The Victorian government wasted at least $20m on a joint venture, run by the chief executive of the state’s rail authority, selling bridge safety monitors that did not work as they should.

That’s nothing.
Victoria’s REFCL program (based on “unprecedented application” of the technology) was approved on an original costing of $151 million.
We are now north of $1 billion, due to “significant technical causes”.

My experience is that when state authorities get into joint ventures with the private sector especially in innovations in technology you will find a lot of money spent with no tangible assets to show when the project winds up. The auditors will find accounts to cover the expenses but do not delve into what the money purchased and why it was necessary. It is the number one method of committing fraud and keeping at arms length through the auspices of a separate company. A large portion of the money will have already found its way to remote accounts sometimes in WA.

JC,
A modicum of common sense is not an exacting standard.

For someone who doesn’t own shares in Flash-Cat Inc, you’re getting a bit mouthy, don’t you think?

Hasn’t he got his own platform? Double-Down Australia, or something? With the motto ‘Give me your local screechers, your grifters, your angry cat ladies, your preppers, your huddled masses of Birds?’

Struth is very disappointed in you lot.

It’s mutual.

Fact check-

Dachau (/?d??xa?/) was the first concentration camp built by Nazi Germany, opening on 22 March 1933.

You’re now introducing an entirely different topic.

Rubbish. You started comparing regimes, as I did. Deflecting from your absurdly lame argument isn’t working. Go try harder.

Visited Jedburgh today. Apart from a magnificent ruined abbey, it’s the place where a gentleman farmer named Hutton turned geology on its head.

We visited there in the mid-a1980s. Speaking of heads, my wife kept hers down after a waitress told us that one of the historical highlights in Jedburgh was the hanging of a dozen members of her clan one morning. Notorious border reivers, apparently.

Ah, so you’ve met some of my rellies then. We spent months trying to track down my dad’s gg-grandad that he was named after missing from the 1851 census. Eventually discovered in Jedburgh jail for cheque fraud of 20 quid.
Since then our research has uncovered some seriously nasty reivers characters across various family lines.
Explains a lot.

Where/how will the response to the NS1/2 damage take place?

Oh, a neighbour up here is looking for a chaser bin driver if anyone is interested.

Maybe a job for munty? I’m sure special anti COVID filtration could be put on the cab, along with a small doughnut hopper. Real work might help him!

sfw, the asylums of old were full of epileptics with bizarre behaviours like fish man, often dangerous to themselves and others and completely inexplicable. In more enlightened times I’ve seen 2 people with a temporal lobe phenomenon called hyper-religiosity where the person goes into a state of ecstasy and believes absolutely they are about to enter the kingdom of Heaven. No need to eat or drink and at extreme risk of dying. One was in the city where the team agonised over what to do without breaching human rights and she had an extended hospitalisation. The other was in the country where we just gave IM Valium (anticonvulsant) for a couple of days then he went home back on his usual meds. The old texts document the most commonly seen and gave them names. These days they just label them as complex partial seizures if they ever get to the right diagnosis. Progress you see.

Oh, a neighbour up here is looking for a chaser bin driver if anyone is interested.

I still have my Heavy Combination Licence until my Star Chamber in the Canberra Magistrates Court in November.

No one here will defend the duplicity of the west here let alone neoconservative internationalism, more so since after the last two and a half years of authoritarianism, but truly Putin has gone troppo:

