Open Thread – Tues 28 June 2022


Riding the Grey Wolf, Ivan Tsarevich, 1889

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Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
June 29, 2022 6:49 pm

Penny Wong: ‘My story illustrates our shared history and future’

Amanda Hodge
South East Asia Correspondent
@hodgeamanda
1 minute ago June 29, 2022
No Comments

Penny Wong has invoked her own story, including her family’s devastating losses during World War II and eventual climb out of poverty, to redefine Australia’s place in Southeast Asia as a partner tied to the region not just through ­geography and trade but family.

The famously private Malaysia-born Foreign Minister gave a rare insight into her history in a moving speech in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday in which she used the example of her success, and that of her family, to highlight the benefits of regional co-operation in increasingly uncertain times.

“Australians know our future lies in the region we share with Malaysia. And it tells you something about modern Australia that I am here today speaking to you today as Australia’s Foreign Minister,” she told a business brunch.

“I doubt my Poh Poh could ever have imagined it.”

In her first visit to Malaysia as Foreign Minister, Senator Wong credited her Hakka Chinese grandmother Madam Lai Fung Shim’s “determination to survive, and to save herself and her children” during the dark years of Japanese occupation in Borneo – in which most of her family died – for her own strength.

“She was barely literate. She was loving and humble, and the strongest person I have ever known,” she told a business brunch ahead of visiting her hometown of Kota Kinabalu, capital of Sabah in Malaysian Borneo.

In Kota Kinabalu, Senator Wong will visit her grandmother’s grave and meet relatives.

“Whenever times feel hard, I think of her, and what she had to endure,” she said

The 53-year-old also credited Australia’s Colombo Plan scholarship system for allowing her father, Francis Wong, a Malaysian architect who designed many public buildings in Kota Kinabalu, to study at Adelaide University, where he met her mother, Jane Chapman. “The opportunity to study was the opportunity that defined his life. And mine.

“It meant he could go to Australia … And it meant a charming young Malaysian man could meet a bold young Australian woman,” she said. “The value of that education has never left him. He has always told me: ‘They can take everything away from you, but they can’t take your education.’ ”

Senator Wong has previously spoken of the racism she faced as a mixed-race child in Adelaide in 1977 after the break-up of her parents’ marriage, but on Wednesday she sought to highlight the benefits to have come from Australia’s shared history with Malaysia and Southeast Asia, as part of a message to the region that the new government wants a closer engage­ment with its neighbourhood.

“My Malaysian heritage is one of the 270 ancestries now represented in Australia,” Senator Wong said. “Australia will be reflecting this rich character back to the world so the world can see itself in Australia.”

At least she wasn’t raised by a single mum in public housing…

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
June 29, 2022 6:59 pm

Picked up the fully optioned-up new car today from BMW. Things I like about it:

It fits into the garage
It has heated seats – adjustable to warm, hot, and oh my goodness
There is a terrific retractable double sunroof
It is a coupe model and sporty
It is metallic black has tinted drug-dealing windows
You can open the boot by swishing your foot in a semi-circle under its rear exhausts
The wing mirrors are retractable from inside and outside
It has a digital radio and other smart stuff for your phone; you can change everything
(They give you a computer lesson about its features before you drive off)
There is a Code Red Button that makes a satellite connection to Emergency Services
You can switch off the stop/start petrol saving feature on the starter button
Hold the unlock button down outside for a second and all windows come down to let out hot air

And it has a hologram! At last they’ve discovered an application for those things.
As you drive you get a see-through adjustable hologram in the near distance in the lower windscreen.
Disconcerting at first but you get used to it very quickly.
It tells you the RTA road speed limit by GPS and the speed you are going at the time.
As I never notice roadside signs (Hairy despairs) this is an important feature.
Especially for that coming time when they will make me sit an actual driving test.

To get used to the hologram I took it for a slowish spin around Vaucluse, holding up a P-plated yoof in a Merc who tailgated me, clearly thinking I was in the wrong car for me. He roared angrily past when I turned left and he turned right onto New South Head Road. I will burn him out if I see him again, once I am au fait with Red Dwarf revisited.

Mater
June 29, 2022 7:00 pm

You’re bignoting about you ancestors Military history, plus getting stuck into abos.
Don’t you think there’s already enough of that happening at New Catallaxy?

Yeah, right. That’s absolutely what I was doing.

I grew up sharing a bedroom with Aboriginals. Did you? I reckon I have a whole lot more understanding and insight than you.

As for me ‘bignoting’, your inter-generational guilt about coming from a family of skivers, is showing.

Frank
Frank
June 29, 2022 7:01 pm

I have a genuine feeling of dread that Elbow will sign us up to something in the Ukraine.

Is the embassy in Kiev a new thing? Anything for a cheap applause line.

Roger
Roger
June 29, 2022 7:02 pm

Senator Wong has previously spoken of the racism she faced as a mixed-race child in Adelaide in 1977 after the break-up of her parents’ marriage…

In contrast, Malaysia is a model of inter-racial toleration.

Way to represent your nation on the international stage, Senator Wong.

Timothy Neilson
Timothy Neilson
June 29, 2022 7:06 pm

The 53-year-old also credited Australia’s Colombo Plan scholarship system

She ought to make an annual visit to the Melbourne Cemetery to lay flowers at Sir Robert Menzies’ grave.

Eyrie
Eyrie
June 29, 2022 7:06 pm

I’ve heard the claim that there is no such person as a “full blood” Maori – all the Maori today have European ancestors.

And they ate the Moriori who were there before them.

Farmer Gez
Farmer Gez
June 29, 2022 7:06 pm
Eyrie
Eyrie
June 29, 2022 7:07 pm

Hate to break it to you Lizzie but most of those features are on our Mazda CX-5 Akera.

Eyrie
Eyrie
June 29, 2022 7:09 pm

Including the head up display with speed and navigation data and the car actually reads the speed signs with GPS backup.

Diogenes
Diogenes
June 29, 2022 7:09 pm

FMD, just saw a recruitment ad for kindy teachers for Afdanistan on Sunshine Coast TV. They are even offering 9k in relocation expenses.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 7:10 pm

I have a genuine feeling of dread that Elbow will sign us up to something in the Ukraine.

If he does actually do it (beyond gifting any existing equipment stocks that are a little old or less useful to our planned doctrine and force structure like an excess of towed M777 howitzers* where HIMARS or cruise missiles are more useful and tactically mobile), are likely to be used as a distraction for the gutting of major re-equipment projects like Army’s new IFVs (Already reduced by 100, so that extra mech. battalion the Army is meant to have will be walking or Bushmaster-mounted), and/or if they decide to can-kick procuring (actual working) nuke subs for another term or two to keep the maaaaaaaaates, Defence Department ticket-clippers and their Chinese string-pullers onside…

(* Thanks Julia for canning the Self-Propelled Guns back in 2008 because you’d wasted all the available budget on getting people to like you. Great move!)

Roger
Roger
June 29, 2022 7:14 pm

Hate to break it to you Lizzie but most of those features are on our Mazda CX-5 Akera.

The Europeans have been playing catch up for some decades.

It started with watches

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
June 29, 2022 7:14 pm

I grew up sharing a bedroom with Aboriginals.

I have the experience of watching the Aboriginal children I went to school with, in the early 1960’s, interviewed on the ABC, described as “tribal elders.”

