Open Thread – Tues 18 Oct 2022


The Fall of the Rebel Angels, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1562

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Jorge
Jorge
October 20, 2022 8:08 pm

THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.

Kurt Vonnegut, Harrison Bergeron

Rabz
October 20, 2022 8:08 pm

Moderna CEO admits to past lies: “COVID is simply the flu, harmless to the healthy.”

Your useless toxic quaccines, not so much, eh dickhead?

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
October 20, 2022 8:10 pm

I’ll add another war comment then shut up.

In WW1 the Russians didn’t actually ever really “get going”. Or as they did the Austrians and the Germans (and Turks) got going at a similar rate, so it was standoff after Tannenberg.

As I’ve mentioned Gen. Brusilov though broke the Austrian front with his new tactics – which were taken up successfully by Monash. But the Germans rescued the Austrians and the front stabilized back to stasis – until the Russians collapsed in 1917. Which is a significant risk in this situation. I suspect that’s what the UGS is playing for.

The strategic landscape is similar to WW1, since defensive weapon systems have a large advantage over offensive ones (other than stuff like cruise missiles and suicide drones – which are strategic weapons, not tactical.) Consequently attacking is difficult. Armour is very vulnerable to man-portable smart AT missiles, and air support assets likewise to Western manpads. Which is why artillery has returned as the queen of the battlefield, like in WW1. But it chews through an amazing amount of ammo, as the Russians in 1914 found to their dismay. All through WW1 they were chasing their guns trying to produce enough ammo for them, which they never really did. They learned the lesson though for WW2 and artillery tactics in WW2 were superb.

I have seen nothing anywhere about current Russian ammunition production*. The phase of the war is getting beyond stockpiles into what can be produced to meet expenditure. I haven’t seen signs of Russia gearing up to war production of such materials, but that information admittedly is going to be kept quiet.

(* Ukraine is getting theirs from the West, of course, and we’ve seen a lot of stories about depleted Western stocks.)

DrBeauGan
DrBeauGan
October 20, 2022 8:13 pm

Moderna CEO admits to past lies: “COVID is simply the flu, harmless to the healthy.”

John Campbell told us the other day that the median age of death from covid in Australia is 85.3. And about 3 comorbidities is average.

Says it all, really.

local oaf
October 20, 2022 8:20 pm

Bach’s Magnificat is magnificent!

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
October 20, 2022 8:20 pm

Thorpe not fit for parliament: Dutton
Owen Leonard
OWEN LEONARD

Lidia Thorpe is no longer fit to serve in parliament following revelations she had an undisclosed relationship with a former bikie boss, Peter Dutton says.

The Opposition Leader accused Senator Thorpe of receiving secret briefings about bikies during the day while she was on a parliamentary committee and sleeping with a bikie at night.

“I don’t think Lidia Thorpe belongs in the parliament,” Mr Dutton told Sky News

“You can’t be in a position where you’re receiving confidential secret briefings from the police on bikies during the day and then you’re sleeping with a bikie at nighttime. It just doesn’t add up. It doesn’t pass any pub test.

“There are plenty of good people I’m sure who could replace her, but she does not have the character or the standing to be in the Australian parliament and I think it’s very clear.”

Mr Dutton added the scandal would prove a test of Adam Bandt’s leadership, suggesting Senator Thorpe’s resignation as deputy Greens leader in the Senate was a weak response.

“The hypocrisy that we see from the Greens, when they’ve been advocating for a corruption commission and when you see the double standards … you understand why they allow the sort of crazy people into their ranks that that they have in recent years.

“Adam Bandt has taken a minimalist approach here, but he really needs to stand up.

“He’s the leader of the party and he needs to distance himself and his party from Lidia Thorpe.

“She should be leaving the Greens and she should be leaving the Australian parliament.”

JC
JC
October 20, 2022 8:21 pm

I have seen nothing anywhere about current Russian ammunition production

Fester. the Russians said they were posting daily production information on Twitter. So look for it there as I’m surprised you haven’t found it.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
October 20, 2022 8:23 pm

But the Bard’s deeply impenetrable prose desperately needs translating, so that it can be understood, even enjoyed, by people with an English-comprehension IQ of less than 140.

Hehe, I liked Chaucer. If Shakespeare needs translating then Chaucer was an alien from outer space.

This year I read Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban, which is as if Chaucer wrote a post-apocalypse SF novel of events in England. It takes a little bit to get into the swing of the language, but after that it was a blast. I enjoyed it enormously.

JC
JC
October 20, 2022 8:24 pm

incredible.

woolfe
woolfe
October 20, 2022 8:26 pm

And believe it not the Paywallian has a puff peace on Pence saying he will beat Trump in primaries

flyingduk
flyingduk
October 20, 2022 8:29 pm

John Campbell told us the other day that the median age of death from covid in Australia is 85.3. And about 3 comorbidities is average.

John Campbell is becoming quite clever at playing a straight bat with the Youtube censors whilst letting it be known that he is increasingly aware of the fraud that was COVID.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj4rE0LrpR0

Its a bit sad really, he started off so ernest and deferential to the ‘experts’ and ‘authorities’.

Boambee John
Boambee John
October 20, 2022 8:32 pm

Ed Casesays:
October 20, 2022 at 7:56 pm
Shakespeare is crap consumed by pretentious wankers.

And criticised by illiterate fools.

Crossie
Crossie
October 20, 2022 8:33 pm

By contrast what I see of the Russian side is very shambolic. In part I think that’s because the initial plan failed abjectly and there was insufficient staff work for backup plans.

Putin suffers from hubris, he thought he will walk all over the Ukranians in a matter of days but this was no Iraq of 1991. It is also obvious that he had no plan b because he thought he had an overwhelming advantage. He may have been a great KGB boss but not much of a military man. All we can hope fore is a peace agreement over the winter.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
October 20, 2022 8:36 pm

And criticised by illiterate fools.

Well said!

miltonf
miltonf
October 20, 2022 8:37 pm

Speaking of Shakespeare, Stratford-upon-Avon was truly disappointing- suburban West Midlands.

DrBeauGan
DrBeauGan
October 20, 2022 8:37 pm

Its a bit sad really, he started off so ernest and deferential to the ‘experts’ and ‘authorities’.

Indeed he did. And he looked at the evidence and changed his mind about the merits of the official narrative. I can only hope that a large number of others did the same.

I was always more sceptical than him, so haven’t had to feel shock and betrayal by the parasitic classs. I never trusted the buggers anyway. Having one’s scepticism validated has a certain satisfaction, but it’s also depressing to see what a contemptible shower we have in charge.

miltonf
miltonf
October 20, 2022 8:40 pm
Old Lefty
Old Lefty
October 20, 2022 8:43 pm

An article about adult incontinence as a waste-disposal problem:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-20/adult-incontinence-products-outnumber-baby-nappies-in-landfill/101557162

But don’t expect the GayBC to tell you that a major cause of adult faecal incontinence is buggery.

miltonf
miltonf
October 20, 2022 8:45 pm

Why doesn’t the ABC just fuck off.

Eyrie
Eyrie
October 20, 2022 8:45 pm

Shakespeare was the soap opera of the day. It is like thinking Neighbours is great cinema and hundreds of years from now dissecting its artistic value.

Gilas
Gilas
October 20, 2022 8:45 pm

DrBeauGan says:
October 20, 2022 at 7:54 pm

There’s a lot more to music than melody. Or Tchaikovsky would be top of the pops.

Melody reaches the heart of one’s soul light-years ahead of 5-part counterpoint in augmented thirds.

And yes, Tchaikovsky is much closer to top of the pops than Bach, as are Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, Rachmaninov and many others.

H B Bear
H B Bear
October 20, 2022 8:45 pm

The Covid scare was always about protecting the health system, not people. Hence Sneakers was front and centre.

Old Lefty
Old Lefty
October 20, 2022 8:46 pm

The historians at Oxford, I am told, call PPE ‘history with the hard work left out’. It’s also known as politics, parties and entertainmentm

Crossie
Crossie
October 20, 2022 8:48 pm

Taxi plates were valuable only because government largely prevented competition.
Im still in awe a bit that Uber managed to get a run around and actually be allowed to operate in Australia.

We are in the middle of learning the same lesson in regards to electricity.
Government is using its awesome negative power to cripple one sector to “grow’ another.

In my opinion, the government is responsible for restitution to the taxi operators. They had the system in place and the changed the rules so now they need to pay. And yes, the same betrayal is in place now and even worse with subsidies to the wind and solar electricity generators. Uber at least had efficiency on its side, the renewables not so much.

miltonf
miltonf
October 20, 2022 8:50 pm

Ha ha. Like that old Lefty. HPS was similar I always thought- study science without perspiration.

Crossie
Crossie
October 20, 2022 8:50 pm

woolfe says:
October 20, 2022 at 8:26 pm
And believe it not the Paywallian has a puff peace on Pence saying he will beat Trump in primaries

Don’t tell me, it’s by Adam Crichton who has gone native in Washington DC.

miltonf
miltonf
October 20, 2022 8:52 pm

What a dirty rat Pence has turned out to be- doesn’t even pretend now.

Crossie
Crossie
October 20, 2022 8:53 pm

Melody reaches the heart of one’s soul light-years ahead of 5-part counterpoint in augmented thirds.

Exactly, if it doesn’t sing to me it’s just not that good no matter the reputation of the composer. If there is no hook it is just background noise.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
October 20, 2022 8:56 pm

And believe it not the Paywallian has a puff peace on Pence saying he will beat Trump in primaries

Haha, there in one sentence is the Oz perfectly encapsulated. Off the planet. No primary poll puts Pence within cooee of Trump. Even De Santis is running at a quarter of what Trump is getting.

