Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence, Caravaggio, 1609
1,623 thoughts on “Open Thread – Christmas Weekend 2022”
OK, peoples. I apologise for the “regrettable” tenor of some of the comments above, but I am not happy (again).
Just spent the second Christmas Day in a row languishing in the cottage by myself, contemplating the navel.
My stupid bloody family made the mediocrity of yesterday even worse by blundering into the “contemplation time” to advise me that a certain sibling of mine might just be knock, knock, knocking on Hell’s* door.
This is a no win situation, Cats.
I sell out and “do the right thing” by turning up at his hospital bedside and engage in an entirely superficial “I’m here for you in your final moments on this planet” bullshit, or I just ignore them all and accept that any kind of reconciliation becomes an even more remote possibility.
Or I could turn up at the funeral and provoke “an international incident”.
To make matters worse, Miss Emily is overseas and has been incommunicado. Except I couldn’t in any correct consciousness drag her into this toxic swamp.
Any advice would be much appreciated, Cats.
*He’s not going to any heaven, in this universe or any other.
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“Perhaps it’s time to stop commenting on a Party you’ve never supported or voted for?”
Oh fuck off.
Sorry Dover, that’s appropriate language.
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Gez – cousin and I used to play on the CB in the cabin of the CFA Austin housed in his dads shed – we didn’t know at the time we were going out on the airwaves – got a bit of a shock when the response came in from the captain. Lost their house and outbuildings in Ash Wednesday while my uncle was out elsewhere on the truck – many inopportune stalls from petrol vaporising in the fuel lines. I recall they got a third hand Acco next.
1
Hands up everyone who wants to read about people going to the toilet.
That was stimulated by Dover’s enthusiasm for the middle ages. There is definitely a downside to living in them.
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Swearing, I don’t like it except in the company of similar men, when Dover first began this fine blog, there was talk of Chesterfield couches, whiskey and polite dignified conversations. I still hang around but it’s more like going to the pub, but not the main bar, but the Ladies Lounge, unfortunately like all our once fine institutions the Ladies Lounge has devolved into something worse than the main bar.
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Rabz, always a spare bedroom here for a night or two, as long as you don’t overstay. I always look forward to some conversation.
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“Perhaps it’s time to stop commenting on a Party you’ve never supported or voted for?”
Yeah sure buddy.
Pauline Hanson isn’t allowed to criticise the Greens.
You have to be fairly dumb to fall for this gaslighting nonsense.
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Sad to hear about that Rabz. Best wishes from me, if that counts for anything.
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DrBeauGansays:
December 26, 2022 at 7:37 pm
Hands up everyone who wants to read about people going to the toilet.
That was stimulated by Dover’s enthusiasm for the middle ages. There is definitely a downside to living in them.
Only if they wash their hands………………………lol
3
Rabz go see your sibling, you aren’t going to regret doing so.
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Ignore them Rabz.
Fold, and they’ll be into you like a pack of wild dogs forevermore.
Genuine opinion. If they’re not worth saving, walk away. ‘Blood is thicker than water’ works both ways.
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And I don’t get quibbling about a gas lamp in a story where children can sometimes get into a different universe from the back of a wardrobe,where time doesn’t exist in the same way as ours, meet talking lions who can bring statues to life etc etc
1
Any advice would be much appreciated, Cats.
..
Go there to score nurses.
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… when Dover first began this fine blog, there was talk of Chesterfield couches, whiskey and polite dignified conversations.
Don’t recall that fantasy, but, whatever?
This blog under Davidson and since has always been light reading.
Until the Brittany Higgins affair.
A number of commenters used the blog to libel and defame Higgins in the vilest of terms.
You didn’t speak up then, so babbling about Chesterfield couches and assorted whatnots doesn’t cut it now.
2
Martin Armstrong shilling and trying to rehabilitate himself after stealing 3 billion USD from Japanese investors is incredibly really.
It’s amazing how he grifted onto civil liberties issues to give himself an air of credibility.
Like any good cockroach, he’ll say anything to get noticed.
1
The gas lamp came from London, DrBeau. It was originally a bar from a street lamp and made its way there as Narnia was “growing”.
It was hurled into the ground and grew, much like a cutting.
The gas is magical, like everything else.
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The lamp near Mr. Tumnus’s home grew from the iron bar off the gas street lamp which the Witch tore off when she was in London.
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I find the idea of a faun in a scarf with a predilection to treachery far more interesting than drop dunnies in Cair Paravel.
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Farmer Gezsays:
December 26, 2022 at 5:41 pm
An Acco 1510 V8 petrol you say sfw.
Typical shiny arsed MFB.
Try a 58 Austin …
I’ll see you and raise you a Morris Commercial.
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Queen Jadis of Charn, to be precise.
Nasty piece of work.
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“I don’t believe in magic, but I believe in a big bang without causation”
Ooh very clever. Your brain fits in a bucket and it knows beyond any doubt theists are wrong because someone else did an experiment* with particles that not only we can’t see but pop in and out of existence.
*That cannot prove, but can falsify a null hypothesis asymptotically approaching zero probability, by design.
Great stories.
I started to reread the Magician Nephew recently but the uncle was so horrid I left off and read something else.
Must have another go at it.
Rabzsays:
December 26, 2022 at 7:36 pm
Tuff choice mate. I followed the superficial path once by attending a funeral and regretted it ever since. Follow your instincts.
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I appreciate Mrs Beaver though. She wanted to escape the terror of the wolves, but not without her sewing machine.
😀
2
And she made marmalade roll.
1
Rabz,
Go do your last visit.
More likely than not, the conversation will confirm your feelings and you’ll live happily ever after knowing that you did your bit, and yet, they doubled down.
That you’re even contemplating it means a final confirmation will be cathartic, and guarantee you never succumb to lingering (but unresolvable) doubt.
I speak from experience.
Regardless, the “international incident” can still happen at the funeral. The undeserved guishing praise and outright lies, can become too much.
Again, I speak from experience.
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I sell out and “do the right thing” by turning up at his hospital bedside and engage in an entirely superficial “I’m here for you in your final moments on this planet” bullshit, or I just ignore them all and accept that any kind of reconciliation becomes an even more remote possibility.
Go.
Blame me. I made you do it. If, by a slim (or more likely, wide) chance, it all turns to shyte, blame me again. With bells on.
Just…go.
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Follow your instincts.
I have a whole tribe of cousins on my sainted Mother’s side that are complete dunderheads. Not worth a pinch of shit, the lot of them – the sole exception being the one that died of cancer 20 years ago.
The entire crew were born and raised and live in Ballarat. That they didn’t move at the first opportunity says much. There are no fathers alive. My three aunts responsible for this travesty are, it hardly needs to be said, complete nuffers.
Dickheads all. There is a reason I stopped interacting with them decades ago, and if I were to turn up at one of their remaining funerals it would be seen for what it would be – appearance for the sake of it.
Your principles got you to this point, Rabz. Stick by them, I say.
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I find the idea of a faun in a scarf with a predilection to treachery far more interesting than drop dunnies in Cair Paravel.
My suspension of disbelief was never great, but it gets feebler as I age. I reread the Narnia opus and found The Last Battle revolting. Lewis had gone off his head by then.
Also…funerals are horrible. They’re meant to be, regardless of all the frills and furbelows modernity attaches to them.
Leave your expectations, whatever they are, at home. A small target is always preferable, so ditch the rondel.
2
I was going to swear a bit more for emphasis in that last post, but now I’m cognisant of keeping the tone up.
Consarn it.
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I have morons in my family too.
No need to add to the moronity by becoming one yourself. Duty always outweighs preference. Otherwise, why would we praise those who do their duty despite their distaste?
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Forgiveness has limits, Calli.
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Rabz, you can either go all sentimental and ignore what your brain is telling you, or focus on what kind of rellies you actually have. They won’t stop being useless shits because sentimental women are urging you to be kind to them.
My rellies are also useless shits. We ignore each other. Works for me.
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Thanks all and I mean that. Lots of conflicting opinions there. Much to contemplate.
Go there to score nurses.
Arks with the finger on the (still beating pulse).
I don’t need no nurses while Miss Emily is on this planet. 🙂
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Err, has a bug died next to the Avatar?
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sentimental women
Chuckle. Duty transcends sentiment.
You old softie.
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Evidently not. 😕
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Rabz
Mater is right.
Otherwise you will be thinking couldof,should’ve, would’ve.
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Cats – I’m inclined to go and see him, for several (conflicting) reasons.
The main one being the sonorous voice of my ol’ man booming in my head – “You would take some sort of perverse pleasure in the misfortunes of others? He’s your brother – your sisters would be at your bedside should you ever suffer some similar misfortune”.
This is doing my head in. 😕
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Rabz, I have been presumptuous. I don’t know what has caused the rift, and I don’t want to know. And so I’m only going on instinct…my own. And the values that have been embedded in me since childhood.
Horrible things happen in families, sometimes too difficult to ever surmount. Only you know what’s best.
4
Otherwise you will be thinking couldof,should’ve, would’ve.
I don’t get why this is the default. No one but the attendee knows the full circumstances so there not regret it.
When i joined they told us not to worry about learning them as they were long out of use. Two weeks later at the old 52 in Strathmore (Woodlands St) I was sitting in the back seat of one going to a job. No water, atrocious power and handling, a positive displacement pump that was dangerous to use. In general a useless piece of rubbish. We would’ve been better off with Riga backpacks..
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…may not regret it.
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I sell out and “do the right thing” by turning up at his hospital bedside and engage in an entirely superficial “I’m here for you in your final moments on this planet” bullshit, or I just ignore them all and accept that any kind of reconciliation becomes an even more remote possibility.
Wrong way to look at it, Rabz.
Remember, if you are in the right, you’re not going there for anything more noble than giving them a last chance at redemption.
Turning up isn’t necessarily giving in.
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Anyway, Cats – that’s enough of that and thanks for your indulgence. I’ll shut up about it and attempt to make some sense of it tomorrow morning.
When I’m sober. Oh, give us a break – I’m on holidays, FFS. 🙂
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There were no rules you TWAT, The rules were always there………………………
Interesting, there were NO rules, as the rule were always there.
Stick to lifting jokes. And close the lid to the bin.
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A number of commenters used the blog to libel and defame Higgins in the vilest of terms.
Does Richard Cranium have the hots for Mzzzz Knickerless?
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Rabz, I kinda understand your pain. When I had cancer a couple of years back a sibling of mine didn’t visit or even call me for ten weeks. I have since reprioritised that sibling about ten rungs lower on the list of people I care about.
However, I still force myself to ring that sibling every now and then to ensure I do not echo said sibling’s poor behaviour.
