Open Thread – Christmas 2021
3,960 responses to “Open Thread – Christmas 2021”
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Arky, imagine this. A second hand Barry Crump book, USD120 plus postage!
I did love that book. Maybe I should buy myself a Christmas present.
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Merry Christmas everyone. I’ll be on BBQ duty tomorrow and the obligatory mass will be in there somewhere. Enjoy your days.
Just helped set kids jungle gym toys. FMD, 2 mechanically minded men and rubbish instructions. Was like the instruction sheet of old all with chinese script but in English and with few diagrams but no info whatsoever. 3/4 of the book was safety info. Not only that the quality for I found out the price paid was woeful.
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Merry Christmas Everyone.. I still have 13 days to go..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5GF2Fd1Z-g -
I have no idea why I’m still awake, maybe just enjoying listening to the gentle rain on the iron roof.
Lucky bloody you!
It’s still cooling down in Sandgroperstan’s McGowantown, only to return to 40+ as soon as the sun comes up again around 04oo.
Still, I picked up a shunt shift today and my Boxing Day turn got canned, so I don’t work again until Tuesday. Opa!
Merry Christmas to all.
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I have always wondered about this because of the absence of military aircraft. What is the point of all that work and expense if fighter aircraft can’t be stationed on the islands?
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Merry Christmas, Vats. Mark Knight.
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Over a year since the 2020 election and the evidence is still being uncovered despite earnest attempts to stop audits taking place.
Pennsylvania: Court rules against Democrats, Voting Machines will be inspected – Fulton County.
Of course in other places there has been evidence of machines being illegally and pre-emptively wiped! -
Dr. Malone ramps up the warnings about vaccinating children.
Just don’t do it! -
Merry Christmas to the Cattish diaspora!
After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will restore us,
that we may live in his presence. -
The latest Rasmussen poll reveals (as others have done) that a majority of American voters believe that cheating affected the outcome of the 2020 election.
John Hinderaker at Powerline. -
The last straw.
I warn that bloke every year. We are good enough to leave you three bickies and a couple of strawberries, I say. Have some goddamn decorum and stop leaving crumbs and shit all over the place when you’re done, I say.
But no.
He’s traded off the goodwill of adults and his popularity of children long enough. I’m staying up next year, and will have a suitable – chat – with the fat manners-free slob.
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Merry Christmas everyone.
The eschatology of the Nativity and the folklore and traditions of Christmas are fascinating. Especially from the perspective of Christ being beyond time (eternal Christmas) and who witnessed the birth of Christ and why.
From what I have been reading, the baubles on trees are representations of the fruits on the tree of paradise or citrus that represented the gold coins St Nick used to pay off a man’s debts so his children would not be sold off into prostitution (which seemed to be a real thing he did and not just folklore).
That story in itself is an allegory of salvation.
The Brits and Irish used to put faeries on trees to remind the Fey folk not to be sad, for Christ will come for them as well. This makes you wonder why elves got mixed in with St Nick!
The Kriskringle tradition is fascinating. Imagine walking around with a paper crown laden with candles!
That harkens (back or forward) to Jesus at the temple as a child.
The Twelve days of Christmas was originally a memory game for children but recuscsants used it to teach the catechism. Then we have the lights in the windows being representative of accepting to he holy family in need – also another recusant way of covertly communicating.
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Christmas is one of my favourite days of the year – a fantastic family feasting day. I am so lucky that Christmas hasn’t featured family arguments or conflicts for decades and today I’ll be meeting new arrivals to the brood – nephews and nieces attending our family Christmas for the first time.
But I’ll also be thinking of the hospitality businesses in Queensland trying to deal with a state government determined to destroy them. First it was the insane border closures; now it is the new Covid rules, which are forcing many hospitality staff offline and unable to work.
That’s if you have a tourism industry at all. Since he rebirthed demagogic separatism in WA, Mark McClown has spent two years telling the rest of Australia they’re not welcome in the West.
WA should have a tourism industry rivalling the one Queensland used to have before Kung Flu, but resort towns like Broome and Monkey Mia are being crippled by government xenophobia.
McClown thinks he doesn’t need tourism when he’d pocketing billions in mining royalties courtesy of the opportunists digging stuff out of the ground for the state’s biggest export customer, the Chinese Communist Party.
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This Will Really Ruin Anthony Fauci’s Xmas
RFK Jr.’s book The Real Anthony Fauci was the No. 1 non-fiction seller on Amazon this week. This is a quick summary of the content, which is jaw dropping in itself.
The message from RFK, Jr. going forward is simple: DO NOT COMPLY.
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This is how much they really care about “safety”.
UK Does Not Advise “Vaccines” for 5-11 Year Olds, While the US Starts to MANDATE Them
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Merry Christmas everyone!
Joni Mitchell’s River. Not a new song and not quite a Christmas song, but now released with a new video.
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Director General Of W.H.O. Says The Quiet Part out Loud, Boosters Used To Kill Children? [VIDEO]
He’s saying it’s better to focus on the elderly. Clear as a bell he says
As we see, some countries are using to give boosters to kill children, which is not right
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A rare instance of TheirABC doing something worthwhile – some gorgeous displays of Christmas lights around the world here.
