Hopefully they’ve learnt something from the Campbell Newman experience.
Open Thread – Weekend 6 Aug 2022
- Open Thread – Anzac Day 2024
- Open Thread – Mon 22 April 2024
- Open Thread – Weekend 21 April 2024
- Open Thread – Thurs 18 April 2024
- Open Thread – Mon 15 April 2024
Eyrie April 26, 2024 3:22 pm It was revealed on Friday that Mr Miles is on track to be kicked out…
21 seat swing in QLD, eh? That will be10 to the Greens leaving a still decent mandate for the SFL…
Why won’t my hover cards work?
GR: I made a comment on this very subject several months ago. The women in the main didn’t moan about…
Sancho the pants shitter.
Kills himself because he was scared of either catching a cold or not being able to go in for a latte where the mamil hang out.
So thick as well.
Fine epitaph.
The TOY* was allegedly a gel blaster, which are illegal** in WA with big penalties
Chad Satchell was taken into custody and the TOY examined to see if it works***
* Its a toy
** Because the police are low rent mongs
*** It “works” to fire small water soaked sponges at people.
This fund just made 22pc buying water
Alternative agriculture manager Kilter Rural, backed by Regal Funds Management, has made a 22.28 per cent return on its water fund after prices for permanent water entitlements in south-eastern Australia surged to record highs.
Its straight play on water entitlements in the Murray-Darling Basin came in higher than its Murray-Darling Basin balanced water fund, an impact investment vehicle launched with the Nature Conservancy in 2015 to invest in permanent water entitlements and restore threatened wetlands.
Even so, the balanced fund delivered an impressive return of 17.47 per cent in the 12 months to June, even after making one of the largest private environmental water donations in Australian history.
After the devastating floods of the past year, the abundant supply of water across the Murray-Darling Basin has failed to stop a rally in prices for the “permanent” water entitlements that give owners a perennial right to extract a certain volume of water from the river system.
“In a wet period like this, you would expect the devaluation of the entitlement. But outside of that little glitch at the start [of the year], they have just continued to trend up,” Kilter Rural chief executive Cullen Gunn said.
“That’s driven by the market becoming more sophisticated with a more mature outlook about what’s going to happen.
“In the past, the market was quite short-sighted … they would say ‘it’s wet now, it’ll be wet forever’ and prices will come off a lot. That’s happened with [the price of] allocation in the spot water market at the moment. But the entitlements have trended up this whole year. That and the lease rates have helped our performance.”
He expects the market to stay strong. In the past 20 years, the periods of water shortage in the Murray-Darling Basin – the key driver of price – have become more common. At the same time, demand for further environmental releases, and for the irrigation of high-demand crops such as almonds, is expected to rise.
‘They just pay us rental’
Mr Gunn established Kilter in 2004 and now manages more than $500 million in assets, with more than 11,000 hectares of farmland and 100 gigalitres of water entitlement.
He likened its two water funds’ investment to a commercial property play.
The fund owns the water entitlements – water storage space – which the farmer or irrigator can fill with their allocations of water, depending on how much is available in the system.
“We lease that entitlement to an irrigator and then they get the full benefit of the allocations that the government delivers against that entitlement each year. And they just pay us a rental. So, actually, their risk profile is no different to if they owned that space in the dam.
“In a year like this they’ll get well over – or they’ll get their full allocation of water – because there’s heaps of real water around. But the really dry years, you know, can be less than 100 per cent,” he said.
Mr Gunn said water funds’ low to negative correlation to equity markets gave investors a genuine alternative strategy which benefited from rising demand for water to produce high-value food for growing populations, and potential scarcity due to Basin Plan reductions in allocations and climate change.
Including the northern Murray-Darling Basin – the Darling River and its tributaries – more than $1.8 billion worth of water allocations are traded, on average, every year.
The market is complex and controversial. Mr Gunn said that overall, it was reasonably well designed, but he acknowledged there were problems.
“I think it is a pretty good mechanism for dealing with scarcity rather than leaving it to the government to decide,” he said.
Stuart Kells, adjunct professor at La Trobe University and co-author of Sold Down the River, said that in general, high returns to traders – whether trading entitlements or allocations – were a sign of poor market design.
He said the market should be more transparent, and ownership of entitlements should be overhauled for returns to match the risk to create an even playing field for all market participants.
An outback community, carefully selected to show the locals that whitefella isn’t mucking around, any more…
And the high quality debate continues.
In my defence, I have never thrown my soiled trousers out of a truck window.
Or out of any aperture of any other form of conveyance, for that matter.
Today we celebrate the festival of Saint Mary of the Cross (MacKillop)
the first Australian to be canonised.
Have to share this little bit from a whine in the gruinaid…
The sheer sub-mong thinking of this caption defies belief.
Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 by Georgia O’Keeffe on display at the Fondation Beyeler in Switzerland. The most expensive painting by a woman ever, it fetched only a tenth of the price of Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci. Photograph: Georgios Kefalas/EPA
Look upon the pic, and despair..
Now look upon the shitty Salvator Mundi.
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Daily Mail.
Here lies notafan.
She was killed by SADS or mean words .
Or the Salmon Mousse
Definitely not the jab.
She told st Peter he was wrong and believes she isn’t dead and still holiday ing OS.
The Corruption of Medicine
Guardians of the profession discard merit in order to alter the demographics of their field.
Heather Mac Donald
The post–George Floyd racial reckoning has hit the field of medicine like an earthquake. Medical education, medical research, and standards of competence have been upended by two related hypotheses: that systemic racism is responsible both for racial disparities in the demographics of the medical profession and for racial disparities in health outcomes. Questioning those hypotheses is professionally suicidal. Vast sums of public and private research funding are being redirected from basic science to political projects aimed at dismantling white supremacy. The result will be declining quality of medical care and a curtailment of scientific progress.
Virtually every major medical organization—from the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) to the American Association of Pediatrics—has embraced the idea that medicine is an inequity-producing enterprise. The AMA’s 2021 Organizational Strategic Plan to Embed Racial Justice and Advance Health Equity is virtually indistinguishable from a black studies department’s mission statement. The plan’s anonymous authors seem aware of how radically its rhetoric differs from medicine’s traditional concerns. The preamble notes that “just as the general parlance of a business document varies from that of a physics document, so too is the case for an equity document.” (Such shaky command of usage and grammar characterizes the entire 86-page tome, making the preamble’s boast that “the field of equity has developed a parlance which conveys both [sic] authenticity, precision, and meaning” particularly ironic.)
Thus forewarned, the reader plunges into a thicket of social-justice maxims: physicians must “confront inequities and dismantle white supremacy, racism, and other forms of exclusion and structured oppression, as well as embed racial justice and advance equity within and across all aspects of health systems.” The country needs to pivot “from euphemisms to explicit conversations about power, racism, gender and class oppression, forms of discrimination and exclusion.” (The reader may puzzle over how much more “explicit” current “conversations” about racism can be.) We need to discard “America’s stronghold of false notions of hierarchy of value based on gender, skin color, religion, ability and country of origin, as well as other forms of privilege.”
According to medical and STEM leaders, to be white is to be per se racist; apologies and reparations for that offending trait are now de rigueur. In June 2020, Nature identified itself as one of the culpably “white institutions that is responsible for bias in research and scholarship.” In January 2021, the editor-in-chief of Health Affairs lamented that “our own staff and leadership are overwhelmingly white.” The AMA’s strategic plan blames “white male lawmakers” for America’s systemic racism.
And so medical schools and medical societies are discarding traditional standards of merit in order to alter the demographic characteristics of their profession. That demolition of standards rests on an a priori truth: that there is no academic skills gap between whites and Asians, on the one hand, and blacks and Hispanics, on the other. No proof is needed for this proposition; it is the starting point for any discussion of racial disparities in medical personnel. Therefore, any test or evaluation on which blacks and Hispanics score worse than whites and Asians is biased and should be eliminated.
According to the AAMC, newly minted doctors must display “knowledge of the intersectionality of a patient’s multiple identities and how each identity may present varied and multiple forms of oppression or privilege related to clinical decisions and practice.” Faculty are responsible for teaching how to engage with “systems of power, privilege, and oppression” in order to “disrupt oppressive practices.” Failure to comply with these requirements could put a medical school’s accreditation status at risk and lead to a school’s closure.
These candidates may all have been the most qualified, but the explicit calls for diversity in medical administration inevitably cast a pall on such selections. In at least one case, the runner-up possessed a research and leadership record that far surpassed that of the winning candidate. But he lacked the favored demographic characteristics.
The physician-scientist recommended the student to the dean of Northwestern’s medical school (where the scientist then worked), but the student did not get so much as an interview. In fact, this “white, clean-cut Catholic,” in the words of his former employer, was admitted to only one medical school.
