Open Thread – Tue 23 Aug 2022
1,980 responses to “Open Thread – Tue 23 Aug 2022”
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Aquinas was not a totalitarian.
Nor Donne:
No man is an island,
Entire of itself;
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
As well as if a promontory were:
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were.Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee -
No, Killing People Is Not A Humane Solution For The West’s Epidemic Of Despair
Medically assisted suicide, a pet project of many progressives, is increasingly popular in Western nations and must be resisted.News surfaced earlier this month about the Canadian health care system’s planned expansion of medically assisted suicide and the shockingly low bar required for administering such procedures.
Soon, Canadians will be able to request permanent release if they are suffering from something as commonplace as “mental health issues.”
News surfaced earlier this month about the Canadian health care system’s planned expansion of medically assisted suicide and the shockingly low bar required for administering such procedures.
Soon, Canadians will be able to request permanent release if they are suffering from something as commonplace as “mental health issues.”
As medically assisted suicide becomes increasingly popular and easier to access, while rates of substance use, overdose, and depression also increase, people are turning to assisted suicide to escape their pain.
Despair has increasingly come to characterize Western civilization, and more and more people are seeking release. The widespread insistence on escaping pain regardless of the consequences, instead of learning to live with it and thriving despite it, presents an existential crisis for the West.
How can a civilization remain, let alone thrive, if it tacitly encourages people to opt out of life when faced with hardship?
– Canada’s Death Cult
– Embracing Decay
– Resisting Decay
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Well he’s sure fooled me with that comment.
Aquinas would, like you, see the relation of the individual and the community as the relation of a part to the whole. What you might disagree on is the weight given to communal obligations. Not surprising, as you reflect different worldviews. Even now, though, it’s worth reminding ourselves that Western individualism is the exception, not the rule.
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Bring on the pandemic Royal Commission
By Pauline Hanson, One Nation Senator for QLD
Australians impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic must be able to tell their stories.
One Nation leader Senator Pauline Hanson said while the Prime Minister’s commitment to a Royal Commission into the pandemic was welcome, she saw no reason for a delay in starting the inquiry.
“I’m delighted the Prime Minister sees the logic in One Nation’s demand for a Royal Commission into the pandemic,” Senator Hanson said. “This is an unprecedented event which has disrupted the lives of everyone in Australia.
“We may still be dealing with COVID-19, but that’s not a legitimate reason for kicking the Royal Commission can down the road. After almost two and a half years of this wretched pandemic there is plenty of evidence for a Royal Commission to look at right now.
“One Nation was the only party which committed to a pandemic Royal Commission at the election, and we have not been idle in the meantime. We will offer a preliminary draft of the Royal Commission’s terms of reference on our website for comment in early September.
“These will focus on impacts on the economy, government accountability and transparency, systemic issues, legislation and policy, public trust, human rights, the role of the media, the role of international bodies and agencies, and the response of the private sector – all issues are on the table.
“The world will be watching, so this must be a comprehensive and completely public inquiry which examines every aspect of how the pandemic was managed. We must be able to review the expert advice which was used to justify pandemic measures which caused so much disruption and pain across the nation.
“It’s imperative Australians’ experiences of the pandemic are heard. This Royal Commission must give Australians the opportunity to tell their stories. It’s time for the truth.
“We should be under no illusions this will be a long and sometimes difficult process. It’s one of the reasons we should get started on it right now. The Prime Minister does no service to the Australian people by delaying it.”
Watch Senator Hanson’s discussion with Chris Kenny about the need for a pandemic Royal Commission
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Looks like genocide ain’t what it used to be.
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Every man is part of the mUnty, and so, as such, he belongs to the mUnty.
Not true!
Earlier we were talking about prosthetic mUnties.
Then, of course, the is the Caine MUnty, where Humphrey Bogart plays with his balls, like hUnty Biden.
Or mUnty On the Bounty where the crew rose up against the captain on a voyage to bring
BreadDonutfruit to England. -
Colonel Crispin Berkasays:
August 26, 2022 at 5:17 pm
Aquinas was not a totalitarian.Well he’s sure fooled me with that comment.
I’m not sure that that was a very good translation.
I haven’t got the expertise to say so definitively but it doesn’t look to me as though the original (below) is saying that the community owns the individual or anything like that. It seems more like Donne’s “no man is an island”. It appears in the context of saying that suicide is wrong – perhaps a stringent libertarian would disapprove of the statement in that context anyway, of course.Quilibet autem homo est pars communitatis, et ita id quod est, est communitatis.
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ABC: “The ruling came after a lawsuit levelled at the Church and Cardinal Pell by the father of one of Pell’s accusers, who has since died of a drug overdose.”
He died in April 2014, eight years before the present matter. He never accused Pell of anything. Most trusted source of news and information. -
You slipped from ‘belongs’ to ‘owned’ without taking a breath.
I have a tough choice here. I can believe Dover’s New English Dictionary, or I can believe the Cambridge English Dictionary.
I thought I could take a saint at their word, but even the saintly types need to be rehabilitated for modern times by their present day mortal helpers.I could accept that Aquinas meant the individual’s sense of belonging, but “belongs to” was an odd way to say it when other phrasings were conventional, and neither yourself nor MT nor Calli have put forward that particular meaning as the correction.
