I’ll take Caleb over petal and her tone adoration.
Open Thread – Tuesday 26 April 2022
- Open Thread – Thurs 14 Nov 2024
- Open Thread – Remembrance Day 2024
- The Sweetest Victory
- Open Thread – Weekend 9 November 2024
- Open Thread – Thurs 7 Nov 2024
When push comes to shove, the Islamists will eliminate the communists.
This:
I fabricated and hand beat new steel floor panels: This and
Is that the line being pushed by the DNC/MSM talking points? Very inventive, but hardly credible.
First.
Foist!
Podium perchance ?
Damn you Cassie, don’t you have a job to go to?
Timothy Neilsonsays:
April 26, 2022 at 10:57 am
lotocotisays:
April 26, 2022 at 10:26 am
Wait.
What?
“Models” and “simulations”. We actually have data from disparate jurisdictions all round the world for about a year and a half as to what, if any, effects vaccination has had on transmission. How do the models and simulations match up against the reality? Strangely the article doesn’t say.
Facts? Data? Don’t waste my time with facts and data when I can get a lucrative grant to do some modeling that will produce a result conforming to my prejudices!
Just missed the podium!
And Moses said, “Go forth”. So I did and came 4th…………………
Whoops, missed it while typing and came 5th……………………..
Caravaggio may have been an arsehole but damn, he was a good painter!
Lavrov has warned of the real possibility of nuclear war on Russian state television.
About the Thomas banner: I once had it read to me (and cannot remember from where) that Thomas, upon investigating the wound, did not say ‘That’s interesting.’
Saw some photos of Andrews at the shrine yesterday. Didn’t go anywhere without a wall of cops between him and everyone else, and clearly had a protective vest under his jacket.
I’m rather insulted he showed after his restrictions on ANZAC day last year, but the footy was important so lets go easy on it. Just don’t have the words to describe what a vile individual he is.
How long do you think he will have to keep those precautions up for. Otherwise there is post politics emigration.
Is Elon Musk Coming to the Rescue?
Will his belief in free speech release the social media giant from its slavery to woke ideology? Will he be able to change Twitter’s censorious ways?
I was thinking of this earlier this morning. Caravaggio is like Shane Warne, a total genius at leg spin but very human in the arts of humanity. Often happens with guys, moreso than the ladies. I don’t know why that is. I don’t understand, either, why ladies don’t ever seem to produce great art like the old masters. I see no reason why that should be so; it’s just for some reason I don’t comprehend there isn’t any.
clearly had a protective vest under his jacket
I would have thought that head shots would have been his main concern given the target area?
you can generalise that almost every field. woman have a focused role in evolution, the rest is window dressing. no amount of equity is going to change that any time soon.
Finally an outfit that hides The Bat Eared Mongs most hideous feature:
https://www.sbs.com.au/language/english/premier-andrews-visits-gurdwara-bangla-sahib
Have you ever heard of spaced armour, rickw? 😉
Not even a thermobaric warhead behind a tungsten penetrator is going to go any damage in there, such is the empty space…
(1st Shitpost of the new OT. You are all welcome.)
Not even a thermobaric warhead behind a tungsten penetrator is going to do any damage in there.
Also, first typo of the New Fred.
We are doing well today… 🙂
The motorbike memories are too good to be left on the old thread…
Back in the 1950s, motor bike riders were known as temporary Australians
And in the 70′ and 80’s too.
Used to ride from Hobart to Launceston in a pack for the races up north. Average cruise speed was about 140 kph. Ducati 900s; Kawasaki 900 and 1000s, the occasional H2; Suzuki GTS; Honda CBX 6-cylinder etc etc.
In those days the coppers used to run a speed trap in the small towns which had a 70 or 80 limit. Used to get a wave as we went through.
Not any more.
Thomas himself is interesting. After the finger-in-hole thingie he went far afield. The historical evidence is pretty strong that he caught a boat to Augustus’s trading post on the western coast of India. Then attempted to convert the locals in southern India. Did not work. But they accreted his teaching and apparently he was included in the iconograpy of the local temples in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
In our church we have links with a number of churches in Tamil Nadu. Thomas would be very happy with those people I think.
BoN
You do know there are lady ‘old masters’?
Not many granted but still.
Thomas had some success converting Indians to Christianity in Kerala and Goa.
Flicked on the Teev and lo! another travelogue about China. Looking at travelogues on FTV lately, you’d be forgiven for thinking there was no other o/s destination worth a look. Completely objective and above board.
Those cheap sluts in travel TV will do and say anything for a free flight and accommodation, booze, and prawns on a stick. Probably girls/boyz/whateverz thrown in.
One of the weirdest examples was an FTV show promoting tourism in WA, while the State was completely closed to tourists. It went on for months. Presumably, the vendors of the program included a clause to protect them against unexpected dictatorship. Well done.
So, week after week, this show went to air urging punters to come to WA, which was impossible.
Fortunately, the political class is unembarrassable.
I’m not much of an art buff, but having seen a few Carvaggios at the NGA I get what the fuss is about.
Wow.
Indescribable, you know it when you see it.
Not because of any existential risk from NATO: more because the Poot has fucked up at an historic scale – and l’état, c’est moi.
No winners. The sadly inevitable result of 30 years of piss poor diplomacy – still going strong today:
Helpful.
26th!
That is like…13th. TWICE!
I see Cassie is back with a bang.
Top podium!
Rosie – Do you have any links? I’m interested in such things since my old mum is a professional artist, and some of her stuff is breathtaking. But I have seen little of ladies’ artwork in the space of Rembrandt or Michelangelo. I’m not an art appreciation person myself but I have works from my mum, sister and step-granny in my house. Fine stuff. I don’t recommend it as a profession though since they’ve all been poor as churchmice.
