I’ll have such a tattoo – on my arze!
Open Thread – Tue 1 Nov 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
Might have been the Chinese copy.
Definitely not the country we grew up in. ” A Sydney tattoo parlour has offered free tattoos of Hezbollah leader…
I know a bloke who broke wind – loud and long – during a “Welcome to Country.” His nickname, ever…
Twiki @timtron202017hMissed this from Day 12 of the #DawnSturgess inquiry, 6 Nov. Dr Soar and Prof Nolan say DSTL told…
Dems, MSNBC, but I repeat myself, still repeating the lie that Sicknick was killed on J6. Disgusting people. The worst.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Bearesays:
November 2, 2022 at 10:52 am
Endless Summer
The grassy knoll replaced by a greasy knob. Even the conspiracy theories are worse these days.
Johnny Rotten:
Looxury!
One of those experiences in South Africa, years ago, was being at close quarters, to a pride of lions, in a safari jeep. To the lions, a safari jeep is just a big noisy object that poses no threat, but, if someone in the jeep stands up, showing they have two legs, then they are on the menu…
Sydney african lion safari.
1995 – Lion escaped and killed a local dog.
The main man needs to be a woman. Nobody notices the underlings.
Sancho:
Double wrong, Sancho.
The East German Stasi was an interesting exercise in the pliability of ideological fervour, they put on scores of ex Abwehr/Gestapo agents after the war. Ideology wasn’t an issue, the Communists only wanted thugs who knew the territory and the people and were as happy as pigs in shit just carrying out their orders.
Apparently the two sides got on quite well.
Neilson is just made for America – as a Hollywood reporter.
On Sunday our time, she giggled along with a Never Trump Republican from Arizona totally opposed to election integrity and all efforts to examine 2020’s presidential election results.
Like 99% of Australian journalists, Neilson has no problem with the Democratic Party’s radical anti-American agenda and is not even curious about how they’re trying to sell it.
Appoint a Watchdog for Ukraine Aid – Bloomberg
More transparency over how billions are being spent would protect US taxpayers and sustain political support for the war.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, the Kyiv government has received more than $60 billion in security and humanitarian assistance from the US, making it by far the world’s biggest annual recipient of such aid. Now some Republican leaders want to toughen oversight over how those funds are being spent. They’re right to do so.
The scale of the aid effort is unprecedented. In just seven months, the US has provided Ukraine with nearly double what it gave all of western Europe on an annual basis during the Marshall Plan in real terms. Support for Ukraine’s military this year equals what the US provided Israel, Egypt and Afghanistan combined in 2020. Washington has accounted for two-thirds of all military and humanitarian assistance offered to Ukraine since the start of the war; in dollar terms, it has contributed twice as much as the entire European Union.
Pentagon: United States Military Personnel Operating in Ukraine to Track Weaponry
An interesting take on the whole imbroglio, Ted.
Does a conviction mean no recourse to damages? If so, there’s a whole pile of influential people who will want the “correct” verdict.
Fully Vaccinated and Boosted Food Writer Julie Powell, Author of ‘Julie & Julia,’ Dead From Cardiac Arrest at 49
The writer had also tweeted about being vaccinated and boosted several times.
“So, as a vaccinated, boosted person, I’ve not been tested for Covid. Is it possible for me to be at this point? The Long Covid thing worries me, but also keep in mind that I’m a hypochondriac,” Powell tweeted in June.
Powell also tweeted about not allowing unvaccinated relatives into her home.
“My cousin won’t get vaccinated and I don’t want to allow him in the house with my niece and nephew who are too young to be vaccinated,” she wrote in October, 2021.
Megyn Kelly throws shade on Paul Pelosi investigation: ‘The SFPD has egg on its face’
Megyn Kelly isn’t buying the San Francisco Police Department’s version of events as it investigates the assault on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband.
“I know enough to smell a rat,” the former Fox News and NBC star said during her podcast on Monday.
During an interview with Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on her SiriusXM podcast on Monday, Kelly blasted any notion that the attack on Paul Pelosi, 82, was politically motivated, pointing out that the suspect, David DePape, 42, is a “lunatic.”
“I feel like at a minimum, the SFPD has egg on its face because even under the most generous story to Paul Pelosi and to the San Francisco police, they were in the house when this guy attacked Paul Pelosi with a hammer,” Kelly said.
“I’m not sure how that happened,” the former Fox News primetime star continued. “How do you have police officers on site and an 82-year-old gets attacked with a hammer in front of you when you have a gun as a police officer?”
Kelly added: “It’s one of the many questions here. As you point out, there are security cameras all over that house. You can see them from the outside – were they turned on?”
“If not, why not? She’s the speaker of the House.”
Kelly noted that “far less known public figures than Nancy Pelosi have taken extra security measures in and around San Francisco, given how high the crime rate is there, it would be insane for them not to have their cameras on.”
She agreed with Cotton’s call for the police to release bodycam footage of officers’ arrival at the home.
“Let’s see it,” Kelly said. “Let’s see it all. I don’t know what went on. I know enough to smell a rat. There’s something going on here that they’re not telling us. I just don’t know what it is.”
Elon Musk reveals price of ‘Twitter Blue’ after viral Stephen King tweet, slams ‘lords and peasants’ system
Twitter boss Elon Musk slammed the social media platform’s “blue check” verification system on Tuesday, calling it “bulls–t” for effectively creating what he likened to a caste system among users.
Musk criticized the blue checks while touting his planned changes to the subscription service “Twitter Blue.” The billionaire said he plans to charge users $8 per month to receive verified status and receive other perks.
“Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bulls–t,” Musk tweeted. “Power to the people! Blue for $8/month.”
Musk, who is currently serving as Twitter’s CEO, detailed several other notable tweaks to the “Twitter Blue” service. He noted that subscribers will get “priority” placement in “replies, mentions & search” — a feature he described as “essential to defeat spam/scam.”
The $8-per-month figure will be “adjusted by country proportionate to purchasing power parity,” according to Musk.
“Doctors are baffled”.
“You Murderous Hypocrites”: Outrage Ensues After The Atlantic Suggests ‘Amnesty’ For Pandemic Authoritarians
The Atlantic has come under fire for suggesting that all the terrible pandemic-era decisions over lockdowns, school closures, masking, and punishing an entire class of people who questioned the efficacy and wisdom of taking a rushed, experimental vaccine – for a virus with a 99% survival rate in most, should all be water under the bridge.
“We need to forgive one another for what we did and said when we were in the dark about COVID,” writes Brown Professor Emily Oster – a huge lockdown proponent, who now pleads from mercy from the once-shunned.
“Let’s acknowledge that we made complicated choices in the face of deep uncertainty, and then try to work together to build back and move forward,” she continues.
Except, they weren’t “in the dark” about Covid. There were numerous sources pointing out the actual science that ran contrary to the mandate claims, and they were deliberately silenced by a vast media campaign. Evidence suggests that media platforms worked in tandem with Big Tech, the CDC and the Biden Administration. It was not a simple matter of overreaction, there was collusion to remove all counter-information.
