Hiya from the southern coast of Africa. Ship has closed to about 30 k’s off the coast due to worsening…
Open Thread – Weekend 5 Feb 2022
- Open Thread – Weekend 18 May 2024
- Bumtree #15
- Bumtree #14
- Open Thread – Thurs 16 May 2024
- Bumtree #13
Cat running amoch
“Stay here with the donkey while I try to make sense of existence on this planet!” “err, I may be…
Yes I touched on that in one reply to DrB. God said to Abraham that his seed would be made…
Cats – I know how you all love some wonderful music. The radio shows I’d love to continue – was…
Let’s keep things separate here, please. To be clear:
– I enjoy reading Cardimona’s comments
– I believe his daughter to be a warm and kindly person
– the article in question was probably written on the fly to a looming deadline and she was beleaguered by ankle biters (we’ve all been there)
– the mistake was conflating her situation as a mother to the plight of other politicians’ wives and suing for sympathy on that basis
On the last, we find that female journalists are notorious for this silliness. You never see male journalists writing the same look at moi and pity moi stuff. Yet women want to be taken seriously.
At a time when people were suffering genuine loss of liberty and income at the hands of a LibNat government it just seemed a bit much.
BREAKING: Kenney caves. Alberta’s premier announces an end to all restrictions, beginning with the vax pass next week.
Culture is imposed from the top down.
Without that imposition, people tend to get on pretty well, particularly when they’re the same fucking people.
Dick Ed comes out in favour of anarchy?
Trust the Science
The problem with Barnaby is that he’s the best the Nats have. All the others are worse.
Conquest’s 2nd is alive and stalking through the Lib and Nat caucus.
JUST IN – GoFundMe has deleted Canada’s Freedom Convoy fundraiser
Why would anyone EVER use GoFundMe again?
The Assumption of Mary was so uncontroversial for over a thousand years that the Lutherans maintained it as do the Orthodox Churches. If you believe that Christ rose from the dead it is not unreasonable to think He would bestow this honour on His Mother. Pius XII did nothing wrong.
dover, Pius XII didn’t just announce that it’s “not unreasonable” to think it. He used the Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility to make it compulsory to believe it. It’s not a dogma in any other church I’m aware of. Of all the things for which a pope could use the infallibility doctrine about, requiring people to auto-induce a particular state of belief on a pure question of fact not attested to in the Scriptures would have to be a particularly stupid one.
rosiesays:
February 5, 2022 at 6:17 am
unreal. No-one can question the trans narrative
It’s time these freaks were called out. Homosexuality is a minority condition affecting about 3% of the population. The real weirdos: trans, the gender benders etc are a small proportion of that 3%. Yet these loons who openly despise normies and the bulwarks of society -the family, Christianity, men and women, children – are determined to destroy those bulwarks. I especially find their focus on children sinister. They do this because that’s where it all starts and children are impressionable and susceptible to their perverted bullshit. The West has had it’s tolerance of these weirdos thrown back in its face; and when their efforts are combined with the commie front organisations such as blm, antifa and CRT, they are a real and palpable threat to the West. Especially since, apart from Trump and few other politicians in the US and here, most conservative politicians bend over and present their arses to these freaks.
This might explain the Alberta Premier’s sudden decision.
Military tells Ottawa to find someone else to evict the truckers
Look.
None of this Joyce discussion, nor the Mick/Proddy thing is leading towards the thread’s true purpose.
It is to debate the relative merits of sandstone and pebblecrete for household aesthetic purposes.
I’ll go first. Pebblecrete is so 2019. You might as well have a Holden in the driveway.
That’s not the argument.
I have very specific examples of what different Protestant denominations ACTUALLY BELIEVE.
You want me to list what each 36,000 of them believe?
Yes you have.
Sorry it starts at Luke 1:28.
The position of St Peter is undeniably biblical.
Matthew 16:18 and 16:19.
Here are the biblical references for the doctrine, if you bothered to look (I doubt you are really interested):
Genesis 3:15
Psalm 132:8
Matthew 27:52-53
Luke 1:28
Corinthians 15:23
Revelation 11:19
Revelation 12:1-2
Lutheran, High Anglican and Orthodox believe in either assumption or formation.
There is a point at which you have to admit you either believe what is in the Bible…or not.
Again, this is my beef with protestants, particularly evangelicals; claiming the church isn’t biblically based, but their own sermons and doctrine of their alternative lifestyle sects are often FAR, FAR removed from scripture, despite declaring “scripture alone”!
Now Timmy, please do shut the fuck up, my confused, anti Irish, Christian brother!
Oh dear.
formation –> dormition
Dot says:
February 5, 2022 at 9:11 am
Rewatched Vincent Price’s Matthew Hopkins Witchfinder General again last night. Wow, forgot what a dark movie it was. Pity about the fake blood and excessive late 1960s “artistic screaming”.
It is actually a great movie, but don’t watch it around kids. Killing isn’t the half of it.
Arguably Vincent’s best serious film. It is bleak, it’s theme being that when you are confronted with unrelenting persecution and violence if you retaliate in kind you become like your persecutor. I dispute this but the theme was so strong the writer and director, the prodigy Michael Reeves, killed himself shortly thereafter (although some reports say his death from drugs and alcohol was accidental.)
Anyone who supports gun ownership should consider this when voting:
https://nationalshooting.org.au/find-out-why-you-need-to-vote-in-less-than-a-minute/
The Freo Dockers are still recovering from the Damian Dumb legacy.
The Catholic Church is not Sola Scriptura, for even in relation to the Scriptures, a hermeneutics of human reason- including at times, revealed understanding- is called for. It’s an ongoing thing, and perfectly wonderful.
In ALP Campaign HQ news:
“Ooops, I misspoke. He’s great.
No, really…”
Old Faustus’ Almanac: A message from the past will provide great comfort and joy to unexpected readers and advertising space brokers.
#stupidestmaninpolitics
The fact it is considered an option should alarm all.
Sandstone – walls either dressed, dry pack or rip rap, foundations ie. anything vertical
Pebblecrete – exposed aggregate driveways and paths, swimming pool interiors, or its most recent iteration – polished concrete floors ie. anything horizontal
How’s that for a start?
Fortunately the Australian military are deployed on mashed pumpkin duties in our nursing homes and do not represent a threat to democracy.
sarc…thanks.
First mouthful of beautiful mug of Lady Grey is now cheerfully ensconced in keyboard and all over screen. Truly a cracker comment.
And GoFundMe is trying to steal the money for lefty causes.
When GFM cancelled Israel Folau they immediately returned the money to the original donors. So why not now?
Brittany should be saving these bombshells for her trial. I have a suspicion she might need them. Have you finished those tapes Groogs ?
Witchfinder..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98gzk6VSzfU
Are we in favor of ruthless one man tribunals dispensing arbitrary and largely fatal punishments against heretics (politics- you know there is overlap) or not this week?
Couldnt we have a griftfinder general to purge Canberra and the various state governments/public services?
Petrossays:
February 5, 2022 at 10:39 am
Petros, watch the whole movie!
Front page of todays worst australian shows that St Mark McShitstain has lost West Pravda’sbacking.
How do I post a picture of it ?
Just about covers it. Who needs lifestyle TV?
Here are the biblical references for the doctrine, if you bothered to look (I doubt you are really interested):
Genesis 3:15
Psalm 132:8
Matthew 27:52-53
Luke 1:28
Corinthians 15:23
Revelation 11:19
Revelation 12:1-2
None of them can by any wild stretch of extrapolation be read logically as stating, or even implying, that assumption/dormition happened specifically to Mary. FFS re-read e.g. Psalm 132:8 and ponder your own ludicrous credulity in relation to whoever told you that that could be the basis for Pius XII’s special effort.
