Jacinta Price for pm. She’s got the sense and decency.
Open Thread – Tues 28 June 2022
- Flying the Flag
- Open Thread – Australia Day Weekend 2025
- Open Thread – Thurs 23 Jan 2025
- Open Thread – Mon 20 Jan 2025
- Open Thread – Weekend 18 Jan 2025
society would be ok You should get out more, maybe.
Interesting exercise.
I watched the original Mad Max last night A shambles of a movie but it was interesting. Set in the…
If you want a paper copy of leak’s best, dial up Tom’s toons in the early a.m. and when you…
Good Morning
Close enough for government work
It’s quiet.
Remember when Monty finally arrived at the Dover cat just to skite about Morrison losing government?
John Spooner.
Mark Knight.
Warren Brown.
Christian Adams.
Morten Morland.
Steve Bright.
Michael Ramirez.
Eat India Company doesn’t make any sense, since it was a huge success for investors and is still operating under one name or another.
Perhaps Spooner meant South Sea Bubble?
Patrick Cross.
A.F. Branco.
Chip Bok.
Ben Garrison.
Matt Margolis.
Probably helps if you spell it correctly, Grigory…
I actually want to see if his head actually explodes over West Virginia vs. EPA.
I mean, we’ve had the reversal of Roe v. Wade, and multiple US States like California, New York and New Jersey have dropped ‘Good Cause’ requirements for a law-abiding person seeking a Concealed Carry Weapon permit after SCOTUS ruled in favour of an unadulterated interpretation of the Second Amendment.
We’re witnessing key planks and even (dare I say) legalistic Catechisms of modern US-derived Leftist thinking taken out the back and publicly murdered in real time. And it’s nothing short of incredible…
Also, Sliante. 23rd Street Distillery blended whiskey from Renmark SA (via ALDI) is a marvellous way to end a very productive overnight shift making Australia export monies. 🙂
Rollover from the previous Weekend OT –
John Sheldricksays:
June 28, 2022 at 4:30 am
Rex Angersays:
June 27, 2022 at 10:12 pm
If any of you want to see m0nty jumping a line of sharks with a rocket-powered shark, pop on over to The End of the Beginning post.
He’s started foaming about the alleged impending demise of the US EPA, harder than the average gunzel does when he lines up his camera on one of these things…*
(* The video is a pisstake. M0nty’s carry-on is quite real)
LOL. I watched the video with the most memorable line being – “Listen to that HORN”
Nice looking 1953 Diesel Loco’ though.
The Oz is very good today.
One can rarely say that these days.
And some more Hunter Biden scoops overnight.
In the Daily Mail of all places.
J6 committee has lied.
I expect the DOJ to raid the Federalist now.
https://thefederalist.com/2022/06/27/exclusive-former-white-house-staffer-confirms-jan-6-committee-lied-about-doj-attorney/
Rex Angersays:
June 28, 2022 at 4:15 am
Eat India Company
Probably helps if you spell it correctly, Grigory…
LOL. Too early in the morning for Head Case to type properly…………..Back in that Packing Case you go and don’t come out to play for a while now.
Streamliners are grouse. 🙂
My dream locos are either the old Commonwealth Railways GM or CL classes.
Though the old Victorian Railways B class is growing on me. 🙂
Completely unique in the world, as being the first double-ended streamliner design in existence.
Sorry Ed.
Reported your comment at 4:07.
I hope nobody else does.
LIBERTY QUOTE
— Christopher Dawson
It’s the feelies
1st
4th
More of Dominic Perrottet’s brilliance on display:
Epic trolling.
Michael Malice
@michaelmalice
it’s in the 3rd Amendment
“No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner”
“soldier” was what a fetus was referred to at the time of the Founding Fathers
Hamilton goes over this in his Articles of Confederation that he wrote w/Jay
Michael Malice is awesome.
On my way into the office this morning.
NSW plod cars are everywhere.
Must be an anti lockdown or anti vax mandate protest planned.
feelthebern, it’s probably those Blockade Australia idiots again. Sydney motorists should do what the Italians did to them, drag them off the road and throw them over the railings.
Alas, an audience for my ranting.
I’ve never been in this situation before.
I am trying to get rich or die trying and Gina Rynehart, Andrew Forrest and BHP & Itochu are all mean mugging my little penny stock.
I might have cultural awakening.
I am a proud member of the Mt Berghaus nation.
The faceless men have failed to convince Whatsername to run, I think it meant to say. I am unsure how having another Turnbull on deck would assist anyone with anything.
I thought Turnbull Senior’s only spawn was that screechy trader bloke living overseas because he gets to be taller than all the little brown people.
More blockheads?
Warren captures it: they’re not doing their cause a lot of good.
Thanks Tom!
Also from Tinta’s link:
‘Media personality’ Kellie Sloane (wiki):
Fabulous. If ‘personality’ means ‘has-been from the endless stable of emptyheaded bimbos who couldn’t get on reality shows’. She hasn’t been on the teev since 2015.
It’s Vaucluse or North Sydney or nothing, apparently. She sounds like a Wilkinson-in-waiting.
Do we have an Australian equivalent of the tenth amendment of the US constitution?
Following on from Jupes post; I am just back from a. 6 week road trip in Europe. France mostly but with side trips into Belgium,Spain, England and Italy, and getting lost driving thru Monaco.
Mask not enforced on BA. but was in Singapore terminal.
Had to show vax cert to get on the train in St. Pancras to get into Europe.
One day of masking up on the train on the Cinque T.
Nothing else the whole trip bar one overheard dinner conversation where a braying Australian was going on about how well our government had handled the whole thing. He might change his tune after he confronts the ridiculous Digital Dec. to get back into Oz.
Off course within 2 days of getting back I got the Covid. 3 days of heavy flu like symptoms then 4 days of head cold.
I rang my med centre to enquire about anti virals but didn’t qualify.
I did cop the mandatory anti smoking lecture, despite smoking not being on the govts. list of higher risks. And I got advice on the vital urgency of getting my third shot in 4 months time when I become eligible!!
The doc informed me that it would be a Pfizer shot because, and I quote, THE RISK OF CLOTTING with Moderna.
Ps the French are great.
PPS Calcio storico Fiorenza leaves the State of Origin in the shade.
“Tintarella di Lunasays:
June 28, 2022 at 6:16 am
More of Dominic Perrottet’s brilliance on display:”
Tinta, this proves that Perrottet is a puppet of Green Kean and Photios. Since becoming premier Perrottet has been completely castrated. I actually don’t know how anyone can think that Daisy Turnbull is a good choice to run anywhere, let alone a marginal seat like Coogee. Bruce Notley-Smith, who won the seat for the Liberals in 2011 and retained it until 2019, is a nice personable man and was popular but Coogee has always been marginal and difficult to hold onto. Notley-Smith only managed to hold the seat by a hair’s breadth in 2015. Having met Turnbull numerous times, she’s obnoxious, sour, mean and graceless, a very sullen individual who is a dreadful combination of both her parents…..and I haven’t even got to her bad points yet.
It’s time for the NSW Liberals to be booted. As with the Liberals in SA, the Liberals here in NSW are a Green party in all but name. They stand for nothing. I expected better from Perrottet, how foolish I was.
No we don’t, even if in theory the Commonwealth was meant to have a limited scope of operation. Also, the list of enumerated powers is quite extensive. That’s just one problem.
It is also undermined by the corporations power, external affairs power, s 109 and control of the purse strings (power over income tax and GST* from s 109, the states can’t levy “excise” (s 90), etc).
Also, the states refer things to the Commonwealth – quite a lot of the time, probably because of the purse strings.
* Hmmmm….the caselaw has some arguments for and against this being excise. Being applied at multiple stages is why it is “excise”.
“The notionally Labor Leppington and Heathcote were identified, as were deputy Liberal leader Stuart Ayres’s seat of Penrith, and Parramatta held by Corrections Minister Geoff Lee.”
Labor won’t win Parramatta.
Yep. Doctors mistaking themselves for life coaches. Get it all the time, regardless of the purpose behind going to a doctor hive in the first place.
‘What seems to be problem?’
‘I need a referral for a back issue.’
‘Do you smoke?’
‘Yes.’
‘Stop smoking.’
‘What seems to be problem?’
‘I need some stitches in my hand.’
‘Do you smoke?’
‘Yes.’
‘Stop smoking.’
‘What seems to be the problem, Mr m0nty?’
“I fell over in the shower you see, and now I have this large plastic horse jammed in my rectum.’
‘Do you smoke?’
‘No.’