Tom
Tom
June 29, 2022 7:15 pm

Laughing out loud at the junk on the poor man’s ABC, the 10 Network, promoting the brainwashing of children by the Australian education system.

The children we’re churning out are the dumbest in the history of human civilisation. The dominant culture is being delivered by our enemies.

cohenite
June 29, 2022 7:15 pm

And they ate the Moriori who were there before them.

The 3rd nations did the same here. Hungry buggers.

MatrixTransform
June 29, 2022 7:16 pm

Mazda CX-5 Akera

my CX-8 Akera is a damned fine car

bum warmer and bum cooler

the head up display is simply glorious when using gps

poor man’s BMW

MatrixTransform
June 29, 2022 7:18 pm

nice leather too

Eyrie
Eyrie
June 29, 2022 7:19 pm

poor man’s BMW

Other way round and the Mazda is likely way cheaper to maintain and far more reliable.

Eyrie
Eyrie
June 29, 2022 7:19 pm

All of that MT.

jupes
jupes
June 29, 2022 7:20 pm

It started with watches

Do tell.

Roger
Roger
June 29, 2022 7:22 pm

FMD, just saw a recruitment ad for kindy teachers for Afdanistan on Sunshine Coast TV. They are even offering 9k in relocation expenses.

Been running for many months now, D.

Evidently not getting the uptake they’d expected.

JC
JC
June 29, 2022 7:25 pm

lol

Eyrie, you’re such a savvy consumer. The best I’ve seen.

Frank
Frank
June 29, 2022 7:25 pm

Way to represent your nation on the international stage, Senator Wong.

So racist we made her a senator.

Ed Case
Ed Case
June 29, 2022 7:25 pm

I grew up sharing a bedroom with Aboriginals. Did you? I reckon I have a whole lot more understanding and insight than you.

So what.
Even if true, that doesn’t give you the Right to throw shit and mock Abos.

As for me ‘bignoting’, your inter-generational guilt about coming from a family of skivers, is showing.

Either you don’t know what skiving is, or you’re confusing me with SpongeBob.

Roger
Roger
June 29, 2022 7:25 pm

Do tell.

Search ‘Quartz crisis’.

Frank
Frank
June 29, 2022 7:27 pm

Do they actually teach in kindergarten.

bespoke
bespoke
June 29, 2022 7:31 pm

CX-5

Fruity.

JC
JC
June 29, 2022 7:32 pm

Mr. Ed, Stop annoying people.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
June 29, 2022 7:32 pm

Hate to break it to you Lizzie but most of those features are on our Mazda CX-5 Akera.

Yep, Jap cars are good like that. My son with Hairy drives a Mazda 3 which he loves and during his early childhood I had a Mazda 6 then a Commodore, while Hairy had fancy prestige company cars. German cars are doing a catch up. We’ve had various Audi’s since our retirement. Our five year old Audi Q5 has a lot of features but they are clunky and we have rarely used them. I will not miss the Audi GPS system one little bit with its ridiculous turning alphabet wheel – it drove Jeremy Clarkson bananas.

This new Hologram feature in the BMW tracks actual speed vs speed limit by GPS positioning as does yours. Btw, I did a test drive about six years ago on a Mazda CX-5. It was absolutely gutless.
I hope for your sake they’ve improved. I love my German turbo-chargers.

And the new adjustable sports seats are divine, you can shape them every which way.

Ed Case
Ed Case
June 29, 2022 7:33 pm

Wasn’t the Colombo Plan sold as Australia giving South East Asia a leg up?

The Wong life story is a disaster, she’s a Mischling, the sire fucked off back to Borneo [not Malaya] when she was 8, and she hates Australians.

The Chinese have a saying:
No ink in the Han River
Perhaps we should have had a similar saying.

Eyrie
Eyrie
June 29, 2022 7:36 pm

I did a test drive about six years ago on a Mazda CX-5. It was absolutely gutless.

LOL! What did you drive? The 2.0 Liter one? I’ve never had the need to even floor it in 2 and a half years.

JC
JC
June 29, 2022 7:37 pm

Liz

The hologram thing/ Heads Up Display has been in BMW’s since 2007. It’s not new.

Mater
June 29, 2022 7:37 pm

Either you don’t know what skiving is, or you’re confusing me with SpongeBob.

No.
You were on here mouthing off that not every Australian family has military ancestry, giving your own as an example.

I know what skiving is, you do too.

The internet remembers.

As for bad mouthing Aboriginals, pointing out that if inter-generation trauma is a thing, they don’t have a monopoly on it, is hardly that. But you already know that.

For clarity, Bob’s a liar, you’re a dumb-arse contrarian.

Now fuck off and work on your comprehension.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
June 29, 2022 7:39 pm

the sire fucked off back to Borneo [not Malaya]

Ummm, Grogs, you do know that part of Borneo is actually Eastern Malaysia, don’t you?

Eyrie
Eyrie
June 29, 2022 7:40 pm

This new Hologram feature in the BMW tracks actual speed vs speed limit by GPS positioning as does yours.
As a backup. It *reads* speed limit signs including temporary roadworks ones.

JC
JC
June 29, 2022 7:41 pm

Eyrie

Did you ever race against Lewis Hamilton or Schumacher?

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
June 29, 2022 7:42 pm

…a shocking letter from power supplier AGL.

They were told their regular monthly bill, around $5,000 a month, would be increasing to an astonishing $25,000…

And get ferkin used to it.
Too cheap to meter…

Ed Case
Ed Case
June 29, 2022 7:42 pm

You were on here mouthing off that not every Australian family has military ancestry, giving your own as an example.
Military ancestry isn’t common in Australia, perhaps you’re confusing it with America, having a Revolutionary War, a Civil War, and being constantly at War since 1895.

I know what skiving is, you do too.
It doesn’t sound liker you do.

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 29, 2022 7:43 pm

Lysandersays:
June 29, 2022 at 6:26 pm
The Kleptocrapts and Establishment are desperate for Trumpy not to run.

They’ll be so desperate to stop Trump, that they won’t notice de Santis coming around outside the field.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 7:43 pm

For clarity, Bob’s a liar, you’re a dumb-arse contrarian.

Agreed, Mater.

But Grigory uses the term SpongeBob to refer to Boambee John. Especially when he has upset our resident gypsum-snorter and whiiiiiite suuuub enthusiast.

He seems to think this is aggravating.

bespoke
bespoke
June 29, 2022 7:43 pm

My wagon has an ashtray.

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 29, 2022 7:44 pm

The famously private Malaysia-born Foreign Minister

Benny Wrong “famously private”. ROFLMAO.

Old Lefty
Old Lefty
June 29, 2022 7:45 pm

Imagine the conniptions of the wokerati over this (Austria reopening coal-fired power stations):

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-29/austria-prepares-to-reopen-coal-power-station/101191662

calli
calli
June 29, 2022 7:45 pm

My little car is still a twinkle in the robot’s eye over in Japan. The production line is due to give birth in September. A spring baby.

Congratulations on the addition to the family.

Eyrie
Eyrie
June 29, 2022 7:47 pm

What is it Calli?A boy, girl or one of the other genders?

Old Lefty
Old Lefty
June 29, 2022 7:47 pm

No woke left journalists, I notice, asking the new teal and Green MPs if they flew to Canberra or used a less emissions-intensive coach or train. Sacrifices are for the redneck bogan plebs to make!

bespoke
bespoke
June 29, 2022 7:47 pm

Russia is the number one Superpower in the world today

LOL!

