we’re better off forgetting about it.
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Whatever happened to the herd immunity thing ?
Only makes sense with a vaccine that provides immunity.
These ‘vaccines’ are now so dreadful that even the relentless liars pushing don’t feel comfortable going that far.
Though you do still read the occasional article where the phrase is thrown in because it sounds good.
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No winners.
Agree with that.
I still say Macron and Biden have got a big problem if they lied about Scotty.
The SubsDeal that Turnbull engineered was a great deal, Turnbull’s honeymoon with NewsCorp ended shortly after, then Scotty emerged from the instability.
Any chance he made promises to cancel the French Subs deal in return for a bit of armtwisting of a few Dutton supporters? -
Mother Lode says:
November 2, 2021 at 7:47 pmthis whole thing started with the question of why the vaccines are losing efficacy after six months…I have strong suspicions that the vaccines are flawed…am not confident about their safety.
You are correct in that relative to actual vaccines, they are not safe. More death and adverse events reported than all other actual vaccines put together. I mentioned earlier that these medical interventions are only providing mRNA which codes for an individual protein rather than all the other bits and pieces that the body would encounter if it actually was responding to a virus. That a single mRNA and consequent protein does not set off the network cascade of intra-cellular communication that is necessary. The timing is also important in that developing a specific immune response takes weeks. There are a lot of little sub steps.
The delivery vehicle which is being used in the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines is actually for chemotherapy. Without it the mRNA encased in lipid would be cleared from circulation by the innate immune system rapidly with ease. There would be no need for the body to bother selecting, maturing and proliferating specific white cell lines to clear foreign mRNA.
https://patents.google.com/patent/US20100216804A1/en?oq=2010%2f0216804
Then along pops all these franken spike proteins on the outside of cells that lot long ago had no “non-self” or “danger” issues. The immune system is confronted with a molecular situation that makes no sense at all- it will not make a lasting immune response. Why the hell should it? Should you see a flying horned pig, or “unipig”today, likelihood and causality aside, would you expect to see another next Friday and every second Sunday thereafter(?)
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I am not so sure the chocolate machine would be unaffected. It may “die” a slow death from rust. When the operators go out of business because kids lose the taste for the chocolates.…those are examples of big impacts, but that is not the rule. When I put a new block of butter in the fridge is there unbearable stress put on the compressor?
However the butter unlike malicious code or a mRNA medical intervention does not introduce operating instructions to the electrical systems controlling and regulating the compressor.
…question about evidence of changes to DNA seems general, it is in fact intended as something quite
specific: Some observable direct, or indirect, change…most DNA is ‘junk’ – evolutionary flotsam…
It is really hard to say. The jabs are all experimental and while there are registered patents describing the technologies, the ingredients and preparation processes are proprietary.
You use the term evolutionary which would suggest you are thinking about changes in heritability post medical intervention. There’s not a starting point for that is there- all the experimental animals in recent and past other experimental “vaccines” for coronaviruses, died on re-exposure to coronavirus. Which implies there is a significant effect on DNA heritability as a result of these particular medical interventions. Though beyond creating certain death, nothing been ascertained from animal experiments.
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So, here’s what shits me about the putrid MSM, although it’s only the latest shit lie.
All day I have looked at the MSM propaganda which states or says ;”Micron head says Scomo lied”.
Fact is, he did not say that, he said “I know”!”. Etc etc bla bla je suis bla!que?
Micron was asked a leading question by some fucktard and gave his mmmmm answer.
The ever too powerful press in Australia reported that the frog said scomo lied, but he didn’t.
So the msm ran like froggie cowards with it and spew it out to us.
There is no wonder we, who read and comment here are partial to the revolution.
Cop 26 can go and fornicate with themselves and for us,
REMEMBER THE ALAMO!
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The SubsDeal that Turnbull engineered was a great deal,
Jeez what a ridiculous statement. Even without the yankee nukes, it’s good that this abomination has been killed off. Trumble couldn’t engineer anything, he’s just a sharp suited lawyer. A walking, talking example of what’s wrong with Australia.
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How would I know whether RAN submariners have been inside US nuclear boat reactor compartments Ed?
The Submarine Service is a very discrete and discreet part of the Navy. They keep themselves to themselves. As every pusser knows.
My point is – you don’t know they haven’t.
How are you going with the rest of the questions I asked you to clarify?
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Biden doesn’t know what day it is
He says what he’s told to say..
What he’s been told to say is that the Administration was completely blindsided by Scotty canceling the Subs Contract.
Who believes that?
Scotty doesn’t even fart without clearing it with the Yanks.… and Micron is playing to home audience, re: election.
So why didn’t he blame the Company for underperforming the Contract?
Because that would invite a response.
So he called Scotty a liar, which isn’t true in this particular event.
