People often incorrectly think of prayer as a kind of wish or confuse it as a time to ask for…
Open Thread – Weekend 22 Oct 2022
- Open Thread – Mon 25 Nov 2024
- The more you gets the less you eats
- Open Thread – Weekend 23 Nov 2024
- Open Thread – Thurs 21 Nov 2024
- Open Thread – Mon 18 Nov 2024
For shame, don’t you know that domestic violence in Aboriginal communities is a result of colonization?
A return to a more average summer will have a few people nervous. As would rolling blackouts ahead of an…
To be clear, ‘code’ doesn’t mean safety or proper construction or anything like that, although that is part of it.…
Ooooh, yes Minister, YES!
The problem is, it doesn’t really matter if the forms are collected, or not. No sane unvaccinated person gets on a 20 hr flight (worth $$$) if they are liable to be told to turn around and go home on arriving at the other end.
Whilst it remains official policy, the deterrent effect has already been achieved…enforced, or otherwise.
Bruce of Newcastle says:
October 25, 2022 at 6:26 am
Sunak was the intended all along, that’s why not.
A grain of sand got in the works the first time, not having that again.
Thanks Gabor, works on phone but not computer.
Meaning I will read but not be able to post in full here.
Conservatism is dead.
Certainly white-anted like so much of our formerly successful society.
Made unfashionable by degrees.
Here a nip, there a tuck,
Everywhere a fuck up.
If The Australian management wonders why a number of us no longer subscribe, they might reflect on the content.
Headline: Anthony Mundine critical of Gina “cop out”.
Warren Mundine’s opinion is worth attention, Anthony’s no so much.
Katy Perry is just another Pfizer facial paralysis recipient. It must mean it’s working.
https://twitter.com/Kabamur_Taygeta/status/1584315751724261377
No! He needs to get his priorities right!
Nigel Farage a few hours ago on the globalist Rishi Sunak, the state of the UK and the state of the Conservative Party…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VYKStOvmc4
Farage nails it.
Please listen, it’s only a few minutes.
Damn you mole. “Zac Kirkup” as a cheap shot is my guaranteed win for the day.
LOL
No, what businesses want is certainty that the government will fuck off and leave them alone.
It might if such a party stopped using the word “conservative”.
Tonnes of people hold ‘conservative’ values in Australia (more than you’d think) but many were raised in households who brainwashed their kids to fear and despise any politician associated with the following: Tory, Conservative, Right Wing, Liberal, etc
Build a party with a generic name, don’t align yourself with any ‘side’ and load it up with smart, affable people the platform and sensible policies. Avoid words that trigger their repressed childhood brainwashing.
You then stand a chance.
XXXX is good after hard work.
Great Northern is what I generally get on tap outside of craft beers.
From Twitter
A group of 30 House liberals is urging President Biden to dramatically shift his strategy on the Ukraine war and pursue direct negotiations with Russia, the first time prominent members of his own party have pushed him to change his approach to Ukraine.
The letter, obtained by The Post, could create pressure on Biden as he tries to sustain domestic support for the war effort, as the region is heading into a potentially difficult winter and Republicans are threatening to cut aid if they retake Congress.
In a letter led by Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the 30 Democrats call on Biden to pair the unprecedented economic and military support the U.S. is providing Ukraine with a “diplomatic push, redoubling efforts to seek a realistic framework for a ceasefire.”
link
In English we would say “Aboriginal women”, or perhaps “Women in remote communities”.
The first nation that this continent knew was Australia.
Spot on, Mater.
No one asked us either – yet it was a rock solid requirement to enter the Netherlands. As if you’d try to run the gauntlet after 23 hours travel, only to be turned around.
The arrivals hall at Schiphol was a nightmare, packed with many planes’ worth of passengers- if anyone was going to pass on any airborne infection, that was the place. There were no mask rules there at all, and we looked at each other wondering what the idiotic “vaxx” rule was all about given the obvious slackness within the airport itself.
But Covid.
We were sucking up Vicki’s “First Defence” germ buster like no tomorrow – not for fear of illness but of a possible RAT (which would have been our first in the whole, sorry saga). Nothing.
The world is moving on to the Next Thing. Which will probably be worse. It usually is.
Re a new conservative party. It does need to appeal to both conservatives and those with a freedom/libertarian bent. I really believe that one could rise from the remains of aussie politics. Remember when Bernardi started the Australian Conservatives, he got a lot of support, than left a lot of bitter people behind afterwards. In the recent federal election the ‘freedom parties’ together got around 10% of first preferences, that’s not a bad start, their cause wasn’t helped by the Libs preferencing them last plus Clive doing dodgy preference deals that damaged the UAP core in some areas.
The left parties really don’t like each other but they do support each other with preferences and not attacking each other publicly, while Labor wants to win a seat it will be happy with a green winning it rather than someone from the conservative side, and so will preference to get that outcome. The Libs however will preference Labor or even the greens etc just to stop another right leaning party from winning.
Like Labor the Libs have a lot of ignorant, rusted on voters who vote the party preference sheet, this is going to ruin the chances of other freedom/conservative parties chances of success. The Libs hate their allies more than they hate Labor. The only short term chance for another conservative party to be successful is for a well respected, prominent Liberal pollie to really commit to one and draw the smaller parties together and draw membership from the Libs as well. The only one who comes to mind would be Tony Abbott, I wouldn’t want to see him as PM again but I reckon he could do what Menzies did with the Libs in the first place.
True?
Rishi Sunak and his wife sit on a fortune of £730,000,000.
That’s around twice the estimated wealth of King Charles III.
Remember this whenever he talks about making “tough decisions” that working class people will pay for.
Great Northern is what I generally get on tap outside of craft beers.
If it’s not a craft beer, I leave the establishment & wonder why they aren’t more artisanal.
While I vape.
The Australian….
“Netball Australia sponsorship crisis: Anthony Mundine accuses Gina Rinehart of $15m cop out
Boxing and NRL legend Anthony Mundine has strongly defended netballer Donnell Wallam’s stance that cost her sport $15 million in sponsorship money, and urged her Australian teammates to remain supportive as he expects to see pressure on them to turn against the Diamonds debutant.
Netball Australia is in crisis after the nation’s richest woman, Gina Rinehart, pulled her $15 million sponsorship deal, after a dispute with the Diamonds who initially did not want to wear the Hancock Prospecting logo during their upcoming series against England out of respect to Wallam.
Wallam eventually agreed she would wear the logo after crisis talks last Friday, but by the next morning Rinehart cancelled the $3.5m a year deal citing the bitter relationship between Netball Australia and the players.
Wallam, just the third Indigenous player selected to represent Australia’s national netball team, had expressed concern about the deal given reprehensible comments made by Rinehart’s father Lang Hancock, that some Aboriginal people should have their water poisoned to breed them out of existence.
“What if someone from the Aboriginal community had said that about a group of white people, that we should poison their waters? What would the reaction be?” Mundine said.
“Anyone that thinks like him, speaks like him, believes what he believes, is detrimental to humankind.
“Donnell should stay strong and stay staunch in her beliefs, because they are the right beliefs.
“Lang Hancock, when I saw that video, it’s absolutely disgusting.
“She could have apologised for her father’s comments, distanced herself from them and told us that she doesn’t believe those things. Instead, she pulled her money out.
“All the netballers, they need to be staunch and stick behind Donnell, because they’re going to try to turn them against her.
“It’s the old divide and conquer routine.
“But I truly hope that God forgives [Hancock] and blesses his soul.
“We should be living in peace and harmony, and working together and learning to own your actions.”
Hancock, who died in 1992, said in a television interview discussing “the Aboriginal problem” in the 1980s: “The ones that are no good to themselves, can’t accept things, the half-castes – and this is where most of the trouble comes – I would dope the water up so they become sterile and would breed themselves out in future.
“And that would solve the problem.”
Rinehart herself has made no public comments about the sponsorship saga, although her company issued two statements over the weekend taking aim at the disunity in netball and the “virtue signalling” by sports teams.
“Hancock and its executive chairman Mrs Rinehart consider that it is unnecessary for sports organisations to be used as the vehicle for social or political causes,” the statement said.
There has been some strong reaction against the netballers, given the sport is in dire need of financial aid, but Mundine said that is not the most important aspect.
“That’s just a cop out to take away from the core issue we are talking about,” Mundine said.
“There’s two systems, two laws. They always talk about closing the gap, but the gap will never be closed if we allow comments like (Lang) Hancock’s to go unchallenged because there is money on the table.
“Some Australians who have grown up with white values … they are subconsciously racist, to the point where they don’t even know they are.
“It’s sad. It’s all about education, and I do think it’s getting better nowadays. There are people on the right side, but we’ve still got a long way to go.
“Twenty years ago, when I was in prime in footy and then boxing, I was saying this stuff one-out. Some of our brothers and sisters have got to banding together, and not just them, but the people, the masses are starting to band together and see through the cracks.
“I just hope that Donnell knows that there are a lot more people behind her than what she may think. She has taken a strong stand, an important stand, and that shows the courage of her convictions.””
Firstly, Mundine has made an interesting comment…”Some Australians who have grown up with white values … they are subconsciously racist, to the point where they don’t even know they are.”….umm, what exactly are “white values”? So now values are based on skin colour? I’m pretty sure my values are shared by people of all skin colours.