I suppose the Oz has to kowtow to their bosses though, who hate Trump like ebola.

woolfe
woolfe
October 20, 2022 8:57 pm

Syndicated from Times Crossie

Latest from Creighton he is amazed theta people are more interested in energy prices than climate change

A remarkable 80 per cent of respondents said having lower petrol prices and energy independence were more important than fighting climate change.

Crossie
Crossie
October 20, 2022 8:58 pm

miltonf says:
October 20, 2022 at 8:45 pm
Why doesn’t the ABC just fuck off.

Because it has all the money that Scummo gave them and can now lord it over other media organisations. The first party that promises to privatise the ABC and SBS gets my vote.

Crossie
Crossie
October 20, 2022 9:01 pm

Latest from Creighton he is amazed theta people are more interested in energy prices than climate change

A remarkable 80 per cent of respondents said having lower petrol prices and energy independence were more important than fighting climate change.

And to think that he claimed to be a conservative before going to DC. The swamp really does horrible things to its residents’ minds.

Gabor
Gabor
October 20, 2022 9:02 pm

Eyrie says:
October 20, 2022 at 8:45 pm

Shakespeare was the soap opera of the day. It is like thinking Neighbours is great cinema and hundreds of years from now dissecting its artistic value.

I think you are quite wrong there.
There were 100s of other writers poets and authors in his age and later, but you could hardly name one.
They were the producers of the ‘Neighbours’ of their time.

Perth Trader
Perth Trader
October 20, 2022 9:02 pm

Lots of post covid rorting going on here in West. Aust. I needed a radiator , so I rang a large Aussie company. $475 mate…and guess what? its the last 1 in Perth.Supply Chain issues mate.Hmmm…so I ring around and I find a man in Ellenbrook has 4. WTF.?…and $260 delivered to my door.

rosie
rosie
October 20, 2022 9:03 pm

In context it appears moderna man was talking about covid as an endemic disease not a pandemic, plus the obvious it’s omicron, not original, not Alpha, not Delta, all of which were apparently more severe illnesses though less transmissible.
We all expected covid to devolve into an endemic illness, didn’t we?
okay

Eyrie
Eyrie
October 20, 2022 9:05 pm

The taxi operators lobbied governments to restrict numbers of taxi plates causing fares to rise and the plates to have value. Fuck them. Taxi plates should have been issued on the basis that here are the rules, meet these requirements and anyone who wants a set can have one.
Invest in anything whose value depends on government edict , don’t be surprised when a more powerful lobby comes along and your “investment” is suddenly zero. A version of the Two Airline policy we put up with for far too long.

cohenite
October 20, 2022 9:07 pm

Latest from Creighton he is amazed theta people are more interested in energy prices than climate change

Creighton is a creep, a supercilious creep; a typical leftie masquerading as a conservative. As with everything a person’s view about Trump defines them and creighton’s view of Trump was a typical leftie one.

Perth Trader
Perth Trader
October 20, 2022 9:08 pm

15 to 20 years ago it was cheaper to hire a limo to get to the airport than get a Swan Taxi. And the limo was on time.

Eyrie
Eyrie
October 20, 2022 9:10 pm

There were 100s of other writers poets and authors in his age and later, but you could hardly name one.
They were the producers of the ‘Neighbours’ of their time.

I wouldn’t feel poorer if I’d never heard the name Shakespeare. Who cares? He wrote entertainment for the masses. Some people get lucky and are remembered, others just as “good” get forgotten. Luck of the draw.

woolfe
woolfe
October 20, 2022 9:10 pm

Uber etc are as bad a Swan Taxi in Perth.

Rorting prices, if you need one in a hurry eg airport Taxi is a better bet.

By the way you’ll all be surprised to hear the zillion $ airport train broke down the other day leaving stranding everyone

Eyrie
Eyrie
October 20, 2022 9:12 pm

15 to 20 years ago it was cheaper to hire a limo to get to the airport than get a Swan Taxi. And the limo was on time.
Correct. Did that once about that time and was amazed that the guy turned up on time to the minute. Turned out to be a German.

woolfe
woolfe
October 20, 2022 9:13 pm

As an example needed a ride at 430 am, uber $50, so yea ping ping ping, none availability, 15 minutes wasted, Ola were $90 ping once, immediate pick up. All drivers operate for all networks and take the fare with the highest price.

Perth Trader
Perth Trader
October 20, 2022 9:14 pm

…am I the only person who hates airports?….

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
October 20, 2022 9:16 pm

The taxi operators lobbied governments to restrict numbers of taxi plates

Biden’s kiddies have been going after Uber.

Calamity Joe Targets the Gig Economy (19 Oct)

Biden’s Department of Labor just proposed a new rule reclassifying tens of millions of gig workers, involuntarily, as formal employees, which would deprive them of the autonomy that draws them to gig work in the first place.

Under federal labor and antitrust laws, independent contractors cannot be unionized, or their earnings confiscated for union political activities. That’s a problem for union leaders and the leftist politicians who depend upon their support, with the Labor Department announcing that private-sector union membership fell to a historic low of 6.1% last year, from its 1954 peak of 34.8%

Unions hate Uber. The amusing thing is the type of people who like to use Uber and Ubereats are the young things who do everything with their mobile phones, and vote lefty.

Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity
Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity
October 20, 2022 9:18 pm

The Pence-expects-to-do-well-in-the-primaries article in The Australian is written not by Adam Creighton.
It is a syndicated piece from The Times byline Alistair Dawber.

Perth Trader
Perth Trader
October 20, 2022 9:19 pm

All of Perth’s taxi drivers are named Alli or Abdul and live in Ellenbrook…I’m not kidding. They must park all those taxi’s on a sports oval .

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
October 20, 2022 9:22 pm

…am I the only person who hates airports?….

So many hours in Perth AP waiting for midnight flights. So many hours.
Admittedly the blame goes to SYD and BNE curfews, not the airlines.

Eyrie
Eyrie
October 20, 2022 9:23 pm

…am I the only person who hates airports?….

The only airports I like have grass or gravel runways, no fences and no security. Small bugsmashers in the parking area.

calli
calli
October 20, 2022 9:25 pm

I love Shakespeare, and Chaucer and Bach and Liszt. And Azimov and Wells. And Prog Rock and just about anything else (except rap…brrrrrr).

Equal opportunity watcher, reader, listener.

Today I had a moment to read one of John Wyndham’s short stories – Confidence Trick. Fans will know it…and it has some odd parallels with mass formation and gaslighting. Worth a look.

Perth Trader
Perth Trader
October 20, 2022 9:26 pm

AS a kid, many years ago , my parents would takes us to the airport as a treat. They had a fence high enough we could easy jump over. Now if I stand in one spot for to long a Fed. police officer asks me my business and to move on… its ‘HORRIBLE’.

Gabor
Gabor
October 20, 2022 9:28 pm

Eyrie says:
October 20, 2022 at 9:10 pm

I wouldn’t feel poorer if I’d never heard the name Shakespeare. Who cares?

That’s your view of him, and you are the poorer for it. BTW, I’m not promoting anyone.

He wrote entertainment for the masses.

I thought that was the point of writing, who wants to be an author that nobody reads?

Some people get lucky and are remembered, others just as “good” get forgotten. Luck of the draw.

Not so, even today a lot of bands and authors of the last 50 years are only remembered by their few fans, while the good ones are prospering.
But have it your way.

calli
calli
October 20, 2022 9:28 pm

Just got back from our lovely local hospital – Dad is back in with pneumonia that he just can’t shake off.

It has all the machines that go “ping”, lots of beds and nurses and equipment, and, it seems, only one doctor.

Black Ball
Black Ball
October 20, 2022 9:30 pm
Dot
Dot
October 20, 2022 9:31 pm

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WE GOT HER!

calli
calli
October 20, 2022 9:32 pm

Gooooorne!

custard
custard
October 20, 2022 9:33 pm

Hunters laptop will be front of the narrative shortly…

calli
calli
October 20, 2022 9:35 pm
Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
October 20, 2022 9:35 pm

Dot, you should really stop after the fourth bottle of sauvignon blanc.
Got who?

Old School Conservative
Old School Conservative
October 20, 2022 9:37 pm

He’s an ex bikie.

No such thing.

Eyrie
Eyrie
October 20, 2022 9:38 pm

AS a kid, many years ago , my parents would takes us to the airport as a treat. They had a fence high enough we could easy jump over. Now if I stand in one spot for to long a Fed. police officer asks me my business and to move on… its ‘HORRIBLE’.

Thirty years ago when we moved to Toowoomba there was a small picnic table just across the three foot high cyclone fence from the refueling bowser. Parents used to bring their little kids who could see the aircraft and talk to the pilots. All gone, replaced by ten foot high fence with multistrand barbed wire on top and barriers to prevent any view.
Sometimes I don’t much like this world we’ve made.

calli
calli
October 20, 2022 9:38 pm

I told you my taste in music was…cosmopolitan. Including plaid.
😀

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
October 20, 2022 9:39 pm

Nope just checked Oz, DT, Sky, Newsmax, ZH, Breitbart and Seven’s twitter feed. Nuffink.
I’m mystified.

calli
calli
October 20, 2022 9:39 pm

He’s an ex bikie.

An Iced VoVo?

Dot
Dot
October 20, 2022 9:40 pm

Dot, you should really stop after the fourth bottle of sauvignon blanc.

No, “always escalate”!

DrBeauGan
DrBeauGan
October 20, 2022 9:43 pm

Melody reaches the heart of one’s soul light-years ahead of 5-part counterpoint in augmented thirds.