Indonesia banning palm oil exports has pushed the canola price even higher.
It’s been revised a few times but the latest estimate of Australian gross ag production for 21/22 is $81 billion.
Seeding progressing steadily here. Longer canola all in with some already out. Shorter season variety about 1/4 done.
Long season wheat (Lancer) will be 2/3 in by the time rain stops us tonight.
The urea spreading in front of the sowing rigs was held up for 36hrs thanks to an electrical problem with the spreader, the CAN control unit failed. Replaced and reprogrammed this morning, luckily had enough spread to not cause hold ups or plan changing.
Could do with a kip ?
Ffs.
^ “Could do with a kip :)”
And lo! the Lord did say: “Come forth and collect thy brains”.
And lo! I did come fifth and got sweet FA!
Quite.
Many people on the Prague side of post-1991 Europe consistently wanted to draw the wrong lessons from observing the Russian armed forces in action.
They chose to ignore 2 consecutive debacles in Chechnya and the ongoing messes in Syria, in favour of them rolling over the comparatively tiny and defenceless Georgia in 2008.
The old Red Army boogeyman was really only a boogeyman because of its Czech, Polish and East German constituents,* whose breakout attempts might broaden the Russians’ sole avenue of approach through the Fulda Gap. And it was more or less assumed that the USSR would resort to chemical and tactical nuclear attacks to un-stymie any particularly snarled-up advances.
* Whom the Russians didn’t really trust with something as important as breaking NATO in a ground war, anyway.
Musk doesn’t need to be religious. If he just allows people to speak then the faithful can make their own case.
Bruce-
I don’t understand, either, why ladies don’t ever seem to produce great art like the old masters. I see no reason why that should be so; it’s just for some reason I don’t comprehend there isn’t any.
Quick explanation- the European masters came from long apprenticeships, wherein boys would start very young and spend decades learning the physical and material craft, in the servitude of a studio master who himself had spent years training and learning and building on the knowledge of the enlightenment, and gathering material goods and consumables. Art production is a physical trade, as well as a mental discipline.
Needing more explanation- boys were always apprenticed into the physical trades, smithing, strapping, carpentry, masonry- sculpture, painting. Not only did these activities need the body to be ready to shoulder the load (menstruation or pregnancy could not be allowed to disrupt the task- indeed if any family were mad enough to send a daughter to live and work with in an all-male trade floor) but they suited the male mind of pattern detection, individual problem solving, and ambition- and the title of “Master” was won only by the self-possessed.
The female apprenticeships- seamstressing, millweaving, kitchen, nunnery- suited the female disposition of pattern making, communal problem solving, peacemaking. All these could be conceivably be done while pregnant or nursing.
More queeries- what about the trades which might cross over the boundaries of male-physical-ego v female-interpersonal-id? ie, musical composition?
-what about non-European cultures? I seem to recall Japanese printmakers and painters were famously some female…
-what of the upper-crust european women who were only considered well brought up if they had a good handle on drawing and draftsmanship? Were these activities only seen as personal passtimes- whereas visual Art production was overwhelmingly industrial production for a commissioning market.
…
Anyway, I’m waffling a bit. I quit my art apprenticeship long ago, but I wish all of these questions (not to mention, valuable artworks) had not been buried under race-gender-n-what-are-you-bonking relativism at the time… which leads on to my final question-
If the West had allowed women into the tradition of figurative visual art before the tradition was sundered at the altar of The Artist as Everything and The Art as Negligible- with the sacrificial knife being wielded by the Big State art buyer-
… what art may have been produced?
…and, could the madness of Race-Gender-Sexuality art have been somewhat mitigated?
Fine punning,Johanna 1.12
here’s a list of eight BoN
Wally – My old mum showed me some of her stuff from her teen years. Extremely good. Yet never did she crack the big time. She has a lot of works on the internet but I can’t link them without doxxing myself, unfortunately. She described to me her latest project a few weeks ago, sounded very good – a book full of art (she does those and they sell pretty well.) It’s a field where there’s a million penniless trojans for every very rich successful artist. My mum has never gotten any of the Arzzzz Council largess because she’s a knuckle dragging rightie, even though she’s pretty well known.
Bodyguards must be 100% successful 100% of the time.
An assassin may fail 9 times out of 10, but only needs to succeed once.
Rosie – Thanks, that’s a fine article! Ms Sirani approaches a Caravaggianist style, but not so out there as he was. Ok, he was pretty out there in all directions. I haven’t seen her work before your link. Sad she laid her brush down so young.
I like Ms Anguissola’s as well. Her self portrait is very good indeed. (From wiki.)
They’re the ones who appeal to me. I thought Lavinia Fontana’s painting was funny since the lady in the painting, her six children, and the dog, all have the same expression.
Caravaggio’s Bacchus has always struck me as a little disturbing.
The head does not merely look boyish, nor even epicene. Looks like a sheila. Yet the body is male. Perhaps not the physique of Apollo, but at least Adonis.
The facial expression and the offering of the wine glass is great. Not just because it makes you feel that you are being directly addressed, but that there is a hint of risk – a risk that is always present in a glass and the ones that become easier to say ‘yes’ to after that.
Because the Chinese show such exemplary concern for the environment:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-26/illegal-land-clearing-yakka-munga-station-letter-of-warning/101013782
After all, they have given the Greenleftians their solemn assurance about their 2050 emissions target, haven’t they?
Oh, and here is the painting.
Sorry it is so small. Could not find a larger one that was not merely a detail.