Nice try, Emily.
As the Daily Sceptic’s Michael P. Senger puts it: “There’s a lot wrong here. First, no, you don’t get to advocate policies that do extraordinary harm to others, against their wishes, then say, “We didn’t know any better at the time!” Ignorance doesn’t work as an excuse when the policies involved abrogating your fellow citizens’ rights under an indefinite state of emergency, while censoring and cancelling those who weren’t as ignorant. The inevitable result would be a society in which ignorance and obedience to the opinion of the mob would be the only safe position.”
And look at that ratio:
In one epic Twitter thread, Claremont Institute Senior Fellow Matthew J. Peterson (@docMJP) excoriates Oster’s entire premise;
In one epic Twitter thread, Claremont Institute Senior Fellow Matthew J. Peterson (@docMJP) excoriates Oster’s entire premise;
Hey—sorry you lost your job b/c of the vax that doesn’t work and your grandmother died alone and you couldn’t have a funeral and your brother’s business was needlessly destroyed and your kids have weird heart problems—but let’s just admit we were all wrong and call a truce, eh?
It’s too bad we shut the entire economy down & took on tyrannical powers that have never been used before in this country—looking back, you should have been able to go to church and use public parks while we let people riot in the streets—but it was a confusing time for everyone.
Hey I’m sorry we scared the hell out of you & lied for years & persecuted & censored anyone who disagreed but there was an election going on & we really wanted to beat Donald Trump so it was important to radically politicize the science even if it destroyed your children’s lives.
OK, yes we said unvaccinated people should die & not get healthcare while never questioning Big Pharma once but we are compassionate people which is why even though we shut down the entire economy we also bankrupted the nation & caused inflation. You’re welcome! Let’s be friends.
Anders I disagree with Soviet propaganda got us here. I doubt even the Soviets could have imagined such a scenario as we collectively have brought upon ourselves. I am as guilty as the left are for letting them get away with the drivel spouted by them. We used to ignore this sort of maniac. All it has done is encourage them. I was brought up by one, how I avoided the indoctrination I do not fully understand. Being a lateral thinker may have been a big part of it. As an 8yr old it didn’t make sense.
Whether for Covid or something else, I’m sure they’ll find an excuse somehow.
mocking the PEOPLE
@alextopol
Bill Gates and the Rockefeller’s are funding the destruction of humanity, and the normies laugh it off as a ‘crazy conspiracy theory’.
Trying in parts to beat the “internal server error”.
On the subject of damages after a conviction, if the DPP eventually had to pay the defendant’s full costs for each stage at which the prosecution was unsuccessful (trial, any re-trial, appeals all the way to the High Court), some of the sillier “political” cases would not get far.
Next bit.
Imagine eventually sticking the Victorian DPP with the costs of two Pell trials, the Vicco Supreme Court appeal and the High Court appeal. Though, under this, the DPP would only become liable for the costs of the first trial and the Supreme Court appeal after the final, successful, appeal. Then, they pay for the lot.
How’s that for a “you lot”, m0nty-fa?
Ten stocks to own for the next decade
Emma Rapaport – Markets reporter
WiseTech, REA Group and Suncorp have been named among the 10 stocks to buy and hold for the next decade according to UBS, as foreign investors seek the attractive return profile of Australian equities amid a more challenging global outlook.
Although foreign investors have been dismissive of the local market, UBS equity strategist Richard Schellbach believes this apathy is “set to dissipate” as offshore allocators recognise that Australian equities exhibit the characteristics to stand out in an inflationary and low-growth environment.
This, he says, will propel Australian equities to a “decade of outperformance”, even as global growth continues to track below historical trend rates.
“Over the last 20 years, Australia has largely shed its long-held image as a sleepy former colonial backwater, by firmly integrating itself onto the global stage,” he said.
“But despite Australia’s major cities now being filled with a remarkably talented workforce drawn from all around the world, the investor landscape on the ASX has remained relatively static.
“We believe foreign investor apathy towards Australia is set to dissipate, as offshore investors recognise that Aussie equities have many of the characteristics required to stand out over the next decade.”
In the near term, Mr Schellbach says Australia’s mineral-rich economy and equity market stand out amid inflationary pressures as investors seek overweight exposure to the “causes of inflation as opposed to the victims”. Meanwhile, the resilient Australian consumer continues to spend thanks to huge savings built up during the COVID-19 era.
Longer-term, he says the Australian equity market is exposed to four foundations that can propel it to a decade of outperformance: fast and strong population growth, dividend yields almost double the global average, concentrated industries supporting high-profit margins and companies relatively detached from the global economic cycle.
On income, Mr Schellbach notes that Australian companies pay outsized dividends compared with global peers, with yields typically double that of global equities, giving the income they offer great appeal in a lower equity return world.
Australia’s concentrated industry structure is also likely to appeal to foreign investors – a product of a vast country with a dispersed population, which makes it a hostile environment for new entrants. This translates into less competition, higher prices and higher profit margins.
“For consumers, the outcome of this is bad, ie less choice and expensive prices. But for the businesses already here, this is great, ie less competition and higher margins,” he said.
This year, the Vanguard Australian Shares ETF has outperformed the Vanguard MSCI Index International Shares ETF, with a negative 5.7 per cent return versus negative 11.4 per cent to September 30.
Over a 10-year period, the global fund’s benchmark is ahead, at 8.6 per cent for the local basket and 13.6 per cent for the MSCI World ex-Australia (net dividends reinvested).
Stagnant interest
Foreign ownership of Australian equities witnessed a steep decline in the mid-1990s thanks to the cumulative impact of compulsory superannuation, with Australian workers’ wages pouring into local stocks.
Ownership has recovered somewhat off early-2000 lows of 35 per cent, but remained static for the past two decades, and is currently at 40 per cent.
Mr Schellbach puts that down to foreign investors worrying that overvalued property and the heavily indebted consumer would lead to Australia experiencing a “day of reckoning” akin to the US economy through the 2008 sub-prime crisis.
However, he says housing market fears have largely dissipated alongside rising property prices globally while the Australian consumer has “continued to astound the sceptics”.
“A decade ago, Australia was an outlier in having overvalued property, this is no longer the case with the rest of the world having caught up,” he said.
With a 10-year outlook, UBS has highlighted 10 quality and non-cyclical ASX-listed growth companies to “comfortably own” for the next decade.
Apart from WiseTech, REA Group and Suncorp, included on the list are index heavyweights BHP and Commonwealth Bank of Australia, retail conglomerate Wesfarmers and toll road operator Transurban.
UBS analysts favour international student services and language testing business IDP Education, Tabcorp spin-off Lottery Corp and global engineering group Worley among the small to mid-market caps.
It’s amazing how pre covid people died for all sorts of reasons but now there is only one.
The vaxx, all sorts.