Concluision:
Macron has got something to hide, as well as being a political novice. -
Funny how Tim Smith is being kicked out when Dan Andrews after a barbecue was in a car accident that badly injured a young boy. Firies were called first and funnily enough when police arrived they forgot to breathalyse
Dan or his wife ? Perhaps the connection with the firies will be explored in IBAC. -
So why didn’t he blame the Company for underperforming the Contract?
Because the French Government has a 63% stake in Naval Group, the winning bidder? Perhaps?
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For fans of Old Hollywood, Hedda Hopper’s memoir has just been uploaded to Gutenberg.
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/66417/pg66417.txt
Self serving and who knows what is or isn’t true, not to mention convenient elisions. Nevertheless, a treasure trove of Hollywood gossip.
Oh, and her prediction that Burton would ditch Liz after Cleopatra was wothy of Tim Flannery.
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I first saw the light of day in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, a
beautiful suburb of Altoona,Is this some sort of time travelling based memer having a go at Julia Gillard?
My family now consists of my son Bill, who plays Paul Drake on the
“Perry Mason” TV show without any help from me. When he went off to
war, he’d already attained stature as an actor. On his return–with
a medal for valor which I’ve never seen–not one soul in the
motion-picture industry offered him a job. Hell would have frozen over
before I’d have asked anyone for help for a member of my family.Cry me a fucking river, bitch.
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I don’t like to dwell on death, but when you reach my age (and I’m
still not telling) you realize it’s inevitable. I’ve left instructions
for cremation–no ceremony–with my ashes sent to an undertaking
cousin, Kenton R. Miller, of Martinsburg, Pennsylvania. I’d wanted a
friend to scatter them over the Pacific from a plane, but California
law forbids that. You have to buy a plot.A salesman from Forest Lawn told me they’d opened a new section and I
could rest in peace next to Mary Pickford for a mere $42,000. “What do
I get for that?” I asked.“Well, a grave, picket fence, and a golden key for the gate.”
“How do you figure I could use it?”
“Oh, Miss Hopper, that’s for the loved ones who will mourn you.”
That’s when I decided on my cousin.
Jesus Christ, Johanna, did Max Walker write this?
Max Walker is never getting an effing writing gig here at Catallaxy.
Whose on the phone?
Oh shit, it’s Big Maxie!
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Terry Gilliam, the former Monty Python star, has been “cancelled” by one of Britain’s leading theatres because some of its staff had concerns about his views.
Gilliam, 80, had been due to co-direct the Stephen Sondheim musical Into the Woods at the Old Vic in London next year. The American composer had expressed support for Gilliam’s artistic vision for the production.
The theatre, however, has unexpectedly announced the cancellation of the show. Gilliam, who could not be contacted, is said to have upset members of staff at the Old Vic because of his views on various topics, including Harvey Weinstein and trans rights.
Last month Gilliam publicly supported the US comedian Dave Chappelle, who has been accused of attacks on the trans community. Gilliam said Chapelle was “socially aware, dangerously provocative and gut-wrenchingly funny”.
Chappelle’s perceived anti-LGBTQ comedy skits had led to walkouts by staff at Netflix, which has a long-standing contract with the comedian.
Last year Gilliam described the #MeToo movement as a “witch hunt” and while saying he “hated” the film producer and sexual predator Weinstein, added that there were “decent people” who were “getting hammered” by the movement and its highlighting of abuses of power.
Weinstein was one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood until he was named in the scandals. He was imprisoned over sexual assault charges in 2020. “There are many victims in Harvey’s life and I feel sympathy for them, but then Hollywood is full of very ambitious people who are adults and they make choices,” Gilliam said. “We all make choices and I could tell you who did make the choice and who didn’t. I hate Harvey. I had to work with him and I know the abuse.”
Gilliam also raised hackles in an interview with The Independent newspaper last year. After being questioned about the privileges of “white men” he replied: “When I announce that I’m a black lesbian in transition people take offence at that. Why?”
The Old Vic was the British theatre most affected by the #MeToo movement after allegations were made about the actor Kevin Spacey during his tenure as artistic director of the venue. Following an investigation the theatre said 19 people had made allegations of “inappropriate” behaviour by Spacey. It said his “star power” had meant people were reluctant to make complaints about him to management. The theatre also suffered a financial hit from the pandemic although it did salvage some money, and credit, through its innovative digital stagings.
John Berry, former artistic director of the English National Opera, whose production company Scenario Two holds the rights for Into the Woods, said they were “focusing on finding a new home for this show”. He said: “These things happen. It’s not the first change of plan for a West End show or the last, and current times everywhere are unpredictable.” He added: “The designs and vision for the show is vintage Gilliam.”
Gilliam’s former Monty Python partners have been critical of “cancel culture”. It was announced this year that John Cleese was to explore the phenomenon in a new series on Britain’s Channel 4. He has criticised the “stifling” effect of political correctness on comedy. According to the channel, Cleese’s series will “explore why a new ‘woke’ generation is trying to rewrite the rules on what can and can’t be said”.