This isn’t a statement about music, it’s a statement about you and your limitations. Maybe your soul could be improved, maybe you could learn to see something you’ve been missing? Notice, for example, that rabz would be far more interested in the rhythm element than the melodic. And the goilz, of course. I dunno about rabz, but I know of ppl for whom it’s all about foot tapping. They are deaf to the melodic element.

Tchaikovsky has some pretty melodies, but they don’t go anywhere. It’s the way sone things lead to others and cap them that makes jsb the master. If you haven’t noticed this element of music, you are missing something.

mem
mem
October 20, 2022 9:46 pm

Indolentsays:
October 20, 2022 at 6:32 pm
Ohio Supreme Court Suspends Democrat Judge Due to “Unprecedented” Behavior – Removes Her From Cleveland Municipal Court Bench and Temporarily Strips Law License

“Carr stated that her unethical behavior was the result of menopause and sleep apnea caused by a generalized anxiety illness.”
So tell that to the people whose lives she wrecked.

DrBeauGan
DrBeauGan
October 20, 2022 9:58 pm

Equal opportunity watcher, reader, listener.

It’s called eclecticism if you approve of it, and lack of discrimination if you don’t, calli.

I’m a try everything man. I even found mathematics is a source of pleasure. Now that is pushing the envelope.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
October 20, 2022 10:01 pm

Indigenous calls to dump Greens senator Lidia Thorpe over bikie relationship

Marcia Langton says the Greens showed a ‘peculiar form of racism’ in keeping Lida Thorpe as the party’s Indigenous affairs spokeswoman. Picture: Getty Images

Greg Brown
National Correspondent
@gregbrown_TheOz
Paige Taylor
Indigenous Affairs Correspondent, WA Bureau Chief
@paigeataylor
3 minutes ago October 20, 2022

Aboriginal leader Marcia Langton has called on the Greens to dump Lidia Thorpe as the party’s Indigenous affairs spokeswoman for failing to disclose she was dating an ex-bikie boss while handling confidential information about outlaw motorcycle gangs.

Greens leader Adam Bandt asked Senator Thorpe to resign as the party’s deputy Senate leader but is allowing her to continue to lead the party on Indigenous affairs, including on its position on a constitutionally enshrined voice to parliament.

Mr Bandt said Senator Thorpe should have informed him about her relationship with former Rebels gang Victorian president Dean Martin while she was sitting on the joint parliamentary law enforcement committee.

At the time, committee members were receiving briefings and confidential documents on the Australian Federal Police strategy to monitor outlaw motorcycle gangs as part of an inquiry into the online trading of illicit drugs.

Mr Martin, who stepped down from the Rebels leadership in 2018 and has never been convicted of a crime, is the brother of late, exiled Rebels leader Shane Martin, whose son is AFL star Dustin Martin. The Rebels are one of the ­nation’s largest bikie gangs and have long been a target of police for drug trafficking and violence.

Senator Thorpe has denied passing on any confidential information from AFP briefings and declared the “brief” romance with Mr Martin was based on their interest in advocating for Indigenous Australians.

“I accept that I have made mistakes and have not exercised good judgment,” Senator Thorpe said. “I will now reflect on this and focus on my important portfolio work, especially advocating for First Nations people.”

Professor Langton said the Greens showed a “peculiar form of racism” in keeping Senator Thorpe as the party’s Indigenous affairs spokeswoman.

“I am concerned, as are many Indigenous people, that because she lacks in good judgment and commonsense, she is not fit for the task of representing properly and adequately our very complex issues,” Professor Langton said.

“It also concerns me that the Greens will continue to keep her in the role of spokesperson for Indigenous affairs despite the revelations about her underworld connections. This speaks (to) their peculiar form of racism.

“Their view of Aboriginal people bears no resemblance to the vast majority who are honest, ­decent, hardworking people. They support Senator Thorpe for all the wrong reasons.”

Ek roll ap die vloor…

132andBush
132andBush
October 20, 2022 10:05 pm
Razey
Razey
October 20, 2022 10:06 pm

Iced VoVo?

That brings back memories. One year I had a candle on an iced vovo for my birthday as mum didn’t have enough money to buy a cake haha. Good times.

calli
calli
October 20, 2022 10:08 pm

DrBeau, I’ll give a book a chapter or two. If it doesn’t “click”, chucked. Life is too short to read crummy books.

Music is different, you can cook or stitch or draw or drive with it in the background. But the best ones make you stop, close your eyes, and drink it in. There are some truly lovely choral pieces like that.

Chaucer needs to be read out loud. It gives you a window on the conversations and jokes of long ago. And there are plenty of jokes.

Zipster
Zipster
October 20, 2022 10:08 pm

I have seen nothing anywhere about current Russian ammunition production*. The phase of the war is getting beyond stockpiles into what can be produced to meet expenditure. I haven’t seen signs of Russia gearing up to war production of such materials, but that information admittedly is going to be kept quiet.

Russia announced industrial mobilisation a month or two ago.

Zipster
Zipster
October 20, 2022 10:09 pm
Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity
Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity
October 20, 2022 10:12 pm

Don’t intend to topper you or anything Razey.
But who the heck buys cakes? Every cake I ever saw was baked at home – by either the mum or grandma of the house.
The concept of “buying” a cake I didn’t encounter until I was over 30.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
October 20, 2022 10:17 pm

Russia announced industrial mobilisation a month or two ago.

Specifics? I’ve not seen any. We’re talking extreme industrial output to keep up with ammunition expenditure at the front. Just the copper and zinc requirements would be serious enough. The rumours that Russia is buying artillery ammo from the Norks suggests they aren’t mobilizing particularly mobilely.

Razey
Razey
October 20, 2022 10:18 pm

Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupiditysays:
October 20, 2022 at 10:12 pm
Don’t intend to topper you or anything Razey.
But who the heck buys cakes? Every cake I ever saw was baked at home – by either the mum or grandma of the house.
The concept of “buying” a cake I didn’t encounter until I was over 30.

Not sure why she didn’t bake one. I’ll have to find out one day. Probably we had just moved and didn’t have chickens up for the free eggs.

When I played football and cricket we couldn’t afford to buy the jumpers so she used to knit them. A source of endless taunts by team ‘mates’ and the opposition. Sucked at the time, but I look back on it fondly now. Who’s mum could do that these days?

custard
custard
October 20, 2022 10:21 pm

Cats should familiarise themselves with Russian statements at the UN Security Council

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
October 20, 2022 10:21 pm

SATP doesn’t have a Cheesecake Shop in his town, obviously.
They’re an institution for the male of the species.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
October 20, 2022 10:23 pm

When I played football and cricket we couldn’t afford to buy the jumpers so she used to knit them.

Shouldn’t laugh – the Australian military gave me the first new pair of shoes I ever owned.

The Beer whisperer
The Beer whisperer
October 20, 2022 10:25 pm

They want English literature, or even literature in general, to be restricted to the stunted ideologues that they approve of

1984 here is instructive. The only past is what supports the current narrative.

You can convince people of anything except the idea that they are easily hoodwinked into the current thing.

Jorge
Jorge
October 20, 2022 10:27 pm

Maths skills and maths in schools is a real concern.

Often discussed here:

Razey
Razey
October 20, 2022 10:28 pm

Zulu Kilo Two Alphasays:
October 20, 2022 at 10:23 pm
When I played football and cricket we couldn’t afford to buy the jumpers so she used to knit them.

Shouldn’t laugh – the Australian military gave me the first new pair of shoes I ever owned.

Hehe. I like stories like this. There seems to be some theory that we were a ‘rich’ country lording it over the 3rd world. Simply wasn’t the case 35-40 + years ago, even now to some extent.

Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity
Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity
October 20, 2022 10:28 pm

SATP doesn’t have a Cheesecake Shop in his town, obviously.

Doffs me cap to your worldly experience.
Many specialist shops I’ve seen in my life, but never a cheesecake shop.

Jorge
Jorge
October 20, 2022 10:30 pm
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
October 20, 2022 10:31 pm

Daily Telegraph reports that “GetUp” is shaking the begging bowl, looking for donations.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
October 20, 2022 10:32 pm

SATP – There’re hundreds. It’s a franchise chain. Nice cheesecakes too.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
October 20, 2022 10:37 pm

There seems to be some theory that we were a ‘rich’ country lording it over the 3rd world. Simply wasn’t the case 35-40 + years ago, even now to some extent.

I know it sounds like something out of “Monty Python”, but my mother used to make our school uniform shirts….

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
October 20, 2022 10:38 pm

Mother Lodesays:

October 20, 2022 at 6:53 pm

I never ‘got into’ Shakespeare and never will.

Shakespeare is one of the highpoints of Western civilisation. It is not a bad thing to be acquainted with it.

Thou art correct.
Shakespeare’s works aren’t anachronistic time capsules of his era. They are perennial tales of the foibles and failings of human nature which we see repeated around us all the time.

DrBeauGan
DrBeauGan
October 20, 2022 10:42 pm

Chaucer needs to be read out loud. It gives you a window on the conversations and jokes of long ago. And there are plenty of jokes.

Most of them vulgar.

Razey
Razey
October 20, 2022 10:46 pm

If you want to know what you’d have done during Nazi Germany, now you know.

– Fleming

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
October 20, 2022 10:48 pm

Lawyer warned Zachary Rolfe partner: expect to be arrested yourself

Jason Walls
Chief court reporter
@jas_walls
An hour ago October 20, 2022

A police officer paired up with Zachary Rolfe on the night he fatally shot Kumanjayi Walker was told to “expect to be arrested yourself” after his fellow cop was charged with murder, a court has heard.

Constable Rolfe was acquitted on all charges following the fatal shooting in Yuendumu in November 2019, now the subject of an ongoing inquest in the Alice Springs Local Court.