You’re revealing your own biblical ignorance every time you post.
Honestly, you make the “Book of Revelation – seven hills – the Pope is the antichrist” crowd look like sober cautious literalists.
LOL, Dot. Anglican, Baptist, Presbyterian I know range from wet left bilge to conservative biblical. I can’t speak of the Catholic denomination but this guy today seems to be able to.
The Popular Belief That Empties Churches (4 Feb)
If you accede to the Gospel and the Bible you do OK, but if you try to write your own cute versions God tends to abandon you until you repent and return to Him.
Surely, of all the big techs, Go Fund Me must be the easiest to replicate.
He made it dogma for Catholics, having already been widely held for over a thousand years, also by Lutherans and Orthodox, but now in the face of some Protestant opposition and modernist and secular criticism. That you think so little of the Assumption of Mary compared to ‘all the other things’ he might have exercized this power upon is only a reflection of your interests. When I wrote the initial, ‘God, yes’ I had in mind of ‘all the things’ God could rebuke Pius XII or I, on the Day of Judgement, the least of them will be holding His Mother in high honour.
LOL
You have been totally owned and hoist by your own petard. You talking about literalism is funny, Galileo boy because the church never believed in flat earth or any of that before evangelical Protestantism. It was read in context.
What’s next, railing against funeral rites because the Apostles board and CEO Jesus Christ didn’t sign off on an instruction manual/SWP for funerals?
My sentiments- exactly. What a fkn idiot Joyce is. A petulant, stupid, redneck fkn idiot. All pissed he was sent to the backbench, this righteous imbecile weighs in on of all things Brittany Higgins with his now public text. “I never thought it would get in the public domain” says Joyce.
MORON, don’t you know by now everything you do , say or print can find it’s way into the public domain?
We have this cabal of parasitic greedy clowns masquerading as politicians and political parties, all vying for our vote placing them in power to screw us every which way to Sunday. Yes, on the pikes but after the lamp post adornments are completed. This democratic system is long since buggered, and so are we. It’s every man and women for themselves.
Dot: You have made a lot of suspicious comments about the church and Irish nationalists out of hand and without provocation.
Me: No I haven’t.
Dot: Yes you have.
References please, including date, time and thread. Or re-post them here yourself including the date and time part.
https://www.city-journal.org/new-study-finds-covid-lockdowns-had-no-benefit
While lockdowns had little to no public health benefits, they imposed enormous economic and social costs. Job losses in March and April 2020 exceeded 22 million and have not yet been fully recovered. Children lost years of educational and social development that will affect them for the rest of their lives. Psychological problems have soared throughout society. It’s hard to disagree with the Hopkins’ researchers’ conclusion that lockdowns “should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.”
SCIENCE!!! says lockdowns must stop right now.
Why is McClown & the other state Premongs anti science?
Teacher questions how effective the mask mandate will be in high schools, as experts call for respirators to help prevent COVID spread
Luckily, N95/P2 respirators are quite cheap if you buy them in bulk. Around $1.60 ea if you buy 600 – about a semesters’ worth, correctly used.
A separate thread would have conducive to following the discussion overnight and this morning, dover.
MORE – All donors may submit a request for a full refund until February 19th, 2022. The remaining funds will be sent to “established charities verified by GoFundMe.”
Wow. Certainly this would be open to litigation?
You talking about literalism is funny, Galileo boy because the church never believed in flat earth or any of that before evangelical Protestantism. It was read in context.
Flat earth is a Protestant doctrine? Not in this universe.
What’s next, railing against funeral rites because the Apostles board and CEO Jesus Christ didn’t sign off on an instruction manual/SWP for funerals?
Funeral rites and other liturgical practices aren’t a “doctrine”. That’s why churches do, quite often, change details of their liturgy, because liturgy per se is isn’t comprehensively prescribed one way or another by Scripture. If you’d read the bible you’d know that even communion changed during the earliest days of the Christian church.
Remember Barilalo’s disgusting antics. Parasitic clowns is the correct description
Dot @ 10.01 am
I believe Salazar in Portugal gets a bit of a raw deal in the history books, getting lumped in with Franco. I recall reading an article in Mises.org reviewing the “Estado Novo” and demonstrating that it was a lot more (classical) liberal than given credit for.
Posted this on another thread by mistake.
Attended a UAP candidate launch last night. More than a few members of the Liberal Party present, some of them well off, long term members. They’ve left the Libs and joined the UAP, offering to put up signs on their properties and help the campaign.
NSW coof stats.
NSW records 18 COVID-related deaths and 8,389 positive cases (Sky News, 5 Feb)
One not vaxxed out of 18. Not a good batting average for the vaccines.
That 17 of 18 equates to 94.4% vs 94.1% double vaxxed. Futile.
Teh Paywallian runs another Andrew O’Keefe story. It would appear, as many suspected he was simply an indulged meth head deadbeat who (for now) can afford better dental treatment. It seems time was called when he started using women as punching bags and not covering costs. Who would work in media?
Harking back to institutional bigotry, as a young teen I was keen to attend the Naval College.
That came unstuck when my parents insisted that the College did not accept Catholics, and my local priest refused to provide a reference for “that anti-catholic institution”. The priest’s refusal may have been inspired by my parents who saw the Navy as a bastion of espised English privilege.
This was the time when QLD Catholic high schools (not colleges) only offered tuition up to Leaving Certificate.
I heard comments that this was in response to Mannix stating that Catholic education should focus on getting Catholics into the Public Service.
I’ve seen reference to this in some histories but given that Mannix spat out continuous streams of dictates, you would never know if this was a reality. It’s more likely that country towns lacked sufficient potential Catholic matric students, and probably couldn’t furnish sufficient qualified teachers.
From the paywalled Oz …
I believe Salazar in Portugal gets a bit of a raw deal in the history books, getting lumped in with Franco.
He gets a bad press in fiction as well, particularly “Pereira Maintains”. That’s of course meaningless in itself. An aspiring writer will treat a conservative leader sympathetically when porcine aviation supersedes jets.
Langer walks.
This would be the group that recommends that apartment dwellers seal their doors with tape if they can smell their neighbours cooking.
Members of this self-appointed advisory group are going after Nick Coatsworth.
Reading earlier but seems to have disappeared (should have saved it .. duuuh!) now that the illegal “security light/camera” & stanchion that caused an uproar in the media & lotza gummint waffling when discovered on the Housing Commission property occupied by the Hamzy family matriach is not only still standing but still operating!
Seems that in NSW breaking the law only applies to folk who both plod & gummint decide it applies too .. not across the board!
All those pix/stories about plod harassing/attacking/pepper spraying old folk for no reason other than they get away with it are, obviously, in a different category to dealing with straightforward criminal activity when plod is faced with the appropriate name & reputation …..
So GoFundMe has not only stopped distributing funds to the organizers of the Freedom Convoy in Canada, they are also going to redistribute the funds so far collected to their own approved charities, giving donors only until 16 Feb to apply for a refund. Why can’t they just reverse the transaction?
Why does anyone engaged in non-globalist liberal politics still use GoFundMe?
It’s more likely that country towns lacked sufficient potential Catholic matric students, and probably couldn’t furnish sufficient qualified teachers.
I believe that’s largely it – it was practicalities, not doctrine.
St Kevin’s in Melbourne was founded as a pure Leaving/Matric school that had critical mass (no pun intended) so that smart kids from the Catholic system would have somewhere to transfer to in order to finish school .
