2,428 thoughts on “Open Thread – Tues 9 Aug 2022”

  1. Coal ditched from role in making energy grid reliable

    Prospects of a longer-term role for coal-fired power have been eliminated, after energy ministers vowed to redesign electricity market changes aimed at guaranteeing enough reliable power as the grid moves to renewables.

    Federal, state and territory energy leaders also agreed at a meeting on Friday in Canberra to fast-track critical transmission projects including Marinus, HumeLink and VNI West as part of a raft of measures aimed at easing energy prices and preparing for a decarbonised energy market.

    After months of conjecture, the meeting dumped an Energy Security Board proposal developed after years of consultation for a so-called “capacity mechanism,” which critics said would artificially prolong the life of ageing coal-fired power.

    Instead, the ministers have effectively split the question of how to ensure firming capacity across a grid increasingly reliant on intermittent wind and solar from the broader question of how to manage the end of the coal age.

    “There is more than one way to skin a cat,” said one participant.

    In a post-meeting statement, ministers said they would be “taking more active control of the work to ensure firming capacity is in place as the system evolves, and the best means to manage the risks of disorderly exit of coal generation.”

    “It was always going to be that jurisdictions would decide how the capacity mechanism would operate within their own jurisdiction,” said Victorian Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio. “It’s about being in agreement about how we can actually have a framework that is able to meet our own particular needs in a way that makes sense to our own jurisdictions.”

    Simon Corbell, chief executive of the Clean Energy Investor Group, which represents 19 major investors in the sector such as Macquarie and BlackRock, said the new approach would be faster than the “convoluted and unresponsive” route taken by the ESB.

    “They are rejecting the ESB’s model but not the need for a capacity mechanism,” he said.

    “They will be tasking officials with developing a new design that deals with the issue of incentivising new investments and will leave the issue of coal closure to be dealt with through a bilateral process on a state by state basis, so outside the capacity market discussion,” Mr Corbell said.

    Ministers also agreed at a meeting to embed as a top priority the need to “reduce emissions” into state and territory energy market rules.

    The new objective will join existing priorities including price and reliability and is the first change to the national energy objective (NEO) since its inception 15 years ago.

    Still reeling from the gas and energy crisis that overshadowed their last meeting in June, the ministers lashed out at gas exporters for favouring offshore customers over domestic needs, and backed the Commonwealth’s move last week to look at imposing export controls.

    The ministers vowed to give regulators additional powers to collect gas market data and make forecasts about future supply and demand.

    Among the more politically contentious moves was a decision by the energy ministers to identify and declare “transmission lines of national significance” to “ensure timely delivery of these projects and ensure better community consultation”.

    The statement gives the group a degree of protection against growing resistance from landholders and green groups angered by disruptive transmission lines.

    Federal Labor promised at the last election to invest $20 billion in expanding energy market transmission lines to connect more renewable capacity to major markets.

    The meeting communiqué named three projects as qualifying for the designation; the Marinus link between Tasmania and Victoria, the VNI West Victoria-to-NSW interconnector, and Transgrid’s Hume Link that will bring Snowy Hydro 2.0 into the national electricity market.

    “There’s no transition without transmission,” Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen said as he acknowledged the ones identified by the group were “controversial for good reason”.

    “They’re controversial projects because people have a right to a view,” he said. “Declaring a project of national significance will enable us to be more hands-on in the consultation, to ensure the consultations are upfront, to ensure that there are compensation models for landowners and communities”.

    “We’ve got to make this happen with communities”.

    Ms D’Ambrosio said it was time to “just get on and do it”.

    “Social licence is really vital, but the reality is these things have to be built,” she said on the major transmission projects.

    Tasmanian Premier Guy Barnett welcomed the Marinus declaration, saying the link would connect the island state’s renewable energy to the national grid, putting downward pressure on prices, improved security and a cleaner environment.

    “One hundred and forty million tonnes of CO2 will be removed from the atmosphere over the life of the project,” he said. “That’s a million cars being removed from Australia.”

    Pradeep Philip, lead partner at Deloitte Access Economics, said including an emissions goal in energy market rules would help galvanise investors and policymakers.

    “There can be debates about whether it’s enough, but when you have a specified timeframe it sharpens the decision for investment”.

    Emma Herd, EY Partner Climate Change and Sustainability, said it was vital policymakers get the “sequencing right to finance and build the transmission infrastructure required to connect more renewables to the grid and ensure stability of supply has to be a priority.”

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  2. Engineering too important to be left to engineers- better to have a gaggle of economists, school teachas with BAs and lawyers to make technical decisions.

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  3. Pradeep Philip, lead partner at Deloitte Access Economics

    that name rings a bell- was in Beazley’s office?

  4. OldOzzie says:
    August 12, 2022 at 7:01 pm

    Coal ditched from role in making energy grid reliable

    We’re all going to be a hell of a lot poorer at the end of this.

    It’s possible that expenditure on energy could force its way into the top 3 largest household expenditure items , displacing one or more of housing, transport or food.

    6
  5. Federal, state and territory energy leaders also agreed at a meeting on Friday in Canberra to fast-track critical transmission projects including Marinus, HumeLink and VNI West as part of a raft of measures aimed at easing energy prices and preparing for a decarbonised energy market.

    And when the wind isn’t blowing & the sun isn’t shining (c. 40% of the time on any given day) and the gas hasn’t been pre-purchased, what exactly will be transmitted down these very expensive new power lines?

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  6. The first thing you need to reach a 43% target is a nice big tax grab.
    The word is out that the sticky fingers of Labor are out to cut the diesel fuel rebate in October for mining and perhaps agriculture.
    Taxing to save the planet. It should come with a scam warning.

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  7. Dot:

    Wiring up a house is a hard job too. What’s the RBA governor’s salary?
    Fuck’em, it’s called work because it’s hard.
    Then again, do I trust him (Lowe, a protégé of…you know who) to run a medium to long run Taylor Rule on 0% pi with a -2% to +2% pi short term floating target?

    Wot Dot sed.

    3
  8. A return to a coal future is well on the cards for Australia when some sense is knocked into people about the climate boondoggle. Probably won’t be in my shortish lifetime left though. But the coal and gas will keep.

    Let’s hope for a long, hard, very cold European winter to serve as a bad example of when you ignore reality.

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  9. Firmer Gez:

    The big need on farm is for skilled operators who understand the working and operation of machinery.
    Electrical knowledge tied in with gps and control monitors. Someone who can find their way around a operating system and link that back to the machine in a mechanical sense to optimise operations and identify faults before money is lost or damage is done.

    If there’s one thing I’ve learnt over the last couple of decades from the Cat is that Farming (with a capital
    F) is a specialty of many professions. Good luck to you all!

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  10. Prospects of a longer-term role for coal-fired power have been eliminated, after energy ministers vowed to redesign electricity market changes aimed at guaranteeing enough reliable power as the grid moves to renewables.

    Huh? One of the most ridiculous statements in an age of utter lunacy. Imagine sitting in the room as the energy ministers came up with that drivel. None of them could possibly actually believe any of it, but none had the balls or integrity to call bullshit.

    We are fucked.

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  11. miltonf says:
    August 12, 2022 at 7:09 pm
    Engineering too important to be left to engineers- better to have a gaggle of economists, school teachas with BAs and lawyers to make technical decisions.

    I used to respect engineers until I worked with them. Some of them are incredibly dumb. Much like how I view doctors after COVID.

    Elon Musk has a background in economics (BA) and physics (BS) not engineering.