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 29, 2022 7:48 pm

Roger

In contrast, Malaysia is a model of inter-racial toleration.

Yerrrs, because Bumi-Chinese relations are soooo good in Malaysia.

JC
JC
June 29, 2022 7:48 pm

I went to a Range Rover car dealership on Monday. Just checking selection. They had three THREE used cars in the new car showroom. They want a 5k deposit and the wait for a car is between 12 and 15 months. I’m serious.

Ed Case
Ed Case
June 29, 2022 7:48 pm

The famously private Malaysia-born Foreign Minister

She was born in Borneo?
This has got Obama vibes all over it.
Was her mother from a family of Spooks?
With a name like Chapman …

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 7:51 pm

Ed Casesays:
June 29, 2022 at 7:48 pm

Stop ringbarking up your Family Tree, Grigory…

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 29, 2022 7:52 pm

Dickless

Even if true, that doesn’t give you the Right to throw shit and mock Abos.

What shit? Which mocking? and what’s with the random capitalisation?

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 7:52 pm

Russia will continue to be number one for the next 30 years

Are they building canals?

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 29, 2022 7:53 pm

Dickless

PS, these enlightened days, “Abos” is considered racist.

Frank
Frank
June 29, 2022 7:54 pm

‘Bumi-Chinese relations’
Does anyone actually like the Chinese, not the individuals mind. Can’t think of anyone offhand that would have a good word for them.

calli
calli
June 29, 2022 7:55 pm

It’s a Yaris Cross Urban, Eyrie. Petrol, so take that! EV freaks.

Everything that opens and shuts and just the right height for loading my parents in for appointments.

Winston Smith
June 29, 2022 7:55 pm

Ed Case:

Mapleton IGA is tiny, they’ve still got the Servo, so they’ll be okay.
It’s a very pretty area well worth the visit.

You realise the margins on fuel are only 3 – 4 cents/liter to the servo and they don’t get to set the prices?
Damn it Ed, you are so ignorant you to make idiots look like frigging geniuses.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 7:55 pm

Does anyone actually like the Chinese, not the individuals mind. Can’t think of anyone offhand that would have a good word for them.

The Party thinks they are pretty okay.

When they behave themselves, of course… 😉

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 29, 2022 7:56 pm

Dickless

The Wong life story is a disaster, she’s a Mischling, the sire fucked off back to Borneo [not Malaya] when she was 8, and she hates Australians.

Tch, tch, “Mischling” sounds racist. And all lefties, including you, hate Australians. In your case, it shows in your patronising attitude.

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 29, 2022 7:58 pm

Mater

For clarity, Bob’s a liar, you’re a dumb-arse contrarian.

Dickless is using his supposed insult for me, “SpongeBob”. I’m not sure why he thinks it is insulting, but I’m not Numbers Bob.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 7:58 pm

It’s a Yaris Cross Urban, Eyrie. Petrol, so take that! EV freaks.

Rex is eyeing up Nissan X-Trails at present.

The company uses them as crew cars, so they are diesels with 4×4 capability. You can only seem to get petrol ones out of non-fleet orders, but they are spacious and comfy to drive on 350-odd km stints (e.g. Perth-Merridin). And can cop a lot of abuse.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
June 29, 2022 8:01 pm

Nazi guard Josef Schuetz, 101, jailed for five years

By Dow Jones
Dow Jones
An hour ago June 29, 2022
2 Comments

A 101-year-old former guard at a Nazi concentration camp during World War II has been sentenced to five years in prison in Germany for being an accessory to the murder of at least 3500 people.

Josef Schuetz, the oldest person so far to go on trial for complicity in war crimes during the Holocaust, was a guard at the Sachsenhausen camp in Oranienburg, north of Berlin, between 1942 and 1945.

The pensioner, who now lives in Brandenburg state, had pleaded innocent, saying he did “absolutely nothing” and had not even worked at the camp. “I don’t know why I am here,” he said at the close of his trial on Monday.

But judge Udo Lechtermann said he was convinced Schuetz had worked at Sachsenhausen and had “supported” the atrocities committed there.

“For three years, you watched prisoners being tortured and killed before your eyes,” he said. “Due to your position on the watchtower of the concentration camp, you constantly had the smoke of the crematorium in your nose. Anyone who tried to escape from the camp was shot. So every guard was actively involved in these murders.”

More than 200,000 people, including Jews, Roma, regime opponents and gays, were detained at the Sachsenhausen between 1936 and 1945. The trial is likely one of the last of its kind, as few suspected Nazis remain alive.

“I thank the German government for its commitment to pursuing justice after all these years,” said Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress.

“There must never be a statute of limitations on the crimes of the Holocaust.”

Germany has been bringing cases against former concentration camp employees after a court precedent opened the door to pursuing low-ranking members of the Nazi apparatus. In that 2011 precedent, a German court found former guard John Demjanjuk guilty of accessory to the murder of nearly 30,000 people.

Those who worked at a lower level can be charged only with murder or accessory in murder in Germany because the statute of limitation has expired for other offences, such as inflicting bodily harm or unlawful imprisonment.

Mater
June 29, 2022 8:02 pm

Military ancestry isn’t common in Australia, perhaps you’re confusing it with America, having a Revolutionary War, a Civil War, and being constantly at War since 1895.

Way to change the point.
Goose.

BTW, I don’t have to ‘big note’ my family’s military history, or steal anyone else’s valour. I’ve got my own war service accrued.

Old Lefty
Old Lefty
June 29, 2022 8:03 pm

The GayBC and former Fauxfacts have been in gloatfest mode over the census results on religious affiliation.

As ever, they are completely illogical.

Slightly less the 50 percent now identify as Christian = every trace, every vestige must be completely erased from our national life.

One percent (if they are lucky) of the population identity as queer Stalinsts = they must have unchallenged sway over public policy and all questioning, let alone opposition, must be outlawed.

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 29, 2022 8:03 pm

Dickless

Military ancestry isn’t common in Australia, perhaps you’re confusing it with America, having a Revolutionary War, a Civil War, and being constantly at War since 1895.

Stop displaying your gross ignorance. Over 300,000 Australians served overseas in WW II, total enlistments in WW II were almost a million, then there were Korea, Vietnam (50,000 in Vietnam, many more in Malaysia or here), then the various wars since around 1991. Then there were the very many migrants with military service (including a lot of former Italian PoWs who later migrated back here), and so many more.

Look again at the meaning of “skiving”.

Eyrie
Eyrie
June 29, 2022 8:04 pm

Yaris Cross Urban

Didn’t know they did such a beastie. Probably a great idea with current and future petrol prices.

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 29, 2022 8:04 pm

Dickless

Sorry, I forgot the Poles who preferred Australia to the joys of Poland under Soviet rule.

bespoke
bespoke
June 29, 2022 8:05 pm

My little car is still a twinkle in the robot’s eye over in Japan. The production line is due to give birth in September.

Special order: Driver side periscope and extended foot pedals.

Mater
June 29, 2022 8:05 pm

Dickless is using his supposed insult for me, “SpongeBob”. I’m not sure why he thinks it is insulting, but I’m not Numbers Bob.