1. Lamenting the fall of the USSR.
2. Pretending he didn’t subvert Ukraine since 2008 and the Ukrainians started shelling separatist areas for fun.
3. Having a lunatic puppet Patriarch blessing the war with a jihadi angle, whilst stealing $70 bn USD and basically being a bigamist. It’s as holy as a swingers party and stealing from the poor.
4. Obsessing with some Soviet era conspiracy theory about “Anglo Saxons are destined to rule the world!”.
5. Some bizarre claim about the west – not China, Laos corrupting the world with drugs (let alone the Russian mafia who never get prosecuted for CP) or the scourge of Russian alcoholism.
6. Ethnic groups Anglo Saxons have wiped out? Putin ought not try to get the moral high ground here.
7. Laughable claims about transgender issues ruining the west when you can easily find very rich Russians being degenerate as they please.
8. He claimed recently before February this year that Ukraine did not have a right to exist.
9. A clear failure to quickly capture the entire country, major capital airport & airfield, ditto the government personnel & assets.
10. He has never distanced himself from Dugin and his (literally comparable to Hitler or his influences) fascist, racist and imperialist ideology of pan eurasianism.

Jack Posobiec: Putin Is Not Bluffing On Threat To Use Nuclear Weapons Citing US Precedent From WW2
https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1575998751075958784

Science in action.

King’s College in London doing study on menopause in “trans-women” (30 Sep)

Not to put too fine a point on it, but men pretending to be women do not get menopause. That isn’t an obstacle to the researchers at Kings College in London. Apparently they got some money to research the non-existent phenomenon.

Lately it seems most government money for science goes to investigating imaginary stuff. I should apply to Albo’s science minister, whoever he, she or it is, for a grant to start a unicorn ranch.

Oh no “Struth is disappointed in you lot”. Why didn’t he say something? If only he’d let us know we could have hid on the couch like he did. Why is he only mentioning some names, I demand to be personally named. Just for that I’m gunna sell the Hartley and sook.

If only we’d kept the car industry

Shut up! JC. Not again.

A blonde goes into a nearby store and asks a clerk if she can buy the TV in the corner.

The clerk looks at her and says that he doesn’t serve blondes, so she goes back home and dyes her hair black.

The next day she returns to the store and asks the same thing, and again, the clerk said he doesn’t serve blondes.

Frustrated, the blonde goes home and dyes her hair yet again, to a shade of red.

Sure that a clerk would sell her the TV this time, she returns and asks a different clerk this time.

To her astonishment, this clerk also says that she doesn’t serve blondes.

The blonde asks the clerk “How in the world do you know I am a blonde?” The clerk looks at her disgustedly and says “That’s not a TV – it’s a microwave!”

Couldn’t care less about the cat but rest is heartening.

To know what you know and what you do not know, that is true knowledge.

– Confucius

This doesn’t look like it’s going to happen though.

Who knows. There are maniacs on all sides. The annexation won’t be reversed peacefully if ever now. The problem is Putin’s narrative of the west plan to weaken and destroy Russia , to break it up etc is playing out now in front of Russia’s hardliners eyes. So to extricate themselves the hardliners will have to roll over somehow or they will fight on, with brutal backs to the wall intent. And the threat is already on the table if Russia is existentially threatened. And on the other side is a POTUS who has lost his marbles, so who tf knows who is really running the show.

The scenario ahead isn’t at all good.

m0ntysays:
October 1, 2022 at 11:37 am
Putin claiming to fight against despotism and dictatorship is a joke.

A bit like leftists who claim to be in favour of democracy, but reject the outcomes of elections that give power to people the left doesn’t like. See Hungary, Poland and Italy.

Dover….
As you can see the little gang of sneerers. …reduced by one already. ..tick tick tick…….are having conniptions ……
This is precisely why we need to discuss the over emotional crap spewed forth from the denialists.
After the last two and a bit years, those who have it bad, like KD are now noticeably and obviously losing their shit.
People are now waking up to the bullshit of the hollow nothingness that is Sancho.
That I point out what is the bleeding obvious to the sane….to people who can read between the lines and see clearly JC’s fear in what he has done to himself, or the piss poor behavior of Frau Notaclue is not feuding.
It is pointing out the weak and lacking personality traits that allowed this all to happen.
It is a valid subject.
You just happen to have many of these types here.

My name is ‘Sue’! How do you do! Now you’re gonna die!

