Open Thread – Tue 1 Nov 2022
2,428 responses to “Open Thread – Tue 1 Nov 2022”
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Speaking of rocket boosters
It’s time to play “find the falling Chinese rocket” once again
To launch the main modules of Tiangong, including Monday’s flight, China has used a modified version of its powerful Long March 5B rocket. And as part of the overall mission profile, the vehicle’s massive core stage reenters Earth’s atmosphere in an uncontrollable manner.
Umbrella futures might be a good investment.
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“There is an entire Pacific Ocean between Australasia and the Americas, and we still don’t know how these ancestral genomic signals appeared in Central and South America without leaving traces in North America,”
really? Does Polynesia extending to Easter Island not provide a clue. Or are these different genomes?
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Global Warming Continues
I checked BoM yesterday for the Ncl forecast. Supposed to reach 22 C, but it’s only 19 C at 2:30pm at my nearest BoM AWS. That’s fairly typical: they seem to be overestimating top temps by about 2 C nowadays. I strongly suspect it’s due to their catastropharian computer model, which has far too much sensitivity to CO2. Unfortunately they don’t seem to keep a publicly accessible file of their day-to-day predictions, so you can’t see how erroneous their forecasts turned out to be. Funny that.
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“We need to be warriors, but we also need to work at trying to be happy warriors.”
Indeed, but allow me to despair sometimes, when a louse like Nilligan floats through life with zero consequences for her actions.
Those Cats who know me know how much of a warrior I am, but I’m always an entertaining warrior.
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Dover I think the Duelling thread should be called Kiddies Korner. Somehow I got there the other day, so sad. I don’t care what anyone says about me. I just couldn’t give a stuff. A bit like that episode in Seinfeld when they in court in California. Could have the place wrong. Some of you lot must hit the turps pretty hard.
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I posted early this morning just before new page. Anybody else watched this ? Either the Dr is making it up and what he is showing is something else or it is fairly scary looking for something going into our bodies.
Thoughts ? Is Flyingduk around as might be aware.
“I have mentioned Club Grubbery hosted on Facebook by former Qantas pilot Graham Hood before.
Last night watched his latest podcast with an Oz Dr, David Nixon. He has examined and filmed the Vax under a powerful microscope. Speeded it up and magnified it hundreds of times. Almost an hour of showing the results and disturbing to say the least. Some very weird and scary stuff going on.
A Google search revealed the Dr has left his practice in the past few days due to health reasons. His speech was a bit odd.
Any scientific types care to look and comment. Are there similar reports elsewhere ?
If the footage is genuine then Vax should be stopped. They mentioned getting Dr Phillip Altman on to talk about it sometime next week”.
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They were bought early on before the Vax started. One of the problems with selling their readership out is that they could not have factored in :
Poor Vax efficacy which even they have reported on since.
Injuries and deaths which the papers have ignored.
Initially thought would be 2 jabs but now 5th has been approved
They have gone for the children
The fact employment now often dependent upon jabs
Dr’s and nurses threatened and silenced upon threat to employmentThis affects their own families, employees, friends and neighbours.
May the paper editors and news heads in radio and TV rot in hell for their total support of the narrative. No amount of evidence seems to change their devotion to the narrative.
Their own staff should be fighting against it but again they know their jobs are at risk.
May they all rot in hell for not questioning the Government and calling out the BS from some of the experts. If anything they have enthusiastically promoted the fear and scare campaign to promote Vax that clearly don’t work.
Grey Ranga said
The owners of the media were brought, plain and simple. They didn’t have to pay the government for license fees. -
feelthebernsays:
November 2, 2022 at 9:46 am
I don’t understand why Atlassian think they are different.
If you have 15 staff using the Office suite, then you sack 3, you adjust your licence count.
No different for Atlassian.‘bern, that is true, but I see a vastly bigger potential problem.
Earlier this year Atlassian advised clients to take some of their products off internet and intranet networks because of security issues.
Hellooo! It’s an online collaboration tool which has to be used on standalone PCs. Kind of defeats the purpose.
But here’s the rub.
After the last few weeks I reckon every major corporation will be going through their suite of software products looking for potential weak points which might act as a portal for hackers. If Atlassian product is ditched by, say, a major bank over security issues, that could be a huge crack in the dam wall.
Remember, it’s only an enabling “colloboration” software.
It isn’t core to operations of most businesses.
If I’m CEO of one of these organisations, I am getting someone’s balls in a jar and asking them to make the case to keep it, understanding that their career is over if it leads to a data breach.
And if my judgement of most CIOs is correct, they won’t be going out on that limb. -
I can be an entertaining warrior. I can’t guarantee the quality of the entertainment.
Hit them with a Youtube of something dumb?
For those who grew up on 60’s TV, enjoy. 😀
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Cassie:
* I hope that one day their sons, their brothers, their husbands and their fathers are falsely accused.
I would hope not – I know of a man in our family who went through the trauma of a false accusation and nearly suicided.
Very sad to watch – especially as it was about a MiL getting back for a trivial slight years before. -
New Cat is less liberal than the old one, but still, there might be a few curious to see this:
https://www.facebook.com/DeidreMcCloskeyForComptroller/
(H/t Marginal Revolution)
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duncanmsays:
November 2, 2022 at 2:51 pm
“There is an entire Pacific Ocean between Australasia and the Americas, and we still don’t know how these ancestral genomic signals appeared in Central and South America without leaving traces in North America,”Thor Heyerdahl is one of history’s most famous explorers. In 1947 he crossed the Pacific Ocean on the balsawood raft Kon-Tiki. This was his first expedition to be captured on film, and was later awarded Academy Award for best documentary in 1951. He later completed similar achievements with the reed boats Ra, Ra II and Tigris, through which he championed his deep involvement for both the environment and world peace. He was also responsible for important archeological excavations on the Galapagos Islands, Easter Island and in Túcume. The Kon-Tiki Museum exhibits objects from Heyerdahl’s world famous expeditions, the original Kon-Tiki raft, and the papyrus boat Ra II.