‘Well, I’d say your condition is stable.’
Cassie – you are spot on about Perrottet. He has so obviously sold his soul to Kean in order to become Premier. It is both frightening and sickening to see. I can’t see anything encouraging on the horizon, given the abandonment of all principles and scruples by our current species of pollies.
Honestly, husband and I are preparing for the worst. I feel it is that bad. Trying to counsel friends and family, but they are blithely going OS on holidays etc . A few are frantically selling shares and bitcoin but don’t really relate the economic crisis to the crisis in values.
The poor little brown people* of India who were their subjects might disagree.
*Referenced by Knight
Who has won the Cat Count for election 22? I need to send the prize out.
Official AEC results here – Labor won 77 seats.
People’s predictions. Cat Call for Election 22…
Predicted result out of 151 seats up for grabs. (76 to win)
Coalition to win:
Winston Smith 84
Knuckle Dragger 80
Tom 80 LNP, 70 the rest (Liars-Filth). Simon’s leg-openers: ZERO.
Top Ender 79 (ineligible for prize)
Lizzie 78
Eyrie 78
Calli 77
Fleeced Libs to get between 76-80 seats
Rosie LNP by one; nothing for teals, 1 green 2 independents
Megan LNP chancers, morons and grifters B team to fall over the line by one from the LAB chancers, morons and grifters A team.
Roger LNP to win 73 seats (ALP 72) & form government with support of independents
Fair Shake Scomo as a minority government…after two weeks of recounts. He takes it by 2
Chris Put me down for 3?????
Hung parliament
Delta A Hung parliament – 74 seats each – with Greens and One nation voting each way. Rebekha Sharkie (Centre Alliance) going with LNP.
Bar Beach Swimmer SFLs at 74, Liars at 66, the rest on the crossbench made up of the current crop, less Helen Haines (go sfw!) and the rest, fingers crossed, a combo of UAP/ON.
2dogs Hung parliament with about 65 each for the majors
Armadillo hung Parliament with one teal holding the balance of power
MatrixTransform Liars 67; Crossbench 13; LNP 71
EvilElviss hung, LNP 71, Lab 70, ferals (hopefully conservative…) 10.
132andBush hung but unworkable parliament and back to the polls before Christmas
Rickw Hung Parliament….. by an angry mob!
Labor to win:
pete m Labor to win by 10 seats
thefrollickingmole ALP up by 10.
Behind Enemy Line 86 seats
Pedro the Loafer ALP by 5
Bruce in WA ALP by four
Rabz Labore at least 78 seats
Not Uh oh 78
Vagabond Liars (76) ahead of SFLs (70) by 6 seats but a crossbench of 5 loonies to make life interesting.
Cassie of Sydney two or three seats
Crossie Labor will squeak in
Leon L ALP + Greens + TEALS 90; LNP et al 61
Sancho Labor – 76; LNP – 73; Greens – 1; Teal – 1; UAP – 0
Heh, KD, my doc has, over many consultations (required because of stupid rules about decent painkillers – once a month) only mentioned it one time. Telling someone who has been smoking for more than half a century that it’s bad for you is kinda pointless, as she well knows.
What really irks me is those dishonest and grotesque horror pics and slogans on the fag packets. Did you know that several of the photos were sourced from overseas, because of a lack of local examples? They had to find pics of crackheads in the US and so on to illustrate their point. Further, some of the slogans are downright lies, like the one that says ‘Smoking causes kidney and bladder cancer.’ In fact, the causes of kidney and bladder cancer are largely unknown. So, if a non-smoker gets it, it’s idiopathic, and if a smoker gets it … you know the rest.
I’m not saying smoking is good for you, but whenever the State starts persecuting and chivvying people on health related issues, the lies are not far behind.
On Sydney chaos. Daily Tele is also saying strike action on trains begins today.
Police are calling on neighbours to dob-in extreme climate activists causing mayhem in Sydney’s CBD this week, harking back to tactics used to identify unpopular anti-lockdown protesters at the height of Covid.
On Monday morning at least 50 Blockade Australia-affiliated protesters ran through the streets, hurled signs, bins, barricades and other objects onto the road, and caused the closure of the Harbour Tunnel.
Police arrested ten but with more protests expected today, have vowed to get the rest by any means possible – including calling on the disgruntled public to dob them in.
“We’re going back to the tactics we used during the anti-lockdown protests,” a police source said.
“We’ll be going through CCTV footage and footage posted on social media and we’ll also be asking the public to dob-in anyone they recognise.”
It came as the activist group followed through on months-long threats to cause mass disruption in the Sydney CBD for a week starting from Monday.
Detective Superintendent Paul Dunstan said police numbers would be increased from Tuesday, while urging anyone who recognised activists in photos and videos from the incident to come forward.
Similar appeals by police to draw on public anger at protesters resulted in more than 6000 tip-offs after massive anti-lockdown protests last year.
“We need the public’s help to us to help us identify those involved and to help us prevent further unlawful protest activity in the course of the coming days,” he said.
10 people were charged with a raft of various offences over the Monday protests – many of them from Melbourne.
The 10 had been taken into custody at Surry Hills and Day St police stations after the wave of chaos during the morning peak hour.
Among those charged include a Melbourne man, 49, a Brandy Hill man, 25, a 24-year-old Melbourne woman, a Lismore Heights woman, 21, a Brisbane woman, 22, a 25-year-old Melbourne man and a Petersham woman, 22, who were all refused bail.
They are all due to face Central Local Court today. They were charged with various offences such as entering Sydney Harbour Bridge and disrupting vehicles.
Meanwhile, a Leichhardt woman, 34, was charged with wilfully preventing free passage of a person or vehicle before being granted bail.
She will face Downing Centre Local Court on July 21.
A 26-year-old man from country Victoria was hit with the same charge and also granted bail.
He will face Downing Centre Local Court on July 21.
And a 30-year-old Melbourne woman was charged with entering Sydney Harbour Bridge and disrupting vehicles before being granted bail. She will also face Downing Centre Local Court on July 21.
Police Minister Paul Toole said he was confident increased penalties introduced earlier this year and including fines of up to $22,000 and two years in jail would be enough to quell the protests.
“I want to see the book thrown at these people for the thousands of people this morning who were delayed. Honest hardworking people trying to make a living couldn’t even get to work on time because of these protesters,” he said.
“These protesters don’t care about people’s everyday lives … they’ve been throwing garbage bins, they’ve been throwing bikes … clearly they have been more concerned about littering the streets of Sydney than going about peaceful protest.”
Shadow police Minister Walt Secord urging magistrates “to think twice” about bailing those arrested.
Link
Russia has defaulted on foreign debt payments for the first time in 100 years.
The Euroweenies might be over Covid but the Japanese certainly are not.
You need a visa even as a transit passenger. The transit hotel at Haneda is closed and if you want to go to a hotel landside for a kip, you need a certified courier to accompany you the entire time.
No tourists are allowed in unless they are in an organised group led by a certified person. Carnival cruises has pulled all their first quarter Japan cruises for 2023, bar their subsidiary Cunard. No doubt they will follow shortly.
The Japanese appear to have gone insane. It happens once every century I suppose.
Hey Topender – damn it – missed your appearance with Rowan last night but look forward to your article in Spectator.
We have a friend who writes for military encyclopaedias & various journos & look forward to his musings on Australia’s miserable military preparedness. But lately his wife has taken to accuse him of “war mongerong” & won’t let him talk about it!
Oh, and regardless of masks and the like, the Dutch still require you to be triple vaxxed and show proof of same.
Profile of the protest leader:
The woman leading climate protests that paralyzed Sydney during Monday peak hour is a career activist with a colourful history.
Zelda Grimshaw, 56, has waged war against the Adani coal mine, written bizarre protest music and once condemned the whole idea of ironing clothes.
She was also nearly hacked to death by militia during a massacre in East Timor and campaigned against weapons sales by calling war ‘peak toxic masculinity’.
Daily Mail
EV charging stations at Glastonbury were powered by a diesel generator.
So Parrothead (doubtless under orders) has been playing suitor to Daisy Trumble.
After the drubbing their wets got in the last Federal election the Liberal Brains
TrustBucket still think it a pretty nifty strategy to put up sloppy green candidates with Liberal livery.They are like Paul Krugman. Last stimulus has not reinvigorated the economy as all our modelling predicted? Well, it wasn’t big enough then.
Of course.
I was nearly shot to death with arrows in a tribal war in Goroka. Except I wasn’t.
Did you get a load of the car protestor’s dead eyes? Completely blank, a window into nothing.