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Tom. I reckon Jamie Kah won’t ride a winner today.
I see what you did there, Dopey.
But, yeah, she’s on only one odds-on favourite tomorrow at the Caulfield goat track, so there’s no guarantee she’ll be back in the winner’s circle.
I sense the world’s best chick jockey is concentrating at the moment on bringing new customers into the tent, which often means riding roughies.
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Occasions like today often highlight – at least in our own perception – what we don’t have, or what we have that doesn’t work. For the remainder of the year, we are probably busy enough with the minutiae of life to distract ourselves, or at least temporarily pause that hyper-critical, unproductively analytical part of our brain that consistently repeats the mantra ‘everyone can see your eyebrows aren’t level.’ But then that effort we exert to manage the self-doubts, all catches up to us on such days as this.
For anyone reading who has dreaded today, who for whatever reason is not able to partake in the stereotype – I wish I had helpful advice for you. There is only one thing I know with any certainty, and even that has taken me decades to learn: You are not alone.
I realise that is not overly helpful, but from personal experience, I’ve found that the thought – not based on any measurable evidence – that I’m the only one on the planet who is struggling, tends to be a multiplier for the other, more personal self-doubts.
I had intended writing: “Humans are not machines,” until I realised that machines frequently break down; parts wear out; the design was faulty or not as efficient as it could have been. Aiming to replicate the supposed reliability of a machine is impractical.
Humans are beautifully IMPERFECT.
YOU are not a mistake.I hope I haven’t lowered the tone too much, but I wanted to acknowledge that sometimes luck, experience, or skill, doesn’t go our way, and life doesn’t proceed the way we had hoped it would.
A handful of years ago, I started life again. With very little. I still have that ‘very little’ but in the long-term, it was a wise decision.
You are NOT alone.
Do the best you can. It will be enough.
YOU are enough. -
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local oaf says:
December 25, 2021 at 9:44 amStill sweet after all these years….
Was supposed to link to The Adoration of the Magpie 🙂
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Humans are beautifully IMPERFECT.
YOU are not a mistake.Wise words, Muddy.
To quote from Hawkwind’s Spirit of the Age which I linked a few days ago:
I am a clone, I am not alone
Every fiber of my flesh and bone is identical to
The others
Everything I say is in the same tone as my test
Tube brother’s voice
And there’s no choice between us, if you had ever
Seen us you’d rejoice in your uniqueness
And consider every weakness something special of
Your ownWe hear a lot about how Christmas makes some people very unhappy (or unhappier) because it brings about reflection. Reflection can be good, but if it keeps leading you to a place where you hate yourself, that is not true reflection. It is a destructive thought pattern masquerading as reflection.
Quite a few Cats and Kittehs are oddballs in one way or another, and that’s what makes the place so interesting. As Hawkwind said – rejoice in your uniqueness, and consider every weakness something special of your own!
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Saw this yesterday.
Vanden Bossche is looking at circumstances the right way. Omicron should be thought of as a live-attenuated vaccine. All jabbing should cease immediately. Give it a couple of months, no more sars-cov2, no more variants thereof.
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Was supposed to link to The Adoration of the Magpie ?
I’ve been outside getting some commendations!
Northern magpie family’s two kids hate each other and fight furiously if one gets too close to the other which happens often if they’re hungry and I’m dispensing. They bounce around my feet squawking and pecking and flapping in great tanties. It’s entertaining. Quite like humans siblings!
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Oh and here’s the one you wanted to link, Oaf, since my link worked ok.
Having been sent to the outhouse by the Phage editor for going off the lefty reservation it’s the least I can do to throw Leunig a linky.
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Merry Christmas.
If you believe in miracles check out the ICU vaccination status for Victoria.
Miraculous adjustments and then no more.
https://covidlive.com.au/report/daily-vaccination-status/vic -
Sorry if this has been posted before – no time to scroll back.
We underestimate this lunatic circus at our peril
STEVE WATERSONA long queue of cars pictured at the Bondi Beach drive-through Covid testing site this week. Testing for travel has put enormous strain on pathology services. Picture: Damian Shaw
11:00PM DECEMBER 23, 2021
One of my friends has helped look after his dementia-afflicted father-in-law throughout the pandemic, helping him cut through the lantana of bureaucracy that poisons our every contact with medical officialdom in these magical times.
To facilitate his caring role he carries the old boy’s vaccine certificate, which came in handy when a few of us went for a drink last month, including one who’d forgotten his phone. Nobody on the door seemed bothered that according to the paperwork the fit-looking bloke in front of them was in fact an 83-year-old resident of a nursing home.
We should have screamed and pointed at him, like the last scene of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but we didn’t. We went in and had a beer, because we all, like everyone else in the bar, and pretty well everyone else in the country, were fully vaccinated.
Sure, we might still be able to catch the Covid from anyone, and pass it on just as easily, but I reason it’s not going to hurt much because – and this seems to be the intellectual stumbling block causing the simple-minded to lose their footing – the vaccines apparently stop you getting any sicker than you did in the before times, from olden-days colds and flu.
