In a bookshop recently, can’t remember which one, Australian section, 95% female authors, I’d never heard of most. Jane Harper…
Open Thread – Tues 28 June 2022
- Open Thread – Thurs 14 Nov 2024
- Open Thread – Remembrance Day 2024
- The Sweetest Victory
- Open Thread – Weekend 9 November 2024
- Open Thread – Thurs 7 Nov 2024
ANZ is into virtue signalling woke meddling too.
I am a US optimist, although the place has some real problems its capacity for reinvention is unmatched. After reading…
Why do the Australian people have to suffer this purely political appointment? Because Albanese is a political hack for whom…
Russians With Attitude@RWApodcastLavrov: “Trump’s arrival will not fundamentally change the U.S. attitude toward the situation in Ukraine; Washington wants to keep…
…
‘Ladies and gentlemen, it is my melancholy duty to inform you that the killer is somebody in this very stateroom.’
It was the retiree, at the buffet with the all-you-can-eat dessert plate.
The fat Karen, outside the Captain’s office with the suggestion box.
The hot-blooded threesome-hunter, in the waxing salon with the depilatory stick.
Cohenite :
Strongly agree.
I’ve long thought that if any one group deserves special recognition it is veterans and their descendants. Shedding blood, making the ultimate sacrifice for the country confers on you and family line a right of ownership and possession that others are not entitled to.
Canucks think he’s a sunny character or something.
Perceptions of happy and sad music may not be universal across cultures, new research finds (30 Jun)
I think Canadians are miserable souls, but they love Mr Cohen and morose tales of sinking ships. I suppose being forced to live next to a nation of wild extroverts could do that for you.
No. Obviously, they used the hovercraft they built.
Don’t disagree John but senate result in Victoria suggests 50 50 split
Besides, the best tractor is a steam tractor.
And the best steam tractor is a Burrell…
(Apologies for the drunk yob singing tunelessly along. YouTube has failed me once again)
This is a great article.
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/mythsofbritishancestry
You can’t make this stuff up…
Not enough chicken leads to gunfire at anniversary party
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Police say a man tried to kill his brother-in-law during an argument at a couple’s anniversary party in South Memphis.
Police said Rogers’ mother, Stephanie Morgan, ordered him to get his guns.
The family continued the argument outside in the front yard, where police say Rogers pulled out two guns and shot Dandridge at least six times.
people who are not ignorant of prehistory. That’s who.
https://pixels.com/featured/sea-levels-during-the-last-ice-age-noaascience-photo-library.html
There’s at least one song about raising one back up.
And then there’s this one about privateering gone wrong.
And this minor tearjerker.
So the Canucks aren’t totally awful…
Zulu Kilo Two Alphasays:
June 30, 2022 at 10:40 pm
Not forgetting teachers who could throw the board duster or chalk over their shoulder with unerring accuracy & no technical calculations involved! ..LOL!
In England as a young 9 year old, we had a Scottish Maths Teacher who taught us Mental Arithmetic. He was so good that he would fire the maths questions at us around the Class and if he got the wrong answer back, he would throw the chalk or blackboard duster at you even though he was already 2 or 3 other children ahead of you in firing off the questions. He was that good. And I (and others) learned Mental Arithmetic which has been with me ever since.
I still wonder though where he got all the chalk and dusters from as we only had one blackboard. Secret hiding place up his jacket sleeve I guess.
Rex – My favourite is this working man’s song. Some very fine animation in the vid too.
The cost of building a renewable future
Regulators, politicians and industry players are debating how best to build and pay for a system that no longer uses coal-fired power. The short answer is that consumers’ bills are only headed in one direction.
Jennifer Hewett
The rise in millions of residential and business power bills starting from today is only the beginning. Unless the energy market changes dramatically, prices for all consumers will keep accelerating next financial year too.
The soaring price of oil, gas and coal globally is leading to a belated recognition that “fossil fuels” are still required and in drastically short supply right now.
The constant refrain that renewables are cheaper as well as cleaner may be true in the long term. In the medium term, it conveniently omits arguments about who pays what for the cost of the additional transmission lines and storage that help make wind and solar power systemically viable.
Hint. Most of that cost eventually gets passed onto consumers’ bills.
And despite Chris Bowen’s enthusiasm about the eagerness of the private sector to invest far more in transmission and renewables, the hurdles to doing so quickly haven’t been eliminated by a new federal government declaring a political truce with the states.
The transition of the energy market also requires the difficult balancing act of keeping enough coal-fired and gas-fired power in the grid until there’s sufficient investment in renewables, transmission and storage capacity to replace them.
The release of the Australian Energy Market Operator’s “integrated system plan” is an attempt to describe how the national electricity market can achieve this shift over the next 30 years in the cheapest, fastest and most reliable way for consumers. Many of the practical questions about how best to do this cannot be neatly answered now, even in a sober 100-page report.
That’s not really the fault of regulators like the AEMO or the Australian Energy Regulator or the Energy Security Board. The details of how the energy market is transforming itself in ways that were largely unimaginable even a decade ago have confounded most predictions, no matter how “expert”.
The pace of advances in technology and management of the grid will only increase. But the unwieldy combination of state and federal governments, regulators, local planning approvals and having the right financial incentives or framework in place to encourage more private sector investment more quickly moves far more slowly.
Yet AEMO’s prediction that far more coal-fired power will shut down by 2030 than has so far been announced by Australia’s generators only makes the need to deal with the gap between expectations and financial and physical reality more urgent.
AEMO’s chief executive Daniel Westerman describes the amount of investment required as “staggering”. At the moment, for example, coal still accounts for around 60 per cent of generation in the national electricity market despite its decline being both rapid and irreversible.
According to the vote by various industry and consumer groups as part of AEMO’s lengthy consultation process, renewables are expected to account for 83 per cent of generation by the start of the 2030s.
Even if that exact percentage is not correct, the direction is clear.
This is a great article.
Yes it is.
duncanmsays:
July 1, 2022 at 12:37 pm
John Sheldricksays:
July 1, 2022 at 11:47 am
27000 the second wave came. They were the Murrayians. They walked from Japan
Walked from Japan? To Australia? LOL. Could they walk on water then? Who writes this BS?
people who are not ignorant of prehistory. That’s who.
https://pixels.com/featured/sea-levels-during-the-last-ice-age-noaascience-photo-library.html
Wow!! I didn’t realise that Map Making was so good all those many years ago. And without satellites too.
Gotta hand it to AnAl .. he’s living the “houso” dream “freebie” long term holidays abroad! .. all the years raising 4 kids in a drug addled “houso” estate in south western Sydney with towel-head druggies battling Vietcong druggies for control, addicts collapsed in the needle strewn gutters (nowhere near as bad as “houso” Camperdown .. but still…! .. LOL!) you’d spend a lot of time dreaming of escaping on O/S trips away from it all just for a week or two but it was just pie-in-the-sky stuff but for AnAl its become reality!
And it’s not only him & “that chap Wong” running up our carbon footprint but the “druggies moll” is also enjoying a stint in gay Paree with Macroon, reportedly, whispering, “Missed ya where’ve ya been , sweetie” into her shell-like .. apparently, the media weren’t interested enuf to mention she’d joined the conga line of Laborites who “don’t call Australia home”, at the moment .. LOL!
Retaining a “social licence to operate” is not just a problem for the coal and gas industries.
Not only does no-one want to build any new coal-fired power stations. The maintenance of existing and ageing equipment in this market is ever less commercially sustainable. But the accelerating withdrawal of coal compounds the private sector’s reluctance to invest in new gas generation to provide “firming” power for renewables without financial support from governments. The federal government is responsible for the construction of the Kurri Kurri power plant in NSW while EnergyAustralia’s Tallawarra B is being built with backing from the NSW government.
The general view is the proposed development of a “capacity market” – to effectively pay generators to have firming power available as needed – might include gas (despite Victoria’s objections) as well as pumped hydro and batteries. But coal is still likely to be excluded, given political and environmental sensitivities.
To cope with the need to rapidly increase investment in wind and solar as well as batteries and pumped hydro projects such as Snowy 2.0, AEMO is focused on the need to simultaneously build another 10,000 kilometres of new transmission links to connect generation and storage with users.
“What we have outlined is a road map for investment in Australia’s national electricity market to ensure that Australians have access to affordable and reliable energy, and we know the most affordable and reliable energy going into the future is firmed renewables with transmission,” Westerman said on Thursday.
The five big projects the regulator cites as most urgent to progress are the Hume Link connecting Snowy Hydro, the VNI West interconnector between NSW and Victoria, the Marinus Link connecting Tasmania to Victoria, expanded transmission to the renewable energy zone in northern NSW and a boost to the greater Sydney transmission ring.
According to AEMO, the estimated $12.7 billion cost will deliver net market benefits more than double that.
But projects are bogged down in arguments over the share of payments and returns expected by various governments and industry players as well as cumbersome state and local government planning approvals, including resistance by some communities affected. Retaining a “social licence to operate” is not just a problem for the coal and gas industries. Managing such differences is likely to test the post-election spirit of greater collaboration between governments and industry – not to mention consumers.
