1,418 thoughts on “Open Thread – Wed 1 June 2022”

  1. Struth says:
    June 3, 2022 at 2:57 pm

    A spot on article.
    Will the denialists read it?

    I doubt it as they don’t believe in evidence based science. Just like gerbil warming most of the real science denies the belief.

    8
  2. cohenite says: June 3, 2022 at 2:01 pm

    Some 3rd nation grifters have lodged a NT claim on Canberra. I have mixed feelings about that.

    Provided the claim includes the homes of High Court Judges, I’m all for it.
    Godspeed those native title claimants.

    7
  3. From Their ABC:
    Agriculture Minister Murray Watt has confirmed the Australian government will ban live sheep exports by both air and sea.

    It’ll be utterly fascinating to learn the justification for banning the air export.

    Is it too early to adopt “Punch a Labor voter”?

    15
  4. Saying “oh the Teals will just stuff up and let the Libs back in” sounds very much like an abusive husband telling his mates that bitch wife of his is going to come running back to his arms any day now.

    4
  5. The ladies of the best postcodes will be one of the shortest political experiments we’ll ever see.

    Remember how Julia Banks was going to be the next big thing?
    Nah, me neither.

    9
  6. Astoundingly, the Liberals are now the voice of the working class without changing a single policy from back when they were the party of big business! What a miracle.

    And the Liars are now the party of the rich, after changing so many policies that they are no longer (and have not been for some time) the representatives of the working class.

    But m0nty-fa remains in denial.

    5
  7. cohenitesays:
    June 3, 2022 at 2:01 pm
    Some 3rd nation grifters have lodged a NT claim on Canberra. I have mixed feelings about that.

    And much of the property is leasehold, not freehold. They might have a good chance!

    3
  8. Rabzsays:
    June 3, 2022 at 2:20 pm
    watch the clusterfuck that labor will unfold over the next few years

    They’ve been in government barely a week and already the arrant idiocy and unworkability of their signature policy has smashed them good and hard in their stupid ugly faces.

    And their rabid “environmental” supporters will remain in denial, like m0nty-fa.

    6
  9. Farmer Gezsays:

    June 3, 2022 at 2:59 pm

    Another problem the Tea Ladies face is relevancy and prestige

    The first lesson is coming soon.
    I am sure Elbow’s team were quietly cultivating them in the background before The Great Victory.
    They will arrange a meeting with one of the 42 ministers over the next week or so, keen to discuss collaboration on Cloimate Change.
    They will turn up, only to be kept waiting for 15 minutes, then be ushered into a room to meet with a pimply 22 year old junior advisor, who starts looking at his/her/xe’s watch after another 15 minutes.
    The other factor will be the ego of Holmes a Court. He will not take the inevitable sidelining very well.

    10
  10. If Aborigines want Canberra, they can have it.

    It’s racist to oppose the confederalisation of Australia and the end of central government dominated faux Federalism.

    4
  11. … very much like an abusive husband telling his mates that bitch wife of his is going to come running back to his arms any day now.

    Trouble at home, m0nster?

    6
  12. m0ntysays:
    June 3, 2022 at 2:44 pm
    If the Liberals should be doing – well, you didn’t really say, but something presumably – to regain teal seats, what should Labor be doing to regain seats from the Greens?

    Labor would have better results attacking Liberal suburban seats than Green seats. They would much rather deal with the Greens in office with a depleted LNP opposition, even if they have to govern in partnership.

    The Libs are extremely weak right now trying to claim a new base, and Labor could wedge them nearly out of existence.

    Sez m0nty-fa, with all fingers and toes crossed, and a knot in his old feller.

    1
  13. Having a laff at the “Nobody is a Winner in the Heard-Depp Case”.
    Err, wut?
    I think the bloke with a $15 meg court order in his pocket could be in front at this point.

    4
  14. Those triumphant tweets about blowing up coal-fired power plants are not going to age well over this winter.

    15
  15. “Saying “oh the Teals will just stuff up and let the Libs back in” sounds very much like an abusive husband telling his mates that bitch wife of his is going to come running back to his arms any day now.”

    Nobody here has said that “the Teals will just stuff up and let the Libs back in“. They’re your words. However I’ll be holding my local member, Princess Allegra, to account.

    And as for “an abusive husband telling his mates that bitch wife“…is that how you refer to women? Very revealing.

    10
  16. The Daily Tele suggests a bit of cabinet retasking:

    Australia now has its first-ever Minister for the Republic. The timing, however, seems slightly astray.

    Matt Thistlethwaite was sworn into the assistance ministerial role this week, just as winter began to bite and the thoughts of many in NSW turned to the costs of two life essentials: heating and eating.

    For too many people in Sydney and NSW, looming price hikes mean that some evenings will be spent choosing between food and warmth.

    Given that obvious and alarming fact, the republic seems like quite the second-level issue. Or third level.

    Fortunately, in Minister Thistlethwaite we have a way in which the government is able to quickly respond. Given that Labor won’t be pushing for a republic during this term, which is what Labor strongly indicated during the election campaign, why not reassign the member for Kingsford Smith as Australia’s Minister for the Cost of Living?

    He’ll certainly have a lot more to do in that role than he ever would as a Minister for Something Not Happening.

    Thistlethwaite could begin in his new job by conducting a quick survey of charities that provide donated clothing to families in need. These organisations are often able to provide accurate snapshots of just how acute is the situation for those at the margins.

    Importantly, the margins won’t be so marginal as prices for power and sustenance keep going up. Families who have made it through Covid and other dramas with their finances relatively intact now face a serious squeeze.

    Anthony Albanese made a point during his first party room meeting as Prime Minister that every day must count. And he is right, especially for Australians who right now can’t see their income covering their household costs.

    Put aside the republic. This government – and the state government, for that matter – have a more important job to do. Federally, give that job to Matt Thistlethwaite. It’s not as though he’ll be overworked in his current role.

    5
  17. Saying “oh the Teals will just stuff up and let the Libs back in” sounds very much like an abusive husband telling his mates that bitch wife of his is going to come running back to his arms any day now.

    Nothing suggests an ‘abusive’ husband. If anything, it is an inattentive, complacent husband. But I completely understand why a supporter of the ALP’s first thought is ‘abusive’ husband.

    15
  18. Further to Roskam’s piece….”Apparently, company boards should now start purging their ranks of “right-wingers”. That’s the view of Graeme Bricknell of the executive search and consulting firm, Korn Ferry.

    The choice of the word “purge” is very instructive because this is how the left operates. Nobody should be surprised. And the right have just sat back and done nothing to combat this. As far as the likes of Bricknell are concerned, we on the right are to have no voice so they will do their best to silence us.

    8
  19. ROFLMAO!

    At 1140, m0nty-fa is forecasting a future Liars/Lieboral alliance. By 1444, he is expecting the Liars to wedge the Lieborals out of existence, and deal with the Slime as colleagues in government.

    What his near-hysterical commenting today suggests that, if m0nty-fa actually has any inside Liars contacts, then fear (one of the four leftist characteristics – hatred, hypocrisy, envy and fear) is increasing among the Liars that their enemies are about to use their own tactics against them.

  20. Farmer Gezsays:
    June 3, 2022 at 2:34 pm
    m0nty says:
    June 3, 2022 at 1:43 pm
    It really is amazing how the Liberals have just given up after one battle. The Teals have broken them.

    The ladies of the best postcodes will be one of the shortest political experiments we’ll ever see.
    They’re simplistic climate agenda has already been exposed by gas shortages and large food price hikes.
    The media will soon hunt then down for answers with pictures and stories of cold starving pensioners and single mums who’ve been impoverished by “real action on climate.”

    You are far more optimistic about the media going after fellow travelers than I am.

    10
  21. Matt Thistlethwaite was sworn into the assistance ministerial role this week, just as winter began to bite and the thoughts of many in NSW turned to the costs of two life essentials: heating and eating.

    Most political thinking is reflected in the MSM reporting on this issue, which inevitably goes something like:-

    “Experts urge people to shop around for better deals, to replace power hungry appliances and consider upgrading insulation.”

    A glib “let them eat cake”.
    Shop around for better deals? If wholesale prices are increasing by 20% – 30%, the very best 2022 deal will inevitably be higher than anything you were on in 2021.
    Replace appliances. Yes, a pensioner can just decide to throw out their HWS or heater and shovel 3 or 4 grand at five-star replacements.
    Insulation? Bit awkward if you are a renter.
    Classic victim blaming.

    17
  22. Baron of the Taiga
    @baronichitas
    ·
    13h
    Lord have mercy! ??
    Quote Tweet

    Orthodox Canonist ???
    @OCanonist
    · Jun 2
    BREAKING: The Holy Mountain monastery in Donbass has been severely bombed a few hours ago by the Ukrainian military

    Many injured, many have been killed, among them: caretaker of the monastery Archimandrite Galaction, sister Barbara, and Deacon Alipius

    Memory Eternal!

    I wonder if this will make the news.

    10
  23. Cassie

    The choice of the word “purge” is very instructive because this is how the left operates. Nobody should be surprised.

    Hatred, another characteristic of leftists. Now out and proud.

    6
  24. It’ll be utterly fascinating to learn the justification for banning the air export.

    I read that 1 sheep has died out of 100,000’s of exports.

