Open Thread – Weekend 13 Aug 2022
1,453 responses to “Open Thread – Weekend 13 Aug 2022”
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Trump has made a statement about the illegal raid:
All the material was declassified
He had offered it to the DOJ prior to the raid
The material was in a secure storage as demanded by the DOJ (which has charged him with obstruction because the storage was locked as per their demand; you couldn’t make this BS up)
The DOJ already had some of the material such as the clemency documents related to Roger StoneThe demorats are now so obvious in their corruption that the justice system has been destroyed.
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I hope Rushdie sues the arse off the festival organisers.
Rushdie would, presumably, have had opportunity to specify his security requirements in the contract that governed his appearance at the festival.
We’ll no doubt learn more in due course.
I’m being cautious with assertions in thgye meantime because of the tendency of the press to misreport such incidents.
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CERTIFIED: THE NEW YORK TIMES IS RUN BY MORAL IDIOTS
By now I expect everyone has heard of the attack on Salman Rushdie. Andy Ngo notes:
And yet here’s how the New York Times reports it:
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Old Ozzie:
A curious thought – Can Biden reclassify those documents?
If so, then they may have a case.Let me rephrase that:
The FBI knows what documents President Trump has.
President Trump has already declassified those documents.
Has President Biden reclassified them?
Does he have that authority? It appears he does have that authority.
President Trump is now in possession of Top Secret Super Squirrel Alpha Level documents and he should not have them.
Game Over. -
If you’re feeling drained at the end of a demanding day at the office, it could be you’ve been thinking too much.
Researchers have found that too much use of the grey matter can lead to mental fatigue, making it harder to make decisions.
Scientists analysed the chemical composition of the brains of two groups of people over the course of an approximate workday. One group was given easy tasks, while the other was told to carry out more demanding versions of the same cognitive assignments. Signs of fatigue, such as reduced pupil dilation, were recorded only in the group performing the more complex tasks.
Using magnetic resonance spectroscopy, researchers from Pitie-Salpetriere University Hospital in Paris found that high-demand cognitive work led to a build-up of glutamate — a chemical that nerve cells use to transmit signals to other cells — in the pre-frontal cortex area of the brain. Managing the excess makes other pre-frontal cortex activity, such as planning and decision-making, more difficult, leading subjects to favour low-effort, high-reward actions as cognitive fatigue sets in.
One of the study’s authors, Mathias Pessiglione, said previous theories suggested fatigue was an illusion concocted by the brain to make us stop what we are doing and turn to a more gratifying activity.
“But our findings show that cognitive work results in a true functional alteration — accumulation of noxious substances — so fatigue would indeed be a signal that makes us stop working, but for a different purpose: to preserve the integrity of brain functioning.”
Researchers say monitoring chemical changes in the pre-frontal cortex could have practical implications, such as helping detect severe mental fatigue in order to avoid burnout in the workplace.
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For Trump to have committed a crime there must be 2 elements: The Actus Reus, or the act of the crime; and the Mens Rea, or the mental intent to commit the crime.
In the first instance there was no crime because by definition any documents the POTUS possessed had declassified for his purposes since he was the chief de-classifier. But even if there was a criminal act there was no intent because the documents possessed by Trump had been selected and packed by the WH archivists, including the little turd who had complained.
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Old Ozzie:
Personally, I have no faith in any of these numbers.
Only a very silly person would have any confidence in any number put out by government. That is unfortunately where we are at the moment.
The reason I like gold is that historically it has been the store of value. It fluctuates, yes. I don’t see that as an issue when holding it for 20 – 30 year stretches. And I like the 1 oz size, not big bars of metal – the 1 oz is just more fungible for crisis use. -
The little-known Aussie behind one of the world’s top brands
Former travelling salesman Garry Ridge is the longest serving Australian chief of a listed US company, and it sells one of the world’s most recognisable products.
It’s a fitting precursor to lunch with WD-40’s Garry Ridge, the longest-serving Australian chief executive of a listed American company, whose tenure surpasses the likes of James Gorman at Morgan Stanley (12 years) and Andrew Liveris at The Dow Chemical Company (14 years).
For 25 years, until next month when he steps down as chief executive, 66-year-old Ridge has helmed a business that sells one of the most recognisable household items in the world: WD-40 (the name comes from the formula being the 40th attempt to perfect a water displacement product), an all-in-one lubricant, degreaser and anti-corrosive. The product is regarded by investor Warren Buffett as one of the top brands on the planet.
WD-40 even has its own fan club, which lists more than 2000 purposes for the product, from SpaceX rockets to removing pythons from a bus in Thailand.