Great Museum worth a visit!
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Lee Smith
@LeeSmithDC
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1h
Why weren’t Capitol Police watching feed from home of #3 US official?
Quote TweetFox News
@FoxNews
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2h
BREAKING NEWS: Capitol Police had cameras on Pelosi home but missed attack https://fxn.ws/3TbXtl7Interesting.
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BREAKING NEWS: Capitol Police had cameras on Pelosi home but missed attack https://fxn.ws/3TbXtl7
Probably ads for Coles or trips to NZ.
I always stop paying attention when that happens on YouTube.
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Australia ‘sucking up’ to Sogavare with semiautomatic guns, says worried Solomons opposition
Ben Packham
FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND DEFENCE CORRESPONDENT
@bennpackham
32 minutes ago November 2, 2022
14 CommentsAustralia has handed the Solomon Islands’ police an arsenal of 60 new semiautomatic rifles and 13 new vehicles, prompting concerns by the country’s opposition the weapons could be used to suppress political dissent in the country.
The $1.3m gift was presented to the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force this week amid ongoing Australian government concerns over the country’s Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare’s security partnership with China.
The MK18 rifles would provide the Solomon Islands police “with enhanced capabilities to counter criminal threats and maintain peace and stability”, Australian Federal Police Acting Commander Clinton Smith said.
Solomon Islands’ Opposition Leader Matthew Wale said Australia was not responding to a genuine need of the country’s police force, but trying to “out-compete China in sucking up to would-be strong man Sogavare”.
“Australia is in a race (with China) to show Sogavare who is more willing to protect him personally from accountability to his own people,” Mr Wale said.
“That’s the only perceived threat for Sogavare. So I am extremely concerned.”
Mr Sogavare said the country had no enemies, but “it is the sworn duty of the government of the day to ensure the protection of liberty, life, well being and property” of its citizens.
“Law and order is an enabler to development and it is important as a sovereign state we are able to better protect ourselves, deliver on our security mandates and confront threat when it comes,” he said.
Acting Commander Smith, who heads the AFP’s regional policing partnership in Solomon Islands, said four of the vehicles would be used to establish a “mobile protection unit” to respond to “security threats and incidents to critical infrastructure”.
The most recent such threat was the November 2021 riots in Honiara, in which violent protesters – predominantly from residents of Malaita Province who opposed Mr Sogavare’s rule – burned down public buildings and Chinese-owned businesses.
By March the following year, Mr Sogavare had signed his controversial security pact with Beijing.
Australia has been determined to reassert its role as Solomon Islands’ main security partner ever since.
Acting Commander Smith said the donation reflected the AFP’s “deep friendship” with the RSIPF.
“The AFP is proud to be the Solomon Islands’ security partner of choice and will continue to work closely with RSIPF officers to ensure they are trained and equipped to provide the Solomon Islands community with an efficient, modern police force,” he said.
He said the provision of the weapons was part of a “limited rearmament” of the country’s police that commenced in 2013 under the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Island, during which thousands of weapons were surrendered by former militants.
Many of the weapons handed in during RAMSI were originally stolen from police armouries.
The short-barrelled MK18, purchased from US firm Daniel Defence, is a lighter and more manoeuvrable version of the AR15 rifle, used by law enforcement and by special forces soldiers in its fully automatic configuration.
The provision of the weapons follows an official visit by Mr Sogavare to Australia last month, when he assured Anthony Albanese he would “not do anything that will undermine our national security”, or jeopardise the security of the Pacific Island region.
“Prime Minister, I reiterate again that Solomon Islands will never be used for foreign military installations or institutions of foreign countries because this will not be in the interest of Solomon Island and its people,” he said.
Months earlier, Mr Sogavare had accused critics of his security agreement with China of treating his country like ““kindergarten students walking around with Colt .45s in our hands”.
Under the security deal, Solomon Islands can “request China to send police, armed police, military personnel and other law enforcement and armed forces to Solomon Islands”.
The agreement says China “may, according to its own needs and with the consent of the Solomon Islands, make ship visits to carry out logistical replenishment in, and have stopover and transition in, Solomon Islands”.
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Salvatore:
From Wikipaedia:Coffea is a genus of flowering plants in the family Rubiaceae. Coffea species are shrubs or small trees native to tropical and southern Africa and tropical Asia.
Encyclopaedia Britanica:
coffee, beverage brewed from the roasted and ground seeds of the tropical evergreen coffee plants of African origin.
EB get’s around the problem by calling them coffee plants.
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Many thanks (Calli?) for the Keep on Dancing video, featuring a selection of famous character actors from 1960s American television, including David McCallum, now 89, who’s still starring in the NCIS series as “Ducky”, the medical examiner. Brilliant.
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Big_Nambas says:
November 2, 2022 at 9:24 amit’s easy to be critical and to pick on the ideas of others
it’s always easier to attack than to build
but this is a barren road to fields where nothing grows.
we cannot productively define ourselves only by what we are against.
we must be for something.
When I read this I thought of some of the people on this site who could well benefit from this advise.
Big_Numbarse
I suspect that comment was left for me as I don’t know about others. You appear to have omitted the context as to why I would like to see both Facebook and Atlassian not just fail but collapse into a heap. I also mentioned that I don’t wish the worst for folks but I would make the two dickheads from Atlassian and Mark Fuckerberg an exception to this rule. There could be others, however I’m focused on these three rat hybrids.