Nor are energy experts all in agreement. The dead-end future of coal may be clear but not the transitional role of gas. Critics such as Bruce Mountain of the Victorian Energy Policy Centre also question the cost of interstate transmission lines and the validity of a capacity market compared to mandating renewable electricity storage targets in the same way the original renewable energy target for generation worked.
Households and businesses will be more interested in the one-way direction of their bills.
Sheldrick
You may enjoy that article on British ancestry.
England, was ALWAYS English.
I may try to find stuff about North sea trading & intermarriage as well later.
Didn’t Google look at going 100% renewable a few years ago and their engineers concluded it was impossible?
Wow!! I didn’t realise that Map Making was so good all those many years ago. And without satellites too.
The 251s map-making dept. at Pascoe University was the envy of ancient mariners thru-out the world .. ships, canoes & weekend strollers from far & wide sought copies of their works ..
A Rochdale grooming gang leader dubbed ‘The Master’ will be allowed to remain in the UK.
Aziz was jailed for nine years in 2012, for conspiracy to engage in s3xual activity with a child by penetrative s3x and trafficking for s3xual exploitation a 15-year-old girl.
He took his victim to flats in Rochdale where she was plied with vodka and drugs and coerced into s3x with gangs of men in return for payment to him.
Rauf’s lawyers also said deportation would be a breach under articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, arising out of their individual circumstances relating to their private and family life.
m0ntysays:
July 1, 2022 at 9:22 am
…
The major implication of the ruling is that SCOTUS has declared itself to have the power to abolish any regulation it doesn’t like, for arbitrary partisan reasons. It just has to do it one by one.
m0nty you fat imbecile.
It’s been known since the Marbury v Madison decision in 1803 that the Supreme Court has power to rule on whether government actions are legally valid or not. There’s nothing remarkable about that.
The “major question” doctrine of interpretation has been explicit for at least well over a quarter of a century. If Congress wanted the EPA to have the powers at issue in the case, it’s had since 2014 to give legislative approval to the EPA’s “Clean Power Plan”. It hasn’t.
It’s crystal clear on the face of s.7411 that the EPA went beyond power. The start of the section specifically states that the relevant power given to the EPA relates to “emissions reduction” technologies, and no purported power over generation technologies is mentioned. Only a drooling braying shiteating mental defective of the utmost dishonesty could pretend that this decision is a declaration of an “arbitrary partisan” power.
The dissent is the most dishonest document ever written, at least since the last time Breyer, Kagan and Sotomayor got together. The EPA itself tried to repeal the Clean Power Plan a few years ago, but a District Court ruled the repeal invalid and insisted that the Clean Power Plan stay in force; i.e. the Clean Power Plan is in force against the decision of the EPA and only because of a judicial decision – and now the clown troupe trio say that the Clean Power Plan must be upheld because the Court should defer to the expertise of the EPA. Sotomayor has the honourable excuse of being less intelligent than a pot plant, but Breyer and Kagan ought to be publicly flogged as a warning against dishonest usurpation of legislative authority.
Guardian class patrol boats gifted to Pacific island nations have been found to have multiple defects
Well the name is the first problem, right there.
But seriously, many years ago was sent around some Pacific islands for a few duties. Was surprised to see in each capital there was a small squad of Aussie Navy sailors, keeping the patrol boats we had donated to them going.
From what I understand – could be wrong – the maintenance is now done locally. Given the education standard that might be a problem. I remember the bloke who slept every night instead of watching his gauges, and when a beeper kept going off – annoying him into wakefulness – found a pair of pliers and cut the wire to the audible alarm. The entire engine seized and was a write off. He wasn’t though, being a “respected elder”.
Canberra weather – 6.9C atm, no wind & no sun.
Loonie Bowen wants more ruinables and transmission lines – no coal, gas or hydro (unless it’s pumping water uphill to go down again).
And the AEMO has slutted itself to Bowen.
Jo Nova is all over it.
Effectively — the AEMO (the Australian Energy Market Operator) is the taxpayer funded advertising agency for the Renewables Industry. The point of the latest AEMO super-report, apparently, is to get Australian taxpayers or consumers to foot the bill for the high voltage lines that the unreliable industry desperately needs but can’t pay for itself.
Pity none of his staffers told Trudy what Albo’s nickname is, he might’ve remembered then.
Justin Trudeau appears to forget Anthony Albanese’s name (1 Jul)
‘Not big in Canada’ can be AnAl’s epitaph. Shorten thinks he’s doing great though.
Albanese doing ‘quantum level’ better than Morrison: Shorten (1 Jul)
Between Willy Dick Shorten and AnAl it’s going to be a long three years.
Zamora, Michoacán – where a lone gunman killed four people on Tuesday – was the most violent city in the world last year, according to a study by a Mexican non-governmental organization.
The next seven most violent cities in 2021 are also in Mexico, the Citizens Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice (CCSPJP) said in a report published earlier this year. A total of 18 Mexican cities were ranked in the top 50.
rosiesays:
July 1, 2022 at 12:16 pm
People walk is true
In ages past land bridges existed
They could cross on those
I agree. But where are all their rock paintings and other stuff? Did it all get destroyed by the next wave of ‘invaders’? There doesn’t seem to be much evidence of any one else or what they did before this latest ‘Mob’ before the ‘White Mob’ arrived (on ships).
The ‘White Mob’ have had a marvelous impact IMHO.
On invasions of Oz:
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/history-wars/2002/06/the-extinction-of-the-australian-pygmies/
Albanese doing ‘quantum level’ better than Morrison: Shorten
That isn’t exactly a high hurdle to clear.
These people are desperate.
Rauf’s lawyers also said deportation would be a breach under articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, arising out of their individual circumstances relating to their private and family life.
Chop his balls off. Then drop him off in the North Sea in mid winter. That should fix it.
Good to have a Win occasionally
Was watching Grand Designs New Zealand S06E03, grand designs new zealand 2021 earlier in the year
Guy building the house was an Industrial Designer and went to a museum where the chair he designed, chosen by Steve Jobs at Apple and Bill Clinton for their offices
https://www.sitbackandrelax.com.au/life-chair-by-formway.html
Found Used Office Furniture Site in MEL
Life by Formway – Grey/Green
New R.R.P. $1495
Was $245.00
$65.00
Minor cosmetic damage & wear tear.
In Stock Delivery Available
127 Yes
now down to 124 available – that was quick
Asked Daughter in MEL to go out to select and purchase 2 chairs for me as they did not ship to Sydney – 1 Chair has made it to SYD via Daughter-in-law and looks new – pick up 2nd chair next trip to MEL (also looks like new)
(MEL Son-in-law had them in new offices)
Really comfortable – all controls cast metal – even a solid pull out tab summarising controls
John Sheldrick says:
July 1, 2022 at 1:10 pm
The story says the UK Gov waited till he ditched his Pakistani citizenship before trying to remve his UK citizenship.
Whoops!
Dotsays:
July 1, 2022 at 12:50 pm
Sheldrick
You may enjoy that article on British ancestry.
England, was ALWAYS English.
I may try to find stuff about North sea trading & intermarriage as well later.
Britannia was populated by the Ancient Britons who were Celts. Then the Romans turned up uninvited just like everybody else. The name England is derived from the Angles and Angleland.
Fascinating stuff and I just love the history of the British Isles. Being a Pom myself.
Interesting that since Brazil relaxed gun laws over a year ago, guns deaths and crimes are down 40% to 1980 levels!!!
#Shootingbackworks
Russia tried to divorce itself from Kaliningrad many years ago by offering it to the neighbouring Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic. This was probably around the time that Khrushchev was hacking off parts of Russia and giving them to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
The Lithuanians said no thanks, they saw no benefit of having a 1 million strong Russian enclave incorporated into Lithuania, that was a good decision as the situation in Ukraine has shown.
The Russians won’t give it away now, it gives them a warm water port in the Baltic Sea apart from St. Petersburg which could easily be blockaded.
The Lithuanians are playing with fire, I understand that NATO are telling them to back off, but they are intransigent. This could become very dangerous as there are only 60 kilometres between Kaliningrad and Belorussia along the Lithuanian / Polish border. The Russians could easily seize this territory which would not only blockade Lithuania from its western allies, but also cut off Latvia and Estonia. Let’s hope that wise heads in Vilnius prevail.
PS. Koenigsberg ceased to exist at the end of WWII. The German population was resettled in what was East Germany and the German government has signed away any sovereignty to what was East Prussia.
Cops commission external probe into executive over comments on Zach Rolfe’s return to duty
NT Police has refused to confirm whether a senior member of its executive is under investigation for misconduct relating to the return of Constable Zach Rolfe to active duty.
NT POLICE has refused to confirm whether a senior member of its executive is under investigation for misconduct relating to the return of Constable Zach Rolfe to active duty.
The NT News understands an external investigation has been commissioned to begin this month following claims the executive summarily ruled out any possibility of Constable Rolfe coming back to work for NT Police.