If that sibling was in hospital I would visit. I would not feel happy and would bitterly whinge to my wife afterwards, but I’d still visit. Duty doesn’t make you feel better but you have less regrets later. Thinking of you, mate. You’re a decent fella.
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Real Deal.. Dude, hope you’re okay these days.
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Any advice would be much appreciated, Cats.
He may be waiting for you to come before he feels he can shuffle off this mortal coil, Rabz.
Death is a funny thing that way, not at all like the movies.
Play it by ear.
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Thanks, JC. Doctor found a nodule in August in another place, I have another scan in late March. A long wait but that may mean it’s actually nothing and I shouldn’t worry. Apparently as you age you get spots on organs just like moles on the outside. I hope that is all it is but I hate waiting. Thanks for your kind words.
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Mater is no sentimental woman. Nor is Hairy, as you know, Rabz, and he just came in after dipping into the Cat and said are you going to get in touch with Rabz? Hairy thinks maybe you should go as they have put out a sort of olive branch. So I’m saying here my view that he’s your brother Rabz, and he ain’t heavy (in spite of appearances) he’s down and possibly out forever, so see him even though he’s not been fair to you. You shared a childhood, and that is about all I shared with my brother as we grew apart, but that was enough as he lay dying. I held his hand and whispered into his ear that I was here also for mum and dad who’d already passed away and Big Sis who was in hospital down south. He was totally immobile but sentient – he could only move one hand. He squezed mine with it, twice, to show affirmation. Do as Calli and Rosie say as well, go and see what happens. You will know then how bad it is and what you are well rid of if there can’t be any reconciliation. They have all hurt you badly, but that’s what it’s like with families. Sometimes they just don’t know what they are doing. Hairy says they have been conquered by irrational fear, simply that. Don’t live with regrets.
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Rabz
Go see him.
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I had no solace in being right, my family member “died suddenly”.
Just go.
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Does Richard Cranium have the hots for Mzzzz Knickerless?
He can’t get past all that skin. 2023 sorted and it even January yet.
5
Blood is thicker than water
… redder too
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Okay, we’re doing the circles again. What are the limitations now. Who put’s up the wall.
We aren’t really. You replied to an answer by neither accepting or denying what I said but asking, who decides? I simply responded by saying that the same people or institutions that decide now would decide under this other arrangement too. As to the limits now, for instance, a school will pretend a student is of the other sex, allow that student to wear clothing of the other sex, behind the back of the parents, and so on.
Okay, it’s their rules you profess. Why?
I’m not professing their rules because they do not all profess the same rules. I mentioned them because they don’t employ the term nature in the sense your earlier comment did. For example, glasses are not contrary to nature. It is in the nature of the eye to see so an instrument that can correct some defect in the eye is in accord with its nature. The same would be true of something that augmented some human capability and in the case of a plane it’s locomotion.
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A number of commenters used the blog to libel and defame Higgins in the vilest of terms.
Facts don’t defame crotchless.
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Thanks again, everyone. Looks like I’m off to see him tomorrow morning.
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Dover, we really would benefit from a thread on liberalism with a definition provided by yourself.
Also, weren’t you working on a review of Deneen’s book?
Something like that. Coming soon.
1
Looks like I’m off to see him
..
And the nurses.
All the old boomer ones have mostly retired now.
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Dover
Forget the wall, forget the three old philosophers.
Just explain what you mean by liberalism in the present context. It’s not an attempt to trap you or anything.
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Rabz….you need to go and see your brother.
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Real Deal says: December 26, 2022 at 8:39 pm
Real – thanks, Squire.
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Just explain what you mean by liberalism in the present context. It’s not an attempt to trap you or anything.
Modern liberalism is communism head prefect.
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I’m not sure that’s what he means Cronkite. If you’re needed to explain some point, I’ll ask you, so don’t worry.
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cohenitesays:
December 26, 2022 at 9:10 pm
Just explain what you mean by liberalism in the present context. It’s not an attempt to trap you or anything.
Modern liberalism is communism head prefect.
Not really. Communism at least claimed to care about the masses. Modern “liberalism” doesn’t even pretend to care. It is intensely focussed on benefiting the well off, while forcing those at the bottom (and middle) of the pile into a life of subservience..
Modern “liberalism” has no resemblance to the classical liberalism of Menzies.
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Dinner for us now. Yummy whole trout with tarragon, done in olive oil and wrapped in foil.
One of my salads, and some new potatos, one each. We had a brunch with my brother’s son and his extended family in Nowra this morning, with much memory-trawling about times past.
Attapuss is overjoyed to see us home from the South Coast.
Glad we were coming back not going down, where the traffic was awful.
We heard on the radio that it was very bad going up north to…
Our street and others nearby to The Gap were parked out for the Sydney-Hobart start.
Luckily we had the garage as a last resort but managed street parking arriving after 3pm.
It was a lovely sunny day and obviously people had stayed on to go to the harbour beaches.
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Any advice would be much appreciated, Cats.
I would go.
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Knuckles – 11:25 on 25/12
Took your time to reply, I be been sitting here stroking my pussy cat
Like all kraut rejects they are sent to England.
Best bakers best mechanics, best engineers, builders , musicians and organisation.
Country full of blonde hair and blue eyes.
Mix a German with another race and have a look at the gorgeous off spring – grace Kelly German with Irish, Marilyn Monroe
Krauts rule
5
This is interesting but is it a pipe dream?
Ignore da Pascoe. It might be really good work, but I’m sceptical.
So you’ll have your native millet (channel millet?), curly mitchell grass and kangaroo grass instead of wheat, barley and triticale?
1
Guardian:
The UK’s Ministry of Defence says Russian troops have focused mainly on constructing defensive positions along many sections of the frontline in Ukraine since October.
This includes laying additional fields of anti-tank and anti-personnel mines, it said in its latest intelligence update, which would “almost certainly [be] going beyond Russian doctrinal guidelines”.
Does this mean Putin is going to solidify gains then talk peace?
1
Rabz,
It may be your mind is made up and I can see you’ve received various pieces of advice.
The one thought I would leave with you is that forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves, not the person who gave offence. Forgiveness is simply an act of the will, one which says there is no longer any debt to be repaid and never expects the other to acknowledge their wrongdoing or even perceive it. If we wait to ‘feel’ forgiving, it may never happen.
I hope that whatever happens tomorrow, you have peace on the other side. You’re a good soul.
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You are a good soul Rabz. Always enjoy your insights and humor.
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Native millet, or panicum, turned out to be the best all-rounder: easy to grow and harvest, easy to turn into flour and “significantly more nutritious” than wheat, lead researcher Dr Angela Pattison from the University of Sydney said. Native millet is also gluten free, she added.
The study, which involved researchers in ecology, food science, social science, marketing and business, found that native millet was the most economically viable of all the grains they tested.
Its very interesting. If it requires less water than wheat imagine growing millions of hectares of it and exporting it, building new rural towns and earning billions in FX.
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Not really. Communism at least claimed to care about the masses. Modern “liberalism” doesn’t even pretend to care. It is intensely focussed on benefiting the well off, while forcing those at the bottom (and middle) of the pile into a life of subservience..
Communism/liberalism both pay lip service to the masses and great causes all of which are just methods to gain power for a few over the many. The psychology of the commie is based on his sense of superiority which doesn’t exist; because it doesn’t exist he invents great causes -racism, sexism, wokism, alarmism – to justify his superiority and claim to power. The causes undermine the democratic structure which gives power to everyone and by subverting democracy the commie gains power at the expense of the masses.
It’s elementary. Don’t guild the lily. Commies/liberals are power hungry sh.ts. They’re a disease within humanity. The problem is they have infiltrated the conservative non commie parties and done their great march through the institutions. At this stage the West is basically f..ked.
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The decaying coruptocrat in the Whitehouse certainly invites foul language bacause the old thief and ‘dr’ Jill are a foul pair. Anyone who seriously suggests that PoS legitimately won in 2020 does not deserve to be taken seriously.
Communism/liberalism both pay lip service to the masses and great causes all of which are just methods to gain power for a few over the many. The psychology of the commie is based on his sense of superiority which doesn’t exist; because it doesn’t exist he invents great causes -racism, sexism, wokism, alarmism – to justify his superiority and claim to power.
yes they make up ‘problems’ (manufacture is too polite) with the aid of the meja
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Ute missiles in line for Top End protection
EXCLUSIVE
By BEN PACKHAM
Foreign Affairs and Defence Correspondent
@bennpackham
10:04PM December 26, 2022
No Comments
A new missile system the Albanese government is considering purchasing could protect most of Australia’s Top End from enemy ships with just six Bushmaster-mounted launch units.
The mobile Naval Strike Missile launchers could provide coastal defence and be deployed to Pacific islands in a conflict to cover Australia’s naval approaches.
The government’s defence strategic review is examining the “StrikeMaster” system, which can launch a pair of ship-killing NSMs over ranges of at least 250km, delivering a potent “area denial” capability.
Read Next
Australia has lagged for years in acquiring mobile missile launchers and is scrambling to catch up as Defence Minister Richard Marles calls for new weapons systems to threaten an adversary “much further from our shores”.
The Norwegian-designed NSM is widely used by Western navies and has already been ordered for Australia’s Hobart-class air warfare destroyers and Anzac frigates.
Mobile NSM launch units are also operated by the US Marine Corp, mounted on remote-control tactical vehicles that can be deployed across the Indo-Pacific to wreak havoc with enemy shipping.
StrikeMaster – designed by the Australian subsidiaries of Norway’s Kongsberg Defence and French-owned Thales – incorporates a twin-pack NSM launcher mounted on an Australian-made Bushmaster ute.
The mobile batteries would be operated by the army in a new role for the service, which has long been passed over for hi-tech capabilities as the lion’s share of new investment has gone to the navy and air force.
Kongsberg has proposed the StrikeMaster to the defence strategic review led by Stephen Smith and Angus Houston, which is looking to fast-track the acquisition of new strike options amid China’s rapid militarisation and decades-long delivery timelines for the ADF’s next-generation submarines and frigates.
“The great thing about these is you can drive them anywhere and they are easy to transport by air and sea,” Kongsberg Defence Australia general manager John Fry said.
“This is something you put on an island or in northern Australia and it will provide significant coverage. It requires only a few personnel; the effect generated is persistent, and the launcher is difficult to find.”
The missile itself is stealthy, “very clever”, and designed to defeat highly-defended maritime targets. “It has automatic, autonomous target recognition so can actually identify ships down to particular classes,” Mr Fry said.
The system’s potential application in northern Australia can be seen by plotting the NSM’s unclassified range of 250km on a map supplied by the ADF showing the passage of Chinese warships through the Timor and Arafura seas and Torres Strait in February.
It shows six StrikeMaster units operating from mainland sites in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland could threaten enemy vessels charting a similar course.