    1
  12. Dr BG

    It’s all about name calling. That’s how zombies work. And why calling out his idiocies is pointless; you aren’t making him look bad, you’re validating him. You’re treating him as a sane adult, and he isn’t. Treating him as a brain dead zombie would be much more appropriate, and lead to fewer and shorter posts.

    The only rational solution to the m0nty-fa problem is to exile him back to his own blog. He should resuscitate Phat Pussy, and build up his own audience there. He could ban anyone who called him fat, or didn’t treat him with due deference, and we could get on with mostly amicable discussions.

    6
  13. Dot:

    JC the band being flexible in the short term would prevent any overzealous targeting and knee jerk changes to CB rates. This ought to smooth out consumption over time. The solution at a societal level for $12 bananas is to stop eating bananas, not muck around with CB rates.

    You’ve just put your finger on the problem.
    Overzealous targeting.
    Politicians and bureaucrats cannot stop interfering. It’s in their dNA.
    If they don’t interfere. they are frightened someone will ask them what use are they.
    And so we get a transition from $12 bananas to an enforced $6 banana along with all the associated regulations and inefficiencies… and here we are.
    I’m not an economist, just a bloke on the 6pm Clapham Omnibus, and even I can see what the bloody problem is.

    2
  14. Hold them responsible, as moral agents compos mentis, for the consequences of what they espouse.

    I’d like to see you try that on a WWZ type zombie.

    I’m more of a double-tap man.

    2
  15. No coal and no fall back to nuclear.

    Don’t forget Jug Ears has banned gas for domestic use in Victoria by 2030 and Morrison and the NSW government stopped offshore drilling in NSW.

    It’s economic sabotage and it goes back to China hosted Maurice Strong, a wealthy scion and dinosaur of a fossil fuel dynasty.

    We might see really backwards things like shops not opening after dark.

    Welcome to the 1860s.

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  16. The Age
    @theage
    · 10h
    Victoria will celebrate pride across the state with a new, two-month-long festival which organisers hope could rival Sydney’s Mardi Gras. | @carolineschelle

    A two-month-long festival. Sponsored by the government. This is the new religion.

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  17. The word is out that the sticky fingers of Labor are out to cut the diesel fuel rebate in October for mining and perhaps agriculture.

    The number of fools who think that the diesel fuel rebate is a subsidy of some sort has to be seen to be believed.

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  18. Dot

    We might see really backwards things like shops not opening after dark.

    As a first step to saving the planet, all sporting events must be daytime only. Start with all football codes and cricket.

    Then no shops, cafes or restaurants open after sunset or before sunrise.

    Gooder and harder!

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  19. All parliamentary and public service offices sunrise to sunset only, same for theatres, TV, radio. Everything operates in daylight only.

    4
  20. The last paragraph from a just-moved AAP story on the energy ministers’ meeting and the changes to AEMO.

    “A First Nations strategy for energy will also be developed, which will be co-designed with Indigenous people.”

    It seems rubbing two sticks together will be key to Australia’s energy future.

    God help us.

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  21. All vehicles used by government (except military) to be EVs only.

    I could go on, but I think that would be enough to get the message across.

    3
  22. I used to respect engineers until I worked with them. Some of them are incredibly dumb. Much like how I view doctors after COVID.

    Engineers have to make things work- when have you had to make anything work? I saw you talking about labor markets ‘clearing’- glossy textbook bullshit.

    4
  23. Banning ICE is not just dumb, it’s incredibly mean spirited.

    Nuclear (banned) could provide power to catalytically generate liquid fuels- that isn’t even considered.

    So let’s say banning ICE vehicles by 2035 happens. That’s an incredible waste of capital for effectively the same outcome, not counting the cost of retooling all motor vehicle maintenance and battery replacement.

    2
  24. “A First Nations strategy for energy will also be developed, which will be co-designed with Indigenous people.”

    CentreLink to pay our gas/electric bills .. YAY!

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  25. Elon Musk has a background in economics (BA) and physics (BS) not engineering.

    And your point is?

    1
  26. I could go on, but I think that would be enough to get the message across.

    The trouble is, you’re dealing with ppl like m0nty. How long do you think it would take him to admit he’d made a mistake? You or I could admit to a blunder the second or third night of no electricity, probably sooner, even if we’d been convinced that renewables were essential to save the planet. But the m0ntys of this world would never own to a dumb blunder. It would be a form of suicide, because they identify with their beliefs.

    You have to actually _have_ a mind before you can change it.

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  27. Old Ozzie:
    regards the

    Coal ditched from role in making energy grid reliable

    article you put up, the ONLY way that renewables can ever support a modern industrial economy is if we discover cheap, mass produced, room temperature superconductors in a world wide grid that spans oceans and continents.
    Even then, the cost of building the power collectors of whatever type, would ruin the economy.
    We are much better off building on the power stations and grids we now have and phasing out stuff that can’t compete in an open and unobstructed economy.
    Nuclear then fusion.

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  28. Geez! .. how poor are the Bulldogs? .. Warriors just ran in 3 converted tries in the last 5 minutes to take a 24-18 lead up to a 42-18 hammering ………!

    2
  29. Enough with the fellating of engineers. They’re not gods. How much of their extra year at uni is woke crap instead of general sciences or their specialty? Even chemical engineers only do dumb dumb chemistry.

    Labour economics has an abundance of data. If you think labour markets tending to clear is “bullshit”, the evidence says you’re wrong, this also what communist “economics” teaches (and hence an absolutely benevolent government must intervene).

  30. How much of their extra year at uni is woke crap instead of general sciences or their specialty? Even chemical engineers only do dumb dumb chemistry.

    wow- you really have no idea what you are talking about

    3
  31. I’m more of a double-tap man.

    But I’m prepared to treat m0nty and his ilk as compos mentis sane, responsible, morally competent adults just before we hang them for fucking us over on a massive scale.

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  32. if we discover cheap, mass produced, room temperature superconductors in a world wide grid that spans oceans and continents.

    Or Pierson’s Puppeteers open a General Products office here.

    4
  33. A two-month-long festival. Sponsored by the government.

    You just know how much that is going to suck.

    We had a Christian youth camp next door where they would let the kids get dressed in those white rape kit suits (why did they have white rape kit suits) and then run around with big syringes filled from buckets of coloured water playing capture the flag by squirting each other. Presumably the coverage of food dye at the end for each team determined who had won. Full marks for creativity within budgetary constraints but it was pretty naff, up there with a blue light disco. Not at all like touring with seventies era Rolling Stones when Keith Richards pulls out the violin case full of drugs to get the groupies awake.

    State sponsored counter culture is an oxymoron.

    3
  34. lotocoti says:
    August 12, 2022 at 10:12 am

    Racist product product of the day:
    Milk.

    Yep, milk is racist in so far that most of the world’s adult population can’t consume it.

    God promised the Israelites that He would give them a land “flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:8), most of the world’s population would find that a most unattractive proposition. The bulk of the Israelites ended up in western Europe and Scandinavia (the House of Israel, also referred to as the House of Joseph, the largest tribe), and the others were the House of Judah (the present day Jews) in the land of Israel and scattered in the diaspora.

    That is why lactose tolerant people are found mainly in Europe and the Anglosphere, and why a map of Y-DNA R1b1a2 overlaps the lactose tolerant map.

    Lactose tolerant map here
    R1b1a2 Y-DNA R1b1a2 map here

    There was one clan of one tribe whose migration took them to central northern Africa, you can spot them on both maps, so there actually are some black Hebrews, I hope that they aren’t aligned to the antisemitic “Black Hebrews” group in the USA.