Secondly, this is what Anthony Mundine once said about gay people…
“If we were to live in a society, just like in Aboriginal culture, that homosexuality is forbidden and you do it and the consequences are capital punishment or death, you think you are going to do it?” he said. “Or think twice about doing it? That’s the only way to deter the problem.”
The 42-year-old was asked to clarify if he believes gay people should be executed. He responded: “The pedophiles mainly. Hang them suckers and let’s see if they have the balls to do it again.”
So Anthony Mundine wishes to judge and damn Gina Rinehart on words her father once uttered. Fair enough however I insist that the same rules are also applied to Mundine, the verbal sins of Anthony Mundine, of which there are plenty, will also apply to his children.
Thirdly, Mundine has a long history saying many hateful things, about Jews and about the events of 9/11.
Finally, comments are closed on the Oz piece.
My God we live in depressing times.
Charming.
The Artie Fleck of drunkards. It’s about sending a message to horrible people.
And I don’t care about how rich they are. Bully for them.
The point is why pretend you aren’t living in the UK when you clearly are? The excuse for lying will be that taxes on the wealthy are so high that the temptation to lie is overwhelming. As Chancellor of Exchequer, he could have gone about fixing it.
cantilloning the playing field in your favor
why preferential access to money and regulatory fiat makes finance an arm of the state
Great Northern is to beer what Rosé is to wine.
Zulu Kilo Two Alphasays:
October 24, 2022 at 10:50 pm
It’s a pity an alternative to the Libs hasn’t been founded. There’s been some good efforts but it seems it’s not there yet.
Would a truly conservative Party get off the ground these days?
Probably not, but a party that looked to the plight of the new “Forgotten people”, expanded beyond small and medium business operators and middle class families to include tradies and the rural and urban working class might. It would need to accept the need for a social security net (“A hand up, not a hand out”, in Chifley’s words), but also focus on social conservatism.
Jesus, put the HGH and roids down, Rich.
Do I really need this much testosterone after breakfast?
The norm is a spectrum of confused and diametrically opposed positions scattered amongst common ground even the extremes generally agree with.
If the norm is a single point, it is even less meaningful and more cacophonous.
Hence why a new broad based, principled conservative party is a difficult assignment.
Klaus Schwab drinks Great Northern.
Klaus Schwab drinks Great Northern with a lemon wedge.
LDP is the only party that has core supporters interested in structural reform not band aides. Join them and get the other political nerds (no offence) to construct an alternative dialogue. It’s a dead end alienating new Australian’s and indigenous.
Klaus Schwab drinks Great Northern with lemonade.
Great Northern. The official drink of Mardi Gras.
It’s all in the marketing. No more of this ‘broad church’ horseshit. Howard started that (as far as I’m aware), and all that term does now is invoke imagery of cathedrals and weird initiation rites.
To use the word ‘church’ at all in the context of political parties also brings back repressed memories of that duplicitous smarmfest Morrison. None of this was by accident, either.
Identify.
Kill.
Gut.
Skin suit.
The Non-Fuckwit Party.
There.
Broad based?
How broad?
We’re not talking about women, are we?
“Probably not, but a party that looked to the plight of the new “Forgotten people”, expanded beyond small and medium business operators and middle class families to include tradies and the rural and urban working class might. It would need to accept the need for a social security net (“A hand up, not a hand out”, in Chifley’s words), but also focus on social conservatism.”
Ah…yep. Last night, when talking to Nick Cater, I asked him whether he really thinks the likes of Dave Sharma, Trent Zimmerman and Dr Katie Allen had ever bothered reading Menzies pivotal “Forgotten People” speech. Nick didn’t have an answer, but you know what, he didn’t need to answer the question because we both knew the answer, which is that Sharma, Zimmerman and all the rest of the gonski Wet Liberals, have never read Menzies’ speech and most certainly don’t give a toss about the “Forgotten People”.
Warren Brown #2.
Chuckle.
No. That would be a party based on broads.
We already have those.
“The Libs hate their allies more than they hate Labor. “
The Liberals hate their base more than they hate Labor.
Nooooo.
You don’t want to alienate your largest – wait, wait….
Your biggest, broadest – hang on…
It’s the antidote to Bell’s Palsy. Katy Perry’s has begun knocking them back.
What a nonsense this confected outrage over what Lang Hancock said four decades ago.
Anthony Mundine doesn’t hold Warren Mundine’s opinions. Gina Rinehart doesn’t hold her father’s.
The vast majority of progressives (and most of the rest of us) would abhor the death penalty for homosexuality, which Mundine as a muslim, believes in (did he actually say the death penalty was a great deterrent for homosexuals? You bet they wouldn’t do it again) .
Would sporting bodies refuse funding from Anthony Mundine, despite those views, I’m not convinced they would.
Claiming there is some moral high ground for the Diamonds is specious nonsense.
Their complaints seem to have wandered aimlessly from mining bad to once upon a time a dead person said something because the mining bad looked as stupid, in the circumstances, as it was.
some fox sport writer making the all about indigenous case
In order to enter the USA, you require a VISA or an ESTA (visa waver.)
I am sure you had an ESTA to enter the USA areff, or you wouldn’t have been allowed on the plane to fly to the US.
I haven’t filled an ESTA out post covid, but vaccination status will almost certainly be in the ESTA.
In other words, it is enforced.
As many Americans have stated, one could travel to Mexico and enter illegally without this requirement.
Just as an aside, the general flavour of the blog is that an “unvaccinated” person can travel the world with minimal restrictions.
But imagine travelling at Christmas unvaxxed.
UK probably OK, but large swathes of the world with just a rumour of variant deadly 2023, would in a nanosecond reimpose all sorts of restrictions, and one might not even be able to get on a plane.
‘Broad church’ just makes the Liberal party the Anglican Church not at prayer.
It’s a red herring.
This was and is about mining and climate change; see the original interviews with the chief agitator, Ms. Norder.
It’s only since public sentiment turned against them that the race thing has come to the fore.
A party whose members do not treat said party as nothing more than a vehicle to bloated superannuation packages and a networking orgy for future bloated sinecures.
That’d be a start.
dover0beachsays:
October 24, 2022 at 10:16 pm
No link then. OK.
Here, not sure if this is their source but it is the same claim.
He also added that all males liable for military service under the age of 60 need to wait for a summons. Maximov also confirmed that raids will continue in Kyiv, during which summonses are issued. He added that the summons can be served anywhere and at any time of the day.
Earlier, captured fighters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said that in Ukraine everyone is sent to the front. The authorities have relaxed the requirements for the state of health of those liable for military service. For service, they take almost any disease, and even veterinarians come to the medical board.
?? ???? ???????? “???????”. ?????: https://news.rambler.ru/army/49567641/?utm_content=news_media&utm_medium=read_more&utm_source=copylink
Exactly Roger.
It’s a narrative shift when they saw the wind blow the other way.
I don’t believe Wallam could have known about Hancock’s comments prior to this excuse making, why would she?
Coronation: Covid-Era Tax and Spend Rishi Sunak Makes it Through Leadership Challenge Unopposed, Will Be Prime Minister
“It’s only since public sentiment turned against them that the race thing has come to the fore.”
Even that’s not working, and having the likes of thugs like Anthony Mundine and the grotesque millionaire amphibian of Mosman, aka Mrs Pirate, joining in the pile on of Gina, doesn’t help the Netties’ cause.
The popular countries that still require Australians to prove they’re vaccinated
China Boasts of Soaring Demand for Its Solar Panels During Europe’s Self-Inflicted Energy Crisis
China’s state-run Global Times boasted that the Chinese solar panel industry has “gained a historic foothold in Europe” thanks to European environmentalist policies that deprived the Continent of reliable energy after Russia shut down its gas pipelines.
“Demand for PV [photovoltaic] products has reached a new high, driven by surging natural gas prices amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the damaged Nord Stream pipelines. Lately, Chinese solar panels have gained growing popularity among European consumers in addition to electric blankets and hand warmers,” the Global Times wrote, providing a grimly amusing snapshot of energy-dystopian Europe on the edge of winter.
“Chinese insiders” quoted by the Global Times predicted Europeans will buy up to half of the solar equipment China exports this year, thanks to “geopolitical changes in Europe and the region’s green push.”
China’s $35.77 billion in photovoltaic exports for the first eight months of 2022 already exceed the entire export volume for 2021, and Chinese solar companies are reporting revenue gains of 40 percent to well over 100 percent.
“Chinese insiders” said revenues are climbing even higher because high demand is pushing up PV prices, and heavy European demand is prompting Chinese manufacturers to hire more workers, increase production, and add more warehousing and delivery capacity.
Is rambler dot ru a trusted blogger???
Banks are discovering that holding cash can be lucrative again
Rising interest rates are reviving dim memories of what it means to live without free money
Suddenly, everybody wants your cash.
As recently as last year, many US and European banks were actively trying to get out of holding clients’ ready money because they were awash with deposits.
The trend was quite extreme in Europe where central bank rates had been negative for years. UBS and Credit Suisse, among others, were charging their wealth management customers as much as 0.6 per cent simply for the privilege of having a large balance in their accounts. But US banks too kept cutting the interest rates they paid on corporate deposits in the hope of getting customers to go elsewhere.
Money market funds and institutional cash management products, meanwhile, were paying next-to-nothing returns, and global asset managers were still having to subsidise them to keep the business going.
Now the worm has turned. Apple and Goldman Sachs are teaming up on a no-fee high-yield savings account. Some UK banks are offering regular clients special savings accounts that pay as much as 5 per cent. UBS has finally scrapped its cash balance fees, and institutional cash managers are telling me that they are actively plying corporate treasurers with other services to make their offerings more attractive.