On Thursday, his Immediate Response Team colleague on the night, James Kirstenfeldt, told the court he had been invited to Constable Rolfe’s home to “(get) on the beers” in the days following Walker’s death.

“I think initially the text was something about a debrief and I didn’t know anything about it. I asked about it and then someone, I think it might have actually been Rolfe, said it was code for beers,” he said. “I don’t think there was actually a debrief – my interpretation of the term ‘debrief’ was someone mucking about with the terminology, just so we could go and have some beers.”

Constable Kirstenfeldt said while he didn’t want to “talk shop” outside of work, other officers began discussing the shooting and he sent Constable Rolfe a series of text messages, warning him not to engage with them. “Stop talking to these c..ts, lawyer, lawyer, lawyer, they are covering their own arse,” he wrote. “You left and didn’t get to see the aftermath of the arse-covering, stop talking to them, they are f..king covering their own arse. Don’t trust these snake f..ks, lawyer told you not to comment.”

Constable Kirstenfeldt told counsel assisting, Peggy Dwyer, while there were sergeants present at the barbecue, he had “no idea” to whom he was referring in the texts.

“My sentiment of this was, being of the lowest rank of the whole incident and all that, is the old expression, if it rolls down hill, that it’s probably going to be ­people of lower ranks getting thrown under the bus,” he said.

“So I think there was a bit of a sentiment that that was going to occur; I don’t know who I’m referring to in this, like I said, I was drinking beers.”

Constable Kirstenfeldt said in hindsight, the gathering was “totally inappropriate” and had “the real potential to contaminate any evidence that (Constable Rolfe) might give later on”.

In describing the barbecue in a later police interview read out in court on Thursday, Constable Kirstenfeldt told investigators “we got on the beers, just with the boys”.

“But you know what the town’s like, there’s lefties everywhere, looking over your shoulder, so you can’t really talk shop or anything like that,” he said.

In response to questioning from Dr Dwyer about the comments, Constable Kirstenfeldt said he was referring to “hippy-type people … Just that police officers like to talk about work and it’s not very good to be sitting around drinking in town if people are talking about work or mentioning jobs,” he said.

Wally Dalí
Wally Dalí
October 20, 2022 10:55 pm

Old Ozzie, I had one attempt at watching Upstart Crow, with my brother and his kids in Edinburgh, where watching the weekly new ep on the Beeb was a bit of a runaway institution. The episode was unsubtly sledging the recently triumphant Brexiteers, and try as I might I could identify no conversation, catallaxy, counterpoint, sympathy, grace or any sort of contrition from the rejected elite.
I was a bit stunned that my bro, like me a good Lit student, couldn’t taste the merde in what was being dished up to him.
Haven’t gone back.

Speedbox
October 20, 2022 11:00 pm

dover0beach says:
October 20, 2022 at 9:12 pm
You know, the claim that RUS would defeat UKR in three days was probably planted by Milley before this all began when he said RUS could defeat UKR in 3 days.

I don’t know where it came from but I would like to think that every Cat knew the initial 100,000 Russian troops would be insufficient unless the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians welcomed them with opened arms and garlands.

There seems little (no) doubt that Putin was badly advised initially as to the welcome Russian troops would receive. In any event, the ‘softly softly’ approach to the minimisation of civilian casualties and loss of infrastructure hasn’t worked. It is also apparent that the goal is not the entire conquest of Ukraine (at least into the foreseeable future). But, the likely ramping up of Russian military force is very dangerous for Ukraine.

We know that 30% of Ukrainian power infrastructure has been destroyed in recent days. I suspect the coming winter will see a renewed Russian push to secure the Donbass. Ukrainian forces have been successful in pushing back Russian forces, but many reports suggest that the price has been high for Ukraine. Is it possible this is a Russian tactic? Allow your opponent to push, at great cost in manpower, then once they have exhausted themselves, push back when your conditions are favourable? Military Cats will be best placed to answer.

Don’t be fooled – Russia has immense resources and has been preparing for this event since 2014. Look back at everything that has happened since then: seizure of the Crimea; enhanced relationship with China that spawned the ‘friendship with no limits’; the alternative to SWIFT; the vast Russian gold reserves built up over the past few years; dumping of the US$ and change in currency payment demand; TurkStream back on line in 2016 and a vastly improved relationship with Turkey; the closeness of Russia and India especially since 2018; and numerous other actions that in isolation seemed innocuous but with hindsight can now be seen as not random or unplanned. Is it likely that in all this preparation, Russia didn’t think to increase her reserves of artillery shells, missiles and other war materiel?

And by the way, Ukraine is not a particularly big place – about 600,000sq kms which to put that into context, is smaller than NSW (about 800,000 sq kms) – so the actual land mass the Ukrainians are trying to protect is relatively small meaning there are fewer places to run.

Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity
Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity
October 20, 2022 11:01 pm

Constable Kirstenfeldt said while he didn’t want to “talk shop” outside of work, other officers began discussing the shooting and he sent Constable Rolfe a series of text messages, warning him not to engage with them. “Stop talking to these c..ts, lawyer, lawyer, lawyer, they are covering their own arse,” he wrote. “You left and didn’t get to see the aftermath of the arse-covering, stop talking to them, they are f..king covering their own arse. Don’t trust these snake f..ks, lawyer told you not to comment.”

I like this Constable Kirstenfeldt’s style. He should be Commissioner.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
October 20, 2022 11:01 pm

Wally Dalísays:
October 20, 2022 at 10:55 pm
Old Ozzie, I had one attempt at watching Upstart Crow, with my brother and his kids in Edinburgh, where watching the weekly new ep on the Beeb was a bit of a runaway institution. The episode was unsubtly sledging the recently triumphant Brexiteers, and try as I might I could identify no conversation, catallaxy, counterpoint, sympathy, grace or any sort of contrition from the rejected elite.

Que? Which Episode was that? – I find it an enjoyable Piss Take

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=upstart+ceow

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
October 20, 2022 11:01 pm

Zulu.

Shouldn’t laugh – the Australian military gave me the first new pair of shoes I ever owned.

You wore thongs around the squatter’s homestead before you joined up?

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
October 20, 2022 11:03 pm

Shetland is completely cut off from the mainland as phones, internet and computers are hit by blackout after subsea cable is cut – weeks after mystery underwater Nord Stream explosion

– Communications in Shetland have been completely shut down this morning
– Phones, internet and computers are not usable amid the total blackout
– The south subsea cable between the islands and the mainland has been cut

Razey
Razey
October 20, 2022 11:03 pm

I dont think many states will make the clot shot mandatory to attend public school in the USA. Current list of states for the flu. Pretty crazy that some states want an annual flu jab in the kids.

https://www.immunize.org/laws/flu_childcare.asp

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
October 20, 2022 11:05 pm

You wore thongs around the squatter’s homestead before you joined up?

My cousin’s “hand me downs.”

Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity
Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity
October 20, 2022 11:05 pm

You wore thongs around the squatter’s homestead before you joined up?

Just outta curiosity, what caused you to suspect “thongs”?

Wally Dalí
Wally Dalí
October 20, 2022 11:06 pm

I’d struggle to mane the episode, iirc it was a running soliloquy sub-theme replete with asides and sotti voce

DrBeauGan
DrBeauGan
October 20, 2022 11:07 pm

If you’ve read Shakespeare and Chaucer, you’d know how little human nature changes in a few centuries, and if you read Caesar and Cicero, you’d know that it doesn’t change in a few thousand years.
The fascination with drag queens and trannies is a resurgence of the cult of the goddess Cybele. Men, over conscious perhaps of the feminine side of their own natures, would castrate themselves, chop off their balls, and make an offering of them to Cybele. What she did with them all, we can only speculate.

It gets put in different words as the times change, but the human urges do not. Some men today respond to their twisted needs just as the priests of Cybele did. There is a big difference however. A Roman might well have tolerated a devotee of the goddess, but he’d have said something like: “Chop off your own balls if you must. But try to recruit my children and I’ll kill you.”

These days we let the twisted sickos try to corrupt kindergarten children with drag queen story hour. The Romans wouldn’t have been so stupid.

areff
areff
October 20, 2022 11:09 pm

‘…am I the only person who hates airports?….’

Just at the moment I hate everything connected to commercial aviation. I was supposed to be in NYC this morning, but Philippine Airlines has stranded me and a lot of other Australians in Manila.

So far two nights here and this evening will make three, although the rep — if he can be trusted — swears I’ll be on tomorrow’s trans-Pacific red eye to JFK. My baby granddaughter has just had heart surgery and I need to be there for that, before putting a focus on the midterms.

Never, ever have I encountered such a sheltered workshop masquerading as a commercial enterprise. Been variously told (a) the flights were cancelled for weather (b) vague ‘operational issues’ and finally, just now in the hotel lobby, where us strandees cornered the airline’s rep, that the plane was grounded due to a dent in the cargo door.

The upside, just survived a four block walk to the 7-11, where a packet of Chesterfield reds, four San Miguel beers and a couple of Pepsis cost the grand total of ….. $10.50 OZ.

Also offered ‘You want lady’ twice in the stroll there and back, which explains why perverts with limited means love this joint.

They’re welcome to it.

Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity
Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity
October 20, 2022 11:16 pm

Bruce of Newcastle says: October 20, 2022 at 10:32 pm
SATP – There’re hundreds. It’s a franchise chain. Nice cheesecakes too.

Thank you Bruce.
Never seen or heard of them. That’s no surprise, there’s not a franchise of any sort within cooee of my yokel location.
It seems quite an operation, more than 200 shops.
They must fly under the radar (smart move).

MatrixTransform
October 20, 2022 11:17 pm

and make an offering of them to Cybele

wasn’t Basil Fawlty’s wife’s name Sybil?