No one from the Old Vic was available for comment. It told The Stage in a statement that a meeting had taken place between its executive director Kate Varah and members of staff following the announcement in May of Into the Woods. It said senior management had later met Gilliam and his co-director Leah Hausman “as a matter of course to discuss our culture and values”. The theatre said it had “mutually agreed” with Scenario Two “that the production of Into the Woods will not take place at the Old Vic”. The show had been due to open in April and thousands of tickets had been sold.
The Times
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The French can get stuffed.
Just join the dots:On 3 November 2016, Engie announced that Hazelwood would be closed by the end of March 2017, citing the company’s transformational policy of investing solely in low-carbon and renewable energy, as well lower energy prices and oversupply within Victoria.
And
The largest shareholder in Engie is the French government, which owns 33% of the company. The French Environment Minister said ENGIE would ‘disengage’ from Hazelwood power station during a documentary that aired on French TV in May 2016.
Remember them when we are experiencing rolling blackouts.
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Saw a minor Rembrandt years ago. That old man’s eyes still follow me wherever I go Tinta. I like how Dover changes the paintings often.
Watch him back GrayRanga – what I remember most was standing in front of a painting of The Departure of William of Orange and the Princess Mary painted in about 1677 and seeing a painting of Abel Tasman and his wife and daughter — it just blew me away there in Melbourne looking at art portraying events and people that changed history more than 300 years before. I better retire for the evening I’ve had a few tots of grappa this evening and now I need to rest.
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Romanian MEP explains to audience how Big Pharma forced governments around the globe to sign Secret Agreements in exchange for Vaccines. He states that they received redacted versions of the agreement.
How “forced”? Who needs their dodging products? I’m sure some of the hidden clauses in that contract refer to the withholding of lifesaving treatments, which is effectively murder. Why do governments bow to these criminals? -
Not content with being spattered over the walls by a 20 year RAN hot war veteran and globally recognised naval historian during the ‘HMAS Sydney sunk by Japanese subs’ episode, the Brisbane shut-in now wants a crack over nukular submarines, and what’s in which ‘compartment’.
Ed. It’s not Play School.
‘I wonder what’s through the square window? Oh! Torpedoes!
Let’s look through the round window. Oh! Hornpipe dancers!’ -
Bit of discussion above about the concept of ‘waste.’
Look, as a person of Dutch heritage, thrift and minimising ‘waste’ is ingrained in my fingernails. Much of it is irrational in 2021. But, I still do it.
My point is that ‘waste’ is a cultural thing, driven by economic necessity. ‘Make do and mend’ was about maximising the physical resources that people had. It was nothing to do with morality.
Meanwhile, out there in the ‘nature’ that dewy-eyed but ignorant acolytes espouse, they should be grateful that they are not a spermatozoa or a grain of pollen.
Oh, and for peeps wanting to watch some old time well scripted Brit spy stuff – The Sandbaggers, on Youtube.
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NO SHILLING. I don’t work for this bank etc.
Have a look at the soy faces.
https://www.societyone.com.au/invest
Even the chick is doing it with the three blokes?
Shared fatherhood?
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Not content with being spattered over the walls by a 20 year RAN hot war veteran and globally recognised naval historian during the ‘HMAS Sydney sunk by Japanese subs’ episode, the Brisbane shut-in now wants a crack over nukular submarines, and what’s in which ‘compartment’.
I for one welcome ‘ed Case to disassemble a nuclear power generator and to post it on you tube or bit chute.
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A knifeman has been shot by Paris transport police after shouting, ‘Allahu Akbar, France is ruled by Islamic State’ at a train station.
The man is said to be severely injured after he wielding the weapon while threatening security at Saint-Lazare station, one of the busiest stations in the French capital.
The incident started after he was stopped for not wearing a mask and he refused to comply with officials on Monday evening.
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Fat T,
As expected, it’s sputtering to a halt. The fullbloods in the communities (particularly down in the desert) want no part of the vaccination process, as they’re a superstitious lot to begin with. Some of them believe that an evil spell is in it. Vax rates in some joints are single figures.
To counter this and skew the figures, he’s only made it mandatory for ‘workers’ – ie, nurses, firies, cops, bar staff, other retail staff. You’ll be able (if failed local businessman turned Chief Minister Michael Gunner doesn’t change his mind again) to go into a pub and have as many beers as you like, but you won;t be able to serve them from behind the jump.
The unemployed have magically become immune.
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Knuckle Dragger
Thanks for that – I haven’t heard much since that fuckwit announced it some time ago.
I was watching horseface a few minutes ago reprimanding some “non-government-accredited” person asking an awkward question re Israel & “vaccines”(which she refused to answer) and started thinking that I would not like to be standing anywhere near these xunts in the open – any decent large calibre slug can go through a few people…… (NADT)
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Stick a fork in us … we’re done.