Anguissola lived to be 93, not a bad effort in those days.
I see there is a Fontana at the NGV, really must get in there one day soon.
If the Russians interpret this as an existential threat the stakes have been raised considerably.
Victoria has done very well out of the Felton bequest
U.S. wants Russian military ‘weakened’ from Ukraine invasion, Austin says
If the Russians interpret this as an existential threat the stakes have been raised considerably.
The US wanted this war
If I hear another response from a Labor spokesman /spokeswoman that does not commence with “let me be quite clear”, I will choke on my popcorn. These orations are then usually followed by a series of obfuscations, generously littered with the words clearly, obviously and plainly. On no occasion is the question to hand actually to be answered. Spare me days (daze). Is the budget so low that they only have the one speech writer or is the formula ingrained within their genes. 🙁
Richard Marles seems to have refined the technique and often attempts to deflect the question by calling into doubt the integrity of the questioner by taking (pseudo) offence at the temerity of the poor hack from the press for even asking the question. He then proceeds to not answer the question as per the handbook. Grrrr.
Teaching Normies how to speak Politician is hard…
Strictly speaking, so did Russia…
Co-founding HTML coder Jack Dorsey became a billionaire by inventing a clever digital idea, Twitter.
But Dorsey allowed Twitter to become an echo chamber where everything that didn’t toe the leftist tribal line was banned as “hate speech” and made it unusable for everyone not inside the tribe. All that ended today when Elon Musk bought the company.
Changing the company culture necessarily means parting company with most of the staff — fascists who are emotionally unable to handle the concept of free speech.
That starts tomorrow. Meantime, non-leftists are celebrating the return of a usable digital town square to which everyone has access. Tucker Carlson Tonight.
Some of those art bequests are quite something. I had dinner at a mates place at school and we dropped his father’s friend home to a place in Crawley. It was filled with dozens of French Impressionists. I think they all went across to the AGWA.
She does good self portraits too. From your link:
Self-Portrait in the Studio, 1579
Self-Portrait at the Virginal with a Servant, 1577
I like those, they have more power than the others on the page. I don’t know why I think that, but that is the impression I get. Take it for what you will.
“All that ended today when Elon Musk bought the company [Twitter].”
[Like Tom’s post, re-posted from ol’ fred]
Well it’s a start…
According to Tim Pool, if you use “The Governator”‘s surname, EweTube automation will ban you for being racist…
This is what opposing empires have wanted since the Assyrians got onto their horsies.
I don’t blame the US for this. I do think, though, that Vlad has chosen…poorly.
That may be because time has caught up with him.
The guy with the scythe don’t care about plans and empires.
“Changing the company culture necessarily means parting company with most of the staff — fascists who are emotionally unable to handle the concept of free speech.”
A very accurate description. I suspect that any changes within the organisation will involve a massive clean out of staff. In the meantime I’ll only believe there’s change when President Trump is asked to return ..oh and…..
Milo Yiannopoulos
Alex Jones
Laura Loomer
Meghan Murphy
Graham Linehan
Mike Lindell
James O’Keefe
Michael Flynn
Roger Stone
Steve Bannon
to name just a few. Irrespective of whether you like or dislike any of the above, their banning from Twitter was a disgraceful affront to free speech and democracy.
Wonder if a few of these “algorithms” will see the light of day? Would certainly help things.
They really are bear.
I find the art world quite fascinating.
The Felton bequest acquired quite a bit when the Bolsheviks were selling off Russia’s patrimony, another reason to visit.
When I was in Carcassone the local gallery was displaying five or six works with the notation that more or less said recovered from the nazis, former owners unknown.
Thousands such cases.
Looks like heaps of people are comparing the video of Dan’s phalanx of cops yesterday with David Limbrick roaming around the protests last year.
I’m not going to be sad if Dan’s legacy is being the most hated man in Victoria’s history.
Greetings from Coober Pedy! The approach to the town reminds me of the prairie dog city in South Dakota…many…many mounds.
We drove through some quite torrential rain on the way through, and all the lakes along the way are full. There is plenty of evidence of where the orad was cut a couple of months back. Fascinating to observe the change of vegetation from the “Welcome to the Outback” sign at the start of the Stuart Highway to here. Trees and shrubs to shrubs to grasses and stunted saltbush to rocks. Everywhere is a film of pale green, as if living things are struggling to break through the crust.
The Beloved dodged several tanned frilly lizards sunning themselves on the road. Living dangerously indeed.
taking back the controls
“…I’ll only believe there’s change when President Trump is asked to return…”
He’s already said he won’t and that in the next week or so, he’ll be using his own TRUTH Social account for that.
Now they’ve moved TRUTH Social to Rumble infrastructure, they should have the computer and bandwidth resources they need on a pretty much “un-censorable” hosting. Most TRUTH posters seem to agree that you get much better engagement on TRUTH than on Twitter anyway.
Women may be more attracted to the decorative arts and ephemera. Which means that fewer works survive. Historically they were expected to bear and raise children and keep house, not daub canvases. They definitely provided plenty of subject matter for the daubers though. 😀
People such as Tucker Carlson have already had their accounts reinstated.
One guess who wrote this headline.
Leftists Worried Elon Musk Will Turn Twitter Into A Place Where Terrible People Post Bad Opinions And Fight With Each Other All The Time (25 Apr)
I love social media, it’s a window into the soul of homo sapiens.
Fearful dictators always need a phalanx of bodyguards.
Perth
masks off from Friday.
Sorry, Dover, I accidentally reported Indolent at 1521. Ignore.
Renoir did ok while he was alive. so did Picasso. But generally you’re right.
