The transformation of Albanese as a political leader has been the most extraordinary in Australian history.

Crikey.
There’s most of the morning mug of McWilliams Royal Reserve over the screen.

The most extraordinary thing is that the little bloke has lasted long enough to have a dig. The Rudd Rules and deeply unelectable contenders probably helped him.

The assured stupidity of this new order apparatchik is quite something.

“As a result, we’re working with countries to think about natural solutions like manure and compost, and this may hasten transitions that would have been in the interest of farmers to make eventually, anyway. So, never let a crisis go to waste,” Power said.

Western countries mostly abandoned manures a hundred years ago. The abundant production created by man made fertilisers partly underpinned the industrial and technological growth of the past century.
We simply cannot feed enough people on shit and straw.
This lady needs to identify which few billion people she’s earmarked as “crisis waste .”
Good fertiliser if composted.

Is Pfizer hiding data about all these Covid relapses? | Redacted with Natali and Clayton Morris
Redacted

Draft SCOTUS ruling leaked.

Is that the one which was 9-0 on Christians flying a flag?
I just about fell out of my chair.
Three lefty justices voted for Christian freedom of speech. Amazing.

Supreme Court Backs Christian Group in Boston Flag Flap (2 May)

Alito’s draft ruling on Roe & Casey has been leaked.
Allegedly withdrawing both.

If true, it will be fascinating to see the legislation in a lot of states get triggered.
Some of these abortion acts pending Roe being withdrawn have been on the books for over 20 years.

It’s seems odd that legislation can be on the books for 20 years that gets triggered based on a SCOTUS decision.
You’d have to think some of that legislation would be challenged in each of the states.

DB, see the SCOTUS news?

I’ve read an account of a USN carrier pilot, who set a record by shooting down five Zeros in one mission.

Mind you, Zulu, that was likely on his own account. Once you go and examine the records from the other side – and this seems to be the case in all air forces in WWI/II – then the claims diminish, often by large amounts.

For example:

5 April 1942

The Japanese force was intercepted by four USAAF P-40s of the 9th Pursuit Squadron at 1155 with no losses on either side, although the bomber crews claimed to have destroyed five aircraft. The Bettys landed back at Koepang at 1420, followed by the Zeroes at 1445.

Link

Where is the Pope?

Once you go and examine the records from the other side – and this seems to be the case in all air forces in WWI/II – then the claims diminish, often by large amounts.

TE – The Japanese especially seemed to embellish in their internal reports. Some examples were included in Long et al for the PNG campaigns from Japanese infantry sources obtained after the war. They were a lot of fun, but had zero resemblance to reality.

Same issue is probably afflicting senior officers on both sides of the Ukraine war. If junior officers are scared they’ll tend to write what their boss wants to hear, not what really happened.

It’s a serious danger for us with the wokeification of the Australian brass, and the persecution of guys like BRS. Who’d dare to accurately tell it like it is now?

I dunno Bruce, check this one out from 25 April 1942 over northern Australia:

P-40 USAAF pilots claimed ten bombers and three Zeroes, which were all credited.

There were in fact four Betty bombers shot down.

(Link as above)

Both sides TE. I’d go find the text from the AWM history but I read it a few weeks ago and I’d probably have to scan though hundreds of pages to find it again.

I’d back the Allied reports more than the Japanese reports though, since being asked to slice open one’s belly button for the Emperor due to a poorly-received combat report would ruin your whole day.

ZK2A:
Let your missus know “Good luck” from me as well.

Eyrie:

BoN, sailing the Russian Space Station modules over to the Chinese one has a major problem. Orbital inclination differs by 10 degrees or so. You need to find over 1 km/sec of Delta V. That would require a substantial rocket stage.

Not a problem, Eyrie.
Just look behind the lounge chair/lift the cushions.

Good morning from here. We are in a C15th inn at St. Albans, with appropriately creaking flooring, opposite the Cathedral, and spent yesterday taking in the wonders of that great House of God. The site is recognised as the oldest site of Christian worship in Britain, for a church of some type has stood here since St. Alban was martyred in this place in the late third or early fourth century AD in the period prior to the Emperor Constantine’s Edict of Toleration of Christians. St. Germanus visited here in 429AD, to missionize the lapsing Christians and bring others into the fold, a mission both Bede in the C8th and I in the C21st identify as the defining feature of historical record about the C5th, albeit that we each do so for different reasons.