The Bread of the Presence was there during the Exodus. Manna. Communion.
In the book of Exodus, I think.
It also would have been helpful if a recognised body of Protestant doctrine could have designated as the basis for discussion so we didn’t end up down dead ends. I would have suggested the 39 Articles of Faith as they are fairly representative of each of the magisterial Protestant reformations. I’d be prepared to lend a hand if you wanted to press the reset button on what appears, after scaning back, to have been a rather fruitless argument thus far.
I made the offer but if people neither say yea or nay and begin the conversation in earnest on the OT events move along.
I’ll open it up in a minute so please continue over there.
I don’t doubt at all that this is likely.
We live in a (thankfully, crumbling in parts) medical police state now. Why did we even bother with WWII, Korea and Vietnam? The idea we’re freer than the Portuguese because democracy is ignorant of the administrative state and courts that give up their independence as political appointees.
Psalm 133
A song of ascents. Of David.
How good and pleasant it is
when God’s people live together in unity!
It is like precious oil poured on the head,
running down on the beard,
running down on Aaron’s beard,
down on the collar of his robe.
It is as if the dew of Hermon
were falling on Mount Zion.
For there the Lord bestows his blessing,
even life forevermore.
By all means disagree. But please don’t get nasty. There’s been enough of that.
Masking schoolchildren when the threat has largely passed is disproportionate.
Even YOUTUBE understands where Justin is coming from .. LOL!
https://ibb.co/8mh5P3P
Mick did a good job, he was the difference between success and defeat at the 2019 Poll.
It boils down to this:
Joyce is a keg on legs, but NewsCorp have backed him since he arrived as a Senator for Queensland, they got him over the line against Tony Windsor in 2016 and they got ridda Turnbull for dismissing him in 2018.
Looks like there has been a subtle (and as far as I have heard unannounced) change in Sydney buses.
Last week the signs read that wearing a mask was mandatory.
Today, at least on the bus I was on, they are ‘strongly recommended’.
Yes, fundamentalist Christians, who you referenced earlier, are protestant.
Funeral rites have been practiced with more or less the same liturgy for thousands of years and have not changed much at all. The protestant ones even ape the Catholic ones.
Do you believe the liturgy is what Christians believe or not? Is it doctrinal?
Seriously – I am very, very and sincerely sorry for my intemperance, bearing false witness and lack of stalking.
The winner again was David-Leyonhjelm-bullied (because he read an article online) “Bons” again!
December 26, 2021 at 5:22 pm
I think Bons is posting another story now how the Catholic church stopped him being Lord High Admiral.
The bastards.
Well that would be outright theft.
It’s not for them to decide what people do with their own money, and stealing it like that – only giving donors a limited time to apply for a refund – before using the money for their own purpose, even if they purport that to be for charities. It’s not difficult to think those selected “charities” would be the likes of blm or antifa or some other leftist mob. Give a leftist a sniff of other people’s money, and they’ll find a way to snaffle it, and deny it going to the purpose for which it was intended if that doesn’t fit their thinking.
I am not curt with you. You don’t demand I justify my beliefs, nor do you ever ask the same of me.
Barking mad.
People who never quite made the limelight.
Dot, dedicated thread now open. Take it over there.
callisays:
February 5, 2022 at 12:03 pm
Too good for a mere uptick.
Am I allowed to call them snowflakes?
First Nations students need culturally safe spaces at their universities (4 Feb)
Ok, maybe, just so long as it isn’t an unused computer room.
Cosmic Stupidity | Power Line (3 Feb)
So there you go, we now have black snowflakes and white snowflakes.
Just on Catholic Education in Queensland, Leaving Certificate/Grade 10/Junior Certificate was a pretty good standard of Education up until 1965, good enough to be accepted in State and Commonwealth Public Services, Queensland Railways, PMG, Commonwealth Bank [subject to entrance exams].
Up to 1963, students could leave after Grade 8 [end of Primary School or earlier with permission].
The Scholarship Examination had to be passed to enter High School, a large majority of students didn’t bother with Scholarship and of those that did, many didn’t Pass.
Check the QG website, Admissions Register for confirmation.
Gave up even pretending at the start of December.
Was pinged once and did a manual code in as the usual Winston Smith 0427 198422.
Whoopi Goldberg revealed herself to be none too bright by projecting American race obsessions onto an event that occurred in quite a different historical context.
Not to be outdone, a Facebook based group of indigenous activists have projected American history onto the local scene, vandalising All Hallows Catholic girls’ school in Brisbane & accusing it of keeping aboriginal girls as “slaves” well into the 1960s.
Whatever was happening with indigenous girls at All Hallows – being required to do some housework in exchange for a free education, perhaps? – it wasn’t chattel slavery. To suggest so demeans those who suffer under such an inhumane regime to this day. It’s also a lie.
Such racial obsessions make people unethical and stupid.
Boambee John,
Of course you are right.
I can only surmise someone put beer in my drinks earlier in the day.
I could always fact-check myself before posting but only girlymen do that.
Nup.
That is right over the target.
It’s a double act.
Bananaby plays the Canbra game whilst she writes the articles to feed the chooks in the rural base.
Her ‘staunchly conservative’ articles are inextricably linked to him in people’s minds, but he can bat away any awkward Project/Q&A/730 questions with an indignant, “She is a fiercely independent woman, blah-de-blah …”
They are allowed much lower entry standards, longer time frames to pass unit levels, they pay for NOTHING – all to ensure their academic ability gets them over the much lowered bar. Now a safe indidge space? Let’s just have education apartheid and be done with it. A system for indidge qualifications and another for the real doers.
Stop fkg about with this sham system and just hand it to them. It’s what you want to do anyway.
Can you set some paramaters for the discussion, then?
Else it will be a waste of precious time.
Flat earth is not a Protestant doctrine, for heaven’s sake.
Perhaps dot could nominate which Protestant doctrines he believes to be “low hanging fruit” and cite confessional references? The 39 Articles or the Augsburg or Westminster Confessions are recognised authorities. I’m not about to be lumped in with snake handlers and flat earthers!
Step one: Take three Irishmen, peel.
Pope.
I like their garden hose fittings.
Roger, I will write something up after lunch trying to limit/ focus the exchange.
Mother Lode,
I was on a bus journey last week.
The driver was telling people to mask themselves.
Could have just been the driver.
I don’t use buses much.
So hardly an expert on the matter.
getting very frustrated! .. duuuh! .. had an auto Windows update yesterday and ever since whenever I click on a link here I can’t re-click to get back .. when i click to come back to where I was it sends me to the start page and I have to open the thread again & scroll back to where I was …. bloody annoying!
Thanks, dover.
I’ve posted a link to the 39 Articles for starters.
Brandon will appoint Anita Hill for sure.
In other words, you don’t have any idea.
Strawman.
There are worse things than Chattel Slavery, death by starvation is one.
Following the Civil War up to 1 million former slaves starved to death in the South simply because they had no skills to feed themselves away from the plantation
If GoFuckME have shut down the Canadian trucker’s fundraising platform then the consequence must be some legal action taken. They simply cannot be allowed to get away with this. I find it staggering that any conservative/libertarian/right-wing organisation, movement or individual would continue to use such a progressive, leftist fundraising platform. GoFuckMe doesn’t even try to hide its biases. This isn’t the first time GoFuckMe have done this and it won’t be the last time. We’ve seen it here in Oz, with the Izzy Folau case and recently (last month) Bettina Arndt’s had her fundraising page kicked off after progressives complained about her. Izzy was lucky the ACL stepped in.