1. Fuckerberg spent something US$300 million dollars to help cheat Trump out of office. Among other things, he set up unsupervised collection boxes around battleground states to EXACTLY facilitate cheating under the pretext that he was a big heart, spending his own money to assist in the election process through a very difficult time. It was never true. It was to assist the Demonrats in their attempt to cheat trump the election by bundling up fake votes in a decentralized way to make it harder to pinpoint the illegality.
2. Atlassian dickheads.
The beard is going all out to destroy part of the country’s energy supplies by attempting to wreck AGL and send the current shareholders out in the cold. The other dick is with him all the way.Don’t post dishonest, sanctimonious comments in an attempt to virtue signal as it doesn’t work.
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Now They Want a Pandemic ‘Amnesty’
The school shutdown lobby now want voters to forgive them. Not so fast.
By The WSJ Editorial Board
Nov. 1, 2022Believe it or not, American Federation of Teachers chief Randi Weingarten on Monday tacitly acknowledged that keeping schools closed during the pandemic was a mistake. Miracles happen, apparently.
But she also now wants parents—especially if they’re voters next week—to forgive her and her political allies without seeking an apology or holding them accountable. Sorry, that lets them off way too easy.
“I agree,” Ms. Weingarten tweeted a link to a piece in The Atlantic by Emily Oster, “Let’s Declare a Pandemic Amnesty.” The article argues that Americans should forgive experts and government leaders for their mistakes during the pandemic.
Ms. Oster cites school closures as one example: “There is an emerging (if not universal) consensus that schools in the U.S. were closed for too long: The health risks of in-school spread were relatively low, whereas the costs to students’ well-being and educational progress were high.”
However, she adds, “in spring and summer 2020, we had only glimmers of information. Reasonable people—people who cared about children and teachers—advocated on both sides of the reopening debate.”
That’s awfully generous to Team Shutdown, which included all of the progressive great and good and nearly all of the media. Yet it was clear by summer 2020 that children were at extremely low risk for severe illness. They were also struggling with remote learning, as were their parents. All efforts should have been made to reopen schools, as Florida did in August 2020, and to keep them open.
But the teachers’ unions lobbied hard to keep them closed and succeeded in far too many places where they dominate local and state politics. Many big city school districts didn’t reopen until spring 2021. Chicago didn’t offer full in-person learning until last fall. The results in lost learning have been catastrophic.
Ms. Oster pardons Ms. Weingarten because “on every topic, someone was eventually proved right, and someone else was proved wrong” and “in some instances, the right people were right for the wrong reasons.” You can guess who the right people are.
This plea for forgiveness would be more plausible if the shutdown lobby had shown more willingness during the pandemic to listen to other arguments that proved to be right. Instead they dismissed and tried to discredit the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration who argued for focused protection of the most vulnerable while opening schools. Tech platforms censored them.
Ms. Oster says “most errors were made by people who were working in earnest for the good of society.” But the teachers unions intentionally misled the public by hyping the virus risks for children. They did this to extort more money from Congress to “safely reopen” and compensate for learning losses from the shutdowns. Democrats gave them $122 billion last March, only about 15% of which was spent during the 2021-22 school year.
“Getting something wrong wasn’t a moral failing,” Ms. Oster writes. But in Ms. Weingarten’s case, it was.
One certainty: The left will never forgive the shutdown dissenters, notably Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, for being right.
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Duncanm:
One of those experiences in South Africa, years ago, was being at close quarters, to a pride of lions, in a safari jeep.
Idiot German tourist is trying to get a camera shot of lioness and a couple of cubs. Cubs are in the wrong spot so, hausfrau jumps out of vehicle, picks up one of the cubs to get it in frame…
Poor decision.
Lioness 1
Hausfrau nil. -
China RE – still ugly;
ByBloomberg News
October 31, 2022 at 10:57 PM GMT+11China’s home sales slump intensified in October, the latest sign that a recovery in the nation’s property market remains distant.
The 100 biggest real estate developers saw new-home sales drop 28.4% from a year earlier to 556.1 billion yuan ($76.2 billion) in October, according to preliminary data from China Real Estate Information Corp. That plunge widened from a 25.4% slump in September.
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November 1, 2022 – Sundance
Apparently, the San Francisco home of Paul and Nancy Pelosi has real time CCTV security remotely monitored by the Capitol Hill Police.
However, as the story is told, during the attack on Paul Pelosi, no one was watching the CCTV monitors. But it does appear there is a recording.
(Fox News) – Officers from the U.S. Capitol Police have live video surveillance outside the Pelosi’s San Francisco residence, but weren’t watching it when David DePape, 42, allegedly attacked Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, sources tell Fox News.
The officers were monitoring a live-feed of many cameras, which include surveillance of the capitol complex, but also monitor some points away from the capitol, which include the Pelosi residence.
According to sources, an officer was monitoring the feeds and saw police lights on a dark street outside the Pelosi’s residence. When going through surveillance footage, the officer saw the alleged attack on Oct. 28, when DePape allegedly struck Paul Pelosi, people briefed on the incident said, according to the report. (read more)
Eddie, remains suspicious….
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DrBeauGan says:
November 2, 2022 at 4:39 pmAnd the West knocks Putin.
Putin is no doubt an unpleasant arsehole. But he isn’t senile and having his strings pulled by raving loonies.
I am by no means a fond of the man, but “unpleasant arsehole” compared to whom?
Not a lot of world leaders I can name I’d look up to at the moment. -
Knuckle Draggersays:
November 2, 2022 at 3:31 pm
a MiL getting back for a trivial slight years before
No way. They would never.