It used to be a sign of a robust work ethic to drag yourself into the office, hoping someone senior would spot the sachets of Lemsip on your desk, notice how gamely you were battling your symptoms and suggest you head home until you felt better. What crazy, runny-nosed daredevils we were.
Have we completely abandoned logic in this country? If not, will someone help me understand why, after spending billions of dollars and causing extreme inconvenience to literally every person in Australia with convoluted compliance regulations and brutal, state-sanctioned coercion, our Covid vaccination program has failed to deliver us the benefits we were promised?
Long Wait Times at Sydney COVID Testing Sites as Cases Soar Ahead of Holiday Period
Vaccines should have been sufficient to calm our fears. That’s why we were assured that once we hit fantastic, world-beating levels of vaccination, our stolen freedoms would be restored. Yet here we are, with hundreds of thousands of Australians queuing for hours to comply with the nonsensical strictures of that clown car of idiots who can’t grasp the concept of “living with Covid” they so enthusiastically espoused just moments ago.
If not tolerance of a growth in infections, what does that gormless platitude mean?
After more than 50 million tests (99.5 per cent of them negative) at a cost of $10bn, we seem as terrified as when the pandemic sky started falling in almost two years ago.
This time it’s different, though. Most people, I suspect, are not frightened of contracting the virus but of ending up in an airport motel with a couple of kids determined to kill each other and an angry partner who “said all along that going to visit your stupid parents was a mistake”, because one of the party failed a mandatory PCR examination.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk: what happened to “living with Covid?”.
And that’s thanks entirely to the continuing incompetence of our leaders, who seem capable of nothing but amplifying and distributing fear and panic, and erecting mindless obstacles to the common sense they claim to employ. We cancel our holidays, interstate and overseas trips, to avoid being ensnared in some over-promoted lunatic’s simulacrum of safety.
Look at cruise lines, which have turned and twisted like sideshow contortionists to develop the most stringent rules on sea or land to placate their many fearful, elderly passengers.
Careful to the point of absurdity, they’re still not paranoid enough for our safety tsars, who have, with no supporting evidence and uniquely among the world’s cruising nations, effectively cancelled an industry that directly employs 20,000 Australians, even as their own ill-conceived and worse-executed protocols seed infection and contemptuous disobedience into civil society.
It’s wryly amusing (as long as you’re not one of those whose holidays and family reunions have been smashed) but not surprising that we’ve reached this new level of absurdity.
The unutterably feckless management of the pandemic should have left us in no doubt that lifting restrictions would prove every bit as challenging as imposing them, and the halfwits in charge haven’t disappointed us.
They’ve thrown their hands up in defeat and abandoned their easily circumvented contact-tracing procedures, instead outsourcing the role to the most frightened among us.
I have had calls from soon-to-be-former friends informing me they had seen someone a couple of weeks ago who later discovered they had the virus (asymptomatic, of course), presumably making me a casual contact twice removed (I’m not entirely au fait with the genealogy).
The preposterous rules (sit near an asymptomatic infected person for 14 minutes and it’s casual; a minute more and it’s close: this virus floats through the air at a very leisurely pace) have caused people to swap the queues at David Jones for the much longer ones at testing stations, which, remarkably, were not prepared for the totally predictable sudden rush.
It’s impossible to prove, but is there a slim chance the case numbers are increasing so rapidly because so many people are forced, unnecessarily, to be tested before travelling to visit loved ones?
Is it possible that there are, and have been for the past 20-odd months, hundreds of thousands of asymptomatic infections among vaccinated and heretics alike, who otherwise would never have dreamed of being tested?
Again we have senior politicians and medical fruitcakes fanning the flames rather than dousing them. Even as the NSW Premier showed some old-fashioned Liberal backbone, his Health Minister was predicting 25,000 cases a day next month; then new modelling this week topped that with an admirably ambitious 200,000.
Pressure is mounting on the Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to scrap PCR testing requirements for entry into the state.
They quote case numbers in the northern hemisphere as though they’re about to hit us here: 80,000 a day in Britain, coming to a beach near you soon. Let’s ignore the fact the British winter – dark and freezing, with icy winds and sideways slashing rain, miserable, unhealthy people huddled in damp rooms (and those are the lucky ones) – is like nothing we endure in Australia.
The World Health Organisation’s Tedros Babyjesus, or whatever he’s called, joins the pollies to urge caution in its usual abundance: “Surely we have learned by now that we underestimate this virus at our peril,” he warned a WHO media briefing last week.
Really? Underestimate, you say? We’ve just fined a Sydney teenager $12,500 for not wearing a mask in a Byron Bay taxi. There are men still in prison for sneaking into the AFL grand final. I defy Teddy to name anyone in authority who has done anything but wet themselves in cartwheels of panicked over-reaction.
The backflips and tumbling come so fast they’re mesmerising. It’s like watching Simone Biles do her floor exercises after a couple of pipes of crystal meth. This week’s winner on the highlights reel was the ACT, where mask-wearing was reintroduced, presumably to pretend to protect the three or four Canberrans who remain to be vaccinated.