As someone mentioned above, GoFuckMe would be a platform that is quite easy to replicate…..maybe in conjunction with a site like Rumble…or Gettr. The right MUST start to set up its own platforms.
Nobel Prize winner Brian Schmidt is a member.
He’s also Nick Coatsworth’s employer at ANU.
I’m not suggesting any wrongdoing on his part, but it does highlight how absurdly small the Australian academic scientific community is.
“I believe Salazar in Portugal gets a bit of a raw deal in the history books,”
I don’t know much about Salazar but I do believe Pinochet gets a raw deal in the history books.
Looks like those Truckers are legit.
Not enough Mounties/spooks/Army to crush it unless Trudeau asks Brandon for military aid, which he’s likely entitled to do under NAFTA.
Yes, Reconstructionism was an abject failure and marred the South and black-white relations for another hundred years.
This is why incremental reform was always a more humane policy than a civil war.
Maybe I should direct my anger at evangelicals and some baptists, but I have been pissed off for years about the following errant nonsense.
Catholics aren’t Christian
Catholics do not base their beliefs in the bible
Hypocrisy regarding sola scriptura
Neo Arianism
Ignorance of the provenance of Catholic prayers
Accusations of idolatory, particularly given modern Christology’s trajectory towards neo Arianism
The legitimacy of the “Church” of England at all
Conspiracy theories including unfounded criminal accusations
An obsession with witchcraft despite mocking the church’s exorcists
For starters. Don’t get cute “that’s not our doctrine” because the basis of Protestantism is basically being a critic of the church.
As for athiests, some of them are as thick as pigshit and very ignorant. Some of them don’t know the difference between an evangelical fundamentalist and a Catholic or Orthodox church. I am so sick of the “science and reason!” schtick.
Here’s a few hints.
Lemaitre
Mendel
Copernicus
I get that the Vatican was a European political machine once, but not recognising apostolic succession as a basis for a new religion just seems lame to me. You could have become Orthodox.
I will say no more.
Maybe dover could do it on a small scale and use it to advertise newÇat. His donation page would need to be extended somewhat.
Peter Lalor in The Hun, on one of the biggest travesties in Australian sport:
Burn it. Burn it to the ground.
Removing fifty thousand B-doubles from Ottawa would be quite a logistical exercise.
Especially if the truckers do stuff to disable their vehicles.
Sometimes in dodgier car parks I’d take out a fuse from my fuse box.
Simple but devastating for an aspiring car thief.
Just the relay for the ignition, Bruce.
OK. See my entry at the new thread. I’ll be back there later.
It’s going to be funny if the ECB picks up Langer.
Mind you, English cricket is a basket case right now.
And:
Cricket Australia wanted detail and discipline, because at the time they had a couple of fuckheads running the team, a ‘captain’ with a blindfold on and a coach who also turned a blind eye to, if not endorsed sandpapering the cricket ball in a Test match.
Because the decision had already been made some time ago, and they waited for the Ashes to finish.
The joint will in all likelihood be coached by Trevor Bayliss, who is ‘nice’. Like Cory Bernardi was ‘nice’. Who will allow the players to run their own shop, and be carted around like pashas. Which is exactly what started the rot that led to Langer’s appointment in the first place.
Fuckwits. Fuckwits.
That is my most fervent hope.
Langer knows exactly where the not-so-obvious chinks in armour are, and there are plenty of them.
I will wave the Union Jack and join the Barmy Army if this plays out.
Anyone coulda won what Langer did with the bowlers he had plus Davey Warner.
Like Warnie said, the coach is what you ride in between County games on an Ashes Tour.
DrB- The ACL built an effective version of GoFundMe in about a day, after GFM deplatformed him. Which then collected millions. So it obviously isn’t especially hard to do.
Their main problem was they raised a lot more than was needed and it became difficult to refund the unused funds. But they also asked if we would be happy for them to retain the excess for similar lobbying efforts and I think most donors probably said yes. I did.
There most likely already are such platforms around but I haven’t made a study of such things.
The “him” being Israel Folau.
The problem isn’t setting up a new platform it is making the platform seen by the wider population. I notice that with new products the amount of advertising is huge and sustained for several weeks. That must be very expensive. It reminds me of how small businesses reach a threshold point where to continue growing advertising becomes an imperative.
That’s a rubbish opinion, though it’s the way things worked until 1912, when the players essentially picked their own team and routinely beat England in England and over here.
It’s. The. Banking. System. Vis. A. Vis. The. Payments. Platforms. Which. Are. Protected. / Sheltered. Workshops. And. Politically. Connected!
If you really want your own platform, embrace Cryptocurrencies.
You don’t have to understand how it works, BUT IT DOES.
“I like gold….”
YOU ARE NOT HELPING YOURSELVES!
Milo got paid using tokens IIRC, as does PJ Watson to a degree (?).
BTC has been resilient to regulation anyway, but…
This is what agile means!
Get a new app. Get a new token.
On a jailbroken Android, there is no way to regulate what financial services you use.
Oh but Mt Gox!
OH BUT THE 10% BAIL IN IN EUROPE!
Ricky Ponting:
Almost?
And:
AND:
Whoopi Goldberg revealed herself to be none too bright …
I thought was very obvious prior to this.
And the fact that the lovable “heroic” team faces are on air day and night flogging services and goods to the numpty prols who think winning is all that matters. Swaying public opinion in their favor. These are the same numpty prols who embarrass the nation at the AO.
It’s a disgrace. Langer will be better away from that nest of vipers.
This is why incremental reform was always a more humane policy than a civil war.
Abe Lincoln was a dick.
I survived, surgery was delayed until 4pm. 1 1/2 hrs in theatre. I was back on the Cat at 8.30 wednesday night. I could read ok, but not write. The fentanyl made me really sleepy. I wrote more drivel than usual and even I couldn’t understand it so didn’t comment. Had very little endone. Young lady in recovery that I spoke to before the op lost her baby, about 5 months gone and then I heard the Doc tell her she had to have a hysterectomy as well. Her whole world collapsed. The young guy in my room had a stoma put in. Who knows what was wrong coz he had so many things I couldn’t figure it out. He’d been awake for 2 days with painkillers not working.
Gosh KD, for a million bucks I could also have stopped them using sandpaper.
Mt Gox lost 450 million USD of BTC.
The Cyprus bail in back in 2013 was for 10 bn EUR and depositors got 60% haircuts. Over Europe, there was 100 bn EUR of bail ins in 2019.
I have this exact setup since rewiring my Charger
60 amp inline fuse in the engine bay that feeds all the internal circuits. Will take it with me if I’m ever worried.
Same as the Brumbies years ago with David Nucifora. I have been privy to some conversations when the participants should have kept their collective mouths shut. The same the world over, my boy is better than the incumbant coach. I’m a nobody who happened to know someone and let them know. I parted company with the Brumbies many years ago. They didn’t need my support,,,,,yes they did, they need everyones support.
You’re making perfect sense now, Ranga.
I don’t need fentanyl for that Ranga. Great to hear your surgery went pretty well!
Following the Civil War up to 1 million former slaves starved to death in the South simply because they had no skills to feed themselves away from the plantation
Reconstruction wasnt the problem.
The change in President saw it strangled in the crib, and the rise of the KKK and subsequent disenfranchisement of the negro population.
Andrew Johnson, uberdouche…
The guys who shot Ft Sumter into a pile of rubble might’ve had something to do with it.
Only ever takes one side to start a war.
Usually lefties.