Welcome to life under the Big Top.
I think she may have been with Hillary when she landed in Bosnia.
And hiding under a desk with AOC when the forces of Nazi White Supremacy was unleashed on the Capitol.
They were made to. They have the money sitting in the account ready to go, but the payment was refused because of sanctions. As childish as it is dumb.
I suppose the whole thing is about cutting Russia off from the international finance system, which affects a lot of things like export finance. Ok, that’s a tactic, but Russia has instituted their own tactic of forcing payments in rubles. Which is quietly being adopted by Eurocrats wanting to keep the lights on. Russia 1 EU nil.
Lol. I was probably closer to those arrows than she was to the cane knives. On my way to morning tea of all things, driving through a disputed plantation.
Wrong place at the wrong time.
I was reading the other day that it’s driving the BRICS countries to set up their own alternative reserve currency. Not a great deal of detail yet, but it’s expected most of the world outside the west will sign up. This talks about it a bit, but I swear I was reading it somewhere more credible.
https://www.naturalnews.com/2022-06-24-putin-announces-new-brics-global-reserve-currency-replace-petrodollar.html
For years and years police and politicians have thought it more expedient to let protests to become increasingly violent and destructive, contenting themselves with getting footage of a few being shoved into a paddy wagon picked up and broadcast by the media, before letting them off when a few days later when the furore died down.
Our leaders have long neglected the principle that while protest is a right, mayhem is not. Naturally this has bred a type of protestor who believes that they are licensed to destroy property and to deny other people their freedoms. If they are angry (their logic goes) then everyone else’s choices are fair game.
Now they find themselves faced by with, and looking impotent against, the very noisome menagerie that they created. And having long abandoned the idea of enforcing law are now at a loss as to what to do.
m0ntysays:
June 27, 2022 at 11:08 pm
West Virginia v EPA is likely to prevent the federal US government from regulating. Full stop. Not just environmental issues but on anything.
Your ignorance is not endearing.
Oh! Shock! Horror! The unelected bureaucracy will no longer be able to make vast numbers of regulations that have the force of law! And theh enforce them without the approval of elected representatives! Shock Horror!
Then the Congress will have to take its Constitutional responsibilities, and instruments with the force of law will actually have to have the actual status of law! Shock Horror! The end of civilisation as the bureaucrats have known it! Shock! Horror!
m0ntysays:
June 27, 2022 at 11:16 pm
WV v EPA may come out overnight, so we may know tomorrow Australian time.
I hope you lot are right on this one, because if you aren’t then things are going to devolve in America
m0nty-fa, I am surprised that, as a good Catholic, you are not familiar with the principle of subsidiarity, under which responsibility should be “devolved” to the lowest practical level.
Most of the problems of the modern world arise from excessive centralism (and I write this as a former Commonwealth public servant, where I have seen the problems that excessive centralism causes). A bit of devolution should increase our quality of administration.
m0nty-fa
It’s always projection.
Amy Coney Barrett has said out loud into a mic that she is concerned about the supply of babies for adoption, and thinks repealing Roe increases it. Alito (IIRC) also talked about it in his opinion.
It is the five Dobbs judges who are treating women like livestock.
And Planned Parenthood is concerned about the continuing supply of “spare parts” for “research” purposes, from which PP makes a great deal of money.
It is planned Parenthood, and useful idiots like you, who are treating women like spare parts factories.
Except these people are intent on causing chaos.
The Covid protests were ostensibly peaceful (as they were planned).
People objecting to a forced medical procedure and the needless shutdown of their communities.
Hope people don’t go drawing any parallels here, although it is to the advantage of a totalitarian system to do so.
Ed – this is not a coincidence. Can you please stop interrupting Tom.
I see that Dickless managed to interrupt Tom again!
Dick Head.
Bummer.
“Anus Scanning Camera”: Just How Much Federal Pork And Waste Are Your Tax Dollars Funding (27 Jun)
Fauci working on transgender monkeys, hmm. I wonder where the current monkeypox strain came from?
Calling women who choose to give up their unwanted babies for adoption “livestock” is as grotesque as calling a dismembered baby whose parts are up for sale a “product of abortion”.
Curiously, both come from the same source.
I noticed that.
More on Unicorns and Fairies
How three Aussies grew their NFT (non-fungible token) start-up to $2.3b in nine months
Three Australian co-founders are the brains behind one of the fastest start-ups ever to hit unicorn status, raising $US130 million ($187 million) at a $US1.6 billion valuation for their NFT (non-fungible token) marketplace Magic Eden.
The business, which was founded by Australians Jack Lu, Zhuoxun “Zedd” Yin and Sidney Zhang, alongside Chinese-born former Facebook engineer Zhuojie “Rex” Zhou, has quickly become the dominant NFT marketplace on the Solana blockchain.
It operates a primary market for new NFT launches, as well as a secondary (and much larger) trading marketplace with more than 7000 collections.
An NFT is a piece of tradeable code attached to a digital item, such as an image, video or gaming asset. A secure network of computers records the asset on a digital ledger, giving the buyer proof of authenticity and ownership.
Magic Eden’s latest capital raise comes only nine months after the marketplace launched. It was led by Electric Capital and Greylock and had participation from new investor Lightspeed Venture Partners, as well as Paradigm and Sequoia Capital.
So far, the company says it has been unaffected by the crypto rout, which has resulted in more than $US2 trillion being wiped off the value of cryptocurrencies since late 2021.
NFT trading volumes peaked in September last year, hitting as much as $US1.07 billion per week, according to Cryptoslam data. This corresponded with the height of excitement about NFTs, which had been growing since March 2021 when a collage by the artist Beeple sold for $US69.3 million.
But when the hype died down, the volumes quickly stabilised at a lower base and by January this year $US100 million to $US200 million of trades were taking place weekly. Since mid-May, however, trading volumes have dipped again and have been under $US55 million per week.
Being only nine months old, Magic Eden missed the NFT market highs of last September, and has grown strongly despite the rout in crypto prices.
“If you were to kick off a raise now, it would be a pretty wild time,” Mr Yin said.
“But, over the last few months our business has been growing incredibly. We announced a $US27 million raise in March … and we continued to have a lot of appetite from different investors.
“Our existing investors had appetite to double down, and we had new investors wanting to come in. And while things are crazy in the market, May was our best month ever, doing just over 5 million sol [the native token on Solana, equivalent to $US330 million at the time].”
While Magic Eden is still thriving, Mr Yin said the crypto sell-off was having some effect on the NFT market. “There hasn’t been a drastic correction, but as creators, people are thinking about the timing of their NFT launches more,” he said.
“There will be micro ups and downs, and we’ve seen that over the course of our operations, where one month could be down in terms of NFT launches, but regardless, we push on ahead.”
The backstory
Rapid growth
Despite only launching nine months ago, the marketplace already receives an average of 22 million unique sessions per month and facilitates more than 40,000 NFT trades daily.
Only a month after launch, the marketplace had amassed almost 15 per cent of the NFT trades on Solana. Now, it has more than 90 per cent of the trading volume on its secondary marketplace.
Magic Eden takes a 2 per cent cut on every transaction and claims to have been profitable from day one.
While not the first NFT marketplace to be created on Solana, Mr Lu said the key to Magic Eden’s success was its focus on creators, who have launched more than 250 projects to date on its marketplace.
“We were the first marketplace in this ecosystem to have a Launchpad product. We put ourselves in the shoes of the creators. There can be a lot of wealth creation, but if launches aren’t done correctly, they fail,” Mr Lu said.
“We alleviated the complexities of interacting with the blockchain, and offered a white glove service to hand-hold creators.”
‘Firing on all cylinders’
The fresh capital allows Magic Eden to grow its team, continue investing in its gaming vertical, explore opportunities on other blockchains and further enhance the user experience through improved insights, analytics and trading tools.
Don’t mock.
There’s a huge market for this exciting innovation in Germany.
It’s time for the NSW Liberals to be booted. As with the Liberals in SA, the Liberals here in NSW are a Green party in all but name. They stand for nothing. I expected better from Perrottet, how foolish I was.
IMHO, Australia desperately needs a Small Business Party.
Does this mean they disapprove of gay men “employing” women to carry “their” child?
Just as many millennials as boomers
Brian: “You’re all individuals!”
“I’m not!”
I heard Elbow speaking from Madrid earlier.
It may have been jet lag, but his speech (i.e. his vocalising) was atrocious.
I’ve never paid much attention to him, but does he normally slur his words & mutilate his sibilants?