    One of the tribes, the Tribe of Ephraim, the last defenders of Samaria, were taken to Persia where they founded the Parthian Empire. These people were called the Aegels (bull-calf, their tribal symbol), later known as the Angles, and they were eventually kicked out of Persia when their local subjects rebelled (the Sasanian Revolt around 220 AD). They made their way to the Atlantic coast in Jutland after a westward-ho journey which would have taken two years, before migrating further to Angle-land.

    These people had been settled in Persia for around 1,000 years before they were expelled. They had to leave behind settled farming land and they had no access to crops on their two year migration and their journey took them through lands already settled by others so they couldn’t stop anywhere to raise crops.

    Fortunately they were lactose tolerant so they could survive on milk and cheese during the migration rather than die of starvation.

    And now that Mr. Rutte* in the Netherlands wants to get rid of the cows, he should bow down and thank them as they kept his ancestors alive.

    Is Rutte pronounced Rooty or Rooter, he certainly wants to do that to his unfortunate countrymen.

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  35. John of Melb,

    Nine.
    My oldest daughter is 19, but I don’t think she’s interested ?

    Come December bring him up to Horsham and he can come for a ride in the header.

    I harvest for a couple of the best people you’re ever likely to come across who would be more than happy to show a keen lad around. They are sheep/cropping enterprises in some very picturesque country.
    They are also very discerning re choice of contractors 🙂

    Get in touch via the shabby looking but ever reliable, buck toothed, tow truck.

    8
  36. Lotocoti:

    Or Pierson’s Puppeteers open a General Products office here.

    Yair. That’d work too.
    I’d buy a SuperLuminal spaceship and toddle off to watch the Galactic Core explode. I wonder if I have enough spare change for one?

    2
  37. Cassie

    From CL’s blog, I think you are correct about the other identity of Perverse Preposterous:

    Prospero says:
    12 August, 2022 at 7:54 pm
    Slug of Brisbane sounds like a fine fellow. Lulz.

    It’s pretty close to an admission.

  38. Dr B G

    The trouble is, you’re dealing with ppl like m0nty. How long do you think it would take him to admit he’d made a mistake?

    Fools like m0nty-fa are not the target. The target is the politicians., public servants, academics and media idiots who don’t think that the changes will affect them. Put thses up as contributions to saving the world, let them argue publicly for exemptions.

    Then wait for the next election, or the revolution if there is no next election. The arrogance will be so infuriating that they will be lucky to get away with their homes.

    1
  39. Dot appears to be some kind of economist (voodoo science) and a credentialist. No clue about actual engineers.

    1
  40. Oh yes and re your comment about ‘dumb dumb chemistry’, something like catalytic cracking is not that. Rather brilliant in fact. That comment demonstrates your contempt for technical skill.

    2
  41. Yassmin.

    So smart, stunning and brave.

    Look. Stephen Koukoulas purports to be an economist. It makes me want to vomit. Ross Gittens pretended to be, but he was a fat auditor with an unkempt beard and he wore sneakers with suits. He was also a pig at buffets.

    No profession gets out squeaky clean.

    2
  42. Winston Smithsays:
    August 12, 2022 at 8:21 pm
    Boambee John:

    Then no shops, cafes or restaurants open after sunset or before sunrise.

    Now that will upset the inner urban Greens!

    That is the intention, that and forcing them to argue in front of those with no power why their preferred pastimes should not be sacrificed as part of saving the world, after the sports have all gone.

    4
  43. That should be embarrassing for a priest in the church of engineer idolatry.

    It’s engineers and tradies that make sure your toilet flushes.

    6
  44. You cannot complain that someone is only a grad then shit on the professional association and then say the degrees are red hot with no gaps in knowledge or recent infections in wokeness – then claim someone else is a credentialist after purporting only engineers can understand a well known process like catalytic cracking!

    Just be a bit more humble and stick to valid, less jerkoff like criticisms of other professionals.

  45. then claim someone else is a credentialist after purporting only engineers can understand a well known process like catalytic cracking

    someone had to invent it and actually make it work

    ps I didn’t say anything about credentialism

    1
  46. The worst discrimination against tradespeople ALWAYS comes from sparkies.

    “That shouldn’t even be a trade!”, etc.

  47. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt over the last couple of decades from the Cat is that Farming (with a capital
    F) is a specialty of many professions. Good luck to you all!

    The perception of an Australian farmer is one left over from the Whitlam years. If you run a farm, you must have come bottom of the class at school, and you couldn’t get into University to study Arts. These days, the image has expanded to farming on stolen land.

    Quite a few years ago, a meeting of farmers in the Eastern Wheatbelt was being addressed by a very patronizing official of some sort. He made an incautious remark, which was transmitted by the microphone about “not answering questions from a mob of farmers.”

    A voice came from the back of the hall “Anybody here, with tertiary qualifications in anything other then farming, stand up.”

    Probably nearly a third of the meeting was on their feet…..

    4
  48. Anyone catch the video of the kangaroo trying to defect to the Russian embassy in Canberra?

    Seems the animals already see the writing on the wall.

    8
  49. I doubt we’d be worse off if macroeconomics and its voodoo proponents disappeared off the face of the Earth overnight. We might be in trouble without engineers.

    5
  50. the church of engineer idolatry

    What’s wrong with The Sons of Martha?
    They do not preach that their God will rouse them
    a little before the nuts work loose.
    They do not preach that His Pity allows them
    to drop their job when they damn-well choose.

    1
  51. A professional body like Engineers Australia would just love fast tracking people like Yassmin. You get the feeling that these sort of bodies have been captured by their HR departments, the role of the trade is immaterial apart from being a pretext to set up the hive of admin staff.

    4
  52. Eyrie says:
    August 12, 2022 at 8:57 pm

    I doubt we’d be worse off if macroeconomics and its voodoo proponents disappeared off the face of the Earth overnight. We might be in trouble without engineers.

    And earlier today:

    Eyrie says:
    August 12, 2022 at 7:17 am

    Yet we have economic fools who think perpetual 2% inflation is a good thing.

    Just to highlight, Hallward told us he doesn’t have a formal engineering background. He claimed to have done a few subjects in engineering only, but has also self described as an engineer. Just trying to clear things up.

  53. We had a short history of that in the US back in the 80’s ( I can’t recall if so in oz). The Fed set about targeting the money supply (M3) and it was considered a failure, firstly because the money supply target didn’t really work vis a vis the inflation target, but also, and more importantly because short-term rates were extremely unstable. I recall days when the US fed funds rate could go from 4% to 500% in the space of the few minutes. The Fed figured that this sort of instability was negative on both the banking system and Main street, so it decided to target the inflation by hoping to hit the sweet spot with short-term rates. This was fine during the 90s when there was little instability.

    Which is why a flexible short term band a hard long term target of zero inflation is good.

    Having an inflexible labor market and all those state based hindrances against a free market (in setting prices) causes enormous stickiness and would be a huge recipe for very high unemployment if the inflation rate went below zero.

    If you had persistent and significant deflation. The fact that prices are sticky means the adjustment mechanics are slow.

    Prices weren’t as sticky and there was an acceptance in experiencing the price of labor and goods&services fluctuate. Also, keep in mind that the US economy of the day was nowhere near as leveraged as it is in modern times. It was around then when the banking system slowly began to lend money for housing mortgages. Before that, lending against real estate was considered very risky. Also, banks were much more highly capitalized than they are now.