Such stories are rife. A UCLA doctor says that the smartest undergraduates in the school’s science labs are saying: “Now that I see what is happening in medicine, I will do something else.”
The HHMI program and others like it amplify the message that doing basic science, if you are white or Asian, is not particularly valued by the STEM establishment. How many scientific breakthroughs will be forgone by such signals is incalculable.
And here we encounter a second a priori truth: health disparities are the product of systemic racism; any other explanation is taboo and will be ruthlessly punished.
Entire issues of scientific journals have been devoted to racism. Scientific American published a “special collector’s edition” on “The Science of Overcoming Racism” in summer 2021. The edition was dominated by paeans to the IAT, denunciations of the police, and scorn for any suggestion of patient self-efficacy. (Prescribing weight loss to black women, for example, is a “racist” way to fight obesity, wrote a sociology professor and a nutritionist.) A special issue of Science in October 2021 addressed “Criminal Injustice” and “Mass Incarceration.”
In May 2022, a physician-scientist lost her NIH funding for a drug trial because the trial population did not contain enough blacks. The drug under review was for a type of cancer that blacks rarely get. There were almost no black patients with that disease to enroll in the trial, therefore. Better, however, to foreclose development of a therapy that might help predominantly white cancer patients than to conduct a drug trial without black participants.
Higher rates of Covid fatalities among blacks is the latest favored proof of medical racism, amplified by a 2022 Oprah Winfrey and Smithsonian Channel documentary, The Color of Care. State and federal health authorities gave priority to minorities in vaccination and immunotherapy campaigns, however, and penalized the highest risk group—the elderly—simply because that group is disproportionately white.
Those are not the actions of white supremacists. The likelier reasons for disparities in Covid outcomes are vaccine hesitancy and obesity rates.
The scientific method is a natural corrective to such fatal errors. Now, tragically, when it comes to the contention that racism is the defining trait of the medical profession and the source of health disparities, opposing views have been ruled out of bounds and are grounds for being purged. The separation of politics and science is no longer seen as a source of empirical strength; it is instead a racist dodge that risks “reinforcing existing power structures,” according to the editor of Health Affairs.
The guardians of science have turned on science itself.
Two old guys sitting on a bench at the retirement home. The one asks the other:”How old are you?”
He answers: “How soon do you need to know?”
________________
Senior guy goes to the doctor who says: “Mr Finkelstein, I’m afraid you have Alzheimer’s.”
Finkelstein replies:”That’s nonsense! I don’t believe it. I want a second opinion!”
The doctor says:”OK. Come back tomorrow.”
_______________
Doctor says to his patient: “I’ve got bad news, and worse news. What do you want first?”
Patient: “Give me the worst news first.”
Doctor: “You’ve got Alzheimer’s “
Patient: “And what’s the bad news?”
Doctor: “You’ve got herpes.”
Patient thinks for a minute or two and says:
“That’s OK. It could have been worse. You could have said I have Alzheimer’s!”
As opposed to (actual quote):
Followed by (actual quote):
Just so we are clear St Ruth.
Are you saying doxxing is a little bit naughty but not worth getting too upset about?
Is that it?
Interesting that St Ruth thinks the release of private information of Supreme Court judges in the US, enabling Antifa nut-jobs to target them is no big deal.
Or is doxxing only OK when it targets people for the crime of taking the piss out of St Ruth?
IRS: Gestapo in the Making
The police powers of the 87,000 new taxmen.
Amid all this and much more, Biden’s handlers are tackling the real problem facing America today: they’re expanding the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to the extent that, according to the Washington Free Beacon, it will soon be larger “than the Pentagon, State Department, FBI, and Border Patrol combined.”
Yes, it’s true. The people who run Joe Biden looked around at their dumpster fire of an administration, and the smoking ruin they have wrought, and decided that what America really needs are tens of thousands of new employees for the IRS.
The increase would more than double the size of the IRS workforce, which currently has 78,661 full-time staffers, according to federal data.” The new money that the agency would receive “would increase the agency’s budget by more than 600 percent. In 2021, the IRS received $12.6 billion.”
It’s easy to see where all this is going. The new super-IRS will be as corrupt and politicized as the FBI already is, and would use its new staff and money to go after dissenters from the Leftist regime in Washington. The IRS is already one of the most hated and feared of all federal agencies, and one that was already politicized during Barack Obama’s first two terms, when the infamous Lois Lerner began persecuting conservative nonprofit organizations.
Back in the heady days of April 2017, then-House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady and then-Tax Policy Subcommittee Chairman Peter Roskam asked the Justice Department to reopen a probe into Lerner’s conduct. They wrote: “On April 9, 2014, the House Committee on Ways and Means voted to send a letter to the Department of Justice referring former IRS Exempt Organizations Division Director Lois G. Lerner for criminal prosecution. As indicated in the attached letter, the Committee’s nearly three-year investigation uncovered evidence of willful misconduct on the part of Ms. Lerner. Despite this fact, and for what many believe were purely partisan reasons, the prior Administration refused to review Ms. Lerner’s misconduct.”
Indeed. And that misconduct had to do with the politicization of the IRS: “In particular,” Brady and Roskam continued, “the Committee found that Ms. Lerner used her position to improperly influence IRS action against conservative organizations, denying these groups due process and protection rights under the law. The Committee also found she impeded official investigations by providing misleading statements in response to questions from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. Finally, Lerner risked exposing, and may have actually disclosed, confidential taxpayer information, in apparent violation of Internal Revenue Code section 6103 by using her personal email to conduct official business.”
Nothing was done, of course, and now Lois Lerner’s friends and colleagues are back in power. They’re poised now with their new funding to make her look like an impartial, absolutely honest, trustworthy public official. It’s clear that Biden’s handlers, having already turned the Justice Department into a tool of his agenda, now wants to corrupt the IRS in a similar way, and turn it against those who dare to resist the implementation of his socialist, green agenda.
Is there anyone among our elected officials in Washington who has the will to stop them in their ongoing efforts to corrupt the American system to its very core?
Gaborsays:
August 8, 2022 at 9:43 am
struth says:
August 8, 2022 at 9:14 am
Again, I don’t believe in doxxing but you have got to admit it’s amusing to see their carry on
Could you imagine their grandfathers hiding behind made up names?
Many Australians served under an alias, particularly in the First World War. One even was awarded a VC under his alias.
It’s not worth publicly shitting your pants over sancho of the skid mark.
Have some bloody pride in yourself man…..It’s dam embarrassing to think you could be AustralianI
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha says:
August 8, 2022 at 11:57 am
Push to ban EVERY Australian from buying petrol-powered cars in just 12 years – after the ACT moved to abolish them.
By about 2035 it will be very difficult to buy a new ICE vehicle due to far less production by manufacturers . Some will keep producing limited numbers of course, but those vehicles will generally be sold to ‘third world’ nations who couldn’t possibly consider change-over to EV. Those vehicles will be prohibited imports into Aust, the EU and the USA thereby strangling the manufacturer’s incentive to produce large numbers of ICEs.
As Australia is a ‘responsible nation’ who supports the change to net zero by 2050 (cough, splutter, gag), and who has already begun the process to legislate carbon dioxide reductions, Albo and Co will introduce legislation banning new ICE vehicles that mirrors the rest of the world. You can bet your socks on that.
Push to ban EVERY Australian from buying petrol-powered cars in just 12 years – after the ACT moved to abolish them
UK and EU have outlined plans to ban sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2035
ACT has made same move, phasing out sale of new fossil fuel-powered vehicles
Electric Vehicle Council wants all Australian states to adopt similar targets
No self interest there, none at all, no sirrreeee!
Hi all,
earlier in this thread, a few of you commented that trannies competing against real women will not change until a woman is seriously injured.
Wrong. it has happened already, and nobody in authority cared.
The real women will simply be told to “train harder”, or give up. The world belongs to trannies.
TrAiTorS and DeNiaLiSts!
But none as brave as Kenn Worth Road Ranger, who courageously defied the odds* to salute the cenotaph in Upper Bumfuck West at dawn on Anzac Day in 2020.
…
* The odds that the local Plod would:-
(a) be out of bed; and
(b) give a shit.
Tell us about your wayward son, St Ruth.
The one who got booster number 4 to travel.
Can we add him to the ever growing list of people who laugh off your dire warnings?
Boambee John says:
August 8, 2022 at 12:29 pm
No self interest there, none at all, no sirrreeee!
Absolutely. The EV Council represents the EV industry and its Board is comprised of reps from Volkswagen, Tesla, Evie Network, Jet Charge, Polestar, Volvo, NRMA etc. (you get the drift).