From an unassuming, two-level brick headquarters in the outer suburbs of San Diego, Ridge has delivered a total shareholder return of 1369 per cent over the past two decades, more than twice that of the S&P 500. And he has done that all without firing a single employee; although his now wife, Maria, resigned from the company when the two became romantically involved.
Ridge might be surrounded by Americans and their culture, but he has not lost a gram of his Australian-ness. He grew up in Sydney’s inner west, worked for retailer Waltons and attended Sydney Tech College. He went on to work for Hawker Pacific, which owned the licence for WD-40 in Australia, and then joined WD-40 in 1987 as managing director for Australia. He transferred to the US in 1994 as director of international operations, and was appointed chief executive in 1997.
Home is never far away
His accent is still strong; he thinks this might be due to his listening habits.
“I listen to Australian breakfast radio every day. I drive home in the afternoon when it’s morning in Australia. I love the Australian culture. I love the Australian point of view. I love the way Australians reflect on things differently to the American culture.
“If I come up to you, as my friend in Australia, and I say, ‘Matt, will you do me a favour?’ Matt would say, ‘Yeah, what is it?’ But if I ask someone here, ‘Can you do me a favour?’ they say, ‘What is it?’, not, ‘Yeah’.”
Ridge takes another sip of the cool wine. He has a 1000-bottle home cellar, but, strangely, he loves a cheap Lindeman’s white.
The man in charge
One of the biggest costs for WD-40 – about $US3 million a year – is the maintenance and protection of the company’s trademarks. At the San Diego headquarters are floor-to-ceiling shelves full of spray cans. They are divided into three categories: the first is WD-40 cans since the company began, the second is all WD-40’s competing brands over the ages, and the third is all the counterfeit WD-40 cans seized from around the world.
Remarkably, when Ridge visited a factory in China where fakes were being made, he was told they had a letter approving the manufacture. Ridge asked to see the letter and what they produced before him was a decades-old forgery of his signature.
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When an investment company can be better than a family trust
The flexibility of dividends can be built in by issuing, in addition to ordinary shares, special shares that have no rights other than to be able to receive dividends.
Discretionary family trusts have traditionally been the go-to investment vehicle of families building investment wealth. They are attractive because of the flexibility trustees have to distribute income to a range of beneficiaries.
Families can minimise their tax obligations by having the trustee distribute the income to family members on lower marginal tax rates.
Various governments and the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) have tightened the way in which family trusts operate. Recent pronouncements from the ATO regarding how it interprets Section 100A of the Income Tax Assessment Act demonstrate that broadly it expects, when a distribution is declared to a beneficiary, there will effectively be a payment to that beneficiary.
There is increasing interest in using a personal investment company instead of a family trust. What are the pros and cons?
Companies are typically seen as less flexible than trusts, and subject to many rules of their own via the Corporations Act.
For example, there are rules around lending money to shareholders. Money lent to shareholders can be treated as taxable dividends or loans subject to relatively high interest and principal repayments. Providing benefits to employees can be seen as remuneration and fringe benefits. Company distributions, or dividends, are limited in their flexibility as to who can receive dividends by the shareholding structure of the company.
However, the flexibility of dividends can be built in when establishing the company by issuing, in addition to ordinary shares, special shares that have no rights other than to be able to receive dividends. These can be held by various family members in such a way that dividends can be declared at any time on any of the shares held, including (or excluding) the ordinary shares.
Dividends don’t have to be paid
One benefit of companies over family trusts is that if dividends are declared, they don’t have to be paid. They can sit in a loan account owing to that individual. Although it can be problematic for the company to make loans to the family, there is nothing restricting the family from making loans to the company.
Another advantage of investment companies for tax purposes is that the company doesn’t have to declare a dividend, compared with trusts that do have to distribute their income. Instead, it can simply retain its profits from investments. This is because companies are a taxed entity in their own right, whereas trusts are not taxed if all the income flows through them, so the beneficiaries pay the tax.
This ability to retain profits can assist with the building of wealth. When shareholders reach retirement, they can draw money tax-free from the built-up loan account, while franked dividends can be paid to shareholders to top up the loan accounts. Often the now-retired individual has minimal other income, so the franked dividends are highly tax-effective.
From a tax perspective, investment companies are slightly less attractive than family trusts as they do not receive a discounted tax rate on capital gains. This results in capital gains being taxed at the company tax rate, usually 30 per cent, whereas a trust could distribute gains to individual beneficiaries who would pay no more than 23.5 per cent if the asset had been held for at least 12 months.
However, investment income generally is taxed in the investment company at 30 per cent, whereas trust beneficiaries might pay up to 47 per cent tax on that investment income.
So investment companies can work well for a family if the company is established with a flexible share structure. The family can loan money to the company, perhaps as a lump sum and/or regular amounts. The company then invests the money and pays its own tax on income generated, usually at 30 per cent. Profits can then be accumulated or paid as dividends.