What caused the holes in SUE the T. rex’s jaw? Probably not an infection (Phys.org, 30 Sep)

SUE the T. rex is one of the most complete, best-preserved Tyrannosaurus rex specimens ever found. That level of preservation helps reveal details about SUE’s life. For instance, SUE lived to a ripe old age of about thirty-three, and in those years, suffered their fair share of injuries. SUE’s most mysterious ailment might be the holes in their jawbone.

These holes, some the diameter of a golf ball, dot the back half of the left lower jaw. It’s not clear what caused them, but similar injuries have been found in other T. rex fossils.

Maybe Occam’s Razor should be applied: T. rexes played golf, badly. Meanwhile, if you have enough Cash you can have a Sue of your very own.

Spectacular T. rex skeleton may fetch $25 million at auction (the new owner gets to name it, too) (30 Sep)

The 3,000-pound (1,400 kilogram) specimen — nicknamed Shen for now; whoever buys it gets exclusive naming rights — was uncovered in Montana’s Hell Creek Formation, a region renowned for its fossils dating to the late Cretaceous period, which ended about 66 million years ago. Shen measures about 40 feet (12.2 meters) long, 15 feet (4.6 m) tall and 6.8 feet (2.1 m) wide, according to Christie’s.

Shen’s auction, planned for Nov. 30, marks the dinosaur specimen as one of many to be auctioned in recent years, including Stan the T. rex, which in 2020 shattered records as the most expensive dinosaur fossil ever when it sold for $31.8 million.

I promise to Rabz that I will not post the song tonight. No I won’t. Even though he has to admit owning a T Rex (not the band) would be extremely psychedelic.

We live in a world now amongst the self deluded.
Those who speak of the caravan having moved on.
A lovely young woman with beautiful young kids has been boosted and now, at 45year’s old has found out she has….out of nowhere. …stage 4 aggressive breast cancer.
The insane nurses in the hospital wanted to jab her again and she let them…….but this is why denialism is definitely a subject we need to come to grips with and fight.
When asked why she accepted the booster. ……she said why not, she hasn’t had any bad reactions to it!
Not even contemplating the cancer could at least be….maybe. …a side effect.
Those poor kids.
Denialism, right now, is one of our most important issues to discuss.
Look at KD.
He actually scoffs at my predictions of how much time the jabbed have left while choo choo is obviously no longer with us.
Like Shane Warne….
LikeKimberley Kitchens. …
Like so many others.
Yes….the Internet is forever.

Denialism is living a lie.
Our enemies are banking on that continuing.
This is not feuding.
It’s stating facts.

Bolding failed when trying to highlight the word “their” in the above quote.

OldOzziesays:

COFFEE: IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO?

Cheers. That kinda news is a good start to the day. I am hooked on the Nespresso Lungo 9. Cant help it.

An overall increase in deaths since the jabbing started of over 20% is met with stupid statements like “40 months left, the internet is forever”
Even after one of his boosted sneerer mates has already left this world in all probability.

The truth offends those living lies.

Good news!

‘Extinct’ wood-eating cockroach rediscovered after 80 years (Phys.org, 30 Sep)

A large wingless wood-eating cockroach, unique to Australia’s Lord Howe Island and thought extinct since the 1930s, has been rediscovered by a University of Sydney biology student.

“For the first 10 seconds or so, I thought ‘No, it can’t be’,” said Maxim Adams, an Honors student under Professor Nathan Lo at the University of Sydney’s School of Biological Sciences. “I mean, I lifted the first rock under this huge banyan tree, and there it was.”

We clearly need to emit more CO2 so that global warming extincts it again.

I blame Bill Gates for killing the planet then trying to save it or something.

‘Dark data’ is killing the planet. We need digital decarbonization (30 Sep)

While most climate change activists are focused on limiting emissions from the automotive, aviation and energy industries, the processing of digital data is already comparable to these sectors and is still growing. In 2020, digitization was purported to generate 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Production of digital data is increasing fast— this year the world is expected to generate 97 zettabytes (that is: 97 trillion gigabytes) of data. By 2025, it could almost double to 181 zettabytes. It is therefore surprising that little policy attention has been placed on reducing the digital carbon footprint of organizations.