NSW Man Gets Suspended Sentence For Making Fantacy [sic] Role Play Guns
By Michael Gibson | 2 November 2021The laws around 3D printed guns are not always clear to people when they are being used for fantasy role-play. The plastic guns have no action and can not be loaded in any way. They do not even have a metal part on them.
They were being used in fantasy role-play games
The Murray Valley Standard reported “Sicen Sun only intended for the replica firearms – which included an imitation sub-machine gun seen in Stargate – to be used as costume props”.
“I could not even begin to contemplate that a hobby would land me in such strife,”‘ he told a sentence hearing earlier in August.
The 28-year-old was facing the prospect of jail time but Judge Penelope Wass on Tuesday handed him a 12-month suspended sentence after finding the overall risk he posed to the community was slight.
She said the replicas, which were substantially similar in appearance to real-life weapons, weren’t capable of being loaded with ammunition.
“They were being used in fantasy role-play games,” the judge said.
Sun had pleaded guilty to charges including manufacturing a pistol without a licence permit, possessing an unauthorised pistol and the NSW first of possessing a digital blueprint for the manufacture of firearms.
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STEPHEN HAWKING’S argument DESTROYED BY John Lennox
Garbage. Lennox has nothing useful to say.
All our experience of the universe is derived from long after it came into existence. So we conclude that nothing can come out of nothing because we’ve never seen it happen. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t have happened once a longish time ago.
You’re happy to buy lousy arguments because you want to. This is extremely vulgar.
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Somebody on this blog recommended James Hollands book “Brothers in Arms – One Legendary Tank Regiments Bloody War From D-Day to VE-Day.”
It’s an account of the Sherwood Rangers – they were the first British unit to cross into Germany. Damnfine reading, a good account of a tank unit, not only in battle, but also out of the line.
There’s one aspect of military history I had never thought about.
After some weeks in the front line, the unit was withdrawn , and packed off to a colliery, to use the pithead showers.
“At the showers there was a strict and efficient system: they stripped off, chucked their old clothes in a pile, had a good shower, threw their towels on a heap, and headed, naked but clean to a bench, where clean clothes were issued.” Page 360.
That bench was staffed by Belgian women, who had not only seen all of 8th Armoured Brigade in the buff, but also all of 43rd Wessex Division and the Desert Rats too. By my reckoning, that’s some thirty thousand or so unclothed men.
Any Kittehs care to comment?
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Likely NSWPOL treat PDWs like the FN P90 as pistols.
Or it’s the next best alternative to trying to claim the block of plastic as a machine gun.
I seem to recall a few years back that a digger doing some pack marching training in his own time down the back of Enoggera, was the subject of multiple panicked phone calls to police and was ultimately accosted by half a dozen policement.
His crime? To carry a training aid made of steel bar that mimicked the size, weight, grip profiles and sling points of an F88 Austeyr. Same as the umpteen morons in the past who have mistaken Hi-Lift ‘kangaroo’ jacks for some form of impractically massive and ‘tacticool’ anti-materiel rifle on the bonnet of someone’s rock-hopping 4WD.
To borrow from the Afrikaans, “Fokking civvies, man…”
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Somebody on this blog recommended James Hollands book “Brothers in Arms – One Legendary Tank Regiments Bloody War From D-Day to VE-Day.”
Got this recently- Need to get stuck in when I have the downtime.
It is my consolation prize for there not being a second copy of Beevor’s Arnhem book at Boffins Bookstore in Perth a few weeks back- That last copy in the store went to a family friend for his birthday. The man was over the moon at the gift. 🙂
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It is my consolation prize for there not being a second copy of Beevor’s Arnhem book at Boffins Bookstore in Perth a few weeks back
I’ve been shopping at Boffins Bookstore ever since they first opened.
FWIW, I thought Beevor’s book on Arnhem fairly average. The best book I have ever read on that battle was Robin Neillands “Battle for the Rhineland.” He was one of the first authors to point the big finger at the 82nd Airborne……
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<<<Judge Penelope Wass on Tuesday handed him a 12-month suspended sentence after finding the overall risk he posed to the community was slight.>>>
Ya reckon, Judgey Gal?
An asian gamer, nerd, cos player boy. Ya reckon he’s a slight risk?
He’s no risk whatsoever. (& that’s before we run this through the filter of looking at the sort of types Judges declare are “no risk to the community”)
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The BBC’s production and editorial team.
Prestigious graduates of some 300 years of proud academic tradition…
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From “The Times.” I’ve seen my share, just how low do we stoop as a society?
Police officers admit taking pictures of murdered sisters’ bodies
VICTORIA JONES/PA
Share
SaveTwo Metropolitan Police officers today admitted taking photographs of the bodies of two murdered sisters before sharing them with colleagues on WhatsApp.
PC Deniz Jaffer and PC Jamie Lewis were assigned to preserve the integrity of the scene in Wembley, northwest London, after Bibaa Henry, 46, and Nicole Smallman, 27, were stabbed to death by a satanist.