(I will report I’m on Day 8 of the Rona and it hasn’t been very pleasant – but I’d do it again…)
I had an experience reinforcing my enlightenment while dropping by the GP’s office today to collect some paperwork. As I’m waiting at the counter for the office manager to fish out some records a rather desperate sounding older lady fronted the counter seeking an appointment:
” I’d like to make an appointment for a covid booster, I had my fourth in December.”
Fourth all up or fourth booster? A fellow perhaps tending toward his mid sixties then fronts requesting:
” Could I also get a covid booster shot today along with the flu shot”?
Well, there you go, I will expect the median price of real estate to begin inversion later in the year. Perhaps the real reason the Libs wish to return to voluminous migration levels.
Wealth is quite perplexing. Another mates father used to collect bronze sculptures and other stuff. I think he had several Henry Moores, a lot of Norman Lindsay’s stuff and other bits and pieces. It was not unusual to go round there to find half a dozen (presumably valuable) Persian rugs still rolled up in a corner.
Precisely my point.
Hard to see how they wouldn’t. After all Austin is the US Secretary of Defence and probably has some say in US policy.
As far as I can see, Austin had already got his wish – Putin’s Russia is in deep trouble. The truly scary bit is that the Biden Administration appears to think this is ‘winning’.
From Bruce’s quality news link:
I love those guys.
Not to Adam Assbandt. His response to Musk on twitter was “Tax the rich.”
What a lameass fucking idiot.
PANDA’s Marc Girardot on how the COVID vaccines damage your body
More serious question: Musk may allow free speech on his platform but how long till people take Twitter to court for promoting hate speech?
Never been there, but have fossicked for opals at Andamooka and Lightning Ridge. Fascinating places. Digging out the good stuff at the latter, underground by the light of a candle, is a fine experience.
Calli, fond memories of Coober Pedy as a youth, waiting on the northern outskirts of town for 24 hours as a hitchhiker. A truckie from the Adelaide suburb of Rostrevor eventually picked me and took me all the way to Darwin en route to my first foreign adventure in East Timor (prior to the Indonesian invasion). End of the wet season so we spent days in East Timor wading through raging rivers on the “bus” trip from Bacau to Dili in what was then still a Portuguese colony.
So much of the Greens is just dog whistling to their rusted-ons. Just a bunch of talentless, undergraduate Marxist grifters harvesting the protest vote.
Lysander
I’m pretty certain Musk won’t allow repulsive crap to be posted there. He will have standards, but the difference is that those standards will be transparent and the aglos will be open sourced so everyone will know the parameters and these rules will apply to everyone equally.
Hahaha. After two years hiding in someone’s laptop, this has reappeared on Twitter doctored to include Elon Musk. Very catchy!
Correct.
Putin warned W. European nations some weeks ago of unspecified but serious consequences if they became engaged in a proxy war alongside the US in Ukraine, saying the retaliations were already planned. The UK was singled out particularly.
calli says:
April 26, 2022 at 3:20 pm
Greetings from Coober Pedy….
About 100kms south of Coober Pedy you may have noticed that you suddenly had mobile phone connectivity for several kms.
That’s due to the mobile phone station at the Prominent Hill copper mine.
You’re welcome.
And so much for talk of providing him with an off ramp….even if he was prone to take one.
This is heading into Cuban missile crisis territory, 60 years later.
Possibly JC. I think he doesn’t care how raaaacist or “racist” you are. He just wants free speech. Perhaps he’ll build it into the T&C’s? I see Tucker Carlson has tweeted “we back” – this is great news!
Ruby Princess cruise ship docked in San Francisco with 143 cases of COVID-19
Truckers for Canada Freedom are also tweeting “we’re back”
(But I forgot this is a train blog… right :P)
So we now have the continuation of a well planned campaign to try and unseat the Libs in NSW. I refer to the announcement of a 24 [sic] hour strike by teachers. I’ll leave aside the fact that teachers do not work for 24 hours so maybe a six or seven hour strike. This comes on the heels of stoppages by train drivers, nurses, bus drivers and paramedics. These public service union members were largely untouched, financially, over the last two years while private sector workers (mostly ununionised) lost income, and indeed employment, on a large scale. So the privileged are pushing for more taxpayer money from tax payers who are now less well off. If this sounds a little convoluted, perhaps someone can explain it better.
they really need to rename (or sink) the Ruby Princess… not for any other reason other than to stop hearing some peeps got a bad cold on board…
He’s going to have a few issues, Lysander. See what happens when a knucklehead or two or three start posting racist crap on there and what the advertisers do. It’s likely to be leftwingers too, just to fuck him over.
Was there quite a few years ago in the course of an outback trip with a camper trailer. We stayed overnight in the town’s caravan park and was amazed at the level of violent abuse being hurled at each other by an group of Aborigines on the other side of the fence.
We put on a disc of the lovely voice of Nora Jones, and silence immediately followed – alas, only for a short time.
The liberation of Twitter from the fascists is reminding me of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Yep. They haven’t discovered forklifts.
The logistics footage coming out from the Russian side is amazing. Early 20thC level much of it.
Yeah you’re right JC.. some LWNJ’s are going to go on the platform and try and incite a Congress insurrection by violent means or something. The Dems will legislate against the platform… from the great post Tom put up of Tucker, it seems the Dems already tried to stop the sale last night in Congress… (which, actually heartens me cos it means it’s real)
Lysander – Diamond Princess. Ruby Princess is the one Gladys let all the passengers take off from.
It was the Diamond Princess where only 20% of people on board caught coof despite being stuck on board for a month because the Japs wouldn’t let them off. Best empirical experiment so far in this whole sorry situation.