I won’t question masks’ efficacy, save to quote Colin Axon, a scientist who advises the British government’s SAGE committee on airborne transmission of the virus. He calls them “comfort blankets”, explaining that medical experts, with their “cartoonish” view of how particles travel, are “unable to comprehend” just how minuscule the virus is. “A Covid particle is roughly 100 nanometres,” he says.
“Material gaps in blue surgical masks”, although invisible to the naked eye, “are up to 1000 times that size; cloth-mask gaps can be 500,000 times that size”.
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has some good, old-fashioned Liberal backbone.
Aerosols in the wearer’s breath “escape masks and render them ineffective”, he adds, likening virus particles’ passage through the material to firing marbles at builders’ scaffolding: “Some might hit a pole and rebound, but most will fly through.” But if it makes you feel secure, please keep pulling the grubby rags out of your pocket and popping them on as you head into Woolies.
We in the media should bear a great deal of the blame, and shame, for enabling our leaders’ relentless fearmongering. Apart from reporting their nonsense, which we are sadly obliged to do, editorialising, often by very junior reporters who haven’t seen a lot of the world, creeps into what should be straightforward news items.
It’s allowed to remain there by senior editors who celebrate a momentary spike in circulation or page views while their reputation sinks in the outside world. I suspect many readers would prefer to be given the case numbers (not that they tell us anything, unlike numbers of hospitalised and in ICU) without the hyperventilating adjectives. Just report the figures, if you must; we’ll decide for ourselves if they’re “shocking”, “terrifying” or “astonishing”.
So much of our politicians’ and bureaucrats’ bluster and ignorance has gone unquestioned by a compliant media pack that it’s hard not to suspect they will be given an easy ride on the way to next year’s federal election.
Let’s hope the journalists don’t feel obliged to take them quite so seriously again, pampering their inflated egos and hanging on their vapid promises; for by applying the same degree of scientific rigour that has informed recent public-service directions, I’ve concluded they’re all just a bit thick.
Never mind, after a couple more variants (our new measure of time passing) we’ll have the opportunity to exchange them for a different bunch of cretins.
Forget them for now, and enjoy a wary, merry Christmas.
STEVE WATERSONCOMMERCIAL EDITOR
Steve Waterson is commercial editor of The Australian. -
Likewise most interesting. Recent studies out of South Africa, Denmark and the UK suggest omicron’s relatively dramatic benefit to health systems.
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Quite a few Cats and Kittehs are oddballs in one way or another
Not me. I’m perfectly normal. Except when I’m not.
Speaking of “normal”, when did it become normal to trumpet one’s vaxx status in a Christmas catch-up message? Had one this morning and definitely left of field (or maybe not, they’re determined lefties). Had me wondering if I should enquire after their HIV status since they were so forthcoming about private medical matters.
Weirdness stalks the season, Cats.
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Sure, we might still be able to catch the Covid from anyone, and pass it on just as easily, but I reason it’s not going to hurt much because – and this seems to be the intellectual stumbling block causing the simple-minded to lose their footing – the vaccines apparently stop you getting any sicker than you did in the before times, from olden-days colds and flu.
Oh dear.
Always be careful about question the intellectual capacity of others who think differently to you, Steve.
“Vaccines” they aren’t. Prophylactics, and extremely expensive ones, they might be. Just because the definition was deliberately changed to suit the times doesn’t make it so.
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Handing out of Christmas presents. Adults, teenagers and slightly younger in the crew.
Nanna opens present. Large scented candle.
BIL: ‘Is that from Gwyneth?’Nanna: ‘Who?’
Heir to empire: ‘Ahahahaha -‘Swift backhand to heir’s ribs ensued as BIL’s commentary sailed overhead.
It’s the little things that make Christmas.
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He paid $US30 for a drawing. It could be a Renaissance work worth millions
Last week, a panel of experts at the British Museum in London delivered a stunning answer: The artwork, titled The Virgin and Child With a Flower on a Grassy Bench, was an undiscovered drawing by Albrecht Dürer, a renowned German artist born in 1471.
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Mak Siccarsays:
December 25, 2021 at 10:30 amWhere was commentary like this 12 month ago. Belated but welcome anyway. I’ll say it again for all the good it will do but Chant needs to be removed (Sideways or sacked) and the cohort of white anters with her. Similar with all senior health practitioners in the country.
A relative who is just back from Europe mentioned about this subject that maybe the health authorities over there know better when the subject of Australia’s response came up. Keep in mind some of central Europe haven’t been very good either.
Merry Christmas all again, beers cracked lunch is being cooked!
Looks like BOM are trying to whip up some more fear porn, Invest off Darwin unlikely to make TC status despite favourable conditions being too close to land and giving the top end a well deserved drink.
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Everyday foods such as coffee, meat and spices could become luxury items due to global climate impacts and changing tastes.
Must get injections.
Must eat bugs.
Must kowtow.Air flow key to ensuring black soldier fly larvae thrive as a sustainable food source (Phys.org, 13 Dec)
Black maggots. Yum!