If so, even the English speakers may need a translator.
Just listened to TE talking with Rowan Dean. Have to add four more things making TE unsuitable for Defence Minister, understandable sense, simple and to the point, didn’t mention covid and climate change. Report card on Tom, could do a lot better. We’ll call you, don’t call us. Thankyou Tom, no politics involved. Can readers imagine if 10 or 20 politicians spoke like this? No, neither can I.
The sabotage that occurred in Sydney yesterday seems to enacted by a collection of nasty nobodies, attention seekers, exhibitionists, people with anger issues, others with Jesus complexes etc etc.
They are hilarious. I am particularly fond of the one showing the scrawny bloke saying ‘this man died of smoking, aged 34’.
A Google search of the image revealed he did die at 34, but quite some years back and from AIDS.
I will dance on the graves of every activist and otherwise-named ‘health professional’ determined to reduce my quality of life for my own good. Every single one of them looks like they’ve got one foot in the grave as it is. Anaemic, scared little people.
Notice the addresses of the fanatics arrested for screwing up Sydney’s roads in peak hour?
NSW Plod, always a week behind the action, are asking people to dob in neighbours connected with the protests.
I trust that it is a nationwide call to action, as hardly any of them come from Sydney.
I’m reading Miranda Devine’s book “Laptop From Hell” “Hunter Biden, Big Tech and the Dirty Secrets the President Tried to Hide.” Talk about a train smash.
Hunter Biden’s military career typifies his life – sworn into the United States Naval Reserve, by his father, at a private ceremony, at the White House, on May 7, 2013. There were two waviers – one for his age – forty two – and the other, for a bust for cocaine possession, when he was eighteen.
On the first day, of his first weekend, of Reserve duty, a random urine test detected cocaine in his system. H was administratively – rather then dishonorably – discharged, the following February….
Good reading.
GreyRanga says:
June 28, 2022 at 8:46 am
Link pls. Can’t find it.
I get all the old Bolt’s videos but not R Dean’s shows.
There was a Zelda character in one of Stephen King’s novels. Somebody’s sister, I think, and a nasty crippled bit of work.
Fitting.
It’s next on my reading list — bought it a couple of months ago.
Well underway.
The RMB market is now being implemented.
Corruptocrats playing nicely. All well and good until Emperor Xi decides the rules need a tweak, or you have to try to enforce something contractual through the PLA court system.
Bruce of Newcastlesays:
June 28, 2022 at 8:16 am
Russia has defaulted on foreign debt payments for the first time in 100 years.
They were made to. They have the money sitting in the account ready to go, but the payment was refused because of sanctions. As childish as it is dumb.
I suppose the whole thing is about cutting Russia off from the international finance system, which affects a lot of things like export finance. Ok, that’s a tactic, but Russia has instituted their own tactic of forcing payments in rubles. Which is quietly being adopted by Eurocrats wanting to keep the lights on. Russia 1 EU nil.
Yep Summed up by
Russia rejects default claims
All bond payments were made on time, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov insists
Russia has fulfilled its Eurobond obligations to foreign investors, and the fact that the funds were not forwarded to recipients due to Ukraine-related sanctions is no reason to declare a default, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday.
“No, we don’t agree,” Peskov said when asked by a reporter to comment on a report by Bloomberg claiming that Russia had defaulted on its debt for the first time since 1918.
Peskov said that such claims are “absolutely unjustified” since the payment on the Eurobonds was made well before the deadline in mid-May.
“And the fact that Euroclear withheld this money, did not transfer it to the recipients, this is no longer our problem. That is, there is no reason to call this a default,” Peskov explained.
Bloomberg’s report followed the end of the one-month grace period in which payments on Russia’s government bonds were supposed to be transferred to bondholders. Russia’s Ministry of Finance sent the funds to the National Settlement Depository on May 20, a week before the payments were due, so that the money could reach investors before the expiry of the US license that allowed Russia to service its external debt despite Ukraine-related sanctions. The license expired on May 25, after which Russia’s payments in dollars and euros were blocked in the international settlement and clearing system Euroclear. However, Euroclear failed to forward the funds to investors before the license expired.
Echoing Peskov’s words, the Russian Finance Ministry on Monday also reiterated that it had fulfilled Russia’s debt obligations in full in accordance with the Eurobond issuance documentation.
“However, international settlement and clearing systems, having received funds in full in advance, having the legal and financial ability to bring these funds to the final recipients, did not take the necessary steps to do this,” the ministry stated. It also noted that, according to the official documents for the Eurobond issue, a default is defined as a debtor’s failure to transfer funds, while there is no specific guidance on the further movement of these funds after they enter the clearing system.
“In this case, the non-receipt of money by investors did not occur as a result of the absence of payment, but due to the actions of third parties, which is not expressly provided for in the issuance documentation as an event of default,” the statement said.
The ministry added that Russia does not refuse to fulfill its debt obligations to investors and will continue to do so in the future and advised bondholders to contact the relevant financial institutions regarding the fate of their money directly, as “the actions of foreign financial intermediaries are beyond the control of the Russian Ministry of Finance.”
Plus
By taking on American hegemony and challenging the dollar, BRICS members represent the best hope for a fairer world order
With the potential for a new reserve currency and investment without political strings attached, the group can present an alternative to a world choked by Western dominance
Garbage people zk2a. Absolute trash.
Joe Biden paid his son’s bills for prostitutes – media
Hunter Biden reportedly spent over $30,000 on Eastern European prostitutes, with his bank blocking transfers to Russian addresses
Data found on Hunter Biden’s laptop reveal that the US president’s son spent over $30,000 on escorts from a “model agency” with offices in Kiev and Moscow, the Washington Examiner reported on Monday.
According to the report, Hunter Biden racked up his five-figure bill between November 2018 and March 2019, in between Joe Biden’s terms as vice president and president of the US. Throughout this period, Joe Biden wired his son a total of $100,000 to help pay his bills, although it is unclear whether the senior Biden knew what his son was spending the money on.
Notorious colonial mutton purveyors.
Sotomayor is a retard.
The speculation that her clerks completely write her opinions is well founded.
No strings at all!
That being said, can we get some globalists in here to explain this please?
‘Shall we take our clothes off?’ UK PM asks G7 leaders (VIDEO)
Boris Johnson and Canadian PM Justin Trudeau joked about exposing their “pecs,” in an apparent attempt to mock Vladimir Putin
Most of the problems of the modern world arise from excessive centralism (and I write this as a former Commonwealth public servant, where I have seen the problems that excessive centralism causes). A bit of devolution should increase our quality of administration.
Maybe the Swiss have it better with their ongoing referendums.
My wife and daughters are having a hotel, shop and dining long weekend in Melbourne.
She hasn’t been to the city since the covid restrictions came off and the bike tracks were put in.
She feels the city is purposely trying to annoy her and keep anyone with a car away from the shops, those that survived the TaliDan napalming.
She’s vowed not to ever stay in the city again and stick to the inner suburbs for accomodation and parking.
Well done Sally Crapp.
Zelda was the persistent and unattractive nemesis of the central character in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.
You just knew that she was going to get him in the end. A forerunner of the leftist alpha female hounding the beta male.
PS
My wife’s a very reasonable person unlike myself.
Last!
(Until I’m not.)
Officers reveal problems with US army recruiting
Widely panned “woke” ads are part of the problem, say reform advocates
A charitable view, to say the least.
Gez, for a long time I used to go to Melbourne once a year to buy clothes. Sydney didn’t have much in the way of cold weather clothes, and Melbourne had much more style.
Nowadays, I’d hesitate in case Dictator Dan decided to lock the place down overnight.
I notice that international tourists have similar reservations.
How difficult would it be for Taiwan to knock over the 3 Gorges Dam with conventional cruise missiles?
Is this a realistic deterrent?
Cruise missiles aren’t immune to air defences. Plenty of time for interceptors and then there is terminal defence such as CIWS like weapons.
Dr Faustussays:
June 28, 2022 at 8:41 am
“To fully reap the benefits of the smart toilet, users must make their peace with a camera that scans their anus.”
Don’t mock.
There’s a huge market for this exciting innovation in Germany.
Just crap on the lens and that should fix things.
What does foreign debt default mean for Russia? – EXPLAINER
Western media is reporting that Russia is facing a default on its foreign debt for the first time since 1918. Moscow was forced to make interest payments on bonds in rubles after Washington blocked dollar payments.