Instead they breached the cordon and both took unauthorised pictures of the bodies, which were then sent on the social media platform. Lewis edited one of the photographs by superimposing his own face on to it and sent it to Jaffer, who forwarded it to a female officer also present at the scene.
At the Old Bailey this morning the two officers, who were attached to the Met’s north east command, admitted misconduct in public office between June 7 and June 23 last year.
They were granted conditional bail but warned it was extremely likely that they would be jailed when they are sentenced next month.
Smallman was stabbed 28 times and Henry suffered six stab wounds when they were set upon in Fryent Country Park by Danyal Hussein. The 19-year-old, who was fulfilling a demonic pact, was sentenced to life in prison last week.
The Met has already apologised for its bungled search operation after the sisters were reported missing. The force did not start searching for them for more than 12 hours and the operation was riven with errors. Smallman’s boyfriend, Adam Stone, found the bodies.
Jaffer, 47, and Lewis, 33, risked contamination of the crime scene by stepping inside the cordon to take the photographs — an issue that the prosecutor had to address at Hussein’s trial.
Jaffer also showed one of the photographs of the victims to a male officer as they left the park. Lewis also shared photographs he had taken at the crime scene, which did not show the victims, with a WhatsApp group of 40-plus police officers called the “A-Team”. Jaffer sent photographs of the victims to three friends via WhatsApp. In total Jaffer took four photographs, and Lewis took two.
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And some more gratuitous Ralph Wiggum.
This meme had a classful of hopeful Cavalry Scout Patrol Commanders (including a much younger Anger) in fits of laughter all the way through their course a decade ago…
#CheerfulNostalgia
#Blackhats
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Who eventually Won The Cold War?
https://amgreatness.com/2021/10/31/who-eventually-won-the-cold-war/Pause for a minute to recall the recent past: Did the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff unlawfully intervene in the chain of command to reroute decisions of nuclear weapon readiness through himself? Did he really contact his Chinese Communist counterpart to promise him that China would be warned of possible U.S. aggression?
Did the lead medical authority on America’s COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci, deny under oath the fact that he routed U.S. aid money, through a third party, to the ground-zero Wuhan virology lab to enhance gain-of-function viral research?
Did Attorney General Merrick Garland sic the FBI on parents complaining about critical race theory—on the concocted accusation from a school board group, in part cooked up with White House staffer help, that the parents were likely “domestic terrorists”?
Did we really spend 22 months and $40 million chasing the “Russian collusion” hoax, a myth ginned up by the left-wing media and its enablers in the FBI and CIA?
Does the public really believe our current ministry of information that the “border is closed”? Or that high gas prices are good? Or that empty shelves reflect strong demand and will result in a more mature public no longer needing to buy superfluous goods?
Or that spiraling inflation is proof of a strong economy? Or that the road to the Kabul airport was open to anyone with a U.S. passport who wished to leave? Or that the accidental U.S. drone killing of a family in Kabul was a “righteous strike”?
Or that Russians and Trump operatives created a fake lost Hunter Biden laptop, as our former intelligence officials implied on the eve of the election?
Since when did the government and the now state media issue such serial lies? When did we begin to resemble our old Cold War enemies—to the delight of our current enemies?
Commissars and CulturalistsIn the ancient days of the Cold War, the United States relied on its open society, political tolerance, the Bill of Rights, and meritocracy to outproduce and out-arm both the far larger Soviet Union, and Red China.
In other words, the Soviet commissariat and ideological watchdogs of Communism were drags on Russian and Chinese research and development. Apparatchiks were not only unproductive but expensive. They even hampered the pursuit of science if they believed it challenged the monopoly of Marxist-Leninist ideology and control.
In the case of Mao’s Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, Communist China destroyed entire cadres of scientific and intellectual research teams for generations by unleashing the Red Guards who applied Orwellian revolutionary litmus tests to the most productive elements of society. And they usually found them worthy of death, imprisonment, or forced nonexistence for their supposed lack of correct Maoist fervor—as proven by reading the wrong books, wearing the wrong clothes, saying the wrong slogans, or belonging to the wrong faction.
At the end of the Cold War, the crumbling Soviet Union still had a population 40 million larger than that of America, and an area over twice as large, with greater natural resources. Yet after initial disarmament and confusion in the immediate postwar era, the United States throughout the ensuing 40 years of the Cold War consistently out-produced the Soviet Union and fielded more sophisticated and high-tech weaponry, as it enjoyed a far more innovative higher-education system and corporate sector.
The same disparities held true of Red China. Beijing was never able to leverage its much larger population (with some 850 million more people than the United States in 1989), and similar area, to threaten America militarily, technologically, or economically. Again, rigid ideological censorship, indoctrination, and coercion spelled the doom of both Communist behemoths. In both, mediocre and politically correct lackeys rose to positions of influence, while the unorthodox, innovative, individualistic, and outspoken talents were deemed enemies of the revolution, of the people, and especially of the ruling apparat.