Unvaxxed health workers given green light to return to WA hospitals
Dr Tess Lawrie has posted a commentary on the ubiquitous growing power of the multi, multi millionaires. It is, pardon the pun, “right on the money”.
Who wants to be a billionaire?
On breaking the invisible chains that bind us
Dr Tess Lawrie, MBBCh, PhD?
Today is the last day it’s possible to watch The Real Anthony Fauci movies free of charge. If you haven’t watched these yet, I cannot recommend them enough. We owe Robert F. Kennedy a great debt of gratitude for his lifelong endeavour to bring the pharmaceutical cartels to account and ease the pain of the many casualties of their insatiable greed.
The movies expose the relative ease with which a small elite has manipulated systems of governance to meet their own psychopathic ends. This elite is currently on a strange crusade of colonisation, where the territory being invaded is no longer just land, but people’s bodies and minds. Author of the book 180 Degrees, Feargus O’Connor Greenwood calls them THEY, a handy acronym for ‘The Hierarchy Exploiting You’, this crusading minority. This minority is not faceless, however, and their aims are self-serving, anti-nature and anti-human.
So why are their horrible agendas met with minimal opposition?
In part, because they are rich enough to be able to buy influence and control the media, so they manage the public perception of who they are and the motives behind their insatiable hunger for power. But it’s also because we are conditioned to worship money, and to regard those that make it at all costs as geniuses. Is genius now the ability to make money through rape, pillage, plunder and cunning without detection?
These people are insanely wealthy. Their annual income exceeds that of many countries. In a world where so many of us have become slaves to debt, we have been led to believe that the ability to make money is a quality of utmost importance – if only because we fundamentally long for the freedoms the super-rich apparently possess. Wishing to have what they seem to have, threatens to blind us to the terrible things they do with their money.
We have come to equate money with freedom. That is, the more money you have, the freer you are. We also have an unconscious belief that money equals worth. That is, the more money you have, the better you are.
What a con.
What a breathtakingly ludicrous lie.
We all know this, of course. Fundamentally, we know that money does not bring worth, happiness or freedom. On the deepest level we know that these are our birth right and not tied to money in the slightest. Freedom is a state of being, and cannot be bought and paid for. It doesn’t take a genius to see that these billionaires are far from free.
And yet. Somehow, the conditioning is such that we still aspire to the trappings of wealth. Ubiquitous cultural programming instructs us to base our worth on our pay cheque, to indebt ourselves in order to have the bigger house, the flashier car, and so on. This programming also influences the courses we take, the qualifications we strive for, and facilitate a mental hierarchy in terms of what one has and what one feels entitled to. This is the basis for a class system based on a person’s earning power, the wealth they have come from and the wealth they have amassed.
In such a materialist system, it is only logical that we should celebrate the one per cent who has the most money of all. The glorification of money is so pervasive it’s hardly surprising we fall for the con. There is no blame here – but it’s worth asking ourselves why money has such a powerful hold over us. We would also benefit from being more critical about the medium and long-term aspirations of these misanthropes.
Bill Gates has managed to reinvent himself as a great philanthropist. But his obsession with vaccinating the world has left untold millions harmed and many dead. His influence pervades public health, agriculture, environment and international development, and his actions are hugely damaging, as evidenced in this report from Navdanya International.
Prison Gates 300.jpg
This misanthropic man should be held to account. Instead, he’s lauded as the great benefactor of the world. Equally, there’s been an air of excitement on Twitter since Elon Musk took over. Many are wondering whether he will reinstate all of our suspended accounts, and some see his leadership at Twitter as a victory for free speech. Many seem to look to him as something of a saviour figure – is this a good idea?
Musk may be in the absurd position of having the power to bestow the gift of speaking freely on a social media platform, but this does not make him a great benefactor. He has spoken about incorporating shopping, ecommerce and more into Twitter, which would make it a goldmine in terms of harvesting people’s personal data. He is also littering our skies with thousands upon thousands of satellites, without ever having asked whether this is what we the people would wish for Nature’s ceiling. Is he just a victim of the presumption of billionaires? That money has bought him the freedom to do what he likes, and we should be grateful for whatever this may be?
Let’s stop glorifying money and pierce the veil. These billionaire “philanthropaths”, as Margaret Anna Alice calls them, do not want to help us, they want to enslave us. They want our bodies, our thoughts, our feelings and our data. Rather than glorify them, we can pity them for being so evidently impoverished in spirit. A truly wealthy person would never feel the need to gain more, and certainly not at the expense of others. These poor men clearly have no peace and seek satisfaction in all the wrong places.
How strange, then, that they should see themselves as rich and powerful. How strange that we should aspire to be like them, uncompassionate, anti-human and unloved. We have forgotten the truth written in our very bones: that we are born free and in the lap of nature’s luxurious bounty. Our wealth is our spirit, our relationships, and our connection with our extraordinary planet. We quite literally shine with the light of life itself.
The elite look to us to satisfy their lack and depend on us for power – so let’s stop handing it over. This may be hard to believe, on a personal note, I do feel grateful to Bill Gates et al for pushing me to wake up, recognise my complicity in serving a dysfunctional system, and change my ways. We can blame and bemoan the damage to humanity caused by these men, or we can see this as an opportunity to embark on an exploration that will benefit all who come after us. We can make more conscious choices about where we spend our money, time and attention. We can keep asking ourselves whether we are judging someone on their own merits or their material wealth. And we can take steps to ensure our actions are contributing to the world we wish for, not the one a tiny few have planned for us.
Given the state of the financial system and the ridiculous money printing and spending by our governments, it’s also time to imagine a world where money doesn’t even exist in the way it does now. What might that be like? Having never experienced such a world, it can be hard to imagine. But in the imagining, we start to make it possible.
Effective? – UK Gov. reveals the Triple Vaccinated account for 91% of COVID Deaths since the start of 2022 & the Fully Vaccinated account for over 90% of COVID Deaths since May 2021
Fully Vaccinated and Boosted Food Writer Julie Powell, Author of ‘Julie & Julia,’ Dead From Cardiac Arrest at 49
Recipe for cheaper power is stop treating gas as the enemy
Energy Minister Chris Bowen must set ideology aside and support the critical role of gas in delivering lower emissions, improved reliability and lower prices.
Amanda Stoker – Columnist and former senator
The recipe for cheaper energy in Australia is remarkably simple. But it seems Energy Minister Chris Bowen either can’t – or won’t – do what is necessary to deliver it.
Labor promised cheaper energy and higher wages before May’s election.
October’s budget shows it will deliver neither; its promise for energy bills to be $275 a year cheaper for households and businesses incongruent with budget papers telling Australians to expect a 56 per cent increase in the price of energy over the next two years.
Although Labor is keen to blame the conflict in Ukraine for higher prices, the demand that it has produced is only one part of the story. Let’s face it, Europe’s energy woes were well and truly apparent at the time of May’s promise.
The rest of the cause is home-grown. The good news is that the solution can be too.
The bad news is that it will take a government willing to stop demonising gas and support the role it can play in delivering lower emissions, improved reliability and lower prices.