This, of course, is monetary policy in action. Rising interest rates and the rolling off of central bank bond buying are reviving dim memories of what it means to live without free money.
Lenders profit by charging more for loans and credit lines than they pay out to get deposits. But this “net interest” income has been squeezed by years of rock bottom rates. Now it is now shooting up as banks immediately pass on higher rates to their mortgage and corporate loan customers, but move more slowly to raise rates for savers.
Wall Street giants and scrappy fintechs alike this week have reported substantial jumps in net interest for the quarter that ended on September 30, and the main UK banks are expected to report a similar bonanza. Slow moving custodian Bank of New York Mellon was among the biggest winners, with a 44 per cent increase year on year.
Now that holding cash can be lucrative again, of course more financial institutions want it.
If I were a betting man, I’d wager she’d never even heard of Lang Hancock.
“This was and is about mining and climate change; see the original interviews with the chief agitator, Ms. Norder.”
And her politics. Gina is known to be a contributor to the evil, sinister, far-right IPA. That makes her a target.
Anthony Mundine is one of those half-caste troublemakers Lang Hancock was talking about all those years ago.
No wonder he’s squealing like a pig.
rosiesays:
October 25, 2022 at 8:10 am
The popular countries that still require Australians to prove they’re vaccinated
Not answered is – Do you have to be Vaccinated to transit through Dubai, Singapore, Japan?
Nor the inVoice cause, I would add.
Here we go again – 1,900 passengers in Covid scare on board Coral Princess cruise ship as 100 holidaymakers are hit by new outbreak off idyllic hotspot
. Covid-infected holidaymakers on cruise ship have been put into lockdown
. 100 passengers and crew already made to isolate for five days due to outbreak
. Around 1900 are believed to be on board the affected luxury liner
. The cruise ship was the first to enter WA waters in more than two years
The ship was the first luxury liner to enter Western Australian waters in more than two years because of the pandemic when it docked in Broome on Monday morning.
But around 100-infected passengers and crew are unable to leave and must stay in isolation for the next five days after the virus was discovered circulating on the ship
I was not asked for any vaxx information before checking in to flights to either Dubai or Japan, and definitely not at the final destination. This might be because I was a transit passenger.
The digital vaxx “passport” is, supposedly, not linked to my digital passport chip, so there’s no way of knowing at the check-in desk.
I’m struggling to know how something can be enforced if they don’t even ask.
When I transited through Dubai in December 2021 it was either vaxx or negative test, can’t see why that would have changed.
Singapore on way home was closed except to those who had booked prior to the shut down, I don’t know about their transit rules now.
Yet the Princess line of ships are the most rigorous in mask enforcement, to the point of regular users vowing never to return.
Just. Give. Up.
that’s a not required for Changi
It did change rosie. That was my point.
As to why, I suspect it all got too hard.
In an extremely crowded field, Australia greatest fuckhead reverts to type as the sun starts to set on this career (Will Swanton in The Hun):
The incident – this time:
That was the other day. This is an analysis, made by one of the game’s classiest and most polite legends:
Crowe wrote that in 2016, prior to Sandpapergate. Nothing – nothing – has changed.
The Zircons are presently learning to own their own actions.
Well Well, reported days ago on NewCattallaxy Blog finally makes Mainstream Media
EXCLUSIVE: Joe Biden was ‘complicit in SIX alleged white collar crimes’ including tax evasion, using nonpublic info for financial gain and illegally utilizing his alias email’ – 634-page watchdog report on contents of Hunter’s laptop claims
. A report by Marco Polo claims Joe Biden is complicit in tax evasion, violated the Presidential Records Act, and used nonpublic information for financial gain
. The six incidents involving Joe listed in the report span from June 2010 to December 2016
. A 2016 email shows the then VP’s senior advisor sent a schedule for his call with then-Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko – and copied Hunter in the message
. Copying his son in the VP’s schedule constitutes a use of nonpublic information from a government job for financial gain, the report claims
. The advisor had also sent the message to an alias email address Joe used under the name ‘Robert Peters’
. The report claims Joe also ‘illegally utilized his private, alias email address’ under another pseudonym in a 2012 conversation with Secretary of State Antony Blinken
His. His career.
Which cannot end soon enough, for the good of the nation.
And even in December 2021 there was no checking in Dubai.
Though considering the paperwork required in Melbourne, why would they bother?
The Dems strategy for the 2020 coup relied on having 99% of the news media in their pocket to sweep popular opposition to the coup and the Marxist revolution that followed under the carpet.
The only media organisation putting the Dems under scrutiny is the top-rating Fox News, which has built its commercial success on the fact that no-one else in the mainstream media speaks for middle America.
Tucker Carlson has been front and centre in doing the job the rest of the media is supposed to, but refuses to do. With lots of middle America watching.
Do the Diamonds realise how diamonds are acquired?
They might have to consider a name change, zirconias no good either, how bad is that manufacturing process for the environment.
I propose they rebadge as the Muds.
It’s all natural.
If you are travelling at the end of this year, you may find things changed in exiting Melbourne. It makes sense to do the checks front end, before embarkation, as it prevents the possibility of a messy turn around at the destination.
Nothing was required of me on embarkation either in Sydney, Zagreb or London. As pointed out up thread, nothing will stop a Covid bed-wetter pulling the pin when you’re mid-flight. Best thing to do is to make sure your destinations are reasonably sensible, something nigh impossible in this day and age.
Lol. Diamonds are, after all, compressed CARBON.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ‘mocks Biden, 79, by making fun of his gaffes and questioning his mental acuity’, shocking report claims after Kingdom rejected US bid to delay oil deal until after the midterms
. MBS has told advisers he has not been impressed with Biden since his time as vice president and ‘much preferred’ President Trump
. MBS’s disdain was on full display when he led OPEC+ in a decision to cut oil production by 2 million barrels per day, jacking up gas prices
. Biden during a CNN interview last week that there would be ‘consequences’ for the decision led by Riyadh
. The Saudis now too say they are looking to reevaluate their relationship with the U.S.
. One drastic option that has been suggested is the selling of U.S. Treasury bonds if Congress passes anti-OPEC legislation, with the Saudis holding nearly $120B
I’m going to have all my ducks in a row, couldn’t possibly be more complicated than last year.
Mind you, ‘working class’ leaders have a pretty bad record too and ‘working class’ parties sprout and nourish endless crops of socialists, communists, as well as people whose sole remedy is more money from da bosses and da rich for da wukkaz.
At grass roots they produce revolutionary types who want to bring down the status quo and replace it with some ill-thought out utopia cobbled together by an economic nonce from the small limited set of economic concepts they have heard about but not even experienced. How many workers’ revolutions have their been? Look at their promises? How many have delivered?
But the ones who run for government are not even these. They are cynical and manipulative, and coopt the envy of those they purport to champion for their own ends. How many jobs (and businesses that provide jobs) have been destroyed by those two?
The Greens are a slightly newer creature where the revolutionaries go into parliament. They came into existence when the more base imperative of money for wukkaz had been satisfied to a large extent. So they aren’t in it for the money. They are in it for power. Power as an ends, not a means. They really don’t care how much they make despondent and impoverish wukkaz. Or anyone other than themselves. But they are aberrations in every possible human dimension and are more psychological phenomena, not economic. And more psychiatric than psychological.
On the other hand someone whose wealth derives from economic activity will likely prefer policies that increase just that. While the socialists think it is a zero sum game we know better. How else is it that there are more people alive now than 200 years ago and yet we are still wealthier. A zero sum would mean limited wealth spread out more thinly. And no, it is not from plundering the third world (a desperate excuse from earlier marxists to explain how life was improving in Europe). How much could those poor countries have yielded?
The old idea that rich people spend their every waking hour scheming for ways to pay their workers less, while those workers live in grimy hovels with their broken wives who have long since shed their youth, beauty and optimism, and whose sickly emaciated kids sit huddled in the corner with dead eyes, their ashen faces and tired rags blending in against the drab walls – is frankly cartoonish.
The only modern example of the former I can think of is Jeff Bezos.
And the latter? Well in the past life wukkaz did live in cramped homes, the wives were tired, the kids wore hand-me -downs, and the furniture was threadbare, creaking, and mismatched. We look at that with horror. But for them it was natural, and likely part of a steady trend of improvement in the conditions of the working class.
Can’t trust rich leaders? They can’t be trusted with the conditions of the wukkaz?
I give you Trump and Bernie.
Cassie sez:
Ah…yep. Last night, when talking to Nick Cater, I asked him whether he really thinks the likes of Dave Sharma, Trent Zimmerman and Dr Katie Allen had ever bothered reading Menzies pivotal “Forgotten People” speech.
Katie Allen was my local member and I sent her Menzies’ “Forgotten People” speech last year.
Never got a reply.
I sent her an “I told you so” email on election night.
Never got a reply either.
Mind you, the above is really just ruminations in the abstract.
I don’t know much about Rishi himself and if he had much business understanding.
Thanks Calli and Rosie,
as unvaxxed, just about to start renewing Passport, as looking to see son in Milan and Switzerland next year and resume International Travelling
Aspiring political parties in this country may wish to take note.
Also note that Fox News does not run hour-long specials featuring Hank from Nebraska and his views on chemtrails, tunnels and the effects of little magnets that the Government put under his kitchen sink.