Bruce I stand (happily) corrected.
twitter share price already up over 5%!
No it’s not, Fester. It’s all we had at the time, but since then there’s been plenty data that is superior. People confined in close quarters for a month is NOT how people live, you dimbus. You’re beginning to embarrass the site these days, Fester. Just remain silent.
BoN- good get, details man.
JC- get a load of yourself. I can only assume you’ve just deleted Twitter?
Oh shite… probably shouldn’t have pressed enter on that one.
Oh well, a little ad hom once in a while can’t hurt. We’re none of us saints 😉
Lysander
It closed at a slight discount to Musk’s bid. It’s just under 5% below. It shows there still could be risk with the deal going through. Demented’s DOJ could oppose it on some anti-trust grounds. There’s still some risk and I believe the discount isn’t big enough.
In fact, I’d be inclined to short it if it goes a little higher as the risk/ reward the deal goes south maybe worth the bet.
JC – you’re of the “market man” that I will ever be, was I right twitter price is up 5% and what of larger impact these things usually have on broader market…?
SNAP!!!
Pharaoh is kind to the slaves…….
It’s a free blog, mate.
It doesn’t matter which side you choo choose. 😉
However, certain other belligerents’ mileage may vary…
Looks like the “secret digger”
https://9now.nine.com.au/a-current-affair/forgotten-aussie-digger-sent-on-secret-cambodia-mission-pleads-for-recognition-and-support/21384d5b-490e-4858-9e0f-f9cff2102bf3
is getting a bit of attention online.
Isn’t that interesting- Force the vast majority of us into taking the damn thing, only to drop it at the first sign of an impending Federal Election…
high doses of prednisone is my guess. probably got ccp virus
twitter could be so much more then just stupid tweets, I think musk knows what he is doing
https://mobile.twitter.com/AvidCommentator/status/1518822671433494533/photo/1
From Top Enders link
Sorry, since when is a civilian entitled to wear medals?
WA “new baseline measures”.
Still along way off getting our God-given free lives back.
Still sounds a lot like “The New Normal”.
Rex A, I don’t think Mao Gowan cares two ways about the fed election- in fact, he’d probably prefer a LNP national government. But there’s no doubt that they have tried to bury the news behind the Twitter swithcheroo, striking teachers, a hot war, and with the arsehole himself locked away.
you can’t, and just like that the left are worried about section 230 protection
really zippy???
why was Sinc always concerned about his blog…???
Speaking of prednisone and other anti-inflammatories – it is interesting to observe some GPs belatedly recognising what the FLCCC frontline Covid physicians have been recommending for over a year.
In two cases that I have heard of in my circle – one with Covid, the other with “Long Covid” (aka post viral syndrome) – prednisone was prescribed in the first (after first trialling a steroid inhaler), and Dymista (combination anti-histamine and steroid) in the other.
I suspect that many GPs are quietly reassessing their treatment protocol. The initial official line of “go home and ring an ambulance if you can’t breathe” was disgraceful.
Outside my pay grade, but I can’t see what sort of off ramp is now available to Putin. Certainly nothing that returns to anything remotely like the status quo.
Way too many cats out of bags.
BTW re the “difficulty breathing”:
Most may know this here – but you can easily purchase (at the pharmacy) a small monitoring device which registers both oxygen levels and heart rate.
China in Focus – NTD
01:06 Survey: foreigners plan to leave Shanghai
02:44 Supplier for Tesla, Apple struggles w/ infections
04:24 Is Beijing locking down? Locals are worried
06:43 Columbia rejects Chinese student for #HateSpeech
08:25 Wuhan lab can destroy secret files: Doc
11:01 Japan promises a stronger military to help U.S.
12:44 Japan, New Zealand discuss Indo-Pacific
13:33 European Union head meets w/ India’s Modi
Wally Dali I thought the first woman painter to he hung in a gallery was Artemesia Gentillischi. Her father was a well known artist and the apprentices used to fill in the cartoon that the big guy did and that’s how she started . She was also famous for the rape case .
Dredging thru the remains of the old thread and found this:
No worries, but it was only a few years ago, after Malcolm Turnbull left Parliament, that Tim Blair was shilling for Dave Sharma’s bid for Preselection, calling Dave a good bloke.
Now Dave isn’t a good bloke, he’s a pushy former diplomat.
Blair has a consistency problem here.
.
What a complete and utter turd.
If Musk (or Gates, or Bezos) have billions of dollars it is because people gave them billions of dollars in exchange for goods or services that they wanted. If they have billions of dollars it is because they gave people billions of dollars worth in exchange.
Can any politician honestly claim to have done anything at all equivalent.
And what does Bandt offer. What is his stock in trade? Taxes and laws. (Well, also retarded soundbites.) Point is no one being hit with these laws, regulations or taxes are asking for them.
Considering his posturing as a great crusader of one type or another, is there a single thing worthwhile that you would ever even briefly consider Bandt for. He will presume to adjudicate on everything but no one would turn to him for anything.
And with Twatter/Twitter being opened up he might have to hear that.
From the Daily Telegraph. What is it with Liberal progeny, we have Allegra Da Big Spenda, daughter of former Liberal John Spender and granddaughter of Liberal Percy Spender running as one of these fake independents and in news from Victoria….
“Rob Baillieu, the son of former Victorian Liberal premier Ted Baillieu, has penned an article in The Age detailing his rejection of an offer to work for an unnamed “moderate” MP because being sounded out for the job was “one of the most homophobic experiences of my life”.