It is interesting thinking about their catch-cry:-
“Believe all women!”
Why do they not say, “No women ever lies!”?
The answer is obvious, because the latter absolutist statement is so patently incorrect.
The full statement of their position is really, “OK, not all women tell the truth all the time, and some are motivated to lie for nefarious reasons, but we should believe all of them, because one rapist somewhere might go unpunished if we don’t”. -
– Figures. Just realize that capital police evidence is not accessible under FOIA. This is why significant camera footage from J6 has not been made available to defense attorney’s for J6 victims.
So it appears capital police can pick and choose what evidence they want to be made available. Will be interesting to see where this goes. Capital police will be protecting Pelosi.
– SFPD video, SFPD bodycam video, SFPD report
The FBI report is idiotic. Let’s see the SFPD report – you know, the responding agency. Yeah let’s see that.
– You know who else was under surveillance but no one was really watching? Epstein.
Funny how crimes can happen under the watchful eye. Almost like someone allowed it to happen.
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Gaynor seeking costs against burns. What a travesty this guy, Gaynor has been subject to.
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Everything I see suggests the natural planet and the denizens upon it are in rude health. Walked down to the shops this morning for some more bird mince for the Cafe patrons and wine for the proprietor. Bottleshop lady was rugged up, complaining that it’s freezing in November! So much for global warming. On the way there I was bailed up and demanded to stand and deliver: by a willy wagtail. He recognized me. So I did deliver. I tossed some tiny bits of mince in the air which he adeptly caught and ate. He’s learned that I will do that for him. It’s amazing how such a tiny creature can tell different humans apart.
BoN – I love, & share, your appreciation of the natural world – & particularly birdlife.
In the country we of course enjoy much wildlife. We have no objection to the roos, as we don’t crop – so we have at least 20 or so roos who enjoy our pastures in the morning – sometimes lying in the sun until late morning. They have learned that the farmer on this place does not shoot at them. Not so keen on the wombats, as their burrows in the paddocks can result in broken legs of cattle. Over the years we have encouraged them by various means to dig their burrows in the creek area only. Also not keen on the feral pigs that occasionally visit, or, as the Cats know – the wily fox that recently slaughtered my chooks. The birdlife is prodigious. Although we done seem to get the small birds (wrens etc) that our neighbours enjoy, Eastern Rosellas, Red Rumped Parrots, Galahs, Corellas, Cockies, Magpies, Butcher Birds, the occasional Kookaburra, Crows and others come early morning and most afternoons to graze on the grounds around the house. We discourage the swallows in the eaves, but a couple have wisely built this year’s nest in the eaves of garage & it is a treat to see the younguns without the mess on the veranda.
But we are also blessed in our city house on Sydney’s Lower North Shore with a remarkable amount of wildlife. Years ago we offered our grandson $5 for each Water Dragon he could catch from around his (then) Northbridge home & these emigres have now generations of progeny who delight in our fishpond (minus fish!) and stone walls. But the real surprise is how easily they are tamed with food offerings. They position themselves on our stone walls and wait for treats which they mostly take from a “table” (an umbrella stand!). They will even take from the hand.
Of course we also have the regular, demanding rainbow lorikeets who demand food in the afternoons. Lately magpies and butcher birds, who obviously have offspring, have got into the act & seem to know that we have returned within 30 minutes of arriving from the farm. Occasionally Brush Turkeys ( that most locals hate – but we like) turn up, strolling nonchalantly across the terrace – wanting nothing.
Seriously, both country and city wildlife (&, of course, our domestic animals) have sustained us mightily in these past horrible times.
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DEMS “DUMP BIDEN” CAMPAIGN IS BACK *ON* AGAIN
Facing an electoral wipeout next week, but seeing the White House circling the wagons already with reasons why the election disaster can’t be blamed on President Biden, the coordinated campaign to force Biden to step aside in 2024 mooted here several months ago appears to be getting an early re-start a week ahead of the election.
Behold the New York Times tonight, channeling Power Line:MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — President Biden verbally fumbled during a campaign swing in Florida on Tuesday, confusing the American war in Iraq with the Russian war in Ukraine, and then he fumbled again while he tried to correct himself, misstating how his son Beau died in 2015.
In defending his record on inflation, Mr. Biden was trying to blame rising costs on President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia for his invasion of Ukraine, which has roiled international energy markets. It’s a point that he makes regularly in public speeches, but this time he mixed up his geography and history.
“Inflation is a worldwide problem right now because of a war in Iraq and the impact on oil and what Russia is doing,” Mr. Biden told a crowd during a speech at O.B. Johnson Park in Hallandale Beach, Fla., before heading to Miami Gardens for an evening campaign rally with Democratic candidates. He quickly caught his own mistake. “Excuse me,” he said, “the war in Ukraine.”
But as he tried to explain how he mixed up the two wars, he told the audience, “I think of Iraq because that’s where my son died.” In fact, Beau Biden, a military lawyer in the Delaware Army National Guard, served for a year in Iraq. He returned home in 2009 and died of brain cancer in the United States in 2015. . .
Mr. Biden, who at 79 is the oldest president in American history, has a long record of gaffes dating back to when he was a young man. But his misstatements have become more pronounced, and more noticed, now that he has the spotlight of the presidency constantly on him. While Mr. Biden has said he intends to run for a second term, his age ranked at the top of the list for Democratic voters who told pollsters that they want the party to find an alternative, according to a survey by New York Times and Siena College this summer.
The New York Times printing a headline like this is a flashing beacon to the rest of the media that they should get ready to produce their own drumbeat of stories on this theme, which isn’t exactly news. Maybe the Times new Biden-era motto will be, “All the news that’s fit to print about our unfit president.” Better late than never.