Service to someone you “belong to” still sounds a lot like servitude. Maybe it’s just the language of his time and a misunderstanding. -
Mother Lode says:
August 26, 2022 at 4:51 pm
My company leapt upon Covid mania when it came out…..I’m currently contracting to a large public company who have six floors in a multi-storey inner city building. Required to work in the office one day per week although this doesn’t seem to be monitored.
Most days, maybe 10-12 people per floor on building floor plates of around 900 sq/m accommodating approx 70-80 workstations plus kitchen, meeting rooms, corridors etc. Typical of most offices. On Fridays or Mondays, maybe 4-6 people per floor. At most.
Realistically, the company could do away with three floors, and possibly four, and thereby save many tens of thousands of shareholder dollars. I understand they have lease obligations but I’m told the company has no intention or plan to ask workers to commence relocation back into the office.
Separately, a few months ago I was working at a different business and looking out my window at the neighbouring office building, I could see two utterly vacant, but still equipped, floors in that building. (and that was just what I could see). Further, I am told by a mate that many government departments are facing stiff opposition from staff and Unions about returning to work in the office.
The longer work-from-home continues, only acts to further cement the change. I have heard people argue that they purchased home office equipment (desk, chair, better home computer, bigger computer screen etc) and they are not willing to scrap that ‘investment’ just because the government department/business has changed its mind.
It seems to me that the office based landscape has changed permanently and it will be a rainy day in Hell before I would invest in the likes of Dexus, Charter Hall etc. The amount of available (or potentially becoming available) office floorspace must cause them nightmares.
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British Foreign Secretary Truss said she was ready to use nuclear weapons if necessary
Shirley not.
Women’s natural instincts for peace and goodwill to all were the reasons touted for electing women.
It was only the mean nasty war loving men who resorted to violence against each other.
Elect women. Make society calmer, safer, nicer.
Or else. -
Quilibet autem homo est pars communitatis, et ita id quod est, est communitatis.
Communitatis cannot simply be translated as ‘community’, a sort of sponge-word, absorbing numerous meanings. Communitatis carries the sense is of an identity of belief, of being and purpose. It is associated with the term ‘communion’, as a sharing of something, an exchange.
Or what Tonnies struggled with in his C19th tomes:
Tönnies distinguished between two types of social groupings. Gemeinschaft often translated as community refers to groupings based on a feeling of togetherness. Gesellschaft often translated as society on the other hand, refers to groups that are sustained by an instrumental goal.
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my reading instantaneously evokes ‘service’ rather than ‘servitude’
I cannot read it the other way … it just doesn’t compute for me
I do not expect servitude, I give service
one of my fears or worries is that, in true post-modern form, too many people lately have enslaved themselves with language
semantics are their shackles
they built a cage of their own design and then threw away the key
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Elizabeth (Lizzie) Bearesays:
August 26, 2022 at 6:06 pmCommunitatis cannot simply be translated as ‘community’, a sort of sponge-word, absorbing numerous meanings. Communitatis carries the sense is of an identity of belief, of being and purpose. It is associated with the term ‘communion’, as a sharing of something, an exchange.
That helps to make sense of the statement in the context in which it appears.
And doesn’t indicate that the statement was about servitude. -
Gerald Henderson in fine form:
CAN YOU BEAR IT?
• 7.30’s SARAH FERGUSON/PETER GARRETT SOFT INTERVIEW IGNORES MIDNIGHT OIL’s EMITTING PAST
Media Watch Dog has no particular objection to suck-up interviews – except that Jackie’s (male) co-owner is never the recipient of such largesse. So Hendo was keen enough to watch the (expected) soft interview of Midnight Oil lead-singer Peter Garrett by ABC TV 7.30 presenter Sarah Ferguson on 22 August. Here’s how the ABC described the occasion:
It’s been a long journey for Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett – one that leads from Sydney’s pubs to concert halls around the world, from the halls of power in Canberra, to the red centre of the continent. But that journey is coming to an end as Midnight Oil is on their final concert tour. It’s already taken them across Europe and North America and on the weekend the band played at Mundi Mundi from where Peter Garrett speaks to Sarah Ferguson.
The interview commenced with a reference to Midnight Oil’s campaign for Indigenous rights over the years – and a segment was shown of Peter Garrett singing Beds are Burning, which contains the following lyrics:
The time has come
To say fair’s fair
To pay the rent
To pay our shareThe time has come
A fact’s a fact
It belongs to them
Let’s give it backLet’s go to the transcript:
Sarah Ferguson: It, of course, was a call for Australians to give back to Indigenous people what had been stolen from them. Decades on we’re looking at a referendum to establish a Voice to the Parliament. How significant is that going to be for you and the band?
Peter Garrett : I think it’s really, really important to us.
Ms Ferguson did not ask – and Mr Garrett did not say – whether any members of the Oils have given back any of their privately owned land to Indigenous Australians. But, then, it was not that sort of interview.
Then Comrade Ferguson (born 1965) put it to Comrade Garrett (born 1953) that “the generation who rushed out and bought” Midnight Oil’s 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 album in 1982 – “they’re the ones who failed the world on climate change and I’m not including you and the band in that charge”. She added that your man Garrett and his “followers [were] simply overwhelmed by the power of the fossil fuel lobby and the politicians aligned with it”.