On their website, they say: The Electric Vehicle Council is the national body for the electric vehicle industry in Australia. By representing businesses involved in producing, powering and supporting EVs, we aim to accelerate the electrification of road transport for a more sustainable and prosperous Australia.
So, we can all expect to hear a lot more from them but even so, that doesn’t alter the inevitability of EVs.
Plastic drinking straws and plastic picnic plates are now banned in Western Australia, is this an Australia wide ruling? Just imagine your next summer barbeque, you’ll have your sausages, steak, potato salad and coleslaw on a soggy paper plate.
This marks the end of civilisation.
Hahahahahaha!
When the sun switches off the solar panels (Phys.org, 7 Aug)
My sides hurt…
Old blokevsays:
August 8, 2022 at 12:40 pm
Plastic drinking straws and plastic picnic plates are now banned in Western Australia…..
They were banned in Qld from 1/9/21. I believe other states have also introduced similar bans already.
Aussie doctor may lose medical licence over ‘anti-vax outburst’
As he was escorted out of the conference room, Dr Bay began to chant ‘One shot, two shots, three shots four, how many shots until you hit the floor?’.
James Lindsay explains why all the corporations are going woke to Gonzalo Lira in this round-table interview.
We will own nothing and rent everything, provided that your social credit score is sound. James says that you will rent everything including your underwear which an Amazon drone will deliver to your door.
When the Amazon drone brings my underpants I’ll be hoping that the previous renter washed them before returning them.
BJ earlier.
It never ceases to amaze.
If a conservative says anything in support of fossil fuels, the media will scour public records to find the merest hint of a connection to Big Oil/Gas/Nukes.
“Oh, yes, he would say that. His father once fixed a dripping tap at BP.”
But the proponents of wind/solar/EVs who are invested up to the neck in renewballs and stand to make super profits out of sweeping regulatory change like this?
Honest brokers, one and all.
Spotted this quote in a Facebook group, apparently from Aristophanes.
“Look at the orators in our republics; as long as they are poor, both state and people can only praise their uprightness; but once they are fattened on the public funds, they conceive a hatred for justice, plan intrigues against the people and attack the democracy.”
Pelosi sprang to mind, how many more fit the bill?
Good.
WA is a terrible place for a picnic.
Is Scott Morrison’s brother still running the doctor’s registration board?
Without straws what are the cocaine Cheloniidae going to use?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXXYfu9sz8Y
You vill eat ze flies and be happy.
Bruce of Newcastle says:
August 8, 2022 at 12:44 pm
Hahahahahaha!
When the sun switches off the solar panels (Phys.org, 7 Aug)
Grid operator N-Ergie, which is responsible for harvesting electricity from Husemann’s panels, admits the situation is less than ideal.
There were 257 days last year when it had to cut off supply from solar panels on parts of the grid.
But while it takes just a couple of years to commission a solar power plant, updating the necessary infrastructure takes between five and 10 years, he said.
“The number of interventions and the amount of curtailed energy have increased continuously in recent years” as a result, according to N-Ergie spokesman Michael Enderlein.
“The likelihood is that grid bottlenecks will actually increase in the coming years,” while resolving them will take several more years, Enderlein said.
According to Carsten Koenig, managing director of the German Solar Industry Association, the problem is not unique to solar power and also affects wind energy.
Some 6.1 terawatt hours of electricity from renewables had to be curtailed in 2020, according to the most recent figures available.
With an average consumption of around 2,500 kilowatt hours per year in a two-person household, this would have been enough to power around 2.4 million households.
“Honest brokers, one and all.”
I feel sure they would say they are putting their money where their mouth is.
Of course, in actuality, they are putting their mouth where their money is.
And should you point this out, I feel sure they would fail to see the difference – for them. For you and I though….
“Without straws what are the cocaine Cheloniidae going to use?”
Well, in the US at least, most actual bank notes have at least some trace of cocaine on them. Not sure how you go using your crypto wallet to do coke though…
Impossible without nuclear, indeed nuclear makes ICE a renewable option.
ICE vehicles powered by fuels synthetically derived, with the energy inputs from nuclear power, are a far more practical solution than banning non electric cars.
Black privilege does no one any favors
Decades ago, two high-achieving daughters of our friends got turned down for admission to medical school in Washington, D.C. because two minority applicants with far lower test scores were admitted to the school in their place. The girls were sad, angry, and disillusioned and without recourse. They had worked hard their entire young lives, being second-generation “white” Iranians with a superb work ethic passed on to them by their parents. The girls rose to the top of every challenge they encountered and were assured of entry into medical school by any decent standard of judgment. But they came up against an indecent standard of judgment; racism. The idea that hard work and achievement will get them there was shattered because less deserving applicants were given black privilege.
No serious person chooses the less qualified person over the best qualified person. That is a recipe for decline and mediocrity.
Blacks constitute 12.4% of the U.S. population but are overrepresented in TV and radio commercials. Black privilege can be seen on every TV drama series, such as Netflix’s series Bridgerton, where there is Black royalty rising to the upper echelons of society of the times, which never happened. Again, this is revisionist history in service to the systemic wokeness of our era.
White filmmakers and employers are bending over backwards to hire a more diverse staff. Pressure on employers to adopt unfair DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) practices is extremely high. The people doing the hiring are often making a conscious choice to choose black over white for reparations’ sake, out of fear of retaliation. It is often not voluntary. In too many cases, the sole criterion for hiring is skin color, not competence.
Black “anti-racism” (a deliberate Orwellization of the language) has created a culture where white people are malevolently passed over for jobs and enrollment, including in medical schools and hospitals.
But we need standards, not slogans.
St Ruth has suddenly gone quiet.
What say you, Fatso?
Is it OK if I publish your name and address, the name of your long suffering missus and the address of the parlour where she works, and the rego of your breadvan and boat?
FBI Director Christopher Wray is guiding the agency the wrong way, fast
By Miranda Devine
Christopher Wray’s disingenuous testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday, before he left early on the FBI’s private Gulfstream 550 jet, speaks volumes about the need to defund the FBI — or at least dump its unctuous director.
Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley and his team of Republicans expected to have the chance to ask a second round of questions.
Grassley pleaded for just an extra 21 minutes.
But Wray took an early mark, dismissing the committee’s constitutional obligation to ensure he answers questions under oath to ensure the FBI complies with the law and is accountable to the American people.
What was so urgent that he had to leave after just three and a half hours?
Was he taking a long weekend in the Adirondacks where his family has a summer home?
It’s worth examining the exchange with Grassley in detail.
Wray replied smoothly: “Senator, I had a flight that I’m supposed to be high-tailing it to outta here, and I had understood that we were going to be done at 1:30, so that’s how we ended up where we are.”
Grassley pointed out that the FBI director has a private jet at his disposal and can leave any time he likes.
“If it’s your business trip you’ve got your own plane. Can’t it wait a while?” he asked
Wray replied, “To be honest, I tried to make my break as fast I could to get right back out here.”
Grassley, “You took more than five minutes.”
Wray laughed and the silence that followed only emphasized the disrespect to all senators, but especially to Grassley, the president pro tempore emeritus of the Senate.
And every appearance a waste of time, that simply showcased that Wray is a master of evasion. On some of the most serious questions of national security and the politicization of the FBI, Wray had nothing to say. Like Mister Magoo, he sees nothing.
No answers
Unlike most things on Capitol Hill these days, the politicization and repeated failures of the FBI are a bipartisan concern.
Grassley, a courtly row-crop farmer from Butler County, Iowa, who has a shrewd Columbo-esque tendency to ask “just one more thing,” leaned forward: “I assume you’ve got other business.”
“Yeah,” said Wray.
And off he sauntered, minions in tow.
Grassley’s staff did not know where Wray was going after the hearing and FBI public affairs did not respond to an email Sunday by press time.
But the luxury FBI Gulfstream Wray uses was recorded on Flightradar24 making the one hour and 12 minute flight later that afternoon to bucolic Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks, which happens to be a favorite summer destination since his childhood, when he used to hike the High Peaks and fish for trout, according to the Adirondack Daily Enterprise.
Turbulence
Wray ensured his testimony was useless, but if he did cut short his testimony to go on vacation at a time when his agency is under fire from all sides, then that is an act of disrespect and insubordination which requires a firm rebuke, or what is the point of Senate oversight?
I notice Peter doesn’t post using his full real name either.
Video catches teens crash stolen Kia, take off running on highway
From the Comments
– I think this would be a wonderful opportunity to pause for a moment and give
thanks for the great contributions of the black community to our society.