1
Try a 58 Austin that that had a cabin like a thermomix and the petrol vaporised regularly on a hot day on the way to a fire.
I’m not sure there were any gears.
I always wondered if running Avgas in these heaps of shit would have fixed the vapour lock issue. Vapour pressure in Avgas is tightly controlled to prevent vapour locks at altitude.
4
Rabz, go.
2
Just explain what you mean by liberalism in the present context.
The constant liberation of persons from all constraints.
5
Dog waffle update-
Danno, the teflon dog of the southwest, is a-ok on his third night alone. My dad touched in with him christmas eve with a chicken neck, christmas day took him to their place for lunch where, true to form, he drifted back home by himself- boxing day roo shank for brekky and a ute tour of the troughs. Just had a neighbour phone me and say they could hear a real lonesome howlin’ from the homestead and was asking if she should try go comfort him but for the risk he might follow her away again… i thanked her most kindly but told her we’d most likely be home by noon tomorrow.
He’s a good dog. We’ve probobly got one more blessed generation before the spread of the west coast conurbation means a man won’t be able to leave a home unlocked and a dog untied any more.
9
Does this mean Putin is going to solidify gains then talk peace?
It could, it can also mean they are using these layered defensive positions to prevent another Kharkov while deploying existing and mobilised units for an offensive. Who knows?
3
Rich Baris “The People’s Pundit” @Peoples_Pundit · Dec 25
The lack of recourse for one side to address legitimate grievances should be the primary cause for concern.
Jefferson was very clear about what happens to every society when it denies one side remedy via legal and institutional options.
It’s the natural course and it’s tragic.
Quote Tweet
David Giglio @DavidGiglioCA · Dec 25
When you have a legal system where judges are afraid to rule against one side of the political spectrum or the media narrative because they fear riots and for their own safety, you‘ve officially lost your Republic.
The line from Baris might be LibertyQuoteworthy?
11
I hope that whatever happens tomorrow, you have peace on the other side. You’re a good soul.
Seconded.
There is no way to get the ‘right’ answer to these kinds of human dilemmas. So much of what angers us about family disappointments lies in the shadows of our childhood.
Don’t feel pressured to go because you might regret it if you ignore the call. It’s equally possible to regret what you do in haste as much as what you don’t do out of caution for your own heart.
The decision is yours, and yours alone.
12
It’s summer and it’s not just the bush-fire time- the small plane crash season begins.
A fire has broken out in southwest Sydney following a suspected plane crash.
The scene of the accident is reportedly in dense bushland near Appin Road at Appin, with police confirming an aircraft is missing in the area. #9News
Michael J. Morrison @OfficeOfMike · 22h
Adding Zelensky as a dependent on my tax return this year.
Seems fair.
7
Lots of moisture in the air down here. You notice it by the street lights.
3
Rabz,
I have a brother that’s trouble.
there’s no real bad blood between us.
we just went different ways
he’s hard and dangerous and I wouldn’t for instance go fishing with him
a Christmas lunch where he was, is where I wouldn’t be
There is ongoing debate and investigation about the origins of the COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) virus, which is the virus that causes the disease called coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Some early reports suggested that the virus may have originated at a seafood market in Wuhan, China, while others have suggested that it may have originated in bats and was transmitted to humans through another animal.
There has also been speculation that the virus may have originated in a laboratory, possibly in Wuhan. However, there is currently no conclusive evidence to support this theory and it remains a subject of investigation. It is important to note that it is not uncommon for viruses to emerge from animal reservoirs and be transmitted to humans.
Should Rabz go see his very ill brother he doesn’t like?
It is ultimately up to Rabz to decide whether or not to visit his ill brother. Factors that could influence this decision might include the nature of the relationship between the two brothers, the severity of the illness, and any potential risks or complications associated with the visit.
If Rabz is unsure about what to do, it might be helpful for him to consider seeking advice from a trusted friend, family member, or healthcare professional. It may also be helpful for Rabz to consider seeking support for his own feelings about the situation, whether through therapy or other means.
Ultimately, the most important thing is for Rabz to make a decision that feels right for him and that takes into account the well-being of both himself and his brother.
2
If the Rabz is unsure about what to do, it might be helpful for him to consider seeking advice from a trusted friend, family member, healthcare professional, or a bunch of personages on a political commentary blogue …
AI still has some way to go, JC. 🙂
9
Christmas Day at my nephew’s place in Nowra is always interesting. He lives in an estate started in the 80’s and grown since then. The housing is all project homes, some with Federation bits on them, others with gables left ungarnished, but all of a type. It’s a difficult estate to navigate as everything looks similar, the roads are often cul de sacs and there are few items to note as waystations. His is an early build on a large block, with room for a caravan and a boat and three cars – ideal family living for a working family man of that vintage on a smallish wage, which most of the purchasers were and still are. The general tenre can be gauged by one tradie’s van which had sticker on it, pic of a bloke holding a beer bearing the tag line of ‘Time to get pissed’. Possibly just there for Christmas.
We hadn’t put the address in the Sporty Beamer so Hairy was doing some bold navigation from the map alone. In the middle of it a phone call came in from grandson in New York on the hands-free system which we had to take and so we lost the map and Hairy, who kept driving for the duration of it, lost his way. Thus we were maginally late for Chrissie lunch, as we did more circuits than we had to in order to arrive. We knew as we drew up into the concrete apron that Big Sis and her sixth husband had made it because we saw their electric car, which set the tone for topics to be avoided to enable Christmas cheer. Family is what you have, not what you wish for. Each of them has changed over the years, replacing the cognitive pegs by which people feel they know each other. You have feel for the newer versions, locking into the past to hold them close in tidal shifts. We love this lot for the years spent making Christmases together, for their friendliness, their honesty and for being Australian to the core. Presents galore and food to spare. My eldest son came down with us but all of my other children and grandkids were out of town by then. A Christmas lacking little ones, my nephew’s children all adults and working, and everyone else there skewing towards the older set. Different.
7
AI still has some way to go, JC. ?
2 to 3 years tops and then you won’t be able to tell AI from a human. It’s that close and after that the world won’t be recognizable.
1
AI can’t cook
and free range hens can’t even tell the difference
5
Marinas gas lamp is because it ended up being dropped there from London when Narnia was being formed.
The magicians nephew has the details….
1
Doing the drive down for Christmas, so much easier on the new dual freeway, I couldn’t help being impressed at the way in which Christmas pulls out the crowds and reinforces everyone’s bonds of family. We all come from families, however constructed and however good, bad or indifferent. Even if absent, they live on in our heads. Families are going to be harder to shift out of consciousness than the Marxist left ever imagine, a thought I consoled myself with as we sped along with the trail of traffic. Every car seemed to be a small and compact ‘up yours’ to the familial naysayers of this world, heading out to reinforce something unspoken but deeply ingrained. Christmas is family. It starts with The Holy Family and the miracle of birth, renewal and salvation, of the linkages birth makes between families, and you just can’t beat that. As Tom said earlier, the Greatest Story Ever Told.
5
One of the most beautiful songs in human history, Cats.
Should Rabz go see his very ill brother he doesn’t like?
lol. You can almost see the algorithms for the programmatic specificity the question returned.
Compare to Cassie’s directness of ‘go and see your brother’. Or other shared feelings and considerations offered to Rabz. No Virginia, we are not there yet. A load of AI burble is simply all bases covered.
4
I loved “ the last battle”
Tashlan heresy, evil cat getting its just desserts and the end of the world thrown in for free.
2
Some families are closer than others.
Watching the western movie Panhandle 1948, so looked up the star Rod Cameron on Wikipedia, as is my wont. Divorced his wife and married his mother in law.
Those would be some wonderful family Christmas gatherings.
11
Terrible news. The Tele:
Health authorities are warning about potential dangers from a potent opioid — known as nitazenes — detected in heroin following a recent spike in serious overdoses on the Central Coast and Hunter Valley.
NSW Poisons Information Centre medical director associate professor Darren Roberts said heroin contaminated with a potent opioid such as a nitazene, could cause unexpected and severe overdose or death.
Oh dear. How sad. Never mind.
11
Arky.
Mate left his wife to marry his brothers ex- wife (who had 3 kids with him).
I’ve known them since we were both 14 year olds, she’s 8 years older.
When the family tree becomes a Venn diagram…
10
There will never be another band as good as The Triffids come out of Perth. Perf punches above its weight on this score.
1
Mate left his wife to marry his brothers ex- wife
..
I think something like that started the English reformation.
9
It is important to note that it is not uncommon for viruses to emerge from animal reservoirs and be transmitted to humans.
It is important to note who fed these ideas into this program.
If ‘from a lab’, then ‘stress animal transmission’.
4
Mate left his wife to marry his brothers ex- wife
You’d have to wonder if the brother would turn up at the hospital when the worst happened.
4
Mate left his wife to marry his brothers ex- wife
Gary Lyon shacks up with Billy Brownless’ missus. That must have been percolating away for a while.
ASSERTIVE WOMEN’S CONFERENCE
The first speaker, a lady from England, stood and said “During last year’s conference, we spoke about being more assertive with our husbands. Well, after the conference, I went home and told my husband, Barrington, that I would no longer cook for him and that he would have to do it himself”.
“After the first day, I saw nothing. The second day, I saw nothing, but on the third day, I saw that he had cooked a wonderful roast lamb”.
The crowd applauded.
The second lady from Russia, stood up and said “After last year’s conference, I went home and told my husband, Ivan, that I would no longer do his laundry and that he would have to do it himself. The first day, I saw nothing. After the second day, I saw nothing, but on the third day, I saw that he had done not only his own washing, but mine as well”.
The crowd again applauded.
The third speaker, an Aboriginal lady from Australia, stood up and said “Afta lass year’s conference, I wen ‘ome and tole dat lazy husband of mines, Dingo Jack, dat I was froo pickin up his beer cans, cookin’ his tucker and washin’ his undaweah and dat he was goin to haf to do dem himself.
The crowd went wild with applause.
She continued “Afta da first day, I nevah see nuffin. Afta da second day, I nevah see nuffin, but afta da fird day, I could see a little bit outa my leff eye”.
4
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
– Marie Curie
4
Johnny Rotten says:
December 27, 2022 at 5:55 am
Didn’t you post it before already?
I must be getting old, I’ve seen these jokes told and retold with different scenarios a dozen times.
True, there are no old jokes, only old people, for a newborn every joke is new, but do you realise that there are hardly any newborns on this blog ?
Happy new year
1
There is No Defence to Hypersonic Missiles & Russia’s Plans to Expand
From Armstrong Economics –
“Russia announced yesterday that it will increase its military strength from 1 million to 1.5 million. The Western Press keeps putting out the propaganda that that this is all because Russia has lost momentum and many soldiers in Ukraine. I reported before that sources from Ukraine, not Russia, put the death toll at over 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers. That was also in the draft speech of the head of the EU, but it was removed to keep up the image that Ukraine is winning.
