Open Thread- Mon 1 Nov 2021


Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose, Zurbarán, 1633

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

3K Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
JMH
JMH
November 1, 2021 3:20 pm

Can’t wait to watch this New Gold Mountain on SBS.
By the looks of it, it might make Dark Emu look realistic.
The Oz has a write up on it.

That was my suspicion, so I gave it a test run. I lasted about 27 minutes before falling asleep. Awful.

feelthebern
feelthebern
November 1, 2021 3:24 pm

I lasted about 27 minutes before falling asleep. Awful.

Not cliche enough for you?

Vicki
Vicki
November 1, 2021 3:26 pm

ssr re numbers of vaccine adverse reactions:

Absolutely right. This is what dissenting OS immunologists etc have been saying for ages – in the past, the safety switch for vaccine candidates was activated at very low figures for problems.

Few seem to “get” that the current figures (almost certainly understated anyway) are screaming signals of a problem. But the fear psychosis & the wicked profit taking of Big Pharma has turned down the volume. A massive crime that will one day be writ large.

JC
JC
November 1, 2021 3:28 pm

RockDoc

One euro country at a time isn’t a problem, but the EU will likely act as a bloc and it’s also very likely the UK will join them.

Carbon border taxes are coming and it’s going to be a huge bun fight. The best way out is not to die on a ditch but get moving with gen 3, or gen 4 reactors as soon as they become available. The only person who can destroy this carbon cabal is Trump or his alternate in 24. We’re too small.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
November 1, 2021 3:31 pm

I think we should name our first nuke submarine the HMAS Charles de Gaulle.
Followed by HMAS Charles Aznavour.
Then HMAS Edith Piaf.

Top Ender
Top Ender
November 1, 2021 3:32 pm

Just got rejected over at the Oz:

Pretty sad this sort of thing happens. Bruce Pascoe’s so-called histories are another example.

Story: History dismembered: when facts make way for woke fiction

It was for putting a comment under the scathing review of ….

SBS series New Gold Mountain rewrites history, and short-changes the audience

By CATHERINE HANNEBERY

According to one of the promos, the SBS series, New Gold Mountain, is the “untold true story” involving a Chinese headman, Fook Shing, and the murder of a European woman in the Victorian colony during 1857.

The story rang quite a few bells for me.

The book about the real 1857 crime, The Chinawoman, was written by my husband, Ken Oldis, a criminal barrister who died in 2016. He spent a decade in the archives to unravel a perversion of colonial justice against two Chinese men. Blood was on many hands: English, Irish and Chinese. Corrupt police, a Chinese police agent and headman, Fook Shing, each played their part. The Chinawoman won a Victorian history award in 2009. It was commended for its unflinching account of this racially-charged miscarriage of justice. It delivered this grim chapter in Chinese-Australian history in the vehicle of a murder mystery.

A few years ago, a TV content developer contacted me, referred by an historian, on the basis that if the TV crowd wanted to adapt Shing’s story, it would be appropriate to discuss the project with me.

I heard from them only briefly. The reason they did not revert to me is now apparent. Somebody involved with this show has obviously decided to invent a better story.

The perplexing result is available on SBS for all to see.

There is much to say about what the series promises, and what it delivers. But the central problem is the ideological use of historical fiction. Egregious colonial misdeeds and racism are being presented in the form of entertainment and we are being invited to draw contemporary parallels. This series, in my view, poses questions about the use and abuse of history.

The risk with historical fiction has always been that Frankenstein’s creature is not supplied with labelled body-parts. We may never know the difference between fact and fiction. We may be seduced into feelings for the creature that we misconstrue as historical insight.

This series has blurred these boundaries and raised the stakes by applying itself to the subject of colonial racism with the aim of drawing contemporary resonances. With this, historical verity matters more than usual. So, for those curious about history, it is worth distilling the fact from fiction.

The true story that inspired this series concerned the robbery and murder of Sophia Lewis in 1857. During her life, she was derided more for her niche clientele of urbane Chinese men in Melbourne’s Chinatown, than the fact she sold sex. Her killers were presumed to be Chinese. This added fuel to populist anti-Chinese hysteria, coinciding with escalating tensions on the goldfields. As the manhunt moved to the goldfields, Chinese leaders continued to stonewall the police investigation. Ultimately, they decided upon damage control, cognisant of their campaign against a punitive new tax targeting Chinese residents.

The police, in turn, took the view that any two Chinese culprits would do. In this, they relied on the collaboration of headman, Fook Shing, and other Chinese conduits, to craft evidence and ensure convictions against two candidates. The police used circumstantial evidence about jewellery stolen from Sophia Lewis shore up the case.

One of the men hanged was innocent. A Chinese police agent and a duplicitous young Irishwoman were among the co-conspirators who got away. Another Chinese suspect escaped justice because of deals done with police behind closed doors. Voices of dissent came from criminal defence barristers, railing against the travesty of justice and advocating the cause of the accused men.

The biggest disconnect in the TV series lies between the visionary premise of viewing colonial history through an authentic Chinese lens and the insensible narrative dreamt up to deliver this. Rather than the gritty truth, or the intriguing Chinese men of flesh and blood involved in the real murder case, the producers have served up revisionist-western tropes and characters filled from central casting. A woke agenda has shifted the storytelling goals from truth-telling to wishful thinking — with glib prescriptions about who the villains and heroes need to be.

In a narrative reorganised along tribal lines, the Chinese characters are innocent of murder, merely victims of a terrible misunderstanding — the whodunnit turns upon a woman’s accidental death. The role of white colonisers is to be brutes — to wear their racism loudly and proudly.

There is no liminal space where the personal politics of assimilation were actually being played out. No criminal defence barristers agitating about the evils of racial prejudice, no Sophia Lewis, enamoured of Chinese men and culture, no English brides thumbing their noses at colonial society by choosing Chinese husbands, no Chinese Christians, anglicising their clothes and their priorities. Shing and his brotherhood’s bad behaviour is confined to internal ranks, so as to eliminate any doubt that this is a one-directional contest between good guys and bad colonisers.

The fictionalised story on screen undermines the producers’ conceit that they might be delivering us an important untold story. While it captures vividly the multicultural backbone of life in the frontier society and the goldrush’s hothousing effect on greed and ambition — beyond this, reality has been jettisoned. With Shing as the narrative’s pivot, the murder mystery is reinvented and backfilled with inclusive melodrama.

As the series frames itself as a revisionist-western, it doubles-down on mixed messaging. There are protagonists in period costume expressing 21st century ideas, alternately slicing or shooting each other up and talking about their feelings. By episode three, we are led to understand that inclusive community-based detective work will crack the murder case. We are reminded pointedly by fictional characters about their brave quests for truth.

This is what retro-fitted empowerment and agency look like for marginalised groups in expensive TV period drama.

In the final episode we are served up a blighted cross-cultural romance, accidental death and swallowed gold nuggets. Never mind the intelligence of the audience. Or history.

The real headman, Shing, was among the small number of Chinese outliers during the 1850s who married European women and decided to stay in the colony. He married his teenage English bride in 1857, the year this series takes place, signalling his evolving relationship with the colony.

In the series, Shing is positioned as the swaggering anti-hero of the revisionist western. His moral ambiguity is framed partly by family loyalty, though predominantly by personal greed. In truth, he was not so venal; the real Shing’s motives for grassing up his countrymen were more complex and interesting. He sold brothers down the river, though not for the money; and his brotherhood was a mutual assistance society, not a criminal racket.

The series strips complexity from the real Shing to deliver us an empowered TV hustler. Viewing him through the prism of western individualism, the series has misunderstood his dilemma as a man of his time and place — still shackled to the codes of collective brotherhood ties, dancing precariously with another world.

History teaches us that the truth is usually messy and that a reductionist approach is apt to mislead. People are rarely one thing, or the other; moral ambiguity is rooted as much in character as the times we live in.

Any number of the real women explored in Clare Wright’s groundbreaking work, The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka, could have brought authenticity to the women on screen. Instead, a trio of fictional female protagonists exercise agency with a 21st century mien.

Apart from being highly idealised, the Aboriginal protagonist, Hattie, is given a role to play in a manhunt that exemplifies the sanitised storytelling on offer. Hattie takes the lead in tracking fictional white outlaws in a manhunt played out in the bush.

The climax of the real manhunt was a different sort of affair, targeting the Chinese fugitive, Hang Tzan, who had already escaped police with a nod and a wink from headman, Shing. Once the Chinese leaders gave their imprimatur to co-operate with the capture of the fugitive, Shing’s society haggled with Hang Tzan’s society over the price to facilitate his capture. This freed all Chinese on the goldfields to ferret him out.

Two hundred Chinese men participated in the hunt, vying for the Chinese reward of £100. He was discovered cowering under brushwood, bound with rope by his captors and led to Jackass Flat to be delivered over to the British.

Belle — the feisty, pioneering newspaper proprietor. Who knew? A woman wielder of multilingual editorial power and seeker of truth. Like all bad revisionist history and good conspiracy theories, there is a scintilla of truth.