MatrixTransform
October 20, 2022 11:23 pm

thongs == south pacific safety boots

Beertruk
Beertruk
October 20, 2022 11:26 pm

Black Ball:
October 20, 2022 at 7:48 pm
I liked Shakespeare in high school.
It made you think of what he was trying to convey. Yes the language was Olde, but by Christ it was good.
I think Macbeth the impending tones of doom at the hands of Macduff are captivating.

If Upstart Crow teev series was around when I was at high school, I would have paid a lot more attention and understood Shakespeare a lot better.
Kate is more than a wee bit peeved in this vid.
I cannot understand why. 😉

H B Bear
H B Bear
October 20, 2022 11:29 pm

I have never been to Manila. I intend to maintain that record. Did stop over in Brunei en route to London when cash was a bit tighter and I wanted to visit friends in Dubai. Never again.

Big_Nambas
Big_Nambas
October 20, 2022 11:32 pm

Manila is a shit hole. I was there for 10 days, never again unless I’m in a box.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
October 20, 2022 11:33 pm

Will America end Zelenskyy’s dream?

The pro-war consensus seems to be weakening

Even as “kamikaze” drones rain down on Kyiv, the mood over Ukraine is shifting in the US. Between May and September, the share of Americans who are extremely or very concerned about a Ukrainian defeat fell from 55% to 38%. Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, 32% say the US is providing too much support for the war — up from 9% in March.

But rifts are emerging within the American establishment as well. The list of high-profile media and policy figures who are starting to question the wisdom of the US strategy in the conflict grows longer every day.

Why is the US administration continuing to pour tens of billions into a war that is ravaging Ukraine and causing thousands of deaths (and triggering massive collateral damage globally) when, according to the Washington Post, “privately, US officials say neither Russia nor Ukraine is capable of winning the war outright”? If so, why is the US prolonging the bloodshed and destruction, pledging to support Ukraine “for as long as it takes”, rather than working towards a diplomatic solution that, barring nuclear war, is the only possible outcome anyway? The madness of this policy has become even more apparent in recent weeks, as fighting on both sides has continued to dangerously escalate — with Biden himself warning of the very real possibility of a nuclear “Armageddon”.

As Josh Hammer wrote in Newsweek, the time has come for the US to abandon its overly simplified position of supporting Zelenskyy’s dream of retaking “every square inch of territory in the Donbas and Crimea from its nuclear-armed adversary, seemingly no matter the cost to the US taxpayer”. At this stage in the conflict, Hammer notes, it is not in America’s interests to endorse all of Ukraine’s unrealistic territorial claims. Rather than semi-permanent war and destabilisation, what is needed is “de-escalation, detente, and peace”. Mike Mullen, who served as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff for George W. Bush and Barack Obama, put it even more bluntly: “As is typical in any war, it’s got to end and usually there are negotiations associated with that. The sooner the better, as far as I’m concerned.”

But this, of course, means facing down Zelenskyy’s absolutist stance — which includes refusing to come to the negotiating table until Putin is removed from power, continuing to demand Ukraine’s immediate accession to Nato, and refusing to compromise on the recently annexed regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, or even on Crimea. Interestingly, the same concerns were even voiced by David E. Sanger, the chief Washington correspondent for the traditionally pro-war New York Times, who wrote: “No one in the [Biden] administration wants to suggest, in public or private, that the government of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy should avoid chasing Russian troops out of every corner of Ukraine, back to the borders that existed Feb. 23, the day before the invasion began. But behind closed doors, some Western diplomats and military officials say, that is exactly the conversation that may have to happen.”

As David Ignatius observed in the Washington Post: “Leaders must think now with the same combination of toughness and creativity that President John F. Kennedy showed during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. That means drawing a firm line — Kennedy never wavered on his demand that Soviet missiles be removed from Cuba — but it also means looking for ways to de-escalate.”

Ignatius also highlighted an uncomfortable truth: that the refusal to engage in any diplomatic process has, so far, come from Ukraine, and even more so from the US (and UK) — not Russia. On the contrary, Ignatius recalled that “Russia had been prepared for a ‘peaceful settlement’ in the negotiations brokered by Turkey in Istanbul in late March, but that Ukraine and the West had balked”. Then, in April, according to multiple US officials, Russia and Ukraine had agreed on a tentative deal to end the war — only for Boris Johnson to fly to Kyiv to bring the negotiations to an end, according to Ukrainian pro-Western sources. This raises several questions: why did Western leaders want to stop Kyiv from signing a seemingly good deal with Moscow? And how many lives might have been saved, on both sides, if the peace talks hadn’t been derailed?

it certainly wouldn’t be the first time sections of the US intelligence had gone rogue. Of course, there is also the third possibility: the US has completely lost control of the Ukrainians, who are now engaging in terrorist activities behind the US’s back; it wouldn’t be the first time that had happened either, if we were to consider America’s role in the birth of al-Qaeda, for example.

All three prospects are equally terrifying. Whatever the case, the pro-war consensus is weakening, and that represents an opportunity. Now is the time for everyone who believes in a diplomatic solution to the conflict to speak out — and to put pressure on their leaders to stop the madness.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
October 20, 2022 11:35 pm

Did stop over in Brunei en route to London when cash was a bit tighter and I wanted to visit friends in Dubai. Never again.

One stopover in Brunei is enough, thank you, but Royal Brunei Airlines was an interesting experience.

MatrixTransform
October 20, 2022 11:37 pm

Manila is a shit hole

I was in Cebu for 3 weeks
shit-hole
but I was with friends so

Zipster
Zipster
October 20, 2022 11:45 pm
OldOzzie
OldOzzie
October 20, 2022 11:46 pm

Vaccines Never Prevented the Transmission of COVID

Allowing zealots to censor news in the name of ‘science’ is a danger to public health

In late 2021 and early 2022, it was commonplace for journalists and public intellectuals to demonize and shame “the unvaccinated,” a group that in the United States was disproportionately low income. The New York Times ran pieces like “I’m Furious at the Unvaccinated,” and “Unvaxxed, Unmasked and Putting Our Kids at Risk.” The Los Angeles Times published a column titled “Mocking anti-vaxxers’ COVID deaths is ghoulish, yes—but may be necessary.” An opinion piece called “The Unvaccinated Are a Risk to All of Us” appeared in Bloomberg, and The Washington Post printed a piece called “Macron is right: It’s time to make life a living hell for anti-vaxxers.”

CNN’s Don Lemon commented that people refusing the vaccines were being “idiotic and nonsensical.” He argued that it was time to “start shaming them” or “leave them behind.” Noam Chomsky, a self-described libertarian socialist, said unvaccinated people should remove themselves from society and be “isolated.” Asked how they would get food that way, he answered, “Well actually, that’s their problem.”

In Canada, columnists for the Toronto Star proclaimed, “Vaccine resisters are lazy and irresponsible—we need vaccine passports now to protect the rest of us” and “The unvaccinated cherish their freedom to harm others. How can we ever forgive them?” In the U.K., the Daily Mail contended, “It’s time to punish Britain’s 5 million vaccine refuseniks,” and Piers Morgan, a British presenter on TalkTV, suggested that unvaccinated people should not be allowed access to the country’s National Health Service.

Internationally, several politicians threatened to reimplement restrictions and told the public that “the unvaccinated” were at fault. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said unvaccinated people “are very often misogynistic and racist,” and asked, “Do we tolerate these people?” President Joe Biden said that his “patience [was] wearing thin” and that we needed to “protect vaccinated workers from unvaccinated coworkers.” Michael Gunner, chief minister of the Northern Territory in Australia, stated that even if you are vaccinated, “if you are anti-mandate, you are absolutely anti-vax.” French President Emmanuel Macron declared that 5 million French people who remained unvaccinated were “not citizens.”

Across parts of the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe, unvaccinated people were fired from their jobs, excluded from higher education, banned from many sectors of public life, denied organ transplants, and even punished by judges in probation hearings and child custody cases. Meanwhile, COVID cases continued to rise in many highly vaccinated countries with vaccine passports and other restrictions in place.

Vaccine mandates were mainly rationalized through the belief that the higher the rate of vaccination, the less the virus would spread. For example, during oral arguments for Biden’s health care worker mandate, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Elena Kagan claimed that health care workers had to get vaccinated “so that you’re not transmitting the disease.” But recently, on Oct. 10, 2022, a Pfizer spokesperson told the European Parliament that the vaccines had never actually been tested for preventing transmission. While this was presented on social media as “breaking news,” the fact that the vaccines were not tested for this purpose has been documented extensively ever since Pfizer and Moderna received their original Emergency Use Authorization (EUA).

During the Dec. 10, 2020, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) meeting when the first mRNA vaccines were authorized, FDA adviser Dr. Patrick Moore stated, “Pfizer has presented no evidence in its data today that the vaccine has any effect on virus carriage or shedding, which is the fundamental basis for herd immunity.” Despite the data presented for individual efficacy, he continued, “we really, as of right now, do not have any evidence that it will have an impact, social-wide, on the epidemic.” The FDA EUA press release from December 2020 also confirms that there was no “evidence that the vaccine prevents transmission of SARS-COV-2 from person to person.”

Simply put, the reason many people believed the vaccines stopped transmission was because government officials and media outlets across the Western world were either careless with their words or did not tell the truth. In 2021, for instance, Director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Rochelle Walensky claimed that vaccinated people “do not carry the virus,” and Dr. Anthony Fauci said they would become “dead ends” for the virus. Any speculation that the vaccines significantly reduced transmission was based on limited results from independent studies and the false assumption that the vaccine would prevent infection. Without adequate evidence, vaccination campaigns called on people to get vaccinated not just for their own protection, but to help “protect others” and “save lives.”