What is not being said here is that Poland has been instructed by the US to increase its military from 100,000 to 250,000 making it the largest force in NATO. It is only a 14-hour drive from Warsaw to Moscow. This in addition to NATO’s plans to incorporate Finland and Sweden, has also played a role in this decision.
The Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu declared that the country needs a force of 1.5 million “to guarantee the fulfillment of tasks to ensure Russia’s security.” China has about 2 million and the USA has about 1.4 million. North Korea has 1,280,000 active with another 600,000 in reserve. Belarus has an army of only 62,000 with 344,750 in reserve.
Currently in Russia, the regular draft, calls up 120,000 to 140,000 men twice a year for a one-year tour of compulsory service. What is becoming very obvious is that the West wants war. There is no desire for peace whatsoever. This has changed the game. The Western Press keeps just putting out propaganda about Ukraine winning, while it is ignoring the mobilization of NATO which is clearly anticipating war. This is not going to be just about Ukraine as we head into 2023. You have to be blind not to see that the West is clearly preparing for war. This is what Russia is now responding to. With Poland raising its army to 250,000, that presents a serious threat to Russia for the exceeds the active personnel in Belarus.
On top of all of this, Putin has wisely instructed that they should be studying how the weapons the US has been handing Ukraine and to regard these as valuable lessons to be learned during the fighting to modernize the armed forces. Thus, Ukraine has been an experiment to study the weapons systems of one’s opponent on both sides.
Putin also made it clear that Russia will start to deploy more hypersonic weapons, noting that the first warship equipped with state-of-the-art Zircon hypersonic missiles will be commissioned by the navy next month. There is no question that defense against Russia’s hypersonic weapons is not something that may be possible. Russia has been using some hypersonic missiles in Ukraine. It is believed among our sources that this may have been more to intimidate NATO and the United States. Obviously, the conventional wisdom has been that there is just no effective defense against hypersonic weapons. Hence, their use has been to intimidate the USA and NATO, but this does not seem to have succeeded.
The USA is exploring how to defend itself against hypersonic missiles. One theory is the exploration of “boundary layer phenomenology,” which is the idea that disrupting the airflow surrounding a hypersonic projectile may throw it off course. Disrupting the airflow may send it off course, but it will still hit something. The other hope is to deploy lower-flying networked satellites in an effort to establish a continuous targeting track of an approaching hypersonic weapon.
The reason there is no defense is that a hypersonic projectile will travel much too fast to track them because it will move from one radar aperture to another, making it virtually impossible to establish a consistent targeting track or lock.
Meanwhile, our brilliant world leaders are playing with everyone’s life all because they prefer war rather than reform whereby they might lose power.”
Vandalism at three power substations in western Washington early Sunday initially cut power to about 14,000 utility customers, the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office said.
…
In January, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security report warned that domestic extremists have been developing “credible, specific plans” to attack electricity infrastructure since at least 2020.
This suggests the DHS know who it they are. But if so they aren’t naming them, which is curious.
12
Another thing that really pisses me off about the modern yookay is that I and my Dad would get admitted for 3 months with ‘no recourse to welfare’. Seeing Dad and Grandfather risks their lives for the mother country, that is a very poor state of affairs. And now if you turn up in a boat in Dover you get whisked off to a fancy hotel. Hate filled marxist established indeed. And boy oh boy we miss her maj. Can’t understand why her kids didn’t absorb her values.
12
Bruce of Newcastle says:
December 27, 2022 at 6:34 am
Interesting that no one seems to know who is doing these attacks.
They know when and where you fart.
Claiming not knowing about who is doing these attacks is ridiculous.
Rabz if you’re reading this, the thing about horrible family members is that ‘the leopard doesn’t change its spots’ and what ever happened before usually repeats and it all ends in tears AGAIN and AGAIN.
Englishman, African and an Aussie sitting in a restaurant, waiting for their food. They’re looking around the place and spot a man sitting by himself drinking water in the corner. After a few minutes they recognise him as Jesus Christ himself. They agree that he’s a great bloke and all chip in to buy Jesus some food.
The waiter goes over to Jesus, explains the gesture and gets the food in for him, which Jesus enjoys whole-heartedly.
After the meal, he walks over to see the three generous men. He first of all thanks them all, and shakes the hand of the Englishman.
The Englishman gets the shivers, feels all tingly etc then says “Hang about, I’ve had chronic arthritis in this wrist for 20 years, you’ve just cured it, it’s a miracle!”
Jesus smiles, then shakes the hand of the African.
“Bloomin ‘eck, you’ve cured my back! I’ve had problems with that for nearly 30 years, thank you Jesus!”
Jesus smiles, then turns to the Aussie, who looks terrified, turns and runs away knocking over tables and chairs. They all ask what’s wrong, to which the Aussie shouts “I’m on workers comp mate – Bugger off!”
Far be it from me to offer advice on family matters, but if the reason for a break was serious enough, then that’s it. Unless something has changed in the meantime, and sudden health problems is hardly the reason.
2
Forgiveness and empathy should be given freely without coercion or obligation atherwise it’s a lie.
What Have We Learned?
We have learned the FBI is not the only government agency censoring and surveilling Americans. Twitter was a veritable “pig pile” when it comes to spying on We the People. The DOD, CIA, and even local police had their fingers in the pie. And Twitter was only one of the pies. Other Big Tech firms, including Facebook and Verizon (pssst that’s a cell phone carrier), were in on the game. Big Brother is watching. We are being spied on, and frequently silenced. Well, at least those of us who speak out against the Stalin-like censoring and surveilling of Americans.
You can see why nothing ever happens about rigged elections and corrupt Democrats. The crook-chasers are now completely controlled by the crooks.
This was linked in a comment under are covid vaccines causing persistent covid? which raises (again) the very frightening concept of mistaking the virus for an allergen and creating a tolerance to it, so there’s no immune response.
4
Bruce of Newcastlesays:
December 27, 2022 at 6:34 am
Interesting that no one seems to know who is doing these attacks.
3 Washington State Electric Substations Vandalized (26 Dec)
Vandalism at three power substations in western Washington early Sunday initially cut power to about 14,000 utility customers, the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office said.
…
In January, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security report warned that domestic extremists have been developing “credible, specific plans” to attack electricity infrastructure since at least 2020.
This suggests the DHS know who it they are. But if so they aren’t naming them, which is curious.
I recall this being the publicized method of attack from a exercise where special forces were given free reign to bring the country to it’s knees through unconventional methods. The implication was it’s one of the least effective ways they could think of.
Old blokes like a kid at Christmas, I think I found a replacement starter for the JD 45 minutes away. According to the info, the starter weighs 60lbs!
4
I love tinkering too rick
3
Paris has fallen:
Good, those bastards presume to lead Europe and the world because they are so sophisticated yet they allowed every piece of crap to set up shop in their country. We can thank the French for so many problems and horrors that are happening today. They gave Ayatollah Khomeini asylum from where he plotted and executed his glorious return to and takeover of Iran. How is that working out for the world?
12
I saw Paris in 1994 and loved it- don’t think I would now.
Good, those bastards presume to lead Europe and the world because they are so sophisticated yet they allowed every piece of crap to set up shop in their country. We can thank the French for so many problems and horrors that are happening today. They gave Ayatollah Khomeini asylum from where he plotted and executed his glorious return to and takeover of Iran. How is that working out for the world?
1789 Jul 14 was the beginning of the end.
I’m actually surprised it has taken this long and still not finished yet
Must be human resilience to BS.
Good for us.
PS, Why did it had it be the French?
Treacherous they are, but did they deserve it?
4
I’m actually surprised it has taken this long and still not finished yet
Must be human resilience to BS.
Adam Smith: “There is a lot of ruin in a nation”
4
I love tinkering too rick
He’s now a disappointment kid at Christmas, just realised that today is Boxing Day. They’re not open until tomorrow.
Morning program is back to morning grass slashing and continuing on with batch of 6 sand pit excavators for little bloke and his mates.
I honestly have the best sand pit excavator design in the world. It has wrist movement unlike to generic CCP sand pit excavators.
2
Gabor, I appreciate your thoughts, although I believe Bespoke put it succinctly; Forgiveness and empathy should be given freely without coercion or obligation atherwise it’s a lie.
Absolutely beautiful morning here. The air was fresh and I could smell all the flowers and there were tons of butterflies engaging in their egg runs before the heat of the day.
Took the doggos for a walk up the road, sun was already starting to bite a little. Must remember the bug spray tomorrow.
My little ferals discovered that their new home is not fenced with dog-proof fencing as their last home was not long after we moved here. Although generally obedient, the call of rabbits, wallabies, foxes, wombats and unfortunately snakes, is too great for them. So I have compromised and built a small, dog-proof front yard and I take them for long walks on leads. God knows I need the exercise anyway!
8
miltonfsays:
December 27, 2022 at 7:58 am
I saw Paris in 1994 and loved it- don’t think I would now.
I saw Paris in 1972. Lovely city, awful people. The scene was set by a visit to the Church de la Madeleine. Wandering around, hear a splashing noise, look around to see a Frog passing on one of the columns.
3
Every year someone claims Paris has fallen and about every year I fly home from there and it’s pretty much the same.
I’ve watched the yellow jackets march, seen the tail end of riots in Place de Republique with smashed windows and a burnt out car as the riot police packed up and went home.
A few hundred Kurds who were dispersed with tear gas isn’t the end of her.
Still I’ll be there in late March and report back.
I won’t be going to the 19th or the 10th though, any more than I ever visited south side Chicago the five times I went there.
4
Pogria says:
December 27, 2022 at 8:28 am
Gabor, I appreciate your thoughts, although I believe Bespoke put it succinctly;
Forgiveness and empathy should be given freely without coercion or obligation atherwise it’s a lie.
Agree, I’m not in the same position so can’t judge, dislike some relatives and avoid them but no hate involved. Probably wouldn’t visit them, the feeling is the same, the circumstance doesn’t matter.
All that nothing but good about the dead I’m afraid is nonsense.
Being dead does not make you a good person posthumously.
4
pissing, ffs. Spellwreck even tried to change the correction.
4
Some great thoughts this morning.
I suppose people do coerce by being on their death bed and wanting to see someone they’ve been at odds with one last time, how shocking of them.
You go, it goes badly or goes sadly, that’s it.
3
As I said last year, I’ve invariably found the French kind and helpful, even struggling with my now heavy suitcase out of the maze of tunnels and stairs out of the metro at Place de Bastille in March 2022 someone kindly helped me carry my bag, one of many times such an unsolicited offer was made.
Though there was that one time a North African tried to rob me so all Parisians are bad.