Belle’s role model is Clara Seekamp, partner of Henry Seekamp, publisher of the Ballarat Times. Here was a woman who knew how to bolt, to act and to spin personal truths, at the same time as being a feisty and an outspoken progressive.

Henry — bolshie editorialist and champion boozer, was the only man to be jailed in the aftermath of the Eureka rebellion. He was our first editorial martyr — convicted for the criminal charge of seditious libel. During his time in jail, Clara took over the reins at the Seekamp masthead. Granted, some months at the helm is not nothing, but not quite the makings of newspaper maven or investigative journalist.

The series kills off Henry Seekamp’s screen persona because an iconoclastic white male is surplus to the story that needs telling.

The formidable character, Cheung Lei, has arrived with orders from her Triad overlord father in China to shake down Shing’s racket. Well, she might have, if Shing’s brotherhood was a criminal outfit, or if he was on the take, or if Chinese women were striding around the Victorian goldfields in unbound feet. But they were serving life sentences at the family hearth, forbidden by the patriarchs to sail abroad and mix with the great unwashed on foreign soils. On screen, as Cheung Lei jockeys for clan-sponsored power as proxy for her powerful father, we might be mistaken for watching a colonial adaptation of The Godfather or Crazy Rich Asians.

Arguably, the women of Imperial China had the edge over their European sisters in terms of systemic gender oppression during this period. Even if we debate whether European corsets were as bad as bound feet, this does not deliver Chinese mob boss-women onto the Victorian goldfields in the 1850s.

One of the most provocative acts of agency available to European women during the period was to marry Chinese men. These women were the mavericks, casting their vote against the drunken misogynists of European manhood in the colony. In the personal realm, this was marrying up, even if society sneered at their choices. Sophia Lewis had upped the stakes by monetising this provocation against the status quo.

Beyond competition for gold, the gender imbalance among Chinese immigrants in 1857 lies at the beating heart of European hostility toward Chinese men. The fact that Chinese men fraternised at all with European women provoked masculine outrage. The feverish anti-Chinese sentiment was a turf war about gold, sex and cultural otherness. And this was not a one-way battle.

As a case study for enduring themes about Chinese assimilation, the producers picked the wrong cohort to explore the putative theme of belonging. Nearly all Chinese miners during the 1850s wanted to get gold and get home, with no yearning to linger among the uncivilized rabble that passed for colonial society. They came to the colony in clan-sponsored syndicates without women because staying was not part of the plan. The colony was less of a dream destination, than the place where the newest Gold Mountain happened to be. In this, the series misses the point signalled by its own title.

The interesting story of assimilation during this decade belongs to the middlemen with a foothold in both Chinese and English worlds; the urbane Chinese entrepreneurs and Christian interpreters who decided to remain in the colony. These were the men striking deals behind closed doors that sent two of their countrymen to the gallows. They are the bellwethers of early struggles with assimilation into the hostile colony. Shing was one of these men testing out his appetite for personal compromise, a necessary tool of assimilation into a corrupt colonial society.

The genre of choice — the revisionist-western — has blunted any historical insight into xenophobia. We know that racism is toxic. What we didn’t know was how and why in the nascent colony there was something more than a tribal contest going on. The series avoids the cultural nuances about why some men, including a number of Chinese Christians, chose to collaborate with the colonisers against their own. The TV series has averted its gaze from this complicated question, although it was capable of being teased out in mature long-form television.

History as a discipline will always be constrained by its obligation to the evidence. In this, TV period drama parts company, having artistic licence to invent for dramatic purposes. Still, any claim to authenticity brings some duty to reflect historical realities. There is a line between balancing the historical ledger by bringing the Chinese perspective to the screen and delivering retributive justice through historical fiction. When that line is crossed, we get something more like science-fiction than history. History has never lent itself to retro-fitting; as the novelist L.P Hartley tells us in The Go Between, “the past is a foreign country: they do things differently there”.

The true events that inspired this miniseries concern lives lost by human calculation. This is the complicated issue requiring our attention. Modern agenda-setting will not take us there. Cultural literacy untethered from historical verity will not get us there. Is there any point to historical storytelling without being interested in what actually happened? The subject matter deserves something better than stilted melodrama in a concocted whodunnit.

Invention amounts to avoidance. Mature storytelling requires the nerve to tell it like it was, so we can try to understand the past. In the end, New Gold Mountain’s narrative slant has given us a refraction as unreliable as a carnival funfair mirror. This fictional mash-up aims not to teach, but to preach about 21st century preoccupations while masquerading with the authority of history.

The audience are none the wiser that a significant episode in Chinese-Australian history has been dismembered and re-purposed by TV content developers with an unreliable grasp on the material. When fictional drama is passed off as history to preach a narrative agenda rather than to teach us or to understand what happened, we are all in trouble.

The series has been promoted as a rebuttal of history written by victorious white men and also of whitewashed history. In fact, TV has finally caught up with the creative output of scholarly Australian history, cherrypicked the evidence and improvised. Without the painstaking work of historians in the archives, TV producers would have had nothing to inspire this recent foray into inclusive storytelling.

If only they would read more Australian history. And adapt it more faithfully. And respect the creative contributions of historians to the cultural landscape.

As for the flippant assertion that this series is a rebuke to “whitewashed history” this misuses the term’s proper application to the aboriginal dispossession. There is no moral equivalence between xenophobia and genocide.

The dogma behind the promotion of the series signals that the telling of history is better, or more authentic, when organised along tribal lines. This is a divisive and disingenuous approach.

The dark true story behind the tale spun in New Gold Mountain teaches us about colonial misdeeds and also what is peculiar and different about this period — Chinese immigration is shaped around family groups. As for the universal truths: on balance, justice is less rough now, the quotient of bent cops and miscarriages of justice is less egregious.

Some certainties emerge — over the last 150 years, the Chinese diaspora in Australia has been complex and still evolving — and society is always diminished by racism and its enabler, tribalism.

Catherine Hannebery is a Melbourne lawyer with an MA in History from the University of Melbourne.

New Gold Mountain is available to stream on SBS on Demand

Seems our Bruce is still a protected species.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
November 1, 2021 3:34 pm

Speaking of adverse inaction, time for my vax nap.
Getting better, but jeez.
Feeling m0nster level slothfulness.

shatterzzz
November 1, 2021 3:35 pm

Pix from some of my Grandkids Halloween celebrations ……
https://ibb.co/r6Zt8pv

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
November 1, 2021 3:38 pm

They just can’t get the staff! The dilemma facing the 0.01%
The butler’s gone back to Europe, beds are unmade — the super-rich can’t get the help they’re used to. Helen Kirwan-Taylor on their first-world problems
Monday November 01 2021, 12.01am GMT, The Times
GETTY IMAGES

“I’m sorry but we have to cancel dinner on Friday,” said the WhatsApp message on my phone. As no reason was given, I asked if all was OK, assuming it was Covid as usual. “I can’t find any staff,” replied the hostess who had two couples staying that weekend and lives one village away from us in the Cotswolds.

This is a woman who has seen the interiors of every plane on the NetJet fleet. She owns an art collection worthy of a museum and no longer drives herself because “car time’s the best time to work”. Her in-betweener lifestyle (Cotswolds/Notting Hill) was once as seamless as a Hervé Léger dress, but things have clearly changed.

“My guests expect a house to run like Claridge’s,” she says. “I’m simply not prepared to change their sheets daily.” As is now standard practice, her live-in couple only work one out of three weekends. To entertain regularly, she relies on local freelance staff, which are now as rare as a T. rex fossil. The same double whammy of Brexit and Covid that has had restaurants, hotels and event planners fighting each other for (increasingly well-paid) workers has taken its toll on the ever-so-glamorous town and country set.

“The demand for staff has increased by 400 per cent, but we’ve seen 50 per cent less applications by candidates for each of our jobs, due to staff shortages,” says Lucy Challenger, the CEO and founder of Polo & Tweed, a top recruitment agency. As a result, many of her country clients are “stranded’’, she says.

An alternative idea might have been for my friend to take her guests out to the local bouji pub favoured by Kate Moss and the like, but wait: no staff are to be found there either. I recently had lunch at a sought-after restaurant where a waiter said he couldn’t seat us even though half the tables were empty. “Why?” we asked. “We don’t have enough people to man them,” he replied.

The pandemic warmed even the greatest of urbanites to the benefits of fresh air and privacy, and now, just as they settle down to enjoy the fruits of their wealth, reality hits.

“Things are so bad that some people are closing down their country houses completely,” says Philip Hooper, managing director of the interior designer Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler, who recently had to play florist to one of his clients because the butler had quit (and returned to Europe). “In particular I’m hearing that security people simply refuse to work outside of London. Much better to be in a mansion in Mayfair on a wet December night given the choice,” he says.

Particularly when you consider the work involved in maintaining one of these country retreats. And let’s be clear — this is not “low-skilled” work. Large Cotswold houses are virtually indistinguishable from five-star hotels.

Their amenities (indoor/outdoor pools, cinemas, gyms, wine cellars, Olympic equestrian paddocks, laundry blocks with dry cleaning machines, offices, multiple out houses) are just as good, if not better. “People are buying large houses with no idea how they work,” says Nuria Cantera, managing director of Manto Household Management, who trains staff and was once a housekeeper herself.