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Cassie of Sydneysays:
November 2, 2022 at 4:32 pm
“David McCallum, now 89, who’s still starring in the NCIS series as”McCallum was in one of my favourite movies of all time, The Great Escape.
I presume the rest of the cast are dead.
He was also in the original Man From UNCLE, waaaay back in the mid-1960s.
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Any scientific types care to look and comment. Are there similar reports elsewhere ?
Bourne I haven’t got the time to chase it up, but Dr Ryan Cole has recently published work on analysis of batches of the Covid vaccines which shows some spectacular stuff which he thinks is due to slack & hurried production. Some time ago others – such as Dr. Robert Malone and Dr. Mike Yeodan observed the batch diversity – and speculated on its origin.
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https://www.livewiremarkets.com/wires/we-ve-had-the-housing-boom-here-comes-the-house-price-bust
This translates to an enormous wave of mortgages that will transition to variable rates in 2023. The average fixed rate of roughly 2% will move to a rude variable rate of 6.5% at current forecasts. The debt servicing ratio (the proportion of household income that goes to principal and interest payments) is expected to rise to a record high of 18.4%.
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Vickisays:
November 2, 2022 at 5:00 pmBut we are also blessed in our city house on Sydney’s Lower North Shore with a remarkable amount of wildlife. Years ago we offered our grandson $5 for each Water Dragon he could catch from around his (then) Northbridge home & these emigres have now generations of progeny who delight in our fishpond (minus fish!) and stone walls. But the real surprise is how easily they are tamed with food offerings. They position themselves on our stone walls and wait for treats which they mostly take from a “table” (an umbrella stand!). They will even take from the hand.
Water Dragons what do you feed them?
Quick question to you or any other with knowledge of Water Dragons
Resident Big Boy Water Dragon who seems to live in roof was 2 days ago, digging quite deep holes in raised garden bed off terrace around pool – as he was getting close to recently planted $5 online plants Gardenia O SO FINE™ – told him to be careful and he just cocked an eye and finished digging – no damage
Yesterday the holes were now filled in, and a smaller water dragon (we have loads on 1387 sq m block) possibly female, was scratching on the surface where the holes had been, like a dog marking a spot – and avoided new plants and happy for me to watch. We have quite a few baby water dragons around at the moment
Any ideas?
Later Big Old Bluey who usually lives under coping around spa, was coming across terrace and up stairs to go home to under spa coping – bluey around the corner at kitchen steps has made home in cavity going in through 1 frettered brick hole
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I work in automotive industry where we are going electric by choice or force. Anywho I have been in some meetings lately reviewing capacity for dealers to handle the expected volume of EVs. The direct chargers themselves are quite expensive all the way up to super fast chargers by some German brands in the order of $0.5m to $1.0m. But they really are fast chargers….with issues for another day.
we do know that some dealers do not have enough power from the grid getting to their site. So now they are up for substation upgrade costs. Think $250k and upward. Maybe the whole area needs an upgrade into the $millions which you may be able to share with neighbouring dealers.
Now we are hearing the grid suppliers and saying no to new applications for substation upgrades cos ….as has been pointed out by others here at the Cat…..the infrastructure cannot handle it. We really have not thought this through. -
OldOzzie
November 2, 2022 at 12:53 pm · Reply
The Changing World Order Is Approaching Stage 6 (The War Stage)Ray Dalio – 1 Nov 2022
In this post, at the beginning I will show you how what is now happening is tracking the archetypical Big Cycle, and near the end I will show you how wars typically change how the systems work and how the markets and economies behave. In these 4,500 words, I will be packing in a lot to explain the mechanics of what is happening. While I tried to make it simple, if you find it too dense, just scan to the next section. I promise you that it will be worth it.
Chanticleer
What investors can take from Ray Dalio’s warning on war
The hedge fund veteran turned amateur historian sees military conflict on the horizon, but his broader message for the market is one of instability and volatility.
It’s always hard to know exactly how to interpret warnings about military conflict from market commentators, which have become increasingly mainstream since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine earlier this year.
While some investors are able to model and price the possibility of war – Coolabah Capital founder and The Australian Financial Review columnist Christopher Joye, for example, recently put the chances of a war between China and Taiwan at 74 per cent – I suspect most investors struggle to get to this level of analysis.
Which is fair enough: if war in our region breaks out, or heaven forbid a nuclear attack is launched, return profiles are the last thing that most investors will be thinking of.
How then should investors interpret the latest warning from Ray Dalio, billionaire founder of hedge fund manager Bridgewater, who says the world order is approaching stage six – the war stage – of what he calls “the Big Cycle”?
“To be clear, when I say that I believe we are on the brink of civil and/or international war, I am not saying that we will necessarily go into them or that, if we do, it will happen very soon,” Dalio writes in a lengthy LinkedIn post that appeared on Tuesday night.
“What I am saying is that the different sides in domestic and international conflicts are preparing for war and if events are allowed to progress as they typically do, there is a dangerously high probability of us being in at least one of these wars if not both in about five years, give or take about three (with the highest risk point being in 2025-26).”
So, is it time to sell your consumer stocks and jump into defence companies and steelmakers? The column has no idea and frankly, neither does Dalio, the investment legend-turned-amateur historian.
But there is something to be extracted from his analysis of a quite startling confluence of events that will make the next few years.
Dalio’s “Big Cycle” is based on his study of historic market cycles, primarily focused on the last couple of centuries but also looking back across a longer sweep of history.