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Thanks for that piece from Waterson Mak. I particularly liked the bit below – and we now have masks for all indoor situations again due to Kerry Chant the unenchanting. What happened to Dom’s backbone?
I won’t question masks’ efficacy, save to quote Colin Axon, a scientist who advises the British government’s SAGE committee on airborne transmission of the virus. He calls them “comfort blankets”, explaining that medical experts, with their “cartoonish” view of how particles travel, are “unable to comprehend” just how minuscule the virus is. “A Covid particle is roughly 100 nanometres,” he says.
“Material gaps in blue surgical masks”, although invisible to the naked eye, “are up to 1000 times that size; cloth-mask gaps can be 500,000 times that size”.
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has some good, old-fashioned Liberal backbone.
Aerosols in the wearer’s breath “escape masks and render them ineffective”, he adds, likening virus particles’ passage through the material to firing marbles at builders’ scaffolding: “Some might hit a pole and rebound, but most will fly through.” But if it makes you feel secure, please keep pulling the grubby rags out of your pocket and popping them on as you head into Woolies.
We in the media should bear a great deal of the blame, and shame, for enabling our leaders’ relentless fearmongering. Apart from reporting their nonsense, which we are sadly obliged to do, editorialising, often by very junior reporters who haven’t seen a lot of the world, creeps into what should be straightforward news items.
It’s allowed to remain there by senior editors who celebrate a momentary spike in circulation or page views while their reputation sinks in the outside world.
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’tis the Season over at the ABC News app. The top six articles all share a common theme. Can you guess what it is? You give up? Of course you do! Well, here they are, in descending order:
COVID-19 forcing families to spend Christmas Day in isolation
COVID updates: Here’s the latest coronavirus news from around Australia and the world
Omicron is here, so it’s time for Queenslanders to create COVID preparation kits at home
COVID-19 testing delays and grounded flights keep families apart this Christmas
NSW records 6,288 COVID-19 cases but ICU rates remain stable
Good to see the ABC staying calm this Christmas. Running around screaming with one’s hair on fire is obviously a perfectly reasonable and proportionate journalistic stance to take, given the end-of-days period we are apparently living through.
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Hahaha. From the Steve Waterson piece:
The World Health Organisation’s Tedros Babyjesus, or whatever he’s called …
Waterson, who’s too old to have been spat out by one of our disinformational journalism schools, has a long-overdue moment self-reflection:
We in the media should bear a great deal of the blame, and shame, for enabling our leaders’ relentless fearmongering. Apart from reporting their nonsense, which we are sadly obliged to do, editorialising, often by very junior reporters who haven’t seen a lot of the world, creeps into what should be straightforward news items.
It’s allowed to remain there by senior editors who celebrate a momentary spike in circulation or page views while their reputation sinks in the outside world. I suspect many readers would prefer to be given the case numbers (not that they tell us anything, unlike numbers of hospitalised and in ICU) without the hyperventilating adjectives. Just report the figures, if you must; we’ll decide for ourselves if they’re “shocking”, “terrifying” or “astonishing”.
So much of our politicians’ and bureaucrats’ bluster and ignorance has gone unquestioned by a compliant media pack that it’s hard not to suspect they will be given an easy ride on the way to next year’s federal election.
Let’s hope the journalists don’t feel obliged to take them quite so seriously again, pampering their inflated egos and hanging on their vapid promises; for by applying the same degree of scientific rigour that has informed recent public-service directions, I’ve concluded they’re all just a bit thick.
Never mind, after a couple more variants (our new measure of time passing) we’ll have the opportunity to exchange them for a different bunch of cretins.
Forget them for now, and enjoy a wary, merry Christmas.
Waterson is the Paywallian’s commercial editor, which means he normally writes about real estate and the paper didn’t think the anti-social frenzy unleashed by Kung Flu important enough to have such a sceptic assigned to the story on the public’s behalf.
The Oz has been one of the worst offenders in proliferating the hysteria of the government health Nazi industrial complex.
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’tis the Season over at the ABC News app. The top six articles all share a common theme. Can you guess what it is? You give up? Of course you do! Well, here they are, in descending order:
COVID-19 forcing families to spend Christmas Day in isolation
COVID updates: Here’s the latest coronavirus news from around Australia and the world
Sydney’s Omicron surge has put me in isolation at Christmas again — but this time I probably have COVID-19
Omicron is here, so it’s time for Queenslanders to create COVID preparation kits at home
COVID-19 testing delays and grounded flights keep families apart this Christmas
NSW records 6,288 COVID-19 cases but ICU rates remain stable
(I’ve just posted the headlines as embedding all of the links sent my comment into moderation – bah humbug!)
Good to see the ABC staying calm this Christmas. Running around screaming with one’s hair on fire is obviously a perfectly reasonable and proportionate journalistic stance to take, given the end-of-days period we are apparently living through.
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Merry Christmas, old friends.
Argument settled. -
~6000 cases in NSW yesterday yet;
Hospitalisations for COVID have risen slightly to 388, up from 382 in the previous reporting day.