Their peaceful and generous nature makes them ideal neighbors, lending
testimony to their exceptional family values and parenting skills unrivaled
by any other culture. Their child-rearing practices and skills mixed with their
unparalleled work ethic are second to none. Their rational and logical thought
toward circumstances coupled with their innate capability to de-escalate
situations are to be envied and coveted. Their commitment to academic excellence
enriches our schools and serves as an example to all who hope to achieve
prominence as a people. Real estate values are fueled by the mix of the
black communities in an area due to the caring and respectful nature of
these communities, which are an example of all they have achieved through their
enthusiasm for self-improvement, hard work, and self-reliance nature.
Without their industrious and creative drive, we would be poorer as a nation.
– For a minute there I thought they were three Cubs and mama bear taking the car for joy ride.
– They had difficult childhoods and failed driver education. But they know how to have a good time. That’s all that matters, right?
– It’s the 13% AGAIN!!
– There’s that ‘”common denominator ” AGAIN…..
“St Ruth has suddenly gone quiet.
…
“
Harsh, Sancho – very harsh.
Not surprising, nor even unwarranted mind – I make no comment on either – but still harsh.
Undoubtedly the result of being vaxxed the requisite 1984 times, right?
So not really your fault, as any good Christian would agree – hate the sin, not the sinner, right?
Such replies as are forthcoming will be, umm… illuminating, eh?
I find the lack of respect shown to struth and his measured and considered opinions disturbing.
But first, a musical break
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EnJEeHND_lQ
Backing vocals by the Bing-Bong! trio.
I must admit my new sporty* Beemer** has a few disconcerting Bing-Bong! habits.
Example.
I am backing out of my driveway, with steering neutral to avoid hitting the last remaining gatepost***, and it starts Bing-Bonging me.
Huh?
No traffic coming from my left.
The computer very cleverly (but not helpfully) sees traffic coming from the right and assumes I will continue reversing with steering neutral right out to the other side of the road.
Bing-Bong!
I can adjust the noise though, and even attach my own warning sound to each sensor.
I might use a CW McCall sound bite for that one.
…..
* May or may not be sporty.
** May or may not be a Beemer.
*** The other post knocked skew-whiff by the useless dick delivering brick pavers. Which means the pavers are now free.
Push to ban EVERY Australian from buying petrol-powered cars in just 12 years
Will go down proudly in Aussie history as one of the most idiotic “promises” ever.
Along with:
– no child will be living in poverty
– handing over land to aboriginals is not the thin edge of the wedge
– all women must be believed
– we can build a fast train between Sydney and Melbourne
– getting out of fixed wing aircraft carriers is OK
– all trannies are excellent
10 takes on a Rugby fiasco
By Monica Doumit -August 5, 2022 -The Catholic Weekly
There have been comments about the negative impact that this saga will be having on gay kids on the northern beaches. I’m sure that impact is real, but the cause of this was the Manly management, not these seven players. But it’s not just about the gay kids watching. There are many aspiring rugby league players from western Sydney and other parts of the state for whom a first grade contract would be life-changing for them and their families. In light of comments from Manly management saying that the ‘Pride’ jersey will return next year and NRL chief Peter V’landys suggesting that they will introduce a code-wide ‘Pride Round’ from 2023, these aspiring players will now be left wondering if they will be forced to choose between their beliefs and playing professional rugby league.
Let’s just think a minute about how this might work in Canberra. (Bear in mind that Canberra has gone fully renewable but hides behind the fact that it still imports much of its electricity from NSW and Qld which is generated by coal.) So now if you want a new ICE car in Canberra all you do is buy it interstate and register it to your other home which applies to most politicians and a high number of bureaucrats. Or are they going to have border checks so you can’t bring it back in? Perhaps they will ban the sale of petrol in the ACT. And how will they power the EV chargers-by importing more coal power of course. And the real workers in Canberra, you know, the house cleaners, the tradies, the bar and restaurant staff will be forced to buy expensive EVs? Can’t see any of that working either. Can you?
If the EU bans ICEs people may have to rethink driving US cars. Maybe Jeeps AREN’T that bad.
Jeep hasn’t made a decent vehicle since the CJ7
‘The problem with society today is that mentally ill people are trying to remake the world in their asylum’s image and have us all live there.’
(source of quote unknown)
Jeep hasn’t made a decent vehicle since the CJ7
Fact check: True.
And considering the amount of times its the “chip” that shits itself, and a global chip shortage, once it goes wrong its staying going wrong.
Bruce O’Newk:
Only having one barrel would mean projectiles following each other down the barrel.
I reckon the rate of fire would have to be cut back considerably for this reason, and the barrel would melt after the first couple of seconds anyway.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/aug/08/i-will-continue-killing-foreigners-soldier-who-shot-dead-unarmed-australians-treated-as-returning-hero-by-taliban
A pitch-perfect example of where we are as a nation. Did precisely nothing to ensure this bloke was executed when they had the chance, while spending tens of millions ensuring the heroes who tried to catch him go to jail.
Jeep CJ7 the preferred transport of the ghay crowd.
Lizzie:
The name does ring a bell for me, from the old site.
I was watching the to and fro at the time and thought “Birdstrike”.
It had that same demented tone about it.
Ah yes, reminds me of my favourite old time bumper sticker…. now how did it go…
ah yes …’SOLAR IS NUCLEAR’
‘The problem with society today is that mentally ill people are trying to remake the world in their asylum’s image and have us all live there.’
Im beginning to think sticking bitter twisted lesbians and blokes that were fond of gut tube steak in charge of telling everyone else how sex/sexuality should be done properly hasnt been all it was cracked up to be either.
Proof: Every major feminist of the 60’s was actually mentally ill. Some full blown florid, some just breakdowns before their epiphanies that cock was to blame for everything.
Wound up much?
Ouch hit a spot there
No good trying to be the geriatric class clown and then screaming like a widdle girl…..you give the game away
Stop pissing your pants ,girls .
Some of us have to work.
If I didn’t I’d be tearing you a new arsehole (pixelly speaking) sancho.
Count your blessings.
“The New Public Liturgy” – Carl Trueman
3,838 views Aug 6, 2022
First Things contributing editor Carl Trueman discusses the rise of a new public orthodoxy and its catastrophic results in this video essay.
We’re suffering a mental health pandemic. The amount of hysteria around is mind boggling. The hysterics are busy exporting their neuroses to everyone they can reach. And the perverts are desperately trying to spread and normalise their perversions.
It won’t work on me, my toxic masculinity is defending me. 🙂
Earlier:
The internet is forever. Even for preppers, and people working for The Man who was previously held responsible for all life’s ills, and who should be overthrown by The People.
An ‘arse-tearing’ from The Last Holdout.
Can’t wait.
When things occur naturally, and work naturally, they turn into ideas with natural names like “husband” and “pregnancy”.
When conceited people try to cram unnatural ideas into the natural world, they do it with decidedly unnatural words like “transgender” and “gay pride” and “men who have sex with men”.
I’m committed to head-on tackling these chimaera words, and the debauchery of perfectly reasonable words like “vaccine” and “isolation” and “voice”. Usually most of the arrogant sods who want to impose their will on a perfectly good society will crumble pretty quickly if their language games are cut off at the path. Then in my experience, when they realize their magic words don’t work, they’ll freely share the recipes for their totalitarian tendencies, and can often tick a box for the vices of Pride, Vanity, Lust, Avarice and Wrath in pretty short order too.
What BS, gay kids don’t watch NRL. They watch reruns of I love lucy.
There are no gay people in QLD.
Bob Katter said so.
Michael Smith does have a way with words.
If it was an Olympic Sport, Ray Hadley could Arsehole for Australia.
Ray Hadley 2GB storms off Brisbane Ekka broadcast due to technical ‘fiasco’ and returns to Sydney.
One hour into a week long stint and Hadley walks. A cranky old man.
I wonder if the kids of today would understand this old (spoken) joke:
At the party, everyone was feeling gay.
So gay went home.
Fraud attempt by telephone scammer today.
Caller: hello OSC this is Mahatma Coat ringing to help you fix your NBN problem at very low cost to you.
Me: What does NBN stand for?
Caller: click.
What does it mean to have a New Catallaxy Amazon Store box in the sidebar?
Does this mean a commission for New Catallaxy if we buy through that portal?
Lets hope, anyway you can get to my Amazon books there, including hot off the press a new climate and energy book from my friend and colleague Jeff Grimshaw and my wife’s book on the Chinese Cultural Revolution,
For the nation to ban petrol vehicles to be replaced with electric vehicles these dimwits should be forced every time they open their mouths to provide a disclaimer’Terms and Conditions apply No1 should be the cost to upgrade electrical infrastructure will be $xxx Billions which will go on the overdraft at x % . Interest payable annually will be $ x Billion or the equivalent of 5 x ABCs or 10 x Hospitals. ….’