Ok, cool. The logic behind that is as hard to follow as the rest of his so-called arguments.

We obviously need a replacement for Bob, but they’re not sending their best.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 8:05 pm

No Stalin tried to build a canal

Hello Bird, and welcome to this week’s edition of Wing-Clipping.

Break out your Stack-Hats and popcorn bags, Cats! It’s time to dance! 😀

#Wheeeeeeeeee!!!1!

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 8:06 pm

We obviously need a replacement for Bob, but they’re not sending their best.

Welp, Bird’s just unmasked. You in?

Eyrie
Eyrie
June 29, 2022 8:07 pm

They use a track gauge that is incompatible with any non-Russian rail assets in Europe or Asia. This is a stroke of pure genius.

Caused the Germans a lot of trouble as they converted the Russian rails to standard gauge in 1941-42.

Zipster
Zipster
June 29, 2022 8:08 pm

How Energy Cartels Will Smash The Housing Market!
An important conversation with David Llewellyn-Smith, David is Chief Strategist at Nucleus Wealth and the founding publisher and editor for Macrobusiness.

miltonf
miltonf
June 29, 2022 8:13 pm

Is Thorpe modelling herself on ocassional car sex

calli
calli
June 29, 2022 8:14 pm

Just call me Short Round, bespoke.

Hold on to your potatoes!

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
June 29, 2022 8:15 pm

Hey, another thing I like about the BMW is that it automatically lowers the passenger side mirror when you are parking in reverse so that you can get a good visual of the gutter. Simples.

We couldn’t even retract the mirrors on the Audi Q5. And the petrol stop/start was hidden in the dash.

Hairy tells me I might be being unfair re the test drive of the Mazda 5 Whatever, as it was more than six years ago, more like eight or ten, and they hadn’t ironed out a lot of the underpowering in them at that stage.

They were notably underpowered initially. All of the tech car writers agreed on that.
I couldn’t believe how feeble it was when I drove it in comparison to a new, at that time, Audi Q5, so we bought the Audi, and have stuck with turning them over ever few years, until now, when I had a hankering for a sporty Beamer. Turning eighty with a certain style, doncha know? At one time, some years ago, we had three very fine new cars in the garage, one a suitable vehicle for our daughter’s swank wedding, and a house and garage that could take the lot. lol. Hairy arrived home one day with a new corporate car and I backed out of the garage in my new Commodore and smashed the side of his new car in as it stood proudly in the driveway awaiting my exclamations of approval. Those were, as Hairy once wrote to me in a book, ‘the best of years’.

miltonf
miltonf
June 29, 2022 8:15 pm

Maybe the ‘greens’ fancy themselves as the southern hemisphere squad.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 8:17 pm

The problem with unique track gauges and logistical superiority, Graeme, is that sooner or later you come across somebody who doesn’t use your kit.

So for all Russia’s superpower status, as experience is currently demonstrating, it struggles to project power and logistical sustainment out past the farthest railhead.

Eyrie
Eyrie
June 29, 2022 8:21 pm

another thing I like about the BMW is that it automatically lowers the passenger side mirror when you are parking in reverse so that you can get a good visual of the gutter. Simples.
You can easily retract the mirrors on the Mazda yourself but you don’t need to as it has a synthesised top down view of the car and surrounds on the LCD. Very easy to reverse parallel park. Even old ladies would have no trouble 🙂 (sorry)

miltonf
miltonf
June 29, 2022 8:23 pm

So for all Russia’s superpower status, as experience is currently demonstrating, it struggles to project power and logistical sustainment out past the farthest railhead.

Break of gauge didn’t stop them projecting power all the way to Berlin in 1945. They’re managing to do it now in a slightly different way.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 8:26 pm

That would be a huge problem if their policy was driven by bankers […] rent-seekers

And which bankers and ‘rent-seekers’ might those be, Graeme?

After all, Russia has had at least 3 attempts at being a continental empire in the last 400 years, and has cspent the last 22 years trying to cobble together enough of its old client states and vassals to claim a fourth…

Eyrie
Eyrie
June 29, 2022 8:30 pm

So for all Russia’s superpower status, as experience is currently demonstrating, it struggles to project power and logistical sustainment out past the farthest railhead.
Just maybe they are using a different superpower model. Instead of sticking their noses into other’s business all around the world, sit at home, secure the borders and make sure there are buffers around them and exploit your own vast natural resources using your own educated smart people while avoiding western degeneracy..

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 8:34 pm

Just maybe they are using a different superpower model. Instead of sticking their noses into other’s business all around the world, sit at home, secure the borders and make sure there are buffers around them and exploit your own vast natural resources using your own educated smart people while avoiding western degeneracy..

They allegedly used the same model from 1946 to 1991.

Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and South America haven’t forgotten…

Eyrie
Eyrie
June 29, 2022 8:35 pm

Confusing Russians with communists, I see.

JC
JC
June 29, 2022 8:38 pm

Then the British elite engineered a war with Germany to weaken both parties.

Hitler was the victim?

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 8:39 pm

Russia could wind up getting the entire Dnieper, Vistula, Bug 3-river system. And if Turkey were really to piss them off too much they might just go get the Bosphorous straits as well.

After 8 years of being held in a few smallish parts of Ukraine and 4 months of only really being able to advance where the defenders were not or severely locally outnumbered, I regret that I do not share your confidence, Graeme.

Threatening everyone who thwarts your ambitions with mass nukings every Tuesday is not the sign of a confident and muscular superduperpower sweeping everyone and everything before them…

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 8:39 pm

Hitler was the victim?

This is Bird we’re dealing with here…

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 8:41 pm

Confusing Russians with communists, I see.

And before the Politburo there was the Tsar.

The ideology still built off the national character as manipulated by the power of the day, Eyrie.

Russia’s neighbours do not have long and hateful memories of their occupiers solely because of communism.

bespoke
bespoke
June 29, 2022 8:42 pm

This will not end well.

JC
JC
June 29, 2022 8:42 pm

Yea, I know Rex. If you don’t take offense to his offensive nonsense like I don’t, he always has some new conspiracy theory on the boil and it’s interesting to see what new crap he comes up with.

Hitler the victim is “decently” novel. Decent as in newly minted.

Old bloke
Old bloke
June 29, 2022 8:42 pm

OldOzzie says:
June 29, 2022 at 5:39 pm

Why sanctions hurt the West more than Russia

G7 leaders and the NATO summit are strong in their condemnation of Russia but new sanctions and military assistance won’t end a grinding war that Moscow is funding with help from the West’s actions.

Alexander Mercouris was talking about the NATO meetings plan to ban the import of Russian gold and the foolishness of capping Russian oil – it’s not going to happen for a number of reasons.

From around the 25 minute mark….

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 8:42 pm

But they were handicapped by communism and non-Russian leadership bro. These are pretty big handicaps. Those two pianos are off their backs now

Not really.

The nomenklatura became the oligarchs and kleptocrats still ruling the state.apparatus today.

JC
JC
June 29, 2022 8:43 pm

bespoke says:
June 29, 2022 at 8:42 pm

This will not end well.

That’s like predicting night follows day. 🙂

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 8:43 pm

Hitler the victim is “decently” novel. Decent as in newly minted.

I dunno- He’s used it a few times. Ditto the fanatical hatred of the English.

I do agree the Russia angle is a new one. Poking holes in it is interesting.