There are three elements to achieving this goal.
Possible solutions
First, it is vital that our nation does not over-invest in transmission. As state governments have learnt the hard way, the effect of over-building or “gold-plating” networks creates a high fixed component in the price of energy, undermining the benefits of lower energy prices when they are achieved.
It seems from recent announcements that the Albanese government is yet to learn this message. It announced in the budget a $20 billion investment in transmission networks and seeks a further $58 billion of private investment.
Upgrading transmission networks is expensive, and the need to do so is created by over-investment in renewables with insufficient firming capacity; that is, too little gas.
Second, downward pressure is required on the price of gas in the domestic market.
In the USA, there is clear price separation between the export market and the domestic market. The same was emerging in Australia before the last election. The key to ensuring a lower domestic price than is achieved for exported gas is to pump more gas than can be exported through local terminals. A pro-gas attitude from governments is key to achieving this objective.
This is the deal that will deliver prices below $10 a gigajoule, which former ACCC chairman Rod Sims said Australia should be targeting.
But the Albanese government continues to treat gas like the enemy.
The obvious next question is: how do we get gas companies to pump more gas?
It will take more than politicians beating their chests.
There is a practical, sensible deal to be done between the big gas producers – Shell, Origin and Santos – and governments to ensure Australians get what they need for a reasonable price.
Australians need more gas pumped into the network. Gas producers need assistance with the carbon capture and storage pathways that will help them become the low-emission operations they want to be. They need assurances that governments won’t create an adverse environment for investment by changing the rules of the game too wildly or too often, and they need help to work through barriers such as moratoriums on the development of gas fields and unbalanced project approval processes.
Replacing supply
This is the deal that will deliver prices below $10 a gigajoule, which former ACCC chairman Rod Sims said Australia should be targeting.
The third element is to ensure there is enough dispatchable energy in the market. As coal is leaving the market it must be replaced by dispatchable, rather than just intermittent, energy sources.
In the short term, that means removing disincentives to get gas and hydro projects underway, and in the long term it means getting over the dated and ill-informed opposition to nuclear energy.
Any government serious about addressing the cost of living needs to be serious about getting dispatchable energy projects off the ground. Extreme environmental approval processes and dogmatic moratoria might appease the political left, but their effect is to cruelly put the cost of energy out of reach for average Australian households.
The most recent AEMO report into the energy dynamics of the quarter ending September 2022 shows the practical harm done by too little dispatchable energy investment.
It shows that as renewables penetration increases, the intraday demand swing is increasing – in some states to record levels. This means that even though household solar creates an excess of supply (and low cost) in the daytime, consumers in the evening and night market feel massive cost pressure from shortages. At night, with no solar input and variable wind input, gas and hydro sources must meet most of the demand. It is what makes pumped hydro profitable, because it collects the solar surplus from the day market and offers it at a premium at night.
Night consumers suffer from the way that hydro suppliers let the price run up. In the low-competition environment they face, it is no surprise hydro suppliers go for the gouge. But again, more gas is the answer. Lowering the gas price with more supply so that it can add competition in the night market will make a substantial difference for the consumer.
Together, these three measures will lead to reduced emissions, improved reliability and lower prices. It is what Australians of all walks of life want and need.
The only question is whether Bowen can set his pride and ideology aside and act in the national interest.
One simple reason. The U.S. wants war.
5 Signs That The War Between Russia And NATO Is About To Spiral Out Of Control
Ha ha
Pelosi Reportedly Refuses To Hand Over Security Footage, as Neighbors Question Details of Incident
Certainly a threat to her “democracy”
Hillary Clinton: GOP ‘Crazy Violent Hate Rhetoric’ a ‘Threat to the Heart of Our Democracy’
Apparently some lions escaped from their enclosure at Taronga this morning
Yes – we are in Sydney this morning & it has been a source of local interest. Apparently they had a loudspeaker urging residents adjacent to Taronga to “leave your houses”. While that may have been a reasonable instruction for those staying in the tented camp within the zoo, it seems over-the-top for residents as it would seem impossible for lions to escape the confines of the actual zoo.
Everything these days is intended to install maximum fear in people. No wonder the level of anxiety is at an all time high.
Anderssays:
November 2, 2022 at 10:29 am
we see what is happening in the Western countries, it is with puzzlement that we see the practices Russia used to have and that we left behind in the distant past
This is like an arsonist being puzzled why the fire he started in the basement is now engulfing the whole edifice. There is no coincidence or puzzle why the West is following in the footsteps of Soviet Russia – it is Soviet propaganda that brought us here.
I wonder what direction Russia will take in the future once they see how their propaganda has managed to destroy the west? Will they go the same way or will they take a different tangent and preserve their society and culture? Will Putin or whoever jump up one day and yell, “April Fool’s!”
ACLU
@ACLU
The First Amendment bars the government from deciding for us what is true or false, online or anywhere.
Our government can’t use private pressure to get around our constitutional rights.
But they do.
Winston according to Markus Wolf, the head of Foreign Intelligence in the Stasi, the East Germans were terrified of the Nazi’s. This is one of the reasons they resisted unification for so long. They knew there were too many Nazi’s in the West German Government. The Stasi had an agent as advisor to then Chancellor Willy Brandt. At the time he was being used to check on the honesty of negotiations about a possible reunification. Wolf was overruled in exposing of the agent for political purposes as there was a power struggle in the political leadership.
BREAKING: Obama HECKLED in Detroit: ‘Stop provoking nuclear war with Russia’
BREAKING: Netanyahu Wins Outright Majority in Israeli National Elections to be Next Prime Minister
THE QUAINT CUSTOMS OF OUR INNOCENT, LOVING INDIGENOUS PEOPLE:
Before Being Ritually Sacrificed, This Nazca Child Was Drugged With Psychedelics.
Nolte: COVID Tyrants at Left-wing Atlantic Beg for Amnesty
The Demorat-rino establishment is more evil than I ever imagined
The vaxx?
5-jabbed CDC Director Walensky tests COVID-positive for a second time (31 Oct)
Obviously very effective then.
Vickisays:
November 2, 2022 at 12:37 pm
Apparently some lions escaped from their enclosure at Taronga this morning
Apparently they had a loudspeaker urging residents adjacent to Taronga to “leave your houses”. While that may have been a reasonable instruction for those staying in the tented camp within the zoo, it seems over-the-top for residents as it would seem impossible for lions to escape the confines of the actual zoo.
Everything these days is intended to install maximum fear in people. No wonder the level of anxiety is at an all time high.
Zoo executive director Simon Duffy said one adult lion and four cubs were spotted outside their main enclosure at 6:30am Wednesday – but did not get past the second 1.8-metre fence that separates them from the rest of the zoo.
“At no time did the lions exit that area or exit Taronga Zoo,” he told reporters.
“Four of the lions calmly made their way back into their main exhibit and dens and one lion cub was safely tranquillised,” he said.
There were no injuries and all the lions were back in their enclosure within minutes.