Const Rolfe was acquitted on all charges in the Supreme Court in March over the shooting death of Aboriginal teenager Kumanjayi Walker in Yuendumu in 2019.
It is understood Const Rolfe has now permanently returned to Darwin after being formally transferred from Alice Springs and plans to continue working as soon as he is cleared through an internal investigation.
In response to questions about the external probe, Assistant Commissioner Bruce Porter said any investigation was confidential.
“In line with our current practices we always maintain confidentiality on any report from the public for the purpose of the integrity of any investigation and for the wellbeing of the member,” he said.
It comes after officers were forced to remove a piece of roadside graffiti in Alice Springs threatening Const Rolfe with a spearing.
Member for Araluen Robyn Lambley said the graffiti which read, “spear Rolfe not spare Rolfe” was “inciting violence and divisive”.
“As soon as it was drawn to my attention I called the police and the council and I’m not sure what happened after that but within 24 hours it was gone,” she said.
But Ms Lambley said she did not think the message reflected the wider views of the Alice Springs community.
Mr Porter said while he would not comment on individual cases, “special considerations are made for individual members with unique circumstances” in regard to officer safety.
“NT Police have a duty of care to provide all officers the safest possible working environment,” he said.
Meanwhile in Darwin, a sign reading “Integrity matters, sack Chalker now” was also hastily removed from the intersection of McMillans Rd and the the Stuart Hwy.
In comments recently published in the police union newsletter, Const Rolfe said he would continue to “fight to get back to work” despite being “completely abandoned” by the force’s top brass.
“Since the actual shooting itself, up to my arrest and throughout the investigation, the NT (Police Association), (president) Paul McCue and its members have been side-by-side with me at each step, to the point where they were even sitting with me in the cell in the Darwin watch house,” he said.
“At a time when the organisation (not the workers on the ground, I know and am aware of the support I had the entire time from you cops on the street) completely abandoned me, the NTPA was always there for me.”
NT News
Eyriesays:
July 1, 2022 at 12:52 pm
Didn’t Google look at going 100% renewable a few years ago and their engineers concluded it was impossible?
Phoooey! What would engineers know. If you want technical advice, talk to Yartz or Lore graduates, and also Ecommunists.
Timothy N
Only a drooling braying shiteating mental defective of the utmost dishonesty could pretend that this decision is a declaration of an “arbitrary partisan” power.
You are far too flattering to m0nty-fa.
The Chase, The Hot Seat, A Current Affair, MasterChef, Every News Bulletin… beat ABC’s 90th b’day celebrations’ ratings… 😛
Tractors are red.
Trucks are yellow.
Graders are not.
…
That’s it.
John S
But where are all their rock paintings and other stuff? Did it all get destroyed by the next wave of ‘invaders’?
Check out the Kimberley Bradshaw rock paintings, they are markedly different to aboriginal art work.
That they haven’t and instead keep threatening to nuke everybody tells me all I need to know about whether or not Russia can or will do much beyond what it is ready doing.
Remember the Russians are threatening them over an EU-sanctioned blockade of Russian construction materials, natural resources and machinery going through EU territory.
If it was going anywhere other than the Kaliningrad oblast, it wouldn’t be an issue to anyone. Russian or otherwise.
Indeed, what did the Romans ever do for us?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djZkTnJnLR0
Also in the NT:
FORMER NT chief minister Shane Stone has been sacked from his position as head of the National Resilience and Recovery Agency.
The announcement was made in the final paragraphs of a press release from the Emergency Management Minister Murray Watt on Friday
Mr Stone has taken leave effective immediately, and will cease working for the NRRA from August 31.
The move to dump the former chief minister was widely expected after Labor’s election victory in May.
Prior to the election, Senator Watt vowed to sack Mr Stone after the NRRA boss made controversial comments about rebuilding flooded homes on the east coast.
Old Bloke
PS. Koenigsberg ceased to exist at the end of WWII. The German population was resettled in what was East Germany and the German government has signed away any sovereignty to what was East Prussia.
Nothing like a spot of ethnic cleansing to remove potential future problems. Perhaps there should be more of it. Assimilate, or move.
According to AEMO, the estimated $12.7 billion cost will deliver net market benefits more than double that.
Please show me the modelling and assumptions being used so that as an interested Tax Payer I can do an audit on your deliberations. Oh, you can’t or you won’t. In that case just fuck off as I don’t believe your BS.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/roe-pocalypse-now-apocalypse-abortion/
The continuing temper tantrum from the Left over the Roe vs Wade decision.
The one part I didn’t understand was why the employers were so quick to jump on the abortion bandwagon, and then I realised why:
$4,000 is cheaper than Maternity Leave.
So there you have it – a human life is worth $4k.
Thanks BJ… I’ve got a lot to learn!!!
From wiki:
The only reason this is being done is because the US is goading Russia via Lithuania. It’s a nuisance now but things will get interesting when sea transport gets difficult in winter.
Now the unborn are dead.
The science is settled!
Yes Winston, exactly what Tucker was on about last night. He had a good sarcastic rant on HOW DARE YOU WANT A FAMILY!
A bankruptcy case lodged against former constituent and climate activist Michael Staindl was due to be heard in the Federal Court in Melbourne on Thursday.
https://www.bradshawfoundation.com/
‘The wind is always blowing and the sun is always shining somewhere in Australia’…..Chris Bowen.28/6/2022.
This is why teachers need a pay increase, so we can attract better teachers from overseas.
Even mediocre would be easier to bear: how NZ lost its mojo
OLIVER HARTWICH
“We have lost clarity of how we add value, why we are here, what we exist for.”
That was among the findings in an internal review prepared by the New Zealand Transport Authority (NZTA), obtained by Radio New Zealand (RNZ).
But that statement could equally apply to New Zealand as a whole. The country has lost its mojo after a decade of feeling good about itself.
For many years, pollsters Roy Morgan and Curia have been asking New Zealanders whether the country is heading in the right direction. Apart from a few months around the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, large majorities of Kiwis have always responded “Yes”.
During the first Covid lockdown, in April 2020, the highest positive value was 77 per cent for ‘right direction’. This figure has now dropped to 36 per cent, while 50 per cent of New Zealanders believe their country is going in the wrong direction.
That is quite a mood swing, and there are reasons for it.
The biggest contributor to New Zealanders’ grumpiness is the discrepancy between political promises and reality. Without constant promises of world-class performance, even mediocre results would be easier to bear.
The aforementioned NZTA review is a good example. With a depressingly high road toll, the government has embarked on a “Road to Zero” campaign. Its ambitious goal: no more deaths or serious injuries by 2050. The promotional awareness campaign will cost $15 million over three years.
Yet, as RNZ found out, since 2018 NZTA has installed less than a fifth of the road-safety barriers due by 2024.
On these numbers, the “Road to Zero” could be a long one.
But it will also be a costly one because the transport bureaucracy has mushroomed in recent years.
As of June 2021, NZTA employed about 2,081 staff. That figure was 1,372 only four years earlier.
Staff growth at NZTA did not mainly take place on the frontline. HR workers went from 57 to 122 full-time equivalents; managers from 214 to 456; accountants from 44 to 66; admin staff from 307 to 485; and communications officers from 32 to 88. None of those mentioned above will ever install a bollard, put up a road sign, or fix a pothole.
NZTA is symptomatic of a much wider problem in New Zealand, even though it is only a small puzzle piece. Faced with a serious problem, the government sets an ambitious long-term goal. It then launches massive public relations campaigns. Following that, it blows up the bureaucracy but fails on deliverables.
It is the same story in practically every major policy area.
Housing was one of the big issues in the 2017 election campaign. At the time, Labour promised to fix the housing market, reduce homelessness, and build 100,000 affordable KiwiBuild homes over the next decade.
The results after five years? New Zealand house prices have grown by almost 8.7 per annum on average. Emergency Housing Grants, which were below $10 million per quarter in 2017, now exceed $100 million. And KiwiBuild, so far, has delivered just over 1,300 homes – with only 98,700 to go.
New Zealanders used to be proud of their education system, which was considered world-class.
Today, the only measure by which New Zealand schools lead the world is in declining standards.
Reading and literacy have dropped dramatically in the OECD’s PISA rankings. The mathematics skills of New Zealand’s 15-year-olds are only as good as those of 13.5-year-olds 20 years ago. Despite an increase in education spending per student, more than 40 per cent of school leavers are functionally illiterate or innumerate.
Aside from such big policy failures, New Zealanders are bombarded with worrying news daily. There are GPs reportedly seeing more than 60 patients per day. Patients are treated in corridors at some hospitals’ A & E departments, where waiting times now often exceed ten hours.
As gang numbers have grown, gun crime has also become a regular feature in news headlines. Ram raids, where youths steal cars and crash them into small shops, have become common.
Rather than dealing with these and many other issues, the government appears determined to add new challenges to doing business. It is about to introduce collective bargaining in the labour market and an extra tax on income to fund unemployment insurance.