    Gold standard. Internal price adjustment mechanism. Maybe we’re overleveraged, and subsidised to be so? No doubt capital ratios are also a function of technology and they can be lower now (8-12%) compared to the 1880s until the first world war (up to 40%).

  54. A professional body like Engineers Australia would just love fast tracking people like Yassmin. You get the feeling that these sort of bodies have been captured by their HR departments, the role of the trade is immaterial apart from being a pretext to set up the hive of admin staff.

    Yes it’s hard left- based in Canbra.

    3
  55. Engineering degrees were pretty rigorous but that may have changed. The ‘woke crap’ aka Cultural Marxism used to be shoved down Science and Engineering students’ throats at UNSW via General (fucking) Studies

    2
  56. West Virginia has the best balance of politics, reasonable living costs, lifestyle, nature, employment prospects and being remote to me.

    A lot of Americans are actually forming libertarian communes in Mexico. Michoacan is about the same for me there.

  57. You’re out of here, rick? I am still looking at W. Va. or Morelia, Mexico.

    Only for 3 months.

  58. A lot of Americans are actually forming libertarian communes in Mexico.

    We’re trying to win some business in Mexico, could be interesting!

    1
  59. My daughter has been researching Mexico for a while now.
    Her thinking is that only people with guns will be able to resist what’s coming.
    Plus the porous border.

    1
  60. Why d’yous reckon mUnty is such a bobblehead?

    All that nodding, frowning and posturing for exactly zero outcome. Why bother?

    3
  61. Why d’yous reckon mUnty is such a bobblehead?

    His own blog has turned to shit, so he’s trying to de rail this one?

    2
  62. Brave libertarians preparing to flee the joint after decades of their laisser fairy global marketplace arseholery doesn’t bring about the result they thought it would.
    Contemptible fuckwits.

    7
  63. I mean “Duh”! The rest of the world only believed your free trade fantasies until they had the industrial base and military assets to tell us to fuck off.
    As predicted by anyone with any actual sense.
    Don’t bother replying.
    Deep in your bones you know I’m right, otherwise you wouldn’t be planning your Mexican bolt holes.

    2
  64. All that nodding, frowning and posturing for exactly zero outcome. Why bother?

    He enjoys winding you (plural) up, so he does.

    1
  65. Innocent NT kill cop Zachary Rolfe shut out of his job

    exclusive
    Kristin Shorten
    Investigative Journalist
    @itsKShort
    25 minutes ago August 12, 2022

    Northern Territory policeman Zachary Rolfe – who has ­ returned to work months after being found not guilty of murdering Kumanjayi Walker – ­remains banned from entering any police premises or performing normal duties.

    Despite Constable Rolfe being reinstated as a serving member of the Territory’s police force, its executive has revoked the 30-year-old’s access to any police ­facilities and refused to ­return his police identification to him since his return to work on July 18.

    The Weekend Australian understands Constable Rolfe has been relegated to desk duties at a nondescript government ­office building in Darwin as a ­result of formal complaints from other officers involved in his prosecution.

    It is understood that one of the complaints is from Sergeant Julie Frost, who was the officer in charge at Yuendumu, 300km northwest of Alice Springs, on the night of the shooting and who had, that day, requested an ­Immediate Response Team (IRT) to arrest Walker.

    Sergeant Frost has allegedly claimed she would be “triggered” if she saw Constable Rolfe at work.

    During the trial, Sergeant Frost gave conflicting evidence to Constable Rolfe’s and that of his IRT colleagues.

    The IRT members said their instructions were to arrest Walker as soon as possible upon ­arrival at Yuendumu, while Sergeant Frost testified that she had directed the team to arrest Walker at 5am the next day.

    Constable Rolfe’s barrister, David Edwardson QC, also accused Sergeant Frost of concealing a five-page chronology of events she wrote in the days after Walker’s death.

    Constable Rolfe refused to comment on Friday, but his ­father, Richard, has accused the NT police brass of trying to force his son to commit suicide by making his return to work difficult and his position within the organisation untenable.

    “I believe (police commissioner) Jamie Chalker has done everything possible to push Zach to commit suicide by deliberately isolating him from his peers,” he said.

    “He’s been locked away in a government building working without any contact with other frontline officers, while restricted to working on a computer.”

    He said his son had gone on stress leave and would not return to work until the coronial inquest into Walker’s death starts on September 5.

    Constable Rolfe is on the inquest’s draft witness list but has not yet been subpoenaed to give evidence.

    NT police declined to comment other than to say that “the safety and wellbeing of all employees is an ongoing priority”.

    “We do not discuss individual cases to maintain their privacy,” a spokesman said.

    Northern Territory Police ­Association president Paul McCue also declined an interview.

    “Matters relating to the internal deployment of Constable Rolfe are confidential and we continue to assist him in his return to work after a long absence,” he said.

    Constable Rolfe was immediately suspended from duty in ­November 2019 after he fatally shot Walker during an arrest at Yuendumu.

    He had been one of four IRT members deployed from Alice Springs to Yuendumu to execute an arrest warrant for Walker on four charges, including assaulting police with an axe and breaching his suspended sentence.

    During the arrest, Constable Rolfe shot Walker three times after the teenager stabbed him with a pair of stainless-steel surgical scissors and attempted to stab his police partner Adam Eberl.

    Days later, he was charged with the 19-year-old’s murder.

    In June last year, alternative charges of manslaughter and ­violent act causing death were added to his indictment.

    In March, a jury found Constable Rolfe not guilty on all three charges after a five-week trial in Darwin.

    Sergeant Frost has allegedly claimed she would be triggered……how do you spell “resignation?”

    4
  66. Come December bring him up to Horsham and he can come for a ride in the header.

    Awesome! Thanks! I’ll get in touch through that not so shabby looking tow truck 🙂

    2
  67. The ALP and Greens are totally, totally wrong in subsidising solar and demonising and banning nuclear.

    Why I changed my mind about nuclear power | Michael Shellenberger | TEDxBerlin

    This is worth re watching. He was an anti nuclear activist from a green, hippie and pacifist Christian background.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciStnd9Y2ak

    2
  68. Rolfe should be suing NT police for what they are doing to him. 30 years off lost salary at least.

    As for the triggered lady cop make sure she is posted as far away from Rolfe as possible.

    That organisation has serious issues.

    11
  69. Two and a half years of inexplicable idiocy that has throttled global economic activity – yet these wonderful, far sighted measures “seem” to have come to an end and guess what?

    Production of goods (as opposed to services) is still spluttering to life.
    The bizarre arbitrary remaining restrictions continue to impede labour mobility (as we are seeing, yet again, in this country) and there just so happens to be a convenient “conflict” on which most of everything (real or imagined) can be “blamed”.

    Global supply chains are suffering due to some bizarre chinese hollow chest beating even more annoying than a container ship “accidentally or unintentionally” triying to conduct a u-turn in the Suez Canal

    Meanwhile, in this country, massive arbitrary price increases are evident (again), “possibly” due to arrogant quisling imbeciles forcing up the cost of previously cheap electrickery in western economies which subsequently renders the conduct of economic activity in those shitholes pointless.

    Perfect storm time.

    We are witnessing (or have been for at least the last twenty years) the rise of a new and sinister animist belief system.

    If it’s any consolation, Cats, I’ve been resisting it since mid ’89.