How about that? The fact that Midnight Oil burnt the oil (to coin a phrase) before and after was all the fault of, wait for it, the fossil fuel industry and politicians. Peter Garrett seemed to agree – despite the fact that he was a Labor Party parliamentarian between October 2004 and August 2013. He went on to apportion the main blame to “our banks, our financial regulators and our governments”. It was as if someone forced such boomers as Garrett to buy cars and to travel against their will.
Sarah Ferguson continued to bang on about global warming and all that. But no one mentioned Midnight Oil’s personal contribution to global emissions.
Look at it this way. Comrade Garrett and his merry band of leftist performers toured the world for over four decades from distant Australia on jet planes and by road. Midnight Oil performed with electric guitars under carbon-emitting bright lights and sang into carbon-emitting microphones supported by a carbon-emitting sound system. And they did live gigs – so their audiences made their own contributions to carbon emissions in travelling to and from Midnight Oil concerts. And then there are their carbon-emitting albums and all that which is needed to produce them.
The interview ended – as it commenced – with a suck-up about Midnight Oil’s exit from the stage as a band:
Peter Garrett: So when we get to that final moment, yeah, look, it will be emotional, it will be big, and it’ll have weight to it. But I also think we’ll probably have a great feeling of gratitude, to have been enabled to do this thing, which is so special.
Sarah Ferguson : You said gratitude. Well, from us, from your fans everywhere, gratitude back at you. Thank you very much. Peter Garrett.
Peter Garrett : Thank you, Sarah. Thanks.
And so it came to pass that the eco-catastrophist 7.30 presenter expressed her gratitude to Peter Garrett and his Midnight Oil band for over four decades of unnecessary carbon emissions. Can You Bear It?
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Further, I am told by a mate that many government departments are facing stiff opposition from staff and Unions about returning to work in the office.
My son works in a stay-at-home-if-you-wish government office, and he absolutely loathes it. He is a social chap who likes to engage with people around him. He goes in regularly and says the actual work done is falling apart and morale is through the floor. No-one cares any more. He hopes things will improve by September 1 when a back-to-the-office has been called for at least some days of the week. There is still a lot of Covid panic, or confected panic, so that people have an excuse to slack off.
Having no place of work where people interact has been a disaster and should be stopped before it gets any worse.
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I have a tough choice here. I can believe Dover’s New English Dictionary, or I can believe the Cambridge English Dictionary.
I see you went to A2 rather than B1 which is clearly the relevant meaning of ‘belongs to’ here because Aquinas is referring to man as a member belonging to a group, here, community, which in no way implies s/he is owned by the community.
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OldOzzie says:
August 26, 2022 at 2:19 pmImpermissible Notions
Or, Things That Will Not Be Tolerated On Twitter.
The thing in question this time is a cartoon, an illustration of an idea. It was shared, briefly, yesterday by biologist and Quillette contributor Colin Wright, and was promptly censored by Twitter’s moderators. Mr Wright has apparently been suspended from said platform until a confession of hateful wrongdoing – as yet unspecified hateful wrongdoing – has been extracted.
Given the cartoon’s scandalous properties, I’ll reproduce it below the fold. Do feel free to grip the arms of your chair.
This, apparently, is what’s verboten on Twitter. Note that no inflammatory commentary was added to the image. The image itself was deemed a basis for both indignation and speedy action. And so, the enormous list of things to which Twitter’s moderators take exception now includes the suggestion that strident activists often do harm to the cause they ostensibly champion. A phenomenon seen all but daily, and on many fronts.
The article that the illustration accompanies, by Eliza Mondegreen, can be found here.
Readers are welcome to comb through it in search of seething hatred or some great urge to oppress.
Great find, Ozzie. Just like gays, the radical fringe has hijacked a group of people for its own ends.
When I lived near Kings Cros in the 1980s, my GP had quite a few trannie patients. We were talking about it one day, and he said: ‘I asked my last (trannie) patient what she liked most about being a woman. Oh, she said, I just like to sit at home and knit.’
It was not about changing the world or shoving it in everyone’s face. That was an add-on by people with a very different agenda.
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So Novak Djokovic will miss this year’s US Open because of the Sniffer administration’s insistence foreigners such as Novak be “fully vaccinated”. I admire and respect Djokovic’s decision. Good on him.
So, today John McEnroe has spoken up for Djokovic, stating “I would have had the vaccine and gone and played but he’s got very strong beliefs and you have to respect that“.
Very nice Mr McEnroe, but I’m curious, whilst I agree with you, it’s a pity that you aren’t consistent in your defense of and respect for “strong beliefs”. I recall how you joined in the screaming pile on and vilification of Margaret Court a few years ago, all because she happens to be a devout Christian and she believes in traditional marriage. I recall how you even joined in on the progressive bandwagon to strip Melbourne’s centre court of the Court name and rename it after Yvonne Goolagong.
You can’t be serious Mr McEnroe?
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rickw
How long before the corporate “smartest people in the room” admit that they fell for the COVID bullshit hook line and sinker?
A very long time. The hardest thing for people to do, particularly those who regard themselves as “leaders” of communities or organisations, is to admit to having been wrong.
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dover stop flogging your dead latin horse.
Whatever the 2nd clause means it is something different to the first, avoiding redundancy, so Aquinas clearly did not mean merely “a member of”, because he has already said that with “a part of”.
He was thinking in Italian, he translated that to Latin for writing, then someone at a much later date has had to translate that to English, and there was plenty of room for misinterpretation there even before I got involved at the last minute.