Instead he is now campaigning for Monique Ryan in an effort to unseat Josh Frydenberg from Kooyong.
Of course Baillieu, who is gay himself, has every right to campaign for whomever he chooses. Yet the movement which he has joined is actively seeking to remove two out and proud gay men from parliament: Tim Wilson in Goldstein and Trent Zimmerman in North Sydney.
This seems an odd cause for someone concerned about homophobia in the Liberal Party.”
Well, given the legacy or should that be “non-legacy” of Ted Baillieu we shouldn’t be surprised, should we?
“Blair has a consistency problem here.”
I hate to break it to you Eddy but I reckon Tim Blair is a lot more consistent than you.
Lysandersays:
April 26, 2022 at 3:32 pm
Wealth is quite perplexing.
Not to Adam Assbandt. His response to Musk on twitter was “Tax the rich.”
Didn’t Musk recently make the biggest ever income tax payment in US history? Not enough Adam?
the word you are looking for is criminal
For example, Ukraine could have ceded the break away provinces to Russia after a cease fire and plebiscite according to their constitution. They could have also provided a guarantee not to join NATO. In exchange, Putin withdraws from occupied Ukrainian territory in the south (Crimea excepted) and can claim a strategic victory. This assumes he was amenable to negotiation; but it is all moot now.
Bear 1: Sneakers Nil
kadyrov has asked to be put in charge of ukraine, seems fair
Looks like the “secret digger”
According to the puff piece, he was in Vietnam anyway, servicing the trucks and Mal Fraser personally asked him to go to Cambodia servicing Army Trucks.
A few Questions:
Didn’t the Army have any mechanics at the time?
What’s so special about an International Harvester Truck that it needs it’s own International Harvester mechanics?
He knocked back a job offer from Josh, is that what he’s saying?
Old Lefty:
Someone who was really, really, suspicious of Chinese intent could be persuaded this wasn’t just land clearing – it was a really, really, wide road.
6 lanes wide.
That you could land a plane on.
But only if you were really, really, suspicious or something.
Here
this was the easiest war to avoid in modern history
Dickless
No worries, but it was only a few years ago, after Malcolm Turnbull left Parliament, that Tim Blair was shilling for Dave Sharma’s bid for Preselection, calling Dave a good bloke.
Now Dave isn’t a good bloke, he’s a pushy former diplomat.
Blair has a consistency problem here.
No real problem.
How Sharma behaved before he entered Parliament, and how his behaviour changed after, might give you a clue.
Also, compared to his predecessor in the seat (the raving idiot Phelps), Sharma might indeed have seemed to be “a good bloke”.
Mr Ali was not a serviceman and nor were his co-workers – they were civilians
If he was a civilian then he would not be entitled to the Australian Active Service medal which he is clearly wearing. Something is wrong with the story of the journalist got it all wrong.
It was the Diamond Princess where only 20% of people on board caught coof despite being stuck on board for a month because the Japs wouldn’t let them off. Best empirical experiment so far in this whole sorry situation.
A PR study was done. It found:
Of the 634 confirmed cases, a total of 306 and 328 were reported to be symptomatic and asymptomatic, respectively.
Nearly 52% had no symptoms; this in a population weighted towards the elderly.
Winston Smithsays:
April 26, 2022 at 5:08 pm
Old Lefty:
Because the Chinese show such exemplary concern for the environment:
Someone who was really, really, suspicious of Chinese intent could be persuaded this wasn’t just land clearing – it was a really, really, wide road.
6 lanes wide.
That you could land a plane on.
But only if you were really, really, suspicious or something.
Winston
Where is that, and what kind of foundations/surface went over the ditch?
HB Bear,
I have remained unvaxxed. Looking to change jobs at the moment so it may be required by a future employer.
But as of this moment, it’s still a ‘no’ from me.
Groogles Have you finished all your reskinning if you are subjecting us to you idiocy for the rest of the night?
So, since when is a civilian also entitled to a pension and health care “that other enlisted personnel get?”
Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet website page for the Australian Active Service Medal:
Doesn’t sound like Russia is losing to me.
As mentioned previously, I wonder if those Bushmasters we sent are still in one piece. Or maybe they’re in the possession of an Albanian arms dealer, bought for cents on the dollar, and en route to goodness knows where.
Just get in the Kenworth, put on some Walon Jennings and take it around the carpark.
Risking much over little.
I support the current thing
Russell Brand
5.55M subscribers
From left to right, from Noam Chomsky to Tucker Carlson, war-skeptical voices are being denounced. Guess who benefits.
#Tucker #Chomsky #MainstreamMedia
Well, they’ve already lost in that they’ve reverted to Plan B after Plan A failed. Massive overreach based on bad intelligence.
Now they’ve called in the commander from Syria to flatten the Donbass with artillery, after which they’ll be fighting an insurgency for how long?
Nobody really comes out of this winning from this point.
Yes, that might have got Russia off Ukraine’s neck – possibly five or six weeks ago. And Putin would probably have sold it in Russia as a famous victory.
But in terms of being an ‘off ramp’, I doubt that Russia only taking a modest bite out of a neighbour by military force would have calmed Western Europe – or former Soviet states now in NATO.
And as for the US…
But that wasn’t Putin’s plan then, and as you (and I) say, that’s moot now.
Barack pointedly looked the other way when Vlad Bae rolled his tanks into Georgia in 2008…
No, there would have been a concerted effort at rearmament throughout west & central Europe.
But that would have been the best deterrent to Putin’s “Greater Russia” ambitions, at least on Russia’s western borderlands.
Re SAS guys, this story hasn’t been mentioned, so I will.