Stage one follows a big war, when a new world order is formed, new leadership consolidates power, debts are forgiven or restructured and wealth gaps are closed. Stage two is the consolidation of this new order and stage three is peace and prosperity.
Global debt pile
But then the trouble starts: stage four sees an excess in spending and a build up of debt that leads to wealth gaps widening, while stage five sees economic crises create internal political divisions and crises between counties. This all leads to stage six when there are wars – at which point the cycle starts again.
But within Dalio’s Big Cycle are actually three smaller cycles (yes, there’s a bit to get your head around here) which are probably more interesting.
The first cycle is “the long term debt-money-economic cycle”. Trouble starts here when “debt assets and debt liabilities have both risen to such high levels that the interest rates that are high enough to incentivise creditors to hold them are intolerably high for debtors to meet their debt payment obligations”, which is where Dalio thinks we are heading right now.
What worries Dalio is that the global debt pile will keep growing, as countries spend more than they receive in tax. But who will be prepared and able to buy that debt in a world where the risk of defaults is rising? The big contraction in private credit that Dalio expects will have big repercussions for the global economy.
The second cycle is around internal politics, and the shift to populism that has occurred frequently and is clearly underway around the world. “Populists are people who will fight to win at all costs, not people who will work with the other side to compromise by following the rules to govern in the way democracy has worked for the many years it has worked,” Dalio says.
The third cycle within the big cycle is disorder between countries, which is clearly on display now with the war in Ukraine and sabre-rattling between the US and China.
Dalio says economic conflicts (featuring asset seizures and sanctions) typically come before military ones, but the latter is pure poison for investors given they have historically included the closure of markets, asset seizures, price controls and, for the losers, the near total wipeout of wealth.
It’s cheery stuff. But again, the question for investors is: how to consider this from the perspective of their portfolio? Two connected insights stand out.
The first is that Dalio is right to identify a confluence of major events occurring at the same time.
The challenges created by the financialisation of the world are being played out right as central banks grapple with how to slay evil inflation without taking rates so high that governments, households and businesses start to teeter under their debt piles. And this is happening at the same time that wealth gaps inside countries, and between them, are creating divisiveness and instability.
Where this leads is anyone’s guess. Dalio clearly has a sobering view, but there’s a lot to play out, and you could make the argument that the world has resolved similar periods of synchronised tension without major war; the 1970s and 1980s could be seen as an example.
But investors should prepare for volatility and think about how they can build into the portfolio a sense of robustness and optionality that will allow them to ride out rough periods. Easier said than done, of course, but the picture Dalio paints suggests this is not a time for all-or-nothing bets.
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Old Mrs. Watkins awoke one spring morning to find that the river had flooded the entire first floor of her house.
Looking out of her window, she saw that the water was still rising.
Two men passing by on a rowboat shouted up an invitation to row to safety with them. “No, thank you” Mrs. Watkins replied “The Lord will provide”.
The men shrugged and rowed on.
By evening, the water level forced Mrs. Watkins to climb on top of the roof for safety. She was spotted by a man in a motorboat, who offered to pick her up. “Don’t trouble yourself” she told him “The Lord will provide”.
Pretty soon, Mrs. Watkins had to seek refuge atop the chimney.
When a Red Cross cutter came by on patrol, she waved it on, shouting “The Lord will provide”.
So the boat left, the water rose and the old woman drowned.
Dripping wet and thoroughly annoyed, she came through the pearly gates and demanded to speak to God.
“What happened?” she cried. “For cryin’ out loud, lady” God said “I sent three boats!”
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Vicki,
I did see the Ryan Cole stuff.However what is shown in the Nixon interview is way beyond that and more concerning to me. I can understand differences in batches and how that might lead to different outcomes. Bad enough. I think I read a while ago a production facility in Baltimore had issues. Kind of a lotto as to which batch you get.
However what Nixon is showing is more scary to me. He can’t explain what it is but simple me thinks it does not look good. Would be interesting if he did the same with more common Vax such as polio, common flu and whooping cough.
Been some good articles on Conservative Woman in past few days. One about AZ in particular.
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Vicki, I enjoyed your description of the Town and Country Birds (and other wildlife).
I have been adopted by a baby magpie. It is a very fat, noisy one and the parents are tired of it. So it follows me around the garden, talking to me in “words” and the occasional “song”. Much to my neighbours’ amusement, I talk back to it.
I don’t mind if they think I’m mad. If it’s madness, the world needs more of it.
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You don’t get to a position of power if you’re a nice guy.
Reagan?
Politicians are good at manipulating your feelings. If you ever think one is a good guy, it just means he’s successfully fooled you.
That said, some may prefer old fashioned values which means you’re better off voting for them. Reagan said the right things, but didn’t do much to rein in big government.
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Rushing the green energy transition will be painful
In fossil-fuel-rich Australia, the energy transition will be a massive economic adjustment, and very expensive.
John KehoeEconomics editor
As energy-rich Australia confronts an energy crisis, Germany could be the canary in the coal mine providing a reality check on the great energy transition.
Germany has invested record amounts in renewable energy and has been at the international forefront of decarbonisation to address climate change.
But Germany is turning back to coal-fired power plants to keep the lights on and to save energy-intensive manufacturing businesses from collapse. It has also postponed the phase-out of nuclear power plants.
Germany has unveiled an energy “defence shield” rescue package costing taxpayers up to €200 billion ($310 billion).
The catalyst has been the war in Ukraine and Russia shutting off gas supply to Germany.
The German experience shows that even after huge investments in renewable energy, Europe’s largest economy has nowhere near enough renewable capacity to keep the lights on and businesses alive.
The events in Germany are a reality check for politicians and activists breezily promoting cleaner, cheaper and more reliable renewable energy.