Feel free to add your own Ts and Cs…
You are one confused unit KD.
There are people here who realise things change.
Socialism did sit me on my arse.
Complied with by many here.
which didn’t help
You’re embarrassing yourself like your girlfriend Sandra of the skid mark .
And everyone jumped for joy.
Bundy & Colas on special again.
Rafe, your snowy 2.0 would be worth putting into a PDF and sending to every elected official in Canberra.
99% might bin it, who knows.
Their responses would illuminating.
As in it would say more about them or their staff than anything about your work.
Mole – were you thinking of this story?
Woman banned from hosting lesbian-only event seeks High Court challenge (Sky News, 7 Aug)
I don’t think the qwerty lobby have quite thought this through: if a lesbian can have a lesbian-only venue then a Christian could have a Christian-only one as well. The squawking would be fun.
Old School,
What’s your generalized view of Stuth’s comments. You’ve been silent? Any insightful views?
No Liz, it’s not Bird, or should I say, it’s very unlikely to be Bird. I can’t say much more as I was told not to discuss it openly.
A state memorial will be held for former featherweight world champion Johnny Famechon.
Me: What does NBN stand for?
Caller: click.
Sandeep! Your crib notes are shit!!
Re telephone fraud, caller rang and said she was from the credit department of Visa and Mastercard.
No such thing says I.
Click goes the phone.
String them along as it’s really fun. The thing they hate the most is not a quick call and then a hang-up. The worst thing for them is to be wasting time. String them along if you have time and sound dumb.
By the way, some Cats may have caught up on the news that BHP has made a $8.4Bn bid for copper miner OZ Minerals.
It is self-evident that BHP has zeroed in on copper as a key component in the ‘future facing commodities’ strategy they prioritised since selling its oil and gas assets to Woodside.
Boxing Champ – Johnny Famechon
Box, that’s surprising as they co-own ) the biggest copper mine in the world in Chile and they also have the right to Olympic Dam, which I think also holds copper.
They have a majority in the Escondida mine in Chile.
String them along if you have time and sound dumb.
Serpentsa strung out a WhatsApp scammer for months while they tried to get his crypto account details. Was pretty amusing as he pretended to be some IT handicapped old dude.
Winston at 2:35.
Nice diversionary attempt.
But no cigar.
Yeah and in fact the proximity of OZ’s Carrapateena and Prominent Hill are complimentary to Olympic Dam and Oak Dam and separately Nickel West being able to utilise OZ’s West Musgrave concentrate.
(I used to work at OZ. FIFO to Prominent Hill – great site and loads of copper + decent amount of gold as well.)
A haiku for the times. Here’s another, and speaking of embarrassing:
I warned of the Death Camps
While on my fat arse
Where did my gas pipes go?
Happy to report that all my bottoms (actual and virtual) are working beautifully, with no sign of wear and tear.
Wally D
and can often tick a box for the vices of Pride, Vanity, Lust, Avarice and Wrath in pretty short order too.
The basic foundations of those Siamese twin evils, communism and fascism.
So we’re giving Warren Entch a pass then?
Local Oaf:
All of them?
What has the grate Oracle been opining about today? How he single handedly saved us from the dEath cAmp or how he braved the ANZAC Day service to fight on the beaches, we will never surrender. Woe is me, I had to sell my boat. I loved that boat. I’m such a hero. Can’t be selling much furniture. If you lot only listened to me we’d be all stuck on the couch. Ramble, hiccup, fart. Piss off.
Old School reckons he lost his voice and can’t talk due to Covid.
feelthebern says: August 8, 2022 at 3:14 pm
ftb, in the interest of accuracy & credit where it is due, I believe Mr. Katter was referring to his electorate & his electorate only.
AFAIK he did not take it upon himself to speak on behalf of the degenerates on the (ugh) Gold Coast [which technically, if not culturally or socially, is part of Qld – something that often comes as quite a surprise to some]
New Australians in the Gold Coast, Hey Drills?
on
If the EU bans ICEs people may have to rethink driving US cars.
Who gives rat’s about Euroweenie cars? Overpriced, unreliable pieces of crap. If you want cheap, reliable transport, buy Jap. Sure they won’t do 200kph down the Autobahn but this isn’t really much of a restriction in Australia.
I assume you are trying to set me up for a stoush.
However you may recall I have said I scroll past Struth.
My insight is therefore unavailable on this matter.
No stoush today, my muse has gone away
Cat Files stands forlorn, a symbol of the dawn
No stoush today, it seems a common sight
But lurkers passing by don’t know the reason why.
Isn’t Hatter’s nephew gay?
Fuck he must laugh at how him and his old man have played the rednecks in that electorate for fifty-odd years.
Knock it off Sanchez. Hatter’s a reary nice boke. Armadillo said so.
Is it true that JC’s Hot Line is no longer available to the general public since JC now takes up all incoming lines with his own problems?
C’mon you playful old tiger. Throw those metaphorical lefts, right, and uppercuts. You know you want to.
P:
They’ll probably get picked up by the Europeans, which would be a hoot.
Did he?
I thought he said Bananaby puts on shit lunch.
Mem:
You can’t talk to these idiots, the only thing they will be able to hear is the sound of their own self referential praise.
The howling of the mob with pitchforks and torches may twig them to the idea something is wrong.
Old School reckons he lost his voice and can’t talk due to Covid.
The new Titus covid variant.
How dare you talk about my sporty Beemer like that!
Doc Beaugan:
Me too! (Deep resounding masculine voice.)
Roger at 4:48.
You’ve been reading the same reviews Mrs Panzer has!
OK, she has come at it from a point of bias, but there sure is a rich vein of 0-1 star reviews.
She read a couple out last night.
What is equally funny is the planted 5-star reviews, so obviously written by management.
In a sea of sewerage, you suddenly find a batch of excessively effusive positive reviews.
All written about the same time and all talking up how great the hotel manager/desk clerk/waiter was (depending on who wrote it I guess).
At least, thanks for the reply, Old School. Just as I thought.
Hahahahahahhaha
For anyone thinking of doxxing me.
Here i am suckers.
Dont dox people , just dont.
Its low energy.
Like pocket turtles low energy.
DrBeauGansays:
August 8, 2022 at 3:06 pm
‘The problem with society today is that mentally ill people are trying to remake the world in their asylum’s image and have us all live there.’
It won’t work on me, my toxic masculinity is defending me. ?
Reckon I am one of the last MCP’s according to today’s definition by Feminists
– Open doors for Ladies – step back and let Women/Girls enter the lift first – stand and give my seat on bus/train to Female – Offer to carry bags – Go out of my way to see Girlfriends/Females to the door – Enjoy Female’s company and admire their Beauty and knowledge re family and the Worlds, etc
When my current employer or potential future employers ask why I want to change jobs, I’m going to tell them because of lack of IT support.
Two days and they can’t fix a login issue. I’m supposed to be driving to Mums to look after her because she is having cataract surgery tomorrow. I’m looking at having to take leave I can’t afford to help my own mother because I’m a contractor.
Now They Want More: LA Times Urges Biden to Declare a ‘Climate Emergency’
You’d think that Leftists, Democrats, and the global warming crowd would be celebrating the Senate passage of the ludicrously named “Inflation Reduction Act,” which as we’ve discussed at RedState will probably increase inflation and will fund 87,000 new IRS agents just to hassle you.
But instead of celebrating, some are calling for more, more, more. The once-great Los Angeles Times is urging President Joe Biden to declare a climate emergency and use executive powers and regulatory shenanigans to shift away from fossil fuels. Predictably, they don’t say, switch to what exactly.
Note that we are already under a monkeypox health emergency as well as an endless COVID emergency.
Almost makes you scared to get out of bed in the morning.
As Bono sings in U2’s classic, With or Without You, “you give it all, but I want more.” The LA Times editorial board agrees, writing in a Friday opinion piece:
With congressional action now looking more likely [the Inflation Reduction Act], will Biden’s promise to confront the climate crisis with presidential proclamations, executive orders and regulatory power go unfulfilled?…
Very interesting.
Bob Gorrell – Monday, August 8, 2022 on Joe Biden and Covid
Just channel surfed my way to Skah & Chris Kenny.
They had the mayor of Alice Springs on.
I might have misheard but he said they had data showing booze sales were up 300% since the booze ban ended.
Bash her over the head.
OSC, I’m sorry to hear one of our imported Indian trash tried to scam you on the phone, but thrilled you remembered the name former Australian Test batsman Greg Richie used in his parody of subcontinental cricketers (Mahatma Coat) before the purge of Australian TV began 20 years that saw his character banned by commercial TV executives (and lefty activists) determined to kill Australian comedy and the work of everyone in the comedy business with talent from Barry Humphries down.