Ahistorical tripe.
Reconstruction was only ended by the Compromise of 1876, it lasted 12 years and the after effects over 100 years.
Basically, The Old South was looted by CarpetBaggers for 14 years, blacks were elected to high office, where they performed abominably as anyone could predict and the Ku Klux Klan was a Masonic organisation founded to curb the excesses of the carpetbaggers by extralegal means.
Same as the Brumbies years ago with David Nucifora.
It’s a big call to sack a coach straight after the team has won the title. The Brumbies haven’t won anything since, have they?
I’m with KD about Langer – if Australia play a team coached by Langer I’ll be barracking for Langer’s team.
This place is so tolerant.
I mean, I know this guy is a troll literally trying to get the place shut down, but FMD.
Who needs Andrew Anglin anyway?
For your info. GoFundMe cancelled the Convoy to Canberra page as well. It was over $200,000 several days ago.
You would be hard pressed to find a more passionate and dedicated Australian cricketer than Justin Langer.
He might be mean and surly at times with some of the entitled overpaid hair gelled “stars”, but his outstanding playing record and his coaching ability speak for themselves.
Cricket Australia bean counters and the has been selectors need a heavyweight Stuart Surridge belted across their collective noggins.
Mind boggling stupidity. I dearly hope JL takes up the alleged offer to coach England.
The Schadenfreude when the Poms take back the Ashes would be delicious.
Gray Ranga,
Pleasing to see you are well on the way to recovery.
So sad to hear about the young lady though.
This has been quite entertaining, since antisemitism is a default setting for the left, yet opposition to racism is also a holy doctrine for the left.
AOC criticizes Whoopi Goldberg suspension for Holocaust remarks (3 Feb)
UK comedian reacts to Whoopi Goldberg: There is a ‘resistance that antisemitism is racism’ (4 Feb)
The Left are having big problems with this dilemma. Wedgied!
Certainly did on a Melbourne tram. Specifically, Route 69 from Kew to the deport in the wilds on Malvern down Glenferrie Road, on a warmish day in early 1974.
Just after school was out, so the tram was crowded with Xavierians and MLC chicks, plus a smattering of assorted others.
Conductor got out to help a lady with a pram at Glenferrie Station, and an enterprising Y12 lad (we’ll call him Errol Lovelock, to avoid, ermm, naming names) decided he could do the connie’s job just as well as anyone else… so he gave the customary “go” signal on the line (for anyone who didn’t travel on Melbourne trams before about 1985, that’s a “ding-ding” in quick succession) and the driver moved off.
Errol continued to conduct the tram very efficiently right unto the depot (well, he jumped off at the stop before), and became a legend in an instant among a certain cohort. Took the school weeks to get a leak, but he was duly suspended/slapped over the wrist. Even the Jacks thought it was a hoot.
I was privileged to be on the tram… though I confess to getting off at my proper stop, about 5 or 6 before the denouement.
The funniest stunt I have seen pulled on a whim.
Am I the only one that always barracks for Australia’s opponent
China in agony that most of the leadership figureheads of the World have ignored the Beijing Winter Olympics.
China starts busy diplomacy season with over 30 foreign dignitaries in Beijing for Olympics [Global Times Warning]
Of the 32 ‘dignitaries’:
• 7 are from UN/Quango’s – Chinese clients to a man;
• 7 are representatives of countries with zero athletes competing – there for a CCP-paid junket;
• 12 have between 1 and 4 participants;
• 5 are from the ‘Stans;
• Zero are from the ‘traditional’ Nordic/Alpine countries – who field most of the competitive athletes;
• Zero are from the Anglophone world;
• The Europeans are no-name heads of state from Poland, Luxembourg, Serbia, Monaco, and Bosnia-Herzegovina;
• The South Americans are from Argentina and Ecuador;
• 8 run countries where dissent = 97.3% chance of dying of lead poisoning;
• The Africans aren’t there at all.
A deeply, truly symbolic gathering.
One for Emperor Xi to glow at.
Well there we have it, the one person in Australia who thinks the KKK ‘didndu nuffin” and were the good guys.
The election of Negroes was democratic, the use of violence to disenfranchise them was abhorrent.
and the Ku Klux Klan was a Masonic organisation founded to curb the excesses of the carpetbaggers by extralegal means.
The civil was ended in 1864, the KKK was formed the next year.
Its goal was to prevent reconstruction and disenfranchise ex-slaves using the Democrat party as its tool.
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/civil-war-era/reconstruction/a/the-first-kkk
Overview
The Ku Klux Klan was a white supremacist terrorist group that emerged during Reconstruction. It took violent steps to undermine the Republican party, hoping to maintain black economic instability and ensure white racial and economic superiority in the postwar South.
Congress countered the KKK with the Force Acts and the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which made Klan violence and political intimidation illegal under federal law.
Republicans lost hold within the South largely due to Klan violence, allowing the South to maintain a ruling racial order that morphed into Jim Crow.
Collectivist shits, no better than commies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0fFKNCKIhE
From Bruce of Newcastle’s link. Richard Walley, and Ernie Dingo were responsible for foisting the farce know as “Welcome to Country’ on the mug whitefella.
Puts life’s irritations into perspective.
Where’s that Picard meme?
No it wasn’t.
The South was under Martial Law between 1865 and 1877 and Elections during that time were anything but Democratic.
Try exercising your Franchise with armed soldiers at the ballot box checking your vote. Democrats had opposed the Civil War which burnt, raped and pillaged the South.
When the troops went home in 1877, guess who the survivors voted for?
Hint:
it wasn’t the Party that sent the troops marchin’ thru Georgia, Cletus.
Dick Ed
Following the Civil War up to 1 million former slaves starved to death in the South simply because they had no skills to feed themselves away from the plantation
Evidence for this number?
There is a range of alternatives to GoFuckMe.
Not sure how deep the market is.
That’s the first I’ve heard of that, and I’ve read most of what’s worth reading about Reconstruction.
BJ: Ed would like you to spend 15 minutes Googling whatever it is, followed by 10 minutes abusing him for being wrong/a fuckwit/etc.
President Donald J. Trump:
“Just saw Mike Pence’s statement on the fact that he had no right to do anything with respect to the Electoral Vote Count, other than being an automatic conveyor belt for the Old Crow Mitch McConnell to get Biden elected President as quickly as possible. Well, the Vice President’s position is not an automatic conveyor if obvious signs of voter fraud or irregularities exist. That’s why the Democrats and RINOs are working feverishly together to change the very law that Mike Pence and his unwitting advisors used on January 6 to say he had no choice. The reason they want it changed is because they now say they don’t want the Vice President to have the right to ensure an honest vote. In other words, I was right and everyone knows it. If there is fraud or large scale irregularities, it would have been appropriate to send those votes back to the legislatures to figure it out. The Dems and RINOs want to take that right away. A great opportunity lost, but not forever, in the meantime our Country is going to hell!”
Groogs. Those Brittany tapes aren’t going to watch themselves.
The South was under Martial Law between 1865 and 1877 and Elections during that time were anything but Democratic.
In the smooth brained world of Eddles the pro KKK man an open franchise with no paramilitary terror group excluding an entire segment of the population is “undemocratic”.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/grant-kkk/
In the time leading up to the 1868 presidential election, the Klan’s activities picked up in speed and brutality. The election, which pitted Republican Ulysses S. Grant against Democrat Horatio Seymour, was crucial. Republicans would continue programs that prevented Southern whites from gaining political control in their states. Klan members knew that given the chance, the blacks in their communities would vote Republican.