    And here we are. On some sort of cusp and not in a good way. 😕

    8
  70. Cant link on the phone but instapundit has a post up about the CDC changing the covid guidance.
    Interesting as now the unclean unvaxed are to be treated the same as the fully compliant

    2
  71. Awesome! Thanks! I’ll get in touch through that not so shabby looking tow truck

    Quite a few years ago, a relative of my (ex) wife’s came up to “stay on the farm.” While there, he witnessed a sheep being killed. His mother was horrified that he had witnessed such a thing, but, it was explained to him that that was where the meat he ate came from…He also thought it impossibly cool that he was the only person in his class that had been taught to shoot….

    5
  72. Can also drop in on Tim Pool !

    “West Virginia has the best balance of politics, reasonable living costs, lifestyle, nature, employment prospects and being remote to me”.

  73. Good to see engineers being taken out behind the bike shed for a flogging.
    Some thoughts:

    .1 You don’t learn to be an engineer at uni. You learn some of the basic tools of your discipline.

    .2 You start to become an engineer after about five years working at it.

    .3 Many engineering graduates never get there and become something else because the process of becoming an engineer is too hard, or involves working in shit conditions, or with rude rough people.

    .4 Many engineers are shit humans – roughly in proportion to human shitness in the general population.

    .5 Able Magpie is not an engineer.

    .6 Musk is not an engineer – but he depends on them being able to realise his ideas.

    .7 Engineers Australia has become absorbed by Canberra and embraced credentialism and fashionable wokeness with the furious zeal of a convert.

    11
  74. labore and the greenfilth are totally, totally wrong (again) in subsidising solar and demonising and banning noocular

    No shit, Squire Holmes.

    3
  75. Arkysays:
    August 12, 2022 at 10:21 pm
    Brave libertarians preparing to flee the joint after decades of their laisser fairy global marketplace arseholery doesn’t bring about the result they thought it would.
    Contemptible fuckwits.

    Ignorant, superstitious and stupid.

    I mean “Duh”! The rest of the world only believed your free trade fantasies until they had the industrial base and military assets to tell us to fuck off.
    As predicted by anyone with any actual sense.
    Don’t bother replying.
    Deep in your bones you know I’m right, otherwise you wouldn’t be planning your Mexican bolt holes.

    You are blaming losing gun rights, real jury trials, the odious Public Health Acts on the rest of the world being “smarter” than us and choosing empirically disproven, objectively bad economic policies such as protectionism.

    Florid psychosis.

    3
  76. Cats, we are witnessing the rise of a sinister animist belief system administered and monitored by a (seemingly) new and truculent clerisy, gifted with enough self importance and modern weapons that (might just) make resisting a pointless activity.

    Imagine if you can, a High Sparrow clad in an olive green t-shirt, a red bonce hanky and a pair of Air Jordans, with his massive freezer full of Ben and Jerry’s greatest hits.

    Yet you still haven’t been gifted with the inevitable Winter, which is apparently imminently imminent. 😕

    1
  77. Mavis and Howard are flogging a book. How unedifying. They should do something that allows them to maintain their dignity like $20 handjobs at servos.

    3
  78. Mavis and Howard are flogging a book

    Everything that it is wrong with country and worse.

    A pair of human history’s most useless imbeciles preposterously attempting to profitably offload their recycled flatulence.

    4
  79. Rabz says:
    August 12, 2022 at 10:54 pm
    Cats, we are witnessing the rise of a sinister animist belief system administered and monitored by a (seemingly) new and truculent clerisy,

    ..
    No.
    You are witnessing the result of decades of feeding the CCP beast with preferential trade deals under the guise of “free trade will convert them to democracy”. In other words, we were sucked in. They have so corrupted our society, systems and politicians that the thing is now unlikely able to be repaired.
    Who could have predicted that basing our universities on 100s of thousands of Chinese overseas students would ruin the academy, and bleed out into the real world in the form of cadres of little cultural Marxist shits everywhere?
    Who could have predicted that setting up the West’s assembly lines, foundries and research facilities in mainland China would result in us relying on China for our resource exports? I mean, who knew that the Chinese Communist Party would deceive us?
    If you can’t trust communists, who can you trust, right?
    Gee, where did it all go wrong?

    16
  80. “free trade will convert them to democracy” yet “we were sucked in”

    Yes, it happens. I’ve never trusted the evil communist bastards (BIRM), if that’s any consolation, Arks.

    Easy to claim now, being an individual among millions.

    Although I did spot catastrophic human induced climate change as a load of bollocks back in ’75 while a ten year old.

    Made spotting gerbil worming in ’89 very easy.

    5
  81. Frank at 5.55:

    Worse than the Norsemen? Never seen it in real life in person but Scandihooligans are supposed to make Collingwood supporters look urbane.

    Ohyafuckinrightareya?

    1
  82. Although I did spot catastrophic human induced climate change as a load of bollocks back in ’75 while a ten year old.

    ..
    All due respect Rabz, that wasn’t that hard to spot.
    A completely manufactured scare, chosen precisely because it is almost impossible to falsify.

    2
  83. Who could have predicted that setting up the West’s assembly lines, foundries and research facilities in mainland China would result in us relying on China for our resource exports? I mean, who knew that the Chinese Communist Party would deceive us?

    If only we had 100,000% tariffs, that totally would have discouraged them from having their own industry too. It also would have saved civil liberties in Australia.

    If we didn’t export to China, how much would GDP and the terms of trade fall? What since 2003 in public spending would have been feasible, or added to public debt?

    1
  84. Which is why a flexible short term band a hard long term target of zero inflation is good.

    It may work, Dot. Sumner had advocated around 5% nominal GDP in the past perhaps because that was the nominal growth rate in GDP during the 90s. Over the past couple of years he’s brought that down to around ~4% nominal because he thinks the potential real growth rate has fallen to the lower figure.

    Still, if you’re pushing to zero inflation rate you would also require either the ability to QE for when there is deflation due to either demand or supply shocks. Failing that you need to encourage symmetrical price adjustments through greater flexibility in the labor market plus goods and services markets.

    If you had persistent and significant deflation. The fact that prices are sticky means the adjustment mechanics are slow.

    Yes. But stickiness also means slow and painful.

    Gold standard. Internal price adjustment mechanism. Maybe we’re overleveraged, and subsidised to be so? No doubt capital ratios are also a function of technology and they can be lower now (8-12%) compared to the 1880s until the first world war (up to 40%).

    We were over-leveraged back before the GFC when investment banks were levered at 30:1 plus and banks as high as 20:1, but it’s nowhere near that now.

    2
  85. Boambee John at 5.57:

    I care because his idiocies must not go unchallenged.

    And:

    The blog should not become a source of lying leftist propaganda.

    100%. It’s called ‘truth by assertion’ and it was also another whiny communist*’s favourite things to try on. The strident calls of ‘ignore him and he will go away’ have been proven wrong time and again.

    You don’t challenge the stupid, and the stupid becomes the norm. There’s quite enough of that going on IRL than having to sit back and accept horseshit without a whimper here, or anywhere on teh webs as well.

    *Miata-driving tacher of tards, and noted bloodthirsty berserker.

    4
  86. Deep in your bones you know I’m right, otherwise you wouldn’t be planning your Mexican bolt holes.

    Then fuck off back the New Zealand.

    4
  87. If we didn’t export to China, how much would GDP and the terms of trade fall?

    ..
    Are you brain damaged?
    Did you miss the bit where I explicitly said the problem was setting things up in the first place such the it was communist China that was the market for those export resources?
    No more replies for you, you aren’t up to it.