“I see husbands giving servants a set of instructions so sophisticated you want to cry. Houses now have rooms and rooms to run the garage and power the TVs, modems and security. Every house has underfloor heating and special wall-high towel rails to keep the towels and bathrobes warm. It takes at least two people to change a Savoir bed,” she says.

I recently went to a party at one of the largest estates in the Cotswolds manned by hundreds. The security man chaperoning us to the front door admitted that his employers had never stayed in the house alone because “they don’t know how to use it”. The kitchen contains every smart device known to man. Rather than reading the manuals, this family employ people who have. At a price: housekeepers can earn up to £85,000 a year and security up to £130,000.

Dot
Dot
November 1, 2021 3:41 pm

Help me Kirk Sorensen.

Help me Kirk Sorensen you’re our only hope.

calli
calli
November 1, 2021 3:43 pm

They’re supposedly very quiet.

How about HMAS Marcel Marceau?

calli
calli
November 1, 2021 3:44 pm

Don’t forget Tin Tin either.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
November 1, 2021 3:44 pm

dover0beachsays:
November 1, 2021 at 2:28 pm
You cannot have a society where people do not see each other’s faces

I thought the same thing on saturday at Bunnings when a Grandmother and young child met one of Gran’s friends. Puzzled look on child’s face, not fright but confusion. There’s going to be a large cohort with social problems due to lack of awareness of facial queues and that’s without crazy parents frightened by shadows.

incoherent rambler
incoherent rambler
November 1, 2021 3:50 pm

HMAS Pepe Le Pew

Top Ender
Top Ender
November 1, 2021 3:52 pm

HMAS Baguette

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
November 1, 2021 3:53 pm

Enough with the subtlety.
HMAS Marshal Philippe Pétain.
HMAS Fromage Munching Surrender Monkey.

EvilElvis
EvilElvis
November 1, 2021 4:01 pm

I think we should name our first nuke submarine the HMAS Charles de Gaulle.
Followed by HMAS Charles Aznavour.

What? Is HMAS cuisses de grenouilles not good enough for you?!?

Edith Piaf I can get behind. Er, I mean get on board.

Anyway!…

feelthebern
feelthebern
November 1, 2021 4:02 pm

HMAS Pommes Frites.

local oaf
November 1, 2021 4:02 pm

How about HMAS Marcel Marceau?

With reference to Mel Brooks’ Silent Movie, NO!

incoherent rambler
incoherent rambler
November 1, 2021 4:04 pm

HMAS Escargot

putt, putt, putt …

Diogenes
Diogenes
November 1, 2021 4:08 pm

I think we should name our first nuke submarine the HMAS Charles de Gaulle.

Nah, if you must call them something
French what about HMAS Fromelles, HMAS Poziers, HMAS Sommes, and HMAS Amiens, HMAS Menin Road should be the first subs off the slipway followed by HMAS Mers el Kebir 😉 and HMAS Nancy Wake

Baba
Baba
November 1, 2021 4:10 pm

Would someone be so kind as to provide a link to Bosi’s prediction/threat of Armageddon?

Thank you in advance.

shatterzzz
November 1, 2021 4:11 pm

You cannot have a society where people do not see each other’s faces

I almost cancelled my trip to the out door markets yesterday with my youngest daughter when I realised it would be the 1st time in months I’d be in a crowded place .. but realised at 73 how ridiculous thinking like that is .. went and luvved the morning out .. No QR, NO vax cert. check, NO social distancing and NO masks just payz ya $2 and yer in .. LOL!

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
November 1, 2021 4:12 pm

HMAS Alfred Dreyfus.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
November 1, 2021 4:12 pm

Hi Ted!!

rosie
rosie
November 1, 2021 4:14 pm

Any cup tips for tomorrow.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
November 1, 2021 4:16 pm

Don’t forget Tin Tin either.

He’s Belgian.

We don’t talk about Belgians. They’re Unhoopy (/ht Douglas Adams)

#Towels

calli
calli
November 1, 2021 4:16 pm

Here ya go, Baba.

calli
calli
November 1, 2021 4:18 pm

My bad. They do that to Poirot all the time too.

Zipster
Zipster
November 1, 2021 4:20 pm

HMAS Putain Francais

Diogenes
Diogenes
November 1, 2021 4:21 pm

Then perhaps HMAS de Villeneuve and HMAS Villaret-Joyeuse

Chris
Chris
November 1, 2021 4:22 pm

Has anyone posted Sheridan’s latest?

Joe Biden’s betrayal more disturbing than Emmanuel Macron’s temper tantrum
GREG SHERIDAN
French President Emmanuel Macron’s accusation, on the sidelines of the G20 meeting, that Scott Morrison is a liar is of course ridiculous. Nonetheless there is substance in the French leader’s charge that Australia may not get a nuclear submarine in any relevant time frame.

And there is also substance in the charge that there is a certain reputational cost to the way the conventional submarine issue has been decided in Australia.

The real villain from Australia’s point of view, however, is not the tiny foot stamping, cheek puffing episode of Macron, but the really disappointing and much more damaging betrayal of Australia’s diplomatic interests by US president, Joe Biden.

READ NEXT

LISTING
Judo Bank jumps on ASX debut
DAVID ROSS
Biden is at that stage of cognitive decline where routinely he can’t remember what he can’t remember. But the idea that the Americans didn’t know the French would be annoyed by the AUKUS decision is ludicrous beyond belief. If this is the charge the Biden administration is making, it shows what a ropey operation they are, and in some senses how irresponsible.

Biden has massively magnified the political consequence of Macron’s temper tantrum by calling the AUKUS process clumsy and apparently agreeing that he thought the French had been fully informed in advance.

French President Emmanuel Macron has called Prime Minister Scott Morrison a liar on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Rome. Mr Macron says he was caught by surprise when Australia announced its involvement in the AUKUS agreement with the United States and the UK. He says the More
Macron’s perfidy is readily explainable by his approaching election. He is running a general, and typically French, nationalist abuse campaign against all the main Anglo-Saxons. His abuse of Morrison is as nothing compared with his fishing wars with Boris Johnson and the Brits.

Biden’s diplomatic contempt for Australia is much more disturbing. The Americans were fully involved, at the highest possible levels, in an intensely confidential negotiation over the availability of nuclear propulsion technology for Australia. The Americans have the best and biggest intelligence services in the world. They knew all about every aspect of the French submarine contract with Australia, in which they had been actively involved at every point. This is because Australia uses US combat systems on its subs and because of the intimacy of our alliance with the Americans.

The fact that at the AUKUS press conference Biden couldn’t remember Morrison’s name, and almost from one day after was apologising to the French and tut-tutting about Australia doing a deal with him, for goodness sake, tells you something very unpleasant about the Biden administration.

The AUKUS agreement was driven in part by Kurt Campbell, the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific co-ordinator. Campbell, though a life long Democrat who served in the Obama administration, nonetheless represents a more traditionally Republican foreign policy outlook. He is an Asia first man, a Pacific Ocean man, through and through.

Biden’s great friend and climate tsar, John Kerry, and to a lesser extent Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, are old fashioned Democrat Atlanticisits. Kerry in articular has never had any time for Australia. It looks as though Biden’s Atlanticists have defeated Biden’s Asianists.

That’s a big story, and very bad news for Australia.

There is no other way of explaining Biden’s bizarre post-AUKUS verbal nonsense validating the French idea that they have been uniquely badly treated in the submarine matter. Given how often the French have behaved with infinitely greater ruthlessness – remember the Rainbow Warrior murder? – is the least of it.

The submarine agreement was structured as a sequence of contracts and from the very first it was always the case that Australia had every right to pull out at the completion of any specific contract stage. Beyond that, the French were very difficult to deal with. Australia has not breached any contract. It has decided not to proceed with a new stage of new contracts.

However, Australia’s reputation suffers in another way.

When AUKUS was first revealed, Australia’s good name was enhanced because the US and Britain were going to share nuclear propulsion technology with us. This was significant in itself and a sign of our closeness to our allies.

That has been greatly diminished by Biden’s diplomatic betrayal.

However, even more important is the revelation in Senate and other testimony that the earliest possible date we could actually get a single nuclear submarine in the water is 2040.

Scott Morrison and French President Emmanuel Macron. Picture: Adam Taylor
Scott Morrison and French President Emmanuel Macron. Picture: Adam Taylor
No project of this kind ever comes in early. If the government is saying 2040 now, then a good estimate of the actual first delivery is 2045 or even later. The whole fleet of nuclear boats likely won’t arrive until the 2060s, which is science fiction time.

That reality is gradually sinking in on all the nations concerned with military affairs in our region.

If we could have done, we should have gone forward with six French subs instead of 12, as the bridging capability to the nuke subs. As it is, we’ll have to do something like this eventually.

So the damage to our reputation is not that Macron calls Morrison a liar, but that we show ourselves completely incompetent, almost frivolous, in the way we cannot take and stick to any decision on submarines.