*golf clap*
Biden is one of the most evil pieces of filth on the face of the earth. A greazy old grifter. Fuck off you old cunt
Gomer Pyle’s first budget tonight.
Good luck, OldOzzie. I don’t think you’ll have any trouble at all getting in unvaxxed.
Europe has bigger fish to fry this winter.
CDC’s Child Vaccine Move Puts Dem Candidates on the Hot Seat
The CDC just made the closing weeks of 2022 campaigns a lot more volatile for some shaky Democrat candidates, especially for incumbent, pro-mandate Democrat governors like JB Pritzker, Kathy Hochul, and Gretchen Whitmer.
Why?
Well, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention just delivered a stark rebuke to America’s parents. In a unanimous decision, its Committee on Immunization Practices voted to add COVID-19 vaccines to the regular immunization schedule for all children, starting at the age of 6 months old.
Clearly, American parents do not concur, as a mere 3.5% of parents have injected their babies and toddlers, aged 6 months to 5 years old. For school age children, a recent Kaiser Family Foundation study shows that only one-third of children aged 5-11 have received at least one shot.
Contravening the CDC, The Florida Department of Health issued guidance that the data suggest that “healthy children from ages 5 to 17 may not benefit from receiving the currently available COVID-19 vaccine.” For young people of more advanced age, Florida’s Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo went further, announcing that he “recommends against the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines” for young men starting at age 18, due to myocarditis risks.
The analysis of Dr. Ladapo, a scientist with two separate doctorates from Harvard, proves that science is, indeed, never “settled.” Moreover, the prevailing majority of American parents clearly agree with Florida’s skeptical approach on child vaccinations, and for valid data-based reasons. For example, after reviewing the relevant evidence, some European countries now actually forbid the injections for young people. Denmark’s Health Authority determined that because “children and adolescents rarely become severely ill from the Omicron variant of covid-19,” that child COVID vaccination is no longer possible except for “a very limited number of children at particularly higher risk.”
With compulsory childhood vaccinations now clearly on the ballot, Pritzker and other pro-lockdown, pro-mandate Democrats face political peril, especially among the supermajority of mothers who have clearly opted out of vaccinating their children. Similar scenarios play out in New York, where Rep. Lee Zeldin remains locked in a tight race with Gov. Kathy Hochul. There, Zeldin smartly promised to protect New York parents from such intrusion: “As governor, I will oppose mandating the COVID vaccine.”
Why hold back Miltonf?
Count yourself lucky she didn’t report you to police.
“Katie Allen was my local member and I sent her Menzies’ “Forgotten People” speech last year.
Never got a reply.”
Of course not Vagabond. Why would Allen read Menzies’ Forgotten People speech? Instead she was reading books by the Mr and Mrs Obama. She was proud of it, whenever she was interviewed on Sky News, her backdrop was always a book written by some left-wing creep.
She deserved to lose, and Allen can’t even use the excuse of the Teals in her electorate. She was so bad that she lost her seat to Labor.
Meanwhile, thanks to commodity prices, our budget deficit will be about half what was forecast.
Perhaps the Diamonds should refuse to play with ‘Australia’ on their uniforms?
Here you go ML:
Former Goldman Banker Rishi Sunak To Be Next UK Prime Minister (25 Oct)
He’s a Squiddy.
“Are you kidding me? China is a hostile and aggressively spoken power that wants to control the Pacific. You’re equating China with Australia in relation to these Pacific countries.”
No, I’m pointing out that different people see things differently.
Are you OK with the scenario, or do you think it would threaten Australia? If you think it wpould threaten Australia (I do!), then why can you not see that the Ukraine joining NATO is just as threatening to Russia?
Russia learnt the hard way that it is not intentions that matter, it is capabilities.
They won’t make that mistake again – at least, Putin won’t.
How would the US react to China having a military alliance with Mexico, and supporting it financially?
The answer is “badly”.
What happened in Ukraine is no different – it threatened Russia’s national security interests, and not in a small way. They may be paranoid, they may be wrong, but they have a legitimate right to be concerned. And when we ignore that concern, when we actually make it worse, it’s our fault that things spiral out of control and war happens. We laughed at them and ignored them, thinking they would never dare react as we could easily have predicted they would. That’s just being a bully.
The US political class has been extracting cash and fomenting anti-Russian sentiment in the Ukraine for decades, while ignoring Putin’s complaints about that – something that they would never tolerate were it done to them. They would (and have!) threatened massive military responses to such threats – and actually carried them out, as well. Hypocrisy, much?
IS TRANSGENDERISM JUST A PHASE?
I didn’t say it, Britain’s National Health Service did. The Telegraph reports:
Most children who believe that they are transgender are just going through a “phase”, the NHS has said, as it warns that doctors should not encourage them to change their names and pronouns.
NHS England has announced plans for tightening controls on the treatment of under 18s questioning their gender, including a ban on prescribing puberty blockers outside of strict clinical trials.
Not only are surgery and puberty blockers out, the NHS is even recommending against milder measures:
NHS England says that the interim Cass Report has advised that even social transition, such as changing a young person’s name and pronouns or the way that they dress, is not a “neutral act” that could have “significant effects” in terms of “psychological functioning”.
The NHS notes a 40-fold increase in use of “gender identity services” over the last decade. The service announces a different approach to treating young people, noting “evidence that in most cases gender incongruence does not persist into adolescence” and pointing out that “doctors should be mindful this might be a ‘transient phase’”.
Bern, for those of us who don’t speak market, please essplain.
YOU CAN’T FAKE ENTHUSIASM
Remember during the 2020 presidential campaign, when Joe Biden would give a speech in front of a vacant lot to a handful of people who were in cars, one or two per vehicle, spaced widely apart? The Democrats pretended that Biden ran a basement campaign because of covid, but really it was because he can’t draw a crowd. There are plenty of people willing to vote for a nonentity like Biden, often for reasons of self-interest. But hardly anyone is proud of it.
By way of contrast, check out these video clips of Ron DeSantis making a surprise appearance before 20,000 country music fans over the weekend. It was the Country Thunder fest in Kissimmee. Sure, it was a predictably friendly audience. But you can’t fake this kind of enthusiasm, and no one on the Democrat side inspires it:
I’ll add to that. The vast piles of firewood I saw in Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia bore witness to the intelligence of the locals – despite all the “greenwashing”, they know they’ll be cold if there’s no gas for heating.
Likewise that bagged coal being delivered to households in pre-dawn Glasgow – they know too.
The clue-hammer may not fall before Christmas, but it won’t wait until April. The February freeze will do the trick.
The Green Energy Profiteering Scam
“Green” Profits Can Only Rise if Citizens’ Freedoms Fall
. When governments limit drilling and mining for hydrocarbons in the ground, they manufacture scarcity.
. When only certain wealthy individuals and companies can afford artificially expensive hydrocarbon energies as regular business costs, then budding entrepreneurs and small firms can no longer compete. Those at the peak of society’s wealth pyramid have a much easier time staying on top when the same natural sources of hydrocarbon energy once used to amass fortunes are now denied to those who would do the same.
. A war on “fossil fuels” is a superb tactic for protecting private market share. It is a profitable ideological cause for fattening government revenues. And it is a constant source of income for environmental “nonprofits” and other special interests….
. Can plastics, heating oil, and most synthetic materials found around a home be magically manufactured without petroleum?
. Can the global population stave off famine and starvation if farmers are forced to overhaul agricultural and livestock production methods in order to abide by “green” laws limiting the use or release of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen, and phosphate — molecules and compounds essential to basic farming and high crop yield fertilizers?
. Ideology hijacks the market’s natural direction toward an objective and transparent “meeting of the minds.” There is an unspoken but unmistakable fraud. Until governments, including hostile adversaries such as Russia and the United States, conspired to limit the use of hydrocarbon energy and “go green,” the idea that anybody could turn a profit from the wind or sun would have seemed as absurd as a vendor selling rocks freely available all around us.
. Are electric vehicles as powerful as their internal combustion engine counterparts? Can wind and solar energies really provide nations with reliable power grids robust enough to avoid rolling blackouts? Can plastics, heating oil, and most synthetic materials found around a home be magically manufactured without petroleum?
He’s a Squiddy.
A vampire squid with its blood funnel down the throat of humanity – Matt Taibbi.
Maximov?
Is that the Russian joke name equivalent of Biggus Dikkus?
Oh.
So not the Faulty model, then?
Kevin Argus from RMIT University
Argus Tuft.
LOL
Top Ender:
And that shows you just what will happen at the venue and to the venue.
Is it looking like there will need to be some security issues dealt with?
Will the government want to be ‘paid’ to stop it getting out of control from those who have ‘legitimate grievance issues’?
“Structeal defecits”
*SHAZAM!*
Ukraine faces ‘worst winter in history’ – gas boss
Public warned of “constant power outages” amid ongoing airstrikes by Russia
Ukraine is facing its harshest ever winter, which will be marked by ongoing blackouts, Yuri Vitrenko, the head of the state-owned energy giant Naftogaz, has said
In an interview with German outlet Handelsblatt, published on Monday, Vitrenko claimed that “about 40% of the power generation plants were destroyed” by recent Russian airstrikes.
“It will be the worst winter in our history. We expect constant power outages and problems with heating,” Vitrenko stated, adding that Moscow has also hit refineries.
Ukraine is preparing for winter blackouts, the Naftogaz boss said, admitting that “it is impossible to 100% prevent problems” and the country therefore needs help from its backers.