It seems ironic that global warming, which isn’t happening, is now caused by IT billionaires who are telling us to eat bugs to save the world from something which isn’t happening.

Stockman Slams Washington’s Pointless War On Behalf Of A Fake Nation

The messages are coming in loud and clear today – from the crashing pound, to repudiation of establishment governments in Italy, Sweden and more to come, to Hungarian Prime Minister Orban’s call to end the Sanctions War and do so pronto.

So let’s be clear: Washington’s dunderheaded intervention in the intramural spat between Russia and Ukraine and the accompanying global Sanctions War is the surely the stupidest, most destructive project to arise from the banks of the Potomac in modern times. And the architects of this perfidious folly—Biden, Blinkin, Sullivan, Nuland et. al.—cannot be condemned harshly enough.

In any event, the staggering economic costs for the everyday peoples of Europe in pursuit of such a threadbare and illegitimate purpose is starting to register among the long-suffering victims of Brussels’ elitist rulers. Hence the thunderbolts from the Italian elections this weekend and Viktor Orbán’s parallel appeal to the European Union to lift sanctions and thereby potentially reduce energy prices by half in one swell swoop.

Or as our friend James Howard Kunstler rightly summarized:

Let us agree that the place called Ukraine was never any of America’s business. For centuries we ignored it, through all the colorful cavalry charges to-and-fro of Turks and Tatars, the reign of the dashing Zaporozhian Cossacks, the cruel abuses of Stalin, then Hitler, and the dull, gray Khrushchev-to-Yeltsin years. But then, having destroyed Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia and sundry other places all on a great hegemonic lark, the professional warmongers of our land and their catamites in Washington made Ukraine their next special project.

They engineered the 2014 coup in Kiev that ousted the elected president, Mr. Yanyukovich, to set up a giant grifting parlor and international money-laundromat. The other strategic aim was to prepare Ukraine for NATO membership, which would have made it, in effect, a forward missile base right up against Russia’s border. Because, well, Russia, Russia, Russia!

Long Read, but good History Lesson!

“Globalists Are Marching Us Relentlessly Toward Nuclear Armageddon,” Warns Former Senator

Today’s developments are a sobering reminder that nuclear war threats are mounting. Retired Virginia State Senator and retired Marine Col. Richard Black addressed members of the US Congress in an open letter on Tuesday about “globalists are marching us relentlessly toward this nuclear Armageddon.”

Black pointed out:

There would have been no war had we not overthrown the democratically-elected government of Ukraine by violently ousting President Yanukovych in 2014. We promoted war by flooding Ukraine with massive arms shipments afterwards.

The former senator said, “the US could have achieved peace by simply pressing Ukraine to implement the 2014 Minsk Peace Agreements which it had signed, establishing a clear framework for settling outstanding issues peacefully. Ukraine promised to implement the Minsk agreements, but chose instead to make war on the Donbass for the next seven years.”

He said NATO could’ve sought peace but chose war instead.

NATO had ample opportunity for peace but deliberately chose war. The US realized that, with Russia’s back to the wall, it would have no choice to but to attack. In 2007, US Ambassador to Russia William Burns pointedly warned that movement toward absorbing Ukraine into NATO might well trigger war between Ukraine and Russia. Nonetheless, the Obama administration overthrew the Ukrainian president and flooded in weapons, knowing that doing so would trigger war.

Black said billionaire elites who have an interest in the region are making “war profits even if it means gambling the lives of hundreds of millions of people across the globe.”

“Should we annihilate the world’s population to intervene in a border war where the US has no vital national interest?” the former senator asked.

Black called for an immediate end to this war by making Ukraine a neutral, non-aligned state, “just as we did during the Cold War with Austria in 1955.”