Oh wait, another North African got rid of the rotten robber.
3
Hillary email scandal hasn’t gone away. This article linked by DJT himself!
Funny thing about Paris when I visited, I found the people to be very nice and friendly. GSOH too. Don’t blame the French for their rotten political class. It’s become more and obvious to me as the years roll on that ‘democracy’ was a thin veneer. Even little Johnny hoWARd bared his teeth at us.
6
France was very multi racial in the 90s but it seemed to work ok.
1
Loved the place tbh.
1
bespoke says:
December 27, 2022 at 6:22 am
Bette Midler says that Kyle Rittenhouse is an example of grooming
Hard to pick the best response but I’m very sorry he shot the child molester & his felon friend. Very sad is in the running.
What if you had access to an experimental Chatbot that could write your reports, debug your code, design your new ad campaign and answer all your questions? We are already using Google or some search engine to find links to these answers. But now an AI has been released that may disrupt all of that and a lot more. ChatGPT was trained on text culled from the internet and it creates the answer live in seconds — it writes it out in a conversation with you, and in Python code, Norwegian, iambic pentameter, whatever you want. It can do birthday suggestions, business plans, eulogies, speeches — like a personal assistant with a copy of the entire World Wide Web in their temporal cortex.
Google, the dominant gatekeeper to the internet for 20 years, suddenly faces a “make or break” point. ChatGPT could wipe out its’ business model and Google has issued a “Code Red”. An extinction level event couldn’t happen to a nicer company, but will ChatGPT be better?
It was launched on November 30th, and is taking off. Jorden Peterson asks, is this Gutenberg Press Level? It’s engaging, wow.
ChatGPT was trained on text culled from the internet and it creates the answer live in seconds — it writes it out in a conversation with you, and in Python code, Norwegian, iambic pentameter, whatever you want. It can do birthday suggestions, business plans, eulogies, speeches — like a personal assistant with a copy of the entire World Wide Web in their temporal cortex.
I don’t know what others find, but for me ploughing the WWW is generally like rummaging through a rubbish bin filled with scraps – a few edible bits in amongst dead cats, potato peelings and lolly wrappers. The result on your plate very much depends on your taste, skill, and stamina.
AI birthday suggestions are going to be an absolute panic. Even in Python.
However, giving up personal discrimination and responsibility is the future.
5
Good, those bastards presume to lead Europe and the world because they are so sophisticated
All bad ideas are French… David Starkey
4
Rosie, I appreciate your attempt at minimising the situation in Paris but seriously, when even you won’t go to certain places and also acknowledge the damage that ongoing riots are causing, surely you can understand the meaning behind the phrase “Paris has fallen”.
I struggle to understand why you write so many excuses and such forgiving rationale when dire situations are reported.
“Looting in Buffalo being significantly downplayed by local media,” said one Twitter user. Local media outlet WGRZ reported, “New York State Police confirm reports of 2 looting incidents.” But judging by the footage posted on Twitter, looting appears to be widespread.
Its Guess The Amish Time Again – From the Comments
– Ya America, u took them from the bush, and thought u can take the bush out of them eh?
Can’t beat genetics.
– Vote BLUE? Live @ the zoo. Feed the chimps . . . all day (EBT), AND all nite (runnin, shootin’, steelin’).
– In the good news department, probably a few Mexicans that were thinking about heading north to the land of milk and honey that are watching this thinking “Mamacita I no wanna live in no jungle” and cancelling their Rio Grande excursion plans
– Little child, “Mommy, look what Santa Claus brought me! A Star Wars Lego set!”
Mommy, “You know how many Dollar General stores your baby daddy had to loot to find you that toy?”
– Those stores should have put up “help wanted” signs for protection…
– By the way, this is Joe Biden’s America
And Finally!!!
– Those Amish are at it again… They need to stop hitting up the malt liqueur and going ape crazy….
5
All bad ideas are French… David Starkey
hmmm Germany is a strong contender in that field
2
The French gave us neo marxism, the Germans cultural marxism
2
Just to clarify Rabz’s situation. Those of us who know him personally would know that the big rift with his family was caused by the fact that they rejected him completely for not taking the Covid vaxx. He’s spoken bitterely of that here several times. Previous to that it was abundantly clear to us, his Cat friends who had met his family members, that he loved them dearly, faults and all, leftists though they were.
All Cats who commented last night, whatever they urged, will be wishing him the best today.
Because– you can take the blank out of the blank, but you can’t take the blank out of the blank.
3
There is No Defence to Hypersonic Missiles
Hypersonic merely means Mach 5+. Keep in mind radar has velocity c > > Mach 5 and some current or retired western missiles such as the ASAT ASM-135 were hypersonic (ASM-135 had a top speed exceeding Mach 12).
There are several other responses:
Laser weapon systems, deployed by the USN and formerly by the USAF.
Interdiction.
ECM/ECCCM including drone swarms.
Evasion.
Battery fire of guided SAMs.
Anti missile missiles using submunitions to increase their circular error of probability for a successful hit.
Tactical decoys.
In close systems such as CWIS, but won’t work as well.
1
Old School
when even you won’t go to certain places
There are lots of places you wouldn’t go in cities. I could count the number of times I’ve been to northern Melbourne on one finger. Big deal.
and also acknowledge the damage that ongoing riots are causing,
That’s because the frogs have never rioted, right? LOL
The ’68 riots were actually multiples worse. Did Paris “fall”?
This isn’t to suggest these riots etc, shouldn’t be taken seriously, but please spare us the drama queening.
1
I could probably run a profitable news wire debunking grifters preying on righties such as Martin Armstrong and airhead lefties like Sam Seder.
But why bring attention to such scum and villainy?
Rand Paul’s Annual ‘Festivus’ Report: $482,276,543,907 in Government Waste
Paul’s 2022 Festivus report highlights $482,276,543,907 in government waste and includes $2.3 million used by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for an experiment involving injecting Beagle puppies with cocaine, $202,000 used by the Department of Defense (DOD) on Starbucks espresso machines, and $3 million for the construction of a Gandhi museum.
“This will be the 10th year in a row that I’ve celebrated #Festivus with you. By celebrated I mean have a little fun at the expense of Washington. If we don’t laugh we might cry,”
The NIH also wasted a significant amount of money. That includes $2.1 million on encouraging Ethiopians to wear shoes, $2.3 million injecting Beagle puppies with cocaine, $1.1 million on “training mice to binge drink alcohol,” over $519,000 using mice to study racial aggression, and $187,500 on “verifying that kids love their pets.”
4
Rosie
We’re thinking of spending June in St. Jean in the South of France after spending a week or so in Paris. Italy gets a miss this year as we haven’t been to frogland for a long time.
$2.3 million used by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for an experiment involving injecting Beagle puppies with cocaine
Essential services!
3
Milo Yanopolis certainly had me fooled but I never gave him any money.
Twitter File release #11 hits on the long-anticipated information surrounding how the platform was instructed by various government agencies to remove content adverse to the expressed opinion of CDC, HHS, and DHS officials. [Release #11 Here]
The first installment of the Twitter COVID-19 files comes from David Zweig, a writer for New York Mag, New York Times, The Atlantic and other publications. Because the U.S. Government COVID-19 information control operation was so extensive, there will likely be several Twitter File releases related to the SARS-CoV2 pandemic issue.
However, in this first release Zweig starts to build the story of how the CDC and HHS set the foundation for the echo-chamber that ended with Twitter executives running amok.
4
miltonf says:
December 27, 2022 at 9:56 am
Milo Yanopolis certainly had me fooled but I never gave him any money.
Inner West mayor Darcy Byrne has written to Premier Dominic Perrottet seeking a legal change to allow councils to charge higher rates to property owners who leave their shops untenanted, while reducing rates for those who keep their premises filled.
A so-called “vacancy tax” was previously supported in 2019 by then small business commissioner Robyn Hobbs and then small business ombudsman Kate Carnell, but was never implemented.
At least the idea stinks so much neither side wants to do it…yet.
11
Milo Yanopolis certainly had me fooled but I never gave him any money
“When the Biden admin took over, one of their first meeting requests with Twitter executives was on Covid. The focus was on “anti-vaxxer accounts.” Especially Alex Berenson,” Zweig writes as he then begins to give examples of various medical professionals that were targeted by the White House and the platform.
The outcome of the HHS and CDC push circled around politics, which, when combined with the ideological perspectives of the Twitter executives, inevitably ended up making COVID-19 a political issue on the platform. Critics of COVID-19 policy were blocked, censored, removed and restricted. Advocates of government policy were enhanced, amplified, promoted and enlarged.
The scale of the issue meant supportive algorithms based on key words needed to be created, and the scope of the information battle necessitated the hiring of contractors. As Zweig notes, “contractors in places like the Philippines, also moderated content. They were given decision trees to aid in the process, but tasking non experts to adjudicate tweets on complex topics like myocarditis and mask efficacy data was destined for a significant error rate.”
The Biden administration wanted to use fear as a weapon to control public opinion of COVID-19. The aligned ideological Twitter executives also wanted to assist using fear and fought to controversialize and target any voice who downplayed the fear of covid. One of those pragmatic voices was President Trump.
President Trump sent out this Tweet in 2020 which was not well received by former FBI General Counsel, now Twitter General Counsel, Jim Baker:
Apparently, the phrase “don’t be afraid of Covid” was triggering for those who wanted fear and panic to be the prevalent perspective on the virus.
Twitter General Counsel Jim Baker asked the head of Twitter’s censorship group, Yoel Roth, why wasn’t this statement worthy of Donald Trump being removed for violating the Twitter Covid policy?
As you can see, Jim Baker wanted to censor the optimistic approach of President Trump in order to amplify the fearful and looming message.
The motive of Jim Baker, while undefined by Mr. Zweig, is transparent in hindsight.
The platform officials and the various officials in media, were promoting the fear and worry narrative as part of an election strategy to facilitate mail-in ballots. COVID-19 was as much, perhaps even more of, an election manipulation tool as it was a virus.
6
miltonfsays:
December 27, 2022 at 7:58 am
I saw Paris in 1994 and loved it- don’t think I would now.
Too much dog shit on the pavements when I was there in 1983 and 1991. Probably still there.
9
Shit and here I was thinking paying $1,150 for the covid anti-virals was unspeakably expensive.
Drug Prices Reach New High—in the Millions
Several new drugs, most of them gene therapies, promise to cure or treat diseases in one course, but their price tags will test the health-insurance system
A new era of expensive drugs has arrived: medicines priced in the millions of dollars a patient.
Since August, U.S. or European health regulators have approved four new products intended as one-time treatments for rare genetic diseases that carry list prices of at least $2 million a patient, including two from Bluebird Bio Inc.