SAS officer Roger Woodiwiss, 1929-2022 – Obituary (23 Apr)
As an obituary goes it is very sparse. But an innings of 92 as a SAS guy is pretty damn good. The UK Tele appears to have a more extensive report but I can’t read it because of their paywall. God Speed Maj Woodiwiss.
Live: Russia’s Lavrov warns of World War III risk as US hosts talks on arming Ukraine
“Secret digger” looks like a bit dubious.
Carried a weapon? Most civilian blokes were well aware that gets you shot out of hand if no uniform.
Also why would you do it? He says he was a civilian, so presumably for a whole heap of money, which basically makes him a mercenary.
Briefed by Fraser himself in his time as Minister. Sure!
If the USA really wanted this sort of op done, they’d have got the CIA to do it. They were running the Air America operation at the time.
Putin needs an off ramp? Lol. Who is holding all the trump cards here? The US has thrown everything it can at Russia (bar the literal nuclear option) and hasn’t quite cut its own throat in the process, but its self-injury is worse than a gunshot wound to the foot. Turns out it isn’t only the Chinese and the Russians who are suddenly very interested in finding alternative currencies to trade in. And seizing the reserves of the Russian central bank, as well as the assets of anyone guilty of being Russian, is probably going to have rather serious mid-long term consequences for London and New York, as foreign investors are probably going to have a different view of their reliability as jurisdictions where capital can be accessed, stored etc. The Euros are ineffectual as always – Russia has them by the balls, energy-wise. They send military aid to Ukraine and Russia smokes it at stand-off range. Some people here don’t seem to realise what a bind the Ukrainians are in.
The West is being led by the most incompetent ruling class since the Great Depression, and we will have to make some humiliating concessions to our adversaries over the next few years as a consequence. But it’s Putin that needs an off ramp, it’s Putin who’s in over his head. My goodness.
Weeellllll hellloooo Cassie so glad to have you back. Now where is Mater?
OK…let’s wait and see how this turns out for him and revisit it then.
But as I’ve already said, the golden bridge/off ramp option is now moot.
JC:
Interesting point.
But a double edged sword – anti trust legislation works both ways, and an attempt to silence Twitter would backfire on Facebook, I think.
They could have done this from the start and would be ruling over the pile of rubble that was Kiev if simple conquer was the objective.
And what you meant to write was ‘flatten the Ukrainian positions in the Donbass’. Shelling indiscriminately in the Donbass is the Ukrainian strategy.
ZK2A:
If the Emergency legislation remains, he can reinstate it whenever he likes.
No – the legislation has to go.
Depends on your perspective.
In the bag:
• Massive economic damage;
• Political ostracism;
• Fear and loathing in Western Europe leading to boosted defence spending;
• Reassessment of Russian conventional military power – use of tactical nukes now a necessary option.
Down the track:
• Russia garrisons along the Black Sea corridor to Crimea;
Europe decouples from Russian energy and trade;
• Arms race – Congress showering money to counter ‘super weapons’ with more awful US super weapons;
• Finland and Sweden join NATO;
• Russia becomes a vassal state to China to replace European trade.
Something I pointed out when the most recent shenanigans began; thank you for noticing.
Tucker: You just became a little more powerful
766,146 viewsApr 26, 2022
Fox News host reacts to Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter on ‘Tucker Carlson Tonigh
Russell Brand… i don’t mind him mining the net for other people’s alternative content- after all that’s what I’m doing here! – but his “oooh ah wavin’ me hands like I’ve just fort this up by meself on the fly” schtick is faggy and fake.
He’s got “wannabee” written all over him.
I think they’re up to Plan D.
A was a quick takeover in one or two days, via the para battalion at Andropov airport. They were obliterated. B was three or four days because the Ukrainians would welcome the Russians with open arms. That didn’t work either. C was take Kiev by assault and overturn the regime. Also didn’t work. D is get whatever we can and call it victory. Unfortunately it takes two to party and the Ukrainians, from what I’m seeing, aren’t going to party.
I suspect a lot of the stuff the Russians are doing right now is to produce results prior to the May 9 parade. Unfortunately war theaters rarely cooperate with the wishes of politicians, particularly since the enemy has a say in such things.
Krudd would have had us at war with China over the Solomon’s in two days…..
Vicki:
I’m scathing of the bureaucratic response – given the opportunity, they really did show us their dictatorial side.
Purge the Bureaucracy!
🙂
It’s certainly been a bit of a rock show.
clown grotesquery
From The Age.
calli says:
April 26, 2022 at 3:20 pm
Greetings from Coober Pedy! The approach to the town reminds me of the prairie dog city in South Dakota…many…many mounds.
Look at gidgee wood museum coober pedy
From memory https://www.cooberpedy.com/umoona-opal-mine-muesum/
It’s not just the West.
Explosions hit state security building in Transnistria
Incident comes days after Moscow said breakaway Moldovan statelet could be drawn into Ukraine war
—
ukraine is getting desperately short oil, the russian worked out how to shutdown the entire electrified central uke train system for several hours yesterday, till it was repaired. both train lines into donbass are within days of capture.
uke troops in donbass are in for a world of hurt over the coming weeks
this could stop in a day if the obama…er… biden administration would just give the word.
we needed someone with experience how business is done with the ccp … like rubntug man
It’s not just the West.
Are you suggesting that we’re on The Planet of The Mongs?!
Agreed, the West has taken or is about to take these hits. Now, how are the Russians losing?
I wonder what Trump would have done?
Dude, It was the alpha variant. It’s now as prehistoric as the dinosaurs.
I smell an election.