If we are not planning to have a new sub until the 2040s, then we are not serious about our defence. That is the killing point that Macron rightly, if opportunistically, makes.

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
November 1, 2021 4:25 pm

Weasels gunna weasel..
https://cols.dbca.wa.gov.au/external/proposal/1558
Large scale vaccination means that some people will experience a new illness or die within a few days or weeks of vaccination. These events are often coincidental, rather than being caused by the vaccine.
….
Since the beginning of the vaccine rollout to 24 October 2021, approximately 34.4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered. The TGA has found 9 reports of death that were linked to immunisation from 629 reports received and reviewed. The overwhelming majority of deaths reported occurred in people aged 65 years and older. The deaths linked to immunisation occurred after the first dose of Vaxzevria (AstraZeneca) – 8 were TTS cases and one was a case of immune thrombocytopenia

Hmmm let see, do I think a government that has mandated a medical procedure on thousands of people against their will would scruple at outright lying to us as well??

Boambee John
Boambee John
November 1, 2021 4:26 pm

callisays:
November 1, 2021 at 3:44 pm
Don’t forget Tin Tin either.

The author was Belgian. Perhaps HMAS OBELIX or HMAS ASTERIX?

feelthebern
feelthebern
November 1, 2021 4:26 pm

Bosi would have rehearsed that speech so many times.
It’s a little sad he got the cold spoon so quickly.

Diogenes
Diogenes
November 1, 2021 4:27 pm

Perhaps HMAS OBELIX or HMAS ASTERIX?

Goodness no. Asterix was a Gaul who actually managed to repel an invader.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
November 1, 2021 4:28 pm

Wasn’t that one of Charles Aznavour’s greatest hits?
“Begin the Begone”.

feelthebern
feelthebern
November 1, 2021 4:30 pm

Cartman : Goddamit Kyle, you have no standing.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
November 1, 2021 4:30 pm

@ Chris-

Sheridan’s assumption is that we will carry through on the increasingly silly insistence that the boats be built in Australia from the ground up.

The UK is currently still building Astutes. The US its Virginias. And the UK and US alike have a number of only mildly less capable Trafalgars and Los Angeles boats that are paid off and in limited use.

In fact, the RAN could lease half a dozen Flight II or III Los Angeles boats right now, and have them operating at full capacity within 18-24 months. If the will was there.

We might end up doing so anyway.

Cassie of Sydney
November 1, 2021 4:33 pm

“Has anyone posted Sheridan’s latest?

Joe Biden’s betrayal more disturbing than Emmanuel Macron’s temper tantrum
GREG SHERIDAN
French President Emmanuel Macron’s accusation, on the sidelines of the G20 meeting, that Scott Morrison is a liar is of course ridiculous. Nonetheless there is substance in the French leader’s charge that Australia may not get a nuclear submarine in any relevant time frame.

And there is also substance in the charge that there is a certain reputational cost to the way the conventional submarine issue has been decided in Australia.

The real villain from Australia’s point of view, however, is not the tiny foot stamping, cheek puffing episode of Macron, but the really disappointing and much more damaging betrayal of Australia’s diplomatic interests by US president, Joe Biden.”

I can’t take Sheridan seriously. So what did he expect? I could tolerate Sheridan’s ruminations and ramblings if he hadn’t engaged in four years of hysterical Trump derangement and Trump bashing and had applied more objectivity towards Trump….but he didn’t. His ravings on Trump were a joke. I remember him writing a piece back in January or February of this year in which he waxed lyrical about Biden, Blinken and all the rest of the Demonrat scum.

The problem with Sheridan is that he’s a fair-weather friend. He just goes with the wind.

feelthebern
feelthebern
November 1, 2021 4:34 pm

You have to hand it it Gillard.
Of all the former PM’s in Australian modern history, name one (apart from Harold Holt) that has kept their pie hole shut after they got boned.

rosie
rosie
November 1, 2021 4:34 pm

HMAS Frog.

Dot
Dot
November 1, 2021 4:36 pm

HMAS Nancy Wake will be permanently assigned to the North Sea, English Channel & Baltic Sea.

Baba
Baba
November 1, 2021 4:43 pm

callisays:
November 1, 2021 at 4:16 pm
Here ya go, Baba.

Thank you, Calli. So the reports of threatened Armageddon are an invention of the usual sneering impotent suspects.

Bosi presented a deadline to the magistrate. That is all.

Has anyone checked to see if Bosi has initiated any further action today?

Bear Necessities
Bear Necessities
November 1, 2021 4:44 pm

HMAS Good Moaning

Zatara
Zatara
November 1, 2021 4:45 pm

Large scale vaccination means that some people will experience a new illness or die within a few days or weeks of vaccination. These events are often coincidental, rather than being caused by the vaccine.

You mean like dying from sharkbite with a bit of covid in your blood doesn’t mean you died of covid?

That kind of coincidental?

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
November 1, 2021 4:46 pm

HMAS Croak Monsieur.

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
November 1, 2021 4:46 pm
Baba
Baba
November 1, 2021 4:47 pm

Sancho Panzersays:
November 1, 2021 at 4:12 pm
Hi Ted!!

Please, Lilo don’t drop to your knees whenever Knuckles launches a late night zinger.

It makes normal people feel sort of dirty.

Top Ender
Top Ender
November 1, 2021 4:49 pm

Hmmm…just tried to post a link about gay Frogs – and was rejected three times.

Top Ender
Top Ender
November 1, 2021 4:50 pm

Obviously the new Cat filter…and I’d gotten used to being able to say “jewellery”.

Miss Anthropist
Miss Anthropist
November 1, 2021 4:51 pm

Looking on the bright side of life if it wasn’t for lockdown I wouldn’t have found out what a fantastic Bloody Mary V8:Hot and Spicy makes.

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
November 1, 2021 4:53 pm
feelthebern
feelthebern
November 1, 2021 4:54 pm

Bosi presented a deadline to the magistrate. That is all.

Happens all the time.
Move along, nothing to see.
In fact, it would be odd for someone disputing a fine not to give a deadline to the magistrate.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
November 1, 2021 4:57 pm

Bosi presented a deadline to the magistrate. That is all.

The consequences of a failure to repent to The People would be what exactly, Ted?

Has anyone checked to see if Bosi has initiated any further action today?

Yes.
He hasn’t.
His last posting was yesterday, 31st October (or Day Six, as we prefer to call it). A mutual admiration interview with some drone from two days beforehand.
So it was all just pompous posturing, comfortable in the knowledge that his acolytes have an attention span of well under six days.

Davey Boy
Davey Boy
November 1, 2021 4:59 pm

HMAS Merde

MatrixTransform
November 1, 2021 4:59 pm

Bees are kewl

not today they weren’t
today they decided that the eaves above my kitchen window was an nice place for a new nest.

too late, they’re dead Jim

feelthebern
feelthebern
November 1, 2021 5:01 pm

Where does he post Panzer?

Zipster
Zipster
November 1, 2021 5:01 pm

Hmmm…just tried to post a link about gay Frogs – and was rejected three times.

It’s not that sort of blog.

Miss Anthropist
Miss Anthropist
November 1, 2021 5:02 pm

Thanks Calli,
I shall download Bosi’s diatribe to give to anyone I know defending themselves in court. That will free me from offering any other advice.

Zipster
Zipster
November 1, 2021 5:02 pm
Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
November 1, 2021 5:04 pm

‘bern.
Here.
Maybe one new item every couple of weeks.
Very low energy.
Sort of like a well dressed version of the Furniture Store.

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
November 1, 2021 5:05 pm

I cant wait for 20% interest rates again….

rosie
rosie
November 1, 2021 5:05 pm
feelthebern
feelthebern
November 1, 2021 5:06 pm

Bosi should have kept the “you have no standing” ace up his sleeve for the appeal.
You don’t want to use all your ammo too soon.
I believe Pell saved “you have no standing” until his High Court appeal & it was the reason he got up 7-zip.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
November 1, 2021 5:07 pm

I shall download Bosi’s diatribe to give to anyone I know defending themselves in court. That will free me from offering any other advice.

You might want to apprise them of the law of contempt and the attendant penalties.
Just so they know what they might be letting themselves in for.

feelthebern
feelthebern
November 1, 2021 5:08 pm

YHNS.

Better than a ‘bra boy tatt.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
November 1, 2021 5:13 pm

The Abe I think I sound like.

The Abe other people hear.

feelthebern
feelthebern
November 1, 2021 5:13 pm

Instead of writing JMJ at the top of each page, Bosi writes YHNS.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
November 1, 2021 5:17 pm

We used to write AMDG.
“All My Deeds for God”.
I got into deep shit from the nuns for writing “AMDS”.
“All My Deeds for Sancho”.

Chris
Chris
November 1, 2021 5:18 pm

The problem with Sheridan is that he’s a fair-weather friend. He just goes with the wind.

Cassie, your reading of Greg Sheridan matches my own reaction to his forays into American politics. I imagine his main squeeze must work for the ABC, and his all-too-disappointing columns are just trying to get domestic harmony for occasional play-time.

However in this article he at least has a crack at helping us mug punters get a scarily big reality in the pathetic stream of misinformation that passes for news.