JC
JC
June 29, 2022 8:45 pm

He’s used it a few times.

Oh Okay as I’ve never seen it before.

But yes, Russia is the new superpower is new.

Eyrie
Eyrie
June 29, 2022 8:47 pm

Kruschev was Ukrainian, Stalin was Georgian. Not Russians, communists.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 8:49 pm

Amd we haven’t even got to the Russo-Japanese War under the old Russian Empire and the Battle of Tsushima, yet. 🙂

It is said to this day, that the ghost of the cruiser Kamchatka still randomly (and clumsily) tries to light up any fishing trawler that passes by its wreck…

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 8:52 pm

Kruschev was Ukrainian, Stalin was Georgian. Not Russians, communists

And VVS Lenin was Russian. Ditto most of the folks Joe finally offed. Including much of his subsidiary Party and military command structure.

Ditto the vast majority of the Red Army soldiers who forged and expanded and forcibly held the Soviet Union together.

It’s similar to trying to say Germany was led by an Austrian in WW2, so the population who followed him can be excused.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
June 29, 2022 8:52 pm

ZK2A at 6:23.

I’ve heard the claim that there is no such person as a “full blood” Maori – all the Maori today have European ancestors.

Given your ancestors have a proud history of getting into stoushes in “low dives and knock shops” around the world, have you considered travelling to New Zealand and setting them straight on this issue?

Dot
Dot
June 29, 2022 8:53 pm

FMD, just saw a recruitment ad for kindy teachers for Afdanistan on Sunshine Coast TV. They are even offering 9k in relocation expenses.

Yep I saw that in NSW and thought WTF dude?

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 8:54 pm

Since Germany never wanted a war with any of the opposing parties, and particularly didn’t want to fight the British

Someone hasn’t been holding his séances with Otto Von Bismarck recently, has he?

After all, nobody who wants a global empire and tries to set himself and his fleet up as a peer competitor to the UK really ever wants to fight them, right?

JC
JC
June 29, 2022 8:57 pm

I was talking about World War I.

Okay

But Germany was the victim of both wars and obviously so.

In WW1 Germany attacked France first.
In WW2 Germany attacked Poland and if they were sincere about reclaiming old territory they would have avoided taking the capital. You’re suggesting the Brits should have ignored their treaty with Poland then, right? It wasn’t worth the paper it was written on?

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 8:59 pm

He wanted a chunk of Poland that had been German.

Funny how the Poles weren’t consulted on that, having already fought off the Red Army’s attempt to do the same thing in the 1920s.

Old bloke
Old bloke
June 29, 2022 8:59 pm

According to Mercouris, the price capped oil plan came from the fertile mind of Janet Yellen.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
June 29, 2022 9:00 pm

After all, nobody who wants a global empire and tries to set himself and his fleet up as a peer competitor to the UK really ever wants to fight them, right?

The archives of Imperial Germany have been open to researchers since the mid 1960’s. In the event of a German victory, Britain was to be stripped of her fleet, and overseas colonies, and saddled with such massive reparations that she would never again pose a threat to Germany.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 9:03 pm

Communism not a handicap? You eediot Stimpy

Feel like you finally had a win, Graeme?

I never said communism wasn’t a handicap. You claimed that Russia is no longer subject to it.

I declare bullshit.

All industry is effectively State-owned in Russia. As the oligarchs (all being ex-Communist nomenklatura) who exerted control over all the ex-Soviet industries and everything set up sincr are still the State.

Since communism in practice is networks of power-brokers and patrons competing with each other (aristocracy without the crowns and landed titles), nothing has really changed for the average Gopnik.

Dot
Dot
June 29, 2022 9:04 pm

Inter generational trauma is genetically real and aboriginals have been traced with 7 generations of it.

Seven generations.

Possibly a mere 84 – 91 years.

Possibly up to 305 years ago.

Let’s say 140 – 175 years ago. Split the difference and it is 160 years.

What happened in 1862 somehow affected me?

Who believes this nonsense?

JC
JC
June 29, 2022 9:05 pm

There had never been any German ambition for such a thing.

Here I was believing Germany owned a chunk of PNG. But that was an itsy bitsy liitle island in the Pacific and very far away so it didn’t count?

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 9:05 pm

The Kaiser went into that competition with the intent of demonstrating to the English that they should be allied with Germany

Riiiight.

So I take it the Cold War’s various nuclear arms races were intended by the Russians to show America really should be friends with them?

You were less off with the fairies and naiive about human nature and nation-state politics when you were claiming that Greek mythology actually came from the proto-Vikings…

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
June 29, 2022 9:07 pm

Just took a trip down memory lane.
Went to Jim’s Greek Tavern in Collingwood.
No menus.
Just a list of stuff the waiter reels off.
Hasn’t changed since 1980.
Racked up a yuuuge bill of $60 for two and could not finish the meal.
$60.
Not including booze. Which I had to dash out to get because they are pretty much the last BYO restaurant in Melbourne.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 9:08 pm

The archives of Imperial Germany have been open to researchers since the mid 1960’s.

Aside from the Hohenzollern-era attitude that German Kultur was fundamentally superior to everyone else, and should be imposed by force if anyone refused to agree.

Now, I do freely concede that every major European, African and Asian culture has engaged in that to some degree.across the millennia. That’s just human nature. As is the violent pushback whenever someone tries to impose themselves on someone else because they honestly believe they are better…

JC
JC
June 29, 2022 9:12 pm

As is the violent pushback whenever someone tries to impose themselves on someone else because they honestly believe they are better…

LIke Russia now? 🙂

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 9:14 pm

LIke Russia now?

Shhh…. I’m trying not to upset the Vatniks.

Timothy Neilson
Timothy Neilson
June 29, 2022 9:16 pm

Not including booze. Which I had to dash out to get because they are pretty much the last BYO restaurant in Melbourne.

Nearest pubs being the Tote and the Birmingham, neither of which I’d guess has a top of the range selection in the bottle shop.
Planning, dear chap, planning.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 9:17 pm

It couldn’t happen

And yet the evidence exists.

It’s almost like watching Collaborator Bob squirm and wince when all the information is trotted out from Soviet and North Vietnamese archives that the Communist State did want to expand itself by force, the Soviet Union did want a substantial foothold in Southeast Asia and Oceania, and that for all his professed love of Communism, Bob was directly and personally responsible (in part) for its failure to completely achieve these ambitions…

Farmer Gez
Farmer Gez
June 29, 2022 9:18 pm

Ballarat suffered extreme global warming today.
The actual temp topped out at 6.9 degrees and the apparent temp never got above zero.
Leaving Rat City always cheers you up.

JC
JC
June 29, 2022 9:19 pm

“Goldie”

Why are you fighting a war that was over 100 years ago? Other than being historically interesting who gives a shit?

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 29, 2022 9:20 pm

JCsays:
June 29, 2022 at 9:05 pm
There had never been any German ambition for such a thing.

Here I was believing Germany owned a chunk of PNG. But that was an itsy bitsy liitle island in the Pacific and very far away so it didn’t count?

Also rather larger chunks of Africa.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 9:20 pm

Nato engineered the war.

Riiiight.

Funny how Ukraine never wanted in until Vlad Bae rolled tanks into Crimea in 2014 and press-ganged a bunch of proxies from Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts to back up the small groups of pro-Russian separatists there, because Ukraine’s own government and people rejected his choice of leader for them…

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
June 29, 2022 9:21 pm

You eediot Stimpy.