There is one big caveat to investment companies. It is best for the investment company to avoid “investing” in personal use assets such as holiday homes and cars as this can be interpreted as providing benefits to shareholders and/or fringe benefits to directors. This can certainly complicate matters when it comes to tax time.
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“If I come up to you, as my friend in Australia, and I say, ‘Matt, will you do me a favour?’ Matt would say, ‘Yeah, what is it?’ But if I ask someone here, ‘Can you do me a favour?’ they say, ‘What is it?’, not, ‘Yeah’.”
Interesting, and from my observation, true.
And that’s why I’ll be riding this sucker to the bottom.
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The path to 43pc hinges on these three bets paying off
Beyond the ambitious statements and big numbers, this is where the decarbonisation rubber hits the road.
A decade from now, Australia’s economy will be in the midst of the most dramatic overhaul since at least the 1980s.
That’s if decisions made in coming months by the Albanese government, businesses and consumers successfully deliver a dramatic acceleration in decarbonisation.
With the Senate likely to back early next month a national target of cutting by 43 per cent greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, the clock is already ticking.
The emissions target is an absolute one, meaning Australia has promised the world that it will reduce national carbon and other gasses that contribute to climate change by about 440 million tonnes between now and the end of the decade.
Last year, total annual emissions were 488 million tonnes, which is about 20 per cent fewer than what the economy produced in 2005, which is the baseline year for Australia’s 2030 target.
Labor estimates that the shift by households and businesses to more renewable energy – driven largely by state and territory incentives and policies – should automatically extend that reduction to 30 per cent.
To get the rest of the way to 43 per cent, Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen is relying on three broad policy fronts to deliver the remaining 13 per cent reduction and put the country on course for even more ambitious cuts by 2035 and net zero by 2050.
Safeguard mechanism
The first of those policies, and by far the biggest and most complex, will be to strip a significant portion of carbon out of the industrial sector. If it works, it will account for just over half of the 13 per cent cut Labor says its policy decisions will produce.
More than 200 “facilities” covering sectors like mining, oil and gas, and manufacturing, that emit more than 100,000 tonnes of carbon per year are in the government’s sights.
Those facilities produced about 140 million tonnes of emissions, or 28 per cent of the national total, in 2020-21, a year in which the pandemic affected activity. They will be subject to a “safeguard mechanism” that Bowen has pledged to put in place by the middle of 2023.
The mechanism will gradually tighten in coming years by creating both incentives to decarbonise via the awarding of tradable carbon credits as well as penalties for sectors that do not reduce emissions or are unable to.
When the safeguard mechanism was introduced by the previous Coalition government in 2016, it covered 17 per cent.
The details of how this incredibly complex process will unfold are still to be determined by Bowen, but given Labor’s pledge to exempt trade exposed businesses, the process is expected to be politically fraught.
Adding to the level of difficulty is the fact that Labor has decided to be an active investor in this space via a $15 billion “National Reconstruction Fund”, which includes $3 billion for new energy industry technology to help industrial users transition.
Labor’s list of potential investment targets reads like the former Coalition’s “technology roadmap”, relying on falling prices for clean energy and the emergence of a hydrogen economy and export industry.
Rewiring the nation
The second broad policy front is electricity, where Labor has the challenge of encouraging the roll-out of more renewables without destabilising the grid or driving up prices.
In total, it will account for 5 percentage points of the 43 per cent total, by stripping out 180 million tonnes of emissions this decade. If he succeeds, Bowen says renewables will account for 82 per cent of electricity generation in 2030.
But Labor is constrained by the darkening politics of gas, which activists and Greens are demanding be removed from the grid entirely, even though the fuel provides baseload power with far lower emissions than coal, the current heavy-lifter of energy generation in Australia at around two-thirds of the total.
Under Labor’s Powering Australia plan, as it was called in the lead-up to the May election, the government will invest $20 billion in electricity transmission to link up wind, solar and hydro to the national electricity market.
Again, this is still just in the planning stage, but given the vast amount of transmission and the challenges of winning over landholders, it will be significant.
Transport
The final policy front is transport, where the Albanese government has promised to take baby steps towards a series of changes that will directly affect households.
These include removing tax disincentives on the take-up of electric vehicles, expanding charging infrastructure, and making EVs 75 per cent of the Commonwealth’s car fleet purchases by 2025.
In its pre-election modelling, transport is forecast to contribute just 1 percentage point to this decade’s 43 per cent reduction, equivalent to 4 million tonnes in 2030.
By early September, the Senate is likely to have enshrined for the first time a national target to cut greenhouse gas emissions 43 per cent by 2030 after the lower house passed Bowen’s climate bills last week.