In an interview with The Guardian in late August, long before Russia launched its offensive against Ukrainian energy infrastructure, Vitrenko admitted that without Western financial support, Ukraine would “lack gas” and, consequently, might see its power system going down.
In September, the Naftogaz boss urged Ukrainians to stock up on blankets and warm clothes, noting that this year’s heating season will start later and end earlier, while winter temperatures in apartments will be set at 17-18 degrees Celsius (62-64 degrees Fahrenheit), four degrees below the standard temperature.
Martin Crowe was a class person as well as a class cricketeer . . . and never a word written about Warner was so apt.
I actually played against him at a secondary schools cricket game – he hit a quick fire 50 before retiring and then played for Auckland seniors that afternoon. No arrogance just a wonderful player who was quite modest.
Such a shame he was taken so young.
Heating oil is already being rationed in the north east US, leading to calls today by Democrats for Biden to tap the strategic oil reserve yet again.
Let’s hope our barrels are clearly marked “Keep for Australia.”
Ex-Russian president warns Western analysts on weapons stocks
Moscow is set to significantly increase the production of arms, Dmitry Medvedev explains
Russia is about to greatly enhance its military arsenal, the country’s former president, Dmitry Medvedev, said on Monday, adding that output of tanks, high-precision missiles, drones, and artillery pieces is growing “multifold.”
He made the statement after inspecting the production lines of Russia’s leading arms manufacturer, the Uralvagonzavod tank plant.
Medvedev, who is currently the deputy head of the Russian Security Council, posted a video on Telegram showing him touring the production halls of the plant together with a delegation of government officials. The video also featured dozens of modern T-72B3 and T-90M battle tanks under construction at the facility, including ones that appeared to be in the final assembly stage.
The official said he has repeatedly seen claims by Western analysts “that Russia will soon run out of military equipment and weapons.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” he wrote. “The production of weapons and special equipment is increasing multifold in all directions: from tanks and guns to high-precision missiles and drones. Wait!” Medvedev added.
So less than half the rate at which inflation melts its purchasing power then?
And of course, said ‘income’ will be taxable.
The weather held good, even sunny for the most part, for our passage over the mountains except for a wet-season arvo squall just as we made the last lock, so we fled upstairs to a glass-in area to see the final exit. You think of the Panama crossing like those little play stairs they have in supermarkets for the under threes. You go under the Bridge of the Americas and up the stairs (ascending lock systems up a mountain range) to a flat surface (the man-made lake on a filled-in set of gorges making a plateau) and then down the stairs (descending lock systems) into the rest of the channel cut early on by the French, passing by the 2019 stupendously large suspension bridge just opened to take vehicular traffic over the canal on that side. The scope of the engineering of the whole canal both in the past and now is truly stunning. A silent moment collectively announced and taken on board as we passed out into the bay in memory of those who lost their lives making the system we had all just enjoyed, which was a nice touch.
I got the costing wrong, btw. The US$30k paid by the ships is just a place-holding charge; the full charge for tonnage and passengers (not even at full complement on this cruise) was today about $US450K. I heard some talk that road transport might now be getting more competitive for cargo.
But cruise ships will always have the bucket-listers willing to pay a premium. And why not? It was magic watching four Panama eagles with their six foot wingspan that end in slot-feathered wing-tips rise on the thermals to soar down over the last lock in an effortless aerobatic display, while next to us if your eyes looked down a container ship, coming the other way and not in the new wider lock, passed perilously close to its right hand side lock wall. Paint scrapes on that ship and some broken bits of concrete on the wall showed that some panel damage wasn’t too infrequent and suggested why the newer container lock was needed. Seems those nifty little electric engines running alongside holding attachments to pull the thing to mid-lock didn’t always work as planned when the tolerances were so thin.
What? Trouble it Trudeau’s socialist paradise?
During the United Conservative party’s annual general meeting, Alberta’s new Premier Danielle Smith is seeking legal advice on pardoning those that got arrested or fined for violating COVID-19 rules such as not having a vaccine passport.
“We are human beings,” said Smith. “We are not QR codes,” she said, adding that she wanted to “purge” the QR database.
“I believe that Alberta Health Services is the source of a lot of the problems that we’ve had,” she said.
“They signed some kind of partnership with the World Economic Forum right in the middle of the pandemic; we’ve gotta address that. Why in the world do we have anything to do with the World Economic Forum? That’s got to end.”
https://reclaimthenet.org/alberta-premier-danielle-smith-vaccine-passports-amnesty/
The internet here is much improved after they shut it down yesterday for a grease and oil change. 🙂
‘Face the Nation’ focus groups of GOP, Democrat parents sound off on ‘woke culture’ overtaking US education
Parents say having control over children’s education has become main priority
Meanwhile in America
Nation’s report card shows largest-ever drop in math scores
The biggest score declines were in math, which the National Center for Education Statistics said in a press release was the biggest decline ever recorded. For fourth graders, math scores declined by 5 points to 236 from their 2019 number of 241, while eighth grade scores plummeted 8 points from 282 to 274.
In reading, both fourth and eighth graders saw 3-point declines from 2019. Fourth grade scores fell from 220 to 217 and eighth grade scores from 263 to 260.
“The results show the profound toll on student learning during the pandemic, as the size and scope of the declines are the largest ever in mathematics,” Peggy Carr, the commissioner of the National Center of Education Statistics, said in a press release. “The results also underscore the importance of instruction and the role of schools in both students’ academic growth and their overall wellbeing. It’s clear we all need to come together — policymakers and community leaders at every level — as partners in helping our educators, children, and families succeed.”
Not a single state saw an increase in scores for either subject, although a handful of states saw no change in their results. In all, 51 out of 53 states or territories saw declines in eighth grade math scores, with Delaware, West Virginia, and Oklahoma registering the largest declines. Only Utah and the Department of Defense Education Activity, which provides public schooling to military families, did not register declines in eighth grade math scores.
For eighth grade reading, scores declined in 33 states and territories, remained even with previous results in 18, and rose within DOD schools by 2 points. Maine, Delaware, Oklahoma, and Oregon saw the largest declines in reading scores, with scores dropping by 8 points in Maine, and 7 points in the other three states.
You don’t need anything more stark to show the extent of degeneracy in the European countries, particularly the larger ones, than to see how they have completely ignored the possibility of natural or man made disasters.
If it’s not stupidity then it is hubris to not even consider the possibility that anything could go wrong. Do they think of themselves as gods whom nothing can challenge? Nemesis has come in the form of Putin to put them straight.
As always, the people who will suffer will be the little people, the decision makers are the rich and powerful who will never be cold or lack anything. The Europeans’ delusion was that they were actually egalitarian. That is not the case nor was it even in 1789 when the concept was invented.
Kanye on the Lex podcast.
Can’t wait to watch/listen this evening.
At some hubs gas in Europe went negative overnight.
Meaning if you owned as gas contract & had no where to store it, you had to sell.
The same thing happened in the US with the oil contract at expiry of the April 2020 contract when the oil price went negative.
What’s driving the rich world’s falling fertility?
This will be a global problem as the whole planet becomes wealthier, healthier and better educated
Some say the world will end in fire. Others in ice. But from looking at demographic trends in the developed world, I hold with those who favour stairlifts. Or, as Tesla chief Elon Musk puts it, “civilisation will indeed die with a whimper in adult diapers”.
Richer states have ageing populations and lower birth rates. That isn’t all bad news: older societies tend to have lower levels of violence and political instability than younger ones. But they also have lower economic growth rates, and are not always good global citizens. The UK, for example, produces fewer doctors than it needs per head of population. Skilled professions like medicine will always be geographically mobile, but when meeting your own healthcare needs are predicated on poaching staff from poorer nations, it’s hard to claim you are a responsible or compassionate nation.
More importantly, we should be preoccupied by the cause of the rich world’s falling fertility rates because we should assume it represents the future of our planet if, as we hope, the whole world continues to become wealthier, healthier and better educated.
Some of the causes of falling fertility are obviously benign. In much of the rich world, the number of pregnancies carried to term in early adolescence is now so low as to be statistically insignificant.
Globally, the proportion of young women who give birth before 18 is just 15 per cent. Given that maternal conditions are among the top five killers of girls aged 15 to 19 worldwide, this is an unalloyed positive, and it springs from greater reproductive freedom and easier access to contraception.
But in the rich world, not all causes of falling fertility rates are as positive. In the UK, the introduction in 2017 of the two-child limit for child benefit claims was, according to the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, “important” in the decision-making of women. That has led many British left-wingers to argue that the country’s falling fertility rates are a result of its socio-economic divides. Small wonder fewer people are choosing to have children if they can’t afford homes and face heavy childcare costs.
That makes intuitive sense, but some data suggest the fall in fertility in the rich world has proved resistant to greater spending on family incentives and other welfarist measures. In the UK, what is driving the fall in the birth rate is actually growing childlessness among the middle and upper classes.
It’s true that household formation has slowed in Britain, but it is far from clear that this is primarily driven by poverty or inequality.
To join this cruise you did have to show you had received two vaxx shots. Not more than that, and no-one asked or cared about the dates you had them. They did ask if you were feeling ill before boarding but there was no temperature taking and no fuss made about masking, even though until we arrived in Puerto Vallarta masking indoors was claimed to be mandatory, but hardly anyone did it. After Puerto Vallarta the CDC, which the ship was bound to follow, removed the mask mandate indoors everywhere back to advisory not mandatory and the staff thankfully were free to remove their masks after that.