“They did breach the (first) containment fence. We don’t have the exact details of how and why that occurred,” Mr Duffy said.
“That is very much a focus of our incident response and the review that will be conducted now.”
Who is right on number of Australians vaccinated against Covid ? Government says 95%, a newscom
sample survey of 45,000 found that 37% claimed they had not been vaccinated against Covid.
https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/australia/covid-poll-a-pulse-check-of-australia-as-we-exit-the-pandemic/news-story/cb910eb5525d0dd24ca38ff5a6240822
Re the Cup yesterday, I caught Wayne Hawkes opining just before the race, explaining that he didn’t much fancy the spruiked Europeans.
His advice was to look at local and recent winning form, mentioning three races, the Caulfield cup, Bendigo cup and Geelong cup.
Stacked up fairly well:
1st Gold Trip (2nd in Caulfield Cup)
2nd. Emissary. (Winner, Geelong Cup)
3rd. High Emocean. (Winner, Bendigo Cup)
Naturally, I ignored everything Wayne said.
Indolentsays:
November 2, 2022 at 12:37 pm
ACLU
@ACLU
The First Amendment bars the government from deciding for us what is true or false, online or anywhere.
Our government can’t use private pressure to get around our constitutional rights.
But they do.
The ACLU getting ready for a Republican Congress?
yes, yes there are. I count three.
Vickisays:
November 2, 2022 at 12:54 pm
Who is right on number of Australians vaccinated against Covid ? Government says 95%, a newscom
sample survey of 45,000 found that 37% claimed they had not been vaccinated against Covid.
https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/australia/covid-poll-a-pulse-check-of-australia-as-we-exit-the-pandemic/news-story/cb910eb5525d0dd24ca38ff5a6240822
As Unvaxed I would find the 37% hard to believe – given the pressures I endured, 95% would be correct
Had my hair cut this morning by my Australian/Philippines Hairdresser and she took my advice – when she had to get Vaccination Certificate to go to Philippines, she had Novavax
Philippines still require Vaccination Certificate as do Japan and US
maybe a kid kicked out a drain grate
“Duty, honour and country?” What are they?
Well, hello…. from Carnarvon….
Ugh…
Holy moly, that’s a big crowd.
Maybe we should not be so convinced that the Green Left have control of the energy agenda:
NOVEMBER 1, 2022 BY JOHN HINDERAKER IN ENERGY POLICY
A TRANSITION TO FOSSIL FUELS IS UNDER WAY
I have been writing for a long time that the alleged transition from fossil fuels to “green” energy is not happening, will not happen, and can not happen. At Watts Up With That, Vijay Jayaraj notes that the opposite is true. Links omitted:
Despite the fanfare surrounding wind and solar, the world’s dependency on fossil fuels is increasing. Last week, Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser said that the world is now “transitioning to coal.”
Not a headline you are likely to see in the New York Times.
Saad al-Kaabi, Energy Minister of Qatar, says, “Many countries particularly in Europe which had been strong advocates of green energy and carbon-free future have made a sudden and sharp U-turn. Today, coal burning is once again on the rise reaching its highest levels since 2014.”
They are right. Global coal demand will reach an historic high in 2022, similar to 2013’s record levels. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), “Global coal consumption is forecast to rise by 0.7 percent in 2022 to 8 billion tons…. Coal consumption in the European Union is expected to rise by seven percent in 2022 on top of last year’s 14 percent jump.”
Coal will continue to be a sought-after energy source as “rising gas prices after 2030 will make existing coal-fired generation more economic,” the IEA says. Global energy demand will grow by 47 percent from now through 2050, and oil is expected to be the major source of energy.
Happily, the United States has vast, almost endless, reserves of coal. In recent years there has been a transition, not from coal to renewables, but from coal to natural gas. But that could change:
Analysts are projecting “a huge gas-to-coal fuel transition in power and industrial sectors” of Europe. Yes, not gas to renewables, but gas to coal. In fact, the European Union’s coal consumption grew 16 percent year-on-year for the first half of 2022. European countries imported 7.9 million tons of thermal coal in June, more than doubling year-on-year. Annual coal imports are expected to reach 100 million tons by the end of the year, the highest since 2017.
Even in the most developed economies of the West like Germany and the UK, fossil fuels continue to dominate as the only dependable source of energy. Germany is set to become the third highest importer of Indonesian coal in 2023, ranked just below coal-guzzling China and India.
AP says, “Coal, long treated as a legacy fuel in Europe, is now helping the continent safeguard its power supply and cope with the dramatic rise in natural gas prices caused by the war.” Rather than wind or solar, it is coal that is keeping the lights on in Europe.
More at the link, concluding with this:
Qatar’s Saad Al-Kaabi says that European ”green” policies are responsible for high energy prices and that leaders in the West “don’t have a plan.” Energy shortages have forced them to return to the most dependable sources — coal and oil. They are now scampering to ensure energy security for winter, when many believe likely that there will be power blackouts in the UK and Germany.
On the remaining bit of 21stC science that actually, like, works, I’m very happy Elon’s rocket went well overnight.
SpaceX nails booster landings after foggy military launch (1 Nov)
This story answered a question I’d had: were they going to recover the central booster? Sounds like they needed all the delta-V they could get, so no. It’d be nice to know if they used an old booster for the core though; a 14-times used rocket going to its final grave in the Atlantic would be a fine epitaph to a good and faithful servant.
Here’s SpaceX’s tweeted vid of the side boosters landing, like ballet:
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1587442127214034944
Bolsonaro is playing a very strategic game.
Notice he hasn’t said squat since the election. He knows anything he says will be twisted to be a ‘call to arms’ by the MSM.
OldOzzie says:
November 2, 2022 at 1:08 pm
Vickisays:
November 2, 2022 at 12:54 pm
Who is right on number of Australians vaccinated against Covid ? Government says 95%, a newscom
sample survey of 45,000 found that 37% claimed they had not been vaccinated against Covid.
I don’t know who is correct but 95% is unbelievable! I meet lots of people in Perth who tell me they are unvaxxed, far more that 5% of the people that I meet.
When you look at other countries a figure of 75% looks more like the truth. I don’t believe anything the government says about anything.
“leave your houses”
Mongocracy Emergency Response
Lions perspective: Not much to eat around here, oh hang on! All those boxes just started releasing snacks!!!
We should ask Bruce Pascoe about that.
Ancient DNA analysis sheds light on the early peopling of South America (Phys.org, 1 Nov)
I know. They were Aboriginal sailors who jumped ship from the world’s first nuclear aircraft carrier 30,000 years ago. Bruce will give a detailed account in his next book, I expect.
(Actually the finding of significant neanderthal heritage in NE Brazil especially is really interesting. That sounds like the neanderthals might’ve crossed the ice from Europe to N America in the last ice ages, via Iceland, then moved down the east coast.)
and appeal to young people’s sense of duty to build a stronger military
You need to have something worth defending. The rebranding to “unpredictable shithole” may have been short sighted.