1. What is Russia’s reaction to default claims?
2. How does Moscow plan to service its foreign debt?
3. Why is Russia making bond payments in rubles?
4. What does being in default mean for a country?
5. How does that impact Russia?
6. How much damage does a default do to the country’s economy?
7. How does this impact Russia’s remaining trade partners?
8. What are Moscow’s alternatives to borrowing in Western institutions?
9. What’s the potential fallout?
Oh, and Zulu, good to hear that Mme is home and being looked after by you.
From what you said, you need to hit some of those excellent WA restaurants and wineries asap!
It should render those who make decisions more accountable to those who suffer them.
At least in theory.
International travel is leaving me less than whelmed these days, but you have struck a chord there. Perhaps next year!
Who knew?
rickw:
It’s almost a foundational point with the Left – before you kill it, you must dehumanise it.
Two countries apply to join BRICS
Iran and Argentina see potential in Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa bloc
When counting First Nations parliamentarians are they counting Bob Katter and Jacquie Lambie. Lambie apparently was a surprise to the local mob who apparently did not but should have known her proud heritage.
Virtue signalling continues to destroy athletic pursuits, in this case tennis:
https://www.breitbart.com/sports/2022/06/27/wimbledon-begins-without-mens-player-banned-russian/
How will we know who is really the best if this nonsense continues?
Generator outages extend market nerves
EnergyAustralia has advised of outages over the next few days at one coal power station and one gas power generator, underlining the fragility of the National Electricity Market after the nine-day suspension that ended last Friday.
Managing director Mark Collette said the company has advised the Australian Energy Market Operator that one unit at its Yallourn plant in Victoria – where another unit is already offline – will close for maintenance within the next 24 hours.
Meanwhile, a gas power station at Hallett in South Australia will be inactive for the rest of the week due to works being carried out by grid owner ElectraNet.
The outages continue a string of problems at power stations across the NEM which have contributed to an energy supply crunch, exacerbated by soaring prices for coal and gas. AGL Energy also has a unit down at its Loy Yang A generator in Victoria after an electrical fault in April that will take until the second half of September to repair.
In all, over 20 per cent of Australia’s coal power capacity remains offline even after some units resumed generation last week. Problems with coal supplies in NSW are contributing to the constraints.
The finely balanced market is reflected in wholesale pricing, with prices set to spike into the several thousand dollar range per megawatt-hour in NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania on Monday evening.
Mr Collette said EnergyAustralia’s other gas generators at Jeeralang, Tallawarra and Newport remained available to supply while the Yallourn unit was off for maintenance. He noted that the company’s gas plants have been generating seven times more than the same time last year, while gas prices have quadrupled to $40 a gigajoule.
Mr Collette also confirmed EnergyAustralia’s support for purchasing gas to be imported through the Port Kembla LNG venture being built by Squadron Energy, the private firm of mining billionaire Andrew Forrest.
Squadron’s incoming CEO Eva Hanly is keen to lock in other retailers as customers for Port Kembla gas, but both AGL Energy and Origin Energy are understood to either not need new gas until 2026 or to be baulking at the prices on offer.
Meanwhile, Norway’s Hoegh LNG has revealed that Squadron’s Australian Industrial Energy subsidiary has signed up to a flexible contract to use the Hoegh Galleon floating LNG import terminal, with a start date between 2023 and 2025. The uncertain start date comes as Squadron continues to seek enough customers to justify the development.
UBS energy analyst Tom Allen said the federal government may consider underwriting the Port Kembla LNG terminal by guaranteeing gas purchase contracts over the next three years to ensure it progresses, and to avoid shortages.
I thought that Katter Snr and his Dad were of Middle Eastern descent. Or is it another example of the ‘one drop of blood’ mentality?
Last I heard there are no ATP points for Wimbledon this year.
It’s basically an exhibition tournament with a lot of prize money.
Gabor for you only. Podcast its about 24:12 in.Our own TE
Offshore wind may take longer, cost more
Offshore wind is unlikely to make a significant contribution to Victoria’s energy supply until well into the 2030s if not later, say experts, casting doubt on the ability for the emerging sector to play a part this decade in replacing closing coal power stations.
Victoria’s Energy and Climate Change Minister, Lily D’Ambrosio, last week cited the state’s big expansion in offshore wind as one reason it can rule out coal and gas power plants from the “capacity” mechanism for the National Electricity Market.
She said warnings from the Energy Security Board of “renewable droughts” in the Victorian winter were not valid because new offshore wind projects would “blow any shortfall out of the water”.
But even as costs decline as the sector expands, the capital costs of offshore wind are likely to remain about double those of onshore wind per unit of capacity installed, according to experts at engineering consultancy Aurecon and CSIRO.
That leaves the technology reliant on other benefits such as scale and greater consistency of generation to offset the cost disadvantage.
A CSIRO report last year put the likely capital costs of offshore wind in 2028 at $5356 per kilowatt of capacity installed, almost three times higher than onshore wind at $1915/kW. But in this year’s draft report the estimate falls to $4085/kW, still more than double $1755 for onshore wind.
The Australian Energy Market Operator said in its 2022 draft blueprint for the grid, the draft Integrated Systems Plan (ISP), that significant reductions in costs would be needed for offshore wind to feature in the energy mix.
“Offshore wind has great potential due to resource quality, possible lower social licence hurdles, and proximity to strong transmission, but the economics are not yet proven,” AEMO said.
“It is therefore not currently projected to play a large role in the future energy mix at current forecasts of future costs, unless land use considerations limit onshore development. Further, cost reductions could see offshore wind feature more prominently in future ISPs.”
Victoria is targeting 2 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2032, starting with the Star of the South venture, costing between $8 billion and $10 billion, which is due to start coming online in 2028. The target then doubles to 4GW by 2035 and 9 GW by 2040. In all, Victoria sees potential for 13GW of offshore wind capacity by 2050, five times the current renewable generation in Victoria.
Several other ventures are in the works, including Flotation Energy, Core Generation, Director Infrastructure and Alinta in Victoria, and Oceanex Energy and others in NSW.
Mr Gleeson said that for consumers, the up-front capital cost was not as important as the cost of generating wholesale power, and in that regard offshore wind had an advantage because its generation profile was often better matched to peak demand in the evening.
“These are the factors that help offset the higher capex,” he said.
Still, even offshore wind farms cannot guarantee they can generate power at any particular time, said Grattan Institute energy program director Tony Wood,
That limits its ability to act as a generation source able to produce on demand, as required by dispatchable capacity in a “capacity” market for electricity.
“On the numbers I have heard, it is very expensive, and the benefit doesn’t seem to be that high: it doesn’t solve the problem of dispatchable capacity,” Mr Wood said.
Tinta and Cassie just combined to deliver the biggest belly laugh of the morning.
Those poor schoolgirls!
Rex, the SAR 900 series was a fine lady too:
Census 2021: Australia becomes a majority migrant nation
Australia has become a majority migrant nation, as newly released census data shows for the first time more than 50 per cent of residents were born overseas or have an immigrant parent.
The country has doubled in size in the past 50 years and added more than 1 million new residents since 2017, as India moved past China and New Zealand to become one of the top three countries of birth for Australian residents, behind England.
Results of the 2021 census, taken on August 10, were made public for the first time on Tuesday, revealing the changing face of multicultural Australia.
About 220,000 people born in India became Australian residents between the 2016 census and the 2021 census, with people from Nepal accounting for the second-largest increase.
Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed the top five reported ancestries in Australia were English (33.0 per cent), Australian (29.9 per cent), Irish (9.5 per cent), Scottish (8.6 per cent) and Chinese (5.5 per cent).
About 5.5 million Australians speak a language other than English at home, up by 800,000 since 2016. Among the total, about 850,000 reported not speaking English well or at all.
Mandarin remains the most common language other than English in Australian homes, spoken by 685,274 in 2021. Arabic was the second most common, while Punjabi has increased by more than 80 per cent since 2016.
Among the country’s more than 5.5 million couple families, 53 per cent reported having children living at home. Since 1996, the proportion of families without children living with them has grown from 40.8 per cent to 47 per cent.
More than 1 million single-parent families were recorded for the first time last year, while about 2.5 million families have children under the age of 15.
They’d need something like the gadget the USSR developed
to turn Cheyenne Mountain into Cheyenne Lake.
SAR 900 loco link
Thanks for the link to TE’s interview with Rowan.
To reiterate my Einstein paraphrase last night:
Top Ender understands.
Energy is Power but the West’s is starving itself – An Australian Economist View
Let the market rule the energy capacity mechanism
Including coal and gas is politically tricky, but logically and economically easy. If fossil fuels can’t compete with other energy sources to provide electrons on demand, they won’t be used.