    4
  25. so it mystifies me why the Libs are ceding their old seats without even token resistance.

    What makes you think that? We’re a week or so out from the election. What do you expect to have happened by now?

    In any case, you still haven’t said what you think they should do. Even if fashion statement “climate” poseurism could win back all those seven seats, which it might well not anyway, it would still leave Labor in power unless the Liberals can also win back a swag of suburban seats. That’s democracy – the majority get to win. And there’s no sign that the suburbs are going to get on board with “climate” grandstanding any time soon.
    What the Coalition really needs to be looking at is the million or so voters who didn’t bother to turn up this time. They may well find that those voters don’t want to vote Labor/Green/teal, but were fed up with the Photios/Turnbull/ScoMo goat rodeo’s failure to deliver sound, competent government. If that is the case the fix is easy (though the Photios party probably still won’t do it).

    9
  26. This happened in France two weeks ago…

    “In what has become a disturbing, and all too familiar occurrence in France, another elderly French Jew has been murdered in an unprovoked attack motivated by antisemitism. On May 21, an 89-year-old Lyon resident named René Hadjaj was defenestrated from the 17th floor of the apartment complex where he resided. The perpetrator has been identified as a 51-year-old male of Algerian origin named Rachid Kheniche. Hadjaj was said to have been wearing a kippah at the time of the assault.

    French police were quick to dismiss the attack as a dispute between neighbors unrelated to antisemitism. However, watchdog groups quickly alerted French law enforcement authorities to Kheniche’s social media postings where he engaged in antisemitic rants. After viewing the postings, the French prosecutor’s office requested that judges presiding over the case include an antisemitic motive charge as an aggravating circumstance in killing of Hadjaj.

    I’m sure the perpetrator, Rachid Kheniche, had “legitimate grievances” to murder a Jew.

    11
  27. Elbow is surely taking this piss. Matt Tinselweight as Minister for Republic?

    What does he do all day, every day then? $200K+ to do SFA? Serious question! There’s no department to administer, no regulations to make, no republic, no correspondence about the republic…

    Next Ministry will have Minister for the 4th Millenia?

    4
  28. The new 7 ‘teals’ who gained seats are women –

    Allegra Spender (Wentworth)
    Dr Monique Ryan (Kooyong)
    Kate Chaney (Curtin)
    Dai Le (Fowler)
    Zoe Daniel (Goldstein)
    Kylea Jane Tink (North Sydney)
    Sophie Scamps (Mackellar)

    who join the other independents Haines, Steggall and Wilkie.

    9 women.

    1
  29. “Dai Le (Fowler)”

    P, Dai Lei s not a Teal, she is the sole genuine independent. She received no help from GetUp or Svengali Simon.

    21
  30. And not only is Dai Le a true independent, I suspect she is the only sensible one and she isn’t a progressive.

    17
  31. The very good newsreader today on TV read one segment of news standing, with her legs wide apart. In close fitting slacks IMO unbecoming.
    This is predominantly a male stance.
    I’ve noticed this a few times lately mainly by weather presenters, perhaps not as objectionable because of their frequent movements.
    Things change, I guess.

    4
  32. In any case, you still haven’t said what you think they should do.

    They’re in a tough spot. The Republicans manage to survive playing to their base despite losing the popular vote in practically every national American election due to gerrymanders, some natural and others manufactured. I don’t think the Liberals can follow that strategy in our system, it won’t deliver them government.

    Abandoning their former base seems insane to me. If the Liberals aren’t going to be bankrolled by big business, where do they get their funding from? I doubt strongly that they can get a grassroots donor network happening in Australia.

    It’s not my job to figure out how to solve their problems, but I sure can point out how the strategy they are using isn’t going to work. If I knew how to solve it, I wouldn’t be sitting here chatting with you about it, I’d be earning the big bucks as a consultant.

    2
  33. Struthsays:
    June 3, 2022 at 2:57 pm
    A spot on article.
    Will the denialists read it?

    Struth,

    an excellent article

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9062939/

    COVID UPDATE: What is the truth?

    The COVID-19 pandemic is one of the most manipulated infectious disease events in history, characterized by official lies in an unending stream lead by government bureaucracies, medical associations, medical boards, the media, and international agencies.[3,6,57]

    We have witnessed a long list of unprecedented intrusions into medical practice, including attacks on medical experts, destruction of medical careers among doctors refusing to participate in killing their patients and a massive regimentation of health care, led by non-qualified individuals with enormous wealth, power and influence.

    For the first time in American history a president, governors, mayors, hospital administrators and federal bureaucrats are determining medical treatments based not on accurate scientifically based or even experience based information, but rather to force the acceptance of special forms of care and “prevention”—including remdesivir, use of respirators and ultimately a series of essentially untested messenger RNA vaccines. For the first time in history medical treatment, protocols are not being formulated based on the experience of the physicians treating the largest number of patients successfully, but rather individuals and bureaucracies that have never treated a single patient—including Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates, EcoHealth Alliance, the CDC, WHO, state public health officers and hospital administrators.

    The media (TV, newspapers, magazines, etc), medical societies, state medical boards and the owners of social media have appointed themselves to be the sole source of information concerning this so-called “pandemic”. Websites have been removed, highly credentialed and experienced clinical doctors and scientific experts in the field of infectious diseases have been demonized, careers have been destroyed and all dissenting information has been labeled “misinformation” and “dangerous lies”, even when sourced from top experts in the fields of virology, infectious diseases, pulmonary critical care, and epidemiology. These blackouts of truth occur even when this information is backed by extensive scientific citations from some of the most qualified medical specialists in the world.

    14
  34. Warnings of power outages this weekend. Not a serious country.

    Very timely though!

    With a new government committed to a 43% reduction in emissions in 8 years and a shortfall of replacement generators coming into the grid this is a sign of things to come…only much ealrier than the “experts” predicted.

    13
  35. About that Liberal push to build their new frontline in the suburbs: A Liberal — may have been the candidate for Wills or a helper, just don’t know which — was handing out election screeds outside Coles here ion the West prior to the 2016 election.

    He was wearing a cravat.

    7
  36. It’s not my job to figure out how to solve their problems

    And nor would they ever ask you Munty so stop dreaming that you’re some sort of credible political analyst.

    5
  37. RE animal exports by air in 1920/21……Cattle / 5184 , 0 deaths : Goats 15002 / 2 deaths : Sheep 32357: 3 deaths. Govt. documented .

    9
  38. Apparently, company boards should now start purging their ranks of “right-wingers”. That’s the view of Graeme Bricknell of the executive search and consulting firm, Korn Ferry

    Headhunters. Instead of just filling a brief, they see themselves as omnipotent Masters of the Universe who know better than their clients.
    I was put forward for a job being recruited by these guys years ago. The interview was cordial enough but it was obvious the guy was totally disinterested from the get-go. Missed the first cut and I found out later from my mate on the inside that the headhunter put a complete dud forward as “the one true standout candidate”, who got rejected and the client took the brief elsewhere. I had already gone elsewhere by then. Suspicion was that the candidate was a mate of the headhunter.
    Years later they turned up to another company I was with to pitch for business. I casually mentioned to one of them that I was in the mix for a job with XYZ Co years ago and wasn’t treated well. Although I didn’t mention the particular dickhead by name, the reaction of the person I was talking to he had joined the dots. My parting shot … “It’s always worth considering that today’s candidate might be tomorrow’s client.”
    They were a long-shot to get a look-in anyway, but never miss an opportunity to twist a knife.

    12
  39. Re the native title claim over Canberra, it’s something I considered over 20 years ago when I was looking to buy a home. One of the major factors in deciding to buy in New South Wales was that residential property is freehold title, which I knew extinguishes native title. I knew that the Wik decision had set a precedent for pastoral leasehold property and I thought it would be a matter of time before there would be a test case on the residential leasehold title which applies to ALL houses and apartments in Canberra. I’m only surprised it took this long.

    I’m also experiencing ein bisschen schadenfreude – all those lefties in Canberra are going to have make rent payments on their homes and it might make a few attitude changes to native title rights.

    17
  40. Speaking of political imbeciles,

    Single use plastic bags be fucked.

    When the town council did this in Canberra some years back I found on-line a company that supplies these things (along with all sorts of other stuff) and ordered 2500 of them. First time customer discount cost less than $70.

    Still got about 500 left. They break down in landfill – not like the heavy plastic ones you have to pay for when you duck in to get milk, bread and butter and forgot your green bag that will survive in landfill like a cockroach.

    15
  41. m0ntysays:
    June 3, 2022 at 4:14 pm
    In any case, you still haven’t said what you think they should do.

    Abandoning their former base seems insane to me. If the Liberals aren’t going to be bankrolled by big business, where do they get their funding from? I doubt strongly that they can get a grassroots donor network happening in Australia.

    It’s not my job to figure out how to solve their problems, but I sure can point out how the strategy they are using isn’t going to work. If I knew how to solve it, I wouldn’t be sitting here chatting with you about it, I’d be earning the big bucks as a consultant.

    Fair Comment

    1
  42. AGL – Cribb Point in gas terminal was canned last year by Dan.

    Jono La Nauze, from Environment Victoria, said the market had spoken and it wanted to switch to cleaner renewables.