The most recent one approved in the U.S. set a price record: $3.5 million for CSL Ltd.’s Hemgenix, a treatment for the blood disorder hemophilia B.
The price tags mark a new high for medicines, which drugmakers were once reluctant to charge more than six figures for but whose prices have been heading upward. The companies say the cost reflects the drugs’ potential to help patients in a single dose, but paying for it could challenge patients and health insurers.
Too much dog shit on the pavements when I was there in 1983 and 1991. Probably still there.
That campaign became political because the Biden campaign/administration, Democrats, media and the voices in control over social media weaponized it around their political beliefs.
The COVID-19 narrative becomes a tool to achieve a variety of objectives: debate controls; the deployed ‘excuse‘ for a very visible lack of voter enthusiasm for the puppet (Biden); the use of fraudulent ‘mail-in ballots’; the keeping of socially distant physical auditors, etc. Without COVID as a tool the manufactured process is more difficult. The ‘never let a crisis go to waste‘ strategy includes the creation of a crisis.
The COVID-19 narrative held four primary benefits. Without COVID weaponized we would not see:
(1) Mail-in ballots. The origination material of the 2020 fraud.
(2) Breaking down of alliance-minded gathering and assemblies. COVID blocked group gatherings to discuss what was around us and stopped us from recognizing the scale of our assembly. COVID also took down faith-based leadership and church assembly when it was needed most.
(3) Spending packages that were really blue state bailouts justified under the auspices of COVID relief.
(4) Government providing the crisis solution (and all the ramifications therein).
Lastly, we know in hindsight; the 2016 presidential transition team carried a then unknown motive.
Who was it that recommended: Dan Coats (ODNI), Michael Atkinson (ICIG), James Mattis (DoD), Dana Boente (DOJ-NSD then FBI counsel). Who was the one steering these placements from inside the transition team?
Who was in charge of the transition team and also in charge of the Trump COVID-19 task force?
Look at the Picture Underneath – VP Pence and the Rest of the Gang
4
OldOzzie, from the comments it is clear that what Critical Race Theory and Black Lives Matter have unleashed does not bode well for what are historically difficult race relations in America. I felt this as I stood in front of empty newly burned out buildings in Selma Albama recently, on the very spot where Martin Luther King led the Civil Rights marchers over the Edmund Pettus Bridge towards a far more hopeful future of genuine inclusion into mainstream America. There was so much goodwill which has now been squandered.
Leftist ‘blame the whites’ victim theorising has inevitably turned into black street violence, which has set some of America’s mainstream back to expressing the attitudinal hatreds of the Deep South’s days of Jim Crow. They will be wielding the spiked truncheons we saw in the historic display in the Selma memorial museum next.
Well done, leftists. On track for your usual destruction of civilised life and behaviour.
3
“Just to clarify Rabz’s situation. Those of us who know him personally would know that the big rift with his family was caused by the fact that they rejected him completely for not taking the Covid vaxx. He’s spoken bitterely of that here several times. Previous to that it was abundantly clear to us, his Cat friends who had met his family members, that he loved them dearly, faults and all, leftists though they were.”
Nicely said Lizzie. You and I have met his siblings.
I rang Rabz last night, and whilst I said to him that the final decision was his and his alone, sometimes it’s worth swallowing some pride.
3
JCsays:
December 27, 2022 at 10:05 am
Too much dog shit on the pavements when I was there in 1983 and 1991. Probably still there.
Naaa, you’re here.
So jerkyfist c(r)untface has woken up and can still read. Go and play in the traffic and give us all a rest.
17
And of course, leftists are doing it again. I can’t see anything other than huge social antagonisms and inevitable failures of improvement emerging from socialist Albanese’s Indigenous Voice should it become enshrined in our Constitution.
2
The ’68 riots were actually multiples worse. Did Paris “fall”?
Mai’68 brought the whole of France to a standstill – until a counter protest of about a million non-left-wing-lunatics marched up the Champs Élysées.
It’s what they do.
3
“Inner West mayor Darcy Byrne has written to Premier Dominic Perrottet seeking a legal change to allow councils to charge higher rates to property owners who leave their shops untenanted, while reducing rates for those who keep their premises filled.
A so-called “vacancy tax” was previously supported in 2019 by then small business commissioner Robyn Hobbs and then small business ombudsman Kate Carnell, but was never implemented.”
I can see the merit in this. There’s a big problem all along Parramatta Road and Oxford Street Darlinghurst with empty shops. In Darlinghurst, many of the shop fronts are owned by one family who’ve allowed the shops to remain empty, for years now. They’ve allowed the shops to become dilapidated.
1
AI birthday suggestions are going to be an absolute panic. Even in Python.
However, giving up personal discrimination and responsibility is the future.
there’s no need to find out where the fences are, just use the pulldown menu
to make free-range living easy and trouble free, your permissable Enum Sets and Lambda functions will be updated daily.
–from the FARM agreement
3
Poland & Germany Offer to Buy Energy from Russia for 2023
From Armstrong Economics –
“Russia’s Transneft has received applications from Poland and Germany to pump oil for the first quarter of next year, despite reports of unwillingness to continue deliveries. Nikolai Tokarev, president of Transneft, said on the air of the Rossiya-24 TV channel. “They announced that they would not take oil from Russia from January 1. Now we have received applications from Polish consumers asking for 3 million tons next year, and 360,000 tons for December, and Germany has already submitted an application for the first quarter, he said.
On December 12, the Polish Cabinet called for the introduction of ‘full, comprehensive sanctions without exceptions’ against Russia, including ‘comprehensive sanctions against the northern pipeline (Druzhba).’
“If this does not happen, then we will continue discussions together with the [Orlen] concern, or the concern will decide what to do next with the commitments already made,” Anna Moskva, minister of Climate and Environment of Poland, who is responsible for energy issues, told reporters.
We have to wonder if the Politicians in Germany and Poland are starting to fear civil uprising if people have no heat.”
Hero dad takes on two alleged thieves in his underwear on Boxing Day
Madeleine AchenzaNCA NewsWire
Tue, 27 December 2022 6:32AM
A Gold Coast dad has become a local hero after he ran into his street wearing nothing but his undies to confront two alleged thieves.
Steve Middleton took matters into his own hands on Boxing Day when he allegedly woke to find two men trying steal from his daughter’s car.
“I actually woke up to go fishing. My alarm went off, I jumped out of bed, looked out my window and saw a torch in my daughter’s car,” he told Today on Tuesday.
“So I jumped into action straight away.”
The only thing he had time to do before running into the street in Mermaid Waters was pop on a pair of underwear.
“Realised I was starkers so had to put something on, didn‘t want to scare them too much.”
Mr Middleton said the incident happened “so quickly” that when he approached his daughter’s car he didn’t notice the two young men were allegedly carrying weapons.
“All I was doing was trying to was wrestle the young fella down,” he said.
“I was more screaming out for the neighbours and trying to get some help so we can just apprehend the young fella.
The tradie said he used one of the alleged thieves’ bodies as a shield as the other allegedly tried to swing at him with a baseball bat and a knife.
“He was only a little fella, easy enough to throw around,” he joked.
“I don‘t think they had the intention of doing any harm, but [he was] just trying to get his mate free and get the hell out of there.”
Mr Middleton said his children have been “taking the Mickey out of him” since the heroic incident.
“All my mates are calling me Captain Undies at the moment,” he said.
“The youngest one wants to buy me personalised number plates.”
A QLD police spokesperson told NCA NewsWire no arrests have been made in relation to the incident and investigations are ongoing.
6
BLM is dead, Liz. The boss and I think several underlings have been caught raiding the til. It had legit underpinnings at the very, very beginning but it was subsequently subsumed by demonrat operatives, which obviously meant it became corrupt.
4
A mother and father took their 6-year-old son to a nude beach. As the boy walked along the beach, he noticed that some of the ladies had boobs bigger than his mother’s, and asked her why. She told her son “The bigger they are the dumber the person is”.
The boy pleased with the answer, goes to play in the ocean but returns to tell his mother that many of the men appear to have larger wangs than his dad. His mother replied “The bigger they are the dumber the person is”.
Again satisfied with this answer, the boy returns to the ocean to play. Shortly after, the boy returned again. He promptly told his mother “Daddy is talking to the dumbest girl on the beach, and the longer he talks, the dumber he gets”.
8
Cassie of Sydneysays:
December 27, 2022 at 10:13 am
its a good point, Feraldton has a largely rooted town center because somehow its easier to leave a shop empty than have tenants.
Somehow, despite not generating any return or value, the mere aspect of it being land makes it a commercial return.
1
The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep.
– W. C. Fields
5
I can see the merit in this.
I don’t all I see is another excuse to demish property rights. It’s not my business what the owners do and if they can run at a loss It’s a taxation/rates issue . Councils attract Karens.
10
miltonfsays:
December 27, 2022 at 6:58 am
Dirty filthy creature-this is marxism trashing and humiliating a once great institution
There should be a rule that trannies must be attractive otherwise they get fired/arrested/put in stocks.
Rules:
2 sexes, 2 genders
Man = adult male
Woman = adult female
Man who likes other men = poofta
Woman who likes other women= dyke
Man who identifies as a woman = pathology
Woman who identifies as a man = pathology
Anyone who identifies as anything else = pathology
Men cannot have children and cannot compete with women in sports.
No sex education in schools; teachers who do it = arrested for child abuse
Marriage is between a man and a woman.
11
@JC from what I heard here Milo was just living the high life on supporters’ donations. Further, he said he wants to make Trump’s life a misery due to some perceived slight. It was telling years ago that he left Breitbart because other writers refused to work with him.
1
Cassie
It’s very problematic. It’s possible store fronts are vacant because there aren’t any tenants. In these situations a vacancy tax would be placing extreme pressure on landlords.
Empty or filled, a tax should discriminate.
In Darlinghurst, many of the shop fronts are owned by one family who’ve allowed the shops to remain empty, for years now. They’ve allowed the shops to become dilapidated.
It most likely means the family is attempting to develop the spread and the holdup is with the approvals regulator. It always is.
6
Will Putin Step Down in 2023?
“We have a very serious problem. Former Chancellor Merkel has openly stated that there was NEVER any intention to carry out the Minsk Agreement and that not only condemned the people of the Donbas to war, loss of their religion, and the tyranny of Kiev, but they were using them for bait to deliberately force Putin to invade to start a war with Russia. Congressman Adam Kinzinger just came out and said that NATO could destroy Russia in three days. The real danger here is that Merkel, and also the former president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, have both publicly stated that they played Putin for a fool. In 2023, we are entering a very critical time period where Putin may step down during January, or April/May 2023 and then the Neocons will take the reigns of power and they will not be so soft.