In contrast, the United States even welcomed countercultural and idiosyncratic capitalists—from the wacky founder of CNN Ted Turner to the unorthodox Nebraska investor Warren Buffet to the loner Steve Jobs of Apple. SAT and ACT college-entrance standardized tests were seen as meritocratic. They were envisioned as a balance to toady letters of recommendations, wealth and status, or grade inflation and distortions, and thus helped ensure talented undergraduates from all walks of life.
Whereas in the Soviet and Maoist systems, large swaths of public discourse were off-limits—curbing not just free expression but inhibiting science, history, art, literature, music, and religion—in the former United States, citizens spoke freely about anything and assumed that their talent and hard work could trump even the ideological, ethnic, racial, religious and class prejudices of the ruling classes.
The result was that postwar American universities surpassed their global hostile counterparts in almost every field of research. When lazy corporations and unions squandered their postwar global prominence, natural self-criticism and self-reflection ensured more innovative successors who quickly regained advantages over their 1980s Japanese and German economic rivals—who had been deemed for a time during the Carter era as the real winners of World War II.
No longer.
Most American universities are now madly rushing to institutionalize expensive, unproductive, and dangerous commissars to warp research, restrict free speech, and monitor instruction and expression. They are euphemistically deemed diversity, equity, and inclusion administrators and human relations directors. Like French Jacobins, Russian Bolsheviks, and Chinese Maoists they justify their anti-Enlightenment and totalitarian means by their supposedly exalted ends of “equity.”
Maoist WokeA social media lynch mob, born and bred in America, equates incorrect thought with felonious behavior. Our online American Red Guards act as judge, jury, and executioner canceling out careers and lives in the manner of a virtual online gulag—in hopes of deterring all incorrect thought and expression. Ministries of the U.S. government sic the FBI, as if it is the KGB, on incorrect expression at school board hearings. The IRS both targets and exempts the elite on the basis of ideology. The CIA and Pentagon are likewise weaponized, as attuned to the dictates of social justice ministers at home as thwarting enemies abroad.
In the culture at large, the way movies are reviewed, books are rated, and universities calibrated so often hinges on the apparent degree of wokeist adherence. As in the Soviet and Maoist systems that likewise in multifaceted ways destroyed meritocracy, so too engineers, researchers, CEOs, mavericks, innovators, writers, artists, and musicians now calibrate their own career trajectories in terms of whether they will satisfy or offend critical race theory, green, or identity politics commissars. The Communist Chinese put dunce caps on professors and political operatives deemed counterrevolutionaries; we simply dox, cancel, ostracize, and shout them down or drive them off campuses.
Note how the United States, in its woke reinvention, is doing its best to stifle creativity, free expression, and scientific and social research by applying ideological parameters and doling out political rewards and punishments for right and wrong thinking.
Does anyone really believe that Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.)—serial sexual harasser and virtual killer of thousands of elderly who were the victims of his insane policy of transferring the COVID-infected into rest homes—deserved an Emmy award for his talents?
Or was it his daily anti-Trump agitprop and race and gender virtue-signaling that delighted his Hollywood aficionados? Can a comedian still joke about anything he pleases, a professor lecture without fear of disruption, or a CEO publicly doubt critical race theory?
As we learned from the impoverishment of the Soviet Union and Maoist China, eventually the ideological pandemic results in poverty in the streets. Or in our current terms, nine months of constant woke bullying and government ideological recalibration really do result in internecine racial animus, empty shelves, sky-high gasoline and natural gas prices, stagflation, soaring debt, high labor non-participation, military mediocrity, international humiliation, and a national state of fear and paranoia.
Are our law and medical schools admitting students on the basis of their GPAs, test scores, and recommendations? Or do they assume that ideology, race, gender, and ethnicity will better serve their own ideological rather than meritocratic agendas?
Do we hire K-12 administrators on the basis of their proven records of improving student test scores, and upping graduate rates while avoiding grade inflation, or on the criteria of their own appearance and proper vocabulary of woke activism?
Do the COVID-19 public-health policies of Admiral Rachel Levine, or the administrative talents of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in solving supply-chain hold-ups, define their media coverage, or do we hear more about their sexual identification and status?
Will we soon issue “The Hero of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Revolution” medals?
The New Vladimir Warns Us
About the Old Vladimir?Notice how both the former Soviet Union and the former Maoist Chinese are reacting to our own regressions into systems that they once embraced, but finally discarded when they resulted only in poverty, civil strife, and ultimately mass death.
Autocrat Vladimir Putin, smiling as the Cheshire Cat, recently lectured America on its bizarre regression into racial tribalism, ideological intolerance, and cultural revolutionary nihilism. Putin surreally assumed the role of the all-knowing “I warned you” truth-teller, as he compared 2021 America to his own former Soviet Union.