Across the South, the Klan and other terrorist groups used brutal violence to intimidate Republican voters. In Arkansas, over 2,000 murders were committed in connection with the election. In Georgia, the number of threats and beatings was even higher. And in Louisiana, 1000 blacks were killed as the election neared. In those three states, Democrats won decisive victories at the polls.
I’ve updated Cathollaxy #1.
Okay.
We’ve got a Plantation System going where single plantations employ hundreds of African Slaves over generations, the first arriving in 1619, the last in 1809.
There’s a division of labor, so so very few know how to feed themselves.
One day, the Union Army rides in, murders the plantation owner and his family, burns the buildings, machinery, crops, food, kills the farm animals and tells the slaves to vamoose.
Situation repeated at thousands of plantations across the Old South.
What happened to the 2 million now ex slaves left to living off the land in a land destroyed by Total War?
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/grant-kkk/
Lol, PBS
You oughta apologise to the readership for linking to PBS, SpongeBob.
Mark from Melbourne: I’d left two years earlier, but heard about the tram hijacking from mates whose little brothers were still at Xavier. Laughed my head off — almost as funny as when Valmorbida, whose family held the TicTaks licence for Australia — got all dragged up in a Sacre Coeur uniform and sat in on a class conducted by an elderly and very vague nun.
If I remember correctly, it ended with him going nutso and leaping out a window, leaving the poor sister to ask just who that ‘girl’ was.
Val’s feet wouldn’t touch the ground on the way out the door in our current and humourless age.
My daughter recently inquired why there are not tests to ascertain whether you have anti-bodies to Covid. She was incredulous when I told her there were, but the government forbids the advertisement or sale of them. GPs can obtain them, but I suspect this is discouraged.
See: TGA “Covid-19 serology – part -of-care- tests”
Friend of a friend is looking for work.
Lately they’ve had lots of work in the field of Jabbing of people.
NOW, ‘that all the jabbing work is drying up’, …
So with so many still not Jabbed once, let alone all the 2nd, 3rd, 4th et al they keep threatening us with, what’s the go?
ED, SMOOTHEST OF HIS TRIBE is now feculating that the people who were forced to be farm laborers didnt know how to grow food.
He also Feculates the North murdered plantation owners outright.
Dover can we please have a new troll, this one is broken.
Dogs have more protection from unnecessary vaccinations than humans.
Then again, if you aborted puppies you don’t want you’d be done for cruelty to.
Romans 1:25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is forever worthy of praise! Amen.
Zulu – I’ve been amused that lefties in N America latest couple years have taken to acknowledging country before events. Clearly the practice has been imported from our bunch. Richard and Ernie have a great opportunity to devise expensive ceremonies for these people. Peace pipes! Worth lots, especially given the twenty big ones paid for the aboriginal flag design recently.
Sort of doesn’t matter. The NSW Health exemption form makes no consideration of this.
Your doctor might in their own personal judgment; other than that, there is no reason under the health orders to get an exemption because you have antibodies/natural/acquired immunity.
Ed resorts to “my link to my smooth brain is more reliable than your link to an outside source”..
Its super ineffective.
https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/president-grant-takes-on-the-ku-klux-klan.htm
I don’t think I shall ever forget that young lady.
No, Ranga. And because you’ve told us, some of us won’t either.
GreyRanga
Too late now, but I wonder if they could save some eggs for a possible surrogate later on??
Quotes need to be fixed, “Fellthebern”?
Someone else? Our guy is feelthebern
Pedro:
I would actually like the coaching position to be filled by Allan Border. Zero, and I mean zero shit would be taken. A man for the times, he carried his nuts around in a wheelbarrow in an age of reconstruction, handing over both the reins and a team with work ethic and ability before retiring as one of the Golden Ages began.
If one of the players (particularly if it was a bowler) wanted to go off the ground for whatever reason, Border would ask if he wanted a saucer of milk to get right.
Walked the walk. His public, on-ground spray directly at Craig McDermott in England sent a message and set the tone:
‘Hey. Hey. Come here.’
‘You do that again, you’ll be on the next fuckin’ plane home. Don’t test me.’
Doesn’t matter who the coach is, media wants “issues”.
The words “Good riddance” suggest themselves.
I understand it’s a job, but isn’t playing sport, even under pressure, meant to be fun?
Even when you’re losing – “well, I enjoy the challenge of this fine opponent…”?
Re: Covid Antibody tests.
They do have their uses.
There’s a school of thought that the immune depression / ADE / original antigenic sin caused by the vaccines may be lessened if you’ve already had the bug when getting vaxxed.
So if you were being forced into taking the vaxx, knowing that you already had the bug would put your mind at rest regarding the immune suppression side of things. You might even choose to wait, if circumstances allow, assuming Omicron might come your way
You still have to worry about long term liver cancer, prion neurodegenerative disorders and autoimmune diseases, but it is one thing less.
If you’re paid $300K+ a year (today, not then), results are required.
Fun is a by-product. Park cricketers can have fun with little consequence. These blokes are professional cricketers representing their country: fucking around and doing your own thing (as McDermott was doing) warranted and got the appropriate response from the skipper.
Oh, for fuck’s sake. The Hun:
Six months, they offered him. They may as well have shot his dog in front of him.
Cricket Australia – the fuckup GOAT.
Setting up any internet service that accepts money for non leftwing politics is cripplingly hard if you want to not be immediately deplatformed by visa / mastercard / paypal / bank, or worse end up embroiled in ginned money laundering, terrorism finance investigations whenever something like this happens.
Six months, they offered him.
That’s pure smokescreen.
They obviously wanted him not to continue, but wanted to be able to pretend it wasn’t their decision that he didn’t.
So now their spin is “we offered JL an extension but he decided not to take it” rather than having to admit the truth “we set out to shaft JL”.
Pennies/testicles starting to drop in respect of blokes putting on lippie and competing against the uteruses.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/02/usa-swimming-introducing-new-stricter-policies-on-elite-transgender-athletes/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=b0c2d2ff-0ea2-4d39-b1f4-ed1451a9c4ee
Dr Faustussays:
February 5, 2022 at 2:26 pm
Evidence for this number?
BJ: Ed would like you to spend 15 minutes Googling whatever it is, followed by 10 minutes abusing him for being wrong/a fuckwit/etc.
I don’t need to do that to know that Dick Ed is almost certainly talking through the wrong end of his anatomy.
Dick Ed
What happened to the 2 million now ex slaves left to living off the land in a land destroyed by Total War?
So your number of a million is a wild arsed guess? thought so.
The Parliamentary Triangle seems to attract more loons than anywhere else in Oz.
Today’s visual feast: two sports cars – a MacLaren, and a convertible Ferrari – in front of the National Library, with a bride and groom in the Ferrari. Around them were three or four photographers, taking snaps of the happy couple.
Saw that a lot in Japan – didn’t know it had spread here.
Blast from the past as civilians down a muslim terrorist in Sydney CBD in 2019. The dog has stabbed some people killing one woman:
https://twitter.com/Andrew_Denney/status/1161134805993439233
The dog’s name was mert ney. After his thumping and arrest by the citizens the usual mental issue bullshit was wheeled out despite the fact he was yelling allen’s snackbar during his rampage and at his sentencing was given 44 years.
“Masking schoolchildren when the threat has largely passed is disproportionate.”
I challenge anyone to present peer reviewed and published research results that indicate masking children has any statistically significant benefit in reducing illness and death.
Simply, there is none because it doesn’t help – at all (or, at least, the effect is so small as to overlap zero statistically).