And these are just the big-ticket items. Practically every industry can tell its own stories about new complex regulations, usually rushed through with minimal consultation, if any.
Furthermore, there is growing unease about the government’s move towards co-governance. It sounds harmless but it would radically alter how democracy operates in New Zealand and undermine basic principles of democratic participation.
All in all, the picture that emerges is that of a country in precipitous decline. That would be alarming enough. What makes it even more so is a perception that the core private and public institutions lack the understanding of the severity of the crisis or the ability to counteract it.
Some notable exceptions aside, the New Zealand media is underfunded and not performing the functions of the Fourth Estate properly.
Despite the vast expansion in public service numbers, it lacks quality and focuses on trendy issues rather than its core functions. In particular, the Reserve Bank and the Productivity Commission need a reset. And across the political spectrum, again with notable exceptions, the political parties lack parliamentarians with the qualifications and experience necessary for a turnaround job.
New Zealand needs to be careful not to turn into a failed state. That does not mean it should expect civil unrest, but a period of prolonged and seemingly unstoppable decline across all areas of public life.
The only way to reverse this process would be for New Zealand to regain its mojo: its mojo for serious economic and social reform. It has happened before. And it must happen again.
Oz
From Dot’s link, the genetic makeup of the English (regardless of Angles, Saxons etc) is from the Iberian peninsula. Basques in fact. No wonder holidays in Spain are popular, like a return migration.
Cassie reminds us of Wallace line and the difficulty of walking from Japan, regardless of the land bridge between PNG and Oz. If other mammals won’t do it, people certainly can’t.
All very fascinating.
Check your pockets
Climate ripe for trade deal with Europe: business
Madrid | Anthony Albanese’s embrace of climate action, his reset of relations with France and Russia’s war in Ukraine have generated momentum in Europe for the conclusion of the stalled free trade agreement, says Simon Crean, the former Labor leader and chairman of the European Australian Business Council.
After Mr Albanese said on Wednesday that talks would resume by October, following his meeting in Madrid with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Mr Crean said the atmosphere was ripe in Europe for a deal.
Mr Crean was speaking to The Australian Financial Review from Brussels after having led a delegation to Paris of about 30 senior business and industry representatives from sectors ranging from energy, mining, water, infrastructure, aviation, agriculture, education and defence.
They met French Trade Minister Franck Riester, as well as the Movement of the Enterprises of France (MEDEF), the nation’s largest employer federation.
Mr Crean said not only had Australia’s assistance for Ukraine created goodwill, the crisis was also stoking a need for an alternative source of energy and critical raw materials.
“It’s not only because of the reset that Labor’s victory has created, it’s the Ukraine crisis,” he said. “They are genuinely looking to Australia.”
Mr Crean, who on Wednesday was in Brussels with his delegation to meet members of the European Parliament trade committee, said the Europeans regarded a free trade agreement (FTA) as a priority.
While no one was prepared to put a time on when it could be concluded, there was potential to “get agreements of substance”.
“There is absolutely no doubt that there is a palpable change in attitude towards Australia with the election of the Albanese government,” said Vicki Thomson, CEO of the Group of Eight universities and a member of the delegation.
“There is now a window of opportunity to capitalise on this reset and of course the support of France is integral in the successful negotiation of the FTA with the EU,” she said.
“The visit by Trade Minister Don Farrell has been viewed as hugely positive and in many ways we are the warm-up act for the PM’s meetings in Paris later this week.
“What has provided an opportunity to break through is the Australian government’s different position on climate change. That has meant that Europe are much more willing to re-enter negotiations and to progress this agreement.”
Dotsays:
July 1, 2022 at 12:34 pm
This is a great article.
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/mythsofbritishancestry
And this is a great BBC TV programme –
The Story of English
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0198245/
Sook!
Ah, John Sheldrick. Why is it that England sends us their dumbest Poms. Is it because we keep beating them at cricket?
Rack off back to Scunthorpe.
I’ve got it! Windfarms on utes*!
*idea is crazy enough to get green support.
Why the constant assumption that those debbil-debbil Americanskis must be pulling the strings whenever poor old Russia is mildly inconvenienced or stood up to by one of its neighbours, Dover?
Lithuania has repeatedly said it is enforcing EU sanctions.
Last I checked, the EU generally shits on America or at best treats it with relative disdain. No matter who’s occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Old Ozzie
Aust. will be selling wine and cheese to the French by Xmas.
I read a while back that there is those red headed Russian muslims were most closely related to British and Basques so wasn’t a surprise to read that that the Basques were the main supplier of British DNA.
Um, there could be a tad of history involved too.
And some internal politics.
Bad relations between Russia and Lithuania go back a few years.
“Smolensk is Lithuania”: Lithuanian MP reminds Russia of long-standing border agreement (11 Jun)
Rejecting Lithuania’s independence is just a mite inflammatory. Free Smolensk now!
the state govt is using them as the “excuse” to upgrade/build a lot of desperately needed infrastructure eg Bruce Hwy widening, Sunshine Coast Hwy widening, railway Beerwah to Maroochydore, new overbridge to replace the most congested intersection (Kawana Way and Caloundra Rd). Interestingly in the budget there was no mention of increased firey, ambo, plod or hospital services
Ahem, that largesse for employing corrupt ex politicians has to come from somewhere. Having driven the length of the Bruce Hwy between Rocky and Mossman a few times since being back I know where it has been syphoned from. I won’t even start on the harebrained scheme to make the Gregory Developmental rd/Hwy an alternate route that between Capella and Belyando Crossing should be ripped up and returned to gravel it is that bad.
As you say Diogenes if Queensland population is expected to double watch for a push to partition the state into 2. Increasing numbers of NQ residents like myself have warmed to the idea.
As for more sotherners (Yes I have been one) I am in 2 minds. In the regions plenty of conservative escapees but it has gotta be a reason Brisbane is electing Greens.
Wallace Line or no, people got to Australia, a very long time ago.
Despite an increase in education spending per student, more than 40 per cent of school leavers are functionally illiterate or innumerate.
That cant be right.
12 years of compulsory schooling and nearly half the “graduates’ cant read/write?
I blame a lack of diversity and not enough compulsory penis tucking classes.
https://www.google.com/search?q=images+Ancient+Rock+Paintings+of+North-West+Australia+by+Grahame+Walsh&tbm=isch&chips=q:images+ancient+rock+paintings+of+north+west+australia+by+grahame+walsh,online_chips:bradshaw+paintings:grEJdA_ot-g%3D&hl=en-US&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiMlZnH5db4AhVvg2MGHQs_BSUQ4lYoBXoECAEQKg&biw=1595&bih=723
What happened is that the Plan was an Obama administration policy which a Trump drone tried to reverse, only to fail miserably when the DC court pointed out he was incompetent. Then SCOTUS said actually no, we get to make policy now, look at me we are the captain now, and we side with Republicans.
There was a lot of that going on at the end of WWII. Czechoslovakia for example kicked out 1 million ethnic Germans at a time when there were already millions of displaced homeless people wandering around in Europe, and there wasn’t a word of condemnation spoken by the western powers.
Monty
SCOTUS has announced a FATWAH on the epa.
Sums up every Public Service in Australia at Federal/State/Territory/Local Government
As of June 2021, NZTA employed about 2,081 staff. That figure was 1,372 only four years earlier.
Staff growth at NZTA did not mainly take place on the frontline. HR workers went from 57 to 122 full-time equivalents; managers from 214 to 456; accountants from 44 to 66; admin staff from 307 to 485; and communications officers from 32 to 88. None of those mentioned above will ever install a bollard, put up a road sign, or fix a pothole.
NZTA is symptomatic of a much wider problem in New Zealand, even though it is only a small puzzle piece. Faced with a serious problem, the government sets an ambitious long-term goal. It then launches massive public relations campaigns. Following that, it blows up the bureaucracy but fails on deliverables.
It is the same story in practically every major policy area.
That’s not what the DNA evidence says.
That was a Europe that had far more in common with each other.
Bosnia X Rwanda when the current multicultural fetish wears off, unless we’re extraordinarily lucky.
Vicki:
China is now setting the scene for a NastyCovid. Wait and see.
………………………………………………………………………….
re: Health of The Winston. I was only making the point about the amount of Transplant Recipients in Australia who are dependent on OS drugs to stay functioning if the factories shut down.
Apart from everything else, I’m as fit as a fiddle.
“Old age – it’s no place for sissies.”
M0nty – It’s a tactic called “sue and settle”. One of the most egregious undemocratic and corrupt practices of the Obama Administration, and Biden has recommenced doing it. Hopefully the Scotus decision limits it.
Despite an increase in education spending per student, more than 40 per cent of school leavers are functionally illiterate or innumerate.
A relo of mine worked on the election; she couldn’t believe the number of people who asked her or any of the other election workers about voting. “Did putting a ‘1’ against a candidate mean that that was selecting a first choice?”