    “Victoria doesn’t need a dirty hulking gas import terminal that would bring gas we simply do not need,” he said.

    The terminal would have held 170,000 cubic metres of gas.

    Genius at work.

    12
  43. ‘Never seen that before’: Brush turkeys are turning carnivorous in Sydney suburbs

    Demonstrating a behaviour eerily reminiscent of their Jurassic ancestors, a pack of brush turkeys has been filmed in Sydney’s Northern Beaches ravenously devouring the carcass of a bandicoot.

    Dr John Martin, a research scientist at the Taronga Institute of Science and Learning, spotted the dominant male turkey fiercely defending the roadkill from five or six lurking competitors, before tearing into the meat.

    This brush turkey behaviour is highly unusual, according to Martin, who said the birds usually feed on seeds, worms and grubs.

    “It literally grabs a chunk of blood-red steak and wolfs it down,” said Martin, who captured video of the behaviour in Manly. “I had never seen that before.”

    Behavioural ecologist Professor Darryl Jones, a brush turkey expert, had also never heard of the turkeys feasting on roadkill. He said it was a “pretty rare event” for turkeys to fend off other scavengers and eat “a big chunk of meat like a bandicoot”.

    Jones says the birds, having occupied Sydney’s suburbs, are adapting their diets by feeding on abundant roadkill that was not once part of their rainforest habitats.

    1
  44. I knew that the Wik decision had set a precedent for pastoral leasehold property and I thought it would be a matter of time before there would be a test case on the residential leasehold title which applies to ALL houses and apartments in Canberra.

    Hmm how frightfully entertaining!

    Sucked-in ACT for not having freehold lol!

    5
  45. Australia’s 52 top wineries of 2022

    After the devastation of the 2019-20 bushfires, the 2021 vintage has thankfully proved to be one of almost universally great quality. Here, we toast Australian winemaking’s current crème de la crème.

    By Huon Hooke

    JUNE 3, 2022

    1
  46. “It’s not my job to figure out how to solve their problems,”

    Yet all he’s done here for two weeks is talk about the Liberal’s problems.

    Strange man.

    8
  47. From their ABCcess…

    They have banned live sheep exports by air, literally beacuse one sheep died in 2021….
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-03/sheep-live-export-ban-labor-agriculture-minister-confirms/101119752

    while air exports accounted for 22,572, with one mortality recorded.

    he missed the final word…YET…
    But the new Agriculture Minister insisted this was not the case.

    “We absolutely have no plans to end or phase out the live cattle export trade,” Senator Watt said.

    The classic kid who killed his parents blaming his actions on being an orphan.

    Underpinning the ban on sheep exports was the general decline in the industry, he said.

    “The industry has been in decline for some time now and in some respects, this [the ban] would be continuing a trend that is already happening,” Senator Watt said.

    Underpinning the strangulation of my victim was the general decline after I punched them in the throat and promised as soon as I had the opportunity Id kill them….

    12
  48. For the benefit of those who weren’t in Australia when the High Court ruled on Native title:

    The ruling specifically excluded the ACT.
    (This of course was based totally on legal principle and was nothing to do with protecting the homes of High Court Judges from native title claim)

    8
  49. Similar thing happened to me Thancho, Having a beer with FiL when he mentioned a persons name who had applied for a job. We had actually worked together. Long story short, he didn’t get the job when he needed it after being sacked. Funny how things work out.

    1
  50. CDC Director Issues Alert on Pfizer’s COVID Pill paxlovid: Warns of “Covid Rebound” and Positive Viral PCR

    Husband recently had telephone consultation at the farm with a new young doctor at our Sydney practice. It was a courtesy call on husband’s behalf as he had just received a copy (we always demand one & had already read it) of a recent full blood count.

    Husband happened to tell him that he was unvaccinated, and had recently had a (mild) bout of Covid19. Alarmed, the novice medico said he would send a script for Paxlovid which he insisted husband should take. Husband is more tolerant and diplomatic than I am, & said nothing. But, in reply to query re what medication he was taking – he rattled off our daily intake of vitamins and supplements, and, being the wag that he is …..included ivermectin! That didn’t go down well – at least, not with young doctor!

    Needless to say, husband ignored script for Paxlovid – although he refused to tell doctor (as I was advising in the background!) that Paxlovid was already causing rebound Covid.

    I should add that not all GPs are similarly ignorant. A (vaccinated) friend who was suffering concerning shortness of breath after a week of Covid lucked upon a young doctor at a new practice (her doctor at her usual practice was booked out) who prescribed steroids for her problem. Fixed it up within days. There’s one young doctor who actually researches what OS frontline Covid physicians have discovered by trial and error.

    9
  51. I’d be earning the big bucks as a consultant.

    The only big bucks you could get is as a fat arsed soy boy.

    2
  52. The industry has been in decline for some time now and in some respects, this [the ban] would be continuing a trend that is already happening,” Senator Watt said.

    The industry has been in decline for some time now because that’s how long the Greens and their fellow howler monkeys have been trying to shut it down. WFM.

    7
  53. so it mystifies me why the Libs are ceding their old seats without even token resistance.

    What makes you think that? We’re a week or so out from the election. What do you expect to have happened by now?

    Stay behinds?

    Neck-height wires stretched across the entry to polling places during counting and preference allocation?

    Werewolves of the Liberal-Jugend sneaking out at night to deface remaining election posters and secretly circulate Liberal HTV cards?

    We all know how the fanatical fascist Right apparently operates…

    2
  54. The Republicans manage to survive playing to their base despite losing the popular vote in practically every national American election due to gerrymanders,

    m0nty-fa admits that the DemonRats are the Gerrymanderers. Small steps, acknowledging the problem is an essential start. He might even start to wonder is the fascist left actually has the good of the electorate at heart.

    2
  55. For the benefit of those who weren’t in Australia when the High Court ruled on Native title:

    The ruling specifically excluded the ACT.
    (This of course was based totally on legal principle and was nothing to do with protecting the homes of High Court Judges from native title claim)

    Darn.

    They could still argue the exclusion of ACT, right? (Since most ACT-types are into inclusion?)

    3
  56. Perhaps blinded by the success of the 2019 campaign, Morrison didn’t seem to appreciate that ostentatious masculinity repelled many educated women.

    I don’t recall Morrison or any other lib displaying ostentatious masculinity. Or any other sort of masculinity. Au
    Cointreau.

    19
  57. Jono La Nauze, from Environment Victoria, said the market had spoken and it wanted to switch to cleaner renewables.

    I suspect “the market, i.e. consumers, might like another look.

    10
  58. Top…men…
    Thats who we have in government
    top….men….

    Apparently stagflation of the 70’s and the misery of the UK in particular had nothing to do with increasing wages after spunking money like a Tsar on a meth and vodka bender at Vlads house of poon.

    The new government has made its long-awaited submission to the minimum wage inquiry, setting out a clear position that workers should not suffer effective pay cuts due to inflation. Employment minister Tony Burke said that the government hadn’t limited its call to only minimum wage workers, but instead backed pay rises for all workers on low rates. At a press conference in Sydney, he said:

    We don’t want anyone to go backwards, but there’s a particular priority right now with respect to low-paid workers.

    Labor’s submission makes specific reference to the 5.1% inflation figure in setting out its position that wages shouldn’t go “backwards”.

    Burke rubbished suggestions that such wage rises would add to inflation pressures, saying:

    Inflation is not being driven by high wage growth. How do we know this? We don’t have high wage growth.

    The factors that are providing upward pressure right now on inflation are not wages. It’s not one of those factors. The whole concept that the sort of spiral that may be referred to in the early 1980s does not reflect the economic conditions now.

    This does not bode well for the future.
    They believe that events of the past, which have actually occurred, cannot happen again based on brute ignorance and what they wish to be real.

    The time to fight inflation was during the RGR & Morriswine/miserable ghost/Abbott eras with balanced budgets and restrained spending.

    2
  59. Kenny on the US gun issue reveals he is a gibbering leftie. The gun issue in the US is entirely a product of social disintegration caused by the demorat attack on traditional values and freedoms. They have destroyed black families, removed consequence from the judicial system, released mentally ill and serious criminals back into communities, they have denigrated US society through racism, sexism and every other schism inducing trendie virtue issue. They don’t enforce security at schools and exacerbated all this with 2 years of alienation based on the chunk virus.

    The most stark thing about the Texas shooting is the grotesque failure of the authorities before, during and after the shooting.

    21
  60. Lysandersays:
    June 3, 2022 at 4:22 pm
    It’s not my job to figure out how to solve their problems

    And nor would they ever ask you Munty so stop dreaming that you’re some sort of credible political analyst.

    And even if m0nty-fa offered advice, they should do the opposite. m0nty-fa is not the friend of anyone not part of the fascist left.

    2
  61. Husband happened to tell him that he was unvaccinated, and had recently had a (mild) bout of Covid19. Alarmed, the novice medico said he would send a script for Paxlovid which he insisted husband should take. Husband is more tolerant and diplomatic than I am, & said nothing. But, in reply to query re what medication he was taking – he rattled off our daily intake of vitamins and supplements, and, being the wag that he is …..included ivermectin! That didn’t go down well – at least, not with young doctor!