But it appears the former senator’s plea to avoid further conflict went unheard after Zelensky’s declared intent to apply for expedited NATO membership as President Putin proclaimed the annexation of 15% of Ukraine.

Based on Article 5, any acceptance of Ukraine into NATO would automatically trigger a Russia-West world war (WWIII).

Here’s the former senator’s open letter to lawmakers on Capitol Hill:

Health experts slam move to scrap Covid isolation rule as ‘very dangerous’

It’s a disaster! Now wukkas can’t get 5 days off on full sick pay because of a positive crud test.

For Cat Farmers

The Economist – Global Food Security Index 2022

Exploring challenges and developing solutions for food security across 113 countries

The 11th Global Food Security Index shows a deterioration in the global food environment for the third year, threatening food security

The GFSI considers the issues of:

Affordability

Measures the ability of consumers to purchase food, their vulnerability to price shocks and the presence of programmes and policies to support consumers when shocks occur.

Availability

Measures agricultural production and on-farm capabilities, the risk of supply disruption, national capacity to disseminate food and research efforts to expand agricultural output.

Quality and Safety

Measures the variety and nutritional quality of average diets, as well as the safety of food.

Sustainability and Adaptation

Assesses a country’s exposure to the impacts of climate change; its susceptibility to natural resource risks; and how the country is adapting to these risks.

We get it Ozzie, you’re a Putin tankie and are in favour of genocide of the Ukrainians. No need to go on and on about it.

20 upticks for a Sancho comment?!

Some sort of record!

Put a duelling button on the posts , give us something more to tick.

Anyways

I am here in Canbra with family after a funeral.

Some absolute mad lad greeted me at a Big W with a full blown face shield and a face mask! After the ACT had a virtual 100% triple+ vaccination rate!

He had to be taking the piss! He was very cheerful!

An Indigenous senator has sensationally taken at aim the Albanese government for being “sycophantic and spineless” in a speech where she also rattled off complaints against Penny Wong, transgender activists and fat people.

Former Sky News host and MP Ross Cameron and now-One Nation NSW upper house member Mark Latham are expected to address the conference on Sunday.

It’s not as if anyone here is fooled by pure Russian propaganda.

How’s Mr Mueller getting on Monty?
Seems to me he might know a little about such things by now.

In classic Oz fashion, as the rest of the world is confronting the disaster of climate scamism, we are just entering our journey into dystopian hellishness.
Government is obviously copying the policy of our world’s most incompetent reserve bank. “Make no move until disaster is certain, then blame the victims”. “Oh, and increase taxes”.

“These holes, some the diameter of a golf ball, dot the back half of the left lower jaw. It’s not clear what caused them, but similar injuries have been found in other T. rex fossils.”

A Connecticut Yankee in King Rex’s Court?

Makkasays:
October 1, 2022 at 10:11 am
Fact check-

Dachau (/?d??xa?/) was the first concentration camp built by Nazi Germany, opening on 22 March 1933.

A Detention Centre.
Not dissimilar to Wellcamp, apart from being full for 12 years.

m0nty-fa’s trolling remains very low energy.

It occurred to me that the sabotage of the Nordstream pipeline may have been carried out by anti-greens who wanted to embarrass the German greens and make them admit that renewables are useless. It makes more sense then some theories.

Always back self interest.

It could have just been organised crime, after going long on oil or gas.

It could have just been organised crime, after going long on oil or gas.

It could been jellyfish wanting to huff some free Methane!

Jellyfish are always on holidays, when they aren’t huffing Methane outta someone else’s pipe.

This Doctor compared vaccinated and unvaccinated children from his practice.
[2m 18s]

A stockbroker walks past a kid selling lemonade.

“Hey mister, ya want some lemonade?”

The stockbroker is just getting out of his brand-new BMW in a nice tailored suit. He was about to walk past when he a double take at the sign that says “Lemonade $50”.