While many have taken the bill as primarily symbolic, Barry Sterland, national lead energy transition at KPMG and a former top federal bureaucrat where he led the development of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in 2008-10, says the legislation represents the “hard-wiring” of emissions cuts into the economy.
Hard-wiring climate targets
“First, the legislation proposes accountability and transparency elements,” he says. “These will strengthen policy to increase the likelihood these targets will be met and even exceeded.”
Sterland says the requirement that the Minister for Climate Change provides an annual statement to parliament by the Climate Change Authority on progress towards the 43 per cent target is significant.
“These requirements mirror those now seen in the corporate world where markets are demanding enhanced reporting to investors and other stakeholders on concrete plans towards achieving net zero emissions,” he says.
Furthermore, the emissions legislation includes several measures that will insert the targets directly into other laws.
“That means they will touch many aspects of government programs and economic support, embedding climate action into the workings of the economy,” he says.
“To illustrate the point, these climate targets now form part of the ‘objects clause’ of several other Commonwealth Acts.”
“These few words can be powerful drivers because they bring the energy transition into the heart of decision-making across government and its interface with business.”
For example, this could force changes to national building and appliance standards, as well as infrastructure financing, planning and scientific research.
“Climate targets are an important part of the variables decision makers must take into account,” says Sterland.
The next step, he suggests, will be the interaction between the Commonwealth’s legislation and state and territory laws, with energy the first likely area where the federal “hard-wiring” flows into the other jurisdictions.
The pending senate vote next month will include last-minute wrangling to ensure the support of independents like David Pocock.
But once it is passed, Australia’s transition will have been set on a steep pathway to 43 per cent and beyond.
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You cannot buy a minted one ounce gold bar from the Perth Mint for at least the next two to three weeks.
“Out of Stock” they claim. The one ounce minted bar is far and away the most sought after unit for a few reasons, I have never heard of the Mint running out of them before.
Plenty of cast ingots and gold coins, but cast gold is subject to clipping and coins have a large premium price which you are unlikely to recover for years.
Conspiracy theories. . . . . . .
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Cats – I renounced collectivism after 9/11. It was not easy. Only took me about eight or nine years …
Could not tolerate collectivists making excuses for moozleyism, being an unrepentant atheist.
Not that it matters – they are coming for us all. You will not be able to keep your head down and avoid the coming conflagration, try though you might.
The most annoying aspect of the triumph of collectivism (apart from the blatant hypocrisy) is the staggering stupidity. Dalrymple’s quote about accepting the propaganda and the effect it has on the mind, is instructive.
To be born in Oz in the last sixty years is to have won life’s lottery.
We must resist this unrelenting idiocy with every fibre of our beings or betray the legacy of our valiant forebears (turning in their graves as they are).
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Having said that – there is beauty on this planet. 🙂
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From CS Lewis’ “That Hideous Strength”, published in 1945. Professor Frost educates Mark in “objectivity”.
FrontPage Mag picked up on this yesterday.
C.S. Lewis’ Fantasy is Our Reality (11 Aug)
George Orwell’s prophetic novel 1984 has often been invoked for its ability to predict the increasingly arbitrary and tyrannical nature of our present society.
But three years before the publication of 1984, another dystopian novel which was in some respects more prescient than Orwell’s appeared in English bookstores.
Like 1984, only on a smaller scale, C.S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength describes a descent into tyranny that bears an eerie resemblance to our current situation. However, Lewis foresaw a few things that weren’t on Orwell’s radar.
When Orwell reviewed That Hideous Strength shortly after its publication in 1945, he warned that “we are within sight of a time when such [monstrous] dreams will be realizable.” But Orwell also criticized Lewis for bringing “supernatural elements” into the story because “they offend the average reader’s sense of probability.”
Orwell of course wasn’t a Christian, so the allegory may’ve gone over his head. It’s interesting though that we’ve had Voyage to Venus and That Hideous Strength both talked about on the Cat today. Long time since I’ve read the trilogy though.
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pointing out how he has many of you wrapped around his you-know-what.
He may flatter himself that this is the case. However, the opposite is true. He can’t keep away from these boards. Doesn’t matter how many times he faceplants here, he’ll be back. And he knows when he’s copped a pasting, because he pretends it never happened, even when it’s pointed out to him (which it inevitably and repeatedly will be). He’s aware of his boobery if he’s aware he needs to overlook it. And he has a LOT to overlook. Yet he returns, persistently, to make a fool out of himself. Not my idea of a good time, but hey. Takes all sorts.