Immediately after the Norman Conquest the church here was rebuilt into a grand form, using Roman stonework and bricks dragged up the hill from the Roman fort and town of Verulamium, turning this material into a magnificent early Norman tower, still extant today, with its curved stripe-painted arches architecturally reminiscent of Cordoba’s Great Mosque. One side of the original nave also has these arches, on the supporting columns of which have been recovered from under Puritan whitewash a series of C12th paintings of biblical events. The other side of the original nave fell in on parishioners during a mass in the C14th and was rebuilt, along with an extension of the nave, in a more formal Romanesque style, with fluted columns. The whole place is sonorous and sombre with a later rose window a significant feature also.

It became even more sonorous as we sat there admiring, for the Evensong Choir set up its practice and the great organ filled the whole place with glorious sound as voices also rose heavenwards singing the Magnificat. They then shifted to a psalm sung alternately in antiphony (as ex-chorister Hairy explained to me) and we both knew it as the “I lift up mine eyes to the heavens” psalm. Quite wonderful. As we walked around the cathedral following the Pilgrim’s Walk, a medieval ancient wood structure caught my eye, double story with shutters, called The Watching Loft. It was where monks were stationed on duty to make sure the pilgrims were well behaved and didn’t try to steal chunks of anything as early ‘souvenirs’, in this case as healing talismans. Early Security Detail, offers Hairy helpfully, making me laugh at the thought of it. It pleases me to see him so happy in his 70th year as his birthday approaches, so much enjoying old haunts and old friendships. He revealed to me that when aged nine he had done a school project on the architecture at St. Albans after a school visit there.

We walked down to the river, saw the birds on the lake and looked at the last ruins of the old Roman town wall that had enclosed Verulamium, one of the towns destroyed by Boudicca’s revolt and later rebuilt. There is not much else to see now but footings, as most of it is in the cathedral on the hill, so laboriously wheelbarrowed up by a conquered peasantry. We will drive to the museum on the other side of the site this morning before heading up to my friend’s place to stay there in Saffron Walden.

On the way to the lake we called in at what is locally claimed to be Britain’s longest-established tavern, called Ye Olde Fighting Cocks, recommended by the hotel for dinner (and a great name for Catallaxy nites in the War Room). A tavern of sorts has been here since 793 (according to the footings) but other claimants to the ‘oldest’ title also exist. I like to think of Bernard Cornwell’s fictional Uhtred and his men taking a tankard here in King Alfred’s day on the tables by the river, I comment to Hairy as we enter.

The current building is more Tudor in style and Cromwell the Protector is claimed to have stabled his horse in what is now the bar area. Sadly, they were closed for dinner, so we repaired to a huge glassed conservatory near our hotel that is a glower-filled French restaurant, where when you enter down the long avenue of tables you see sparkling at the end a ten foot high wide mirrored bar, containing bottles and glasses for drinks of all sorts. We had proper French soup, biftek and poulet, and very fine it was too. As with Hairy’s redolent trip to Hamstead, where much of Ricky Gervais’ ‘After Life’ series were filmed, this pub also featured in one of the ‘After Life’ series.

Our own pub, The White Hart, is mentioned as serving pilgrims in the C14th, and so I led in bed wondering who in the past slept in this room, looking up at some of its exposed beams in the plaster and creaking to the loo on its noisy floors (probably a bucket in those days). No old ghosts appeared though and I slept well, in spite of the rather lumpy pillows (this is Britain) and the sad worn out furniture that I would toss as they are by no means antique pieces. The room is otherwise of a tourist standard with a good ensuite, but be warned. I also had to remove the ‘atomic’ doona (H/t Calli) from its casing and just use that as a covering sheet with a light quilt (which imho had seen better days) that was thankfully also on the end of the bed.

White Hart is now basically Tudor but some older parts are still within it.

It’s a huge pisstake, but he didn’t carry very well. He was too out there.

I think he does it on a serial basis? He looks familiar.

Winston Smith says:
May 3, 2022 at 1:12 pm

ZK2A:
Let your missus know “Good luck” from me as well.

What has he done with his missus, brought wife number 3 home unannounced?