Now a few nervous nellies are masking up because there’s a koff going round, but most do what used to be the sensible gay thing in the US military: don’t ask, don’t tell.
Cassie, yes it is about Gina’s politics.
It’s also about the dirt and cleanliness. Those that work with dirt to provide the building blocks of our civilisation are raping Gaia but those who use the benefits of that dirty work to be able not to work in dirt are noble.
Bizarre situation in Europe where storage across the continent is closing in on 100% & LNG cargoes at several terminals are queuing up for days.
But the problem is these networks are not meant to work at 100% storage capacity.
At the very same time gas has gone negative & storage is maxing out, the total cost of taxpayer subsidies on retail energy is projected to hit around $US900billion for 2022 for Europe & the UK.
What an absolute mess.
It’s the new religion for millenial athiests, doncha kn0w. These gods on earth have the power to change the weather with government taxes.
Someone yesterday suggested Elbow May jump in with funding for Netball Oz. That would be an interesting move. He would get early cudos from the luvvies but here is the thing. It’s taxpayer money. One of the largest taxpayers is Gina. So effectively Gina’s money once again goes to NA.
Or Elbow should take a stand with NA and reject Gina’s tax payable. I’m sure she would understand it’s all about principle.
Spent most of yesterday dealing with our workmen who went into a psychotic state after the sudden death of a friend.
He’d gone off his pils, as they do. I drove him to town to get his script. Quite some trip with a very big man, crying, laughing and raging next to me. I was very glad to get out of the car.
A few of us comforted him for three hours until we could get into a doctor for sedation. He should be in hospital but there’s no beds available because of the overflow from flooded towns.
Like the weather, I’m a bit washed out today.
Sergey Poletaev: As winter approaches, both Russia and Ukraine bulk up their forces in preparation for decisive battles
Moscow’s military mobilization means that Kiev is set to lose its vast numerical advantage. How will this play out on the battlefields?
By Sergey Poletaev, co-founder and editor of the Vatfor project.
Russia’s failures on the frontlines of its conflict with Ukraine in September were followed by organizational conclusions: A partial mobilization was announced on September 21; on October 8, all Russian forces in Ukraine were united under General Sergey Surovikin; and on October 19, a kind of defense committee headed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin was created and elements of martial law were introduced in a number of western and southern regions.
The effect of these measures, however, has yet to manifest itself, so since early autumn, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) have had the initiative on almost the entire front, except in the area of Artyomovsk (Bakhmut) in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), where the Wagner Group’s forces have continued their leisurely offensive.
As we anticipated, in the north of the front, at the junction of Kharkov Region and the DPR, the enemy built upon its September success, and by the start of October, had taken the strategically important town of Krasny Liman, which had fallen under Russian control back in May.
Although the Ukrainian army’s offensive stalled and the Russians managed to counterattack and liberate several settlements afterwards, the event was symbolic. For the first time, not just a major city, but a Russian city was surrendered to the enemy – on the very day after the four new regions were incorporated into our country.
On the Kherson front, after a month of bloody failures, Kiev’s forces eventually unlocked the Russian defenses. The direction of the main strike shifted to the northeast, where a strike was launched on October 2-4 along the Dnieper riverbank, forcing Russian troops to retreat 20-30km to the Dudchany-Davydov Brod line. Again, the same tactics used in Kharkov worked: Taking advantage of the numerical edge and the fact that Moscow did not have a solid front but rather a number of garrisons on the line. The Ukrainians broke through to the rear, flooded the area, and forced a Russian retreat.
For the Ukrainians, this style of attack is a double-edged sword: If successful, it means a very quick breakthrough; but if unsuccessful, it leads to very heavy losses.
Since then, the front has been stabilized, but the position of the Russians here remains vulnerable. All supplies for the group, and the regional center, depend on road transport via the Kakhovskaya Dam, which has been subjected to missile attacks by Kiev on more than one occasion. Temporary military bridges have been erected to replace the broken passes over the sluice, which itself has been backfilled to allow passage, but this does not fully solve the supply problem.
So what’s next?
It appears that Kiev is preparing a major offensive on Kherson with the aim of taking both the city itself and the entire right bank part of the region. General Surovikin has openly admitted the gravity of the situation, not ruling out “difficult decisions.” In recent days, Russia has been conducting a hasty evacuation of the right bank, and it appears that the main battle of the autumn is about to begin here.
In addition, we should expect an attack by the AFU in the north, in Svatovo and Rubezhnoye-Severodonetsk. A large Ukrainian grouping has also assembled in the area, and the Russian Armed Forces are actively setting up defensive lines.
Another area under threat is Energodar and the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant. New attempts at landing via the Kakhovka Reservoir and an overland strike via Vasilievka along the southern bank of the Dnieper can be expected here, but the latter does not appear to be realistic at the moment.
Ukraine needs to hurry. Time is working against it. As mobilized troops from Russia arrive at the front, the AFU’s advantage in numbers will come to an end and the tactic of breaking through with light units will no longer work. In addition, in November, the last of the green grass will vanish, snow will fall, and the troops will become more vulnerable from the air.
Russia will apparently continue its strikes on infrastructure while reinforcing the front. The immediate task is to repel an offensive by the AFU, inflicting maximum defensive damage. A joint Russian-Belarusian grouping in Belarus has also been announced. It can hardly be expected to launch an offensive from the north, but instead, its aim is probably to draw in as many Ukrainian forces as possible from the front to cover the border.
Kiev seems to be well aware of the limits of its capabilities, as in recent days, there have been reports of new waves of mobilization in Ukraine. Whether Russia will have to respond in the same manner, or whether the first autumn draft will be enough, we will see in the coming months.
Well, they’d have to be doing so to replace what they’ve lost while honouring foreign contracts.
I doubt they’d have much spare capacity though.
END of Human PROGRESS is NOW
Black Pigeon Speaks
GBNews
‘Hypocrisy is too small a word for the betrayal of it all.’
Neil Oliver hits out at people who ‘cheered the masters of disaster’ as he discusses the current state of the Conservative Party.
‘It’s Wrong To Teach A 6-Year-Old Boy That Maybe You’re Really A Girl’: DeSantis Rips Gender Theory
forbes
Spot on Roger. NA thought they had stitched up a deal over the weekend and Gina walked. Lot of subtle changes – which tends to happen when the media advisors get involved.
Maths is a discipline – you achieve levels of competency by building on platforms of acquired skills. Difficult to wing it, very little nuance, fairly unforgiving- there are no prizes for not quite getting it.
Add in the proven fact that maths is now racist as fuck – and suddenly it’s no longer a desirable accomplishment. Everyone can take a sigh of relief and stop worrying about it.
Gez, that was one of the worst experiences I had as an employer – dealing with employees’ personal crises. It wasn’t enough to have to do the debtor’s and deal with the bank and the council…no, no, no. Or even design and build stuff.
It was the marriage troubles, the breakups, the kiddies in clink or on drugs. Or not having enough fuel in the car to get to work, or get home from work or some other shyte.
If only we could have businesses that employ no one. No wonder robotics is so popular.
..
According to the logic of Russiaphiles, the US would be entitled to go into Cuba, do a proper job of it, or at least break shit and blow up power plants and factories.
Good for Russia to do it in their region right?
Russia may not be nominally communist right now, but it sure remains firmly in that bloc.
That quote above from February this year.
Amazing how 40+ years of journalists were unable to uncover this ‘secret”…
Almost like they loved having a fantasist Walter Mitty Indian who happened to be photogenic rather than a real indian.
Shades of Aboriginal identity being closely tied to being able to grow a bushy white beard…
Can you imagine the sheer quantity of bullshit the media have gotten away with pre-internet? We like to imagine their agenda pushing and lies as new, but what if its always been this way?
Sacheen Littlefeather faked Native American ancestry say family
Having stood in for Marlon Brando to refuse his Oscar, the actor and activist championed Native American rights
Sacheen Littlefeather, the activist who famously stood in for Marlon Brando to refuse the best actor Oscar in 1973, faked Native American ancestry, her family have said.
In an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, Littlefeather’s sisters Rosalind Cruz and Trudy Orlandi said that their sister’s claim to have Apache and Yaqui ancestry through her father was “a lie” and “a fantasy”.
Orlandi told the Chronicle: “It’s a lie. My father was who he was. His family came from Mexico. And my dad was born in Oxnard [California].” Cruz added: “It is a fraud. It’s disgusting to the heritage of the tribal people. And it’s just … insulting to my parents.”
Littlefeather died in October shortly after receiving a formal apology from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Ampas), the body who organises the Oscars, for the way she was treated at the 1973 ceremony. Littlefeather responded at the time with a statement saying: “Regarding the Academy’s apology to me, we Indians are very patient people – it’s only been 50 years! We need to keep our sense of humour about this at all times. It’s our method of survival.”
However, the article’s author Jacqueline Keeler reports that Littlefeather’s birth name was Marie Louise Cruz, and that she has found no evidence of any connection or claim that her father, Manuel Ybarra Cruz, had to Native American ancestry.
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Cruz and Orlandi also refuted Littlefeather’s claims of childhood poverty and parental abuse. Cruz said: “My father was deaf and he had lost his hearing at nine years old through meningitis. He was born into poverty. His father, George Cruz, was an alcoholic who was violent and used to beat him. And he was passed to foster homes and family. But my sister Sacheen took what happened to him.”