That Kakazkhstan’s “Yeah, Nah” on recognising Russia’s annexures in Ukraine this week (and Armenia before that) drew only mild butthurt from Vlad’s minions instead of proper vitriol (They left that to his Chechen enforcer, avid Tik-Tokker and general stooge, Ramzan Kadyrov), suggests to me that if Russia wants to regain its old territorial ambitions and rekindle its dreams of old empire and respectability, it might need to offer something more than old Soviet nostalgia, and tanks if you dare to disagree…
Let’s send them some baristas too.
Mmmmm I love the smell of #Winning on a Friday. So much #Winning.
Very sad to report the death of Dr. Vlad Zelenko, the valiant physician who was one of the first to advocate the use of early treatment of Covid19 with repurposed drugs.
He did not succumb to Covid, but of a cancer that first became apparent around 2018. Movingly, he said the cancer was a gift that allowed him to face his critics unafraid and determined. We are in his debt.
https://americasfrontlinenews.com/post/dr-vladimir-zev-zelenko-passes-away
Becuase only an incompetent would try to reverse an Obama-era (and thus by definition, perfect) policy, eh Fat Man?
Lysander…..the idea of windmills on utes is’nt crazy, its ‘batshit’ crazy. And from here on all utes heading off to B&S balls will have to be fitted with 4 meter wide windmills to gain entry.
dover0beachsays:
July 1, 2022 at 1:09 pm
Cheri Jacobus
@CheriJacobus
· 10h
Reminder: The Catholic Church will not baptize a stillborn baby, because it never took took a breath.
Life begins at first breath, and ends at last breath.
These people are desperate.
Will a Catholic priest baptise any dead person? My understanding is that 1 Corinthians 15:29 is held in all mainstream churches including Catholicism not to permit baptism of (or on behalf of) the dead.
That’s sufficient to explain why stillborn babies aren’t baptised – its life has ended. Does Cheri Jacobus have any evidence to support her assertion that there’s some extra doctrine about when life begins, or is it all just confected bullshit?
It’s not an assumption. The idea that Lithuania is courting a conflict with Russia without US/ UK/ Polish/ etc. backing is too silly for words.
EU recently organized a work-around. Probably France and German-led solution which Lithuania is ignoring because the others told them it will be all fine.
off with their head
Oops.
Too much Special ‘k…’
#AmSpeshul
Indeed, Winston. And although there may be a few aged sages among the Cats –
“sissies”? No!!!
Anyone ever used Sage in their cooking?
And is it better Aged?
#PonderablePoints
Also, is it possible to put Rosie’s The Leftwit from Cry-Me-A-River effort from this morning up as a Liberty Quote?
Or is that prod at m0nty a bit too specific to work?
M0nty – It’s a tactic called “sue and settle”. One of the most egregious undemocratic and corrupt practices of the Obama Administration, and Biden has recommenced doing it. Hopefully the Scotus decision limits it.
+1
Running “no contest” cases and settling for millions in slush funding for pet causes was common and normal.
Dr Faustussays:
July 1, 2022 at 12:01 pm
In Cheerful news:
Never-before-seen microbes locked in glacier ice could spark a wave of new pandemics if released
In a new study, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences took ice samples from 21 glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau — a high-altitude region in Asia wedged between the Himalayan mountain range to the south and the Taklamakan Desert to the north. The team then sequenced the DNA of the microscopic organisms locked inside the ice, creating a massive database of microbe genomes that they named the Tibetan Glacier Genome and Gene (TG2G) catalog.
Evidence suggests that some of the newfound bacteria could be very dangerous to humans and other organisms. The team identified 27,000 potential virulence factors — molecules that help bacteria invade and colonize potential hosts — within the TG2G catalog. The researchers warned that around 47% of these virulence factors have never been seen before, and so there is no way of knowing how harmful the bacteria could be.
I guess we’ll find out when they start appearing in wet markets…
This is getting quite ridiculous and it’s a wonder that Humans have lasted this long on Planet Earth. More stuff to maybe alarm us. FFS give it a rest and get on with Life and enjoy things before the Grim Reaper turns up.
Pandemics, Scamdemics, Flu, Monkey Business Pox, its endless. Fear Porn on steroids. Get a grip people.
Life is too short.
And have the Best Day that you possibly can.
Tucker Carlson: Democrats Are Rounding Up And Raiding Homes Of Political Dissidents, Imagine If Trump Did This
Energy prices, which are the key to any economy, have skyrocketed. That’s happened on purpose. This administration has done that both with the sanction regimes against Russia and its emphasis on, “green energy.” As a result of those two factors, you’re seeing the biggest rising gas prices in American history. And at the same time, you’re seeing a move to green energy forms that we buy from China – solar panels, wind farms, the components for those come from China. So effectively, you’re seeing a transfer of our energy grid from American control to Chinese control. This is an attack on the most basic institutions in American life. This is handing sovereignty over to our main global rival. It’s bad for America. In fact, it’s the worst possible thing for America.
So in a functioning democratic system, this should be a problem for the people trying to do it. You can’t undermine the country you lead and expect to continue to lead it in a democracy and the Biden , knows this, and that’s one of the reasons that the signature tactic of the Biden administration, this is our topic tonight, has been the criminalizing of American politics.
Why have a political debate when you can just arrest people who disagree with you? And that has happened. Far below the media radar since the day Joe Biden was elected. And tonight, to show it, we want to go through a litany, a list of Americans who have been arrested, detained by federal law enforcement on the orders of the Biden administration, not because they committed recognizable crimes, but because they disagreed with the political aims of the Biden administration.
Now, again, you’re not reading about this in The New York Times because the rest of the media are pretending that it’s not happening. And instead, they’re focused on the January 6th Committee, which has taken, in fact, a lead role in this effort, rounding up enemies of the state. The entire process is a farce, and that was proved yesterday. If you watch the hearings yesterday, you know how absurd it is.
Democrats, with the help of Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, called up a star witness who testified she heard someone else say that Donald Trump attacked a Secret Service agent and tried to carjack the presidential limousine. Think about that. The President of the United States tried to seize control of the presidential limousine that he wasn’t driving? It didn’t make any sense. And then by the time that Secret Service agents who were on the scene denied the story to NBC News and other news outlets, nobody cared. They weren’t even pretending that it was true. The initial story was the point. The shock value was the point, not the factual basis of it. That’s what passes for rigorous investigation in Congress at the moment.
But no media outlet is going to revisit their decision to turn over their airwaves to the January 6 committee, even after yesterday’s debacle. It is, in fact, a show trial. It is absurd by definition, and its absurdity is the point. The absurdity of it, the hollowness of it, sends the message, “We run the justice system now. You are powerless.” And that is the same message the Biden administration has sent to America for the last year-and-a-half, with the help of Merrick Garland, the most political attorney general in history.
Here’s a list of the things they’ve done because no one else has assembled it.
“but they love Mr Cohen and morose tales of sinking ships.”
I love Leonard Cohen and I’m not Canadian.
I love being around Canadians , cos there so well mannered and the Irish , cos there such bad mouthed party animals .
Funny how all of those apart from the US are either EU members or still closely interlinked.
Perhaps Dover, in your hatred of Americans, you forget that there are a great many Europeans who would like to see the Russians taken down a peg. Based on their prior behaviour.
And the only reason France and Germany are rushing to curry favour is because they bet too hard on exploiting the Russians so they could pretend their woke domestic agendas could work on the back of Russian coal, gas and oil. While appeasing their actions and trying to look the other way in the face of their own folks’ discontent.
Many of those wrecked Russian tanks and IFVs and guns and planes in Ukraine have French and German optics, sensors, microchips and radios in them. All quietly provided since the EU sanctioned sending military-capable technologies to Russia after their first invasion of Ukraine in 2014.
m0ntysays:
July 1, 2022 at 1:57 pm
…
What happened is that the Plan was an Obama administration policy
That doesn’t mean it’s legally valid.
which a Trump drone tried to reverse,
“Trump drone” meaning EPA official who was appointed by a President m0nty doesn’t like.
only to fail miserably when the DC court pointed out he was incompetent.
Poor old m0nty. Why do you assume that the DC Court is right and the Supreme Court is wrong? Answer: when a court decides in a way that suits the Dems, it’s sacrosanct, when it decides in a way the Dems don’t like, it can’t be right. The point, m0nty, is that the EPA tried to scrap the Clean Air Plan, a Court stopped them, and then the clown troupe trio solemnly announce that upholding the Clean Air Plan is respecting the authoritaaah of the EPA.
Which, incidentally, is irrelevant. The EPA’s opinion on what’s good for the environment is utterly irrelevant to whether a purported action of the EPA is within its legal powers. A Court shouldn’t respect the authoritaaah of a bunch of bureaucrats as to the legal extent of their own powers.
Then SCOTUS said actually no, we get to make policy now,
Wrongo bongo, you fat mental defective. The Court said only that Congress hadn’t authorised the EPA to regulate generation technologies. The Court’s decision doesn’t impose, or forbid, any policy at all.