    Not having any ivermectin before I got the chunk virus recently I gargled continually with Betadine which has iodine in it and when I caught the damn thing had a lot of aspro clear and phenergan. The severe symptoms still lasted about 4 days and some flu like nasal drips are persisting.

    4
  62. Cassie of Sydneysays:
    June 3, 2022 at 4:59 pm
    “It’s not my job to figure out how to solve their problems,”

    Yet all he’s done here for two weeks is talk about the Liberal’s problems.

    Strange man.

    He wasn’t talking, he was gloating. Just as the Liars (and the MSM, BIRM) thought that KRudd’s victory had ushered in a new dawn of long term Liar government, m0nty-fa thinks that AnAl’s victory has seen the utter destruction of the Liberals.

    It might have, but a wise man (which excludes m0nty-fa) would be rather more cautious.

    2
  63. WHAT IS A WOMAN?

    It has long been supposed (mostly tongue-in-cheek, except for Freudians) that the great unanswerable question of all time is, “What do women want?” Forget that. Today the unanswerable question—not tongue-in-cheek—is, “What is a woman?”

    Matt Walsh of the Daily Wire has produced a documentary about this question which is out late this week. I haven’t see it yet, but I have seen some excerpts, and this short trailer makes one big thing abundantly clear: the transgender activists are so cocksure of themselves that they wilt under the slightest questioning from Matt. Most of them fall mute when you ask the simplest questions.

    5
  64. No, no, no, no, NO!

    Those pillowy golden puffs of classic movie-theater popcorn, covered in fake butter and all-too-real salt, could be in short supply.

    “Popcorn supply will be tight,” Preferred Popcorn chief executive Norm Krug told the Wall Street Journal.

    Just when we’re gearing up to watch MSNBC on what is likely to be the Democrats’ worst midterm election night wipeout since their last midterm election wipeout, this has to happen. I’m starting to be very disappointed in the Biden Administration.

    3
  65. Fyodor Lukyanov: Russia’s role in the global economic order has turned out to be more significant than the West believed

    Western sanctions against Russia are speeding up the end of globalization as we’ve known it. A new economic order awaits.

    After weeks of intensive negotiations, the European Union has agreed on a sixth package of sanctions against Moscow. Its main element is the cessation, by the end of this year, of oil imports from Russia delivered to the bloc’s market by sea.

    According to President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, this will reduce Russian supplies to the EU by 90%, with the remaining 10% lined up for the chop in the future.

    The percentage share is a debatable issue, but the assessment of the head of the European Council, Charles Michel, who announced the ban on two-thirds of Russian raw materials, looks more realistic. For Russia, the main thing so far is not quantity, but quality. Pipeline routes, unlike maritime routes, cannot be redirected elsewhere; a ban would have meant decommissioning the Druzhba pipeline and losing this delivery method. This did not happen due to the persistence of Hungary, which was secretly supported by several other countries.

    As for tankers, the global oil market is unified, and until a global trade embargo is imposed against Russia (which is almost impossible), goods will be sent to other consumers, mainly those in Asia.

    Even considering the discounts that customers from Asia will receive, they are always sensitive to the narrowing of their partner’s room for alternatives. However, the timeframe for the full implementation of even Brussels’ already agreed upon solution is still unknown.

    Industry experts have unanimously agreed that there is no substitute for Russian oil in the EU at the moment, as the volumes available on the market are limited. So it cannot be ruled out that after the loud political declarations have faded from the headlines, there will be a very cautious and gradual implementation. In any case, the most interesting aspect of this story is not the tactical, but the strategic aspect.

    Let’s assume that the EU does set a clear political goal of ending energy cooperation with Russia, and in the medium-term it will be possible to implement it. What would this mean for the world order?

    3
  66. Inflation is not being driven by high wage growth. How do we know this? We don’t have high wage growth.

    The factors that are providing upward pressure right now on inflation are not wages. The whole concept that the sort of spiral that may be referred to in the early 1980s does not reflect the economic conditions now.

    Yet.
    I was alive in the early 1980’s. The booming 10%+ inflation was caused by the oil shock.

    I don’t remember anyone receiving matching 10% wage/salary increases.

    12
  67. Watching some geek opining about Putin microManaging the War like Hitler, Surrounded by paintings and sculptures of Tsars, longing for Empire, Leigh Sales is biting her tongue to stop from bursting out laughing, the charade ends and she says
    Thank you, Antony Beevor
    Anyone ever heard of this dork before?

  68. As sanctions fail and Russia advances, Western media changes its tune on Ukraine

    Western media outlets, once cheerleaders for Kiev, are increasingly warning sanctions are failing and Ukraine needs to make peace

    Even as the collective West continues to insist – against all observable reality – that the conflict in Ukraine is going well for Kiev, major media outlets are becoming increasingly uneasy with the situation on the economic front. More and more observers are admitting that the embargoes imposed by the US and its allies aren’t crushing the Russian economy, as originally intended, but rather their own.

    Meanwhile, major publications have begun to report on the actual situation on the frontlines, rather than uncritically quoting myths like the ‘Ghost of Kiev’ or ‘Snake Island 13’ propagated by Volodymyr Zelensky’s office, as they did early on. There have even been hints, however timid, that the West should perhaps stop unconditionally supporting Kiev and promote a negotiated peace instead.

    “Russia is winning the economic war,” the Guardian’s economics editor Larry Elliott declared on Thursday. “It is now three months since the west launched its economic war against Russia, and it is not going according to plan. On the contrary, things are going very badly indeed,” he wrote.

    5
  69. Burke rubbished suggestions that such wage rises would add to inflation pressures, saying:

    Inflation is not being driven by high wage growth. How do we know this? We don’t have high wage growth.

    The victim’s current problems are caused by a knife wound so shooting him won’t do any harm.

    13
  70. OldOzziesays:
    June 3, 2022 at 5:31 pm
    WHAT IS A WOMAN?

    Matt Walsh is very good. The people he is going up against are a combination of freaks who have nothing to lose and misanthropes who treat them. The wider issue is normality and its derived values which underpin the West. The freaks and their treaters don’t just want to be part of the normality they want to destroy the old normality and its values. Walsh had better watch his back with these people.

    8
  71. “Popcorn supply will be tight,” Preferred Popcorn chief executive Norm Krug told the Wall Street Journal.

    just when we need it most! stock up while you still can

    4
  72. Burke rubbished suggestions that such wage rises would add to inflation pressures, saying:

    good to see this moron isn’t going to let us down on the road to clusterfuck from hell

    5
  73. It’ll be utterly fascinating to learn the justification for banning the air export.

    I read that 1 sheep has died out of 100,000’s of exports

    .

    It’s a ghastly trade involving ghastly people.
    I’m doubtful the ALP will shut it down, though.

  74. Breaking from The Oz:

    Biden’s son posted sex videos of himself.

    Videos found on a laptop abandoned by Hunter Biden reveal the US president’s son made films of himself having sex with prostitutes and posted them on his own Pornhub account.

    Oh, my gosh!

    Imagine if that news had come to light prior to the 2020 election. Newspapers and MSM worldwide would have been all over it 24/7. Cutting questions would have been asked. Biden’s campaign would have been severely damaged. It might have changed the outcome of the election. Or even…

    Yeah, nah.

    16
  75. Jono La Nauze, from Environment Victoria, said the market had spoken and it wanted to switch to cleaner renewables.

    “Victoria doesn’t need a dirty hulking gas import terminal that would bring gas we simply do not need,” he said.

    Fact free, pure emotion, with a tinge of vengefulness.

    15
  76. m0nty-fa admits that the DemonRats are the Gerrymanderers. Small steps, acknowledging the problem is an essential start. He might even start to wonder is the fascist left actually has the good of the electorate at heart.

    oh but they do, what’s not to love about cheerful squalor

    3
  77. Ed Casesays:
    June 3, 2022 at 5:41 pm
    Watching some geek opining about Putin microManaging the War like Hitler, Surrounded by paintings and sculptures of Tsars, longing for Empire, Leigh Sales is biting her tongue to stop from bursting out laughing, the charade ends and she says
    Thank you, Antony Beevor
    Anyone ever heard of this dork before?

    Well informed people have.

    9
  78. Ita Buttrose to deliver Andrew Olle Media Lecture

    This year’s Andrew Olle Media Lecture will be delivered by the ABC’s Chair, Ita Buttrose, to mark the broadcaster’s 90th anniversary. The lecture will be held at the Ivy Ballroom in Sydney on Friday 17th June and is open to the public. Ita will be talking about her career in journalism spanning 65 years, her views on Australian media, and the role the ABC plays as the country’s national broadcaster.

    If our side evidenced the same bad manners that characterise the Left, she’d get a very hard time while attempting to explain why the ABC is wonderful, fair, unbiased and just so swell.

    7
  79. Failure of Russia sanctions expose fractures in the US and EU

    Nick Wadhams – Bloomberg – Thu, 02 Jun 2022

    Biden administration officials are divided over how much further the US can push sanctions against Russia without sparking global economic instability and fracturing transatlantic unity.

    While President Joe Biden’s team rallied behind behind a sanctions plan it rolled out just after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the debate is more heated now that President Vladimir Putin has shrugged off the early economic penalties and is forging ahead with his war, according to officials familiar with the discussions.