Biden’s boundless ‘ability to f*** things up’… not at all Greg’s usual.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
November 1, 2021 5:19 pm

If you are going to go all prepper and live off the land, spraying bees is a top start.
🙂

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
November 1, 2021 5:21 pm

BTW, Ted, thanks for breathing life into the Bosi-Armageddon thing again and taking it into a second week.
Well done you!

Baba
Baba
November 1, 2021 5:25 pm

No worries, Lilo. Good luck with your quest for a nut sack of your own.

H B Bear
H B Bear
November 1, 2021 5:25 pm

I’m on Harold Holt’s mailing list. Can’t say too much.

Miss Anthropist
Miss Anthropist
November 1, 2021 5:29 pm

Sancho,
Has your vaccinated state affected your cognisance?
“That will free me from giving any other advice.”
Should I type slower for vaxxies?
Sheeeeesh.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
November 1, 2021 5:31 pm

Does this mean interest rates rising anytime soon??

No.

RBA says interest rates won’t increase until 2024 (1 Nov)

incoherent rambler
incoherent rambler
November 1, 2021 5:31 pm

Has your vaccinated state affected your cognisance?

Yes. It went soft on him.
Not much use now.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
November 1, 2021 5:33 pm

You know, if Bosi wants to make a real dint in peterfile networks, he should run on a policy of cutting off government pensions to expat Aussie men living in Thailand, Vietnam and The Philippines.
I mean, it’s almost a dead cert that men who move to those places to retire are child violinists.

Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Border Closure

JMHsays:
November 1, 2021 at 3:20 pm

Can’t wait to watch this New Gold Mountain on SBS.
By the looks of it, it might make Dark Emu look realistic.
The Oz has a write up on it.

That was my suspicion, so I gave it a test run. I lasted about 27 minutes before falling asleep. Awful.

That’s about how far I got, before I realised I’d wasted a near half-hour that I was never going to get back.

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
November 1, 2021 5:36 pm

No.

RBA says interest rates won’t increase until 2024 (1 Nov)

Bugger..

incoherent rambler
incoherent rambler
November 1, 2021 5:37 pm

Pancho Johnson is right.

feelthebern
feelthebern
November 1, 2021 5:38 pm

The RBA says a lot of things.

min
min
November 1, 2021 5:41 pm

ANZ offering .2% interest on term deposits.

feelthebern
feelthebern
November 1, 2021 5:43 pm

What’s better value?
A thermomix.
Or an air-flyer.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
November 1, 2021 5:44 pm

Interest rates.
This year’s “cash earnings” proxy for me is buybacks*.
Have piled into Woollies and CBA so far, and Westpac are next up at bat.
OK, they have around 80% scale-back and you do take the market risk for two months to collect, but it beats sitting on 0.2% cash rate.
.
* Helps to have a vehicle at 0% tax rate. It is marginal at tax rates of 15% or more.

feelthebern
feelthebern
November 1, 2021 5:52 pm

Dogecoin.
To the moon.

Nelson_Kidd-Players
November 1, 2021 5:57 pm

This thread is a perience, and is expected to be so until the weekend when it becomes an experience.

calli
calli
November 1, 2021 6:00 pm

Begone Nelson!

Your jokes are as bad as mine, and I shall brook no rivals!

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
November 1, 2021 6:03 pm

I think that means YHNS, Nelson.

Chris
Chris
November 1, 2021 6:04 pm

You lot make me proud to (sort of) know you!

Zipster
Zipster
November 1, 2021 6:07 pm

Dogecoin.
To the moon.

got shot in the hind legs

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
November 1, 2021 6:08 pm

And, in “No-one Saw This Coming” news:-

Leaders forced to water down climate targets

GEOFF CHAMBERS

Global ambitions for aggressive climate change action have been dealt a blow after Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron and Joe Biden failed to win support on new coal, methane and net zero pledges at the G20 summit.

The rejection of British, French and US backed resolutions at the Rome summit signalled a shattering of consensus ahead of the UN climate change conference beginning in Glasgow on Monday.

Of course, the rest of the world will sign some glib and meaningless agreement, but there will still be “growing calls” for Straya to “meet it’s commitments”.
My red hot tip for tomorrow … “International Pariah” to lead from start to finish, then do a Rocket Racer victory lap.
Unlike Rocket Racer, it won’t lay down and die at the end.

Chris
Chris
November 1, 2021 6:09 pm

Chemicals, and where to buy them.

1. Herbicides. Not Bunnings.
2. Fertilisers. Not Bunnings.
3. Solvents. Not Bunnings.
4. Pool chemicals. Not Bunnings.
5. Alum for dye mordant. Not Bunnings.
5. Nitrate fertilisers. Not Bunnings.

How is it that everything they sell is cut with water, talc, sand or road dust, but 17.385% of my income goes to the fuckers?

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
November 1, 2021 6:09 pm

Begone!
A grossly underutilised word.

feelthebern
feelthebern
November 1, 2021 6:10 pm

Global ambitions for aggressive climate change action have been dealt a blow

Clearly some rat fucking going on.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
November 1, 2021 6:10 pm

The real villain from Australia’s point of view, however, is not the tiny foot stamping, cheek puffing episode of Macron, but the really disappointing and much more damaging betrayal of Australia’s diplomatic interests by US president, Joe Biden.

In Sheridan’s world it’s quite realistic that the US signed up to AUKUS as casually as putting in an order at KFC. As you do.
No i’s dotted or t’s crossed.
Next.

And this means everyone – from France to China – now believes that Team Morrison somehow blindsided Team Depends and left Sloppy Joe in an awkward position.

And sufficiently annoyed about same to publicly whinge about Morrison’s awful perfidity.

In the real world, everyone in the international Great and Not-so-good will be experiencing a WTF moment at yet another example of Biden’s decline and the terrible weakness of the US Administration.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
November 1, 2021 6:18 pm

I’m on Harold Holt’s mailing list.

What’s his recommendation for naming French submarines?

H B Bear
H B Bear
November 1, 2021 6:21 pm

What’s his recommendation for naming French submarines?

Harold Holt wouldn’t be seen dead on a French submarine.

Ivan Denisovich
Ivan Denisovich
November 1, 2021 6:21 pm

Of course, the rest of the world will sign some glib and meaningless agreement, but there will still be “growing calls” for Straya to “meet it’s commitments”.

Tim Blair:

Nick Cater writes:

This graph produced by the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory shows that the carbon footprint of the average Australian is less than a quarter the size it was in 1860.

That’s not a typo by the way. Contrary to popular thinking, Australia has a considerably less carbon-intensive economy today than it did 160 years ago……

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/blogs/tim-blair/monday-noticeboard/news-story/46d42be051aa770cd24f5e5aa6d659f5

Bons
November 1, 2021 6:26 pm

HMAS Mon Petit Chou.
As the Captain refers to the First Lieutenant whose pronouns are ….

Chris
Chris
November 1, 2021 6:26 pm

In the real world, everyone in the international Great and Not-so-good will be experiencing a WTF moment at yet another example of Biden’s decline and the terrible weakness of the US Administration.

If there are any adults left in the CIA, NSA and FBI… imagine how they are feeling about ‘their boy’ that they sold their integrity to install as President.

H B Bear
H B Bear
November 1, 2021 6:28 pm

In the real world, everyone in the international Great and Not-so-good will be experiencing a WTF moment at yet another example of Biden’s decline and the terrible weakness of the US Administration.

Or thinking it’s all going to plan.

Zipster
Zipster
November 1, 2021 6:34 pm

Annastacia Palaszczuk
@AnnastaciaMP

BREAKING: Dr Jeannette Young is the 27th Governor of Queensland.

This is the Commission to officially appoint Dr Jeannette Young as our new Governor.

It was signed by Her Majesty The Queen and me, as the Premier of Queensland, and was approved by Executive Council on Friday.

is nepotism is good

H B Bear
H B Bear
November 1, 2021 6:36 pm

Reward for a job well done. Nobody does legalised corruption as well as Australia.

Chris
Chris
November 1, 2021 6:36 pm

HMAS Mon Petit Chou.
As the Captain refers to the First Lieutenant whose pronouns are ….

Its easy to sneer at the frogs, but when you get into it that country has been hip deep in corpses and their ideas have helped create same elsewhere. The Leftist ‘non-bourgeois’ luxury beliefs status display of 1968 on is perhaps going to see our Western societies descend to that again, helped along by our universities being the poisoned well of Critical Everything Theory.

miltonf
miltonf
November 1, 2021 6:40 pm

Yeah Cohn-Bendit: ‘we want everything and we want it now’. Spoilt trash.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
November 1, 2021 6:43 pm

We’re dying like flies, I tells ya!

McGowan says ‘COVID is rife, people are dying’ in Victoria, NSW (1 Nov)

Pestilent plague-states where no one will be left to bury the dead.

Fat Tony
Fat Tony
November 1, 2021 6:46 pm

Chris says:
November 1, 2021 at 6:26 pm
If there are any adults left in the CIA, NSA and FBI… imagine how they are feeling about ‘their boy’ that they sold their integrity to install as President.