“The best way that I could think of summing up my sister is that she created a fantasy. She lived in a fantasy, and she died in a fantasy.”
Orlandi added: “My father’s father, George, he was the alcoholic. My dad never drank. My dad never smoked. And you know, she also blasted him and said my father was mentally ill. My father was not mentally ill.
“Sacheen did not like herself. She didn’t like being Mexican. So, yes, it was better for her that way to play someone else.”
FBI and DOJ Switch Tactics, Now Claim 2022 Election is Vulnerable to Manipulation
October 24, 2022 – Sundance
With the majority of American voters now positioned to rebuke the political efforts of Joe Biden and federal Democrats, the narrative from the DOJ and FBI does a 180° reverse course. The transparency of a corrupt and manipulative political justice system is beyond obvious.
?Old Message to support the 2020 Democrat vote initiatives (ballot harvesting, mail-in voting, precinct manipulation): The 2020 election was the most secure election in American history.
?New Message to support the Democrat 2022 vote initiatives: The 2022 election is not secure, subject to manipulation by disinformation and misinformation, and likely to encounter interference by domestic and foreign adversaries.
The transparency of the FBI/DOJ agenda is obvious.
15 days before the 2018 midterm election the FBI promoted a “MAGA mail bomber”, Cesar Sayoc case, claiming the suspect mailed “energetic material that could become combustible when subjected to heat or friction.”
15 days before the 2020 presidential election, the FBI promoted the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping case, claiming a group of Michigan extremists were foiled in their plot to kidnap the Michigan Governor. Inside the plot the FBI had used more than a dozen agents, informants and sources to literally construct the events and facilitate the claims.
Today, not coincidentally a repeat of 15 days before the 2022 midterm election, once again the FBI/DOJ is promoting an election interference narrative:
calli, sooner or later, whatever business you are in you are in the people business. For better or worse. Generally worse.
word on the ground is the numbers have been dramatically understated
kiss ’24 goodbye
Interesting ? above appeared as a Diamond when creating post, but changed to ? on posting
The Mysteries of Life!
Sailing into the Caribbean sea now, headed for Aruba.
Have to buy Hairy some new shorts there, or here on board, where I bought mine.
US shorts have very commodious sizings, so they are very up-cheering as you go down two sizes.
Hairy’s spare pair (he insists on packing lite) can no longer be worn in polite company.
They have the arse out of them, I inelegantly point out to him, indicating where they have finally worn through when they came back in the washing. He doesn’t think they are too bad, but I have relegated them to gardening status.
No washing, ironing, cooking or cleaning is needed on cruises. No wonder I am fond of them. Live the Downton life and dine with good food served in style every night, and add extra style in the specialty restaurants, which are genuinely gourmet at very little extra cost. Japanese last nite. We regularly order the free breakfast in bed too, especially when we have to get up early for a tour in a furrin place.
Cruising’s so easy. It’s everyone’s crack at easy street. Very democratic.
A year or two of saving will get most people the fare for a cruise if they really want one.
And retirees ski of course.
I don’t mind at all if youse want to call me the Cruise Queen. Go right ahead. 🙂
Yes, Bear. The New Broom has had his baptism of fire with it too.
It just seems to be getting worse though. I don’t recall having any of my personal life intruding on work, apart from taking leave for a honeymoon and sick leave for one thing or another. No boyfriend troubles, nothing. They seem to want to transfer their inadequacies to the employer to “fix”. The latest is an out of control spiral because marriage problems. Bugger off.
Whoops! I used “spiral”. Sorry Joh. 😀
He’d gone off his pils, as they do. I drove him to town to get his script. Quite some trip with a very big man, crying, laughing and raging next to me. I was very glad to get out of the car.
Not easy.
Had one a couple of years back, with hindsight making the last stop to pick up his chefs knives was a mistake.
The netballing ladies need to change their uniforms as well.
Mmm…a culture rebels against divine order and gets increasing disorder in return.
Cruise Queen ! ! !
Cruise Queen ! ! !
Cruise Queen ! ! !
An assumption that may be wrong. We’ll never know. Until we do.
The US has never had a problem interfering in South American politics.
Watch: Trump Supporters Smoothly Turn Tables on MSNBC ‘Reporter’ After ‘Gotcha’ Questions on Capitol Riot
2 Mins 43 Secs of surprisingly calm and well informed Trump Supporters notwithstanding the Biased Questions from the MSNBC Reporter
Hyacinth leading her best life.
KD earlier.
I saw the Warner incident as it happened.
Even by the cheating ranga’s already low standards it was cringe-worthy.
Even if Boult had (ahem) “complimented him on his good fortune” a better response would have been to just laugh it off.
I can’t imagine anything worse than being locked up on a ship for weeks with a couple of thousand silly old farts.
Ted Cruz Schools ‘The View’ During Visit in Epic Exchange
We’ve seen Democrats ducking debates throughout this election season, the most notable with the most ridiculous excuses has been Katie Hobbs, as I reported earlier. Even with an assist from ABC trying to cast Republican Kari Lake as the “bully,” Hobbs still looked like a coward for failing to put herself out there for the voters. It says a lot about her character, or the lack thereof.
Compare that with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) — who isn’t even running for office this year — doing an interview on the liberal den of crazy, “The View,” as he did on Monday. That takes bravery when you start with people who are dead set against you and fail to give the opposing view a fair hearing.
Cruz explained how he was doing a bus tour across America and people were hurting because of the record inflation under Joe Biden, that his Administration was a “trainwreck.”
But as he was talking about inflation, protesters began shouting from the audience. They were cursing so when you hear blanks here on the video, that’s them being bleeped out.
Cruz didn’t just take on Biden, but he reminded people how much better it had been under President Donald Trump and a sane Republican approach to the economy.
Then Cruz took the ladies of “The View” to school on two big issues, showing how ignorant they are and what duplicitous games they play.
Cruz pointed out how they didn’t give a darn about Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Stacey Abrams questioning elections, although now they’re throwing all kinds of fits about “election deniers.” In the process, Cruz gets Whoopi to exactly prove his point, when she claims that the 2016 election was illegitimate.
Then when Whoopi claimed that the left doesn’t “storm” things, Cruz went to town on her with a little truth, revealing that she’s either a liar or was asleep for the last two years, with all the leftist/Antifa rioting. Whoopi said that she didn’t know what an “Antifa riot” was. That’s the problem — they don’t report on the leftist violence that has raged since 2016 (and before) from the left. They’re fully focused on the one riot they want to tag the right with, yet ignoring hundreds if not thousands of violent riots with people killed, billions in damage, and hundreds of cops and other people injured. They completely ignored the anti-Trump/Antifa inauguration day riots on Jan. 20, 2017, for which 200 people were arrested. Then, most had their charges dismissed. “The View” ignored the BLM/Antifa riots that lasted three days outside of the White House, not to mention for months across the country when the Secret Service had to rush President Donald Trump to a bunker. They ignored the months of attacks on federal property when Antifa “stormed” the Portland federal courthouse night after night.
When they say, “What Antifa riots?” they’re discounting all the people who were killed and hurt in those riots. They’re discounting people like Secoriea Turner and her family.
Well they are under pressure and feeling the heat now.
American DemoCraps at Work – Career criminal, who’s own family knows he’s a menace, busted for NYC subway shove
Brooklyn career criminal has been busted in Friday’s caught-on-video subway shoving — and the suspect’s kin say they were even so fed up with him that they posted signs outlawing him from their home.
Lamale McRae — who previously did 20 years behind bars for attempted murder — was identified as a suspect in last week’s attack with the help of the surveillance footage and facial-recognition technology, police sources said.
The 41-year-old suspect was arrested by the Queens Warrants Squad on Monday near his Brooklyn home, sources said.
Relatives told The Post that they were already far too weary of McRae’s antics and finally posted a sign on the stairwell in their Brooklyn building urging anyone who spotted him to call the cops.
“If you see a brown skin guy sleepin [sic] in the hallway please call the police he is trespassing,” the sign reads.
McRae’s cousin said the last straw for the family was when he allegedly stole $50 from them.
From the Comments
– ……after being released with no bail, the perp asked his legal aid lawyer for an Uber voucher because the subways aren’t safe
Indolent:
That one, and Foot/Mouth disease just keeps popping up.
Along with the difficulty of getting Hydroxychloroquine/ chloroquine treatment.
Trump was right on TikTok threat: leading Democrat
China’s growing technological dominance should “scare the heck” out of democratic nations such as Australia and is a more worrying short-term threat than its rapid military build-up, says the head of the high-powered United States Senate intelligence committee.
Mark Warner, one of the most senior Democrats in the US Congress, said he harboured deep concerns about the privacy and national security risks of popular Chinese-owned social media app TikTok.
“This is not something you would normally hear me say but Donald Trump was right on TikTok years ago,” Warner said during a visit to Australia to meet with local intelligence chiefs, politicians and business people.
Health Hazzard needs to have his passport revoked. Needs to stay around and feel the love having saved NSWmen from a cough worse than death.
This is true.
Using Mr Pareto’s principle (yes, Pareto, not potato) a large proportion of management time is consumed by the real or imagined woes of a tiny minority.
The trick is to not be consumed by it and ignore the quiet achievers.
The telling truth about the ‘bank of mum and dad’
Economic researchers have long taken an interest in the subject of “intergenerational earnings mobility”. That is, to what degree does a parent’s income determine their child’s future income?