What is so dangerous is that this not only demonstrates to China that the West cannot be trusted in making any agreements whatsoever, but that the Russian neocons have been put on notice that the intention of NATO is to wipe Russia off the face of the earth. They DELIBERATELY blew up the Nordstream pipeline showing that this is a long-term objective to crush the Russian economy. Our world leaders WANT WAR and they are the aggressor – not Russia. They deliberately had the Vice President at the Munich Conference state that Ukraine should join NATO. Then on February 23rd, 2022, one day before Putin made his move, Zelensky came out and said Ukraine wanted to rearm itself with nuclear weapons.
Anyone who cannot see what is taking place here is blind. The West NEEDS war to terminate the monetary system as it stands today. They are looking for a war with Russia and China so they can call Bretton Woods II and craft their digital currency managed by the IMF and install their one-world government administered by the United Nations. We will completely lose all freedom and any right to vote whatsoever. Keep in mind that in ALL parliamentary systems, the people never vote for who shall be the head of state. That is unique to the United States. They want to eliminate that ability, Our computer has been warning that we will soon end the right of Americans to vote for a President.
In June 2022, former president Petro Poroshenko said in an interview with several Western media outlets, including Deutsche Welle, publicly admitted that there had never been any question of implementing the Minsk agreements and that they had only been intended to give Ukraine time. He said:
“We got what we wanted. We did not believe Putin, just as we do not believe him now. Our task was, first of all, to remove the threat, or at least to delay the war. We gave ourselves eight years to restore economic growth and build up the strength of the armed forces. That was the first task – and it was accomplished […]. Despite the fact that the war lasted eight years – as far as a large-scale military operation is concerned, I think the Minsk agreements have fulfilled their role.”
Interestingly, the former German Chancellor Angela Merkel said exactly the same thing, on December 7th, 2022, curiously, the very anniversary of Pearl Harbor – Sunday, December 7, 1941. The real question here is that it certainly appears that they negotiated in bad faith and played Putin for a fool. That is highly dangerous now In her interview with the Zeit
Merkel stated very clearly: “I considered the 2008 discussion on the membership of Ukraine and Georgia in NATO to be a mistake. These countries did not have the necessary conditions for it, and the consequences of such a decision had not been fully considered, both in terms of Russia’s actions against Georgia and Ukraine and for NATO and its rules of assistance. And the 2014 Minsk agreements were an attempt to give Ukraine time.”
She continued saying: “We all knew that this was a frozen conflict, that the problem was not solved, but this is precisely what gave Ukraine precious time.”
No worse bores than the returnees who gush over Paris.
And worse than the dog poo on the pavements are the women in their elegant clothes with the baked-in sweat smell; avoid Paris in the cool months – their used winter knitwear gives off that putrid Parisian perfume.
But tastes vary
9
Marriage is between a man and a woman.
How does it impact you personally if a couple of queers want to tie the knot? It has none and the world hasn’t ended. Leave them alone. Also, you’re too focused on homosexuality.
3
Putting some sense back into the “medieval times were hell vs medieval times were heaven on earth” debate:
Some of the comments are really stupid comments from historians and Marxists, one comment quotes Adam Smith to note how feudalism had lords pay an increasingly low tax burden over time and that wages also fell.
(HINT HINT: THERE WAS A REASON WHY THE PEASANT’S REVOLT AND PURITAN PARLIAMENTARIANS HAD POPULAR SUPPORT)
Dan Sullivan 10 months ago · 0 Likes
This depends on what period you mean by “Medieval.”
Six Centuries of Work and Wages, by Thurold Rogers, details how wages fell after the Norman Conquest, and continued to fall with the Enclosure Acts that began just 20 years after the Magna Carta.
To understand why they fell, see Wealth of Nations, Book 1, Chapter 11, “Of the Rent of Land.” Land was monopolized to the point that the landlord left the worker little more than what he needed to survive. Thus, the problem was not capitalism, but landlordism.
Adam Smith proposed in other chapters that government should be funded by “ground rents,” or land value tax. Richard Cobden detailed how landlords, who paid for all of government from land rents before the Magna Carta, paid lower and lower shares until they were paying about 4% of the costs by 1816. Aside from throwing the tax burden onto producers, the low taxes on land allowed the landlords to hold vast tracts out of use and to make tenants pay rack-rents on the little land that was available to them.
Wow!
2
Sorry. I imagined something far more profound than disagreement over the vaxx.
I’m still reeling over discovering my own “eligible” grandchildren have been treated like pincushions because the doctors in the family have urged vaxxing because “herd immunity”. And don’t you know there’s a whizz bang 5th dose that will give them even more immunity! I kid you not.
I don’t think they even hear themselves any more. And, because I’m just a retired whateverer, what would I know? Sadly we all have to suck up the idiocy and make the best we can of it.
9
What we were not taught at school:
The Peasants Revolt, 1381.
Richard II was 14 and up to 60,000 peasants and yeoman rode to confront the government in London, riding in two arms from Maidstone (Kent) and in Essex.
It started over a poll tax to fund an unpopular foreign war; the outrages began as tax collectors were putting their hands up dresses to feel for a young woman’s maidenhead, as unmarried women were not liable but married women were. It turns out that ius primae noctis was a myth, but the methods of tax assessment were dangerously close to the concept.
If peasants were rich and worked 70-150 days a year, I doubt this rebellion and near revolution would have gotten off the ground; several high officials were executed and royal, church & noble castles were sacked or went turncoat.
5
“It’s very problematic. It’s possible store fronts are vacant because there aren’t any tenants. In these situations a vacancy tax would be placing extreme pressure on landlords.”
There are willing tenants, I live near Oxford Street and I’ve spoken to various tenants who’ve vacated because the landlord has increased the rent and then the shop remains empty, even after four/five years.
Near me there are rows of shops, empty for years, owned by one family.
1
I can see the merit in this.
Just about every CBD in the country, as well as every metropolitan beachside strip has a 70 year old dilapidated weatherboard house nestled on a quarter or eighth-acre block and surrounded by restaurants, hotels, office buildings or even high rises.
None of them are mine, so I am only surmising that they are owned by either a really old bloke (or chick) or a family trust, watching with glee as its value increases by the hour.
Empty shopfronts are no different. Once you’ve bought it, it’s yours. Unless it’s some sort of health or fire hazard the owners should be able to do what they like with it.
The councils can eat shit. What are they going to do – compel business owner to tout for business? ‘Wanted business to rent my shop. Prepared to make a loss to get the council off my back.’
The other, next-step question is – what type of shop is acceptable? Florists? Travel agents? Vego-lesbian cafes? Off Ya Tree franchises? Methadone wholsesalers?
Why would you buy something worth high-six or seven figures if it’s conditional that officious council housewives can tell you what to do with your investment?
12
Darcy Byrne, despite being a Green, does occasionally make sense. I agree with him re. the empty shops just like I agreed with him last year when, during lockdown, he called out the hypocrisy of the inner-west being in lockdown yet the state government allowed a Netflix series to be filmed in Ashfield.
2
Worse places to visit than gay Paree. And very gay on our first visit because pride march down the Bvde St Michel. Sat comfortably in a corner café and watched the wondrous spectacle.
I prefer the countryside and smaller towns. Always good food, even if it’s just a sandwich and a glass of plonk.
3
Cassie
Rent in a commercial tenancy has very serious implications to the capital value of the real estate holding. Say a 50% drop in rent potentially could mean a 50% drop in the capital value of the property. If there are loans against the store fronts it could impact the LVR. It’s not as simple as just dropping the rent. Sometimes it’s best to leave the joints empty.
3
the landlord has increased the rent and then the shop remains empty, even after four/five years.
Due to tax, council rates and regulations.
6
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Bearesays:
December 27, 2022 at 10:11 am And of course, leftists are doing it again. I can’t see anything other than huge social antagonisms and inevitable failures of improvement emerging from socialist Albanese’s Indigenous Voice should it become enshrined in our Constitution.
The teen – who cannot be named for legal reasons – was sentenced to 12 months in prison after being found guilty of aggravated robbery following the assault in Ashfield on September 5.
The terrifying attack was caught on CCTV, with footage showing the 37-year-old mum lying on the ground after she was approached by the girl.
Six of the youths — boys aged 14, 16 and 17 and girls aged 12, 13 and 15 — were arrested and taken to hospital for minor injuries.
Police said a number of the youth were known to police.
Townsville Mayor Jenny Hill said strong action will be taken against the offenders.
“We’re outraged. Don’t tell me that a 17-year-old doesn’t know the difference between right and wrong — it’s just unacceptable,” Ms Hill said.
“These offenders need to be, especially at the age of 16 and 17, treated as young adults. These juveniles think because they are juvenile that the courts will be lenient with them.
“They’re very lucky nobody was killed.”
Ms Hill said many of the children’s families were well known to police.
“Frankly, there has to be a better way than putting these kids back in these homes where you have parents who just don’t give a stuff.”
3
I own a store front.. actually I inherited it. I left the thing vacant for almost 2 years before I found a decent tenant and it was worth the wait because it’s a name tenant that adds to the capital value.
2
Hero dad takes on two alleged thieves in his underwear on Boxing Day
I will bet his kids and mates will be calling the day after Christmas Boxers Day from now on.
8
“Rent in a commercial tenancy has very serious implications to the capital value of the real estate holding. Say a 50% drop in rent potentially could mean a 50% drop in the capital value of the property. If there are loans against the store fronts it could impact the LVR. It’s not as simple as just dropping the rent. Sometimes it’s best to leave the joints empty.”
Thanks JC, I understand the economic issues, it’s just isn’t a good look.
1
Normally rent control type measures are an anathema to me. However they make some sense in strip shopping areas where landlords are often elderly people (often non-Australian, not that this really matters) who acquired the properties in the 1950s or earlier at prices far below today’s market values. Elderly landlords often do not want the market rental income which would often mean losing Centrelink benefits via an income test. Adult children (and potential beneficiaries) have no interest in seeing the property tenanted and maintained which doesn’t take it much beyond land value in any event. It is properly seen as a market failure situation.
2
Sure Cass.. Also, one last point. You also get smart arse dicks trying to rent the joint. They come up with ridiculous proposals and you tell the agent to not even go back to the morons with a counter. (After I left trading , I learned a new thing in life. There are a lot of complete dickheads populating the world.)
4
Apparently I am the only person here who has not made multiple visits to the City of Light.
I am okay with this. However, I would like to – noting that Powerball is taking its own sweet time to pay off – walk the following bits of French ground:
Omaha Beach and Ponte du Hoc;
Villers-Brettoneux;
Tours;
Caen; and
The Pyrenees, marking the ancient Franco-Spanish/Moorish border.
3
What you were lied to about in school: the Saxon “invasion” of England.
At least the fact that the Saxon invasion being a cultural and not literal one is becoming widely known, the Saxon invasion of post Roman Britain hinges on the misunderstanding of the Roman word for Count.