I think they’ll find they sold their souls when the Collector comes a’calling

Real Deal
Real Deal
November 1, 2021 6:50 pm

HMAS Plastic Bertrand
Can plane pour moi?

Ed Case
Ed Case
November 1, 2021 7:04 pm

This graph produced by the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory shows that the carbon footprint of the average Australian is less than a quarter the size it was in 1860.

Wood fires will tend to do that.
What was the population of Australia in 1860?
Half a million?
What was air pollution, water pollution, chemicals in the food supply like in 1860?

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
November 1, 2021 7:07 pm

feelthebernsays:
November 1, 2021 at 6:10 pm
Global ambitions for aggressive climate change action have been dealt a blow

Clearly some rat fucking going on.

Please Bern..
In honor of the usage of the word Begone its now rat Begetting.
as in : clearly some rat begetting going on.

P
P
November 1, 2021 7:08 pm

It is being said we got ourselves a Liar from the Shire.
Shirley not.

cohenite
November 1, 2021 7:10 pm

Kmart’s new woke ad has a bearded weirdo in a dress prancing around. That’ll connect with your average Kmarter. Fuckwits.

https://twitter.com/Joel_Agius1/status/1453998733004136448

srr
srr
November 1, 2021 7:12 pm

Noam Chomsky: Starve the unvaxxed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w00Z–m9fMU

Oct 27, 2021
The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

calli
calli
November 1, 2021 7:19 pm

That’ll connect with your average Kmarter.

That won’t sell pie makers.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
November 1, 2021 7:20 pm

I see Carringbush footballer Gordon G Toey has been charged with a bunch of stuff by the NYPD.
Apparently he was granted a travel exemption for “training” (ie lifting 26 oz bottles of vodka and grabbing tits).
And also doing a promotional tour for Monster energy drinks. Because Gordon is such a celebrity within the energy drink guzzling community in the US.
OK, thin as it is, I’ll give you that one.
But how the fuck did his tattoo artist mate get an exemption?
(I assume he wasn’t already in the US).

H B Bear
H B Bear
November 1, 2021 7:29 pm

Groogs you’re overthinking it. Take it easy little buddy.

H B Bear
H B Bear
November 1, 2021 7:31 pm

I always drink Monster energy drink when I’m out on bail.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
November 1, 2021 7:37 pm

What was air pollution, water pollution, chemicals in the food supply like in 1860?

Heroin was a widely prescribed cough suppressant, there was arsenic in your hat. The coal smog could (and would) choke you the same way you personally choke logic and common sense, Grigory. And everyone tended to shit in the same rivers they drank from (Check out the London Cholera Epidemic of 1866, where John Snow was told he knew nothing, until he removed the handle of the single water pump in the centre of the affected neighbourhood and people stopped spraying themselves to death)…

srr
srr
November 1, 2021 7:39 pm

“The label ‘Catholic’ has been gutted of it’s meaning.”

The Vortex — The Wheat and the Weeds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSpJaqzgHWY

Nov 1, 2021
Church Militant

Rabz
November 1, 2021 7:39 pm

The problem with Sheridan is that he’s a fair-weather friend. He just goes with the wind.

He was just on Bolt’s saying Fatty Trump was as unhinged as Geriatric Joe.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
November 1, 2021 7:40 pm

And all that is before we mention fly-tipping in the streets and all the horse emissions…

Wally Dali
Wally Dali
November 1, 2021 7:40 pm

You know what you suddenly don’t hear much about any more?
Dr Jill Biden.
Times were, you could hardly get from one international summit to another without drowning in selfie shots of her swotting up on emissions trading, crouching before kids with bouquets, tweaking holiday decorations… but at the mo, with her former employer the former Vice President having a busy autumn jetting and begetting amongst popes and prime ministers, and she’s no-where in the motorcade as far as I can tell.

Ed Case
Ed Case
November 1, 2021 7:47 pm

He was just on Bolt’s saying Fatty Trump was as unhinged as Geriatric Joe.

He’s right, they’re both senile grifters.
He’s right about the subs too, even Mal Turnbull could tell you Australia doesn’t have a need for Nuclear Subs.

rosie
rosie
November 1, 2021 7:48 pm

“New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet has flagged that the removal of the state’s remaining COVID-19 restrictions could be brought forward as vaccination rates continue to increase.”

ay 9news.com

Cassie of Sydney
November 1, 2021 7:49 pm

“He was just on Bolt’s saying Fatty Trump was as unhinged as Geriatric Joe.”

Sheridan is a ponce.

Ed Case
Ed Case
November 1, 2021 7:50 pm

You could go for a swim in the Brisbane River and see the sandy bottom in 1860.
Try that now, and you’d become a Case Study on Notifiable Diseases.

custard
custard
November 1, 2021 7:50 pm

Sheridan is a complete fuckwit!

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
November 1, 2021 7:51 pm

even Mal Turnbull could tell you Australia doesn’t have a need for Nuclear Subs.

/Sits back and appreciates a wrongologist, quoting a fucktard on an area they already showed complete wrongology on…

THE WHITE SUUUUUUB!!!!!

Zipster
Zipster
November 1, 2021 7:53 pm

“New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet has flagged that the removal of the state’s remaining COVID-19 restrictions could be brought forward as vaccination rates continue to increase.”

onya Dom!

miltonf
miltonf
November 1, 2021 7:53 pm

The problem with Sheridan is that he’s a fair-weather friend. He just goes with the wind.

He was just on Bolt’s saying Fatty Trump was as unhinged as Geriatric Joe.

Just another old turd from the Oz like Kelly.

Zipster
Zipster
November 1, 2021 7:55 pm

Noam Chomsky: Starve the unvaxxed

stfu, eat shit and die already you stupid old anarchist.

Ed Case
Ed Case
November 1, 2021 7:59 pm

It’s a classic Bait & Switch
Having lied about the Vax takeup [ it’s nowhere near 80%] he opens up until Mortality increases sharply, then springs a Lockdown before Christmas and Legislates forced Vaxxing for the hesitant 20% [ which is likely closer to 60%].
Since no one’s got a clue on the real numbers, everyone goes along.

Dot
Dot
November 1, 2021 8:00 pm

Shut up Grigory. ?

EvilElvis
EvilElvis
November 1, 2021 8:00 pm

Actually, by the time any subs get built with the rate of emasculation of our armed forces HMAS Yoplait might get a run. After all, it will just be a container full of fruity, white goop…

Dot
Dot
November 1, 2021 8:01 pm

Fuck Ray Hadley!

Let’s Go Alan!

Zipster
Zipster
November 1, 2021 8:01 pm
Boambee John
Boambee John
November 1, 2021 8:02 pm

Ed Case

He’s right about the subs too, even Mal Turnbull could tell you Australia doesn’t have a need for Nuclear Subs.

Turdball’s total knowledge of submarines, nuclear and diesel/electric, could be written on a postage stamp using a whiteboard marker.

This is demonstrated by the now-cancelled Froggie contract.

Ed Case
Ed Case
November 1, 2021 8:02 pm

Just another old turd from the Oz like Kelly.

Kelly has a point about Barnaby Joyce.
Since Joyce didn'[t support NetZero in Caucus, how is he going to sell it out in the Stcks?

twostix
twostix
November 1, 2021 8:02 pm

Kmart’s new woke ad has a bearded weirdo in a dress prancing around. That’ll connect with your average Kmarter. Fuckwits.

The brave new world of unvaccinated people being banned from shopping centres feels less worse by the month.

Dot
Dot
November 1, 2021 8:03 pm

I always drink Monster energy drink when I’m out on bail.

Being a Zoomer, I drink it mowing my lawns on the ride on.

Boambee John
Boambee John
November 1, 2021 8:03 pm

Ed Casesays:
November 1, 2021 at 7:50 pm
You could go for a swim in the Brisbane River and see the sandy bottom in 1860.

In which part of the river?

DrBeauGan
DrBeauGan
November 1, 2021 8:04 pm

Noam Chomsky: Starve the unvaxxed

His contributions to linguistics are very mediocre, too. Altogether unimpressive, like so many intellectuals.

Ed Case
Ed Case
November 1, 2021 8:05 pm

Yeronga reach.

H B Bear
H B Bear
November 1, 2021 8:06 pm

I visit KMart exactly as often as their 5 pack boxer shorts last. Which is more often than I would like.

Franx
Franx
November 1, 2021 8:08 pm

Noam Chomsky is in a bad way. Rational thought escapes him.

Zipster
Zipster
November 1, 2021 8:10 pm

The US has developed sophisticated electronic sensors for its ballistic nuclear missiles which allows them to better time detonations, in a major advancement in the global arms race.

The sensors have been buried in hundreds of the most powerful American warheads, which experts say gives them an improved ability to destroy Russian and Chinese nuclear-tipped missiles.

The technology will also allow them to hit some of the world’s most challenging targets, such as hardened silos or mountain sanctuaries, and storage bunkers in North Korea.

The new components – which determine and set the best height for a nuclear blast – cost the US some billions of dollars and were completed in July for installation on missiles aboard navy submarines.