There are 52 patients in ICU, which is one less than yesterday.
Even the propaganda arm of the ALP (ALPBC) cannot hide behind these facts. Probably more people were hospitalized from appendicitis than covid.
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Have we completely abandoned logic in this country? If not, will someone help me understand why, after spending billions of dollars and causing extreme inconvenience to literally every person in Australia with convoluted compliance regulations and brutal, state-sanctioned coercion, our Covid vaccination program has failed to deliver us the benefits we were promised?
..
If only someone had warned you last year that vaccines won’t do shit.
This was predictable, not because it was possibly to know how the vaccines would fail, but because it was possible to see the great number of hurdles: medical, political, sociological, epidemiological and ideological that the vaccines would have to leap in order to succeed. Failure at any one aspect would leave us trapped. That was always the most probably outcome which is why I both stated so confidently that the vaccines would fail, and at the same time said that on the individual level it was up to the individual to assess their risks and decide to take or not take the vaccines. -
Daily Mail
Attorneys for surviving Nirvana members ask judge to dismiss ‘naked baby’ lawsuit by 30-year-old man who appeared on iconic 1991 Nevermind cover because the complaint is decades late and ‘too silly’
Attorneys for the living members of Nirvana have asked a judge to dismiss a lawsuit from the naked baby on the cover of ‘Nevermind’
Spencer Elden, now 30, said his parents never gave the band permission to use his likeness on the now-iconic album cover
Elden said Nirvana and the estate of Kurt Cobain ‘trafficked’ his image as a naked baby and is claiming $2.5million in damages for being ‘exploited as a minor’
But the band’s attorneys say that legal arguments that the image constitutes child pornography are decades too late and ‘too silly’ to be considered
In the three decades since the album came out, the band’s attorney writes that Elden has ‘profited from his celebrity’
Elden has gotten the album name tattooed across his chest, recreated the photo and signed albums for money and even used his celebrity to ‘pick up women’ -
lol I think maybe someone over at the ABC realised they were overdoing the Covid scaremongering – the top three articles are still Covid panic/eeyore pieces, but they swapped out 4-6 with an article about Christmas lights around the world, Christmas weather forecasts and something about algae and mosquitoes in and around waterways pestering holidaymakers.
In fact, no more Covid until you’re at number 10 in the stack! That’s real progress.
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The Duxton hotel in Perth denied me entry for not having documentary evidence that I have a rare condition that precludes my wearing a mask. Fair enough, they are bound by state laws, however insane. But they then charged me for cancellation.
If you hear that their entire staff except the porter has died after being crushed under tons of masonry when the building collapsed on them, you will know that my curse has worked.
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Speaking of “normal”, when did it become normal to trumpet one’s vaxx status in a Christmas catch-up message?
Same people that are into listing pronouns and castrating their children for the bragging rights.
A reflective time of year, it is fun to imagine the things about the current age that will be ridiculed in thirty years time. Like flairs and new romantic music.
Apart from that, Merry Christmas all.
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This was predictable, not because it was possibly to know how the vaccines would fail, but because it was possible to see the great number of hurdles: medical, political, sociological, epidemiological and ideological that the vaccines would have to leap in order to succeed.
This was predictable because- we are governed by a collection of psycho nazis who will exploit ANYTHING they can to a) progress their own wealth at our expense and b) are totally corrupt and incompetent in their jobs. The vaccines proved to be the perfect tool to exploit while they brutalized us, ruined lives and livelihoods. The truly horrific discovery of this whole episode is the number of people who actually actively and enthusiastically support this kind of governance.
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Christmas, a long time ago, Santa dropped a record player and a swag of LPs under the tree.
The record player was a JVC the colour of Cafe Bar coffee.
A boxed set of festive songs from around the world.
Val Doonican, because Mum always sung along to him on 4QR.
And for the kiddies, a modern looking record that had a song titled Christmas on it.
Fortunately it was a single disc, abridged version of the album.
(Cats who know their discology should be able to guess the song most likely to have seen the whole lot consigned to the incinerator.)Did you ever see the faces of children
They get so excited.
Waking up on christmas morning
Hours before the winter sun’s ignited.
They believe in dreams and all they mean
Including heavens generosity…Merry Christmas one and all.
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Even the propaganda arm of the ALP (ALPBC) cannot hide behind these facts. Probably more people were hospitalized from appendicitis than covid.
I wonder when they’ll start reporting hospitalisation with Covid rather than for Covid. That ought to make those numbers skyrocket!
A 9yo runs out in front of a Mack truck, survives but is pretty banged up and on life support in ICU. Tests positive for Covid. Media: OMG OMG OMG Covid positive child in ICU on ventilator! Omicron is coming for the children!!! Govern us harder, daddy!
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Hazzard seems to be getting less hazzardous too.
NSW Health reported 6,288 new infections – an increase from Friday’s 5,612 cases, and no deaths from 149,261 tests.
Hospitalisations increased by six to 388 residents and one person was taken out of the intensive care unit. There remains 52 people in ICU across the state.