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Andy Ngo is a living treasure, earlier this year he was in Berlin covering the riots by Antifa and leftist groups. It was May Day in Berlin, a holy and very sacred day in the leftist calendar, and of course the protesters, showing their priorities, were screeching the usual leftist hatred toward Israel and many protesters were carrying Palestinian flags and shouting “Palestine will be free”, code for genocide. It’s funny how some things never change in Berlin, like something out of a Kafka novel ideology has metamorphosised, today they wear black attire emblazoned with Antifa logos and screech Jew hatred, eighty years ago they wore black attire emblazoned with swastikas and screeched Jew hatred. Ngo filmed the riots and in the ensuing violence and mayhem, the only positive thing in the footage is that the German police, unlike the UK police, unlike the Portland Oregon police and unlike our very own Victorian police, don’t sit back and idly watch the violence and mayhem, the Berlin police, heavily armed, move in and use force to control the leftist scum, in fact they use a lot of force. I found it sweet, very sweet, but anyway, watching the footage you see the leftist scum dressed in black, faces covered, stomping through the streets of Berlin just like their Nazi forebears, intimidating shoppers and diners, and yet the same leftist scum part ways to allow Uber drivers through. It was surreal, but clearly we now live in surreal times.
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CS Lewis’ “That Hideous Strength”, published in 1945
Orwell’s landmark novel “1984” was not an instruction manual. It was a stark warning about the horrors of an all-powerful utterly intrusive government surveillance state and the abuses it would visit on those unfortunate enough to exist under it.
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Daily Mail.
Iran state media hails Salman Rushdie’s attacker as ‘courageous and duty-conscious man’ whose hands should be kissed for ‘tearing the neck of the enemy of God with a knife’
Iranian state media praised Salman Rushdie’s attacker as a ‘courageous and duty-conscious man’
Regime-owned papers branded the British author as an ‘apostate’ and heretic-writer
Tehran issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie’s murder after the publication of The Satanic Verses
The edict forced the writer into hiding for a decade and sparked worldwide riots and book-burnings -
Judge Roy Moore Vindicated, Wins $8.2 Million Defamation Lawsuit
Excellent news. Put it in the win box with Nick Sandmann’s win.
Unfortunately the poor Gibson’s Bakery family are still being shafted. Oberlin College got a stay this week on the ordered payout to them while yet another appeal goes through the system. Justice it seems does not come easily to the little people.
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Old Ozzie:
https://www.bodd.io/technology/
I wonder if there’s a way for it to say “One of you will have to get off.” -
Old Ozzie:
(No I’m not stalking you.) 🙂Hmm – Who knows what possible motive?
Man, 24, who stabbed Salman Rushdie had fake driver’s license in name of HEZBOLLAH commander and praised Iran’s Revolutionary Guard on social media: Author is on ventilator, will likely lose an eye, his arm nerves are severed and his liver damaged
OK, disfiguring and possibly defunctioning his arm. The liver will be OK -probably.
However he will be a walking demonstration of Islamic intolerance that won’t be able to be explained away by the Left. -
Palestine could be free. Pity about the Palestinians. They are the luckiest people in the world, as evidenced by the fact they still exist, let alone are able to live in largely self-governing territories – let’s just say this is an atypical experience for a group of people who have started and lost three wars of annihilation against the same enemy. Most who start such wars are not allowed a do-over, for obvious reasons. Let alone a third bite at the cherry! But do they count themselves lucky? Nope. In fact, the only settlement they’d be willing to accept is one where all of their demands are accepted, which is never going to happen (again, for obvious reasons). They’re losers. I have no time for them. It isn’t surprising in the slightest that leftist morons champion them incessantly.
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Stranded – on my own
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…like something out of a Kafka novel
In passing…
I’ve mentioned Kafka to a number of younger, educated & professional people in recent years and he doesn’t register with them.
The same applies to Solzhenitsyn.
When I was in my 20s I read both, and in that regard I wasn’t Robinson Crusoe.
No doubt there are a number of explanations for these lacunae in post-modern education.
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German police, unlike the UK police, unlike the Portland Oregon police and unlike our very own Victorian police, don’t sit back and idly watch the violence and mayhem, the Berlin police, heavily armed, move in and use force to control the leftist scum, in fact they use a lot of force
The cops, in most European countries, don’t go in for minimum force/graduated response – they operate on the basis that the authority of the Government is to be restored as soon as possible…
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Salman Rushdie…meh. I don’t want him harmed or killed, but I’m not going to champion his cause. He’s a champagne socialist type who would full-throatedly support the state stripping away the rights and liberties of those who generally wish the state to leave them alone.
For example, he’s bigtime into gun control. Except when it comes to his private security, I suppose.