Yes the whole COVID shit show was political terrorism.
The political meja class making ’em jump. How I loathe and despise them.
With whom does Emily Oster want an amnesty? Moms, so they will return to the democratic fold
Just another cynical attempt to ask women to forget the harms of the last few years.
Emily Burns – Nov 1
We are still a long ways from a place where a COVID amnesty can be granted.
The political establishment—left and right—want desperately to move on, to pretend the last 30 months didn’t happen. With very few exceptions (Ron DeSantis, Kirsti Noem, Rand Paul, Thomas Massie, Ron Johnson, and a few others, later), they betrayed their core values. Many Republicans and so-called Libertarians quickly capitulated the primacy and importance of individual liberties. Whereas supposedly equality-loving democrats embraced policies that in no uncertain terms screwed women, children and the poor. The 2020 democrat campaign slogan might as well have been “protect the rich, infect the poor.” Or “only the rich need to learn.” They’d all very much like that you forget about that. They’d like to go back to the fights they know how to fight, the golden oldies that turn the bases out, and turn us against each other. But COVID policies turned the whole thing on its side, jumbling us all up and causing all sort of hitherto unheard of alliances. And when your business is maintaining the status quo, that is very dangerous.
Which is why Emily Oster is pleading for an amnesty.
First, let’s be clear to whom Emily Oster is speaking. She’s speaking to the furious well-educated suburban women who are swinging towards Republicans in this cycle, even in the bluest of states.
Because it was the bluest of states that were hit hardest by these policies. It was in blue states that the schools were closed longest, that the economic devastation was worst, that crime spiked the most, where masks were required longest. The damage done by these policies is at its beginning, not its end. Dr. Oster, would like these women to believe that it was all just a mistake, a mis-understanding, and remember that it is the Republicans who are looking to limit their freedoms. That while democrats had no problem sacrificing the well-being of your living children for three years in support political power, it is Republicans that pose a true threat to you as a woman.
The problem for Emily is that while the hardcore democrat base of women voters never questioned any of these policies, others did—and they incurred significant personal costs for doing so.
An embarrassing portion of well-educated women acted as the regime’s stormtroopers. They sicced social media mobs on any who dared to voice a question, much less dissent. The pain of having family, friends and neighbors turn on you for voicing an opinion or asking a legitimate question caused many women to seek out others with similar questions.
In so doing, we found a smart, snarky, data-driven community pushing back hard on the totalizing power of a government trying to re-define reality. In some cases women were the generals, in others we were the infantry, going forward and taking constant fire from above, so that some recently discredited truth might once again retake its rightful place in the sun of acceptable opinion.
Emily Oster would like us to forget that. But we can’t—and I hope we won’t—because we were there bringing the government’s own data to shine a light on the lies it so ceaselessly manufactured. These weren’t lies of omission, they were lies of commission. They were lies that were wrought by smelting the credibility of science and medicine in the fires of politics to create weapons wielded by the powerful against us. They literally called us terrorists for our opposition.
Now, after having been called terrorists by our governments for arguing for the well-being of our own children, Dr. Oster wants us to forget that. In asking us to forget, she beseeches those who strayed from the flock to return, to believe that it is not their shepherd who takes them to slaughter that would do them harm, but the wolf lurking unseen in the shadows of the wood.
Struthsays:
November 2, 2022 at 8:37 am
Good Mourning.
There are thousands of news items coming out now.
Everyone talking about the death rates sky rocketing, even on MSM….even by some who were jabbed.
Then we find ourselves here.
Where it isn’t happening and any other theatre provided takes priority.
So the question is….now that the truth comes out…hint..it’s always been there, is the denial greater here than with your average Joe because you prided yourselves on being right wing and a bit more clued in?
Is that what is making you dig your heels in like the evil Rosie, and just clutch at straws?
Why do you keep rabbiting on like this? Did you get jabbed and you didn’t want to or what? I never got jabbed and never will. Maybe go to another website and crap on. Here, you are just a big farking bore…………………So STFU and move one you Tosser…………………………..
BoN, here’s a good discussion on hydrogen/oxygen vs methane /oxygen as rocket fuel.
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=57489.0
Five pages of it.
Vicki,
That news com au survey was interesting.
However it is not beyond Govt to mislead with stats. Not looked for a while but Qld health had a figure for vaxxed at 90% something plus. However the triple jabbed figures showed over 30% not triple jabbed. The 90% plus is now misleading (deliberately ?) as the definition of fully vaxxed is 2 plus booster. I had my 2nd in Sept last year so now considered unvaxxed.
Despite a huge amount of negative information from overseas we still have police and many corporates still requiring triple Vax. It is criminal that if people make their own informed decision it may affect their employment.
The media have failed the country and bear a huge responsibility for what is happening.
Despite a huge amount of negative information from overseas we still have police and many corporates still requiring triple Vax. It is criminal that if people make their own informed decision it may affect their employment.
The media have failed the country and bear a huge responsibility for what is happening.
Which is why there are not enough workers as like me I have just said FARK you and wait until they wake up to themselves. And, lots of workers who have been jabbed are dying………….What a Clever Country this is. NOT…………………………
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.
– The Big Cycle
– How The Big Cycle Works and What’s Now Happening
To review, the Big Cycle is most importantly made up of three big cycles: 1) the long-term debt-money-economic cycle, 2) the internal order-disorder cycle, and 3) the external order-disorder cycle. Together, they determine the levels of financial stability, internal stability (within countries), and international stability (between countries). These levels change via intertwined cycles that reinforce each other, producing both improvements and deteriorations in conditions that together make up the Big Cycle.
– Where We Are in the Three Cycles That Make Up the Big Cycle
As far as where the world is in these three cycles:
1) The long-term debt-money-economic cycle
2) the long-term internal order-disorder cycle.
3) the long-term order-disorder external cycle.
– How the Big Cycle Transpires in Stages
In brief, whether it is an internal or external order cycle, the progression from each order to the next typically progresses in the following sequence of steps:
. Stage 1 is when a) the new order begins after a war, b) the new leadership consolidates power, c) debts are restructured or monetized so debt burdens are reduced, and d) wealth gaps and conflicts over them are reduced, which leads to…
. Stage 2, which is when there is a further consolidation of power and the building of resource allocation systems, which leads to…
. Stage 3, which is when there is peace and prosperity, which leads to…
. Stage 4, which is when there are great excesses in spending and debt and a widening of the wealth and political gaps, which leads to…
. Stage 5, which is when there are bad financial/economic crises and intense conflicts between comparably powerful parties within countries and between countries, which leads to…
. Stage 6, which is when there are wars, which leads to…
Stage 1, Stage 2, etc.
– The Wars
“There are five major kinds of fights between countries: trade/economic wars, technology wars, capital wars, geopolitical wars, and military wars” The first ones on this list tend to come before the last ones and they all tend to become increasingly intense.
– What Do Military Wars Look Like?