Richard Holden Economics professor
Economists often use a sneaky shortcut when describing trade in a particular good or service. We describe the good – say a banana – as just that and ask: “Are you willing to pay $2 for a banana?” Of course, everyone knows that means a certain type and quality of banana – such as nearly ripe, organic, from Queensland. But we almost always gloss over one crucial but embedded feature: a complete description of the trade is “$2 for a certain type of banana at a certain time”.
That shortcut is pretty innocuous when it comes to bananas, but it’s not at all innocuous when it comes to energy. When you purchase energy you don’t just want electrons, you want electrons at a certain time. Like when it’s dark, or hot, or cold. And when you want electrons it’s a reasonable bet that lots of other folks want electrons as well.
So it’s a welcome development in our national energy debate that the long-discussed idea of a “capacity market” (or “mechanism”) might finally come to fruition.
It’s a simple enough concept – the ability to produce electricity on demand. It’s basically a contract: a call option on electrons. And plenty of very useful commentary has delved into the details of the “capacity” part of that phrase. How should the mechanism that implements this market be designed? What types of energy should be included? How long should the contracts be? When should the payments be made? What are the implications of design features for investment in capacity?
Less attention has been paid to the “market” part of a capacity market. One vital thing a capacity market does is provide a price signal about the value of the true underlying good – electrons at a point in time. It fills the gap of what is in effect a missing market. Now that might sound like something only a nerdy economist would care about. In fact, it’s an essential part of getting our energy transition right.
Costs and benefits
Thanks to a lot of excellent science and social science, we know a great deal about the social cost of carbon (SCC). That is, what’s the environmental cost (the “externality”) of generating a kilowatt-hour of energy from coal, gas, hydro, or wind. The best estimate is that the SCC is US$125 per tonne – so about $180.
What we have much less visibility into is what the social benefit of using energy at a particular point in time is. But we know that, in principle, it could be very high. Cooling homes in summer and heating homes in winter can literally save lives – particularly among the elderly. Nobody likes blackouts, but what are we willing to pay to avoid them? A capacity market provides the answer to these questions.
Rather than take an ideological stance, we are in a position where technologies can be put on a level playing field.
That means we can appropriately trade off the costs and benefits of emissions. If people are willing to pay $1000 for the energy associated with one tonne of emissions then, even accounting for the $180 social cost of carbon plus the cost of generating and distributing that energy, there’s a lot of potential net social benefit.
Imagine we had an electricity market that involved, on average, 90 per cent renewables but at peak times used some amount of gas. Would that be a good thing or a bad thing? A hardcore environmentalist would no doubt say it’s a bad thing since all fossil fuels are bad.
A more centrist perspective is that there will naturally be some amount of gas, or even coal, as we make our energy transition. What a capacity market does is provide a principled, market-based way to determine how much energy from which type of non-renewable sources are appropriate during the transition.
It’s even possible that, if battery and other storage technologies hit technological and economic limits, that a small amount of gas would be used at super-peak times in steady state. Imagine 1 per cent of our energy coming from gas, switched on it such times when the price (and social benefit) of energy is incredibly high. The amount of emissions would be miniscule, as would the appropriately calculated social cost.
What the Greens seem to forget is that it’s net zero we’re looking for, not gross zero. I don’t like coal mines any more than the @stopadani protesters. But we can’t pretend that all electrons are created equal. Some can be delivered at specific times and others cannot – depending on their source.
And while you and I continue to demand electrons 24/7, there’s going to be a market for power to provide them. Right now that is going to involve some amount of non-renewable sources – probably gas. Eventually that will reduce. Perhaps a lot. But probably not to (gross) zero.
The decision facing Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen is how to design the capacity market. He looks to be paying close attention to important issues such as how long the contracts should be and other design features.
The tricky question is whether to allow coal and gas into the mechanism. This is politically tricky, but logically and economically easy. If gas and coal can’t compete in this market – providing electrons on demand – they won’t be used. The reality is that coal probably can’t but gas almost surely can.
Rather than take an ideological stance we are in a position where technologies can be put on a level playing field. Let the (socially) best technology win.
Richard Holden is professor of economics at UNSW Business School and President of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.
Zelda from Pet Sematary. Here we go:
And:
Zeldas. Ruining people’s lives since 1966.
REPORT THIS AD!
Zelda Grimshaw, 56
Lives in a gingerbread house in the forest?
The one that stinks like cat pee.
Not to mention an irredeemable imbecile.
Holden’s complete lack of understanding of our current energy “market” and how we ended up in this diabolical situation renders him unfit to even comment on the subject.
What a joke. Another self declared expert who is wrong, wrong, wrong (again). If these people said the sky was blue I’d walk outside and check.
Hemingway maintained that Zelda Fitzgerald destroyed F. Scott’s writing career.
C. 1926.
Zelda Goldman
Zelda Gilroy
Zelda Grimshaw
There’s a pattern here.
If you’re a Zelda F, odds are you’re nuts and end your days in a madhouse fire.
Not an auspicious girl’s name. Avoid if possible.
White Lives Don’t Matter.
At last we understand the sinister use of the “Z” on the Russian invasion troops vehicles…
Zelda force.
Occasional Cortex.
Reeeeeeee!!!!!!!
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calls for supreme court justices to be impeached
The congresswoman says Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch lied under oath to Congress about their views on Roe
“They lied,” the leftwing, second-term representative said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “I believe lying under oath is an impeachable offense … and I believe that this is something that should be very seriously considered.”
Ocasio-Cortez added that standing idly by “sends a blaring signal to all future nominees that they can now lie to duly elected members of the United States Senate in order to secure … confirmations and seats on the supreme court”.
She also mentioned impeaching Justice Clarence Thomas, whose wife Ginni emailed 29 Republican lawmakers in Arizona as she tried to help undermine Biden’s victory over Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Thomas has not recused himself from election-related cases, drawing criticism.
“I believe that not recusing from cases that one clearly has family members involved in with very deep violations of conflict of interest are also impeachable offenses,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
Cortex calls for civil war… Shes too stupid/evil to realize that, but the outcome would be less than what she thinks it would be.
House members can impeach a judge with a simple majority vote. But to be removed from office a justice would need to be convicted by a two-thirds majority of the Senate.
Biden’s Democratic party controls the House with a clear majority, but its standing in the Senate is much more tenuous. The Senate is split 50-50, though Biden’s vice-president, Kamala Harris, can serve as a tiebreaker for votes that can be carried by a simple majority.
Agree with you Rex about the GMs and CLs but I reckon the Vicco As and Bs look silly. Badly proportioned
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!
Wouldn’t have been any ecstasy of fumbling.
Own goal at the Dawson trial.
Chris Dawson’s lawyer had journalist Hedley Thomas on the stand.
Ms David suggested the podcast had caused him to “become quite famous”.
Thomas: “I don’t think so.”
David: “You won a Walkley Award for your efforts?”
Thomas: “I had won Walkleys before that.”
David: “You won one for this, didn’t you?”
Thomas: “Yes. It was the seventh.
Article in the Speccie on leasing nuclear subs:
https://spectator.com.au/2022/06/fast-tracking-australia-toward-nuclear-subs/
Text:
Borrowing a boat would quickly give Australia nuclear-powered subs
By Top Ender
First, up to date submarines are essential for Australia’s defence. There is no better deterrent against a possible enemy than having submerged submarines at sea for months at a time. They could be anywhere, and the enemy must guard against that. Having a nuclear lie deep and quiet is infinitely better than having diesel-electric boats, which must come to periscope depth regularly to run their diesels to recharge their batteries.
The path to Australia acquiring nuclear submarines is perhaps being portrayed as too steep. We could get ourselves one Virginia-class nuclear propelled submarine within a year or two if we pursued a less formal approach. And then we could get another, and another, very quickly.
The Australian Submarine Officer Pipeline Act, providing for Australian sailors to train on US nuclear-powered submarines, recently became part of the US military budget negotiations. Memorandums of understanding like this are showing that the path is being cleared. But here’s a way to make it easier still.
It would involve the Defence Minister and the Chief of Navy going to America with a can of paint, a White Ensign, 90 of the best Australian apples, and 45 of our best Navy submariners. The plan is to paint over the nameboard of an existing Virginia with the new name – I suggest HMAS Taylor after a sailor who fought to the end in battle aboard HMAS Yarra in WWII. The White Ensign is to fly from the fin as it leaves harbour for Australia. And the apples are to give a taste of Australia to the 90 United States Navy crew who would accompany our 45 on their first trip back to Australia.