Now, all that is left of Mahatma Coat are a few short clips on YouTube. RIP Australian TV comedy.
Sly groggers must be weeping into their vast stockpile of fruity lexia.
It may get off the ground, what an amazing city though in Saudi.
The line.
https://twitter.com/naval?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Coming to Victoria soon
Va. Ratepayers to Front Costs for $9.8B Offshore Wind Farm
The State Corporation Commission (SCC), which regulates public utilities, recently approved a new Dominion Energy-backed $9.8 billion offshore wind farm, the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project (CVOW), 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach.
Unsurprisingly, Virginia ratepayers will pay more to “transition” away from fossil fuels as stipulated by the 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act—Virginia’s “Green New Deal” signed into law by former Governor Ralph Northam (D-VA). Governor Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) has pledged to repeal the VCEA but can’t unless Republicans retake the State Senate next year.
The project’s supporters claim the 176 planned wind turbines will each produce “14.7 megawatts” to power upwards of 660,000 homes.
But there are major problems befalling the project.
Most notably, the CVOW contains a “revenue requirement of $78.702 million for the rate year of September 1, 2022, to August 31, 2023, to be recovered through a new rate adjustment clause (Rider OSW).” The Rider OSW, the SCC noted, will have a base monthly bill increase of $4.72 but a peak monthly bill increase of $14.22.
Isn’t clean energy like wind supposed to help lower costs? It doesn’t here. Talk about unreliability.
This year alone, many Virginians will pay a solar tariff amounting to $20 in additional electricity costs. This is compounded by Dominion Energy’s request to charge its five million Virginia customers seven percent more across three years to reportedly combat inflation. Another estimate, however, points to the electric utility potentially raising fees by 12 to 20%.
Given this, the CVOW isn’t a cost-savings measure.
As electricity prices continue to soar, how would this expensive project be a remedy to include in the Commonwealth’s power grid? It isn’t.
Virginia already has two offshore wind turbines that cost $300 million. Has wind’s inclusion been reflected in the power grid? Has it led to our energy bills decreasing? Hardly.
Per the Energy Information Administration (EIA), Virginia’s was predominantly powered by natural gas (61%) followed by nuclear (29%), biomass (6%) and coal (4%). No mention or listing of solar and wind.
Obviously, natural gas and nuclear are still king in Virginia. Why discourage their use in favor of unreliable solar and wind?
The CVOW’s costs and limited electricity generation aren’t the only red flags. The project’s potential negative environmental impact has yet to be seriously discussed and considered.
Here’s an inconvenient truth: offshore wind farms (OWFs) greatly interfere with fish migration patterns.
Oceanography, a magazine of the Oceanography Society, noted OWFs may act as artificial reefs but boast many ecological consequences like turning some OWFs into “no-go areas”— thereby making them “no-take zones.” The magazine also notes there could be adverse effects to “sensory environment related to sound, as well as electromagnetic fields and physical alterations of current and wind wakes, may have as yet unknown impacts on fisheries resources.”
Taiwan, Thucydides, and U.S.-China War
If the best the current U.S. and Chinese governments can manage is statecraft as usual—which is what we’ve seen this past week—then we should expect history as usual.
The fastest track to bloody war between China and the United States runs through Taiwan. If the current crisis provoked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s untimely trip and China’s robust military response leads to a collision between Chinese and American naval vessels or aircraft, even an “accident” could provide the spark that ignites a great fire. In June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was advised not to go to Sarajevo—as Speaker Pelosi was by the Pentagon before her visit. But no one imagined that during his visit he would be assassinated, providing the spark that ignited a conflagration so devastating that historians had to create an entirely new category: World War.
Fortunately, the American and Chinese governments know that a hot war would be a disaster for both. No serious person in either government wants war. Unfortunately, history offers many examples in which rivals whose leaders did not want war nonetheless found themselves forced to make fateful choices between accepting what they judged an unacceptable loss, on the one hand, and taking a step that increased the risks of war on the other. The classic case is World War I. After a terrorist with shady ties to the government of Serbia had assassinated his successor, the Emperor of Austria-Hungary judged that he had to forcefully punish Serbia. Since Austria was its single ally, Germany felt it had no option but to give it full backing. Russia felt obliged to support its Orthodox Christian brothers in Serbia. One step led to another in a vicious cycle of actions and reactions that had all of Europe at war within five weeks.
On the larger canvas of history, when a rapidly rising power seriously threatens to displace a major ruling power, the rivalry most often ends in war. The past 500 years have seen sixteen cases of such Thucydidean rivalries. Twelve resulted in war. In each case, the proximate causes of war included accidents, unforced errors, and unintended consequences of unavoidable choices in which one of the protagonists accepted increased risks hoping that another would back down. But beneath these were underlying structural drivers that Thucydides highlighted in explaining how the two leading city-states of classical Greece destroyed each other in the Peloponnesian War. As he wrote: “It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.”
Today, the United States and China are engaged in the GOAT rivalry—the greatest rivalry of all time. In this struggle, is war over Taiwan inevitable? The historical record suggests war is more likely than not. But as the past five decades show, it ain’t necessarily so. Fifty years ago in 1972, when Nixon and Kissinger opened relations with China, the differences between the United States and China over Taiwan were certainly irreconcilable. But statesmen demonstrated that irreconcilable did not mean unmanageable. They created a framework of strategic ambiguity that has provided five decades in which citizens on both sides of the straits have seen greater increases in their incomes, health, and well-being than in any equivalent period in their long histories.
The brute facts about the face-off between China and the United States over Taiwan today are three.
First, not just Xi Jinping but the entire Chinese leadership and nation are unambiguously committed to preventing Taiwan from becoming an independent state. If forced to choose between accepting an independent Taiwan and a war that destroys Taiwan and much of China, Xi and his team will choose war.
Second, what Winston Churchill called the “deadly currents” in domestic politics are now running rife in both the United States and China.
Third, while most American politicians have yet to recognize it, the military balance in the Taiwan Strait has been transformed in the quarter century since the last Taiwan crisis.
Their ABCcess had some sort of confrence thing on this arvo.
Some dried up old fart and a spiv orally satisfying themselves to the approval of what rounded like Red Kezza edging them on.
Used “build back better” a few times.
Covid gives us a chance to start again and build back better just like they did in the US after 9/11, Acha after the tidal wave etc…
Big government is glorious and gives us everything.
No one wants a small government.
Covid lockdowns has been an awesome dry run for a carbon constrained world.
It was like listening in on Dr Evils lair..
If the current crisis provoked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s untimely trip and China’s robust military response leads to a collision between Chinese and American naval vessels or aircraft, even an “accident” could provide the spark that ignites a great fire.
China’s Military Exercises Showcase Modern Fighting Force Preparing for Possible War in the Taiwan Strait
Exercises kicked off as an angry Beijing protested the visit to Taipei earlier last week by Nancy Pelosi
Four days of exercises around Taiwan offered a rare glimpse into China’s progress toward its goal of prevailing in any major conflict, including against the U.S. in a potential war over the island.
What the drills demonstrated, military analysts said, is the progress China has made coordinating different branches of its armed services, a hallmark of a modern military. China appeared to lack the military assets to impose a total blockade on Taiwan, they said, but Beijing showed it had enough maritime firepower to severely disrupt the island’s economy.
The exercises were seen as a particular success for the People’s Liberation Army Eastern Theater Command, the main regional command responsible for Taiwan that was created in a military reorganization in 2016 to improve the ability to conduct joint operations, according to M. Taylor Fravel, a specialist on the Chinese military at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also noted that the drills were one of the few times China has provided so much detail about an exercise.
“The ability to conduct joint operations around Taiwan has been a driver of China’s military strategy and force modernization for more than two decades,” Mr. Fravel said. “We should not be surprised by what the PLA is doing, how it is doing it or what it has accomplished.”
The last time China fought a war was a failed attempt in 1979 to defeat Vietnam in a three-week border clash. While this wasn’t a conflict situation, the exercises served as a large-scale dress-rehearsal for any combat operations in the Taiwan Strait, one of the most dangerous flashpoints of the 21st century.
The drills also reaffirmed before the eyes of the world President Xi Jinping’s intent to turn a sprawling military industrial complex into a cohesive fighting force that, one day, might dominate the Asia Pacific.
China’s exercises featured fighter and bomber sorties, along with naval maneuvers, and they showcased what is believed to have been the first time China has launched missiles over the Island of Taiwan. The People’s Liberation Army said Sunday it had conducted joint training in waters and airspace near the island to test its capacity for striking ground targets and engaging in long-range aerial combat.