Unlike the late and unlamented Roe v Wade. What was that if not a prescription of policy from the bench, with all its detailed rules about trimesters etc? Want to express a view about that?
look at me we are the captain now, and we side with Republicans.
m0nty you fat cockhead. The Court says Congress controls the issue. The Dems have control of both houses of Congress. You fat shiteating fuckhead.
m0ntysays:
July 1, 2022 at 1:48 pm
Ah, John Sheldrick. Why is it that England sends us their dumbest Poms. Is it because we keep beating them at cricket?
Rack off back to Scunthorpe.
LOL. Nice to hear from you ‘Montypox virus’. How is that rock BTW? The one that you crawled out from under. You have obviously not been reading my posts or those terrible Judgements by the US Supreme Court properly. Maybe cos’ you can’t read and retain anyfink’ in that tiny ugly pin head of yours. You fat twat.
I hail from London (nowhere near Scunthorpe) and I was invited here by the Australian Government. They brought me out here to improve the stock. Haven’t you seen the sheep looking happier lately? LOL. Get back under that rock and STFU.
A must read.
Snowballs Of Soft Totalitarianism
Utterly predictable outcome.
Around 2015, something changed. The young people they were hiring were focused on issues of race, gender, and identity as never before, and they were impatient with — even scornful of — what they regarded as the timid incrementalism of the organizations’ leaders. They wanted equity (as they defined it) immediately. They were acutely sensitive to what they saw as microaggressions, including the use of terms to identify different groups that they regarded as out of date and insulting. They were prickly, quick to take offense and to see malign motives rather than inadvertent mistakes.
Dang, missed the /blockquote.
Masseys are Red,
Fordsons are Blue.
I have a John Deere,
so bugger you.
The school where boys can wear skirts – but not shorts
The changes in policy at Wymondham High Academy follow complaints from families that boys were being forced to wear trousers during the summer term, when temperatures can soar.
The parents have been calling for a relaxation in the rules which would allow boys to wear shorts instead.
The school agreed to review the regulations, but rather than permitting shorts it introduced a ‘gender neutral’ policy, permitting boys and girls to wear trousers or skirts – and neither to wear shorts.
Jonathan Rockey, the school’s headteacher, defended the new policy as “something we are very proud of” and said it had involved consultation with families.
re the “all British are Anglo-Saxons” idea.
It seems to be based on a misunderstanding of the data. Obviously when Britain was repopulated about 11,000 years ago after the last Ice Age, the people came from those parts of (what is now) continental Europe that are adjacent to Britain.
But that doesn’t mean that they were Anglo-Saxons.
The British DNA makeup, even before 20th century mass migration, was very diverse.
https://news.sky.com/story/where-do-we-come-from-britains-dna-map-10367199
GREEN ‘N YELLER! 😀
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nBKAxYRCiMM
And just to prove he actually has one (And a caravan!):
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3Yb3hLgO-x8
#SeasickSteve
the obama admin seems determined to push the EU into war with russia… er I mean biden admin
these ppl are sick in the head
Here’s a link to the paper in “Nature”.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14230
Thanks for the link Beery, an interesting read and good to see “progressives” eating one another in the US. Good show!
I’ve no problem with that, provided they’re allowed to carry their claymores too.
was very diverse
Diversity from 9100 years ago
My family was exiled from Britain over 170 years ago for the minor indiscretion of flirting with the gentries daughter and something about a unpaid gambling debt . There maybe more to that story but time has erased all the witnesses. Today I identify as a proud ‘Curmudgeon Man’ …always was, always will be’ and have the legal papers to prove my rights.
# I dont need a smoking ceremony
27000 the second wave came. They were the Murrayians. They walked from Japan
Walked from Japan? To Australia? LOL. Could they walk on water then? Who writes this BS?
You’re right, I was forgetting the aboriginals space and aeronautic programme. Walking is for hunters and gathers not aboriginal cosmonauts.
Actually there were several short water passages which our intrepid 3rd nations had to contend with on their leisurely stroll to Australia back in the day. The Wallace Line is just one of them. All were faunal barriers which stopped animal nasties coming down to predate the wondrous Australian Mega Fauna. However, unfortunately they didn’t stop the hunters and gathers who could cross shallow water passages which were about 40 kms wide. In effect we traded tropical forests and amazing Mega Fauna for some fucking spit paintings in caves.
The Sahul period was an interesting time. The world was in glacial conditions. Most or a lot of the world’s ocean water was trapped as land ice. The peak low level around the East Coast of Australia was 135 meters BELOW what it is today. The GBR didn’t exist until the oceans started to rise about 15000 bya after the 3rd wave of people got here and started doing what I described above.
It’s not BS.
Ugh… [Insert Rolled Eyes Emoji Here]
😉
(I’d use ‘Ook,’ but we’re not talking about the Librarian of the Unseen University of Ankh-Morpork…)
Walk after lunch, suburb is filled with music from the nearby school which seems to be having a disco. It’s amusing since the track most clearly audible was roughly three times older than the kids are. Unmistakable synth solo!
Ike and Tina Turner – Nutbush City Limits (1973)
Ripper video btw. But it shows the ghastly state of modern music that schools are playing fifty year old tracks. And Coles this morning was playing ABBA on their tannoy. Amazing. Maybe it’s because rappers keep going to gaol or are being assassinated or something.
Not Starlords?
Curmudgeon Man…meaning . The curmudgeon man can be a bit irritable at times and very short with ‘woke’ people, teachers , politicians and people or persons who just piss him off.
m0ntysays:
July 1, 2022 at 1:48 pm
Ah, John Sheldrick. Why is it that England sends us their dumbest Poms. Is it because we keep beating them at cricket?
Rack off back to Scunthorpe.
m0nty-fa provides an intelligent, logical, well constructed response – NOT!
Has m0nty-fa forgotten how many on the labor side of Australian politics came from the UK? Or is he just resorting to the old sport of Pommy bashing, in a mixture of rage and frustration at the weakness of his own political side? m0nty-fa, screaming “Go back to where you came from” is considered racist in these enlightened days.
What happened is that the Plan was an Obama administration policy which a Trump drone tried to reverse, only to fail miserably when the DC court pointed out he was incompetent. Then SCOTUS said actually no, we get to make policy now, look at me we are the captain now, and we side with Republicans.
m0nty-fa descends further into a morass of paranoia. He is starting to make Captain Queeg look like a paragon of mental balance.
Bruce of Newcastlesays:
July 1, 2022 at 3:01 pm
Maybe it’s because rappers keep going to gaol or are being assassinated or something.
Also rappers’ lyrics tend not to promote an attitude towards women which would elicit murmurs of approval in enlightened and progressive social circles.
Bluey
That was a Europe that had far more in common with each other.
Bosnia X Rwanda when the current multicultural fetish wears off, unless we’re extraordinarily lucky.
Multiculturalism in Europe and here, in which is the fetish more pronounced?
Maybe it’s because rappers keep going to gaol or are being assassinated or something.
PS, if you haven’t seen the episode of “Seven Periods with Mr Gormsby” where Mr Gormsby takes charge of the school concert, do look it up online.
Rex Angersays:
July 1, 2022 at 2:09 pm
What happened is that the Plan was an Obama administration policy which a Trump drone tried to reverse, only to fail miserably when the DC court pointed out he was incompetent.
Becuase only an incompetent would try to reverse an Obama-era (and thus by definition, perfect) policy, eh Fat Man?
And who better to judge administrative competence than a completely unbiased DC judge?
m0nty-fa is just phoning it in now.
Just a thought.
Plenty going on in the Asia Pacific and Sleazy is busy trying to get into everything European. I’m not saying don’t have an opinion on Ukraine or express displeasure as a nation but us, in our part of the world that’s all it should be. It is a European issue and should be left to them largely. However I guess Thai kids hiding in bomb shelters because the fighting in Burma is spilling over the border isn’t as newsworthy.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2337188/myanmar-fighter-jet-crosses-into-thailands-air-space-in-tak
Better news article here:
https://www.chiangraitimes.com/news/thailand-launches-f-16-fighters-to-intercept-myanmar-mig-29/
Plenty going on in our backyards and some pretty close to favoured holiday destinations.
Top Ender:
In short, New Zealand governance is incompetent. A gift it shares with just about every other government in the Western world.
The causes are the same – bloated bureaucratic parasites gorging on a weakened productive sector that is rapidly losing the will – and the regulatory environment – to succeed.
I thought that was the Kiwi’s job.
Timothy N
m0nty you fat cockhead. The Court says Congress controls the issue. The Dems have control of both houses of Congress. You fat shiteating fuckhead.
Don’t hold back, give us your honest assessment of m0nty-fa.
Perf Trader:
4 meter measured how? Diameter? Radius? Circumference?
The first two will fail the initial road test.
GreyRangasays:
July 1, 2022 at 3:19 pm
. Haven’t you seen the sheep looking happier lately?
I thought that was the Kiwi’s job.
LOL. Plenty of sheep shaggers in the UK with their Wellington Boots (Gum Boots here). Farmers Delight no less. One sheep’s left back leg in the left leg of the Farmer’s Wellington boot and ………………Well, you know the rest.