Given the demonstrated negative effects are significantly NOT zero (hypercapnia, socialisation impairment to name but two), and given that those under 12 are are at more risk of death from seasonal ‘flu, masking children to “protect” them from COVID is, quite simply, child abuse.
A bunch of millenial brats, led by our backstabbing Test captain, now run the leaderless Cricket Australia. Paywallian:
Ricky Ponting has labelled the treatment of Justin Langer by Cricket Australia “almost embarrassing” after the coach rejected an insulting contract extension offer, opting instead to resign and walk away.
The former captain said the complaints of “a few” people in the team and some of the staff had forced the situation.
“It is a really sad day as far as Australian cricket is concerned and if you look back it has been a really poor six months on the whole in the way that Cricket Australia has handled some of the better people in the Australian cricket — Justin Langer and Tim Paine — and I think it’s been almost embarrassing the way they have handled those two cases,” Ponting said.
The Australian revealed on Saturday that Langer would walk away following the resolution at Friday’s board meeting.
Cricket Australia is yet to offer a statement but Ponting was on ABC radio in Melbourne soon after the news broke.
“He mustn’t have had the full backing of the board,” the former team mate of Langer said. “Me knowing Justin the way that I do, he was very keen to continue in the role, as he should have been after what’s been the best coaching period of his international career having just won the T20 World Cup and then the 4-0 result in the Ashes.
“It seems like a very strange time for a coach to be departing.
“Reading the tea leaves it sounds like a few — and as he says to me a small group in the playing group and a couple of other staff around the team — haven’t entirely loved the way he has gone about it.
“That’s been enough to force a man who has put his life and heart and soul into Australian cricket and done a sensational job at turning around the culture and the way the Australian team has been looked at in the last few years to push him out of the job.”
Ponting was asked if Cummins was part of the “small group of players” and if he was disappointed by that.
“I sort of am because Justin is a great mate of mine and I know how passionate he is about the Australian coaching job and that he wanted to continue on and be the best coach and have the best cricket team in the world,” he said.
“I think Pat also has been put in a difficult situation as captain, if it’s not just him and it is other players coming to him and letting him know that maybe they think Justin is not the right man then I think that puts Pat in a difficult position as well,” he said.
Ponting said Cummins’ lack of support in public for an extension may have been because he knew “this day was coming”.
“If he had got on the front foot and endorsed Justin they would have been in a position to move him on,” he said. “I am close to Justin, we are like brothers but I have got too heavily involved in this, as much as giving him a pat on the back and put an arm around him here and there, there was no way I could change the way this was heading.
“What’s happened today I’ve felt was coming for quite a while, even looking back before the T20 World Cup there was a lot of speculation there.”
The truth is that Langer had lost the support of senior players who maintain their affection for the passionate leader
Ponting said during his time as a player the team or captain never tried to influence board decisions around coaching or appointments.
He said there had been a power shift and it is partly created by most of the players being paid more than the head coach.
A dejected Langer opted to quit Australian cricket having failed to be given the respect or support he deserved as he sought an extension to his coaching contract.
Langer was offered an extension yesterday but turned it down.
The offer was understood to be the barest of minimums and an insult to the coach who resolved to walk away if that was all the administration thought of his efforts.
The 51-year-old who answered the team’s call in its hour of need following the sandpaper scandal had just finished a period in which the teams had won the T20 World Cup for the first time and the Ashes 4-0.
Langer’s management confirmed his exit.
“DSEG confirms that our client Justin Langer has this morning tendered his resignation as coach of the Australian mens cricket team,” it said in a statement.
“The resignation follows a meeting with Cricket Australia last evening. The resignation is effective immediately.”
The truth is that Langer had lost the support of senior players who maintain their affection for the passionate leader but had been worn down by his obsession with detail and discipline in the early years _ they found his mood swings similarly wearing.
The hardest part of the situation to reconcile is that Langer had responded to complaints from the leadership group and taken a back seat in recent series.
aving finally been given a team of support coaches of his choice, he ceded control to them, but senior players then argued that the job could be done by Andrew McDonald his deputy.
Both Pat Cummins and Aaron Finch were consulted by chief executive Nick Hockley and manager of teams Ben Oliver.
They met with Langer on Friday and leaked details of the meeting included them discussing the length of contract should Langer continue when his deal runs out mid year.
A lack of leadership from above and the damning silence of the team led Langer to decide he will walk away on the eve of a board meeting where his future was to be decided.
Langer, a gritty Western Australian batter, played 105 Tests and 360 first class matches in an era when Australian cricket was at its strongest. Perhaps not as talented as those around him, he achieved greatness through sheer will power and hard work.
Cohenite, you may recall Ragu was in the area at the time with his young family. Sussex Street, from memory. He saw part of the pursuit but wasn’t in at the end.
Capture by milk crate and chair. Inventive.
Covid bedwetters have run out of beds to wet
Mark Latham
In Australia we haven’t got a Punxsutawney Phil but nevertheless, our long tortuous experience with Covid has hit Groundhog Day. We are back to April 2020 when, in the early days of Covid, it was clear that the strongest predictor of death from the virus was old age and pre-existing health conditions. Squillions of statements from politicians and epidemiologists have done nothing to change this.
Lockdowns were counter-productive. They failed to kill off the virus, while closing down businesses and schools, causing distress and other medical issues for young people in particular. Melbourne became the most locked-down city in the world while Sydney’s three-week lockdown lasted 107 days. Our governments promised freedom for all through mass vaccination, saying this was the pathway to ‘living with Covid’. But now, at 95 per cent vaccination rates, there are tens of thousands of daily cases.
Last year Gladys Berejiklian declared a ‘national emergency’ at just 150 cases – part of the panic of the political class. Between 10 and 30 January this year, of the 625 people who died with Covid in NSW, 71.2 per cent were fully vaccinated. This is well below public expectations about the life-saving potential of vaccines. By contrast, among the 625 deaths, 85 per cent were aged 70 and over. Only 14 (or 2.2 percent) were younger than 50.
Mass vaccination hasn’t stopped the spread of Covid, nor prevented a higher death rate in 2022 than 2020 or 2021. Its positive role has been in holding down hospital and ICU numbers. But it hasn’t been the miracle weapon for ‘returning to normal’, as state and federal leaders promised. Vaccine mandates have backfired badly, causing staff shortages in hospitals, schools and the private sector. Supply chain problems have inevitably followed. So here we are, waking up each morning in the same hotel room to Sonny and Cher’s I Got You, Babe. Nothing has changed in 22 months. From the beginning, our Covid response should have been to isolate the old and sick until they were vaccinated, while the rest of society got on with life, work and education.
Where does this leave the Covid bedwetters, the Media Scare Machine (MSM) that has worked overtime in hyping up fear and exaggeration? In short, they have run out of beds to wet.The failure of lockdowns and mandates and the under-performance of mass vaccination have left them with nowhere to turn. This is true of the authoritarian Left and Right, both of whom have argued for elimination strategies and cheered on government coercion. There was a time in the Sixties and Seventies when left-wing politics was associated with the struggle for individual freedom, seeking to liberate the disadvantaged from the anvil of state oppression. But this tradition has long passed. Today we associate the Left with the ethos they formerly opposed: government power to control people’s lives.
A revealing aspect of the Covid period has been flushing out those on the Right who also favour state control over civil society. Here I’m thinking of public intellectuals like Claire Lehmann and Gray Connolly, radio broadcasters Ray Hadley and Mark Levy and the Australian columnist Katrina Grace Kelly (aka Grace Collier). They have supported lockdowns and vaccine mandates as much as anyone from the ABC, The Project or Dan Andrews’ politburo.