The exercises kicked off as an angry Chinese government protested the visit to Taipei earlier last week by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The exercises started at noon on Thursday in six zones that effectively encircle Taiwan. Several of the zones face the island’s biggest commercial ports and overlap with what Taipei claims as its territorial waters, coming within 12 miles of its coastline in what some military analysts have compared with a temporary blockade.
All the main services took part in the exercises, according to Chinese press reports, including the army, navy, air force, the rocket force and support and logistical forces.
The U.S. is Taiwan’s longstanding security partner and is obliged by law to make sure Taiwan can defend itself. For decades, the U.S. has maintained a policy of strategic ambiguity not saying whether it would directly intervene in a conflict. Though the White House says that policy hasn’t changed, President Biden has said the U.S. would defend Taiwan if China tried to invade. For its part, Beijing viewed Mrs. Pelosi’s visit as a another sign of the U.S. backtracking on previous commitments to limit ties with the island.
Since the end of last week, PLA officials haven’t returned calls from their Pentagon counterparts, the Pentagon said.
“The PRC has chosen to overreact and use the Speaker’s visit as a pretext to increase provocative military activity in and around the Taiwan Strait,” Todd Breasseale, acting Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement. “Part of this overreaction has been strictly limiting its defense engagements when any responsible state would recognize that we need them now the most.”
U.S. defense officials said it would be weeks before they will finish analyzing all the information they learned watching China’s exercises, particularly how its navy maneuvers and commands its ships while conducting a joint operation with its air force.
n addition to surveying by air, the U.S. kept an aircraft carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, and its accompanying ships in the region throughout the exercises.
A Beijing-backed group, South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative, said on its Twitter account that the U.S. deployed surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft to the area, including RC-135s, P-8s and E-3s, with KC-135 tankers on hand for midair refueling. The Pentagon declined to comment.
Military analysts say that while China deployed some of its latest weapons for the exercises there appeared to be no military hardware that wasn’t already known about. And some said China didn’t use enough ships to show they could impede ship traffic from reaching Taiwan.
Instead, it used ships like destroyers and cruisers during its exercise, which aren’t ideal for conducting a blockade, naval observers said. Even though they exercised with as many as 50 ships, the Chinese navy didn’t use enough smaller, more agile ships, like frigates, that could better sustain something like a blockade around Taiwan, said Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.
They’d bring down a world of pain on themselves.
Elliot won’t be contesting for the NSW deputy position, so it looks like Matt Kean gets the gong.
Upshot – after the election the Libs will be in opposition for the foreseeable. Australia is hurtling towards wall-to-wall socialism and Gaia worship.
Like the proverbial drunk, sometimes you need to hit rock bottom before a turn sets in.
I’m not going to a pub with you RD.
JC tells me you’re Titus a fishes arsehole.
Liz:
“Can’t say too much, loose lips sink ships, you know.”
Sounds like my house.
Mind the python.
With a nulla nulla for the true indigenous experience.
*runs away*
That snowy white bouffant, plump lips and white Akubra; fiercely heterosexual for sure.
Sancho Panzer:
Are you suggesting I’m Calcalyx?
Typical Labor.
FEARS OF REGIONAL DOCTOR EXODUS FOLLOWING NEW LABOUR RULE (Ncl local news, 8 Aug)
The ALP hates country people and lurves immigrants. Who want to live with their countrymen in the big cities. Hence this quiet decision which I haven’t seen reported anywhere else.
In a Coffs resort with beautiful high-floor views over ocean and a beach. Think I might trundle out my laptop and check the Cat while Hairy goes to the gym. Awwwk. No laptop in the room and Hairy says it was not left in the car when he dropped everything off at reception before parking. I race down to reception and find it handed it from where I left it on the sofas there. Glory be! There is no luggage porter and we had a lot of stuff, so I was laden with small bags while Hairy took up the big ones.
Easily done, I say in my defense, to overlook a dark puter bag on a darkish sofa while playing at being a beast of burden. So glad people are honest. They didn’t even steal the print-out of my working chapter on Gildas with handwritten changes that I had in there and none of it backed-up.
A treasure missed by the honest, I say to Hairy, who can only but agree. 🙂
Fiercely heterosexual.
To their credit, ABC local radio in my neck of the woods was on to it last week, Bruce.
Notice how anyone in a position of power who was decent or half decent has been removed over the last decade-
Pope Benedict
Tony Abbott
Stephen Harper (removed by the Tides foundation I suspect)
Matteo Salvini
Donald Trump
GPs trained overseas were once required to spend time in the bush if they wanted to live in Australia – but that rule, is no more – after it was scrapped, this week, by the Albanese Government.
They still have the medicare provider number to hang over them.
Never underestimate how a doc will abase themselves for that little taxpayer teat.
John H
There was some story about Sloan Kettering (I think) using a new medication on pancreatic cancer sufferers and getting a 100% cure rate. Did you read about this. It was a very small study though – about 18 people- and I think all were cured. Heck!
This is where we are in the mongocracy of Austfailure.
Wage rises are to be based on vaginal overrepresentation rather than value added.
aged care wage rises would help narrow gender pay gap, Labor says
Victor Orban next?
There’s concern tonight country doctors will leave rural cities in droves.
Given the job doctors have done over the last two years….
So much for protecting the children.
80-Year-Old Woman Banned From Community Pool For Complaining About Cross-Dressing Man Watching Little Girls Undress In Locker Room
The chosen ones. We’re so privileged.
Tip:
If you are roughed up by a constable in an anti vax protest claim you are Aboriginal to get any action at all.
Police in Victoria to implement recommendations regarding complaints made by First Nations persons
Victoria police will implement all the recommendations of an anti-corruption report into its handling of complaints made by Aboriginal people.
The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (Ibac) made 10 recommendations, including that the force take urgent action to ensure that the Aboriginal status of complainants and people involved in serious incidents was accurately recorded and that it establish a dedicated process for handling complaints made by Aboriginal people.
On Monday, Ibac said in a statement that it welcomed the police’s commitment to implementing the recommendations to address “concerning patterns and deficiencies” exposed in the report.
The statement said:
These recommendations are important because ensuring such complaints and serious incidents are investigated thoroughly and fairly is one way to help build Aboriginal people’s confidence and trust in Victoria police.
The police oversight model in Victoria is currently under review. The state government announced the review two years after they were due to respond to a damning parliamentary committee report on police complaints.
Roger – I don’t go anywhere near the ABC. Venomous snakes and crocodiles are nicer.
GET IN THE KERO BATH BOOMERS!!!
It was good enough for your parents, its good enough for you.
Health Services Union welcomes government submission on aged care wages
Leading voices in the aged care sector have backed the federal government’s submission calling for a wage increase for workers, with one major union claiming the workforce has been “exploited” for some time.
Unions have called for a 25% pay bump. The employment minister, Tony Burke, and the aged care minister, Anika Wells, didn’t put a specific number on the government’s submission, but the document argues workers have been “significantly” underpaid and said a payrise would help address Australia’s gender pay gap.
The Health Services Union has welcomed the submission, while noting they still want the 25% increase.
HSU president Gerard Hayes:
After a decade of neglect the new government’s recognition of the aged care workforce is a shot in the arm. For too long Australia has allowed a mostly female, insecurely employed workforce to be exploited and overworked.
We strongly commend Anika Wells and the Labor government for recognising this historic injustice.
Fair point; but they’re still necessary, and urban dwellers wouldn’t tolerate a 3-4 week wait for a routine appointment.
Roger – I don’t go anywhere near the ABC. Venomous snakes and crocodiles are nicer.
nor do I- I’d rather a dog turd on my lounge room floor
The WA Lieborals did a pretty good job of that. Sneakers is Emperor for as long as he likes. And if the Chinese don’t fuck things up he can’t even run out of money.
I drove some of the way down here from Brissie, and had to keep up with Hairy’s cracking pace. He sets the cruise control on 115 and wings it down the freeway passing with ease trucks doing 110. I haven’t trusted myself to cruise control yet on the sporty Beemer, and overtaking one road train I saw the hologram in front of me go to 129. Surely it didn’t mean that? As we were in an average speed check zone I started doing the maths on the five minutes it had taken us to change drivers. Lifted the lead foot off and plugged in the new number. Figured I was coming out ok still.
Such a speedy little Cherman ICE car, sunroof open, in control, and not a care in the world.
I am probably one of the last little old ladies to be ever be granted that driving pleasure.
My grand-daughters will grow old in a very different world.
The bitter and twisted that must make shit up because admitting to being a fuckstick is too hard .. .we give you the grey ranga who has adopted the old stable practice of KD and others who just have SOL and dream up crap and repeat it, hoping like typical lefties, some of the mud sticks
Pathetic.