Bruce of Newcastlesays:
July 1, 2022 at 2:49 pm
The school where boys can wear skirts
I’ve no problem with that, provided they’re allowed to carry their claymores too.
At the very least, a skean dhu.
m0nster at 1:57.
Shorter m0nster.
Political ideologues marching through the institutions was fine up until now.
But these are now our institutions.
I’m a product of the wrong generation for quips like that.
I immediately thought of the wrong claymore…
Still, when it comes to weapon safety and discipline and the young, I still fall back on the following:
Just Labor’s traditional stomping ground and preference, RockDoctor.
The Chunks are mean and dictatorial, but there are still plenty of old Comrades and maaaaaaaaaaaates across Western Europe to relive the good old days of Torry-kicking with at stately dinners. All on their collective taxpayers’ dimes of course, as is only fitting.
It also makes a great political distraction squirrel for the folks at home, when their Julia-era Mk.2 Defence Policy kicks in in earnest. In an environment even more adverse than when Julia was degrading our readiness and morale…
(Regrettably, any putative Mrs Anger would probably be aghast if I came home one day with a Vickers Mk6 or a 2pdr, and said it was being put away in the garage for when the babies are big enough…)
Again, Tucker showed a couple of nights ago how US democrapt Presidents go to Europe to say sorry for being American… Albo’s done exactly the same thing…
Lysandersays:
July 1, 2022 at 2:07 pm
Monty
SCOTUS has announced a FATWAH on the epa.
Mmmmm I love the smell of #Winning on a Friday. So much #Winning.
I love the smell of lefties burning in the morning/afternoon/evening/night-time and with napalm. Burn baby burn……………………
Sadly, Lefties don’t surf…
“The Beer whisperersays:
July 1, 2022 at 2:33 pm
A must read.
Snowballs Of Soft Totalitarianism”
Thanks for that Beery. Dreher’s analysis is superb.
China has warned Australia that any “military accident” involving the two powers in the South China Sea will see “a harsh response.”
One would hardly imagine that an accident could be a casus belli, but the times are fraught with danger.
Geeze can’t say I realised all the crap going on in SE Asia… nada on the news!!!
Good article here Rog: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/by-accident-or-design-or-designed-accident-chinas-unsafe-air-intercepts/
The only conclusion you can come to is that these pilots are being told to try and force aeroplane accidents from the very top!
That was my first thought, L. – that an “accident” might be manufactured.
Oh…. but you can’t say anything bad about China or Dick Marles will get upset…
I’m not the top military strategist here but, and excuse the pun, seems they’re gunning for it…
Between agriculture failures, blackouts, Covid lockdowns and the real estate implosion Mr Xi could do with a squirrel right now.
Dotsays:
July 1, 2022 at 2:00 pm
Britannia was populated by the Ancient Britons who were Celts.
That’s not what the DNA evidence says.
What and whose DNA evidence? Please elaborate.
The Celts ended up in the Scottish Highlands, Wales and Cornwall. They have an affinity with Brittany in France and parts of Northern Spain where the locals have red hair. Then there is Ireland.
More land to be withdrawn from productive use.
Bill Gates wins legal approval to buy huge swath of North Dakota farmland worth $13.5M that caused controversy in the state due to law that limits corporate ownership of ranches
Obviously very few people think of an invasion, but some ships off the shore to hassle out our imports and exports…that also heightens the likelihood of accidents.. (sorry I’m being a Doomtard)
As if
One Question Could End the Biden Admin
Yes, similar to how Ukraine’s nazis actions in Donbass since 2014 was “reported”.
Don’t forget Iceland John!!! Quite an amazing genealogy right there!
AEMO says 12bill will do the trick.
Sack these guys now.
It’s 100bill a year for a decade to reach Labor’s planned legislative targets.
(unless you buy offsets galore & rack up the corresponding amount of debt).
Here is the link I posted before.
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/mythsofbritishancestry
Oppenheimer is a British MD and geneticist.
The Burmese thing has been bubbling for years never makes the news. It quietened down during the reform years with Aung San Suu Kyi released from prison but since the crackdown things have changed for the worse. I remember trips to Thailand on breaks when there was a 3 way conflict going on, it would make the news in Asia. This however is on a scale I have ever seen before and incursion into Thai territory weren’t uncommon by ground forces or an artillery barrage but mostly in jungles against Karen or Shan bases not farmland. Never by air.
Funny…I was just reading about his work yesterday.
Seems it is contested, as indeed all theories should be.
The Chinese media said that the Australian incident took place over international waters somewhere between Vietnam & Taiwan.
Australia has not disputed that.
The Chinese pilots were being dickheads.
No doubt at the command of the big wigs.
But why is Australia flying a surveillance plane between Vietnam & Taiwan.
Considering the outrage, why haven’t the co-ordinates been released?
“We’ll cut your power bills and give power back to the people – rain or shine.
Because Labor isn’t scared of the future. We’re ready for it – and we’re ready to make it work for Australian families.”
Elbow’s campaign promise.
Non-core?
From Dot’s article….
The genetic evidence shows that three quarters of our ancestors came to this corner of Europe as hunter-gatherers, between 15,000 and 7,500 years ago,
Here’s a tip, when you hear archaeologists talking about time ranges as mentioned above, say to yourself “It’s fairyland story time again.”
The Celts, the Angles, the Saxons, the various groups who settled in the British Isles, Western Europe and Scandinavia are believed to have been there for many thousands of years, this belief is based on the overwhelming populations of Y-DNA R1b1a2 (M-269) in those lands. These archaeologists however are puzzled that the DNA of ancient skeletons shows type I Y-DNA which is associated with the Sami and Laplanders.
The oldest skeleton found in Europe with R1b1a2 dates only to 800 BC, just yesterday in archaeological terms. What else of significance happened in 800 BC?, the fall of Samaria and the exile of the northern tribes of Israel (the House of Israel).
No….no…..no……..the new historical consensus is that Ancient Briton was settled by black Africans, despite there not being any evidence for this however if you disagree you are a waaaaaaaaaciiiiiiist. Perhaps this explains why Anne Boleyn was recently played by a black actress.
Victoria could lose two Federal seats (due to decreasing population)!!!
Woot!
Seeing most of Europe is still 80% or more French in France, Germans in Germany, Polish in Poland and we has such orgasmic virtue signaling here over 50% of the population being immigrants or children of the same…..
Yes, people from the UK for example can slot in fairly well, and their kids will generally be “Aussie” etc. etc. and all the nuance. Overall though, when there’s not the degree of economic good times like we’ve had for the past 30 or so years I reckon we are going to be in serious strife.
What difference would it make if true?
Linky:
Victoria and NSW will pay a huge economic and political price for the COVID-19 pandemic, losing potentially hundreds of millions of dollars worth of GST and seats in parliament to other parts of the country.
If Victoria does not turn around the population crash it suffered through COVID-19, it could lose an unprecedented two federal electorates in boundary redistributions, while NSW is on track to lose one. Western Australia could reclaim the electorate it lost before the 2021 election as well as millions in additional GST payments.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/falling-population-to-cost-nsw-and-victoria-cash-and-possibly-seats-in-parliament-20220630-p5ay11.html
…although “great” news for McClown’s ego which will be thinking he single-handedly brought over 10’s of 1000’s of Eastern Staters… **rolls eyes**
Freedom of Navigation exercises. We do it, the Yanks do it, the Poms and Euros and even some of the more local powers do it, too.
Air and shipping movements in waters and airspace that everyone but China recognises as belonging to either nobody, or are ok with international shipping and aircraft transiting through.
China’s self-declared Air Defence Identification Zone as of several years ago, encompasses a box anchored by the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan and almost up to Japan. Including most of these countries’ own airspace and territorial waters.
We just don’t hear about them until the Chunks escalate.
😀 Bit hard on the teacher.
I once visited a pommy museum which had lots and lots of claymores and suchwhat. They were taller than me, and I’m not short. The mystery was the Scots never worked out that putting a point on the end of it might be useful: they were all tastefully rounded. Just shows how clueless Scotspeople are, and I confess to Scots heritage back to before the Norman invasion. No tartan or skirts though, we’re lowlanders.
I’m fairly sure the junta is very firmly on Beijing’s patronage list. And the Thais have often taken in refugees they want either dead or under the thumb, and can be quite muscular in resisting Burmese cross-border military activity.
Just the sort of stuff you’d want to stoke if you’ve determined your best way to take Tawian off the Tawianese might be to get all the neighbours even more fractious and politically divided than usual…
In 2008, long before Wadeye’s current troubles saw hundreds flee their homes and feuds conducted with crossbows and machetes, Patrick McCauley reported for Quadrant on his experience as a teacher in the community. Things were bad then. They are much worse today….
Link
Just last year the Japanese scrambled their fighters close to 1000 times due to mostly Chinese but also Russian fighter encroachments into or close to their air space.
Any country with as many Karens as Burma is going to have problems.
We have more than enough ourselves too.