    4
  88. The strident calls of ‘ignore him and he will go away’ have been proven wrong time and again

    I must have missed everybody ignoring m0nty. My impression was that a number of ppl here found it impossible. The sense of righteousness in pointing out his idiocies overwhelmed them.

    4
  89. Lol

    Australia and his home country both deregulated as well as reducing tariffs and quotas in the 80s. We both reduced regulatory burdens in the 80s, which was about a decade before consensus even noticed China’s rise.

    But this genius, this mufti is telling us he read the tea leaves then (in the 80s) 15 year before we began to see China’s rise. Even then, the problematic China appeared on the scene with Xi and I don’t think he appeared on the stage until 2010. Incredible predictive ability.

    4
  90. that wasn’t that hard to spot

    Steve, ten year olds being notorious for their ability to spot lies and bullshit, which thankfully I was.

    One of my ol’ man’s golden rules – “question everything”.

    3
  91. JC – no need for the “eff off back to the ‘Flight of the Dunderheads’ place”, Squire.

    They’ll never live down li’l horse face donkey chompers.

    6
  92. Are you brain damaged?
    Did you miss the bit where I explicitly said the problem was setting things up in the first place such the it was communist China that was the market for those export resources?
    No more replies for you, you aren’t up to it.

    The idea that Australia can choose who wants to buy our commodities and for what amount is really quite bizarre.

    Let’s call it the “NPC Trade Partner Theory”.

    Incredibly stupid. Worthy of Dunning Kruger.

    5
  93. One of my ol’ man’s golden rules – “question everything”.

    ..
    Especially people proposing solutions to problems they just made up, requiring the complete destruction of existing society.

    4
  94. The idea that Australia can choose who wants to buy our commodities and for what amount is really quite bizarre.

    It’s like a version of the soup Nazi. “No soup for you” = “no iron ore or coal for you”.

    Einstein doesn’t seem to realize there is a spot market in these two commodities where to some extent buyers and sellers are anonymous. If we didn’t sell these two commods ( Australia has a massive trade surplus to China) to them, others would.

    5
  95. Western companies picked communist China.
    They packed their plant and equipment, whole assembly lines, onto ships and transplanted them to communist China, with the technical support to get it all up and running. Their paid for politicians struck the trade deals to enable a backward shithole that had not recovered from the cultural revolution to “compete”.
    They thought it would be a win double: win their class war against domestic labour, AND win China away from the communist bloc.
    It has now all blown up horribly.
    Libertarians, rather than admit the way their ideology was used to sell this utter catastrophe to the all sides of politics, and adjust their thinking appropriately, are going to plan to run away to Mexico and blame the failure all on cultural Marxism. As explained, cultural Marxism got it’s most recent boost from running hundreds of thousands of communist china’s students through our universities, such that those institutions became craven tools of the CCP.

    7
  96. Hey Rabz

    It would be interesting to hear where you now stand on trade policy and on such things like the 80s deregulation of trade etc. I think you’ve said you were an economist, squire. Also, you’ve often made supportive comments in favor of economic liberalization.

    1
  97. Oh, grate – another JC and Arks contretemps …

    Peoples, there are other things on this planet aside from their petty squabbles, FFS.

    Like Miss Ellie, singing and just being beautiful. 🙂

    1
  98. GOOD LORD!

    Salty Cracker

    Lefties “think” Trump hid documents in Ivana’s grave: Demand it be exhumed!

    Yes, and Wussiagate makes a return to the stage with a new Leftwing narrative. Trump was hiding nuclear secrets in order to sell them to the Wussians.

    2
  99. Hey Rabz

    Is the JC and Arks contretemps say something similar to the Rabz/Fatboy version, such as this?

    Rabz says:
    August 12, 2022 at 1:47 pm

    Could mUttley be an even more laughable, gullible imbecile if he tried?

    “Ermagerd, the reason for the FBI raid was Fatty Trump stole some top sekret nookular documents which he hid somewhere in Melania’s undies drawers at Mary Largo.”

    You preposterous idiot.

    Glass houses and all that.

    2
  100. It’s all about name calling. That’s how zombies work. And why calling out his idiocies is pointless; you aren’t making him look bad, you’re validating him. You’re treating him as a sane adult, and he isn’t. Treating him as a brain dead zombie would be much more appropriate, and lead to fewer and shorter posts.

    I have too much fun kicking m0nty about the place to give it up, so I’m not going to. And I don’t think he’s a troll – he genuinely does believe what his low information sources tell him, he comes in here to spread the good word, and he invariably gets pantsed. As a consequence, he lives in a state of perpetual cognitive dissonance. Oh well. If he wants to come in here and piss on the carpet, fine. Every time he does it, I’ll grab him by the scruff and rub his nose in his pissy mess. I encourage others to help house-train this dog, although he is rather slow.

    5
  101. JCsays:
    August 13, 2022 at 12:15 am
    Tickler , please explain.

    I’ll do reboot and get back to you.

  102. you were an economist

    JC – for my sins, I am still one, Squire. After gaining the credentials, I wanted to focus on the practical application of Economics as opposed to the hypothetical bullshit fed to us as undergraduates.

    Economics is mainly common sense and the rest is blundering into areas outside of the (alleged) expertise.

    Another Golden Rule: There are two types of Economists:

    Those that are wrong about everything 93.1% of the time and
    Those that are wrong about everything all the time.

    I’d like to think about myself as being one the former 🙂

    4
  103. Tickler

    Who are you talking to over at the Lollipop Cat? mh is a nice enough dude, but I can’t imagine talking to him all day everyday of the year.

    1
  104. If only Arky had spoken up about China sooner.
    Typical boomer who did nothing who now just complains.

    1
  105. I’ve known many of those Chinese students over the years.
    Had them as friends and housemates.
    It is not their fault that the CCP uses them as leverage.
    That’s the way the CCP operates.
    The last time I was in Taiwan the CCP was using Chinese tourists as political leverage.
    Thugs, gangsters and bullies do that, including with their own people.
    Especially with their own people.
    Naive twits think they can engage with such people on some theoretical fair trade, level playing field.
    You cannot.

    8
  106. Those that are wrong about everything 93.1% of the time and

    Nothing wrong with being wrong 93% of the time if you win bigly 7% of the time. However, that’s nothing to do with what I was asking.

  107. This is some pretty amazing stat.

    Australia: Another record high for trade surplus – Westpac

    Andrew Hanlan, Senior Economist, Westpac offers his first impression of the Australian Trade Balance data released earlier in the Asian session this Thursday.
    Key quotes

    “The surplus climbed to $17.7bn in June led by an export surge.”

    “The June outcome exceeded expectations, Westpac $14.6bn and market median $14.0bn.”

    “Note that the May figures was revised lower, to $15.0bn from $16.0bn, – still a new record high ahead of the June result.”

    “Export earnings surged during the June quarter, reflecting a combination of higher prices and a welcome lift in volumes, off a relatively subdued base.”

    “Exports grew by 5.4% in April, then rose 8.9% in May, followed by a 5.1% lift in June. We had anticipated that exports would consolidate in June.

    “On the import side, the gain of 0.7% fell short of our expectations, a forecast 3.2%.”

    “Weakness was centred on a pull-back in civil aircraft, as well as softness in car imports which continue to be disrupted by supply chain issues.”

    1
  108. It would be interesting to hear where you now stand on trade policy and on such things like the 80s deregulation of trade

    The concept of “comparative advantage” makes sense in real life. Oz has much comparative advantage in many goods. Services, perhaps not.