The funniest thing Bird’s ever written. I loved that show.

JC
JC
June 29, 2022 9:22 pm

B John

I know, but I really couldn’t bothered looking them up. PNG was far enough away to disprove that bullshit about Germany’s colonial intentions.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 9:22 pm

But Pearl Harbour took the Americans an immense amount of effort to engineer

The US engineered the crippling of its own Pacific Fleet, eh?

Next thing you know, you’ll be dusting off your old claim that 9/11 was an atomic demolition job arranged by those perfidious….CENTRAL BANKERS! Using the mafia. Or something..

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
June 29, 2022 9:22 pm

JC, the Bismarck Archipelago, NE of PNG.

m0nty
m0nty
June 29, 2022 9:23 pm

Graeme, you’re such a bore.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 9:24 pm

JC, the Bismarck Archipelago, NE of PNG

The resting place of AE1, I believe.

Ditto at least one German gunboat near Rabaul and the raider SMS Emden

JC
JC
June 29, 2022 9:24 pm

Next thing you know, you’ll be dusting off your old claim that 9/11 was an atomic demolition job arranged by those perfidious….CENTRAL BANKERS! Using the mafia. Or something..

Great. Thanks Rex.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
June 29, 2022 9:25 pm

Glack Bold at 8.28:

Russia could wind up getting the entire Dnieper, Vistula, Bug 3-river system. And if Turkey were really to piss them off too much they might just go get the Bosphorous straits as well.

Whose going to stop them?

Ed and his ancestors.

No, wait.

JC
JC
June 29, 2022 9:26 pm

JC, the Bismarck Archipelago, NE of PNG

Did Germans have coffee plantations there?

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
June 29, 2022 9:27 pm

Where’s Mossad when you need them. Don’t forget the Spanish Inquisition, nobody expects the Inquisition. For Graham’s benefit.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 9:27 pm

Consider what England did to the Boers!!!! How you think the Germans going to view something like that?

The Boers were Dutch, you nit.

South West Africa you might get to make a claim over. Ditto Tangyanika (latter-day Uganda) and Tanzania.

But not South Africa. That pointedly anti-Anglo political alignment towards Germany came under Jan Smuts and later Afrikaners post WW1.

Timothy Neilson
Timothy Neilson
June 29, 2022 9:27 pm

for all his professed love of Communism, Bob was directly and personally responsible (in part) for its failure to completely achieve these ambitions…

I think you’re getting a bit carried away there.
Didn’t numbers’ rifle section spot him as a liability pretty much on day 1 and punt him back to base, where he spent the rest of the war threading celluloid onto a film projector?

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 9:27 pm

Yes thats a proven fact. It took a great deal of work and we ought not begrudge them their efforts.

So how do you explain the aircraft carriers, Graeme?

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
June 29, 2022 9:28 pm

But Pearl Harbour took the Americans an immense amount of effort to engineer

This just goes on getting better and better..

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
June 29, 2022 9:30 pm

But Pearl Harbour took the Americans an immense amount of effort to engineer

My word it did.

They* had to send millions of Americans to Japan hundreds of years before to interbreed, get that acquired taste for sushimi, learn the warrior code of bushido, shrink in stature, win some wars against Russia and Germany, get some tentacle porn happening and then teach themselves to fly before some practice in China.

Not to mention changing all the names of those birth certificates.

*You know who.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
June 29, 2022 9:31 pm

Dunno JC, but they did have the SMS Komett at the beginning of WWI which became the HMAS Una shortly after.

Timothy Neilson
Timothy Neilson
June 29, 2022 9:32 pm

Bloody England had snapped up all territories adjacent to the Indian Ocean and more besides.

Then how did Germany get Tanganyika?

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 9:33 pm

get some tentacle porn happening

Stop that!

It’s not that kind of blog.

#Calamari

JC
JC
June 29, 2022 9:33 pm

GreyRanga says:
June 29, 2022 at 9:31 pm

Dunno JC, but they did have the SMS Komett at the beginning of WWI which became the HMAS Una shortly after.

I think it was coffee but not hugely sure. There were German farmers there I believe.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
June 29, 2022 9:34 pm

Doesn’t take him long to lose the plot.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
June 29, 2022 9:37 pm

Timothy at 9:16.
Yes.
The Birmingham is on the far corner.
I am no Queen.
I can’t move diagonally.
(And it had rip-off written all over it).
Kept heading straight across the road and up to Aldi.
Bought the most expensive thing in the shop – a passable Margaret River cabernet for $20.
Had a fucking giggle. Some pony-tailed branding expert has landed on the name “Keeper’s Gloves” as a name for a $10 red. No cricketer is ever buying that. If you have ever been within ten metres of a keeper taking off the gloves and soaked inners after a long day in the field, that is not a bouquet you need to experience again.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
June 29, 2022 9:37 pm

Crikkit. First Test.

Straya are 2/81, chasing the original First Nations people of this country (Sri Lanka) total of 212.

Warner’s back in the sheds and out of public view, for which we are all thankful.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 9:39 pm

It was three hollowed out. And three turned to dust. With two aluminium planes

So, you allege six buildings were demolished.

How come only 2 actual towers fell, then? And one edge of the Pentagon got smacked in?

All achieved with 3 airliners running with most of their fuel load unburnt at the time of impact? And all with terminal velocities in hundreds of knots?

When 200+ kg thin-walled projectiles travelling at several hundred metres per second can punch large holes in thickly-armoured warships and cause considerable kinetic and thermal damage before their payloads detonate, why is it so impossible for you and your tinfoil hatterers to accept that a 200+ tonne airliner could achieve the same against a stataionary building not designed to sustain such strikes and still stay upright?

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 9:40 pm

Had a fucking giggle. Some pony-tailed branding expert has landed on the name “Keeper’s Gloves” as a name for a $10 red

Keeper’s Glove is a Tawny, you heathen.

And a mighty fine one at that.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
June 29, 2022 9:41 pm

OK.
What is the melting point of steel?
And how do you achieve those sort of temperatures?
Discuss.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
June 29, 2022 9:41 pm

Fuckin’ YEAH!

ex-Captain McCheatySook ran himself out for 6, then blamed Khawaja, waved his girly hands in the air at everyone, and I swear he was on the verge of tears walking off.

Get fucked, you great ponce. Cheats in the shed. Great for the game.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 9:42 pm

Russia roles in to protect a neighbour its suddenly a crime.

It’s been rolling around there for 8 years, Graeme.

And achieved nothing for its protectees other than press-ganging most of its military-age males to hide its regular army formation behind.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 9:43 pm

I blame blood pressure pills.

I don’t use them.

Do you?

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
June 29, 2022 9:43 pm

Actually, you’re right Rex.
A port.
But, seriously, who attaches that image to any beverage?

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 9:44 pm

They went colonising you dumb cunt.

But you said they never wanted an empire?

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 9:45 pm

But, seriously, who attaches that image to any beverage

A marketer?

Zyconoclast
Zyconoclast
June 29, 2022 9:45 pm

Why do many of senior early Soviet commies have aliases

Lev Davidovich Bronstein

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov

Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili

Yuliy Osipovich Tsederbaum

Alexander Malinovsky

JC
JC
June 29, 2022 9:47 pm

Sancho Panzer says:
June 29, 2022 at 9:41 pm

OK.
What is the melting point of steel?
And how do you achieve those sort of temperatures?
Discuss.