I don’t have a manager.
Sorry.
The Russians tried to pull the same shit repeatedly on US and Commonwealth transport aircraft during the Berlin Airlift in 1949.
Had a Mig or Yak actually clouted one of those transports, it may well have set off the War everyone was holding their breath over.
The Chinese have had good teachers.
Drawn to the illuminated codpiece like moths to a flame.
I’ve lived among them, I don’t hate them. I do, however, have serious misgivings about the foreign policy class. Further, are we really supposed to be impressed or take sides because some East Europeans have past grievances with Russia? As if the Baltic states, Polish, Lithuanians, etc. all have clean hands let alone the French, Swedish or Turks.
Or, it could be that their noticing that the sanctions regime has been a failure, that the food and energy situation is worsening, that they have nothing at all to gain and much to lose by further deterioration of the situation, and that by being cheap-arses, militarily, for several decades, they’ve effectively surrendered control of their security policy to the US, which probably thinks that a major war in Europe might not actually be a bad thing for it, all things considered.
Bluey/Boambee John:
Tolerance has to win every day.
Intolerance only has to win once.
these are not the promises you are looking for …..
Hang-on, what? This is starting to look like another Dem own goal here. Let me get this straight, SCOTUS just narrowed administrative discretion because the Dems where unhappy that a executive appointment of Trump’s in the EPA sought to reverse previous Obama policy via an exercise of administrative discretion? If anything illustrates the ‘deadliness of doing’ its this decision and Dobbs.
It’s amazing we let people like you out in public, unchaperoned.
They did it when Bush II first got in too, some mid-air collision forcing that American plane to make an emergency landing. They took their time before they returned it.
The Third Wavers just got bent over the ute in Sri Lanka to the tune of ten wickets.
Got rolled in their second innings for 113 in 22 overs. Travis goddamned Head, who bowls an excellent variety of pies got four wickets.
Jesus wept.
The upside is that the cheat and run-out specialist Smith doesn’t get another run with the stick.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson provides insight on the opposition to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight.’ #FoxNews #tucker
From the article on Wadeye that Top Ender posted upthread.
“Mistake Creek” was somewhat complicated – the white station manager who Aboriginal “eyewitnesses” described as leading the massacre, had actually been dead for two years at the time, and the massacre actually conducted there was seven years earlier, when a group of Aboriginal stockmen murdered a group of nomadic Aborigines in a dispute over a woman. Nevertheless, the good Sir William Deane almost wept on air as he apologized.
Don’t forget the JMSDF getting ships to sea because of CCP ships in our waters or the Norks having missle tests and “fishing Boats” in the region.
Look at the grave dancing on Zelenko.
I thought he was late 50’s early 60’s.
Not late 40’s.
Yes but Warner improved his series average somewhat.
“We’ll cut your power bills and give power back to the people – rain or shine.
Because Labor isn’t scared of the future. We’re ready for it – and we’re ready to make it work for Australian families.”
Literally this is the truth. No power, no power bills.
Just missing the little bit “As long as it”
As in
We’ll cut your power bills and give power back to the people – As long as it rains or shines”
No hydro and no sunshine and you are on your own.
And its quite possible to make the second paragraph more truthy as well by changing the emphasis on the word work.
As in
“and we’re ready to make it (hard) work for Australian families.”
Rex,
That part of the world have been trading in argy bargy since before European engagement. I remember one rest up in Thailand was when Thaksin Shinawatra was PM, the Thais and Hun Sen of Cambodia nearly went to war over a temple. I stayed closer to Bangkok but my mate with a Thai mrs from the border regions of Cambodia was amazed at the mobilisation of forces up that way. All the border guards had been replaced with soldiers, the military checkpoint at Sa Kheo was beefed up and sandbagged. Snap VCP’s all over the place. His wife’s family completely unperturbed as they had seen worse during the communist insurgencies.
Couple months later all good even after Thai armour had been massed in Si Saket and regimental fire missions across the border there. If you didn’t know you wouldn’t have guessed. What both sides never resorted to was air power. That’s what sparked my interest in my above links.
The whole thing was a show of strength while the people at the table bargained. Once a deal had been made it was over. Mate also knows of similar argy bargy on the Lao border near Ubon Ratchithani around same time. IMO the moderating factor is probably the intermarriage and sub-ethnic links in these areas and across the region. My mates mrs has ethnic heritage across 3 countries but they identify as Thai’s.
Be an interesting line of study that we Australians have no idea of having no land borders and only being relative newcomers to the world stage.
Roger:
It just goes to show that any sign of weakness to China is rewarded with further threats.
Yes…the “reset” didn’t last long, did it?
Seats don’t “belong” to States.
They are not theirs to “lose”.
They belong to voters.
If voters move, electoral boundaries move. Except in Tassie.
True. To cross an Australian border from outside means coming in force. With everything.
While international convention seems to make incursions and raids by small groups of (non-Combined Arms) ground troops with just organic and intimate air or maritime support or limited and intermittent cross-border shelling acceptable. Albeit only against targets and people not clearly identifiable as belonging to the opposing nation.
Up to a point, of course…
Fell over like a grandstand? Must be climate change.
Cricket grandstand collapses during first Sri Lanka-Australia Test in Galle (30 Jun)
I’m sad for the Lankans, they’ve been plucky cricketers for a long time, but now the place is a mess again. I should be a paradise, dunno what they have to do.
Yep. An EP-3C electronic intelligence bird.
Full of the very best and latest EW signal hoovering sensors and analysis software western ingenuity could develop.
Who’s to know that if you were able to force down and take apart a PLA-AF Elint bird today, how much of its gubbins and widgets look all but identical to the regular fit-out of a 2004-05 era EP-3?
(Some of our AP-3 maritime patrol planes were set up similarly, and spent a lot of time in the Sandpit eavesdropping on insurgent satphone and mobile calls)
Maybe reconsider the bit about being a democratic socialist republic?
Just a temporary blip. Those flat cow paddocks are just too tempting when the Population Ponzi gets cranked up again.
house porn
I note you didn’t answer the French and Germans selling Russia military-grade equipment under the table the whole time since 2014 for Russia to modernise its troops and weaponry with. Despite their own declarations and signing within the EU of sanctions against sending such things to Russia after their first invasion.
Call America warmongers all you like. That most Europeans (particularly in the East) might be more than a little bit sick of French and German hypocrisy and appeasement of a nation that has all these other places to get through before it reaches them, while they themselves are in the firing line of emboldened Putinist bellicosity and weight-throwing, might have a slightly stronger pull on attitudes at the moment than merely any alleged or genuine meddling by the American foreign policy classes.
You can bet that the Swedes and Finns, who didn’t really give two figs about NATO before February 24th, suddenly changed tack because America manipulated them and wanted them to act as cannon fodder…
You can bet that the Swedes and Finns, who didn’t really give two figs about NATO before February 24th, didn’t suddenly change tack because America manipulated them and wanted them to act as cannon fodder…
Celt these days is not regarded as a useful category in archaeology and has no particular unified genetic value either. It is not regarded as anything more than an C19th invented term for the iron age tribal people of south-western Europe and Britain who were pushed to fringe lands in the modern era; Germanic is a rubric of the same sort, this one usually applied to the north-western tribes. Both were terms Imperial Rome used regarding its widespread conquests and interests in ‘Gaul’ – north and south rather than terms wide populations used for themselves. No known ancient grouping ever called itself ‘Celtic’.
Oppenheimer’s work is older (his major book published 2006), more recent genetic studies have been claimed to show far more population replacement, but the field is extraordinarily contested (I am still trying to sort it out locationally). Recent genetic studies can be contradictory. I am only tangentially interested in these at this stage in their development. Too complex, although the genetic admixture does allow a strong NW European input to pre-Roman as well as Roman Britain, and later of course too.
Oppenheimer has received flak for his view that a northwestern Germanic language influenced British languages in the pre-Roman period. He read my Quadrant article on Arthur and got in touch. He’s been encouraging to me about my theories concerning the Germano-Scandinavian nature of the pre-Roman father god in Britain – the All Father (Arthur) and has forwarded to a colleague who is a scholar of Basque language my suggestions concerning a proto-Indo-European father god called Atar (the word for father in the Basque language), a term which became reflected in Roman times in the Gens Artorius. He also forwarded my article to an archaologist at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford who works the mythologies expressed on pre-Roman coins, who has also been in touch with helpful comments.
Lysander:
China will probably not do anything obviously connected to the incident, but just think how easy it would be to have something nasty to escape into our farmscape – like brucellosis or common bunt.
Given you’ve repeatedly argued since this thing started to go kinetic at the beginning of the year that Russia’s worries, complaints, past territorial claims, historic grievances and so forth must always take priority in other world powers’ thinking whenever Russia starts sabre-rattling and trying to tear pieces off its neighbours or former vassals and justifying it because everyone’s out to get them, I think keeping the rest of Central and Eastern Europe and the ‘Stans, and all their no less relevant grievances and claims in mind is equally reasonable and valid.