So, he acted delighted that such wokeism might do to the United States what Sovietism once did to his Mother Russia—creating the Orwellian conditions that can only lead to implosion—while bashing illiberal Americans as if they were the natural descendants of Bolsheviks. Indeed, Putin managed somehow both to wish us well in our headlong descent into Hell and to virtue signal his moral superiority and greater historical insight:
The advocates of so-called ‘social progress’ believe they are introducing humanity to some kind of a new and better consciousness. Godspeed, hoist the flags as we say, go right ahead.
It may come as a surprise to some people, but Russia has been there already. After the 1917 revolution, the Bolsheviks, relying on the dogmas of Marx and Engels, also said that they would change existing ways and customs and not just political and economic ones, but the very notion of human morality and the foundations of a healthy society. The destruction of age-old values, religion and relations between people, up to and including the total rejection of family (we had that, too), encouragement to inform on loved ones—all this was proclaimed progress and, by the way, was widely supported around the world back then and was quite fashionable, same as today.
There is nothing like an old Bolshevik grinning that ossified American wokesters are stuck circa 1920s in the old Bolshevik Russia.
Racist Chinese Love Racist WokeismChina just about every month displays some new sort of frightening strategic weapon or boasts of yet another stratagem of destroying Taiwan. Meanwhile, at about the same pace, our defense secretary, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, chief of naval operations, or CENTCOM generals offer another reassurance that Afghan refugees arrive in correct gender ratios and with culturally sensitive food awaiting them, or that advocates of white supremacy and white privilege are systematically being rooted out of the military, or the military is busy fighting climate change and white rage.
So, the new Communist-state capitalist Chinese naturally gloat over our wokeness. Whereas a Putin sees fundamentalist diversity, equity, inclusion religion as suicidal Bolshevism worthy of celebration, the Chinese are more adroit. They prefer not to mock but to tap into what they see as our fatal strategic disadvantages. In other words, rather than boasting that even the former Soviet Union is tired of destructive ideological wokeism, Beijing eggs it on—albeit in America.
During the COVID-19 pandemic that China likely birthed—even if accidentally—and helped to spread, the Chinese hierarchy replied to any criticism with accusations of “racism!” An accusatory China was hardly shamed that it is one of the most racist countries in the world and institutionally discriminates against non-atheists and the non-Han Chinese residing in its midst. Instead, Chinese propagandists brilliantly egg on U.S. wokeism in the surety that it is both weakening the economic, military, and political sinews of the country, and useful in deflecting its own racist, imperialist, and colonialist policies by accusing America of just those sins.
Are we supposed to treat seriously charges of racism from an accuser that has incarcerated in forced labor camps over 1 million Uighur Muslims, and yet annually sends over 300,000 of its brightest and most privileged Chinese youth to American universities where supposedly they would be targets of racist Americans?
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs either hated his former president so much or was so enthralled or terrified by his Communist Chinese military counterparts, that he called them to reassure them that the U.S. military would warn them beforehand should Trump consider any preemptive action directed at China. After that, China likely felt it had already won the propaganda war.
Beijing interprets such naïve American magnanimity as weakness to be exploited and hardly to be reciprocated in kind. It is assured that no Chinese leader would ever act so foolhardy as to send his American counterpart any such reassurance. It grows even more supercilious that while Mark Milley would rightly never warn Putin ahead of time about any supposedly lunatic move by Donald Trump, the four-star general will fall all over himself in appeasing the Chinese, who in the narrow terms of their nuclear stockpile are a small threat compared to Moscow’s nukes.
In a strange transference of domestic witch-hunting to foreign policy, the American woke detested the Russians in a way they never did the Communist Chinese. And yet by any fair measure, Trump was harder on the Russians than was any prior administration. But according to woke party lines, he was considered soft on Russia and excessively hard on China.
China, to take one example, was able to warp Hollywood enough to demand whiter actors for its huge domestic market, while Russians were the favorite tattooed, oligarchic, and orthodox villains of most Hollywood spy movies. So, stereotyping and hating Russian belligerents became patriotic while doing the same to the wealthier Chinese was racism.
Why the asymmetry in appeasing one totalitarian threat and ignoring the other? Was it the greater assets of China and thus our elites’ greater chances to get rich with them? Was it because however dictatorial and murderous the Chinese may be, they were still “the Other” and thus de facto victims of the American oppressor class?
The Cold War has been over for over 30 years. But who really won that war of ideas may be the real question of the new millennium.
After all, America is now seeking to emulate the crude modalities of the old Soviet Union and Maoist China that the now-gleeful autocratic Russians and Chinese at least realize nearly destroyed them.
Victor Davis Hanson
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You may be a classically-trained chef.
You may be a conosseiur of the finest of culinary artistry.
You might only be an enthusiastic amateur with pyrolytic tendencies.
But whomever you are, you will never, ever produce a sandwich quite as perfect as this…
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Zulu Kilo Two Alpha says:
November 2, 2021 at 11:45 pm
Full retard Tourette’s this evening, folks. If we’re lucky we could even end up with a little Dylan Voller Tourette’s.