Meanwhile, social media companies coordinated with the Biden administration to censor dissent. Many people who asked questions about efficacy or safety risked banishment from Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube. Now, however, as more and more studies come out, it is increasingly clear that some of the information these companies censored was true.

For anyone content with their vaccination status, this might not be a big deal. Yes, the vaccine information that was provided in 2021 wasn’t entirely accurate, but you might still feel that getting vaccinated was the right decision. However, being misinformed about potential benefits and risks is an enormous deal for, say, a male college athlete who got vaccinated because he wanted to protect his elderly family members, but who then developed myocarditis. Telling him that this is fine because “there was so much unknown” is probably not much of a consolation, especially since his decision to get vaccinated was never going to protect his family members in the first place, and the vaccine manufacturers were given blanket immunity from liability.

It is one thing for the pharmaceutical companies, the Biden administration, the CDC, and the media to intentionally or unintentionally mislead the public; but it is another thing entirely for them to do this while government agencies actively coordinated to suppress alternative views or inconvenient data.

Censorship of medical dissent is now being expanded in California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed Assembly Bill 2098 into law, officially granting the California Medical Board the authority to penalize and suspend the licenses of doctors who intentionally spread “misinformation or disinformation” about COVID risks and prevention, as well as the safety and efficacy of COVID vaccines. In the U.K. and Sweden, by contrast, COVID vaccines are no longer offered to healthy children under 12, and in Denmark boosters are not available for anyone under 50. Clearly there is no international consensus on COVID vaccines for young people.

Should California doctors really lose their medical licenses if they favor guidance from Sweden and Denmark over guidance from the CDC?

MatrixTransform
October 20, 2022 11:50 pm

Truss has resigned.

FFS

into the vacuum rushes the fart

Wally Dalí
Wally Dalí
October 21, 2022 12:07 am

Righto, time for a waffle (h/t JC)
Earlier call for opinion from bons re what to do about family or acquaintances who have excluded the unjabbed from their houses, families, and therefore lives. In the example, should the prodigal daughters-in-law be tolerated back into the fold?
I’d say yes, without a doubt. Having got a hold of myself recently and knowing the absolution that comes from forgiveness, it is a must that we forgive others for their temper, pride, anger, unreason- whether it was gee’d up by the Cathedral’s shamdemic panic, or self-propagated, or deep in the Karen nature, or even self-serving for the spiteful or power-hungry.
One of the most important things I got a hold of early on is to keep good humour, keep approachable, keep modest. I reckon if you’re signalling to the opponent that you’re both happy to be proven wrong and interested in factoids they might present that you are unaware of, and good-natured about proving someone wrong and deferential about putting a factoid to them which they may not be aware of, then you’re still holding the whip hand… and, you’re still holding the subject open, even if it’s a long time before it’s chewed over again. If someone loses their temper at one of your routines, don’t laugh at them … but don’t lose track of their argument either.
Not saying you should be a clown though. A bon mot from you is as wasteful as a non sequitur from yer enemy.
Many peeps have been a bit confronted if I re-state a point of fact over which they thought they had banked a win. One girl in particular was actually a bit hurt by me re-hashing something- I was chalking up a point over something which had gone from conspiracy theory to fact- she said she was surprised I’d mentioned it cos I should have known that she was very upset the first time round. My answer was, you’re 45 with four kids, you’ve got to stop being upset as an ends in itself and start owning your decisions.
So suffice to say I haven’t always been my best self with everyone in my small circle. Things got tetchy with the floor manager at my ag outlet, as I’d simply not ever wear a mask- he eventually had a grizzle to my wife about it and told her to ask me to toe the line. I thought that was a bit wussy and said I hoped he could talk to me man to man about it- things have thawed anyhoo, last time we touched on the panicdemic subject I left him with the line that if the sheep needles he sold me had had the same testing, efficacy and liability as the clot shots, then the sheep would be landfill and the bill would still come to my desk and mine alone.
Once put a fifty on the table at the microbrewery and promised it to anyone of the assembled nannies who could name the WA CHO. That’s now become a meme amongst the boys if anyone’s getting high and mighty, pull a note out and push it to the middle under your finger, often it’s a race if we’re really having fun. Most of the blokes- minus the one GP, come to think of it who has drifted away- are good sports about this sort of thing, women are another matter entirely. I don’t know if it’s because after they play the “but I’m scared” card and realise it’s not actually a trump they’ve got no gambits left, or if it’s a women’s social standing thing where they need group conformity and predictability. Both my wife and kids kick me under the table freely.
In conclusion- yes, forgive, but do not forget. Ours is a battle of remembering over forgetting.
We the sceptics have won, even if the Cathedral will never give us a wrap-around commemorative premiership poster. Each weapon must be kept sharp, because the Lizard People will try it on again, that’s for sure.
Extended bitterness or spite will only turn a long-fought-for honourable triumph into a shallow smokescreen, where the effort of the previously slighted lonely warrior will be smeared by the unreason of his or her spoils.

JD
JD
October 21, 2022 12:53 am

Regime change?

Bruce in WA
Bruce in WA
October 21, 2022 1:22 am

Just brilliant.

rickw
rickw
October 21, 2022 3:16 am

Long day on the tools. CCP not so kick ass. Sri Lankans + me, different story.

rickw
rickw
October 21, 2022 3:46 am

Manila is a shit hole

What?!! You’ve clearly never been to Melbourne.

JC
JC
October 21, 2022 3:47 am

Wally Dalí says:
October 21, 2022 at 12:07 am

Righto, time for a waffle (h/t JC)

Waffler
Last time you asked we don’t speak to or even mention each other. I ask that you follow you own advice. Really, I’m not really missing much anyway. Don’t mention me again.

rickw
rickw
October 21, 2022 3:54 am

thongs == south pacific safety boots

I know blokes who built storage tanks in the islands, strakes had to be around 5” max so that a band of wontoks or Islanders could carry them up the scaffold with plate dogs while wearing their “safety boots”.

Tom
Tom
October 21, 2022 4:00 am
Tom
Tom
October 21, 2022 4:01 am
Tom
Tom
October 21, 2022 4:02 am
rickw
rickw
October 21, 2022 4:03 am

There seems to be some theory that we were a ‘rich’ country lording it over the 3rd world.

Lording it over the third world generally consisted of the first world ploughing in vast amounts of infrastructure and expertise whilst asking the locals to end their retarded ways.

Decent Indian bloke got completely fucked today #notindigenous……

Tom
Tom
October 21, 2022 4:03 am
Tom
Tom
October 21, 2022 4:04 am
Tom
Tom
October 21, 2022 4:06 am
Tom
Tom
October 21, 2022 4:07 am
Tom
Tom
October 21, 2022 4:08 am
Tom
Tom
October 21, 2022 4:09 am
Tom
Tom
October 21, 2022 4:11 am
Tom
Tom
October 21, 2022 4:11 am
rickw
rickw
October 21, 2022 4:12 am

If WW2 is any guide, they are shit at the start, once they get going, unstoppable.

Takes time to find the Zukhov’s.

Tom
Tom
October 21, 2022 4:13 am
Tom
Tom
October 21, 2022 4:14 am
Tom
Tom
October 21, 2022 4:15 am
Tom
Tom
October 21, 2022 4:16 am
win
win
October 21, 2022 4:33 am

Once apon a time Air Brunei had charming hostesses.It only needed one hard liner male to change .I was the only passeneger in 1st class .I never went back either.

Winston Smith
October 21, 2022 4:45 am

Mems article:

Ohio Supreme Court Suspends Democrat Judge Due to “Unprecedented” Behavior – Removes Her From Cleveland Municipal Court Bench and Temporarily Strips Law License

Link
I don’t have a problem with people who are a bit eccentric – they lend some colour to a sometimes drab world – but this is bizarre ++.

Johnny Rotten
October 21, 2022 5:01 am

Four married guys go fishing. After an hour, the following conversation took place.

First guy “You have no idea what I had to do to be able to come out fishing this weekend. I had to promise my wife that I will paint every room in the house next weekend”.

Second guy “That’s nothing! I had to promise my wife that I will build her a new deck for the pool”.

Third guy “Man, you both have it easy! I had to promise my wife that I will remodel the kitchen for her”.

They continue to fish when they realised that the fourth guy has not said a word.

So they asked him. “You haven’t said anything about what you had to do to be able to come fishing this weekend. What’s the deal?”

Fourth guy “I just set my alarm for 5:30am. When it went off, I shut off my alarm, gave the wife a slap on the arse, and said ‘Fishing or sex?’ and she said ‘Wear sunscreen!’”

Johnny Rotten
October 21, 2022 5:03 am

Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.

– William Shakespeare

bespoke
bespoke
October 21, 2022 5:14 am
Winston Smith
October 21, 2022 5:23 am

Razey/ZK2A:
I was thinking last night about a remark someone made re the amount of white elephants that Australia has created over the last 50 years.
.1 The NBN
.2 Desalination plants
.3 The submarine fiasco
And the opportunities we missed –
.1 The computer revolution,
.2 The nuclear power and bomb projects,
.3 The Cape York spaceport.

Does anyone think it deserves a thread of its own, just so we can start adding up the costs of the failure to just get anything done at all in this country?
It’s about time a light was shone on the cost of governmental incompetence and waste.
Any lists already made?

johanna
johanna
October 21, 2022 5:42 am

Interesting discussion about Shakespeare and related matters yesterday.

Some people seemed to think that I was saying that studying Shakespeare is a waste of time. I didn’t say that, and it’s not true IMO. I just said that it’s not for everyone, including someone like me who is addicted to reading and loves literature.

BTW, I’m a huge fan of Chaucer, so it’s not because the language is difficult. The plays just don’t float my boat (I quite like the poems).