“Your sign is wrong kid. I think you mean fifty cents”. The little girl shakes her head. “Nope, fifty bucks mister. I need the money for Summer Camp!”

The stockbroker pauses for a minute, because he appreciates a good hustle but clearly this kid is going about it the wrong way.

“Look sweetie, I know you’re trying to make money but you have to charge what people are willing to pay. No one is going to pay that much for a tiny cup of lemonade. Now what do you think is a fair price?” The little girl beams and says “Fifty bucks mister!”

The stockbroker gives a little sigh and shakes his head. “Okay I’m gonna pass. You see? You can’t make a profit when no one pays your price. Now do you have anything else for sale?” “Homemade brownies, ten cents!”

The stockbroker winces in frustration. “Okay look, I studied economics at Harvard and I got my MBA from Wharton so I’m going to teach you a little about business, okay? Now each of your little cups of lemonade probably costs you about ten cents including the margin cost of your stand”. He takes out a dollar. “I’ll pay you ten times that much because I want to help you understand about markup”.

The little girl shakes her head and smiles. “No thanks, mister. Fifty bucks please!”

“You know what? I give up. Take this dollar and I’m going to buy ten of your brownies, I know you’re losing money on them, and I’m not going to buy a single cup of your overpriced lemonade. I’m trying to be nice and teach you about business but I guess this is the only way for you to learn a lesson”. “Okay!”

The girl takes the dollar and puts ten brownies on a plate.

Just to make the point, the stockbroker decides to eat one of the brownies right in front of her. Suddenly he begins coughing and gagging uncontrollably. “Oh my God… what is… what did you put in these!!?”

She grins happily and says “It’s my special recipe! Eggs, flour, butter, cocoa, sawdust and dog poo!” “This is horrible! I have to get this taste out of my mouth!”

The little girl takes out a jar full of $50 bills, cocks her head to the side and says through a beaming grin “Ya want some lemonade now?”

Hurricane Ian Recovery Update Day 2

Excerpt from the article:

Alice, a 75-year-old woman without cash, and the only gas station she can find will only accept cash. Within seconds she is in line at the station with cash in her hand. This is what people do. Define living and you will find the light left by these comfortably invisible community stars. These are ordinary angels that defeat the looters by orders of magnitude.

There are many Janet’s and Alice’s right now, and fortunately there are overwhelming numbers of people responding to each call.

Yes, this is the fellowship part. Sweaty, perhaps a little scruffy, often accompanied by the smell of fuel-oil mix in the hug, but when you remove all class distinctions the remarkable human spirit that surfaces makes the back pain and callouses insignificant.

Electricity is nice, potable water even better, but perhaps fellowship is the most important part of the restoration process. At least, I think it is.

The desperation and worry on that unknown face tell me that you need my spot in line; here, take it.

I am not alone.

Every person reading this knows exactly what I am talking about without me even writing another word.

Life.

The best part.

Many people ponder the great universal questions of “why” these disaster events happen. I don’t have any idea.

Perhaps it’s just the way I’m wired, but I can only look at the immediate task at hand. Usually, I’m too busy focused on making the next the two feet of my immediate surroundings better, because looking at the hundreds of miles scares me. If I can make these next two feet in front of me better, then I will have accomplished something; and then – another two – and another two. Perhaps that’s my goofy way to deal with it.

However, when I think about fellowship and my community – perhaps we shouldn’t wait for hurricanes.

A 14-year-old Virginia girl started identifying as trans. Her school HID THIS from her grandparents, who adopted her as a baby.

Everybody went to School, but it isn’t a place where anything good ever happens.

I mean, I wish I could hear all the speakers but life gets in the way.

When anger rises, think of the consequences.

– Confucius

Tom’s comment at 4.50 pm

Spacechook is a bullshit advertising business built on the look-at-me narcissism of 13-year-old girls and fake internet accounts. That it is now collapsing is an inevitable result of the human gullibility on which it was built.