Turns out the apple can still fall quite far from the tree.
If it’s home ownership you’re after, the best strategy, increasingly (and sadly) for aspiring buyers is clear: choose your parents wisely.
Salvatore:
I mentioned on several occasions, the current attitude of “Now I’ve got this job, I get to own the company and it will enact my personal whims.”
It’s a form of personal arrogance that seems particularly immune to reason and responds only slowly to dismissals of the individual holding those views.
One funny pic doing the rounds – Diamonds team members with Rebel motorcycle patches on their uniforms. Lidia Thorpie come on down!
A guy goes into a confession booth.
He starts with the obligatory “Forgive me father for I have sinned”. Father says “What did you do my son?” The man says “I used some awfully foul language on the golf course”.
“Continue” says the priest.
“Well, I hit the ball of the tee on the first hole… I hit it as hard, as straight and as true as I’ve EVER hit a drive in my life… but it hit a power line and dropped 50 yards in front of me”.
The priest says “Is that when you swore, my son?”
The guy says “No father… I was walking up to make my second shot when a squirrel grabbed my ball and headed back into the trees with it!”
“That’s when you used the foul language?”
“No father… an eagle grabbed the squirrel… with the ball… and flew off way over the trees with it!”
“Surely that’s when you used the profanity then?”
“No father… the squirrel dropped the ball… the ball hit a rock, bounced off a tree, and rolled 10 inches from the hole!”
The priest shifts in his seat and says “You missed the fucking putt, didn’t you!?”
Eyriesays:
October 25, 2022 at 10:15 am
I can’t imagine anything worse than being locked up on a ship for weeks with a couple of thousand other silly old farts.
FIFY.
Comments over on the Hun website –
Who made the indigenous player aware of what Lang Hancock said four decades ago?
Are they expected to reject Labor Party funding because of a certain immigration ministers comment about “Two Wongs?”
The object of the superior man is truth.
– Confucius
“Are they expected to reject Labor Party funding because of a certain immigration ministers comment about “Two Wongs?””
Wasn’t that certain person leader of the Labor Party?
One day she’s going to be left smooth gummed.
TB.
The World’s Biggest Infectious Killer Regains Its Deadly Lead (24 Oct)
I’m wondering if there might be a contribution from reduced immunity, but the cited reason is entirely plausible.
Presumably the silly bint in the Diamonds who was “offended” told everyone else – so then they had to be offended too. If she’d kept schtum then they’d still have the dosh.
New OT up at noon.
Won’t someone think of the vegetables?
Climate protesters throw mashed potato at Monet’s Haystacks before gluing themselves to the wall in Potsdam, Germany.
Just don’t forget this time, OK.
I was amused by the stinkies who rubbed chocolate cake onto the waxen face of Charles III in Mme. Tussaud’s. They obviously didn’t know that he’s on their side.
Also amusing is it turns out that Just Stop Oil is being bankrolled by…wait for it…oil billions.
Here’s another video of President Biden wandering off being being wrangled by Jill and his handlers
This is fine. President Joe Biden keeps giving us more and more footage of him aimlessly wandering around, usually after finishing a speech and having no idea where to go to leave the stage. It got so persistent that Tom Elliott made a great compilation video set to “The Wanderer.”
SUPERCUT!
Joe Biden, the Wanderer 1 Min 42 Secs
Thank goodness for that. This has been my Thread of Shame on account of unseemly Brawling in Public.
The Beloved loves the laundry room on cruises. Much better than Attenborough and animals devouring other animals.
Nature red in tooth and claw when it comes to the dryers.
Discussion earlier this morning….odds-on the girl had no idea what Lang Hancock had said nearly 40 years ago. Someone decided to gin up the racism angle [no pun intended!] because the climate change protest was backfiring.
Wonder how those Porsche protestors are doing, on the floor looking for a bedpan still?
I didn’t make myself clear enough, Dubai didn’t bother in Dec 2021 at the height of the omicron scare, why would they tighten the screws now?
The thing that gets me at the moment are XXXX’s climate change adverts. Get Woke Go Broke!
Bullshit, Bear. People like Hyacinth are most certainly on board, and good luck to them if being poseurs is their thing. There’s room for all sorts in my world, although I’d avoid them at dinner.
I am my own person and not anyone’s Hyacinth. That is ridiculous.
I assess people on character and that alone.
ps you seem like a nice guy. lol. See you at dinner.
Mashed potato (with butter and pepper) is too valuable to waste. Pro tip – buy a ricer. The one stupid one use kitchen gadget you will actually use.
Agreed Bear. My fish cakes and cottage pie standby. Mash is just too spongy and soft to do the job.
Ooops…they’ve upset the art luvvies:
“As someone who used to run a museum, this is concerning. It’s not guaranteed that glass will protect a priceless work of art from liquids. They weren’t designed for that. Also, this will drive up insurance and security costs for museums. A lot.”
Navigating when GPS goes dark
by Troy Rummler, Sandia National Laboratories
Words like “tough” or “rugged” are rarely associated with a quantum inertial sensor. The remarkable scientific instrument can measure motion a thousand times more accurately than the devices that help navigate today’s missiles, aircraft and drones. But its delicate, table-sized array of components that includes a complex laser and vacuum system has largely kept the technology grounded and confined to the controlled settings of a lab.
Jongmin Lee wants to change that.
The atomic physicist is part of a team at Sandia that envisions quantum inertial sensors as revolutionary, onboard navigational aids. If the team can reengineer the sensor into a compact, rugged device, the technology could safely guide vehicles where GPS signals are jammed or lost.
In a major milestone toward realizing their vision, the team has successfully built a cold-atom interferometer, a core component of quantum sensors, designed to be much smaller and tougher than typical lab setups. The team describes their prototype in the academic journal Nature Communications, showing how to integrate several normally separated components into a single monolithic structure. In doing so, they reduced the key components of a system that existed on a large optical table down to a sturdy package roughly the size of a shoebox.
“Very high sensitivity has been demonstrated in the lab, but the practical matters are, for real-world application, that people need to shrink down the size, weight and power, and then overcome various issues in a dynamic environment,” Jongmin said.
The paper also describes a roadmap for further miniaturizing the system using technologies under development.
The prototype, funded by Sandia’s Laboratory Directed Research and Development program, demonstrates significant strides toward moving advanced navigation tech out of the lab and into vehicles on the ground, underground, in the air and even in space.
Yes. We noted that on Cunard. Amazing how proprietorial people got over washers and dryers. Holland America does not have laundry rooms, which was a bit of a shock. But then I got used to it. US$20 for a bag wash, as much as you can fit into a fairly smallish bag. You would be surprised how much I can get into it. You get it back the next day all done, and pressed for extra if you ask for it. Suits me. No Lady’s Maid here though so I do my own ‘smalls’. Couldn’t bear the thought of other having to handle those. Or Hairy’s. There’s a pull out line over the bath for those, washed in the sink. 🙂
Signs to watch out for:
– Police car comes down your drive on a weekend
– Plod gets out, pretends he wants to do a ‘random’ gunsafe check
– Plod then adds ‘and discuss another matter’.
This is when you say ‘Given the thuggery carried out by police over the last couple of years, I am going to have to film this interaction for my protection – you agree to that don’t you?’
You demonstrate a complete lack of self-awareness, Mr Readford.
As far as I am concerned, you represent everything that is wrong and broken with the modern (first) world. I think many others share my sentiment.
they should have dosed the food they gave them with laxative. You give us the shits, we give you the shits.
The was one stall at the South Melbourne markets that just sold potatoes. As a Western Australian in the Potato Marketing Board era it was quite disconcerting and most weeks I just walked past.
H B Bearsays:
October 25, 2022 at 11:10 am
Mashed potato (with butter and pepper) is too valuable to waste. Pro tip – buy a ricer. The one stupid one use kitchen gadget you will actually use.
Using old woolies cheap fork, my main/major tool – mash, then Iodised Salt, a little full cream milk then butter mashed with specialfork to smooth consistency
Grandkids (as well as self) love it
Rosie – The soccer world cup starts next month in Qatar. I suspect there’s a bit of angst in the Gulf States right now.
Qatar World Cup Attendees Reportedly Being Asked To Install Spyware On Their Phone (22 Oct)
Covid is a useful excuse for a lot of other stuff.
“I’m wondering if there might be a contribution from reduced immunity, but the cited reason is entirely plausible.”
As they are appear to referring to total TB deaths in 2020 ‘reduced immunity’ presumably a reference to covid vaccines seems an unlikely culprit.
from 14 October 2021 ‘tuberculosis deaths rise for first time in a decade due to the covid 19 pandemic
one of multiple almost identical articles published in the last couple of days “The number of annual TB deaths grew in 2020.”
Which is why our wise masters are progressively (snigger!) preventing parents transferring wealth (death taxes) wisdom (state now gets to educate your children from younger and younger ages) and even genes (gay and trans propaganda, economic
– and now health – policies which reduce fertility) down to your children and grandchildren.
Top Ender:
The crowds did nothing, therefore they were implicit in the vandalism.
From four weeks ago
Face masks no longer mandatory at Dubai airports
2 African American Hippos together on Stage
Stacey Abrams’ Bizarre Stunt at a Lizzo Concert Shows How Desperate She Is
Like the Fact that Stacey Abrams is holding up the Sign “My Body, My Choice” in front of a Giant Electric Sign that says “Pussy”