If we are even luckier, we may end up with J## C######## exhibiting his Ronery Tourette’s – we should be just so lucky!If we’re really lucky we’ll be told about his special dividend that ends up blowing up on his retarded face because … he’s a retard. He’s drunk and will now call driller to help him get up. If we’re really lucky we’ll hear the family war cry.
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Pleaded guilty? Mr NSWPol fuckhead, please load my cosplay gun and shoot me with it.
rickw: You are correct.
The lad would be culturally inclined to defer to authority, plus his legal aid duty solicitor would have seen things in legal parameters* & talked him into admitting guilt & copping a wet lettuce leaf.The last thing they need is some decent nerdy asian kid standing up & saying “This is a hunk of plastic and you’re charging me for possession of a machine-gun? … are you insane?”
*(they could by taking tips from the more proactive & aggressive atsils lawyers)
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But whomever you are, you will never, ever produce a sandwich quite as perfect as this…
And just to prove that it can be done in the meatspace:
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I pointed out years ago that Stalin had won the cold war despite being dead. Good to see that someone has caught up.
And what you pointed out was ridiculous. The Western left is not in a good place at the moment and with a few exceptions is in retreat or has to pretend it’s winning elections by cheating.
If Stalin had won the Cold War, the Soviet Union would still be intact with perhaps a few bits of Europe added on to that rotten carcass. It’s not intact and the entire GDP of what’s left (Russia) is about the size of Italy’s GDP which is about 40% of the Russian population.
Is there an argument that the West could be defeating itself? No!
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All our experience of the universe is derived from long after it came into existence. So we conclude that nothing can come out of nothing because we’ve never seen it happen. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t have happened once a longish time ago.
You’re happy to buy lousy arguments because you want to. This is extremely vulgar.
Isn’t the vulgar argument that something can come out of nothing so long as it was a long time ago and only once? I mean, I never see that ‘possibility’ entertained in the present, or the near past? Or the near future (excluding renewables, were everything is considered possible in the near future). The only time I ever read sane individuals doubt the principle of causality, or the principle of sufficient reason, and the like, is in arguments for the existence of God. No where else.
But, look, this is a happy position for a theist to find themselves.
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Rones, If you think your veiled threat of doxing scares me, you drunk, cuckold, you really need to sleep off the alcohol. As I predicted earlier today, you only pretend to own a pair of knackers (those she stole from you) in the late hours.
Other military guys have wondered aloud about you and how you weren’t hazed and beaten up everyday. Seriously. Most here, would wonder too.
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Is there an argument that the West could be defeating itself? No!
The West won the military/ econonic cold war. Stalin won the ideological war. For example: The opposition to nuclear power in Australia came directly from Stalin’s orders to communists in Oz. And has been maintained by the watermelons ever since.
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The West won the military/ econonic cold war. Stalin won the ideological war.
The Soviet Union lost the ideological war too. What’s left of communism in Russia? Putin is the wealthiest man in the world.
For example: The opposition to nuclear power in Australia came directly from Stalin’s orders to communists in Oz. And has been maintained by the watermelons ever since.
Until now, not counting the Green slime and even then I would say 50% of the slime do not go with the communist Adam Bandt’s view. That’s perhaps 5% of voting age Australians who don’t want anything to do with nuclear energy. No biggie.
How much grief did that bi-partisan support for nuclear subs receive in Australia when the deal was announced? Zero?
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For example: The opposition to nuclear power in Australia came directly from Stalin’s orders to communists in Oz. And has been maintained by the watermelons ever since
And then there’s this week’s sickening apotheosis of the KGB-infiltrated Green Movement, as well as the UN and its organs busy imposing a single template for a pandemic response on the world, thanks to Nosferaflu.
And the Borg-like legions of good little Marxists from the bugmen to the academics to Amnesty Internationalites to the obscenely rich and prosperously connected neo-nomenklatura (and those chardonnay-sipping bourgeousie who ape them) and the rock- and petrol bomb-throwing street militias.
Each and every one a useful idiot. Historically not as tightly controlled as the Georgian arsehole with a massive moustache and equally massive hangup about his own name would have liked, but useful in their lethal idiocy nonetheless…
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And then there’s this week’s sickening apotheosis of the KGB-infiltrated Green Movement, as well as the UN and its organs busy imposing a single template for a pandemic response on the world, thanks to Nosferaflu.
Ironic
Former communist Russia, former communist and now fascist state, China and former Fabian Indian have or look like they’re about to scupper the carbon deal.
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Bruce O’Newk:
And amazingly amazing Russia has shut down another gas supply pipeline just in time for the Climapalooza. Weird innit?
Europe On Edge After Russia Unexpectedly Halts Gas Shipments Via Key Pipeline (31 Oct)
Does anyone know if Australia could help out here with our reserves from the NW Shelf?
(Not asking if we should, just if we could.)
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