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callisays:
August 13, 2022 at 5:23 pmBother. Too much Sipsmith
Old Ozzie:
Drinking a glass of Baily & Baily Silhouette Pinot Grigio 1L @ Case (6) $39.90 not bad for a evening quaffing wine with chic coated peanuts
Doc Faustus:
I might crack out the second McWilliams Royal Reserve flagon.
Pisspots, one and all.
XXXX Bitter pour moi. For I am a soffistikate. -
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“If the British Press is to be believed, Rushdie had let his guard down, and there was virtually no security.”
Funny, this is what I’ve been thinking this afternoon. This also alludes to what Tom superbly wrote this morning, and particularly his last line “As he lies in that NYC ICU, it’s cold comfort to Rushdie that thousands of people could have told him his life was always in danger and that he should never venture into a festival of his enemies.” Quite so Tom.
A few years ago I’d read somewhere that Rushdie no longer had security. I suspect that a fatal combination of hubris and complacency had set in and he’d come to believe he was no longer at risk. Big big mistake. Rushdie might have gotten away with such complacency fifty years ago, at a time when there weren’t many M*slims living in the West, but not now, such complacency is dangerous. Curiously, Rushdie also remained a leftist, unusual among many M*slim apostates, but that’s probably because he’s a writer and surrounded by leftists and clearly Rushdie is also a frequenter of shallow and wanky salons and festivals where the general consensus is that Isl*m is a “religion of peace”…..LOL. But generally, most M*slim apostates instinctively know and aren’t afraid to speak up and say so, such as Yasmine M*hamed, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Hatun Tash, Apostate Prophet and others, that it is the Western progressive left that has actively nurtured, encouraged, aided and abetted militant Isl*m in the West.
I don’t think Ayaan Hirsi Ali will be giving up her security any time soon.
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FBI Puzzled
This just in…
FBI claim Donald Trump wilfully and knowingly took from the White House items passed down from Abraham Lincoln including several pieces preventing Joe Biden from completing a jigsaw puzzle. Biden Is unlikely to see the complete picture of Toy Story’s Woody and the gang. One missing piece is Woodys boot which displays a name painted on the sole believed to be Woodys owner. The FBI will not rest until it recovers the classified jigsaw pieces to ensure POTUS sleeps soundly. Updates throughout the night. -
Having said that – there is beauty on this planet.
Yes, there is.
Fine performance by an Aussie lass.
I was hoping to put up a vid of the last battle, seeing we’ve been talking about Joan of Arc. But all the ones I can find are low res and muddy. Ms Wasikowska would make a fine Joan.
“Have I gone mad?”
“I’m afraid so. You’re entirely bonkers. But I’ll tell you a secret. All the best people are”
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Cohenite:
For Trump to have committed a crime there must be 2 elements: The Actus Reus, or the act of the crime; and the Mens Rea, or the mental intent to commit the crime.
Yes, I accept your position which is the legal one, however the issue is that President Trump is being pursued to disqualify him from running for the Presidency again and the Democrats only need to deny him the means to throw his hat into the ring. This is about denying him the chance to qualify in time.
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Oh come onsays:
August 13, 2022 at 7:11 pm
Salman Rushdie…meh. I don’t want him harmed or killed, but I’m not going to champion his cause. He’s a champagne socialist type who would full-throatedly support the state stripping away the rights and liberties of those who generally wish the state to leave them alone.I saw a broadcast of a speech he made during his time in hiding when he was secretly brought to speak at some maximum security venue.
It rivalled Imran Khan’s 1992 world cup victory speech as the most megalomaniac self-absorbed performance ever by a member of the human species. Sure, allowance has to be made for the stress he was under but there wasn’t a syllable of thanks to anyone who was standing up for him or protecting him – just all me, me, me. -
This attack on the demos by the political class is really started to bite in many countries eg Britain. That’ll teach ’em for supporting Brexit. As usual the royals show they’re worse than useless. Apropos discussions with Roger, awful as Saxe-Coburg Tampons are, I still prefer them to Neutral Bay-Fauxfacts set.
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Old Ozzie:
Remarkably, when Ridge visited a factory in China where fakes were being made, he was told they had a letter approving the manufacture. Ridge asked to see the letter and what they produced before him was a decades-old forgery of his signature.
There’s my Rubicon.
Imagine counterfeit WD40.
I have now cancelled all my contracts to buy Chines manufactures and gadgets. -
Step forward on path to Indigenous treaty
exclusive
Michael McKenna
Queensland editor
@McKennaattheOz
7:56PM August 12, 2022
101 CommentsAs an Aboriginal boy in Brisbane, Bob Anderson lived in fear of being caught out and about inside the “boundary” – the three streets of that name that still exist on the edges of the city – where Indigenous people were banned at night and on Sundays.