NSW also reached 95 per cent of the population with one dose of a coronavirus vaccine with the fully vaccinated rate remaining at 93.5 per cent.
So 95% vaccinated, large jump in infections, no deaths, one less ICU patient. I wonder when our lords and masters will work it out?
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If you hear that their entire staff except the porter has died after being crushed under tons of masonry when the building collapsed on them, you will know that my curse has worked.
The Duxton occupies the building that used to house the ATO, I believe. Pretty sure that curse has been used on that structure countless times over its lifetime. The curse doesn’t seem to work, unfortunately.
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So 95% vaccinated, large jump in infections, no deaths, one less ICU patient. I wonder when our lords and masters will work it out?
Well, the vaccines OBVIOUSLY reduce the risk of serious illness and death even though they don’t prevent infection.
But stay away from the unvaccinated because they’re dangerous.
Yes, it all makes perfect sense.
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BoN, since you are around, you may remember my comments a while back under the heading of “where have all the little bleedin’ sparrers” gone?
Well, I am happy to report that there is a thriving colony of sparrows in the Queanbeyan CBD. They have discovered outdoor coffee bars and restaurants, and hop around picking up crumbs in the finest London tradition.
That said, there are still a lot less of them than when I was growing up in suburbia.
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Merry Christmas everybody. Happy birthday to our Lord and Saviour.
Off to a family lunch soon where covid-sensibility now rules in a once-fearful family.
Hostess (my DiL) had the sniffles three days ago and worried that she might spread Covid to the rest of the family so off to do a test.
Still no result.
So they get into rapid tests. Three different results – positive, negative, and invalid.
So the penny has dropped for them. She has a cold just like the kids did last week.
No need for the entire Government apparatus to regulate our Christmas Day gathering.This experience has brought home what I have trying to tell them for ages.
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Referring back to yesterday’s Polish ‘apres la guerre’ cage fight, I was reminded of one of the most chilling and disgraceful pieces of correspondence I have ever read.
It was from the ever egregious Marshall of the Air Force Portal to Polish members of the RAF.
Reliably translated as:
“Thanks for helping save our bacon old chap”. “Now fuck off out of our country”.
Churchill’s subsequent death sentence passed upon millions of Eastern Europeans was more horrendous in scale but possibly less of a directly careless betrayal.
RAF senior leadership during WWII constantly revealed their 19th Century cultural beliefs and WWI disregard for the welfare of their ‘troops’. -
I am happy to report that there is a thriving colony of sparrows in the Queanbeyan CBD
Nice news Johanna, sparrows are unassuming and fun. Sweeties. One or two try to survive in my local shopping centre but the cult of cleanliness these days means fewer crumbs, and the noisies, indian mynahs and peewees all chase the few morsels on offer as well, wandering around under cafe tables.
When I was at uni, and would go into the CBD, the pavements were strewn with cigarette butts, chewing gum and crumbs of various uncertain origin. Many more sparrows then. Now I think I could eat off our supermarket sidewalks, they shine with cleanness. We have so many health fetishes these days.
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A spiritual, rather than a physical crushing.
I’ve long thought that being a creepy shit carries its own punishment. They can’t ever know the innocent joy of just being alive.
And the bureaucratic temperament likewise: if your world is made of rules and nothing else, there can’t be any room for simple happiness.
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night. -
The ABC has helpfully published a “Covid-ready kit” so you can self-isolate at home and maximise your chance* of becomg seriously ill in the event you are infected. If long Covid, permanent lung damage, blood clotting, ending up on a ventilator, dying etc sound like your cup of tea, Aunty suggests you prepare the following:
– a thermometer
– pain relief
– your regular medications
– a plan for who can look after your children, pets, or people in your care, only if you have to go to hospital
– face masks, hand sanitiser and gloves
– a plan for how you’ll get food and essentials for two weeks such as frozen meals, long-life milk, supplies and food for your pets
– phone numbers for people you can call if you need help
– stay-at-home activities to keep you entertained
– a COVID Care Plan in case you get COVID-19. You can give it to your health worker or doctor if you need to go to hospital.Someone who isn’t me has the following kit at the ready:
-enough Ivermectin for a 5 day course @ 0.4mg/kg/day
– shitloads of vitamin C supplements
– zinc and quercetin
– iodine nasal spray
– iodine throat gargle
– blood oximeterThey also have been spending a great deal of time in the sun over the past few months so have very high vitamin D levels.
They reckon I’ll see them in a couple of days after isolating, fit as a fiddle. Probably wouldn’t even know they’d been gone.
*it’s still going to be low, sorry to disappoint
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, sparrows are unassuming and fun. Sweeties. One or two try to survive in my local shopping centre but the cult of cleanliness these days means fewer crumbs, and the noisies, indian mynahs and peewees all chase the few morsels on offer as well, wandering around under cafe tables.
I’ve seen this with Twenty-Eight parrots on the footpath outside the Toodyay Bakery. By the half-dozen or so.
If you can imagine deep green-and-blue birds the size of Eastern Rosellas scrapping like Rainbow Lorikeets over the choicest crumbs and bits of pastry, you have an idea of the spectacle.