Experts have estimated that the fuzes have roughly doubled the destructive power of the US submarine fleet alone.

nice

Some experts express concern that leaders of nuclear countries hostile to Washington might be more prone to strike first in any future conflict, knowing the new destructive force of the US arsenal.

“If China or Russia believe in a conflict or a crisis that we are going to attack or destroy their nuclear forces and command posts, that gives them an incentive to use nuclear weapons first, or to threaten their use,” physicist James Acton, who co-directs the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told The Post.

always some wowsers

Franx
Franx
November 1, 2021 8:12 pm

Chomsky’s linguistics was important – what with deep grammar vs surface grammar, and language acquisition vs language learning.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
November 1, 2021 8:14 pm

Turdball’s total knowledge of submarines, nuclear and diesel/electric, could be written on a postage stamp using a whiteboard marker.

And still leave room for the 23rd Psalm.

Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Border Closure

Turdball’s total knowledge of submarines, nuclear and diesel/electric, could be written on a postage stamp using a whiteboard marker.

This applies equally to his knowledge of both sandwiches and boats.

H B Bear
H B Bear
November 1, 2021 8:16 pm

Current apparent temp in Perth on the last day of October 11.6 degrees C at 5pm. Paging Flim Flannery. Paging Flim Flannery.

shatterzzz
November 1, 2021 8:18 pm

And don’t forget to wear your mask .. it’s about staying healthy ! .. LOL!
https://twitter.com/i/status/1243541411556884480

pete of perth
pete of perth
November 1, 2021 8:19 pm

Chilly today as well HB

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
November 1, 2021 8:21 pm

Author Clementine Ford.
Clementine Ford on why she wanted to write a book about love
Katherine Fleming
STM
Sun, 31 October 2021 2:00AM
Katherine Fleming

Clementine Ford knows people have certain perceptions of her: supporters know the strident feminist and outspoken provocateur, while detractors see a man-hater, full of rage.

What neither will necessarily expect is the side of Ford revealed in her new book, How We Love, a heartfelt, confessional ode to the bonds we form, both lasting and fleeting; as children and as parents, as friends or lovers, and with ourselves.

So much so that Ford, whose previous books Fight Like A Girl and Boys Will Be Boys are described in turn as a call to arms for feminists and an incendiary dissection of toxic masculinity and misogyny, included a tongue-in-cheek note to her community: “I hope it won’t feel like a betrayal to discover that I, too, have cried over people who didn’t love me back, that I sometimes feel lonely and sad, and that beneath my seemingly hard exterior lies the same blood, bones and beating heart that everyone has.”

She laughs when I bring it up. “That was kind of a gentle joke,” the Melbourne-based author says. “I’ve taken a position where a lot of women feel defended, and that I take the arrows so that they don’t have to, and in doing so, you can establish yourself as a person who is relentlessly strong.

“When I say to women ‘leave your husbands if they’re rubbish’, some people might lean into the untruth that I am a person who is resistant to love, or very strong in the face of heartbreak, when the opposite is true. Underneath the suit of armour, I’m a very squishy, soft person.”

Ford, who is queer, lets the reader underneath that armour in How We Love; it is deeply personal, traversing her life from childhood, through teenage crushes, losing her beloved mother to cancer and into the relationships, both romantic and platonic, that shaped her adult years.

Classifying someone as “queer” in this day and age?

Zipster
Zipster
November 1, 2021 8:21 pm
Rex Anger
Rex Anger
November 1, 2021 8:21 pm

THE WHITE SUUUUUUB!!!!!

#OneGrigOnly

Zipster
Zipster
November 1, 2021 8:22 pm

What neither will necessarily expect is the side of Ford revealed in her new book, How We Love, a heartfelt, confessional ode to the bonds we form, both lasting and fleeting; as children and as parents, as friends or lovers, and with ourselves.

let me count the ways in which she doth love herself enormously

H B Bear
H B Bear
November 1, 2021 8:22 pm

My OT suggested I get one of those pendant alarms in case I have another stroke. I keep forgetting it is in my pants and set it off every time I throw them on the bed. You have a minute or so to deactivate it before WWIII or something.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
November 1, 2021 8:26 pm

You could go for a swim in the Brisbane River and see the sandy bottom in 1860.

Yeronga Reach.

Personal experience from at that time, Grigory?

Was it exciting when Queensland grew its first gypsum?

And what was Federation like?

And was there really arsenic in your hat? Actually, don’t answer that one- You are living proof ‘Mad as a Hatter’ is both a truism and a genuine trope…

#PhDinChronowrongology

H B Bear
H B Bear
November 1, 2021 8:27 pm

Queer. Another word the poofs and trannies have completely debased. And they haven’t finished yet.

Wally Dali
Wally Dali
November 1, 2021 8:28 pm

Awful cold in SW WA. I’ve spent the day burning heaps of trash in the paddocks- it’s now permit season, but there’s been literally, no suitable conditions for the last few weeks.
If October 2021 doesn’t get written in as the coldest and wettest on record… well, I won’t be surprised I suppose. But the wetness has hurt- the cold I can put up with, but making hay will be tricky to say the least.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
November 1, 2021 8:30 pm

Was it exciting when Queensland grew its first gypsum?

And was Her Majesty’s Colonial Government of Queensland hell-bent on eradicating the Beef and Lamb industry at that time also?

And setting up multi-generational plot and scheme to screw with subsequent generations of Grigses?

cohenite
November 1, 2021 8:44 pm

He’s right, they’re both senile grifters.
He’s right about the subs too, even Mal Turnbull could tell you Australia doesn’t have a need for Nuclear Subs.

There it is, ed being a fucking idiot.

Winston Smith
November 1, 2021 8:44 pm

Rockdoctor:

ABC running at high rotation Frog indignation at the cancelled subs. I really couldn’t care less especially when France isn’t even in the top 15 as a trading partner. Do I detect irritation that a bunch of shiny arses who have lost a French working holiday…

You are most likely correct, RockDoctor. There is little so galling to the Brahmin Class as losing their baubles paid for by the sweat of the Peasantry.

Ed Case
Ed Case
November 1, 2021 8:45 pm

Perusing thge Meatb % Livestock Australia [MLAQ] site today.
It’s an mNgo, which means we pay for ioyt.
MLA is right on board the Methane Reduction racket, so you can take whatever Scotty says on Methane with a pinch of salt.
Among the research MLA is doing:
feeding Beef Cattle winery waste to reduce Methane.
Yeah there’s no nutrition in it, but whaddya whaddya …
Feeding Beef Red Algae ]Technology yet to be invented]
Feeding Beef Nitrates. Yeah an excess causes Nitrate Poiisoning, but … Methane.
Feeding Dairy Cattle Wheat.
Yeah, it’s as stupid as it sounds, but think of The Methane.

Boambee John
Boambee John
November 1, 2021 8:51 pm

And was there really arsenic in your hat? Actually, don’t answer that one- You are living proof ‘Mad as a Hatter’ is both a truism and a genuine trope…

I think the problem with hats was mercury, not arsenic.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
November 1, 2021 8:51 pm

If you actually fed cattle, Grigory, you might have something to think about complaining about…

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
November 1, 2021 8:51 pm

Baba-ba-ba-bundyrum – your wish of 4.10 today is my command. The entire Bosi magnum opus, in all its glory. If put a gap in what he got to say, and what he didn’t:

I am not here today to argue the merits or otherwise of the charge brought against me.
I am not here today through any sense of obligation.
I do not appear before you and I do not stand under you.
I seek no determination of guilt nor innocence from you.
I seek nothing from you because you have nothing to bestow upon me.
I acknowledge no claim to any authority you might make.
You have no standing.
You are at worst a traitor and at best an imbecile,

(This is where he was hung up on)

the truth of which will be determined in due course, when you will experience the law from the other side of the bar table at the hands of the people.
But you will not be alone.
Your learned friends even from the highest places will also be obliged to answer for their words and for their deeds.
None shall escape judgement, and the guilty shall not escape punishment.
We know not yet whether you have sworn secret oaths.
We know not yet whether you have committed other crimes.
But soon we will know all these things and more.
Because there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be made known and brought to light.
Nothing.
But it matters little whether or not you are guilty in law because at the very least, you have by your craven obsequiousness facilitated the brutal destruction of countless innocent people.
There is no defence against this moral charge that will stand.
Your blind and soulless obedience to your masters, who have visited upon the Australian people the most egregious perversions of decency and depravity, disqualifies you from any further role in the governance of this nation.
You and the entire profession of the law have forfeited any right to my esteem, my deference and my obedience.
I will not submit myself to any man or woman nor any class of man or women who by their action and inaction have eschewed plain decency and good sense and instead contributed to the most barbaric and purely evil betrayal of the people of the world.
By what authority do I speak these words?
By the authority that I am a sovereign being.
My life is my life.
My liberty is my liberty.
My property is my property.
And so long as I do not do injury to another’s life, liberty and property, none may interfere with mine.
I am my own authority, and you will submit to me just as you will submit to the other millions of sovereign Australians.
We are the only source of lawful authority in this land.
Now, before I dismiss you, there is one final issue to be addressed.
Only six days remain for you to join with the people against the tyranny of which you are part.
If you do not, may God have mercy on your soul in the next life because we the people will have no mercy on the guilty in this one.
Consider this carefully.
Now, for the time being at least, I am done with you.
Begone.