Now 93, the pleadings of his mother to be home before dark still echo in the mind of the Ngugi elder, as he again takes a leadership role in the next step of “the journey” away from those days of segregation and institutionalised racism.
The longtime activist, former carpenter and original native title claimant to Mulgumpin (Moreton Island) will help front the release on Tuesday of a report setting out the path to a treaty between Queensland and its First Nations’ people.
It will include the creation of a First Nations Treaty Institute to work on the agreement, and a three-year “Truth Telling and Healing Inquiry” to publicly air past injustices.
Queensland is one of several jurisdictions – including Victoria and the Northern Territory – to pursue a treaty in parallel to the national debate over constitutional recognition for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the proposed voice to parliament.
The report, first handed to the state government last October and the subject of criticism by its Aboriginal co-author, Jackie Huggins, over the delayed release, has been wholly endorsed by Annastacia Palaszczuk and her cabinet.
For Uncle Bob, the treaty or treaties – with the government already signalling there may be different agreements with different groups across the state – is important for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.
“It is part of the journey to set out where we are going, walking together, talking together as a nation and sharing a common destiny,’’ he said.
Uncle Bob, whose clan is one of three that makes up the Quandamooka people of Moreton and Stradbroke islands, said that the “Truth Telling” inquiry should not be about blame but “acknowledging what happened in the past”.
“I have seen so much change since I was a boy when there was the curfew on the streets,’’ he said.
“The treaty and constitutional recognition, which is a must, is part of the progression of our great nation with its multiculturalism and it begins with valuing Aboriginal culture.’’
The government put aside $300m last year in the budget for the “Path to Treaty Fund” for the process.
Three years ago, the Palaszczuk government started talks about a proposed treaty and later set up a treaty advancement committee co-chaired by Dr Huggins, a historian and author, and former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice commissioner of the Australian Human Rights Commission Mick Gooda.
The committee, which also included former Brisbane lord mayor Sallyanne Atkinson, has made 22 recommendations that begins with the establishment of an interim body of Indigenous leaders and non-Indigenous representatives.
Ms Palaszczuk said the treaty was a historic leap toward reconciliation in the state.
“We can’t change the past, but together we can create a new future for our state,” the Premier said.
“Treaty is about finding a place where we can face up to our shared history and be truthful about all of it – good and bad – and build a future together where we value, trust, and respect each other.”
I don’t normally go in for conspiracy theories, but is the aim of any Labor Government – State or Federal – to render the country ungovernable, if the Liberals are ever elected?
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Bonus on Mia Wasikowska making Alice in Wonderland. Excellent behind the scenes vid, which for some reason I hadn’t seen before. The doing of scenes in green screen is very interesting, you can almost fill in the background with your mind. Aussie actors and actresses rock.
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Massachusetts really is fuckhead place- everyone they send to Congress is a ‘rat.
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Tries again Echo
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Spare us the Cutter
Ripper single. Not available in Australia for some reason, but it played for me when I switched VPN to Kiwiland. Go figure.
Dunno why, but that track immediately reminded me of this one:
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Just watched Monty Python “The Meaning of Live” 2014 O2
As they were coming up in the Doctor Who Police Box lift they were singing –
Monty Python – Sit on My Face (Official Lyric Video)Sit On My Face – Monty Python
Sit on my face and tell me that you love me
I’ll sit on your face and tell you I love you, too
I love to hear you oralize
When I’m between your thighs
You blow me awaySit on my face and let my lips embrace you
I’ll sit on your face and then I’ll love you truly
Life can be fine if we both sixty-nine
If we sit on our faces in all sorts of places
And play, ’til we’re blown away -
I’m thinking of running for Prime Minister. My slogan will be
‘No’
Or
‘No no no!’
Or for my longer speech…
‘No no no we are not doing that.’Like this?
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Tries again Echo
Another ripper. For some reason I’ve always thought that was a track by Blondie.
Sad to be wrong, but lets me do this:Amazing that Debbie Harry is now 77. Time flies, as someone said.
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Back to 1985 – sometimes, you think there might just be a gun held at the cranium … 😕
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Not available in Australia for some reason
It was, Squire – I had a copy of the album it was on.
Had a massive collection of vinyl back in the day which I sold off once the switcheroo to CDs had been completed. Have only three albums left.
English Settlement (2515*)
Give Daddy the knife, Cindy
Sparkle in the RainGee, it might just be time to go and spend an inexcusable amount on a turntable, so as to flaunt my non existent superior hearing cred (or something) … 😕
*The album number, not the year it was released
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Am In a Melbourne backyard with outdoor fire going and a bottle of red.
Excellent!
Again I don’t know why, but this one comes into my brain. It’s a sort of anthem too. And they did the video in one take.