Economies and societies cannot function without reliable, affordable energy. Hopefully, one day clean renewables will be capable of delivering sufficient energy reliably and affordably. But currently there is no major economy in the world that is close to achieving it.
A lack of storage capability for renewables raises huge questions about rushing an energy transition before a new system is capable of delivering. Germany demonstrates the huge economic risks of prematurely shutting down reliable energy sources such as coal, gas and nuclear. Europe is facing a long, dark winter.
In fossil-fuel-rich Australia, the energy transition will be a massive economic adjustment, and very expensive. Large-scale electrification of transport and industrial processes will require several multiples of the existing generation capacity.
To reach net zero emissions by 2050 and shut off all coal-fired power, Australia will need to build the equivalent of 50 Snowy Hydro schemes, according to the Energy Security Board. Or seven times the capacity of the National Electricity Market that has been built over the past 24 years.
Is this realistically possible?
Just to reach the 43 per cent emissions reduction target by 2030, which Australia is already halfway to achieving, Energy Minister Chris Bowen says Australia will need to build 40 seven-megawatt wind turbines every month, or almost 4000 in total.
At the same time, more than 220,000 500-watt solar panels will need to be installed every day, and a total of 60 million by the end of the decade.
Will voters accept thousands of wind turbines in their communities? How environmentally friendly is this?
There will be legal challenges from landholders and not-in-my-back-yard (NIMBY) protests that will add to costs and delays.
Moreover, when much of the world is aiming for net zero and competing for scarce resources, there will be shortages of materials and skilled labour to construct the new energy system.
China controls the supply of many of the critical technologies and minerals the world requires for renewable energy. It is a big risk to rely on a recalcitrant China.
Locally, the energy shift will require $320 billion of investment, operating and maintenance costs by 2050, the Australian Energy Market Operator estimates. There will be real costs borne by consumers, businesses and taxpayers.
Claims that the shift to clean energy will create thousands more jobs and boost the economy don’t make much sense for a fossil-fuel-rich economy.
Australia has a relatively high rate of emissions – about double the rate of Europe and the UK in carbon dioxide equivalent per person terms.
Australia’s resource and energy exports are forecast to reach a record $450 billion in 2022–23, according to the Department of Industry, Science and Resources. Earnings from liquefied natural gas are forecast to reach $90 billion, and thermal and metallurgical coal are expected to deliver about $120 billion.
As a result, Australia’s terms of trade – export prices relative to import prices – are at a record high and delivering massive national income windfalls to the federal and state governments and shareholders.
In Queensland alone, resource and land royalties delivered the state government $9.1 billion last year – about 12 per cent of the state’s total revenue.
Fossil fuels are propping up the federal budget and funding services like aged care, healthcare and the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Prematurely shutting down fossil fuels will leave less money for these social services.
Even if green hydrogen becomes viable at scale and exports increase significantly for metals used intensively in low-emission technologies such as copper, nickel and lithium, these are very unlikely to replace the lost income from coal and gas.
Our political leaders and energy experts must be very frank with the public about the enormity of the task and the financial pain people will feel along the way. Without honesty, public support for the energy shift will be lost.
The transition will be expensive, not cheap as we’ve been led to believe. Labor’s $275 cheaper power bill claim during the election campaign was always dubious, even before the Ukraine war began. Now, electricity prices are forecast to rise 56 per cent and gas prices are tipped to increase by 40 per cent.
In Victoria, Premier Daniel Andrews says: “Unreliable, privatised coal will be replaced by clean, government-owned renewable energy.”
Victoria will ban coal-fired power by 2035. An outright ban is risky. Governments have a poor track record of picking technology winners. Are we really confident enough about the future energy mix 13 years from now?
The world is highly uncertain. Less than a year ago, Germany didn’t expect to be rebooting coal and nuclear to keep the lights on.
The claim that we can have cleaner energy, more reliable power and cheaper bills sounds too good to be true. Renewables may indeed be the cheapest marginal cost of energy when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. But that ignores the total system costs of the supportive energy system infrastructure required to provide reliable, on-demand power when renewables are not available.
The dilemma is that intermittent renewables are making fossil fuels, particularly coal, less economic or unprofitable to run. Hence, coal-fired power plants are shutting early, eliminating historically reliable and cheap forms of power from the grid.
Paradoxically, the lack of a sensible economy-wide carbon price has overburdened the energy sector in reducing emissions and denied certainty to invest in baseload power.
Now, the journey we are embarking on – with governments picking technology winners, and blunt regulations such as banning coal and nuclear – will be a monumental disruption to the economy, business and households. The path will be bumpy and unpredictable.
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Reagan said the right things, but didn’t do much to rein in big government.
He did actually. The spending increases were to show the Soviets they were totally outmatched in every possible way. He succeeded.
https://www.hoover.org/research/ten-legacies-ronald-reagan
I’d also include Trump as a nice guy, but not if you crossed him or demonstrated incompetence. Don’t laugh. Trump was a nice -guy president.
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Every argument Tucker puts against affirmative selection and race based selection can be used against The fucking Voice. There is no reason why 3rd nations merit any preference of policy. If The Voice gets up and the constitution is altered then not only will 3rd nations have enormous legal power by reference to that new constitutional code but the great social corrosive of double standards now destroying the US will gain impetus here:
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Cassie of Sydney says:
November 2, 2022 at 8:20 amBit late, but great post and Rant Cassie.
I envy those who remain clueless about what’s going around them. We’re witnessing in real time the total denigration, corruption and capitulation of all of our institutions…….