MT *did* suggest “sense of belonging” but I glossed over those two lines “Any man’s death diminishes me/ Because I am involved in mankind” in my first reading.
The Gemeinschaft trumps the Gesellschaft and old Thomas seriously needs some new translators.
I’m finished with this topic! -
Communitatis cannot simply be translated as ‘community’, a sort of sponge-word, absorbing numerous meanings. Communitatis carries the sense is of an identity of belief, of being and purpose. It is associated with the term ‘communion’, as a sharing of something, an exchange.
Communitatis is just a substantive definition of community; it is simply any community prior to the atomizing effects of modernity and the subsequent emmiseration of the term, which is why it offends the sensibilities of some moderns.
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To be fair to the FBI, they could be excused for being a little jumpy about Russian disinformation recycled by Trumpkins after 2016.
Thanks, Monty. Roared laughing.
My God, you’re stupid — totally entrapped by the bullshit you’re commanded to repeat from social media central.
You’re not meant to believe the Democratic Party’s disinfo — that’s for the dumb lefty peasants on Twitter.
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Elite schools don’t get you into university if you are as dumb as a box of rocks, and if you get into a decent university you need to do more than merely pass.
And while some firms might like graduates of certain private schools they also like competence.
Graduates with first class honors who’ve taken every opportunity to improve their employability eg vac work, get very good jobs too, irrespective of where they went to secondary school. -
Bummer. Hairy has just received notification that our August 2023 cruise on the Trade Winds line’s huge four master high-tech sailing ship from Croatia down the Adriatic to Corfu and the Agean Greek Islands has been cancelled. They will refund our deposits. Apparently this ship has been leased to UAE for some elite long-term private use for later 2023. We will have to search around for something similar now.
We are due in the UK in September too, we were going to do that as an add on.
Good job we hadn’t booked the flights for the cruise yet.
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Whatever the 2nd clause means it is something different to the first, avoiding redundancy, so Aquinas clearly did not mean merely “a member of”, because he has already said that with “a part of”.
Sure, let’s concede that the 2nd clause, “he belongs to the community”, is saying something more than the 1st, “part of the community”, that could simply be ‘inseparable from’ rather than ‘owned by’, because the 2nd is implied by the 1st because it is talking about the relation of a part to the whole, whereas ownership isn’t immediately implied by being a part.
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This working from home caper is codswallop. It’s crap and it’s just bullshit laziness.
It just doesn’t work for the customer in many settings. A little over a year ago we were having a farmhouse addition done.
But early discussions with regional Council were often hampered by officers (mostly women) working from home and unable to access historic paperwork in archives etc. In fairness, it didn’t slow us down too much – but it may be worse now.
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Who’s Andrew Tate and why was he banned from every place?
JC, Tucker Carlson had a brilliant interview with him today that explains how all the tech monopolies acted suddenly and in concert to ban and demonetise him because he was standing up for men — verboten by the Silicon Valley sociopaths.
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This is how they do it. We were pretty sure this was the case, but this is confirmation. You won’t see Klaus or Bill keel over. But deliberate murder of plenty of others.
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Hard to feel sorry for Scott Morrison and the news that he’s facing an inquiry. Sure it’s a political witch hunt but chickens do come home to roost. Since May 2019, Morrison stood by, said nothing, did nothing and in almost all situations, actually sided with the left against his own side, think Bettina Arndt, Craig Kelly, George Christensen, Alan Tudge, Christian Porter and Andrew Laming.
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Forgive me if this sounds presumptuous, but in view of the increasingly concerning possibility of a war with China, it is useful to get hold of an old fashioned world globe on a stand.
I have just acquired one for my desk. It is SO more compelling and instructive than the usual flat plane maps of the world that we now use. Our school students should be immediately afforded the opportunity to use them.
Heck – I had forgotten how large the land mass of Australia is compared to populous nations like China and India. And wow – the island chains of the Pacific are so much more relevant to Australia’s security when you look at their proximity in the ocean to our east. How close the Solomon Islands are to our north and how far away is the American base in Hawaii. And the South China Sea – through which most of our trade and fuel supplies transits – what a strategic vulnerability.
I’m sure most on this blog – especially the military trained and interested – will be familiar with all of this geography and strategic significance. But it would help if more Australians were familiar with the the literal global topography and relativity, rather than words and a flat arrangement of a few countries on a page.
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How close the Solomon Islands are to our north and how far away is the American base in Hawaii.
I noted this when Mrs Eyrie bought me a nice globe a few years ago for my birthday. I’m amazed the war in the Pacific was fought across those distances with the technology of the early 1940’s.
Just had a look. Australia and China are comparable in size. Much of China is useless too, like Australia. Suitable for storage of nuclear waste, strip mining and keeping the coasts apart. -
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare says:
August 26, 2022 at 4:17 pmDuk, my sister got a top Firsts in Medicine from Syd Uni in the 70’s
Of course she did.
It never stops, the boasting and rank-pulling, mired in sludgy prose, as correctly identified by Armadillo.
How’s the very learned book you’ve been telling us about for more than a decade going?
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So they effectively reduced the number of desks to 30% of what it was pre-Covid, and now every desk is a hot desk – you cannot create a space for yourself with photos, trophies and awards you may have won, add non-standard items like you own desk-lamp, cannot be sure how many monitors you will get, or even get a keyboard that is worn in the way with which you are familiar. Docking stations disappear, the chairs have to be re-set everyday, you have no storage space because who uses storage for something you will only need for one day?