Eyrie – Hydrogen embrittlement would be a nightmare for the SpaceX engineers, so methane would make eminent sense for a reusable booster.
That there’s only 6 K between the hydrogen melting and boiling point is a thing I hadn’t thought of before. Having to maintain two separate temperature control systems in a one-use rocket would really suck. Good stuff.
Great show, thanks Bruce of Newc. Amazing to see it landing back at Canaveral where we had been looking just two days ago. We did think of staying to watch, but our schedule was too tight; however, we will make an effort to see the Artemis launch on Monday 14th at quarter past midnight by coming back to Canaveral a little earlier than planned. We have picked out a spot to watch it where we won’t be charged the $US250 they wanted to admit you to the SpaceX viewing platform. Artemis in Greek myth was the female twin of Apollo.
The owners of the media were brought, plain and simple. They didn’t have to pay the government for license fees.
Rabz is the Keeper of the Great Email Seals for Cat Meet-ups at the Pub.
Anyone interested could ask Dover to send Rabz a message or whatever.
Rotten,
The police in particular have lowered their standards and now almost bragging that they are wanting school leavers. However any male taking 3 jabs to get a job is risking more from the Vax than from the virus. It is criminal that it is a requirement and recruiting obviously not making a connection it may be affecting applications.
Who exactly is the triple jab protecting as whoever they are are already mixing with various unjabbed and there is no way of knowing who they are. Then there are the inconsistencies where other Govt Depts don’t require triple jabs or have allowed unvaxxed back to work (ie. SA POL in March).
Lizzie – The chance that Artemis will launch on schedule is verging on zero, unfortunately. I hope you will be lucky, and NASA likewise, but I suspect you’ll be disappointed. The thing seems to be a very expensive lemon.
(On the other hand if landed on you due to a launch mishap it would be a truly epic way to go out.)
A country where you have no right to be, because it was stolen from the indigenous?
Dr. Meryl Nass: More COVID Vaccine Deaths Reported to VAERS than All Other Vaccines | TEASER
A Japanese company and a North American company decided to have a canoe race on the St. Lawrence River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.
On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile. The North Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat.
A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action. Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the North American team had 8 people steering and 1 person rowing.
So, North American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion.
They advised that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing. To prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team’s management structure was totally reorganised to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager. They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 1 person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder.
It was called the “Rowing Team Quality First Program” with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rower. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices, and bonuses.
The next year the Japanese won by two miles. Humiliated, the North American management laid off the rower for poor performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and cancelled all capital investments in new equipment.
The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year’s racing team was outsourced to India.
Musk post regarding the $8 per month ‘Blue’ option on Twitter:
Sounds like he is going after the Youtube/Facebook market.
There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare.
– Sun Tzu
‘This is quite Orwellian’: NZ government introduces language compliance officers
Tucker Carlson: Isn’t this supposed to be a meritocracy?
Sancho:
This subject about male nurses murdering patients suddenly arrived on the thread – where did it come from?
I’m suggesting, Sancho, that you brought it up with the sole intention of linking me with a psychotic killer. That’s the only reason. And I’m also suggesting that you didn’t think of this yourself – someone else suggested it to you.
I’ll take this to the Duelling Thread.
First launches are always extremely iffy. SpaceX are due early next month to attempt a Superheavy launch:
Elon Musk’s SpaceX expects first Starship launch to orbit this year -NASA (1 Nov)
I think Superheavy is even bigger than Artemis, iirc. So far the development of the booster and the Starship second stage have had plenty of problems and failures, as often occurs with new launch systems. Artemis is no different.
In God’s good time down came the rain;
And all the afternoon
On iron roof and window-pane
It drummed a homely tune.
And through the night it pattered still,
And lightsome, gladsome elves
On dripping spout and window-sill
Kept talking to themselves.
It pelted, pelted all day long,
A-singing at its work,
Till every heart took up the song
Way out to Back-o’Bourke.
And every creek a banker ran,
And dams filled overtop;
“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“If this rain doesn’t stop.”
Hanrahan
From a link provided by Rosie:
I bet none of us thought we’d see the day we’d see this for real – two of Elons rockets coming back for refurbishment.
My late father always claimed that Hanrahan was the patron saint of marginal area farmers, in the Eastern Wheatbelt of Western Australia.
Astonishing:
Workers flee Zhengzhou Foxcon factory.
..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9DXebls8Bc
OldOzziesays:
November 2, 2022 at 1:08 pm
Philippines still require Vaccination Certificate as do Japan and US
Russia as well. When Mrs Speedbox checked in for this trip to Russia, the Emirates check-in staff wanted to see the Vac Certificate for both her and Ms Speedbox.
(which was redundant as both were travelling into Russia on their Russian passports and Russian citizens are exempt from the requirement – weirdly, the check-in staff agreed but said it was Emirates policy as they were exiting Australia on their Australian passports.)
ccp goes after apple
Superbly written Cassie – passionate and to the point, albeit rather depressing.
There’s lots to be angry about in the world today. It’s also a lot to be tired being constantly angry about.
What’s the solution? I wish I knew. The challenges we face are serious; we can’t ignore them or laugh them away. The world today is already much different than what it was twenty years ago; give it another twenty and you won’t be able to recognise it, and not for the better.
Anger and stress can be good in moderate amounts as they motive us to do things and try to change the things we don’t like. In larger amounts, they are counterproductive because self-defeating and deadly because (our) self-destroying. We need to be warriors, but we also need to work at trying to be happy warriors.
And paywall bypass for publishers willing to work with us
It’s taking on the Apple News model too.
anyone who thinks the ccp will stop at taiwan is in for a rude awakening
I saw the photo. Looks like the poor suffering mite may have had a rope through its head. Psychedelics and an obsidian knife across the throat was probably intended to relieve symptoms.
I don’t know why you people cannot be open to alternative knowings*.
* This is just my attempt to introduce a pointless nuance in the way post-modernists do to pretend they are profound. Like ‘lived experience’. Here I would be arguing that knowledge is a body of concepts separate from the individual people who know it and meaningless without them. What we call knowledge is only what people know and knowing is the true nature of knowledge.
You know?
The things Elon has done in such a short time is amazing. How does he get the right people. I’d love to spend a week with him, observing. I guess he doesn’t pay people to sit around having meetings all the time. Interesting man.
Musk Suggests Twitter Board Lied to Court; BlackRock’s ESG Agenda Begins to Crumble
Crossroads with JOSHUA PHILIPP
Wolfman – It’s only humans being nutty, the rest of the world is doing just fine.
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.
Louise Milligan made a bunch of lawyers cry?
Never thought I’d see redeeming features in ole Louise, but there you go. She’s got her good points after all.
Global Warming Continues
Big freeze strikes Australia: Antarctic blast lashes the east coast and SNOW dumps just outside Sydney as temperatures plunge to single digits in Melbourne – just four weeks out from summer
. Aussies have woken to a chilly morning as the coast is lashed by icy weather
. Antarctic winds have been dragged north by a bend in the polar jet stream
. The polar jet stream has clashed with the subtropical jet stream across Aus
. Snow has fallen outside Sydney as flood warnings are issued for inland NSW
. Temperatures have plummeted to single digits in Canberra and Melbourne
Well, don’t feed it by sounding paranoid.