Let’s step through how this fairly informal process might work. It basically would involve the USN loaning us a submarine. It could be an older Virginia, taken up from service immediately. The sailors are a loan too. They would be to initially man the submarine and train our people once here. To make it formal call it a lease and draft up who pays for what.
Before the Defence Minister and CN leave America they could sign a purchase order for a new Virginia. The Americans have them coming off the production line every six months. The purchase order should be accompanied by a gift of money to speed up the production line a bit. That way we could ask General Dynamics Electric Boat to accelerate matters. The USA is a nation that put a man on the moon in less than a decade from announcement to landing. When they’re pushed they can work miracles. In WWII they produced 324,750 military aircraft – a capacity unmatched by any other country in the world. Turning up the heat somewhat on the Virginia-class line should be possible. We could even repeat the leased secondhand operational boat concept.
On the way back across the Pacific the Americans would be showing their new Aussie mates the handling requirements for a nuclear submarine. Making firmer friends with the US people has a double purpose. It should be possible to speed up both the number of Americans working within our own Navy, and – with their government’s approval – advertising for experienced submariners to come and work Down Under.
If this seems like our submarine force would be becoming almost part of the US Navy, then so be it. We have fought alongside the Americans since World War I, and we have no better friend. Who better than to show us the way into this new capability? – which we definitely must have.
This informal approach would allow Australia to have at least two nuclear boats on line within a year or two. Of course we’d try for more as soon as we could. Their presence should not be any cause for alarm. We have had nuclear boats alongside our wharves before – the author recalls sleeping aboard USS Houston in Darwin as part of Navy work. There are however a host of doubters who will raise a host of alarms. Some are minor – would more port security be needed, for example?
Other “concerns” are negligible though. For example, one doubt which some have raised is to whether Australia needs “a nuclear industry” to operate these vessels. In the main though it is an engine we are acquiring, a nuclear one indeed, but although much more complex, only an engine. And it is one that doesn’t need the equivalent of a tank of diesel on the wharf, as the nuclear reactor core life is estimated at around 33 years.
We are under way down this path already. The AUKUS security pact between Australia, the US, and UK, which was released in September 2021, set 18 months for the three nations to develop a path for Australia to acquire nuclear submarines. All this does is clear some obstacles out of the way. For we need nuclear submarines now, not in 10 years.
-o-o-O-o-o-
Top Ender is a military historian and retired naval officer. His most recent book is Sydney Under Attack, (Big Sky Publishing) an examination of disastrous senior command combating the midget submarine raid of 1942 – and a call for honours for the small ship commanders that sank two of the three enemy vessels.
Complete opposite of what was predicted by catastrophists is observed in real life.
Switch smoothly to “Oh yeah, but it will be WORSERER!!!!”
Cyclone numbers have fallen since start of 20th century, study suggests
Scientists warn that while total number of cyclones may be decreasing, global heating will see a higher proportion of more damaging storms
Global heating has coincided with fewer tropical cyclones forming each year around the globe compared with the second half of the 19th century, according to a new study.
The average annual number of cyclones fell by 13% across the 20th century, with steeper declines seen after 1950.
Several studies using climate models have suggested global heating could reduce the total number of cyclones forming but there would be a higher proportion of more intense and dangerous systems.
The authors of the new research, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, said their findings were in line with expectations that a warming planet would see fewer cyclones forming overall.
At the peak of Mt Noorat. 310m. Overlooking a volcano crater. Cows chewing the grass 20m away (the trail is on farming land). A steady breeze.
33 wind turbines nearby. Ugly and not functioning. I guess AEMO reflects this. Many many turbines farther afield due north. Too many to count. Some are at least turning. :-/
Rogersays:
June 28, 2022 at 9:58 am
Zeldas. Ruining people’s lives since 1966.
Hemingway maintained that Zelda Fitzgerald destroyed F. Scott’s writing career.
C. 1926.
Light Hearted Enjoyable Movie
Midnight in Paris
A night of wine tasting gets Gil drunk, and he decides to walk the streets of Paris to return to the hotel; Inez goes off with Paul and Carol by taxi. Gil stops to get his bearings, and at midnight, a 1920s car pulls up beside him. The passengers urge him to join them and he finds himself at a party for Jean Cocteau attended by notable people of the 1920s Paris art scene: Cole Porter, his wife Linda Lee Porter, and Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald. Zelda gets bored and encourages Scott and Gil to leave with her. They first head to Bricktops, where they see Josephine Baker dancing, and then to a cafe where they run into Ernest Hemingway and Juan Belmonte. After Zelda and Scott leave, Gil and Hemingway discuss writing, and Hemingway offers to show Gil’s novel to Gertrude Stein. But as Gil exits the building to fetch his manuscript from his hotel, he returns to 2010: the cafe where he encountered Hemingway is now a laundromat.
midnight in paris – Fitzgeralds and Hemingway – 4 min 27 secs
Thanks again Tom.
Let the market rule the energy capacity mechanism
Any renewable generator bidding to supply must state the minimum it is going to supply 24/7/365.
Up to them how they do it. Large financial penalties for failure to supply the minimum.
That way the renewable scammers have to buy energy from coal and gas people on contract or build their own coal and gas plants. Simple.
The aim is to have as many electrons available as you need all the time. We pretty much had that.
In fairness, the stats about the percentage of Australians with at least one parent born overseas should be taken in context. With an ageing population, more people with both locally born parents are dying, and there is a big bulge of people whose parents came here in the 1950s and 60s coming through.
My town is replete with ancient Russians and Chermans and Chezkos and Ukrainians and Poles, etc, remnants of the Snowy Scheme. They get together for coffee in the mall every day.
Their children and grandchildren are dinky-di.
For some reason, we also have quite a few Tongans and other Islanders. Why they would want to come to a cold-ish place like this is a mystery, but they seem quite happy to be here.
cold-ish, it was -6C last night.
Joanna,
You are right. Yet he has publicly claimed more than once he has Aboriginal heritage. Most recently was on a Q&A show. Which shows what a farce some claims of Aboriginality can be (ie. Bruce Pascoe) because nobody dared to call him out.
“thought that Katter Snr and his Dad were of Middle Eastern descent. Or is it another example of the ‘one drop of blood’ mentality?”
Yeah, like Yoko Ono destroyed The Beatles and Boris’ greenie wife is behind his stupid policies (which predate her by over a decade).
Taking responsibility is never high on the list for apologists.
Blaming it on the woman seems to be popular, thoug.
Top Ender:
Highest number! Winner winner chicken dinner!
What do I get?
“I dont keep anybody around me who dont deserve what they get’…
The joy of seeing a lefty hoist on their own petard by their own tribe is great.
But i do admit to a soft spot for Julie, a fair bit of what she focused on was good.
Julie Bindel to sue Nottingham council after talk cancelled
Council says it called off Bindel’s talk at library because of her views on transgender rights
….
The council said it cancelled Bindel’s talk because of “the speaker’s views on transgender rights”. In a statement, it said: “Nottingham is an inclusive city and as a council we support our LGBT community and have committed to supporting trans rights as human rights through Stonewall.”
The row highlights the sometimes bitter and polarised battle between trans activists and gender-critical feminists.
…
Bindel has been accused of transphobia because she says does not believe trans women can legitimately say they are a woman.
…
I think that Katter Snr was deliberately having a lend when he claimed to be Indigenous.
Having dealt with The Bobster personally, I tell you that he is a wild and crazy guy.
At last, the real impetus for the abortion license appears and is extended to men. This is always and only ever about elective abortion. Choice without responsibility. And big businesses that propose to pay for out-of-state travel are establishing a preference, cynically, for their employee to kill the child rather than having to worry about maternity leave and the like as well as low wages which make family formation difficult for low to middle-income earners.
Why does a case like this even need to reach SCOTUS? How can any reasonable person imagine a coach praying on the field after games is worthy of censure? Just unbelievable.
Looks as though the old left was right about big business being evil. Now they get away with their evil by saying they’re left wing.
right — but does the total number of ‘intense and dangerous systems’ increase, or decrease?
This hardly identifies any trends: https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/100/10/bams-d-18-0189.1.xml
Move along.
I blame the men for thinking with there little heads and being needy.
Ps: “though”
Several studies using climate models have suggested global heating could reduce the total number of cyclones forming but there would be a higher proportion of more intense and dangerous systems.
I have to admire the determination to scaremonger.
What this may well mean even if it’s true (yes, I know) is that instead of 10 cyclones of which 3 are intense, there’ll be 8 cyclones of which 3 will be intense.