That would be hot-desking in another guise. Stupid companies keep trying this on.
As anyone who has worked in an office knows, being able to personalise your space, however humble, is very important to a substantial percentage of employees. It operates on two levels – being able to have your office supplies available and where you want them to be, and having personal stuff like photos around.
Number one is of primary importance, there is nothing more annoying and time-wasting than having to scout around the office for a stapler or whatever every time you need one. Number two matters a lot to some employees, not so much to others. Combined, they make for a very unfriendly workplace for most people.
For some unknown reason, they keep trying it on.
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Vicki says:
August 26, 2022 at 7:16 pm
Indeed, Vicki. I snagged a small one on a clearance table at Safeway/Woolworths many moons ago and, like you, enjoy using it as my go-to view of the planet in context, whether for geopolitical aspects or just imagining the seasonal aspects of it’s tilt.Approaching the spring equinox. Yay!
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The FBI is now as deeply corrupt and politically compromised as Vikpol. They are the DemoCraps Gestapo, where no low or vicious act is too out of bounds for this fetid agency to deploy against their political foes.
I hope to see another Revolution, where brutal and efficient justice is meted out to these corruptocats and their political masters with not one ounce of mercy shown. -
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha says:
August 26, 2022 at 6:39 pm• 7.30’s SARAH FERGUSON/PETER GARRETT SOFT INTERVIEW IGNORES MIDNIGHT OIL’s EMITTING PAST
Would this be the same Midnight Oil, who may, or may not, have preformed in Johannesburg, and may, or may not, have donated the proceeds to the African National Congress?
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha says:
August 26, 2022 at 6:39 pm• 7.30’s SARAH FERGUSON/PETER GARRETT SOFT INTERVIEW IGNORES MIDNIGHT OIL’s EMITTING PAST
Would this be the same Midnight Oil, who may, or may not, have preformed in Johannesburg, and may, or may not, have donated the proceeds to the African National Congress?
For more recent readers, at Sinc’s I reported a publicity event in the 1980s where Peter Garrett arrived riding a bicycle. What was not widely known was that his wife, driving the Volvo, dropped him and the bike around the corner.
I know, I was there.
Every single one of them is a hypocrite.
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7.30’s SARAH FERGUSON/PETER GARRETT SOFT INTERVIEW IGNORES MIDNIGHT OIL’s EMITTING PAST
The daughter of a farming family was having a rather tradition twenty first birthday bash, way back when – D.J. and all. He put “The beds are burning” on the sound system….”Let’s give it back” elicited a bellow of “Turn that shyte off.”……
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Posts up thread about the uselessness of the Austro Hungarian Army, and the incompetence of the Chief of General Staff, in the opening stages of the war in 1914.
Just after the start of that war, an Austrian unit, involved in heavy fighting against the Russians, demanded a small arms ammunition resupply, which was duly delivered.
The ammunition was blank.
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we don’t have enough University Medals around here these days
Proud to say I was never gifted with one.
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This whole Albansleazey Goat Rodeo is proving to be even more staggeringly z-grade than I ever could have imagined.
Give the morons another six months and we’ll be reminiscing about the good ol’ days of Kevni and Juliar.
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ZKTA: The Good Soldier Svejk‘s tales of his service in the Austro-Hungarian army was more history than satire.
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miltonf says:
August 26, 2022 at 8:58 pmMidnight oil – marxist agitprop from nasty, spoilt privileged brats who never wanted for anythin
milton, as someone who knew one or two of them (including Garrett) that is a stupid generalisation. It is the sort of crap that gets legitimate questions put into the nutcase box.
The soft left was a very different animal – and in the case of Midnight Oil, who always had rock solid management to protect their business – it is a joke to talk about who did or didn’t want for anything. Some members did, some didn’t ‘want’ for ‘anything’ when they were growing up. As a band, that made not a jot of difference.
As a young gel I interacted in various ways with top bands like Cold Chisel and Midnight Oil, and Radio Birdman and The Saints. This business was cutthroat. Equipment was stolen. Leads were cut while a band was onstage.
That was fun. But, the survivors had battalions of managers and lawyers backing them up. Not to mention one or two large Samoans on staff.
All that ‘we care’ stuff is a classic example of gliding over the surface while a big machine is grinding away beneath.
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milton, as someone who knew one or two of them (including Garrett) that is a stupid generalisation. It is the sort of crap that gets legitimate questions put into the nutcase box.
‘don’t serve your country don’t serve your king’ – insulting at best. I have no time for Garret whatsoever. As for his time in government- absolutely disgraceful.
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Grate – NSW Govt youtube ads – let’s reimagine them, Cats!
“The NSW Government is composed of a bunch of big gay homosexual fascist greenfilth pooftahs* who’ve never pretended to be anything otherwise – yet the collective muscle memory of gliberal voters continues to support those loathsome degenerate frauds”
This is not a good thang, Cats. 😕
*BIRM
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Copy this and give it to your federal MP:
Vikki Campion: Electric vehicles are for inner-city elites, not the regions
Electric vehicle policy proves yet again that the government is focused on inner-city elites at the expense of those in rural Australia, writes Vikki Campion.