That said, his contribution to the language is only rivalled by the Bible, in terms of aphorisms, similes, metaphors and all that stuff. One way that his value could be conveyed to the younger generation is to approach it from that direction – pick out some of the well known ones and relate them back to their context, without having to slog through whole plays. Then, those who express interest could be eased into the more difficult material.

Someone said that Summer of the Sevententh Doll (which I studied as an alternative) is not great literature. That’s true, but we studied it in the context of the development of Australian playwriting and the expression of Australian culture; what’s more, it didn’t substitute for The Bard on its own. I also did an Ibsen play – A Doll’s House – which most people would agree is perfectly respectable as part of the Western canon. Good play, too, and it still gets presented regularly all over the world.

There was an undercurrent in some comments along the lines that making kids do Shakespeare was like making them learn their tables or eat their vegetables – not pleasant, but necessary. This is where I diverge, because it’s not at all necessary just because some high falutin’ literary types say so.

While I deplore using Twitter as subject matter in English class and the rest of that woke rubbish, forcing kids to eat their Brussels Sprouts is not going to make those kids appreciate them, IYKWIM. The choice is not just between ice cream and sprouts, and good teachers know that.

Harry Potter is hardly in the realm of literature, but those books got untold millions of kids to read and enjoy reading – the essential first step. Take it from someone who read both shelves of Enid Blyton in the school library and finished up studying Eng Lit at university. 🙂

Winston Smith
October 21, 2022 5:43 am

Speedbox:

Allow your opponent to push, at great cost in manpower, then once they have exhausted themselves, push back when your conditions are favourable? Military Cats will be best placed to answer.

The concept of the Strategic Counteroffensive?
Like the Kursk 1943 battles? Operation Citadelle was delayed too long, von Manstein wanted it to commence as soon as the ground firmed up, but Hitlers refusal to commence doomed the entire offensive. The Soviet Union was able to dig in massive lines of defence and bring back to the ranks the hundreds of thousands of moderately wounded soldiers to bolster the defences and create reserves.
Off the top of my head that’s the major Strategic Counteroffensive – the rest were more opportunistic battles, like the Ardennes Offensive and the smaller offensive in southern France (whose name totally escapes me atm.).
Mind you, having the enemy detailed plan of battle delivered to STAVKA by the Lucy Spy Ring and Richard Sorge, didn’t hurt either.

Winston Smith
October 21, 2022 5:54 am

Areff:
The upside, just survived a four block walk to the 7-11, where a packet of Chesterfield reds, four San Miguel beers and a couple of Pepsis cost the grand total of ….. $10.50 OZ.
I’m utterly disinterested in the price of boutique beer, RF – the important question is how much was the XXXX Bitter?

bespoke
bespoke
October 21, 2022 5:58 am

how much was the XXXX Bitter?

Dignity.

Winston Smith
October 21, 2022 6:00 am
2dogs
2dogs
October 21, 2022 6:10 am

It’s extraordinary that the UK’s longest serving monarch should have had her funeral presided over by its shortest serving PM.

Gabor
Gabor
October 21, 2022 6:18 am

2dogs says:
October 21, 2022 at 6:10 am

It’s extraordinary that the UK’s longest serving monarch should have had her funeral presided over by its shortest serving PM.

I was thinking along those lines myself, but with a different slant, she will have the distinction of being the last PM sworn in by her Majesty Elizabeth the 2nd.
I’m’ sure it will be a trivia question in the future.

johanna
johanna
October 21, 2022 6:22 am

Won’t bother to link, but TheirABC’s report about Truss’ departure mentions probable reasons, number one being … (drum roll) … sexism!

They are so predictable. People here could write every story for them, given two or three factoids.

Farmer Gez
Farmer Gez
October 21, 2022 6:34 am

The fact the Tories went through a long exhaustive process and came up with Truss is the real underlying problem.
Committees always pick the least offensive and not the most talented.

johanna
johanna
October 21, 2022 6:51 am

Trouble is, Gez, even if someone like Suella Braverman had won, she would have been whiteanted by the bureaucrats and her own party from Day 1. She wouldn’t have been able to deliver, no matter how much she wanted to. The coup is complete.

Winston Smith
October 21, 2022 6:52 am

I’m still trying to get my head around what is has just happened in the UK.
They had an election, the winning party presented their policies.
The Government was sworn in.
The new PM tried to enact the policies that she’d campaigned on.
Her position was made untenable and she resigned.
The policies she campaigned on have been overturned.
It looks like the policies her opponents campaigned on are being enacted.

Did we just see a coup d’état by the EU? This isn’t making any sense.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
October 21, 2022 6:53 am

They’ve tweaked the process a bit to speed things up this time.

Race to replace Truss officially begins – but elderly members could be removed from vote (20 Oct)

The Tory leadership race has officially kicked off as Sir Graham Brady unveiled tough new rules to see a new leader appointed by the end of next week. Hopefuls will need nominations from at least 100 Conservative MPs and there will be an online vote for members if two candidates make it through the parliamentary stages.

Sir Graham said candidates will need at least 100 nominations from fellow MPs, which must be made by Monday. He said it would mean a maximum of three candidates on the ballot paper for MPs to vote on.

Sounds alike a stitch up. The point about the elderly members is the Tory party members who don’t go one line. If they’re winnowed out it’d skew the vote towards guys like Hunt I suspect.

Farmer Gez
Farmer Gez
October 21, 2022 6:59 am

Johanna.
I’m reminded of the brilliant Black Adder series. Edmund looks at the list of the henchmen he’s assembled to oust his father and become king.
“What we need is a real bastard”

Black Ball
Black Ball
October 21, 2022 7:01 am

Heard the most absurd story yesterday. Seems the po po still love themselves some arse kicking of normal citizenry.
People have been told not to walk on the levee under fear of arrest. Reason being they may cause waves that will spill over. Despite all their vehicles, Chinook helicopters flying about, general traffic, etc. You get the picture.
FMD

Farmer Gez
Farmer Gez
October 21, 2022 7:05 am

BB
A crisis will show ordinary people can stand up and be champions.
Arseholes remain arseholes in any situation.

Mater
October 21, 2022 7:11 am

Seems the po po still love themselves some arse kicking of normal citizenry.

Give the fuckers a shovel and some sandbags and tell them to make themselves useful!

johanna
johanna
October 21, 2022 7:16 am

While I don’t agree with the underlying argument, I do agree with the analysis. The lion had laid down with the lamb!

Among them was the Queensland government’s decision last month to bump up its green energy target to 80 per cent by 2035 and plough more than $60 billion into renewable power and transmission projects.

But Mr Wood noted New South Wales was also underwriting massive investments in solar, wind and battery storage developments.
Australia’s energy reckoning

Amid an ever-deepening crisis in Australia’s electricity grid, something has got to give. But not everyone likes a proposed fix to safeguard the system.
Loy Yang A power station in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley
Read more

On top of this, the federal government was building the huge Snowy 2.0 hydro project and a gas-fired plant while rolling out $20 billion in spending through its “rewiring the nation” scheme.

He said the decisions were undermining the intent of the national electricity market, which supplied more than 10 million customers across the eastern states.

“As a result of the best of a decade of governments and industry trying to work out how they were going to get the energy market to deliver what they want, governments have given up,” Mr Wood said.

“They’ve decided someone needs to take control of the decisions now and it should be them.

“Whether it’s Victoria, the Commonwealth, Queensland [or] wherever, that’s where we are.

“Some people may think it would be better if we had a well-regulated market but we don’t anymore.

Describing the spaghetti diagram that is the energy delivery system as a ‘market’ is coming the raw crustacean. But, when he says that it is out of control and the States are desperately trying to salvage something is quite correct.

My take is that the unstoppable force (the ‘transition’) consisting of unicorn farts and wishes and public money, is not unstoppable, as it meets the immovable object, which consists of physics, economics and engineering.

will
will
October 21, 2022 7:20 am
shatterzzz
October 21, 2022 7:21 am

Gotta wonder about ASIO! .. they’ve OK-ed the head-loppers & apprentices return to Oz as no threat to the vote-herd yet closer to home they, apparently, had no idea a Senator on a Law & Order commitee in Canberra was bonking a bikie chief between meetings .. lotza confidence in this ASIO mob! .. LOL!

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
October 21, 2022 7:24 am

Braverman sounds better and better, which probably means she has no chance of making the ballot.

Home Secretary Blames ‘Tofu-Eating Wokerati’ for Climate Crazy Protest Chaos (19 Oct)

PM Truss Had 90-Minute ‘Shouting Match’ with Ex-Home Secretary over Immigration Betrayal (20 Oct)

The second article is an especially fun read. She was forced to resign on a pretext – how dare she be a conservative Conservative Home Secretary!

Cassie of Sydney
October 21, 2022 7:28 am

“Did we just see a coup d’état by the EU?”

Yep.

Razey
Razey
October 21, 2022 7:36 am

Josef Mengele is smiling from Hell on this day.

Winston Smith
October 21, 2022 7:37 am

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/10/16-year-old-twins-escape-house-horrors-mother-boyfriend-kept-starved-naked-shackled-video/

The scarring says this had been going on for years.
Words fail me. Really.
What was even worse was the fact they tried for half an hour to get some help and it was refused.

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
October 21, 2022 7:47 am

I see Rowe is back to his tired old trick of inserting Libs (usually Dutton) incongruously into his cartoons to make sure that any misdeeds are hinted at being associated with them too. Today it is Dutton and…Gina(?).

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
October 21, 2022 7:51 am

Gotta wonder about ASIO! .. they’ve OK-ed the head-loppers & apprentices return to Oz as no threat to the vote-herd

Fairly confident the spooks would have certainly identified the Mrs Blower-Upperers et al as significant threats, and made recommendations that they starve and freeze in a foreign desert.