(Are you an “elf care perfessional”?)
The discussion was prompted by someone commenting on “The Good Nurse” TeeVee show about a male nurse/serial killer (based on a true story) and someone else observing that this case was not an isolated one. If discussions of popular culture in film and television upset you I can’t help that.
Have you considered that it is not all about you all the time?
Off you go.
Enjoy!
Big_Nambas
When you look at other countries a figure of 75% looks more like the truth. I don’t believe anything the government says about anything.
When the left were out of power, or did not have a stranglehold on it (think 1960s/1970s), this was one of their slogans. Now they have power, they want everyone to believe that everything is hunky-dory. Unfortunately, they lie habitually, and the lies are often plainly obvious, so now they have to overcome popular cynicism. And the reality of their actions does not help them.
Speaking of rocket boosters
It’s time to play “find the falling Chinese rocket” once again
Umbrella futures might be a good investment.
Don’t forget egg_ster!
Top show.
Man, those blokes are creepy with a capital K.
really? Does Polynesia extending to Easter Island not provide a clue. Or are these different genomes?
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.
… and Melanisians as knowsn to have travelled as far as Samoa (Lapita culture).
“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.
Nerd groupie!
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.
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”.
so we have:
arrangement of entrails
maiming (why are they walking in circles?)
defiling
swinging the battle axe with a smile
Anything else which makes a warrior entertaining?
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 employment
This 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.
The jab problem is the same as the Clymutt problem.
Lockstep.
‘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. 😀
Cassie:
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.
No way. They would never.
Just reflecting on the fun, energetic stuff that was TV in the 60’s and the dull, preachy dross dished up to children these days, where everything has a “message”.
No wonder so many of them are overweight and depressed.
I really can’t see why you’d use Atlassian etc.
Outside of marketing, no one with a real job uses Slack etc.
Right there, ML. I’ve had my fair share of nerdy stuff but only on a small industrial scale. Should have patented some things but not in large enough scale of volume to be worth it.
Dot:
She’s an apprentice bunny boiler.
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)
Bibi’s back baby!
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,”
THE KON-TIKI MUSEUM
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!
I’ve worked for a number of fairly big companies and I’ve never seen atlasian programs. Too much microtheft, fair amount of IBM. Lotus notes seems to have fallen from favour.
Ha! The Beloved has been scratching around for something to see in Oslo next June. Definitely going to see the Kon Tiki. Thanks OldOzzie.
Whoops! Not June, November. Will be in Iceland in June.
Holidays lined up like drinks on the bar. Don’t let the buggers keep you down.
Interesting.
Capitol police is the filthy old bitch’s tax payer funded goon squad. It just stinks.
Probably ads for Coles or trips to NZ.
I always stop paying attention when that happens on YouTube.
I thought it died off pre mass internet.
Quite. Socialism 101. Make as many people as possible dependent on the State.
Salvatore:
From Wikipaedia:
Encyclopaedia Britanica:
EB get’s around the problem by calling them coffee plants.
Dot says:
November 2, 2022 at 4:04 pm
Still hanging on as now HCL Notes and HCL Domino,
Mid 00s Lotus notes was a pretty popular email client for corporates.
I suspect it will be the Chinese who are in for a rude awakening if they try a forced take over of Taiwan.
You might be thinking of Lotus 123 Dot.
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.
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.
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, 2022
Believe 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.
“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.”
Yep.
Duncanm:
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.
“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.
Spot on JC. Fuckerberg and Whatsit-thingy are a serious threat to regular citizens.
China RE – still ugly;
Zulu at 2.03 pm
Spot on.
“but its just a bit kitty…” thwack.
About the Atlantic suggestion of forgiveness.
I’ve only seen our sides condemnation of the whole idea – does anyone know if any of the Left think it’s a good idea that we should all thank them for ‘reaching across the aisle?’
Pelosi Home Had Live CCTV Security Feed, Capitol Police Were Not Watching During Attack But There is a Recording
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….
Putin is no doubt an unpleasant arsehole. But he isn’t senile and having his strings pulled by raving loonies.
Outlived Ch Bronson who stole his wife, the wife went willingly may I add.
DrBeauGan says:
November 2, 2022 at 4:39 pm
And the West knocks Putin.
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.
What’s Going on With Joe Biden’s Hand?
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”.
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…
Most normies. You don’t get to a position of power if you’re a nice guy.
From the Comments
– 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.
DrBeauGan says:
November 2, 2022 at 4:55 pm
True, didn’t consider that.
Gaynor seeking costs against burns. What a travesty this guy, Gaynor has been subject to.
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.
Comments at the “Daily Mail” about the Melbourne cup – getting drunk and passing out is known as “doing a Brittany…”
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.
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.
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.
https://www.livewiremarkets.com/wires/we-ve-had-the-housing-boom-here-comes-the-house-price-bust
Vickisays:
November 2, 2022 at 5:00 pm
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.
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
Reagan?
Can’t Gaynor have this guy declared a “vexatious litigant?”
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.
The awful aspect of the Gaynor saga is the succession of beaks who believed that their opinions trumped the law.
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.
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!”
As a kid in the 60’s Illya Kuryakin was my favourite character on TV.
If your opponent is of choleric temper, irritate him.
– Sun Tzu
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.
This whole Pelosi thing reeks.
The US is truly rooted if this is covered up and washed down the drain-hole so close to the Primaries.
I watched most of those shows but can’t quite admit to have grown up.
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.
Common Vax such as polio, common flu and whooping cough.
All those contain Snake Venom to generate an Immune Response.
And the authorities admitted those Vaccines could cause death, but claimed Covid was the safest yet.
Hey, Rotten
You’re a blow in
fuck off
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.
I’m glad you enjoyed those 60’s “hoofers”, Cats.
McCallum’s ex wife was the lovely Jill Ireland, who then married Charles Bronson. The poor lady died of breast cancer.
Trekkies (TOS) will remember her as Leila, Spock’s love interest in “This Side of Paradise”.
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.
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.
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:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T9GwpuAKIg
Cassie of Sydney says:
November 2, 2022 at 8:20 am
Bit 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.
Barnes & Baris have moved their Senate prediction to the GOP at 53 or higher.
The House they are at 240 or higher.
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.
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.
It’s gallows humour that margin of fraud replaces margin of error when professional pundits are discussing elections.
My mother puts her overripe bananas out on the back lawn and the water dragons will run over from the pool area and gobble them down.
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.
On the question of forgive and forget
Pastor acquitted after being arrested when police helicopter found church gathering outside during pandemic
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.
Stay 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.
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
Cool.
I don’t recall reading about that in the Aussie Media.
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 pm
Society needs to change?
If you look at history, it’s an endless repeat of what went on before.