    Comment: Putin enjoys an approval rating that Western leaders could only dream of, and the West’s blatant designs on destroying have only served to strengthen their support. It’s because of Putin’s handling of the country, despite the relentless attacks he has suffered over the last two decades, that Russia is able to withstand the current all out assault.

    The people, who asked not to be identified discussing internal deliberations, said factions have emerged over how hard to push. One group, which includes many officials at the State Department and White House, advocates even stricter measures known as secondary sanctions in response to Russian atrocities, arguing opposition from allies can be overcome.

    Comment: Those advocating for more sanctions are either shockingly incompetent or dangerously pathological, and are therefore not fit for office, although it does help explain why the US is in the current dire state it’s in.

    Another group of officials, many based at Janet Yellen’s Treasury Department, worry about further strains on a global economy already suffering from supply-chain woes, inflation, volatile oil prices and a potential food crisis. Some fret about the looming midterm elections and Democrats’ chances if prices at the pump stay high. They argue for a different, untested approach: a cap on oil prices that would allow countries to buy Russian energy while limiting Moscow’s income.

    Comment: Some of what is now being felt is a result of the global lockdowns, any action taken now is likely only going to soften the blow, but, for the most part, it’s too late to entirely stop the catastrophic consequences.

    “We’re now just coming up to the limit of how severely you can impose sanctions against a major economy without it having such bad spillover effects that you are creating a ton of bushfires elsewhere,” said Nicholas Mulder, a Cornell University professor and author of “The Economic Weapon,” a history of sanctions policy.

    3
  80. Anyone ever heard of this dork before?

    Yep. Putin is the bloke in charge of Russia.

    5
  81. I’ve watched a few episodes of Yellowstone after hearing good reports.
    What a load of miserable shit!
    Every cowboy is a psych case and without the slightest tinge of good humour. Two leading characters gaze at the sun coming up over the mountains and comment that it’s the best part of the day. You wouldn’t know it from the surly looks and grim tones.
    Gun use and violence is bordering on comical. Costner shoots a horse under the chin to put it down. A great way to get horse brains all over your Stetson.
    A little kid who’s grown up on a reservation doesn’t know how to set wood to light a fire. He falls into a river like he was transported clueless straight from a Manhattan apartment.
    I’ll keep watching in hope that something remotely interesting happens or they all get taken by aliens.
    Two out of five horse droppings from me.

    12
  82. Larry Johnson, in interview with Eva B., said he had proof that Alexandra Chalupa flew members of Azov to D.C. for the rally/riot on Jan. 6, 2020.

    From smoothie x-12

    1
  83. What’s the latest advice for the Liberal Party?
    Embrace Nuclear Power?
    The tried that during Hawke’s time, lost 4 elections over the issue.
    Economic Rationalism?
    That was another Hawke Era Liberal Mantra, no one voted for it, but it gave Hawke cover to sell Australia out.

  84. Thank you, Antony Beevor
    Anyone ever heard of this dork before?

    Who, Leigh Sales?

    1
  85. It’s a ghastly trade involving ghastly people.

    Positively beastly old chap.
    Lots of highly expensive stud stock of all kinds are transported by air. Spring racing carnival horses are too.
    When will this ghastliness end?

    13
  86. “ABC’s Chair, Ita Buttrose”

    One of Morrison’s first significant decisions back in 2018 was to appoint the ghastly Buttrose as chair of their ABC.

    One of Morrison’s last significant decisions was to throw yet more of our money at their ABC.

    My God Morrison was a fool.

    Remember she was one of Morrison’s picks, shortly after he became PM.

    It was downhill

    17
  87. Lots of highly expensive stud stock of all kinds are transported by air. Spring racing carnival horses are too.
    When will this ghastliness end?

    Really?
    So, you would accept Legislation mandating live air export of sheep?

  88. Ita was one of Scotty’s best picks, Katherine Deves his worst.

    Liberal rule lasted 20 of the past 26 years, they did a good job picking up the wreckage of the Hawke/Keating Disaster and the Rudd/Gillard disaster and getting the Economy booming.

  89. Really?
    So, you would accept Legislation mandating live air export of sheep?

    WTF Lady Edwina.
    How did you drift off to that conclusion from my statement?
    Your harder to fathom than a Teal election policy.

    12
  90. Anyone up to date on Dickhead Dan and The EPA’s dumping of Pfas contaminated tunnel soil in The West?

    1
  91. It’s a ghastly trade involving ghastly people.

    Sheep see dying as some sort of sport you imbecile.

    5
  92. Anyone up to date on Dickhead Dan and The EPA’s dumping of Pfas contaminated tunnel soil in The West?

    Andrews is a Right Winger who governs like a Right Winger.
    The way he’s going, he’ll retire in the job.

  93. Yellowstone .. I’ll keep watching in hope that something remotely interesting happens
    Short answer .. It doesn’t .. LOL! American made for American audiences who, probably, understand how their political game is played … I got into it because of Costner but I gave it away after dragging myself thru 2 seasons and getting lost in their state politics plots ..

  94. Liberal rule lasted 20 of the past 26 years, they did a good job picking up the wreckage of the Hawke/Keating Disaster and the Rudd/Gillard disaster and getting the Economy booming.

    soooooo the idea is that we have to survive, at least, 3 years before sanity prevails .. again!
    Luv an optimist .. .. LOL!

    2
  95. It’s not my job to figure out how to solve their problems,

    mUnty drinking his own bathwater again?

    1
  96. Masks on a 13 hour flight?
    Presumably whilst you are asleep as well.
    Fuck ’em.

    Yes, indeed. No-one in the mass-production Business Class (about 50 carels) on Emirates’ A380 was wearing their mask except on entering and departing the aircraft. Plenty of people, including us, enjoying sitting around the bar partying and getting to know each other, with only the staff masked. No need for masks at all at Heathrow. Dubai still fairly keen on masking. Back in Sydney, masks on for leaving the aircraft and not off until out into Arrivals where very few were wearing the mask. “Mandatory” is what you decide it is these days. Five glorious maskless weeks in the UK and no-one anywhere mentioning Covid. Very much yesterday’s obsession there. As usual, Australia completely contradictory in requirements causing as much confusion as ever: fill in an online Covid form hidden away in a corner of the site so hard to see; Novavax not on their list to even box tick it, then asking useless information they already had, causing all sorts of issues at check-in when not done, and still requiring a RAT test result for incoming non-residents on arrival. We residents are immune, they assume. Had to show the QR coded vaxx form at check-in but they couldn’t read the QR code, so that little piece of magic failed to work. Contradictory information everywhere as usual, says Hairy, have to give the new layer of Labor bureaucrats something to do to improve on ScoMo’s loonies. Axing the lot, as Boris did, is beyond them.

    Immigration in though has improved as they have the self-service system up and running well, and customs was also a breeze, not x-raying everything incoming. I presume they still x-ray all outgoing luggage prior to loading it. This thought had worried me as the round iron wall plate I bought in Windsor for fifty quid from an antique shop, with the Crown and E11R on it in gold ( retrieved from a demolished public building) might have held things up. I thought it might go well in our new terrace conservatory. Hairy rolled his eyes heavenwards when I bought it. It will become a treasure in a few years when the Her Majesty is no longer with us, I say. They won’t be making any more of them.

    Or none at least to rival Elizabeth 11 Regina. Happy and Glorious, sadly not long to reign now.

    And wot is this Labor stuff about a Republic? Getting in early aren’t they? That’s a bit rude.

    7
  97. Perhaps blinded by the success of the 2019 campaign, Morrison didn’t seem to appreciate that ostentatious masculinity repelled many educated women.

    Thank goodness I’m not “educated” into imbecility!

    I love a bit of ostentatious masculinity. It’s the best sort.

    7
  98. “ABC’s Chair, Ita Buttrose”

    When I read that, I always try to imagine what all the other furniture looks like.

    Mostly Fantastic with the odd up-cycled piece thrown in. And at a Chippendale price.

    2
  99. Sheep see dying as some sort of sport you imbecile.

    Never a truer word.

    4
  100. Sheep see dying as some sort of sport you imbecile.

    Merino sheep, in particular, spend all their time thinking up new ways to die, while causing their owner the maximum stress….

    9
  101. Last day of the Outback Adventure here at Narrabri. As all the Cats have complained, the temps have plummeted and the rain has set in. Much…much water along the roadside, telling us the story of the recent floods.

    The cotton has been harvested leaving the immense expanses bristling with the dark, brittle remains of the bushes, the roadsides white with drifting cotton balls all caught in the spikey grasses. Great bales encased in yellow or bright blue plastic dot the paddocks ready for transport.

    Roads are marked “open” or “caution”. All for a puddle across half the surface. We have become imbecilic in our need to quash risk. Work on side roads means a drop in speed on the unaffected highway.

    Narrabri RSL boasts a dining room decked out as a bush shack with stuff collected from sheds and lots of corrugated iron. Including a couple of verandahs. During the meal, the sound of thunder and cracks of lightning – the verandahs started to drip! All the little ones gathered excitedly underneath to catch the water. Some designer somewhere has a vivid imagination – and a real sense of how important that rainfall is to the locals. Well done!

    15
  102. Farmer Gez says: June 3, 2022 at 6:26 pm

    I’ve watched a few episodes of Yellowstone after hearing good reports.
    What a load of miserable shit!