Sanchez

We’ve been through that roadblock when Jason S owned the site. I can’t relive it.

JC
JC
June 29, 2022 9:48 pm

Okay, finally we reach the crescendo of the night. Finally the fat lady sings.

Right. There was a Jew coup in Ukraine in 2014. And another in the US in 2020.

Frank
Frank
June 29, 2022 9:49 pm

But, seriously, who attaches that image to any beverage?

Someone like Fitsimmons the red hanky man, that’s who.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 9:50 pm

Your fantasy is physically impossible.

Really?

So why imagine that nuclear charges did it, then?

Are we comparing who’s got the bigger fantasy?

Cos Dot’s choice of Solomia Maievska leaves us all in the dust…

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 9:51 pm

We have every understanding of who has tried for world domination and its not Germany

2 World Wars…

JC
JC
June 29, 2022 9:52 pm

That’s quite a rack there, Rex.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 9:52 pm

Are we comparing who’s got the bigger fantasy?

Cos Dot’s choice of Solomia Maievska leaves us all in the dust…

Love ya, Dot. 🙂

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 29, 2022 9:53 pm

m0ntysays:
June 29, 2022 at 9:23 pm
Graeme, you’re such a bore.

Pot, meet kettle!

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 9:55 pm

Okay, finally we reach the crescendo of the night. Finally the fat lady sings.

It must be said that he’s getting better.

The first few times, he outed himself within the first half-hour.

Now, he’s taking about 2.

If we were dealing with ED, Graeme would be a demi-god among men…

#Endurance

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
June 29, 2022 9:57 pm

Jupes, firming up BBQ for Sat 11th at ours in Vaucluse 12.30 till dusk.

I will confirm via your email when I get it from wherever I wrote it down.
Or when someone else finds it and sends it to me.

xx Lizzie
ps bring any of your lovely family members who might like to come.
Very informal. Just bring yourself/selves, we will provide lunch/beer and sparkles.

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 29, 2022 9:57 pm

Rex A

and the raider SMS Emden

Emden ended up on the Cocos Islands.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
June 29, 2022 9:58 pm

oops Jupes, that’s Saturday the 9th July. NOT the 11th.

Boambee John
Boambee John
June 29, 2022 10:00 pm

JCsays:
June 29, 2022 at 9:33 pm
GreyRanga says:
June 29, 2022 at 9:31 pm

Dunno JC, but they did have the SMS Komett at the beginning of WWI which became the HMAS Una shortly after.

I think it was coffee but not hugely sure. There were German farmers there I believe.

It might have been copra (dried coconut).

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 10:01 pm

I think you’re getting a bit carried away there.

Not according to his own story, Tim. 😉

Didn’t numbers’ rifle section spot him as a liability pretty much on day 1 and punt him back to base, where he spent the rest of the war threading celluloid onto a film projector?

That was the impression I got.

But he was still there, he still contributed and did his time on picquet, etc. So he still holds some responsibility for the failures of his preferred faction.

And by his reactions whenever Mater, Boambee John or anyone else brought it up, deep down he agreed with this assessment too… 🙂

JC
JC
June 29, 2022 10:01 pm

Okay B John

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 10:05 pm

They aspired to being safe from those who surrounded them.

Africa didn’t surround Germantly.

Nor did PNG. Nor Rabaul.

But those places did represent good spots for coaling stations and radio towers.

All things you need to support a globally-roaming navy and Merchant Marine…

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 10:06 pm

Get the one eyed rabbi out of your sitting rooms so you can think straight for fucksakes.

So uncouth when people won’t play his silly little games, our Bird…

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
June 29, 2022 10:07 pm

Even fucking Belgium was getting in on the African wicket.

I knew Bird was a cricket man.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 10:08 pm

Emden ended up on the Cocos Islands.

Cheers, mate.

I seem to recall that the presence of Emden was expected when the task force was mounted to take Rabaul, but was long gone by the time the radio station was captured.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
June 29, 2022 10:09 pm

The Chermans invaded and colonised England 1600 years ago.

Pricks.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
June 29, 2022 10:09 pm

John Sheldricksays:
June 29, 2022 at 6:22 pm
Now, talk about my foot long. Who started that? And how do you know?

??????

Your foot long is waiting for you at Subway………………………………

Or in Memories – summed up in 1 min 42 secs – “Is that the Foot Long – And Then Some”

Bachelor Party Hanks Future Mother In Law Grabs For Big Hot Dog

Colonel Crispin Berka
Colonel Crispin Berka
June 29, 2022 10:11 pm

via Sky

British Army Chief warns UK and allies facing ‘1937 moment’

Harold Vanderbilt will win the America’s Cup race again?
No?
Shirley Bassey and Anthony Hopkins will be reborn?
No?
It’s preparing for war in eastern Europe, isn’t it.
yep.

See also 10:13 mark in https://youtu.be/99iFAW9fvh8?t=613 for an interesting revelation.
The British Army Rangers were on the ground in Ukraine *before* the Russian invasion.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
June 29, 2022 10:13 pm

Didn’t numbers’ rifle section spot him as a liability pretty much on day 1 and punt him back to base, where he spent the rest of the war threading celluloid onto a film projector?

From what he posted here, he was on some of the major operations with 7RAR, and about halfway through his tour, he was sent back to work in the Q-Store at Nui Dat, where his sterling achievements as a film projector operator became known.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 10:19 pm

The British Army Rangers were on the ground in Ukraine *before* the Russian invasion.

By mutual agreement for training purposes.

The Rangers are training and advisory units with a secondary unconventional warfare role, set up like the US’ Green Berets.

Remember that in March, infrastructure inside Russia and Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory began mysteriously breaking.

Russia immediately tried to blame NATO SF, and particularly the SAS. Only for it to be revealed that UK-trained Ukrainian long range SF units were infiltrating into places they weren’t expected to be, or believed capable of reaching.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 10:20 pm

And I am quite sure that if any of those Rangers were actually engaged in hostilities and captured or killed, Russia would have made a massive deal of it almost immediately.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
June 29, 2022 10:21 pm

Outstanding (SBS):

Islamic State (IS) Twitter accounts have been hacked by @WachulaGhost in the wake of the Orlando massacre.

Hundreds of accounts owned by IS supporters have had gay pride slogans and gay porn take over their Twitter feeds, with many profile images being changed to a rainbow with “I’m Gay and I’m Proud” written in text.

And:

The “WauchulaGhost” Twitter account has tweeted many images, sharing the new-look ISIS accounts with the hashtag #DaeshBags among other anti-IS related tags.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
June 29, 2022 10:22 pm

I seem to recall that the presence of Emden was expected when the task force was mounted to take Rabaul, but was long gone by the time the radio station was captured.

I don’t have a reference, but I have read the same. The presence of SMS Emden was suspected, but Rabaul was captured to prevent the German Asiatic squadron – two heavy cruisers and three light cruisers using the place as a base.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 10:23 pm

Anyway Cats, it’s been fun.

Good night all. 🙂

I don’t expect to see you tomorrow, Graeme. Beyond a few wafting traces of powder down, and a fading psychic echo of inchoate rage…

jupes
jupes
June 29, 2022 10:23 pm

Lizzie just sent an email to the address Rabz uses for catch-ups.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
June 29, 2022 10:25 pm

Lizzie just sent an email to the address Rabz uses for catch-ups.