    Liberalisation of trade makes sense on paper and I’ve always been a fan of it in real life, having benefited from it.

    People being idle is a recipe for disaster. We were not plonked on this planet to leech off others.

    Entrepreneurism – it’s “a valid lifestyle choice”.

    You know – just putting out there.

    4
  109. Earlier this year as our house was under repair, we stayed with a gentleman from mainland China.
    A very intelligent and very hard working and also very nice man.
    He was a chemical engineer who has his own business in China worth around 50 million.
    The CCP stole his business and he had to flee the place in fear of his life.
    This is the regime we have put ourselves in the position of being beholden to for our economic well-being.
    Complete stupidity.
    Those of you who own your own businesses here and who think our dealing with a regime that steals it’s hard working citizens wealth, that is a gangster regime, if you think that enmeshing ourselves so completely in such a corrupt system won’t one day put your property rights in the firing line, we’ll, you are not reading the tea leaves. You are deluded.

    14
  110. A very intelligent and very hard working and also very nice man.
    He was a chemical engineer who has his own business in China worth around 50 million.
    The CCP stole his business and he had to flee the place in fear of his life.

    Believe all Chinese at face value.

    1
  111. I’ve known many of those chinese students over the years. Had them as friends and housemates. It is not their fault that the CCP uses them as leverage. That’s the way the CCP operates.

    In other words, the CCP has your chinese neighbores reporting on you as well as themselves.

    And many, many imbeciles were blasé enough to think that nayzees and commos had been banished to the dusty pages of history.

    Yet here we are (again) …

    5
  112. I’m here for the Arkynomics 101 lecture.
    When does it start?

    Scroll upthread Squire, you’ll even find me discoursing about it. 🙂

    2
  113. And many, many imbeciles were blasé enough to think that nayzees and commos had been banished to the dusty pages of history.

    Yet here we are (again) …

    Under Xi , China is pretty much a fascist regime. It’s not communist in the real sense. The ironic thing is that we saw, over the space of 25 plus years, a communist regime seamlessly converting from communist to fascist . Meanwhile the Western left is willfully blind to this move from one totalitarian room to another in the same house.

    7
  114. And many, many imbeciles were blasé enough to think that nayzees and commos had been banished to the dusty pages of history. Yet here we are (again) …

    Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn @AI_Solzhenitsyn · 13h
    “For us in Russia, communism is a dead dog, while, for many people in the West, it is still a living lion.”

    4
  115. In other words, the CCP has your chinese neighbores reporting on you as well as themselves.

    ..
    You misunderstand me.
    It is economic leverage. They withdrew tourists from Taiwan as economic blackmail.
    Likewise, universities are keenly aware of their dependency on that market. Which they themselves sought out.
    They put their own heads on the vice.

    9
  116. I have too much fun kicking m0nty about the place to give it up, so I’m not going to.

    I can understand that up to a point, OCO, but don’t you ever feel guilty about mocking the afflicted? I do. I just can’t help feel a mixture of horror and pity when I read m0nty’s garbage. The pathos of someone spending so much of their time peddling something ludicrously stupid and getting crapped on non-stop. He has to be driven by a desire to wind ppl up. I am not convinced he believes in it, not in the sense of having thought his position through. Maybe he ‘believes’ it in something like the way ppl sucked into a cult ‘believe’ in the tenets of the cult. The joy of being absorbed by the borg, and never having to think for yourself ever again. He gives me the cold horrors sometimes. Like I’ve said before, he’s a zombie. And a willing one. You’re treating him as an extremely stupid human being; I think it’s much worse than that.

    5
  117. It is economic leverage

    No Arks, it is personal, in your face leverage. You submit or they come for everyone they can connect to you, inadvertently or otherwise.

    Could you imagine this sort of all encompassing power being gifted to the vindictive staggeringly stupid z-grade mediocrities (BIRM) that are labore and the greenfilth?

    Well, we might not have to imagine anymore, soon enough.

    5
  118. WSJ report

    How much does a kennel cost to rent.

    Out of all the neighborhoods that StreetEasy collects rent data from, 20 had median asking rents above $4,000 for one-bedroom apartments in 2022,

    That’s ~$5,600 per month.

    1
  119. Maybe he ‘believes’ it in something like the way ppl sucked into a cult ‘believe’ in the tenets of the cult.

    Have you *seen* his blog?
    Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
    Conservatives are not conservative because by opposing the changes of the Left they have stopped being conservative and really become reactionaries.
    No really, here’s the quote.

    this stance of mine was developed in reaction to the direction of modern “conservatism”, which is actually reactionary with very little in the way of actual conservatism at its core. The culture war was lost by the right decades ago, and the things they want to nominally “conserve” don’t exist any more, like the primacy of the nuclear family, an unchallenged patriarchy, untrammeled exploitative capitalism and a strong Church.

    When you stop laughing at that, you will be scratching your head wondering how monty adopts two different meanings of the word “conservative” in the same sentence without noticing his own switcheroo.

    3
  120. LOL

    @TitaniaMcGrath
    ·

    Joan of Arc was strong, courageous and independent, and so was clearly non-binary or trans.

    A female Joan of Arc would have been too busy knitting, gossiping and shopping for shoes to fight the English.

    2
  121. Because the FBI never maliciously lies. Never!

    U.S. Told to Pay $101 Million for Framing 4 Men
    BOSTON, July 26 — In what appears to be the largest sum of money ever awarded to people who were wrongfully convicted, a judge today ordered the federal government to pay $101.8 million to make amends for framing four men for a murder they did not commit.

    Two of the men died in prison after being falsely convicted in the 1965 gangland murder. Another, Peter Limone, spent 33 years in jail before he was exonerated in 2001. The fourth, Joseph Salvati, spent 29 years in prison.

    “It took 30 years to uncover this injustice,” Federal District Judge Nancy Gertner said in announcing her decision. She said the case was about “the framing of innocent men,” adding that “F.B.I. officials allowed their employees up the line to ruin lives.”

    The men were exonerated after the discovery of secret F.B.I. memos that were never turned over to state prosecutors or defense lawyers during the trial in 1968. The memos indicated that the government’s key witness, a hit man for the mob named Joseph “The Animal” Barboza, had lied when he said the four men had killed the victim, a low-level mobster, Edward Deegan, known as Teddy.

    Mr. Barboza’s motivation was to protect the real killer, and F.B.I. officials went along, the memos suggested, because Mr. Barboza had been helping them solve cases and because the killer, Vincent Flemmi, was an F.B.I. informant.

    In her decision today, Judge Gertner forcefully criticized the F.B.I. and the argument made by Justice Department lawyers that federal authorities were not required to share information with state prosecutors, and were not responsible for the results of a state prosecution.

    “The government’s position is, in a word, absurd,” Judge Gertner said.

    A spokesman for the Justice Department, Charles Miller, said the government would review the judge’s decision before deciding whether to appeal.

    In their suit, the men had argued that Boston FBI agents knew that Mr. Barboza lied when he named the men as killers in the 1965 killing. They said Mr. Barboza was protecting a fellow F.B.I. informant, Vincent Flemmi, who was involved in the hit, according to The Associated Press.

    The four wrongly convicted men were treated as “acceptable collateral damage” because the F.B.I.’s priority at the time was taking down the Mafia, their lawyers said.

    A Justice Department lawyer had argued that federal authorities could not be held responsible for the results of a state prosecution and had no duty to share information with the officials who prosecuted Mr. Limone, Mr. Salvati, Henry Tameleo and Louis Greco, The A.P. said.