Ah ha ha hahahaha haha cackle snort.

Diogenes
Diogenes
November 1, 2021 8:52 pm

FMD- watching Scummo on Sky going through the timeline on his pissing contest with Micron. Whether or not we believe him the presstitutes are definitely on the cheese-eating surrender minkeys side.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
November 1, 2021 8:52 pm

*If put a gap* should be *I put a gap*, because I was laughing so hard typing it.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
November 1, 2021 8:53 pm

I think the problem with hats was mercury, not arsenic.

That sounds about right, but the point remains.

Maybe Grigory is the way he is because of 140 unbroken years of mainlining mercury, arsenic, potassium perchlorate, crystalline bath salt and his beloved gypsum…

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
November 1, 2021 8:56 pm

Old Person on the piss alert:

Ed Casesays:
November 1, 2021 at 7:50 pm
You could go for a swim in the Brisbane River and see the sandy bottom in 1860.

In which part of the river?

Far be it from me to interfere with an Ed moment, but about thirty years ago an old couple assured me that you could see the channel from the Storey Bridge in the late 1930’s.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
November 1, 2021 8:56 pm

HMAS Agincourt.
HMAS Crecy.
HMAS Poitiers.
HMAS Moscow.
HMAS Trafalgar.
HMAS Waterloo.
HMAS Dien Bien Phu.
HMAS Blitzkrieg.

Ed Case
Ed Case
November 1, 2021 8:57 pm

Biden leant on Scotty over the Good Subs, Scotty folded, now Biden say he doesn’t know why Scotty dudded the Froggies.
Ya gotta larf, it serves him right for being a bootkisser, meanwhile we’re getting some outdated American junk in about 40 years time.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
November 1, 2021 8:57 pm

HMAS Dog River, after where the 2nd AIF kicked some Vichy French arse.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
November 1, 2021 8:59 pm

We are the only source of lawful authority in this land

Said the bloke who wants to execute people for ‘political warfare’.

Ed Case
Ed Case
November 1, 2021 9:00 pm

Far be it from me to interfere with an Ed moment, but about thirty years ago an old couple assured me that you could see the channel from the Storey Bridge in the late 1930’s.

The Story Bridge was opened in 1940.
Other than that, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
November 1, 2021 9:00 pm

Feeding Dairy Cattle Wheat

They do this already, Grigory.

feeding Beef Cattle winery waste

Ditto this. And olive hulls. They develop a unique taste, and it is deemed so nice that a few hundred grams of olive-fed wagyu steak commands prices in Japan almost on par with emriched uranium.

Perhaps you should poopoo less, and stop feeding your cattle on half-dead ryegrass and lawn cuttings one, Grigory…

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
November 1, 2021 9:02 pm

bern:

Where does he post Panzer?

He sends ‘despatches’ to everyone on his mailing list. I expressed a level of interest after his first sashays into A1 territory, waited for a year with no reply and thought they could go fuck themselves after that.

Just recently, and I mean in the last couple of months I’ve started to get these ‘despatches’ in the inbox. No red shoe catalogues as yet, but they can’t be far away.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
November 1, 2021 9:02 pm

Biden leant on Scotty over the Good Subs, Scotty folded, now Biden say he doesn’t know why Scotty dudded the Froggies.
Ya gotta larf, it serves him right for being a bootkisser, meanwhile we’re getting some outdated American junk in about 40 years time.

Grigory is so cute when he is enraged.

Such a deliciously incompetent griefer.

#TrollPiñata

#uWu :3

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
November 1, 2021 9:06 pm

No red shoe catalogues as yet, but they can’t be far away.

If you’re interested, I have a tunnel I would just looove to sell ya.

Cheques only, care of Les G. O’Brandin…

Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Border Closure

I don’t necessarily disagree with Bosi. In particular hHis opinion of Magistrates, likely shared by many of those who’ve seen Magistrates in action.
(Some of his other Catweazle style declarations, not so much)

I just don’t see how the heck this soaring oratory has an upside for him, either legally, politically, or personally.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
November 1, 2021 9:10 pm

stop feeding your cattle on half-dead ryegrass and lawn cuttings alone, Grigory…

Verdammt typos.

And feed your cattle better, Gypsum-snorter!

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
November 1, 2021 9:10 pm

HMAS Dien Bien Phu.

Part of the crew, foreigners, serving on contract?

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
November 1, 2021 9:12 pm

I just don’t see how the heck this soaring oratory has an upside for him, either legally, politically, or personally

It ain’t the quality of the argument that generates ‘da feelz,’ but the passionate vehemence in which they are delivered.

Rhetoric in its most basic form.

Baba
Baba
November 1, 2021 9:13 pm

Knuckle Draggersays:
November 1, 2021 at 8:51 pm
Baba-ba-ba-bundyrum –

A bit late to the party Knobbles. Calli kindly posted a direct link hours ago. No mention of Armageddon.

PS: Dont wait up for a polish from Lilo. He’s indisposed.

Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Border Closure

It ain’t the quality of the argument that generates ‘da feelz,’ but the passionate vehemence in which they are delivered.

In particular, I don’t see where this was going to get him when delivered via telephone.

It’d work better if delivered in person, during a cigars & whisky session at a wood-panelled gentleman’s club.

Ed Case
Ed Case
November 1, 2021 9:15 pm

Breeding beef Cattle to have smaller Rumens, meaning less Methane
Nutrition section worth reading, the MLA.
is targetting “Obese Women”.
Also Beef is a good source of Iron and Zinc.
Graziers pay a Levy for this junk, there’s no way they’d get a cent otherwise.

H B Bear
H B Bear
November 1, 2021 9:22 pm

Perhaps showing the Brittany tapes in the feedlots might help?

DrBeauGan
DrBeauGan
November 1, 2021 9:23 pm

Chomsky’s linguistics was important – what with deep grammar vs surface grammar, and language acquisition vs language learning.

Nuts. It is shallow rubbish. If it said anything useful it would be used to improve those idiot chatbots. It hasn’t been. Real science has engineering consequences, pseudoscience doesn’t.

Boambee John
Boambee John
November 1, 2021 9:24 pm

That Ed Case thinks that removing the reactor from a nuclear powered submarine, and replacing it with diesel and electric engines, and diesel tanks and vast banks of batteries would produce “good subs” demonstrates that he knows even less of the subject that Turdball.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
November 1, 2021 9:24 pm

In particular, I don’t see where this was going to get him when delivered via telephone.

Well, I suppose the intent was for it to be permanently recorded and entered into the Court’s records for posterity? *Thoughtful emoji*

It’d work better if delivered in person, during a cigars & whisky session at a wood-panelled gentleman’s club.

Yes. Or as a soaring counter from the barricades to a messenger bearing a demand to surrender under a Flag of Truce.*

* Though I think Gen. Anthony Mcauliffe, commander of the US 101st Airborne positions as Bastogne in December 1944 said it best…

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
November 1, 2021 9:27 pm

Breeding beef Cattle to have smaller Rumens, meaning less Methane
Nutrition section worth reading, the MLA.
is targetting “Obese Women”.
Also Beef is a good source of Iron and Zinc.
Graziers pay a Levy for this junk, there’s no way they’d get a cent otherwise.

Dover, pls ban Ed Case.

Homer Paxton has used his account as a skinsuit to infiltrate the NewCat, and his grammarless, stream-of-unconsciousness retardation is starting to bring down the quality of discussion on this blog.

H B Bear
H B Bear
November 1, 2021 9:30 pm

In particular, I don’t see where this was going to get him when delivered via telephone.
Well, I suppose the intent was for it to be permanently recorded and entered into the Court’s records for posterity?

Better to wait until you’re in the High Court with the CLR surely?

H B Bear
H B Bear
November 1, 2021 9:32 pm

Waiter, there’s a fly in my word salad.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
November 1, 2021 9:32 pm

A bit late to the party Knobbles.

Not really, ba-ba-bundy. I posted the original before the (soon-to-be-cut-off) phone call was made on 25 October.

No mention of Armageddon at all. Just some resultant questions from curious minds as to what exactly would happen after six days passed:

Only six days remain for you to join with the people against the tyranny of which you are part.
If you do not, may God have mercy on your soul

What happened? Was this an Obama ‘line in the sand’ moment? Six days has passed. Has there been repentance against the TyrAnnY? Where’s the ‘or what’?

What happens now, exactly? Who, oh who will tell the plebs what to do?

  1. Clippy was incredibly annoying… The Tragic Life of Clippy, the World’s Most Hated Virtual Assistant (2023)

  2. Incredible breakthrough that could increase crop yields by 40%. From Ohalo, the play thing of David Friedberg (previously with google).…

  3. Thanks Tom- very interesting. It was actually completed in 1970 not 1968. In 1970 the Broken Hill to Port Augusta…

3K
0
Oh, you think that, do you? Care to put it on record?x
()
x