NSW paramedics ‘pushed beyond the limits of fatigue’ to ramp up industrial action for better conditions and pay (Sky News, 25 Apr)
NSW public school teachers to escalate industrial action and walk off the job next Wednesday over wages and conditions (Sky News. 26 Apr)
I’ve a fair bit of time for the ambos, but the teachers all need to be deported to Urumchi, where they can teach English to Chinese people and try to avoid being broken up for parts.
The Ukraine War Is Biden’s Second Proxy War With Russia
America’s Proxy War with Russia in Ukraine Heats Up
Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24th, the United States has given Ukraine $3.4 billion in military equipment. To put that in concrete terms, below is a list of actual equipment given to Ukraine so far (presumably, this doesn’t count Biden’s latest $800 million installment announced on Thursday).
As America’s latest proxy war with Russia heats up, it’s worth remembering what happened in our last proxy war with Russia. The short answer is that President Trump ultimately ended it, by shutting down the CIA’s Operation Timber Sycamore, which funneled weapons to Al Qaeda and other radical groups in Syria. Journalist Aaron Maté detailed this insanity in a recent post, and how Russia stepped in to prevent Al Qaeda and other Islamic radicals from toppling the government in Syria. I’ve included his post in full below.
Look around you.
Ol’ mate the secret digger’s popped up in the Daily Mail too.
The last one is the biggest problem for both Russia and the West going forward.
Over two decades before Ukraine erupted, how another post-Soviet conflict set a bloody precedent
The uprising in Transdniester was a monument to human stupidity and idealism
The current crisis in Ukraine, in which Russia has recognized the rebel republics in the Donbass, looks unusual, but this is not a new story for the post-Soviet space. Something similar to the events happening in the Donbass today took place in 1992, and the enclave that then arose still exists.
The unrecognized territory, formally part of Moldova, was formed as a result of a short war, which was simultaneously absurd and cruel. That war contains many parallels with the current conflict – including even the personal stories of many of its participants.
The collapse of the Soviet Union was accompanied by a series of armed conflicts. Some have gone down in history as examples of insane, unbridled violence, comparable only to conflicts in Africa and the Middle East. However, a strange little war in the Transdniester region stands out among them.
This is a barely discernible area on the map, stretching north to south along the Dniester River on the border of Ukraine and Moldova, about 200 kilometers long and only about 20 across. At the end of the Soviet era, it had a population of about 680,000. Before the collapse of the USSR, Transdniester had been a sleepy land where almost nothing happened for many decades.
Experts warned for decades that NATO expansion would lead to war: Why did nobody listen to them?
Read more Experts warned for decades that NATO expansion would lead to war: Why did nobody listen to them?
In 1992, a conflict raged there for several months, when rebels made up of Russians and Ukrainians took up arms against the government of the newly independent Moldova. Despite its very small scale, this war became a kind of prologue for the entire bloody history of post-Soviet armed conflicts.
@ Bruce-
I suspect that the Donbass and Luhansk operations are long-term consumations of the insurgencies Russia instigated there from 2014 onwards.
An 8-year civil war that you proxied up and played NVA to the locals’ VC (while aggressively propagandising them in the same way as Russia and Hanoi did in the 60s) makes a pretty good casus belli for later on, when the tactical and strategic situations appear to favour you…
As mentioned previously, I wonder if those Bushmasters we sent are still in one piece. Or maybe they’re in the possession of an Albanian arms dealer, bought for cents on the dollar, and en route to goodness knows where.
Will let you know how much I paid when it arrives. Going to be a pretty cool fox shooting rig!
Thing is some people here talk like it’s still Churchill and Roosevelt or Thatcher and Reagan. It’s BloJo and the old thief now- ‘not with a bang but a whimper’.
I wonder what Trump would have done?
Kept playing golf, if we were lucky.
Not without problems for China, either.
Wally Dalísays:
April 26, 2022 at 1:36 pm
Excellent post, Wally. And very enlightening. Thanks.
chalk up another success for Xi’s bum boy hunter and the big guy
How so, Roger?
I agree though with people who point out that Putin in his KGB days must have played a part in the psychological assault to demoralize the west through the 60s and 70s.
Not until you’ve got the 20mm stabilised autocannon mount Thales offers for the MR6 variant…
They have to balance support for Russia with avoiding Western sanctions which could impact Chinese prosperity. Without ever increasing prosperity trickling down the social contract between the CCP and the Chinese masses becomes fraught with unpredictable possibilities.
Someone shot up “Government” House with AT munitions, as has been widely reported.
The Transdniester kiddies (and I spell the name correctly) must be crapping their Depends right now. They have had three Russian battalions to defend their kleptocracy. The border with Ukraine is 100 times longer than their “country” is wide. As soon as the Ukrainians have any extra forces they’re going to cheerfully turn the Transdniestrian Russians into mincemeat and hand the place over to Moldova.
Certainly, the invasion is not running like clockwork for the Russians – it isn’t clear they ever expected it to, as such things never do – but there haven’t been any serious setbacks that could imperil the entire operation, either. The Russian broad strategy looks clear enough, and they have the luxury of time on their side. If they wanted a war of annihilation and a quick victory, this could have been achieved within weeks. There is now the live question of how many provinces on the eastern side of the Dnieper will decide to secede.
And as the latest covid crackdown shows, Xi is not a very agile politician, which is why his new found bestie is Putin.
A leaked call to Zelensky led to Trump’s Impeachment:
Roger
If the West was really serious about sanctions etc, I think they would have shot down the attempt by Russia, India, China and Brazil (BRICS) from setting up a competitor to SWIFT. Nothing happened. There’s also India who’s said they weren’t going to abide with the sanctions.