    Watch every episode of (however many) seasons there are, see if there is even one scene, in just one episode, that would occur in the same manner in real life.

    Just one. (This is a challenge – I do not believe such a scene exists)

  103. Groogs doesn’t like too many air miles on his mutton.

    They dehydrate at altitude, making the sinews tougher to cut out and wrap round the handle of his pointing stick.

  104. Banning the live export of sheep or cattle will not create more jobs here in WA. It will cause a drop in price of sheep / cattle for the simple reason the customers dont want chilled meat. The buyers will source live animals from Sth Africa, Mid east Africa and Sth America. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the Middle East and North Africa’s largest livestock market, importing nearly 8 million head a year, including goats, cattle, sheep and camels, but Aust supplies none of these animals.

    7
  105. spend all their time thinking up new ways to die

    That takes me back fifty years to a property near Menangle, used by the Anglican church as a retreat/conference centre. There were a couple of dunnies in the back paddock for those caught short at fetes and the like.

    You guessed it. A sheep had barged its way into the loo and couldn’t get out. Carked it, poor thing, leaving a hideous carcass to be disposed of.

    In the Ladies, of course. Either a ewe or a wether, so at least it could read the sign.

    9
  106. JCsays:
    June 3, 2022 at 9:28 am
    Gyro

    Well, no.
    But good on you if you are, and enjoy celebrations of sundry and diverse depravities as are run-of-the-mill in your chosen abode. Whatever floats your boat I guess. Just encourage NY’s perverts, degenerates, freaks and weirdoes to keep it over there, there’s a good fellow!

    Tell us gyro, how enjoyable do you find the Sydney Mardi Gras? Are you in one of tbe floats?

    My dear fellow, I am not in Australia. Your first default is to be personally offensive, as much as you think you can get away with. Why is that? You are gratuitously insulting, which is both a deliberate choice by you and also extraordinarily juvenile. You have chosen to call me a drug-addict and a homosexual; based on what? I have not responded in kind as I am not interested in acting like a ten-year old child, as you choose to do.

    You consistently boast of being/living in NYC, that’s a deliberate choice. Fair enough, no argument, whatever floats your boat in terms of dwelling place, as previously noted. I merely have no idea why anyone would choose NYC. Yes I have been there and yes, there’s a long list of third world cities I have been to which are far superior to NYC and yes, I have criticised NYC. I have not criticised or insulted you.

    Civility is the mark of the civilised and properly educated man. It’s a motto one should try to abide by.

    One of the nice things about the New Cat is that it is a far more civil place than the old. A lot of that is because you, Monty and others who made the old site not worth anyone’s time have been pretty much brought to heel by the new management, ending the flame wars and open vituperation.

    Now I am off as I have a pleasant seacoast to visit.

    36
  107. Anya Seton’s book Katherine was referenced on this blog by Lizzie not so long ago. I devoured that book in my teens. Apparently, Katherine was possessed of incredible feminine beauty** and despite her lowly origins, she became the ancestress of just about every monarch of England since the mid-fifteenth century. I am thinking of making a pilgrimage to her resting place in Lincolnshire.

    Katherine’s tomb alongside that of her daughter Joan’s is in Lincoln Cathedral, but both tomb effigies were severely vandalised by Oliver Cromwell’s icon destroying axemen. A shame, as that was the only physical representation of Katherine we might be sure about. Alison Weir’s book “Katherine Swynford” is a recent historical analysis of whatever can be found about the lives of Katherine and John of Gaunt, discerning at least that her great beauty and intelligence were acknowledged at the time. Weir does some timeline analysis of gifts given at various stages in her life by John to Katherine to suggest they had a continuing warm relationship throughout their lives, their deep affection surviving their separation, although after Wat Tyer’s revolt and the burning of his Savoy palace John of Gaunt had to publicly repudiate her as his mistress.

    The bare bones and medieval culture outlined by Weir put a less romantic and probably more realistic spin on events, which I find rather sadly can detract from the novel. However, given the joy many still find in Anya Seton’s novel, Weir has included a short chapter on that book at the end of her own. Personally, I think Weir speculates just as much as Seton ever did, so all bets are off. Katherine is still the heroine of my adolescent years, as she is for many. Within her time, she lived capably and well, a worthy subject for a romance. Weir does well to provide a more positive interpretation of John of Gaunt than that offered by many of his contemporaries and by later historians too.

    You can still visit Kettlethorpe near Lincoln where Katherine spent many years, and where we stayed in Lincoln was a literal stone’s throw from the Cathedral Close where Katherine had a large townhouse which she used regularly. Little from the C14th however remains in either place, only an occasional window and doorway where Katherine may had stood. The Lincoln Cathedral Chapter were friendly to her when she was denigrated as a whore by other churchmen. Thomas Swynford was the child of her first marriage, to Sir Hugh Swynford. Best to note of male behaviour that these were brutal times.

    4
  108. Ita was one of Scotty’s best picks, Katherine Deves his worst.

    Stop trying to take the piss; and why do you turn up when the fat little turd is absent.

    5
  109. Just spotted for the first time a WHO ad on fakebook, informing me that …

    “The mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are as safe as other vaccines.”

    Gates and Co feeling a little threatened?

    3
  110. This is why Aust. live animal trade is in retreat.ESCAS . ESCAS requires exporters to have arrangements in place for the humane handling and slaughter of livestock in the importing country. Australia is the only country in the world with this kind of regulatory system. ESCAS is in place to ensure all livestock are handled and slaughtered in the importing country in accordance with the approved ESCAS. Countries like Saudi will not allow this level of interference in there internal market. All other live animal exporters do not ie DO NOT have this level of interference in another countries domestic market.

    16
  111. We’re heading down the Newell to home tomorrow. The road is pretty good considering the hammering it has had over the past few months.

    If you stop at Narrabri, have dinner at the RSL. It’s good. And fun.

    They had the meat tray raffle tonight. I tried to convince The Beloved to buy a ticket, but he refused. As we left, I saw the massive amount of covered “prizes” in the cabinet and scanned the room. The odds looked pretty good to me.

    Never mind. I will punish his parsimony with veggie burgers and the like over the next few nights. That’ll larn him. 🙂

    13
  112. Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity says:
    June 3, 2022 at 5:04 pm

    For the benefit of those who weren’t in Australia when the High Court ruled on Native title:

    The ruling specifically excluded the ACT.
    (This of course was based totally on legal principle and was nothing to do with protecting the homes of High Court Judges from native title claim)

    Sorry to burst your bubble, but HC judges don’t live in Canberra – they are FIFOs.

    When I briefly lived in Killara, Sydney in the 1980s, the then Chief Justice lived a few doors down. Since he was a keen gardener and walked for exercise, I often saw him at or near his home. He didn’t spend much time in Canberra, so I doubt if he had much (if anything) invested in the real estate market there.

    His fellow Justices would have been the same, as none of them came from Canberra, and none of the current ones do either.

    2
  113. ESCAS goes as far as TRACEABILITY. The exporter must be able to trace the location of all livestock at all points of the supply chain. This must occur from when they are unloaded overseas, to their slaughter at an approved abattoir or point of killing. Imagine trying to trace each animal you sold in a country the size of Saudi?

    4
  114. Sorry to burst your bubble, but HC judges don’t live in Canberra – they are FIFOs.

    Okay, none of them give a flying congress what happens to property in Canberra.
    Whatever their reason for specifically excluding ACT leasehold from being claimed, it wasn’t concern for their house.

    (Thank you for that nugget)

    3
  115. Correction. We part company here with the Newell and head down the Kamilaroi to the New England.

    The first rain we have seen in six weeks since the heavens opened over Darwin.

    3
  116. “Perth Tradersays:
    June 3, 2022 at 7:39 pm
    The last 12 days has shown us that AUSTRALIA IS GOVERNED BY FOOLS.”

    I think such inept governance has been happening for a lot longer than 12 days…..try decades.

    8
  117. Cali, using the Kamilaroi Hwy? if you haven’t been down it in a while the speed limits have been lowered in a number of areas between Narrabri & Gunnedah. The long strait areas between Narrabri & Boggabri are double white lines so no overtaking in areas once allowed.

    Gunnedah to Quirindi isn’t too bad though. If you can stand the idiots round the Liverpool Plains and their lock the gate/pseudo greens signs everywhere. I often used to wonder that after considering less than 2% was going to be the mine lease they jacked up about, what happens when the scorpion on your back (being the greens) stings you. Their choice but “mmm misguided they are.”

    5
  118. Thanks Doc. Thirteen thousand klms so far, we’ve encountered every type of halfwit bred to drive the Aussie highways and byways. And plenty of really decent, interesting people too.

    The Beloved is now planning to do the Big Lap in 2024, seeing that we aren’t remotely ready for a divorce after this one.

    8
  119. Wow – this is almost inexplicable in its ahistorical idiocy – wage price spiral, anyone?

    From the Oz:
    LIVE: POLITICS NOW
    Labore backs 5.1% minimum wage rise*
    ‘We don’t want wukkas to go backwards’, says government as it backs increase in submission to Fair Work Commission’s minimum wage review.

    Mind you, the FWC has been consistent in delivering a minimum wage increase that is always at the mid point of the unions’ and employers’ suggested rises.