    The judge awarded $26 million to Mr. Limone, $29 million to Mr. Salvati, $13 million to Mr. Tameleo’s estate and $28 million to Mr. Greco’s estate, as well as awards to the wives and children that brought the total to $101.75. The men’s lawyers had not asked for a specific amount in damages, but in court documents they cited other wrongful conviction cases in which $1 million was awarded for every year of imprisonment.

    “Do I want the money? Yes, I want my children, my grandchildren to have things I didn’t have, but nothing can compensate for what they’ve done,” The A.P. quoted Mr. Salvati as saying. He had been sentenced to life in prison as an accessory to murder and served more than 29 years before his sentence was commuted in 1997.

    “It’s been a long time coming,” said Mr. Limone, who served 33 years in prison before he was freed in 2001. “What I’ve been through — I hope it never happens to anyone else.”

    The more you read about the more Gestapo it looks.

    6
  122. When you stop laughing at that, you will be scratching your head wondering how monty adopts two different meanings of the word “conservative” in the same sentence without noticing his own switcheroo.

    M0nty gives me the creeps. There’s something wrong with his brain. Pedos and some other perverts, or the lbgqtixyz crowd as they’re now called, give me a similar sense of something horribly wrong.

    I don’t think we should chuck them all off tall buildings, you understand, but I can understand why other, less kindly, cultures might.

    3
  123. We can get all day about trade relations with China and how their regime influences us economically.

    However, none of it matters to the average Australian, or anyone in the world for that matter.
    Money talks, ask the average aussie if they are willing to cop a dramatic decrease in standard of living to reduce or cease business with China?
    If all goods made in China were to suddenly cost 2-3x more because we changed who we import from.

    The shackles we’re in are of our own making, that’s true, but people will not voluntarily pay more for everything just to fight the communists…

    2
  124. rabz:

    “free trade will convert them to democracy” yet “we were sucked in”
    Yes, it happens. I’ve never trusted the evil communist bastards (BIRM), if that’s any consolation, Arks.

    For myself, it was a hope that democratic values could arise in China.
    We’re allowed to hope, are we not?
    It was also a fear that China, with a population generally smarter than us – according to IQ levels and I’m not saying they’re right – bloody hard wukkas, and an internal market of 1.5 Billion, could drown the West in mass produced consumer goods if they ever got their shit together.

    1
  125. cohenite says:
    August 12, 2022 at 5:33 pm

    It’s not about changing his mind (sic). You’re so pure. The conservatives are fucked because they are so pure, above the fray. To beat the left you don’t convince them because that assumes they’re capable of reason and rational responses. You have to beat them, literally. As soon as the left dominate society is stuffed. Its an endless battle; but you keep sipping your sherry.

    Just saw this.. since I don’t spend my whole time here.

    You’re wrong! So wrong it’s almost criminal, especially for someone as intelligent as you.
    Conservatives are fucked because they argue and fight each other, from a point of pedantic purity, rather than ACT(!) against the established leftard invasion of our society.
    Arguing with trolls here achieves nothing, except for ruining the OT and making it unreadable (BIRM).

    You have to beat them, literally. As soon as the left dominate society is stuffed.

    You beat them with words and insults? How did that work out? Tired of winning yet?

    The left already dominates society, you’re a bit late to that party.

    After their decades of wildly successful institutional infiltration and moral debasement, non-leftards only have two options:

    1) For a relatively quick result (years): force, not words. We are allegedly the silent, moral majority, so we would win, if we first manage to stop waffling into the wind and attack each other.
    Leftards act in packs, cohesively and aggressively. They win, and will keep winning. Our division and rhetorical purity has been political death.

    2) Centuries of decline and the eventual reckoning and re-birth. After the people of what-used-to-be-the-West get sick of eating shit and massacre the established authorities.
    Don’t hold your breath for this one.

    You lot are the pure ones.
    Believing that, through insults and clever rhetoric, you can convince people like Montz of the error of their ways. How naive is that?
    The failure of this approach is obvious. Here. Every day. It’s so fucking obvious that I’m amazed that I have to mention it.

    BTW, you can have the sherry. Only Cognac and Grappa for me.

    2
  126. Boambee John says:
    August 12, 2022 at 5:57 pm

    I care because his idiocies must not go unchallenged. I would rather not have to do it, but the only worthwhile alternative is a total ban on him. The blog should not become a source of lying leftist propaganda.

    What would Montz do if his BS comments were ignored?
    Why not try it?
    He only comments to rub our noses in it, and some of us happily respond, in highly predictable, Pavlovian fashion.
    He wins.
    End of story.

    2
  127. JC

    Yes, and Wussiagate makes a return to the stage with a new Leftwing narrative. Trump was hiding nuclear secrets in order to sell them to the Wussians.

    Didn’t Bill Clinton approve the sale of missile re-entry vehicle technology to China? If so, how do the two compare? Will he and Trump get “his and his” electric chairs?

  128. Cassie of Sydney says:
    August 12, 2022 at 6:19 pm

    Sorry, but I’m not turning the other cheek.

    It clearly makes you feel better, but wasting time rebutting Montz’s BS achieves exactly less than nothing.
    It will give some meaning to an ultimately drab existence filled with self-delusion.
    We all know he’s a brilliant, malignant troll. But he’s also ultimately useless.

    Responding to his BS simply empowers him.
    ..and how does doing so, beat the left, exactly?

    2
  129. JC

    Under Xi , China is pretty much a fascist regime. It’s not communist in the real sense. The ironic thing is that we saw, over the space of 25 plus years, a communist regime seamlessly converting from communist to fascist . Meanwhile the Western left is willfully blind to this move from one totalitarian room to another in the same house.

    Liberty quote.

  130. Gilassays:
    August 13, 2022 at 8:18 am
    Boambee John says:
    August 12, 2022 at 5:57 pm

    I care because his idiocies must not go unchallenged. I would rather not have to do it, but the only worthwhile alternative is a total ban on him. The blog should not become a source of lying leftist propaganda.

    What would Montz do if his BS comments were ignored?
    Why not try it?
    He only comments to rub our noses in it, and some of us happily respond, in highly predictable, Pavlovian fashion.
    He wins.
    End of story.

    And how did that work out, as the fascist left infiltrated all of the institutions of society?

    To a degree, I agree with you, but are we collectively ready to take to the streets, and in the immortal words of m0nty-fa, “Punch a Nazi”? m0nty-fa is either too stupid to see what he has become, or did so willingly. Are we ready to join him?

  131. You lot are the pure ones.

    First of all LOL, that’s my phrase. Second: ROFL, if you think Cats are the pure ones then you’re seriously deluded.

    I come here to bring some much-needed reality to what would otherwise be a fantasy land of make-believe. I laugh at the cognitive dissonance caused by reminding dumbarse cult members that they have faith in a stupid con.

    How should Cats react to me? Maybe by learning something. I realise most of you stopped learning at about year 9, whether you stayed at school or not, but I believe it’s possible for people to change.

    Or keep on believing in what the plutocrats want you to. Stay ignorant and angry. Go to your grave thinking you are the victim, living in the lucky country where the sun shines, the wattle blossoms and there is plenty for everyone.

  132. We’ve learnt that as soon as you see anything approximating a fist, you will rush over and batter it relentlessly with your eye sockets.

    My brother thought it funny to put out his first and ask me to run into it.

    If I was Muttley, I would have.

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