Mr Krinkle – Primus (1993)
As to The Cutter after that I was hitting probs on the Australian VPN connection, where YT says videos are “unavailable”. Congestion I think. Saturday night!
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Had a massive collection of vinyl back in the day which I sold off once the switcheroo to CDs had been completed. Have only three albums left.
I didn’t have that many, but when I finished uni I gave my collection and turntable to a flatmate, who was skint. One of the guys in our house in Kingsford was a serious music guy, with special cables and everything. I couldn’t compete. Anyway the other guy was very happy with the vinyl records and thereafter with a job earning actual munni I bought cassettes instead.
Here’s one I remember I had in vinyl. The album cover was awesome.
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Different versions of “I can only give you everythang, baybee …”
“I can only give you my almighty lervin’ until the sun goes down, baybee …
Until the leaves of summer should turn a shade of brown …
Whenever li’l flowers and bluebirds call …
But baybee, you know that I …
Can only give you everythang … “
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Sen. Chuck Grassley Demands Answers from FBI Director Wray on Mar-a-Lago Raid
12 Aug 2022
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is demanding answers from Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray regarding Monday’s raid of former President Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.
On Thursday, the conservative titan and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent Wray a list of questions concerning the unprecedented raid in Palm Beach, Florida, among other topics, including Hunter Biden. The FBI’s execution of a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago was reportedly about documents Trump may have taken with him when he left office last year.
Grassley began by asking Wray about his knowledge of the raid before it happened, what potential role he played in approving it, and the investigation more generally. He then delves into questions concerning the equal application of the law regarding government records, citing the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s “mishandling of highly classified information.”
Grassley first asks if Wray was “aware of the pending raid of Mar-a-Lago when he sat before” the Judiciary Committee on August 4. Grassley notes in the document that Wray left the hearing early before finishing his second round of questioning, and news reports that followed indicated he traveled to the Adirondacks on his government plane.
Subsequent questions concerning the Mar-a-Lago raid are as follows:
. “When did you approve the raid? When did Attorney General Garland?”
. “What was the predication for the raid? Please provide the predicating records, including the search warrant and supporting affidavit.”. “What is the scope of the investigation that predicated the raid? Is it limited to federal records and classification issues? Please explain.”
. “Did you discuss the search warrant with anyone at the White House before or after its execution?”
– “If so, what was discussed?”
– “Did any member of the White House staff or other executive employee, official, or agent, direct you in any way to pursue and execute the search warrant? If so, who?”
. “Did you discuss the search warrant with Attorney General Garland or any of his representatives or subordinates at the Department of Justice before or after its execution? If so, what was discussed?”
. “Has the FBI employed a team to determine which records fall within the scope of investigation and those that fall outside of it? If so, when was that team employed? If not, why not?”
Grassley noted that in October 2016 he penned a letter to then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch regarding the past investigation of Hillary Clinton, asserting she and staffers received “kid-gloves treatment relating to her mishandling of highly classified information.”
He emphasized that 38 people committed “91 valid security violations” and that there were another 497 violations where the committee was unable to establish culpability. Some of the 38 individuals intentionally used Clinton’s unsecured homebrew server to send classified information in correspondence. Another point of contention from Grassley were letters from Attorney Beth Wilkinson, who represented former Clinton Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills and her deputy Heather Samuelson, from June 2016, which “were incorporated by reference into the immunity agreements” for her two clients:
Grassley asked Wray about those security violations:Grassley’s final two questions on the Mar-a-Lago raid were as follows:
Grassley asked Wray to answer his questions by August 25.
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I have Vinyl of Rock Follies
Loved the Raunchy Voice of Julie Covington in Rock Follies Blueberry Hill
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I don’t have many favourites:
This is one –
No Promises. -
Life’s a gamble
Ah, yes. The Radiators. Good stuff.
This is a Countdown vid. Molly Meldrum is still with us, and said nice things upon ONJ’s passing this week. Bless him.
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Old Ozzie:
One of the things I’ve noticed about authoritarian organisations is they always overreach. In fact it would have to be a ‘tell’. They must overreach because they have no other way of defining the limits to their power.
Mentioned earlier, the Democrat Rubicon was reached with the 2022 election. Their corruption could no longer be denied despite the overwhelming support of the Fourth Estate and the Swamp.
The FBI has now dragged the Justice Department into an untenable position. It has no place to go except to double down.
This is the dangerous time – the wounded tend to strike out without thinking of consequences.
Hopefully the collapse will happen without too much blood being spilled. -
Muzak to listen listen to as our world collapses around our ears …
As opposed to Miss Maggie Dodgers and her Hollyweird gal pals – the goil in the white top is an actress (in the tacky Riverdale) and the gorgeous brunette in the multi coloured top is a voice actress … 😕
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