    This year? Having gone back and consulted the historical stats – here we are.

    Last year’s was 2.5%, the last five years’ average being 2.8%. The largest increase in the last ten years was 3.5% in July 2019. (the largest before that in the last twenty years was 5.7% in July 2006)

    This year’s will likely be between 3.5% to 4.5%. The upwards spiral may have been stepped onto.

    Next, CPI rates.

    *As promised by Albansleazey during his disastrous campaign

    2
  120. Some CPI rates for your edification on a Friday night, Cats:

    Last year’s (i.e. 2020-21) was 3.8%, the last five years’ average being 1.8%. The second largest increase in the last ten years was 3% for 2013-14 (the largest before that in the last twenty years was 4.5% for 2007-08, although 2000-01 was 6%).

    The CPI rate for 2019-20 was -0.3%. The CPI for the twelve months from 31 December 2020 to 31 December 2021 was 3.5%.

    This year’s (i.e. 2021-22) will likely be between 4.5% – 5.5%. The “real rate” for those of us existing in the “real world” will likely be much higher, depending on what you’ve been splashing your cash on (willingly or otherwise).

    For me, it’s been the mortgage. Still the best cash rate around.

    2
  121. Sacré bleu – after all those sleep inducing factlets about various components of the economy, it’s time for a reminder of tomorrow night’s radio show – “Seventies Rock 1969-78” …
    🙂

    2
  122. Hacking away at the AEC website, can’t get a summary of voter turnout %.
    Any Cat know the score?

    1
  123. War hero Ben Roberts-Smith has been wounded, whatever the result

    Stephen Rice
    NSW EDITOR
    @riceyontheroad
    34 minutes ago June 3, 2022

    After 99 days of hearings and $30m tipped into the pockets of lawyers, the de facto war crimes trial of Ben Roberts-Smith has come to a close.

    It was a battle of his own choosing but the war hero has come out of it badly wounded, with a verdict still months away.

    Defamation cases are unruly beasts that have a habit of heading off in directions no one predicted. Ask Christian Porter and Craig McLachlan.

    This one charged out of the gate head-first into a series of killings in Afghanistan, trampling over the testimony of a dozen SAS witnesses, then swerved back home to carve a path of destruction through the Victoria Cross ­recipients’ marriage and his extra­marital affair, before pulling up in his own backyard to dig up a pink children’s lunch box and its hoard of secrets.

    And that was all before the 43-year-old former SAS soldier called his own witnesses.

    The trial has at least gone the distance, unlike the Porter case, which the former attorney-general gave up before it ever properly got going, and the McLachlan case, which the actor abandoned just as the defence was about to bring on its 11 witnesses.

    Both decided to cut their losses and walk away with hefty legal bills, but neither had the deep pockets and even deeper loyalty of Roberts-Smith’s employer and patron, billionaire media mogul Kerry Stokes.

    Roberts-Smith may be wondering if that was a blessing or a curse. Whatever judge Anthony Besanko finds when he hands down his judgment later this year, a parade of SAS soldiers has given eyewitness accounts of the VC ­recipients’ alleged involvement in murder.

    Roberts-Smith has denied all the claims, and plenty of other soldiers have given evidence backing him. But the headlines have been merciless. Vindication, if it arrives, will have come at a heavy price.

    The understated Besanko runs his court with quiet authority, rarely interjecting but ready to pull up even the most ­senior members of the bar.

    When Roberts-Smith’s barrister Arthur Moses SC raised his voice and interrupted the answer of one SAS witness he was cross-examining, Besanko admonished him: “Just pause, Mr Moses, I won’t tolerate raising the voice to the ­extent you did in this court.”

    “Yes, Your Honour, I won’t do that,” Moses replied.

    Besanko is, in short, the judge you’d want if you were that innocent person caught Hollywood-style bending over the body of the victim with a bloodied knife in your hand. The kind of judge who can be relied upon to see through a thicket of lies.

    And many witnesses in this case have lied. The conflicting accounts of what happened in the two central SAS missions at issue in the trial are irreconcilable.

    You don’t forget or mistake seeing one of your comrades fire a machinegun into the back of a ­detained, unarmed man. You ­either saw it or you made it up.

    You don’t crawl into a Taliban tunnel armed only with a pistol and forget or mistake finding two Afghan males hiding in it – men allegedly executed minutes later. You’ve either lied about it or there were no men in the tunnel.

    Yet each of the SAS soldiers who told these stories – one on ­behalf of the newspapers, the other for Ben Roberts-Smith – were compelling witnesses, plainly spoken men who seemed to give earnest, detailed accounts. The judge will need to work through dozens of such conundrums.

    The last weeks of the trial have been overshadowed by allegations of collusion between a small inner circle of Roberts-Smith’s witnesses, a potentially fatal blow for his case.

    Equally, Roberts-Smiths’ lawyers have spent dozens of hours probing the newspapers’ witnesses for acknowledgment they were motivated by jealousy for Roberts-Smith’s VC award, or simply by outright dislike of the soldier, a hard task-master who by his own admission once punched a subordinate in the face for wildly shooting in the direction of a woman and child. (To be fair, he is also alleged to have threatened to smash in the face of a superior officer, although Roberts-Smith has denied making the threat.)

    In theory, Roberts-Smith doesn’t have to prove anything. The onus is on Nine to prove the substantial truth of what its journalists wrote. But it only needs to do so on the balance of probabilities, not to the criminal case standard of beyond reasonable doubt.

    And it only needs to prove one case of murder. After that, Roberts-Smith’s reputation would be worthless.

    1
  124. Any Cat know the score?

    No, Wally, it’s been deliberately obscured to hide the Albansleazy goat rodeo’s illegitimacy – and if it hasn’t I’m over attempting to post detailed evidence of anything on this site tonight, mate.

    Although the legitimate vote in my electorate continues to hover around 70%.

    Take that, compulsory democracy! 🙂

    #anillegitimategovernmentledbyanillegitimateimbecile

    2
  125. Perth Trader

    You must be wrong.
    The minister was posteriorlating* that the industry was dying off naturally all by itself.

    * there’s going to be some serious posteriorlating when electricity prices double and the lights still flicker.

    2
  126. local oaf says:
    June 3, 2022 at 7:45 pm

    Just spotted for the first time a WHO ad on fakebook, informing me that …

    “The mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are as safe as other vaccines.”

    Gates and Co feeling a little threatened?

    Interesting angle to say the least.

    So now they admit that other vaccines are as dangerous as mRNA. Hardly a ringing endorsement.
    Won’t convince the skeptical, and might make the “anti-this-vaccine” folks think again about traditional vaxes.

    6
  127. Last day of the Supreme Court case v cop mandates. CM article :

    “Queensland’s Police Commissioner insists she is sticking to mandatory Covid-19 vaccination directions for all police officers and staff, despite some interstate police scrapping mandates. “I still have the view that the direction needs to stand,’’ Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll told the Supreme Court, saying she had reviewed her decision this week.

    She said she was aware Queensland Fire and Emergency Services ruled out mandatory vaccination in February and South Australian Police Service dropped it in March. Under cross-examination by counsel for police challenging her vaccination directions, Ms Carroll revealed she had Covid-19 five or six weeks ago, after having three vaccine doses. “I used two Rapid Antigen Tests, they were both negative, but something was not quite right and I went and immediately got a PCR test and it proved to be positive,’’ Ms Carroll said.

    More than 60 police officers and 12 ambulance officers are trying to overturn mandatory vaccination directions, in a legal challenge in the Supreme Court in Brisbane. Ms Carroll was grilled for a second day about her decisions to introduce and maintain successive mandatory vaccination directions for 18,000 police and staff. She said she had delegated Deputy Commissioner Doug Smith to make recommendations about vaccination, but the decision was ultimately hers.

    She agreed that she was aware that ATAGI recommended vaccine booster doses in December because the effectiveness of vaccinations had waned. The Commissioner was asked whether in considering human rights of police before her December vaccination direction she had regard to the fact that police vaccination was in the high 90 per cent. “It wasn’t part of the assessment,’’ the Commisioner said. When asked by Dominic Villa SC if she was aware by December that mandatory vaccination for police officers and staff had limited utility in preventing transmission of Omicron, she said “yes’’.

    Ms Carroll agreed that she knew mandatory vaccination significantly limited human rights, which were protected by Queensland law. She was asked by Dan O’Gorman SC if she would prefer that Queensland Police Service did not have people who conscientiously objected to Covid-19 vaccination.
    “Not really I’m indifferent to it,’’ Ms Carroll said, adding there were a lot of reasons why police members objected to it.

    The Commissioner said she was aware of the Health Minister announcing last week that unvaccinated people could enter hospitals. She also was aware that national Cabinet had changed the definition of a close contact and in January the Chief Health Officer said “all of us are going to be exposed to Omicron’’. After putting to the Commissioner that masks were no longer mandatory and since December QR codes were no longer needed, Mr O’Gorman asked if she had considered having a serious look at her direction.

    “We have looked at the direction. We reviewed it. I still have the view that the direction needs to stand,’’ Ms Carroll said, saying 1060 people had died from Covid in the last few months. (My comment : here is why the stats are so important as they just simply throw out the death numbers to back them up. Hard to know if asked but SC should have asked average age of deaths compared to average police officer age).