I bet the egg_roomba’s not on it.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
June 29, 2022 10:32 pm

two heavy cruisers and three light cruisers using the place as a base.

Two heavy cruisers – SMS Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and the light cruisers SMS Emden, Nurnberg and Leipzig.

jupes
jupes
June 29, 2022 10:40 pm

Search ‘Quartz crisis’.

Yeah that was indeed a crisis and destroyed a couple of thousand Swiss firms while they tried to ‘catch up’ to the Japs in the 70s and 80s. In the end they were saved by Swatch producing cheap quartz watches, while the surviving luxury brands followed Audemars Piguet’s lead with the Royal Oak and produced expensive mechanical (mainly) steel sports watches which started a craze that is only now just to calm down.

These days mechanical watches are king and the Swiss and Germans are producing 90% of new developments on that front. Seiko and Grand Seiko has the spring drive (a hybrid where a mechanical movement powers a quartz crystal) and Citizen has the most accurate quartz movement (+or- 1 second per year) but the Euros aren’t even trying to compete with them. They’re too busy doing their own thing.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 10:44 pm

These days mechanical watches are king and the Swiss and Germans are producing 90% of new developments on that front.

I was amazed to find Tissot still made pocket watches in 2017. So I got one.

jupes
jupes
June 29, 2022 11:02 pm

Speaking of Poland and the war. I just came back from Poland and did a tour in Wroclaw while there. From the tour guide, I learnt the following:

Poland, probably has had more border changes than any other European country. For over a century the country of Poland even ceased to exist from the end of the 18th century till it was reconstituted at the treaty of Versailles in 1919. Anyhoo, at the time of the German and Soviet invasions of Poland in 1939, Wroclaw was not invaded as it was the German city of Breslau well inside German borders. The now Ukrainian city of Lviv was a Polish city so was invaded by the Soviets.

The population of Breslau at the time was over 90% German and they were enthusiastic Nazis. There was a huge battle there in 1945 and the Soviets destroyed about 70% of the city. At the end of the war, the Soviets gave Breslau back to Poland and booted all the surviving ethnic Germans back to Germany. Simultaneously they claimed Lviv as part of the USSR and booted the Polish population of that city to – guess where – Breslau (now called Wroclow)!

Far out.

Bourne1879
Bourne1879
June 29, 2022 11:07 pm

Just read the Daily Mail article regarding Barilaro and the NY Trade job.

The top level civil servant who was told she got the job was subsequently paid an unknown amount as compensation.

Seems Barilaro already signed a 3 year contract and the DM article suggests he might get a payout if he can not take up the job. This seems ridiculous as the process by which he got the job is clearly dodgy.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
June 29, 2022 11:08 pm

Knuckle Draggersays:

June 29, 2022 at 10:21 pm

Outstanding (SBS):

Islamic State (IS) Twitter accounts have been hacked by @WachulaGhost in the wake of the Orlando massacre.

Hundreds of accounts owned by IS supporters have had gay pride slogans and gay porn take over their Twitter feeds …

So the guys who framed Chrissy Pahn are still at it?

Bruce in WA
June 29, 2022 11:13 pm

But somehow M?ori, the original inhabitants of the country, have convinced themselves and some politicians that they have ownership rights to freshwater.

Have read reports here that the local First Nations people [sic] are working on a levy system for WA whereby every commercial fish, cray, prawn whatever caught in inland waters or at sea off the WA coast will require a royalty payment to them.

Colour me cynical, but I can actually see that getting up in this benighted state.

Old School Conservative
Old School Conservative
June 29, 2022 11:19 pm

Watched a couple of episodes of Taggart on TV. It needed English subtitles.

Mrs OSC and I loved counting the number of times the word ‘murrrderrr” was used in each episode.
Probably the only part of the script we could understand.

jupes
jupes
June 29, 2022 11:22 pm

I was amazed to find Tissot still made pocket watches in 2017. So I got one.

Nice. Quartz or mechanical? Do you own a waist coat?

Indolent
Indolent
June 29, 2022 11:23 pm
Bruce in WA
June 29, 2022 11:23 pm

Currently driving two Euro cars: a BMW 535d M-Sport sedan and a Porsche 911 Carrera. (Both belong to friends — I’m just “babysitting”.)

The BMW is just outright scary with eleventy zillion kilohorses from standstill. Push the “Sport” switch and drop the hammer; the arse squats, the nose rises and as the twin turbos kick in it just howls away — not a bit like a diesel at all! In “Comfort” mode, it’s as easy to drive as my wife’s Cerato.

The Porsche is a lot more “delicate”; like a racehorse. Left to its own devices the auto box is bloody lazy and you have to really thump the loud pedal to get it to change down. Switch to manual changes and it, literally, howls and revs rise almost faster than you can flick the Tiptronic gear change switches on the steering wheel. It’s not a relaxing car to drive.

The engine died in the BMW. The owners have spent $35 000 getting it back on the road.

The engine died in the Porsche. The owner has spent $29 000 getting it back on the road.

Neither car had done 100 000 km when the engines went out to lunch.

Think I’ll stick to my KIA for a while longer yet …

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
June 29, 2022 11:30 pm

Ah, Bruce, how many clicks before the engines popped?
I’ve just clicked over 200,000 on a Kraut turbo diesel and wondering if I should flick it.
Still has great acceleration for overtake between 80 kmh and 120 kmh.

Bruce in WA
June 29, 2022 11:39 pm

Sancho

The BMW was just coming up to 95 000 km. Apparently, the DPF died which killed the turbos which destroyed the top end. It was cheaper for them to get a new short engine fitted than repair the old one. The new engine is tight as a drum and runs 0-100 km/h in just a bee’s dick over 5 seconds.

The Porsche had about 97 000 km when the IMS went out. There was also a problem with the top end/head leaking water into the cylinders (so I believe). The IMS was a known problem and subject to a class action lawsuit.

Disclaimer: I’m no mechanic and just repeating what was I told by the owner(s).

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 11:40 pm

Nice. Quartz or mechanical? Do you own a waist coat?

Full mechanical, and yes. 🙂

Though said waiscoat usually only tends to come out when I’m dressing up for a day hanging off the back of a train. If I am driving, it hides in my dustcoat pocket and I use it to check my section timings.

I still have my 8 year old and somewhat busted Casio Mudman (which just had first battery change since I first bought it about 3 months ago) for when I go railroading for money.

Rex Anger
Rex Anger
June 29, 2022 11:46 pm

I still have my 8 year old and somewhat busted Casio Mudman

I dun goofed. I just realised I bought that watch in 2008 or 09. It’s about 14 years old, and had the original battery in it up until around March this year.

The Japanese do damn good digital watches. Though I’m going to have to silicone up two of the bezel buttons if I want it to stay reasonably waterproof.

rosie
rosie
June 30, 2022 3:06 am
rosie
rosie
June 30, 2022 3:07 am

A quote from the article “Neurodivergent nonbinary trans pastor is made bishop. This individual then disciplines abusive latinxpastor. But this is unknowingly done on a Hispanic holiday and is thus racist. Woman archbishop rebukes bishop but isn’t harsh enough so is then also racist.”

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