The electric car subsidy gives the biggest tax breaks to the highest earners, sends tax money overseas to buy cars that we cannot attain due to supply shortages, and imports to a nation that does not yet have a workforce trained to deal with them. But those are not the biggest problems with the policy.
As senators examining the impact of the electric car discount this week heard, subsidising EVs paved the way for activists masked as “non-profit organisations” to insist that older, higher emitting vehicles should pay more taxes, forcing us to buy EVs that cost an average $20,000 more than their internal combustion engine counterparts.
Not only that, EVs should get free rego, priority parking and priority lanes, while combustion engines pay more. This is how extreme socialism works, where the few enlightened instruct the masses.
Who drives older, higher-emitting vehicles? Older, poorer people and bigger families.
Yet the biggest beneficiaries of the electric car discount will be employees of big businesses on the highest tax rate of over $180,000.
All EV sales were “inner-urban-centric”, motor vehicle sales organisations told the inquiry, with sales decreasing the further from “inner-city leafy suburbs”, as regional buyers worried about how far an electric car could actually go and how long it would take to charge.
Just 10km required an hour of charging on the wall, the inquiry heard, with the Hyundai Kona Electric taking 28 hours to charge at home on mains power. This creates serious problems in the bush if you quickly need to get to a hospital. Bear with me while I charge the car while you have that asthma attack.
There are regional members of parliament driving 80,000km a year. That’s 8000 hours of charging or about 50 days’ worth. Every regional politician should be forced to trial EVs first, not with coal-fuelled fast chargers, but emission-free rooftop solar batteries, before that system is imposed on the bush.
Labor Senator Deb O’Neil was a voice of reason in drilling EV activists on what they had done to engage with regional communities before spruiking amendments to the bill. Repeatedly, the answer was not a lot.
Climateworks spoke to “decision makers” – which is code for “we only talk to the clique of our own while imposing our decisions on you”.
The Australia Institute, fresh from a dalliance with Mike Cannon-Brookes, insisted the range was so good, “nine out of 10 regional Australians would make a trip without having to stop to charge”.
Their view of regional Australia is a hobby farm near Bowral or a weekend in the Blue Mountains.
To get to a sealed road, I drive 14km on dirt. After heavy rain, it becomes almost impassible without a 4WD.
Second-hand diesel 4WDs are selling for almost as much they were originally purchased for because that is the economic need that must be fulfilled.
The EVs for sale in Australia bear no resemblance to the list of top-selling vehicles here, where the top two sellers of 2021 were utes, as were seven of the 20 top-sellers. In Australia, there is no commercially available battery electric or plug-in hybrid electric ute or work truck for sale. People don’t buy utes to impress their girlfriend. They need them to do their jobs.
This is also a socialist tax on large families. If you have four kids, what car can you buy?
EVs are for a white-collar inner-urban workforce, not the reality of regional Australia or even big families in Western Sydney.
While EV activists claim households with an EV charged from a home solar-battery system “can expect an average total electricity bill of about $230 each year”, in England that plan is working so well they are turning off their deep freezers, gambling with food poisoning, to
stop power bills soaring.Even if we did have the mass take-up that these green organisations so desire – and somehow beat the supply shortage of right-hand drive electric vehicles – we would not have enough power to charge them.
Australia has 20 million internal combustion engines and some 20,000 electric vehicles. For a mass transition, we need to treble our power generation, which won’t happen with the projected closure of coal-fired power stations.
Australia will also require a different workforce to handle and maintain EVs. Like going from horse and cart to automobile, we are changing the propulsion system.
Tradies know it brings potential unintended consequences, as right now we do not have the skills to maintain them.
Also notably absent from any of the discourse were the changes to road safety and fire brigades, who overseas have realised that once a fire starts in an electric vehicle, the only real option is to let it burn out.
A burning Tesla requires about 17 fire engines’ worth of water to extinguish. That’s fine if you can connect to a city main, but is impossible in the bush, which relies on volunteer fireys who often need to take water from farmers’ dams to stop a blaze.
It’s like the Hindenburg on wheels. When it’s not on fire, it’s low emissions. It’s clean and green – until there’s a spark.
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A burning Tesla requires about 17 fire engines’ worth of water to extinguish. That’s fine if you can connect to a city main, but is impossible in the bush, which relies on volunteer fireys who often need to take water from farmers’ dams to stop a blaze.
A burning Tesla, on a 44 degree day, a howling Easterly, in the middle of a tinder dry country side, with a total fire ban?
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From The Oz…
The Daniel Andrews era to live on in Victoria, Newspoll finds
Daniel Andrews has defied unrest over some of the world’s toughest Covid-19 restrictions and is on track to win a third term for Labor in the Victorian election as Liberal leader Matthew Guy’s personal ratings slump to record lows three months from polling day.
A Newspoll conducted exclusively for The Weekend Australian reveals Labor’s primary vote has fallen only slightly since the 2018 election rout, while dissatisfaction with Mr Guy’s performance has soared seven points since voter sentiment was last tested in November last year. Labor holds a 56-44 per cent two-party-preferred lead in the latest poll taken between Monday and Thursday compared with the 58-42 per cent lead Labor held in the previous Newspoll.
The numbers suggest the Coalition is heading for another major loss in the first state election since Scott Morrison’s federal defeat in May, when Kooyong and Goldstein fell to independents and large swings away from the Liberals were recorded in other key seats.