    She said advice from ATAGI was that the best way to reduce serious illness from Covid-19 was to get two vaccinations and a booster.

    The civil trial will resume of Thursday for oral submissions”.

    She wont back down. If you are a Qld cop she will keep on jabbing as unfortunately vax rates are now a key performance indicator for many.

    8
  128. The ruling specifically excluded the ACT.

    I’m no legal type (far from it).. but have a gander at https://aiatsis.gov.au/sites/default/files/research_pub/native_title_information_handbook_2016_act_2.pdf

    The ACT Government has not enacted any legislation confirming extinguishment of
    native title by particular types of tenure. The Native Title Act 1994 (ACT) confirms
    Crown ownership of all natural resources, rights to use, control and regulate the flow
    of water and existing fishing access rights; as well as existing public access to and
    enjoyment of waterways, beds, banks and foreshores of waterways and areas that
    were public places as at 31 December 1993. The ACT Government has not enacted
    an alternative ‘right to negotiate’ regime.

    now given that Native title may be recognised in relation to vacant Crown land, state forests, national parks, public reserves, pastoral leases, beaches, foreshores and waters, government or other public land and Indigenous held land (under land rights legislation). , I don’t understand the exemption.

    Of course the kicker here is vacant land.

    2
  129. Wally Dalí says: June 3, 2022 at 8:51 pm

    Hacking away at the AEC website, can’t get a summary of voter turnout %.

    They obscured it to begin with, and we have to assume the latest is the ‘real’ figure.
    From ABCess and AEC:

    “The number being quoted here is an extremely premature point-in-time number of ballot papers counted by the AEC just under one week into the count,” the Commission’s election disinformation register states.
    “It is not an accurate measure of electoral turnout and should not be compared with turnout figures from earlier elections, which were produced after all ballot papers had been received and counted.”

    That suggests they have changed the definition of turnout since last `leckshun.

    2
  130. Bluddee hell – apologies for missing the latest quarter’s results Cats:

    The CPI for the twelve months from 31 March 2021 to 31 March 2022 was 5.1%.

    This year’s (i.e. 2021-22) will likely be between (revised) 5.5% – 6.5%.

    Or more, as we know it. Keep an eye on those electrickery, gas and fuel bills, as well as all the others.

    Gee, what might be to blame for all of this?

    Collectivism.

    Good and hard, increasingly.

    4
  131. Ms Carroll said, saying 1060 people had died from Covid in the last few months.

    yup. Out of over 1million cases. So that’s a 0.1% (bad sniffle) rate.

    4
  132. Ms Carroll said, saying 1060 people had died from Covid in the last few months

    Yeah, bullshit.

    Again.

    4
  133. Ms Carroll said, saying 1060 people had died from Covid in the last few months.

    Yet she does not cite road crash death statistics as a justification for ordering all police cars to be remain parked at the station.

    Why not? (It’s just as silly)

    6
  134. Never mind. I will punish his parsimony with veggie burgers and the like over the next few nights. That’ll larn him. ?

    No shortage of gas at yours then, Calli?
    In this day and age it can be considered a luxury 🙂

    1
  135. Berka – in others words, they have not stopped counting.

    Patience. I’m so looking forward to the combination of those who voted informal and didn’t turn up in my electorate remaining at about 30% of registered voters.

    Although it would have been somewhat less disillusioning if the rate had been higher this election.

    #anillegitimategovernmentledbyanillegitimateimbecile

    2
  136. Elbow pushing for 5.1% increase in the minimum wage.
    So in this country the only way to guarantee your wage gets increased with CPI is to be on the minimum.

    1
  137. The back yard economist’s advice, part III:

    Record all your (unavoidable) bills in a financial year on a spreadsheet and then compare them to the (same unavoidable) bills in the following financial year if you want to know what your personal inflation rate is.

    Do not include any discretionary purchases during that 12 month period- this is a golden rule.

    Do not be afraid to keep a ledger of incomings and outgoings, either. You will not be able to identify any unjustifiable purchases if you do not*. Not that it’s ever stopped me. The Imelda collection continues to grow.

    *Apologies for the triple negative, Cats. 😕

    #rationalconsumers4evah

    2
  138. California urges scholarships for black teens to repay slavery debt

    By Keiran Southern
    The Times
    5:25PM June 3, 2022
    2 Comments

    Black teenagers in California should be given university scholarships to right the historic wrongs of slavery, a state taskforce has recommended.

    A 500-page report listed the damage of slavery that has lingered long after it was abolished in the 19th century, including discrimination in housing, education and employment.

    The reparations taskforce made sweeping recommendations, such as the creation of a state-subsidised mortgage program to guarantee low rates for qualifying black candidates and free healthcare to combat “discrimination”.

    The report, released overnight Thursday, called for black students to get scholarships covering four years of education.

    It also recommended significant prison reforms.

    While black people make up nearly 6 per cent of California’s population, they comprise 28 per cent of its prisoners. The report said inmates should be allowed to vote and prisoners should not be forced to work. If they do, they should be paid fair market wages.

    The committee called for the creation of a cabinet-level position to oversee an African-American affairs agency with branches for education, social services and legal affairs.

    “Segregation, racial terror, harmful racist neglect and other atrocities in nearly every sector of civil society have inflicted harms, which cascade over a lifetime and compound over generations,” the report said.

    The committee voted in March to limit reparations to the descendants of black people who were in the US in the 19th century, ignoring pleas to expand the compensation. The latest report said black people in California were more likely to be poor than white residents and less likely to own a home.

    California’s black population rose from 124,000 in 1940 to more than 1.4 million in 1970 as workers migrated from the southern states after the Second World War. Official figures show that about a third of the state’s homeless population in 2019 were black.

    Those opposed to reparations say California did not have plantations or the same segregation as the South. But the report said the state, despite being “free”, brought in racist laws, the legacy of which still linger

  139. err, Hello??? ?

    First heard in 1980, when a neighbour* in the Country Club** dragged me out of my digs saying: “You have to listen to this.”
    *Sid as he was known, because, ended up in some mundane job looking after peoples’ mortgages or something at MS then GS and finally B of A, but only until 2008,
    for some reason.
    **-35.12561240318597, 150.70577705778447

    1
  140. Segregation, racial terror, harmful racist neglect and other atrocities in nearly every sector of civil society have inflicted harms, which cascade over a lifetime and compound over generations

    You incessantly whinging parasites.

    Anyone with a functioning brain would think that you obnoxious useless racial grievance mongers are just trying it on (again).

    But yeah, compounding (just like “interest”) over generations.

    7
  141. Segregation, racial terror, harmful racist neglect and other atrocities in nearly every sector of civil society have inflicted harms, which cascade over a lifetime and compound over generations

    I don’t know how to link to it, but there is a very good article in the latest “Quadrant” on the invention of inter-generational trauma.

    1
  142. the invention of inter-generational trauma

    And the subsequent removal/obliteration/reimagining of the concept of personal agency.

    Collectivists are becoming so batshit crazy that you might think they are spoiling for a showdown* – which will inevitably not end well for them and their supplicant cheer squad.

    History being a useful guide at this point.

    *As opposed to a “schlockdown”, of which we are all familiar … 😡

    5
  143. Collectivism is the realisation that you are so dumb that thinking for yourself is bound to lead to disaster.

    8
  144. parsimony

    A wonderful concept, of which about 91.3% of peoples below the age of 45 could not explain or describe if their pointless lives depended on it.

    4
  145. involuntary parsimony

    A concept that continues to be visited upon humanity and which it is still obstinately refusing to move beyond, even after twenty centuries (of alleged history).

    Say anything more and I’ll be accused of being a collectivist.

    #freemarketslowtaxesnogovernment 🙂

  146. Speaking of Schlockdowns, anyone here think that we may be gifted with them (again) sometime soon?

    The precedent has been set and the perpetrators are still existing.

    Which is not good, in more ways than one.

    #evilclichedcollectivists

    2
  147. Rolled home, three sheets to the wind and ears ringing after an evening of improv rock with me scaley mates.
    No girls here, so on goes Rage on the telly while I toast meself a sammidge.
    But it’s Gay Pride Month on Their ABC, so it’s shit arch art disco with no femmes on screen.
    Gay Pride goes on for a whole month.

  148. Banning the live export of sheep or cattle will not create more jobs here in WA. It will cause a drop in price of sheep / cattle for the simple reason the customers dont want chilled meat.

    Uh huh …
    What customers are these?
    Every single one of the 179 Countries in the world doesn’t want Mutton?
    By the way [I know you’re an eggspurt on this subject], exported Sheepmeat will be FROZEN, not chilled.

  149. In the Ladies, of course. Either a ewe or a wether, so at least it could read the sign.

    Another eggspurt opines …

  150. My dear fellow, I am not in Australia. Your first default is to be personally offensive, as much as you think you can get away with. Why is that? You are gratuitously insulting, which is both a deliberate choice by you and also extraordinarily juvenile. You have chosen to call me a drug-addict and a homosexual; based on what? I have not responded in kind as I am not interested in acting like a ten-year old child, as you choose to do.

    Quit your bullshit, you insulted a whole city as some sort of progressive utopia with citizens in lockstep, where Tucker Carlson in fact resides.

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