In October, Kelly-Collier declared ‘the future belongs to the vaccinated and also to the most highly vaccinated places’. Her nirvana is yet to arrive, as she is now complaining about ‘Covid chaos’ and the way in which ‘governments have let the virus wash over us’. Poor Grace can’t win. The states and territories implemented her preferred policies and yet she’s still whinging. In effect, about herself.
It’s strange to believe that society’s problems can only be solved through direct government control of citizens; to downgrade the potential of personal responsibility, free choice and the sensible management of one’s own life. In our highly educated and affluent society I had assumed that nanny-statism ran against the grain of growing personal self-reliance, that the current period of Left ascendancy was an aberration. But the pandemic has shown otherwise. If voices from the Right have drunk the Kool-Aid of authoritarianism, what hope is there for winning other political and cultural struggles against the Left? It’s a depressing prospect, a distinctly Australian challenge, given our unique history of state intervention going back to convict and colonial times. Ultimately, fear is the natural ally of coercive government: convincing people their concerns can only be overcome by cradling in the arms of the nanny state and that government can protect them better than they can protect themselves.
Fear has been a staple of post-war Australian politics, going back to the red/yellow communist peril of the Fifties and Sixties. More recently, scare campaigns (from both sides of politics) have been decisive vote shifters in the 1993, 1998, 2001, 2004, 2007, 2013, 2016 and 2019 federal election campaigns. Covid has been no different. Look at the ongoing popularity of Mark McGowan and Dan Andrews. Voters shaking in their boots have latched onto the security blanket of mask mandates, forced vaccination and being locked in their homes – even though there’s little evidence of these policies succeeding.
When people are fearful, support for the irrationality of state border closures and sacking of essential workers becomes possible. With large slabs of society still petrified, Australia’s recovery from Covid will be slow and uneven. Too many people have swallowed the propaganda and are afraid to leave their homes, to work, spend and travel. The fear-mongering Left and Right have much to answer for what they have done to our country.
The Spectator
cohenitesays:
February 5, 2022 at 3:58 pm
I am reliably informed the guy holding the crate down was an ex 5/7 RAR soldier. Apparently an interesting bloke from what I was told, also told no one that knew him was surprised he got involved.
Reading GoFundMe’s terms of service, one is struck by the observation that GoFundMe does not actually provide anything under that contract.
Now my very basic contract law 101 training tells me that such a contract is void for want of consideration.
This may make them vulnerable to a lawsuit on this point. Are they therefore a constructive trustee for the funds raised? In which case, they have fiduciary obligations. And those fiduciary obligations would not be settled by them simply spending the funds however they please, which is what they seem intent on doing.
“Law students became outraged over these comments…”
FMD.
You don’t go to college to have your beliefs enforced, you go there to have your beliefs challenged and to learn how to make cogent arguments about them – especially law students.
If getting “outraged” or breaking down and crying about this is your response, then harden up or find another career.
Morons.
The list of former players and administrators bagging Cricket Australia and the new captain is getting longer.
Langer’s longtime opening batting partner Matthew Haydon just released a scathing criticism, even the grey man, John Buchanan has has been pretty outspoken over this insulting six month extension.
Ricky Ponting and Mitchell Johnson have joined the chorus.
Good on Langer for telling those spoiled brats and shiny suited bean counters to shove their job where the sun doesn’t shine.
Arguably reconstruction under Lincoln would have been hard fought but probably significantly more successful than the undermined effort implemented by the excreable President Johnson.
Of course any chance of success was ended by …a bloody actor.
Did the crate and chair blokes get bravery awards?
Cummins is the david pocock of cricket: a woke fucktard who can coincidentally bowl.
sfw says: February 5, 2022 at 7:11 am
She’s a land of contrasts.
Overnight low here (2 nites ago) was 31 degrees.
Cricket was better when we were belting the Poms. A few loses away from home should restore some balance to an assessment of this Australian team.
Disgusting
I will never visit Canada.
I’m just one guy, but there are probably millions around the world who feel the same way. I always planned to go there but fuck them.
Diogenes says: February 5, 2022 at 8:29 am
Science.
“We have to follow the health/science advisers”
#438 in a series of rubbery scientific absolutes we’ve put tens, nay hundreds, of thousands out of work over.
Liberty quote from Mark Latham:
There was a time in the Sixties and Seventies when left-wing politics was associated with the struggle for individual freedom, seeking to liberate the disadvantaged from the anvil of state oppression. But this tradition has long passed. Today we associate the Left with the ethos they formerly opposed: government power to control people’s lives.
Canada is where the freedom truckies are from.
She’s a land of contrasts.
Sure is. The other day up this way was 33 deg and 80% humidity for most of the day. Was the worst day we had experienced since we got back. Only dropping to the high 20’s at night but humidity got worse. Then a night of thunderstorms, 4″ of rain and yesterday was overcast.
Contrast that to the Hunter, our last destination. 15-25 deg the norm with a fraction of the humidity. Dorothea Mackellar was spot on about this land.
Yes Salvo, but the cops there ratfucked them.
HAHAHAHA!
What a fucking joke.
Canada, and the Highlands of Scotland are two places I reckon I could live…
I saw that Bear.
O’Keefe is a very ordinary character, no doubt, but this struck me as a cynical plant by Seven trying to get out in front of any PR or legal backlash for not providing a safe workplace and meeting their “duty of care” obligations to him.
He will run out of money, and relatively soon.
He is a heavy user of the three most expensive indulgences you can have in Sydney:-
.1 Illicit drugs;
.2 Defence barristers;
.3 The Sydney Clinic.
Why would anyone on the conservative side use Gofundme?
Time and time again they’ve nailed their colours to the mast.
A place full of wide browns?
Of droughts and flooding drains.
calli!
Bear:
The assessment is that our batting is fucked. Three individual centuries, of which two were compiled by the same bloke. The lineup:
Number 1: Fuckwit midget ranga cheating houso opener who’s closing in on retirement anyway;
2: Patchy, given heaps of chances and heavily sponsored by the now ex coach. Likely to be given the flick now;
3. Nuffy, first innings specialist but can’t make runs when it matters in the second dig;
4. Fading ex-captain cheat-enabler and precious sook whose best years are well behind him;
5. The only batsman who showed poise throughout the Ashes, and who was replaced by a 37 year old when he got coof;
6. Allrounder, just into his twenties and still learning the game at this level.
We have the unbelievable fortune of having six world class quicks fighting for three positions, and the GOAT. They are the only things that have saved us from ranking alongside Zimbabwe and/or Ireland as Test nations.
Latho almost nails it. He still sees the Libs as the ‘right’. Other than that he is spot on.
Of spouts and flooding drains.
Went to the Chadstone shopping center today, during what’s usually a pain in the arse time to go. Very quiet, and almost no one at the big dollar end. Only saw one person being hassled by a security guard to check in as they went into Gucci or something similar, everything else that end was empty.
Even going through the food courts was easy, no dodging people as they line up or try to get past.
There were people around, but not the cheek to jowl I’d expect for the time I went. If this is the fashion capital rip roaring in the vaccinated economy we are quite screwed.
How about “louts”.
We have a Prime one at the Lodge.
How are Perth businesses going enforcing the vaccine mandate? My morning coffee experience of the last week is as follows:
1 x cafe asked to see the VP of both me and my darling wife.
2 x cafe asked to see the VP of the person buying at the counter only.
5 x cafe / bar/ hotel didn’t ask to see the VP.
Better than I expected.