At 41 per cent, Victorian Labor’s primary vote, while down three points from last November, is equal to or higher than at any time before the 2014 or 2018 elections. Mr Andrews’ satisfaction rating of 54 per cent is higher than at any time before the 2014 or 2018 elections and has barely changed since the last Newspoll in November. Dissatisfaction with Mr Andrews is 41 per cent for a net satisfaction rating of 13.
Only 32 per cent of voters were satisfied with Mr Guy’s performance compared with 49 per cent dissatisfied. Mr Guy’s net satisfaction of minus 17 per cent, is the lowest he has recorded in Newspoll, worse than his previous low of minus 15 a month before the 2018 election. The result is certain to increase chatter about his viability in the run-up to the election.
There will also be concerns about suggestions independents will stand in key seats after the success of teal candidates in the May federal election. Statewide support for “others” is running at 10 per cent.
The Greens have increased their primary vote support to 13 per cent, which could – if the swing falls in the right seats – help the minor party win up to three extra lower-house positions.
The Newspoll numbers suggest Mr Andrews would be returned to office with a workable majority if an election were held this week, killing off chances of Labor being forced into a minority power-sharing arrangement.
Labor won 55 seats at the 2018 election compared with the Coalition’s 27, and a redistribution notionally handed a net gain of one seat to Labor and took one off the opposition.
This month marks the 20th anniversary of the Victorian Liberals dumping Denis Napthine as leader in the run-up to the 2002 election, which contributed to a landslide Labor win.
Senior Liberals have been informally discussing the merits of whether to keep Mr Guy in the position, arguing the transition from former leader Michael O’Brien hasn’t worked. “If there is another scandal, he’s gone, but who would ever want that job now?” a senior Liberal said. “He wanted it badly enough; he can deal with the mess.”
Multiple Labor sources have said momentum had shifted towards the Coalition until the opposition was engulfed in an integrity scandal over a botched pay rise for a former adviser and debate raged about Mr Morrison’s decision to secretly take on extra cabinet appointments during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“I am not expecting a clear-cut Labor victory, it will be more nuanced than that, with losses in strange places. But we will win,” a senior Labor MP said.
There are 14 key seats that Labor is at risk of losing on November 26, six of which the Coalition was hopeful of winning.
Senior Liberal sources said no one was realistically expecting a Coalition majority, with a Labor minority government the best result likely.
If this weekend’s Newspoll is replicated on election day, the Labor losses could be contained to between three and six seats, despite the carnage caused by the pandemic.
The support comes despite Victoria having been one of the world’s most locked down communities during the pandemic.
A senior Labor source said that while there was not universal love for Mr Andrews, the Coalition had failed to present as a trustworthy, viable alternative. “Dan is not loved but in order for people to switch allegiances, there has to be faith in the opposing parties,’’ the source said.
“There is no faith because Guy is a total dud.”
On the better premier rating, Mr Andrews is down three points to 51 per cent and Mr Guy is statistically unchanged on 34 per cent.
The Coalition primary vote of 36 per cent has barely moved since 2018 while Labor is down nearly two points to 41 per cent, with an expectation the November election result would have Labor in the 30s.”
Sad, really sad, Victoria desperately needs a change of government but why change a Labor government for a “Labor lite” government?
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Daily Mail – taking the pizz out of Kiwi’s….
New Zealand man, 49, was left unable to urinate for three months after suffering grisly penile injury when he fell 10 FEET onto a fence post
Man started bleeding from the end of his member following the three-metre fall
Doctors found he had a small hole in his urethra that was allowing blood into it
He was given an indwelling catheter for months that left him urinate into a bag -
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Chad Pecknold
@ccpecknold
· 15h
“LaBeouf told ?@BishopBarron? that the traditional form of the Catholic mass — celebrated in Latin — was key in both his conversion and his performance as an actor playing Pio.” https://foxnews.com/entertainment/shia-labeouf-converts-catholicism-studying-padre-pio-movieChad Pecknold
@ccpecknold
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19m
Ad orientem, smells & bells, mystery, real reverence: the form really fits the matter of the holy sacrifice. It’s not that the guitar masses are like selling cars, as Shia puts it, because they are valid masses; it’s that they are less fitting to the elevated object of worship.Great news and the interview with Bishop Barron looks very interesting. And looking forward to the Padre Pio movie.
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Of course she did.
It never stops, the boasting and rank-pulling, mired in sludgy prose, as correctly identified by Armadillo.
How’s the very learned book you’ve been telling us about for more than a decade going?
Oh do shut up you silly fool, and all your uptickers.
There is a point to telling Duk that someone who did very well is as fed up with medicine as he is.
Not that you and your ilk could ever see that. Far too much pre-judgement there.
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That grotesque deformed jug eared imbecile has defied unrest over the world’s toughest bat flu restrictions and is on track to win a third term for labore in the Disasterstan election as Gliberal leader Matt “Groundhog” Guy’s personal ratings slump to record lows (again), three months from polling day
If you were a conspiracy hypothesist, you might claim all of the above was deliberate, if just stating those bleedingly obvious assertions.
“Why?” would remain the more tricky question.
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as someone who knew one or two of them (including Garrett)
… As a young gel I interacted in various ways with top bands like Cold Chisel and Midnight Oil, and Radio Birdman and The Saints.Of course you did. You have never left us in any doubt about your rock n’rolling past. Up it rises, over and over again. You were such a rager and a looker and right in there with all the pub groupies.