I.e. nothing to worry about.
Or is there? Maybe we need a massive taxpayer funded grant to do more “research” (i.e. rig the models further).
Twenty five tonnes of liquid chlorine dropped from a height is not nice.
Once had a clutzy tech drop a litre bottle of liquid bromine near the air conditioner.
Couldn’t get within 100m of our building for an hour until the vapour dissipated.
Fortunately well before the age of woke, or it would’ve been on the national news.
Bob Katter Snr as a Festrunk Brother (A Wild And Crazy Guy)?
Yeah, I can see that.
SIMPing, bespoke.
duncanmsays:
June 28, 2022 at 10:59 am
Sorry, should have read your comment before posting mine.
Remember the day when S. E. Cupp was supposed to be the future of the conservative movement? Oh boy. Conservatives need to improve their filters.
SIMPing, Dover Beach.
Indeed, Dot.
No e Girls, ever!
Accumulated cyclone energy and severe hurricanes both have been decreasing.
2022 Accumulated Cyclone Energy [ACE]
No, Hurricanes Are Not Bigger, Stronger and More Dangerous (Nov 2019)
Roger:
He’s picked up the wrong teeth when he got out of bed this morning.
Bruce, it wouldn’t have mattered if they were increasing.
It’s not the point.
bespokesays:
June 28, 2022 at 11:01 am
johannasays:
June 28, 2022 at 10:38 am
Blaming it on the woman seems to be popular, thoug.
I blame the men for thinking with there little heads and being needy.
Ps: “though”
Ps: “their”………lol
That’s a part of it but the main thing, I think, is the felt need to have someone ‘hip’ that is also saying some things that are vaguely conservative as part of the broad conservative movement.
For one thing, she was for Drag Queen Empire from the start. That immediately put me on Defcon 3.
Dotsays:
June 28, 2022 at 11:06 am
No e Girls, ever!
But just checking, skimpies at the pub are ok.
Its not simping to put a fiver in the titty jar is it?
Asking for a fiend.
The decision will explode a few more lefty heads, which is fun.
Sometimes lefty atheists get angry if they find out that a Christian is praying for them. It’s amusing. If the lefty doesn’t believe in God what harm is praying for them going to do? Yet in a lot of cases they really hate the idea.
I hope the WV vs EPA decision goes to WV, that would be even more head detonatey.
I was in support of Elbow’s cuts to crossbench advisors. That was until I saw this video from Malcolm Roberts.
https://www.facebook.com/malcolmrobertsonenation
Anthony Albanese’s cuts to the crossbench advisers are an attack on democracy. The less help we have, the easier it is for government to get away with whatever they want.
Where is Benito M0ntylini’s howling and raging about West Virginia v. EPA, that was supposed to have been decided by SCOTUS today, and how it marks the end of all life as we know it?
I DEMAND MY ENTERTAINMENT, FAT MAN!
PROVIDE!
#RoundAndRoundTheLeftwitGoes
#WhereHeStops,NobodyKnows
Eyrie:
Just having a quick look at Google Earth tells me the constriction about 15 – 18 k upriver would do the job with half a dozen HE warheads on cruise missiles.
Don’t bother trying to hit the dam itself – just cascade a few million tons of rock into the river valley and the surge of water will do it for you.
Eurrgh.
Now I’ve got terrible mental images of ‘Xis’ and ‘Xirs’ jars on the Prime Ministerial dresser…
Moloch smiles.
Australian businesses are offering support to their US employees if they need help accessing abortion services, following the lead of some of America’s biggest employers.
Richard Holden is professor of
economics,science,elect eng, marketinghe missed a few bits
Found him schlepping about in the remains of the weekend thread, trying to lamely refer to Lauren Boebert as a tHeOcRaT.
C’mon Fat Man! Be brave- There’s a whole new thread for you to get yourself schwacked on and tell us how the legal challenging or even breaking of the EPA’s single, dictatorial mandate for enforced decarbonisation (i.e. destruction, emasculation or rendering permanently unviable) of entire US industries somehow represents a catastrophic threat to democratic processes… 🙂
Roger:
I think a couple of hundred hangings would be a good start to remind these people just what their job is.
SCOTUS tends to leave its biggest decision to last, so the longer they wait the more momentous the decision is likely to be.
For context (/ht cohenite, last night), West Virginia v. EPA is all about:
Whether, in 42 U.S.C. § 7411(d), an ancillary provision of the Clean Air Act, Congress constitutionally authorized the Environmental Protection Agency to issue significant rules — including those capable of reshaping the nation’s electricity grids and unilaterally decarbonizing virtually any sector of the economy — without any limits on what the agency can require so long as it considers cost, nonair impacts and energy requirements.
Sure, sure, killing a child in utero is akin to a beer at the pub. Get real.
Excellent, Fat Man.
You’re here. 🙂
Start dancing.
I don’t seem to recall Al Capone and Babyface Nelson running massive underworld empires geared around the illicit supply of coathangers, RU486 pills and ghoulish surgeons, either.
And Motor Bandits were never much interested in babies.
Rex Angersays:
June 28, 2022 at 11:53 am
Sure, sure, killing a child in utero is akin to a beer at the pub. Get real.
I don’t seem to recall Al Capone and Babyface Nelson running massive underworld empires geared around the illicit supply of coathangers, RU486 pills and ghoulish surgeons, either.
Akchually!
Mobsters earned their money by providing illegal goods and services. They were most famous for bootlegging, but also managed gambling, prostitution, and abortion.
Winston Smith says: June 28, 2022 at 10:38 am
Your prize is three years of Labor government. (Please, try to not win again)
The Palaszczuk government’s building regulator sidestepped its procurement rules to hire top Labor lobbyist Evan Moorhead – and a fellow ALP powerbroker signed off on the deal. (The Oz)
Of course there’s nothing to see here. The Palaszczuk Empire will bury this story. ASAP.
Arrested climate loonies. Melbourne man, Petersham woman, Lismore woman, Brandy Hill man, and so on… Not one of them proud apparently.
It turns out that the biggest supporters of the abortion death cult aren’t the US Democratic Party’s violent street mobs protesting against the overturning of Roe-v-Wade, but the chamber of commerce.
Big Business, it also turns out, is a huge supporter of modern feminism because it is delivering childless females to corporate America, which is cheaper than letting them have children, even if that means paying for their abortions.
Tucker Carlson Tonight.
Lincoln is right. In the interim, states ought to oblige all companies trading in their jurisdictions to comply with their laws or else face penalties, the last of which if the flouting is persistent is being compelled by law to cease trading within that jurisdiction.
From the old thread, by m0nty-fa the fascist.
m0ntysays:
June 28, 2022 at 11:00 am
BJ, you are a former public servant? No wonder you are such a crashing bore.
Why aren’t you still a public servant? It’s practically impossible to get fired, I’ve heard. You are also borderline retarded*, so you’d qualify for special treatment.
* note I am not using this word as an insult, I am saying he is literally functionally retarded.
Feeling a trifle sensitive, are we? Poor petal.
I am retired, it is a concept that seems to be far beyond your intellectual capability to grasp, so look it up. Wiki might be able to help.
Perhaps you could offer some medical data that justify your assessment of my mental status? Or are you just lashing out in frustration that I do not accept your silly ideas? Either way, you condemn yourself with your own anger.
Salvatore:
Bugger.
Good to know Dobbs wasn’t that big.
Port Keats R-Us in Darwin!
A 25-YEAR-OLD man has been arrested after he allegedly used a compound bow in an attempt to injure someone in Eaton on Monday.
At 3.20pm on Monday a 25-year-old man allegedly physically assaulted a 41-year-old man outside a business on Murphy Dr.
Police allege the 25-year-old then attempted to assault the victim with a compound bow, causing no injuries.
The offender was arrested a short time later. He is expected to be charged with recklessly endangering causing serious harm and aggravated assault.
The bow has been seized by police.
Cruise missiles aren’t immune to air defences. Plenty of time for interceptors and then there is terminal defence such as CIWS like weapons.
Just having a quick look at Google Earth tells me the constriction about 15 – 18 k upriver would do the job with half a dozen HE warheads on cruise missiles.
Don’t bother trying to hit the dam itself – just cascade a few million tons of rock into the river valley and the surge of water will do it for you.
It’s about two hour flight time to the dam. Plenty of time for interceptors and plenty to alert the close in defence.
As deterrents go this doesn’t seem all that good. As for collapsing the rock, you’d better have good geology data and use just the right ground penetrating warheads.
Cheers!