I’ve also seen them win fights with Magpies.
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Canning Vale also beomg regularly visited by these gorgeous specimens and we have a family of about 4 Red-tails around the big trees near the school as well.
The ‘eggspurts’ say that the Carnaby’s White-tailed Black Cockatoo is endangered cos humans.
In turn, I point up at the trees and declare “There are more now than the 70 or so I counted up there last time, mate!”
So they must be doing alright, and are far more adaptable than they are proclaimed to be…
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Hazzard seems to be getting less hazzardous too.
NSW records 6,288 new COVID-19 cases and zero deaths while Victoria reports six fatalities and 2,108 infections (25 Dec)
NSW Health reported 6,288 new infections – an increase from Friday’s 5,612 cases, and no deaths from 149,261 tests.
Hospitalisations increased by six to 388 residents and one person was taken out of the intensive care unit. There remains 52 people in ICU across the state.
NSW also reached 95 per cent of the population with one dose of a coronavirus vaccine with the fully vaccinated rate remaining at 93.5 per cent.
So 95% vaccinated, large jump in infections, no deaths, one less ICU patient. I wonder when our lords and masters will work it out?
I see Danandrewstan is still setting the gold standard. 1/3 the cases and 6 deaths, vs no deaths.
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I reckon they are bigger than Eastern Rosellas. Funnily enough, they might defeat maggies, however they have been defeated in Perth City by imported Rainbow Lorikeets. Booted to the outer suburbs and bush.
That does suck.
I’ve seen big flocks of Corellas around Langley Park at times- For some reason not a place the Rainbows like to congregate.
Maybe not urban enough for such a ‘hipster’ parrot… 😉
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Probably cos grass seed-eaters vs. nectar.
It is kinda funny to hear a lorikeet squeaking, then look up to see a little blue head and pair of beady eyes staring down at you from the crown of a palm tree.
Gives off a kinda “Look upon my works ye mighty and be rooly, rooly jealous!” vibe…
#SoBoganItHurts
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Corellas cause their own problems.
Currabubula (a little hamlet in Northern NSW, about 1/2 hour southwest of Tamworth) once had a massive repair bill after several hundred of the buggers descended on the place and tore street light fitting seals and the tennis court to shreds.
Turns out they really liked the adhesive that held the astroturf down- They were getting high on the stuff.
So between the astroturf being utterly shredded up and the tennis met chewed to pieces and light fittings wrecked, that tiny council faced many, many zeroes of repairs and replacement.
Fortunately, they never came back…
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women in uniform in Syderney.
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The very young sacrificing their lives for the oldies in the US. Would it have anything to with the age of the folks in charge of the US?
Anyone who viewed Dr. Bhakdi’s autopsy presentation above will know that, in fact, everyone everyone is being sacrificed. It’s just a question of how and when. He was ropeable (I’ve never seen such a gentle soul so angry), firstly because exactly what was he was warning about more than a year ago is still happening, but even more because they are now going after the children, in full knowledge of the damage it will do to them.
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The very young sacrificing their lives for the oldies in the US.
Immunosuppressed old chap in the local paper urging the young to mask up and get jabbed to protect him.
I’m not unsympathetic to his plight but it’s his responsibility to protect himself in the first instance.
Like me, he can afford to live quite a comfortable life with common sense measures to protect himself without requiring others to sacrifice theirs for the sake of his last few years on this earth.
We have to let the young and healthy get on with their lives.
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Merry Christmas Cats . I had dinner with son and children ( all adults) last night and brunch with family and friends this morning . Decided I could not survive invitation to sons outlaws after having reaction to booster on Thursday so lunch spent snoozing on sofa.
See comment in Arky’s post this morning for other thing that has also knackered me. -
See comment in Arky’s post this morning for other thing that has also knackered me.
No wonder the elderly are queuing for the booster.
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Roger says:
December 25, 2021 at 2:02 pmSome postprandial reading for the day:
Roger, the early Church, the Jewish followers of Yahoshua, believed that He was born on the first day of Tabernacles. I’ve read that even today some members of the Messianic Judaism movement still observe that date and decorate their sukkah with Christmas lights.
When Was Jesus Really Born: The Feast of Tabernacles and Jesus -
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People have dranked the KoolAid all right, in huge numbers, but as the sticker states:
You Can’t Comply Your Way Out Of Tyranny.
Altho tyranny isn’t the right word, since the Tyrants were forces for reform.
I’d say there’s no point obeying criminals, since you’re judged by the company you keep and the criminals never prevail for long. -
Rex.
The Terrible.
My Mother Told Me… I was quite alright.
Deserving of The Mare of Steel.
When I find her (or she finds me), the world will tremble!
#Glorious
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OK- Now having seen the ‘Mare of Steel’ in context, I declare ‘How Dare You?!’
Closely followed by a dose of minor sads, since (following my usual understanding of iron horses), no Mares of Steel until at least the end of April for me… 🙁
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Don’t know where this is but it’s been picked up in America.
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From the “we’ve known this for years” collection.
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