Your glory days. lol.
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It ain’t right for a family man
To build a house on shiftin’ sand
But don’t think that I’ve given up
I’m just takin’ on the harder stuff -
I hope too that Duk at least considers what I had to say re his medical registration and work in medicine. My sister, disillusioned with the way medicine was going in this country, worked for a year in a third world hospital in a country where she saw some illnesses and long-left medical problems rarely seen in the West and that she really had to work hard on to diagnose and cure, all with very little in the way of modern resources.
It brought her back to practicing real medicine so when she returned she tossed in the city lights for a country practice as a GP.
I am off to read a novel now. A good Friday nite rather than waste it here with at least 16 people I have no interest in interacting with. Apologies to those those friendly folk I like who are here too.
I need good times not the crap I’ve received above. I’m always busy and need to relax not get cross.
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This working from home caper is codswallop. It’s crap and it’s just bullshit laziness.
Yet I’ve been engaged in it since Beryl’s hitlerist schlockdown from June last year. Until then I’d been going into the office nine days a fortnight, since May 2020.
I hate working from home. The only reason I’m still doing it is because the f*cking bean counters reasoned they could save many, many thousands ditching our office lease as of 1 January this year.
Our new office will be ready in about four/five weeks (allegedly).
Grate work, knobheads. Send your staff spare (those you still have) and demonstrate the savings in the annual report.
I’ve gone “quiet quitting”, performing my job and nothing else, while hanging out for the big multiple payouts that will erase my mortgage and allow some semblance of a “dignified retirement” – if such a concept exists in this brave new Woild Economic F*ckwits future.
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Top first?
That would presumably mean university medal.
Dot, my Big Sis was on track for that, highest results in every year, because she was fanatical.
She had a lot to prove as she came from Mt. Druitt and sounded like it. That accent has mellowed now.From what I saw of the Faculty of Medicine when I was in it, her accent and manner probably did her in. Excellent First, but she just wasn’t middle class enough for the medal standards of those times. Even in the mid-eighties I had to undergo an interview to ensure I was the right sort of person before they ticked off on graduation. I’d say more but I don’t want to identify her by it.
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AAP: Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews is on track to win a third term for Labor, according to the latest Newspoll, as Opposition Leader Matthew Guy’s personal ratings plummet.
The Newspoll, published by The Weekend Australian late on Friday, shows Labor’s primary vote has fallen only slightly since the 2018 election.
Dissatisfaction with Mr Guy’s performance has risen seven points since voter sentiment was last tested in November.
Labor holds a 56-44 per cent two-party-preferred lead in the latest poll taken between Monday and Thursday, compared with the 58-42 per cent lead Labor held in the previous Newspoll.
At 41 per cent, Victorian Labor’s primary vote is equal to or higher than at any time before the 2014 or 2018 elections.
Mr Andrews’ satisfaction rating of 54 per cent is higher than at any time before the previous two elections. His dissatisfaction rating is 41 per cent.
Only 32 per cent of voters were satisfied with Mr Guy’s performance compared with 49 per cent dissatisfied.
The Greens have increased their primary vote support to 13 per cent.
The Newspoll numbers suggest Mr Andrews and Labor would be returned to office with a workable majority if an election were held this week.
If the latest Newspoll is repeated on election day, the Labor losses could be contained to between three and six seats, despite Victoria having been one of the world’s most locked-down communities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
On the better premier rating, Mr Andrews is down three points to 51 per cent and Mr Guy is unchanged on 34 per cent.
Just imagine, you live in a state ruled by a thug, every institution has been corrupted to do his bidding, state debt is more than Qld, NSW, Tas and SA put together (and rising) — and the SFLs still get their arses handed to them on a plate.
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Rabzsays:
August 26, 2022 at 10:47 pmYes, but why would anyone vote for a pissweak collection of “me too”ers who won’t challenge any premise underlying what Maximum Leader has wreaked on us?
Margaret Thatcher said “first you win the argument then you win the vote”. The coalition are too gutless to make an argument, because that might not immediately resonate with an electorate who has been sold on Labor’s propaganda. They haven’t done the hard yards of presenting an alternative that doesn’t instantly get approval from the focus groups. It’s too late for this election, but if they’d actually shown some ticker two or three years ago they might have been further down in the polls before now but now be in a position to reclaim some ground – now they’re mired in the excrement of their own hopeless perennial capitulation, because no-one will believe them if they suddenly start to make a case as to why their prior acceptance of the rationale of Labor’s policies was totally wrong.
They’ll get belted this time, and deservedly so. The sad thing is that they won’t learn. They’ll spend the next four years chasing illusory small gains in the next opinion poll by aping Labor’s stance, and wondering why voters prefer the real thing to the pale imitation. -
Possible Lathe Of The Week in WA:
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What sort of a cowboy outfit is the AFL? It’s just been reported that the 2 coaches at the heart of the allegations made in the so called report were not consulted about them before it was released.
Robinson on AFL 360 is flabbergasted that a partner was allegedly asked to abort her child. These are the woke individuals who consider an unborn child is not human and has no rights yet here they are shocked that someone might have made such a suggestion. This happens probably every hour in this country and it’s airbrushed away a women’s rights.
There is no due process in this case and 2 coaches have had their reputations trashed. Gerard Wheatley doesn’t think this is such a big problem. The players “truth” needs to be told. Just appalling!!
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