I swear I feel the same way sometimes. We older conservative generations are seen as an anachronism – a curiosity not unlike dinosaurs that belong to an earlier time. Our opinions are ignored and our advice often ridiculed. Assuming we can even have our voice heard on anything approaching mass media. Government omnipresence and omnipotence, aided and abetted by the MSM and a civilian ‘army’ of informers and social media silencers, increase their reach daily yet most of the public seem oblivious or resigned.
IMO, western civilisation (as we knew it) is already dead and what passes for western civilisation today, is in terminal decline. The novel 1984 seems to be a de facto guide or instruction manual for the Left. I remember reading that book at school back in the late ’60s and we all thought it was frightening, yet ridiculously far-fetched. Would we say the same thing today?
And Milligan is just a small part of a gigantic upending of society. In the future, she will be lauded as a ‘trail blazer’. And it isn’t that change is bad – society needs to change, to evolve – but as we see everywhere, those who question any aspect of that change are usually silenced or hounded. The Left will not tolerate dissent and have fully captured governments and the MSM which have, in turn, marshalled a vast army of useful idiots to carry out their will upon the unthinking masses.
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I work in automotive industry where we are going electric by choice or force.
Sad for you Fair Shake. The industry may be doing that but the punters sure aren’t. They’re not stupid.
When the new ICE car bans come in used ICE car prices will rise and rise. The difference in performance is too large, and the price differential too vast even with subsidies. And the longer this madness goes on the bigger the squeeze for lithium and cobalt. Supply cannot keep up with demand, so the price will rise to the clearing point – thus EV prices are going to stay too expensive for at least two decades. We’re already seeing opposition from the greens against lithium extraction. Plus that most processing is done in China, which is rapidly becoming a place to get right out of.
This is all so obvious, yet the elites can’t seem to see any of it.
I’ve just now been reading an old article that Glenn Reynolds has repeated today at Instapundit. It fits very well with this:
Glenn Harlan Reynolds: Progressives can’t get past the Knowledge Problem (2010)
It’s about Obamacare but could equally be about the EV push. As the article points out Hayek argued all this in 1945, and got a Nobel for it. That has been forgotten by the nomenklatura, not least because Hayek is their class-enemy.
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IMO, western civilisation (as we knew it) is already dead and what passes for western civilisation today, is in terminal decline.
One of the best indicators is the proliferation of the almost porn shows – like “Marriage at first sight” on televisions. Most of what we see on commercial television documents perfectly the moral and intellectual decline of western society.
Husband and I watch the progress of it all with a mixture of horror, bewilderment and profound sorrow.
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On the question of forgive and forget
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Report issued yesterday.
Adamas Intelligences’ new ‘State of Charge’ report finds global passenger EV registrations jumped 42pc in the first half of 2022 driven by surging sales growth in the Asia Pacific (up 75pc year-over-year), modest growth in the Americas (19pc year-over-year) and Europe (10pc year-over-year).
In the Asia Pacific region specifically, a 75pc increase in EV sales year-over-year in the first half of 2022 translated to a massive 118% increase in watt-hours of battery capacity deployed onto roads over the same period the year prior, and a corresponding 113% increase in lithium.
“The total global battery capacity deployed onto roads in all regions combined amounted to a hefty 195.5 GWh, 79 per cent more than was deployed globally in the first half of 2021,” the research firm states.
“Tesla continued to lead the pack by battery capacity deployed onto roads globally, installing nearly as many watt-hours into newly sold EVs as its four closest competitors combined.”
Meanwhile, just seven cell suppliers globally (CATL, LG Energy Solution, Panasonic, BYD, SK On, Samsung SDI and CALB) were collectively responsible for more than 82pc of all battery capacity and battery metals deployed onto roads globally in passenger EVs in the first half of 2022.
Interestingly, Adamas adds around 117,200t of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) was deployed onto roads globally in the batteries of all newly sold passenger EVs combined, 76% more than were deployed globally in the first half of 2021.
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Hey, Rotten
You’re a blow in
fuck offStay as long as you like, Johnny Rotten.
The troll is the blow-in. He’s on his 50th+ fake email address. He’s part of the unelected state public service parasitocracy who have tried to persecute the rest of us since 2020.
The parasites have no skin in the game, but live off our taxes.
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Vickisays:
November 2, 2022 at 5:55 pm
Water Dragons what do you feed them?I hate to tell you this! Husband mostly feeds them cheese – and they love it! Meat, of course, is favoured as well.
Thanks will try both – love the way the water dragons go down the side of the pool, across the bottom and up the other side – also have a number of baby geckos
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Much to his credit, Bolsonaro was a leading global figure against the corona & vax scams, eating pizza in the streets of New York when visiting the United Nations, because he remained officially unvaxed and thus not allowed into NYC restaurants.
Cool.
Lula is just another ass wiper … . His supporters hired someone to stab Bolsonaro in the stomach at a public rally during the last election. He almost died. It was an MK Ultra operation, the stabber being mentally ill and groomed.
I don’t recall reading about that in the Aussie Media.
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A carload of tourists ignored the signs at a lion park near Capetown a few years ago, got out of their car to take a few “Happy snaps” and finished up as lunch….their embassy got most upset when the South Africans refused to shoot the lions…
In maybe the early 1970s there was a Wanneroo Lion Park. From memory the sign said ‘Pommies on pushbikes admitted free’.
One day a martial arts fancier decided to show his skills.
Lion 1, Bruce Lee Wannabee 0. -
Speedbox says:
November 2, 2022 at 5:52 pmAnd Milligan is just a small part of a gigantic upending of society. In the future, she will be lauded as a ‘trail blazer’. And it isn’t that change is bad – society needs to change, to evolve
Society needs to change?
If you look at history, it’s an endless repeat of what went on before.
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