They’re not the decision makers. I’m putting this squarely at the feet of Elbow and his inner circle, who weighed up the potential votes and/or influence of either side and then took the path of least resistance – and disguised it as taking a ‘humanitarian posture’.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
October 21, 2022 7:52 am

Hahahahaha!

The Green Tax: Electric Vehicle Owners Shocked by Battery Replacements Costing $20,000+ (20 Oct)

Canadian electric vehicle (EV) owners have been shocked to find out that battery replacements for their cars, especially older models, tops $20,000. One EV owner shared his experience, saying: “At the dealership, he looked it up online and said you’re not going to like this,” before delivering a bill of $15,000 plus labor and taxes.

“I don’t understand why they make the battery so expensive when you have to change it,” Phyllis Lau, who owns a 2018 KIA Soul all-electric vehicle, told CTV News Toronto.

Yes Greens really do seem to be this ignorant.

calli
calli
October 21, 2022 7:55 am

I apologise for inflicting the blog with the BCRs. I thought Lydia had goooorne. Not dead, just resting.

It’s only conservatives who actually leave after being caught in serious misdemeanours.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
October 21, 2022 7:56 am

how much was the XXXX Bitter?

Dignity.

‘XXXX’ and ‘dignity’.
Words not often seen together.

Gilas
Gilas
October 21, 2022 7:59 am

DrBeauGan says:
October 20, 2022 at 9:43 pm

Melody reaches the heart of one’s soul light-years ahead of 5-part counterpoint in augmented thirds.

This isn’t a statement about music, it’s a statement about you and your limitations.

Ouch! And here was me thinking that thinking people could have a polite discussion

Maybe your soul could be improved, maybe you could learn to see something you’ve been missing? Notice, for example, that rabz would be far more interested in the rhythm element than the melodic. And the goilz, of course. I dunno about rabz, but I know of ppl for whom it’s all about foot tapping. They are deaf to the melodic element.

Music IS melody. Full stop.
The rhythmic component is an adjuvant to the essence of the melody.
Without melody, you have Elliot Carter, Stockhausen, Bartok, Schoenberg and the other flotsam of leftist vandals from the 20th Century’s descent into the cacophony of serialist garbage.
Plenty of forgettable, even painful rhythms there, and others are fully welcome to that.
Techno-pop anyone?

Tchaikovsky has some pretty melodies, but they don’t go anywhere.

That must be why he’s one of the most popular composers who ever lived. Why his concertos, symphonies and ballets are almost unsurpassed in their compositional brilliance, originality and the way they stir one’s soul.
It’s a deeeep mystery!

It’s the way sone things lead to others and cap them that makes jsb the master. If you haven’t noticed this element of music, you are missing something.

Personal preference always comes into these discussions. When listening to music, most people will prefer a beautiful tune to a more mathematically rigorous sequence of chords, with stricter observance of harmonic theory. JSB was the supreme master here.
Fortunately, he also wrote great music, that was also pleasing to the ears.

Just not as much as he could have.

calli
calli
October 21, 2022 8:00 am

Wally, thanks for your interesting comment last night about forgiveness. Sometimes the best we can do is move on, but warily. Burning bridges is all very well but often it’s the firebug who gets the scars from the blowback. Particularly true in families when young children, who are completely innocent parties, are involved.

Perfidious Albino
Perfidious Albino
October 21, 2022 8:00 am

Winston, you can probably add these ADF helo programs…

Seasprites
Tigers
Taipans

Also the east-west link contract, Myki cards, well, just about anything the VIC govt touches really…

calli
calli
October 21, 2022 8:03 am

Just to combine the two threads of artistic appreciation…and my all time favourite play…

If music be the food of love…play on!

😀

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
October 21, 2022 8:05 am

It’s only conservatives who actually leave after being caught in serious misdemeanours.

To be fair to Aussie Lydia, actual shame has long since left politics.

Its only vestigial function now is in political polemic put out for the proles, as in: “I say to the Minister/Member for Bumcrack, shame, shame, shame…

Expect no pressure from the House of Vermin.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
October 21, 2022 8:08 am

If music be the food of love…play on!

Twelfth Night.
Another one that has stood the test of time.

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
October 21, 2022 8:10 am

And Truss has bowed out.

I had been optimistic when she got the job and announced they were going to encourage increased gas production and lower taxes.

The gas bit seemed very opportune, what with winter approaching and the schadenfreude at the sight of the Europeans shivering in the dark would have been a wonderful vindication and warmed the public’s hearts cockles and all.

The tax cut was predictably mischaracterised by the media as ‘tax cuts for the rich’, but since they are the ones paying tax that ought not be surprising. You can hardly cut the taxes on low incomes as they don’t pay tax.

calli
calli
October 21, 2022 8:11 am

Journeys end in lovers meeting,
as any wise man’s son doth know.

Ahhhh…romance! Much better than blood and guts. That’s for next week.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
October 21, 2022 8:13 am

More stinky fun, and in this case the Stinkies really are stinky.

Late Night Schadenfreude (WUWT, 19 Oct)

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
October 21, 2022 8:14 am

Seems the po po still love themselves some arse kicking of normal citizenry.

I have heard stories and tales over the journey that if one were in the po-leece in Vicco then Echuca was indeed a favoured destination, dependent on what you were after.

If you wanted to be left alone and not bothered by anyone, and have a little town to play with, and with enough tourists to get your stats from without having to put the locals offside then Echuca was your destination. Fiercely competitive when vacancies came up, it was said.

If you wanted to be a detective there – well, well. Three or four blokes in the office there, lovely little patch, not enough actual crime to put you out but you could make it look as though there was. ‘Ongoing operations’ written in briefings back to the smoke, and so on.

If you hadn’t been in the CIB for 20 years already, don’t bother applying. Plus, of course, you had to know and get along with the people already there. A retirement home, which has apparently gone to the pack since they let the bikies establish themselves in and around it.

If the inner-city divisions were too much work and the squads in town weren’t for you (or you’d spent years in those spots and wanted to tree-change), Echuca was the number one sweet spot.

Number two, it is said, was Torquay.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
October 21, 2022 8:15 am

Winston Smithsays:

October 21, 2022 at 6:52 am

I’m still trying to get my head around what is has just happened in the UK.
They had an election, the winning party presented their policies

Err, when was this election?

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
October 21, 2022 8:16 am

Talking of JSB, he had 20 childen. No stops on his organ.

m0nty
m0nty
October 21, 2022 8:17 am

Truss is a ideologically a Whig.

Her only meaningful act as PM was a mini-budget full of tax cuts for the rich. That is what history will judge her for. The markets recoiled in horror at this classic piece of Conservative ideology, leading directly to her resignation.

I don’t care about the weeds, what matters is what she did in office. I suspect the next PM won’t make the mistake of proposing a supply-side budget straight out of Hayek.

johanna
johanna
October 21, 2022 8:17 am

Yep, Dr Faustus, shame is the appendix of politics. It only ever matters when, for some reason, there is an inflammation.

Re the egregious Lidia, I note that certain heavyweight Indigenes, like Marcia Langton, are calling for her to be sacked from everything. Lidia made the mistake of annoying the supporters of the referendum – all in line for lucrative sinecures – by saying that it was all a farce and she would vote against it.

Tsk, tsk. 🙂

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
October 21, 2022 8:17 am

To be fair to Aussie Lydia, actual shame has long since left politics.

On the right it is not so much principle that compels them to resign as an abysmal lack of backbone and spittle to fight back.

They could at least go down fighting, pointing out hypocrisy as they go, but they don’t. They just meekly walk to the chopping block and stretch their necks out. Well, I suppose they know not to expect any sort of support from their colleagues. As soon as they are accused of something, however ridiculous, all the fight goes out of them. They just drop their heads, slump, and let out a defeated sigh.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
October 21, 2022 8:18 am

Calling it early, from overnight:

how much was the XXXX Bitter?

Then:

Dignity

.

Snork.

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
October 21, 2022 8:21 am

the important question is how much was the XXXX Bitter?

I would bet the XXXX was becoming increasingly bitter watching all those people preferring other beers.

Gilas
Gilas
October 21, 2022 8:21 am

Mother Lode says:
October 21, 2022 at 8:10 am

And Truss has bowed out.

Except for extremely rare, brief smidgens of sanity, the West has been imploding, on a long, slow suicide trajectory.
The only question is: when will the great unwashed start to gaily parade around, holding the bloodied heads of the Kunts that are leading the cultural destruction?

I’m hoping that it cannot be long now, since people have strict biological limits to their tolerance, regardless of Surveillance State apparatuses and the dystopian paramilitary police forces.

I just hope I’m still alive to enjoy the slaughter, it cannot come soon enough.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
October 21, 2022 8:27 am

areff, our Manila correspondent, at 11:09 p.m.

The upside, just survived a four block walk to the 7-11, where a packet of Chesterfield reds, four San Miguel beers and a couple of Pepsis cost the grand total of ….. $10.50 OZ.

Things are nice and cheap, eh?
Someone here mentioned something else that was cheap in the Philippines but I can’t recall …

Also offered ‘You want lady’ twice in the stroll there and back, which explains why perverts with limited means love this joint.

Ah that’s it.
Girls.
Girls are cheap. “They love the Aussie dollar” I think was the expression.
Aussie men who regularly travel alone to SE Asia or move there to live are usually very, very suss.

Gilas
Gilas
October 21, 2022 8:29 am

GreyRanga says:
October 21, 2022 at 8:16 am

Talking of JSB, he had 20 childen. No stops on his organ.

Indeed.
The maintenance costs would have been eye-watering.. and just think of poor Anna Magdalena..

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