But the question is why mostly Victorians?
I think I know the answer
We all do.
The dummy spit of the parochial
but Beijing showed it had enough maritime firepower to severely disrupt the island’s economy.
I don’t think a chip blockade is going to be easy to implement. Would be hard to think of a more readily shipped commodity. The Taiwanese industry easily blockaded is their machinetool industry, and I doubt they would be allowed to ship anything anyway.
“Upshot – after the election the Libs will be in opposition for the foreseeable. Australia is hurtling towards wall-to-wall socialism and Gaia worship.”
Which the Liberal Party, federally and in every state over the last two decades, has done nothing to abate and in fact have themselves spruiked and indulged in. I had some hope for Perrottet, I know, I know, I must be naive, but he’s proven to be useless, a puppet of scum like Kean and Photios. The Liberals are gone next March, and Labor under Premier Chris Minns will be in power. Minns is okay, he can’t be any worse. Quite frankly, in terms of policy, we won’t notice the difference.
They do in Britain under the NHS, and it’s often urban dwellers wouldn’t tolerate a 3-4 week wait for a routine appointment and it’s often only a telephone call then anyway. A month in the UK was instructive on how to boil a frog slowly, in so many ways. People will put up with a lot if they are religously thinking they are saving the planet.
Speaking of injustice and the aged care sector in the same breath…
The ABS has noted the statistically significant jump in non-covid deaths in the first quarter of 2022.
While they wouldn’t speculate on the underlying causes, a geriatrician has hinted at one possible reason:
“I do a lot of work in hospitals and I would see a lot of [nursing home residents] who would come in and they’ve had a fall, but in the background of that fall they lost a really significant amount of weight,” [ Dr Kate Gregorevic] said.
Sorry about the failed insert line there. Computer is unhappy.
Suffering from abandonment syndrome.
I keep tabs on them for the greater good.
The local radio folk are actually not that bad.
Cassie – with the exception of Chairman Dan you are right. Sneakers is doing a better job than Emperor Barney, no doubt keen to avoid another WA Inc.
Still not forgotten or forgiven.
https://www.sen.com.au/news/2022/08/08/north-melbourne-champions-carey-and-stevens-involved-in-altercation/
And she just waltzes on playing the victim.
https://www.news.com.au/sport/sports-life/woman-at-centre-of-infamous-afl-cheating-affair-unrecognisable/news-story/c92378b4e9af6ca688a078c7d66a695e
If you come across any cassowaries, you can go and pat them. They are a very friendly and harmless birds and they just love human contact.
It’s certainly a medium term aim. China announced a couple weeks ago they’re making 7nm chips now, which only Taiwan and S Korea hitherto have been doing in quantity.
Haven’t seen it JC. There was a recent trial at SK for pancreatic cancer with very good results using mRNA tech as part of the approach.
All the people here have declared they no longer trust the medical profession – good luck with that. Ya nuts. Modern medicine is going ahead heaps and bounds so the less using it the better for me.
If I were a betting man I’d like to see some odds on that.
The dominant faction in the federal government, Elbow’s socialist left, still loves the idea of the great replacement – the idea that you can simply import an electorate that will keep in power forever by bribing the new voters with luxurious welfare benefits.
Unfortunately, the socialist master planners always misunderstand the free market so badly they kill the economy and lower living standards into the toilet – at which point the ruling class decides the only solution is to kill the free market altogether and replace it with a government system in which everything costs two to three times more to produce because it’s run by public servants forbidden by ideology from running anything competitively and viola! Eastern Europe/Soviet Union all over again.
QED. Elbow’s Australia 2023.
Your words, big boy. Your exact words.
Outstanding. Let’s go another round of ‘we Quenthlanders* would never put up with this, except we did so shut up.’
*Not all from Quenthland.
John H at 5:51.
Part of me wants her to go and see the myths busted.
Another part knows that if it is sub-par, we will never hear the end of it.
Plus she is prone to give in to (ahem) a “holiday romance”.
Hotter than a pistol but a little too free and easy for her own good.
Who knows what sort of deadbeat loser she might drag back from a place like that.
Most football WAGs are not worth taking a punch for. Although who could pass up the opportunity to give Carey a punch in the head? Take it to Tasmania.
Ewww. Haggard skank.
Err, no.
But you are barking up the wrong tree.
Quite frankly, in terms of policy, we won’t notice the difference.
this is the thing- we have moved from a political class antagonistic towards demos since the 70s to one that is actually at war with us. From soft totalitarianism (not that soft if you ask Pauline) to full on repression. Like I said, Gladishockilian was the dick-tator in a dress.
Oh please let this be a ‘I found my soulmate on holiday and then he gave me the arse’ thing, as set out in that brilliant article someone (perhaps Dot) linked to a couple of months ago.
That was some funny stuff.
JC at 6:22.
I think that pancreatic cancer treatment was aimed at a specific variant of pancreatic cancer.
Good news, nonetheless.
Indolent:
It was as predictable as sunrise.
It’s certainly a medium term aim. China announced a couple weeks ago they’re making 7nm chips now
I wonder what their yield is(% of ones that actually work)? Can you buy them?
Daily Mail. All right, what are you mob up to, in Feraldton?
The Frolicking Moll:
I’m an Albino Aborigine!
It seems like there is a type that goes in for instagram past the age of 30.
Real Mark Latham
@RealMarkLatham
·
Aug 7
Perrottet saying the Liberals shouldn’t be ‘Labor-Lite’.
Bit late:
100% renewables
Net Zero
$10 billion on green energy programs
$182 billion in gross debt
Sexual consent + coercive control laws
Gender fluidity taught in schools
Falling school academic results
Etc etc
The lieboral pardy is hard left.
Bruce O’Newk:
There’s a lot of corruption rooting out in the background of that, Bruce. There was a good video here a couple of days ago about the six major players.
“The Commission for Discipline, Inspection and Investigation”.
*snork*
Grace Tame whinges about Albo government already….
Why are we meant to interested in what that foul creature thinks?
Data collected! CCP’s live-fire drills reveal the plan of how to take Taiwan by force/Pelosi -Taiwan
China Insights
239K subscribers
Most likely, to comfort this group of emotionally devastated Pinks, the CCP announced live-fire military exercises in six areas around Taiwan from noon on August 4 to noon on August 7. Why say so? See, the timing is to avoid Pelosi’s stay in Taiwan. If she hadn’t left Taiwan, with military drills of such a scale, it might have endangered her plane which might lead to big problems.
Regarding the CCP’s three-day live-fire military exercise around Taiwan, Hong Kong veteran media personality Yang Jinlin tweeted, “What’s the difference between one day and three days?” A netizen replied, ” Just play a little longer, and have all the data collected by the U.S. military.”
Sneakers is doing a better job than Emperor Barney, no doubt keen to avoid another WA Inc.
Sneakers has 80cents in the dollar GST vs about 30cents from barney.
Its why you eastern Staters have that new glittering constellation in the western horizon from Sneakers Rhinestone rotating codpiece.
…..
All right, what are you mob up to, in Feraldton?
Ill have to ask the fingernail rellies if they have any trouble.
Given 99.9% of the customers are female id guess no.
Maybe the actual knocker shops/private ladies are a little too discreet? Customers cant find them?
Even that brave 80 y-o woman standing up against trans totalitarianism has fallen into their lexicographical trap.
Instead of demanding that trans people use their own change rooms, she assumes she and other normal people are the ones who have to go elsewhere.
“The Y has not provided any dressing shower room options for women who do not want to be exposed to men who identify as women.”
I repeat: what the fuck was Sir Robert Menzies thinking when he named his creation the Liberal Party of Australia after World War II?
It has produced the Marxist disaster which he had presumably hoped to avoid.
Matt Kean is a communist and Dominic Perrotet is, at best, an anti-free market communist sympathiser.
Yes they did.
I’ll now fix her statement for her:
“The Y has not taken steps to boot out & prevent entry of weirdo males to women-only dressing/shower rooms“
Albo must transition into albinella
I just caught the end of Bolt interviewing Warren Mundine. At least there are a few indigenous voices of sanity concerning that particular voice. Mundine and Price are paying a heavy price for their stand. Compared to them Stan Grant is a spineless whimpering git.
It’s very frustrating to witness such outrageous distortions and lies dominating the public debate.
This is what I find both weird and encouraging: I don’t know anyone who speaks in support of that voice. I hoping, probably in vain, that the referendum will fail. We will need to fight hard on this issue.
I repeat: what the fuck was Sir Robert Menzies thinking when he named his creation the Liberal Party of Australia after World War II?
Should have stuck with UAP.