The DNA and archeology say that there was never an invasion. Funnily enough, English has the same sentence structure as Irish.
Also too, the earliest Saxon rulers…had “Welsh” names!
The Normans and Victorians/Tudors had a vested interest in claiming the legitimacy of an invading usurper.*
“Britain AD – The Invasion that Never Was, Francis Pryor”
*We all know the Saxons and Normandy intermarried and eventually the lines were married through Margaret of Scotland.
2
I prefer the countryside and smaller towns
Me too but these tend to lack international airports.
You have to start, leave by some international airport.
I tried to book out of Madrid this time but every time they wanted to put me on a flight to London then Dubai or Singapore, thanks but no thanks.
1
And all those examples are market failure – are they Bear. Like government policy is clean skin as it doesn’t impact at all on economic decision making.
Your Centrelink example is a little problematic because it’s not just income based, but also capital based too.
2
And don’t you know there’s a whizz bang 5th dose that will give them even more immunity! I kid you not.
My middle daughter just up from Danistan for the week was telling me she’s had 3 injections (work=wise) and went down with BAT FLU .. spent a week in bed ..
I just howled with “pure-bood” laughter .. nooo sympathy! .. LOL!
8
who acquired the properties in the 1950s or earlier at prices far below today’s market values
We had those in the strip where I had my shop. Refuse to contemplate any tenants, the shops are an eyesore, in one case with added rats, does nothing for other tenants.
1
Elderly landlords often do not want the market rental income which would often mean losing Centrelink benefits via an income test.
tales your nanna told you level …..
You ain’t gonna be getting much change off CentreLink if you own commercial property of any sort …..
6
JC’spoint is valid. Increasingly there are fewer “name” tenants to take on leases. And modern mixed use property developments often require commercial use of the ground floor bringing more potentially unleaseable floorspace to market. Even recognised franchisees like Dymocks have struggled on a well known street shopping strip. Vodafone pulled the pin years ago.
OK, peoples. I apologise for the “regrettable” tenor of some of the comments above, but I am not happy (again).
Just spent the second Christmas Day in a row languishing in the cottage by myself, contemplating the navel.
My stupid bloody family made the mediocrity of yesterday even worse by blundering into the “contemplation time” to advise me that a certain sibling of mine might just be knock, knock, knocking on Hell’s* door.
This is a no win situation, Cats.
I sell out and “do the right thing” by turning up at his hospital bedside and engage in an entirely superficial “I’m here for you in your final moments on this planet” bullshit, or I just ignore them all and accept that any kind of reconciliation becomes an even more remote possibility.
Or I could turn up at the funeral and provoke “an international incident”.
To make matters worse, Miss Emily is overseas and has been incommunicado. Except I couldn’t in any correct consciousness drag her into this toxic swamp.
Any advice would be much appreciated, Cats.
*He’s not going to any heaven, in this universe or any other.
“Perhaps it’s time to stop commenting on a Party you’ve never supported or voted for?”
Oh fuck off.
Sorry Dover, that’s appropriate language.
Gez – cousin and I used to play on the CB in the cabin of the CFA Austin housed in his dads shed – we didn’t know at the time we were going out on the airwaves – got a bit of a shock when the response came in from the captain. Lost their house and outbuildings in Ash Wednesday while my uncle was out elsewhere on the truck – many inopportune stalls from petrol vaporising in the fuel lines. I recall they got a third hand Acco next.
That was stimulated by Dover’s enthusiasm for the middle ages. There is definitely a downside to living in them.
Swearing, I don’t like it except in the company of similar men, when Dover first began this fine blog, there was talk of Chesterfield couches, whiskey and polite dignified conversations. I still hang around but it’s more like going to the pub, but not the main bar, but the Ladies Lounge, unfortunately like all our once fine institutions the Ladies Lounge has devolved into something worse than the main bar.
Rabz, always a spare bedroom here for a night or two, as long as you don’t overstay. I always look forward to some conversation.
Yeah sure buddy.
Pauline Hanson isn’t allowed to criticise the Greens.
You have to be fairly dumb to fall for this gaslighting nonsense.
Sad to hear about that Rabz. Best wishes from me, if that counts for anything.
DrBeauGansays:
December 26, 2022 at 7:37 pm
Hands up everyone who wants to read about people going to the toilet.
That was stimulated by Dover’s enthusiasm for the middle ages. There is definitely a downside to living in them.
Only if they wash their hands………………………lol
Rabz go see your sibling, you aren’t going to regret doing so.
Ignore them Rabz.
Fold, and they’ll be into you like a pack of wild dogs forevermore.
Genuine opinion. If they’re not worth saving, walk away. ‘Blood is thicker than water’ works both ways.
And I don’t get quibbling about a gas lamp in a story where children can sometimes get into a different universe from the back of a wardrobe,where time doesn’t exist in the same way as ours, meet talking lions who can bring statues to life etc etc
..
Go there to score nurses.
… when Dover first began this fine blog, there was talk of Chesterfield couches, whiskey and polite dignified conversations.
Don’t recall that fantasy, but, whatever?
This blog under Davidson and since has always been light reading.
Until the Brittany Higgins affair.
A number of commenters used the blog to libel and defame Higgins in the vilest of terms.
You didn’t speak up then, so babbling about Chesterfield couches and assorted whatnots doesn’t cut it now.
Martin Armstrong shilling and trying to rehabilitate himself after stealing 3 billion USD from Japanese investors is incredibly really.
It’s amazing how he grifted onto civil liberties issues to give himself an air of credibility.
Like any good cockroach, he’ll say anything to get noticed.
The gas lamp came from London, DrBeau. It was originally a bar from a street lamp and made its way there as Narnia was “growing”.
It was hurled into the ground and grew, much like a cutting.
The gas is magical, like everything else.
The lamp near Mr. Tumnus’s home grew from the iron bar off the gas street lamp which the Witch tore off when she was in London.
I find the idea of a faun in a scarf with a predilection to treachery far more interesting than drop dunnies in Cair Paravel.
I’ll see you and raise you a Morris Commercial.
Queen Jadis of Charn, to be precise.
Nasty piece of work.
“I don’t believe in magic, but I believe in a big bang without causation”
Ooh very clever. Your brain fits in a bucket and it knows beyond any doubt theists are wrong because someone else did an experiment* with particles that not only we can’t see but pop in and out of existence.
*That cannot prove, but can falsify a null hypothesis asymptotically approaching zero probability, by design.
Great stories.
I started to reread the Magician Nephew recently but the uncle was so horrid I left off and read something else.
Must have another go at it.
Tuff choice mate. I followed the superficial path once by attending a funeral and regretted it ever since. Follow your instincts.
I appreciate Mrs Beaver though. She wanted to escape the terror of the wolves, but not without her sewing machine.
😀
And she made marmalade roll.
Rabz,
Go do your last visit.
More likely than not, the conversation will confirm your feelings and you’ll live happily ever after knowing that you did your bit, and yet, they doubled down.
That you’re even contemplating it means a final confirmation will be cathartic, and guarantee you never succumb to lingering (but unresolvable) doubt.
I speak from experience.
Regardless, the “international incident” can still happen at the funeral. The undeserved guishing praise and outright lies, can become too much.
Again, I speak from experience.
Go.
Blame me. I made you do it. If, by a slim (or more likely, wide) chance, it all turns to shyte, blame me again. With bells on.
Just…go.
I have a whole tribe of cousins on my sainted Mother’s side that are complete dunderheads. Not worth a pinch of shit, the lot of them – the sole exception being the one that died of cancer 20 years ago.
The entire crew were born and raised and live in Ballarat. That they didn’t move at the first opportunity says much. There are no fathers alive. My three aunts responsible for this travesty are, it hardly needs to be said, complete nuffers.
Dickheads all. There is a reason I stopped interacting with them decades ago, and if I were to turn up at one of their remaining funerals it would be seen for what it would be – appearance for the sake of it.
Your principles got you to this point, Rabz. Stick by them, I say.
My suspension of disbelief was never great, but it gets feebler as I age. I reread the Narnia opus and found The Last Battle revolting. Lewis had gone off his head by then.
Also…funerals are horrible. They’re meant to be, regardless of all the frills and furbelows modernity attaches to them.
Leave your expectations, whatever they are, at home. A small target is always preferable, so ditch the rondel.
I was going to swear a bit more for emphasis in that last post, but now I’m cognisant of keeping the tone up.
Consarn it.
I have morons in my family too.
No need to add to the moronity by becoming one yourself. Duty always outweighs preference. Otherwise, why would we praise those who do their duty despite their distaste?
Forgiveness has limits, Calli.
Rabz, you can either go all sentimental and ignore what your brain is telling you, or focus on what kind of rellies you actually have. They won’t stop being useless shits because sentimental women are urging you to be kind to them.
My rellies are also useless shits. We ignore each other. Works for me.
Thanks all and I mean that. Lots of conflicting opinions there. Much to contemplate.
Arks with the finger on the (still beating pulse).
I don’t need no nurses while Miss Emily is on this planet. 🙂
Err, has a bug died next to the Avatar?
Chuckle. Duty transcends sentiment.
You old softie.
Evidently not. 😕
Rabz
Mater is right.
Otherwise you will be thinking couldof,should’ve, would’ve.
Cats – I’m inclined to go and see him, for several (conflicting) reasons.
The main one being the sonorous voice of my ol’ man booming in my head – “You would take some sort of perverse pleasure in the misfortunes of others? He’s your brother – your sisters would be at your bedside should you ever suffer some similar misfortune”.
This is doing my head in. 😕
Rabz, I have been presumptuous. I don’t know what has caused the rift, and I don’t want to know. And so I’m only going on instinct…my own. And the values that have been embedded in me since childhood.
Horrible things happen in families, sometimes too difficult to ever surmount. Only you know what’s best.
I don’t get why this is the default. No one but the attendee knows the full circumstances so there not regret it.
Farmer Gez, I’ll see your Morris with this. The Rotary Hose Carriage
https://victoriancollections.net.au/items/4f72a25697f83e0308601f91
When i joined they told us not to worry about learning them as they were long out of use. Two weeks later at the old 52 in Strathmore (Woodlands St) I was sitting in the back seat of one going to a job. No water, atrocious power and handling, a positive displacement pump that was dangerous to use. In general a useless piece of rubbish. We would’ve been better off with Riga backpacks..
…may not regret it.
Wrong way to look at it, Rabz.
Remember, if you are in the right, you’re not going there for anything more noble than giving them a last chance at redemption.
Turning up isn’t necessarily giving in.
Anyway, Cats – that’s enough of that and thanks for your indulgence. I’ll shut up about it and attempt to make some sense of it tomorrow morning.
When I’m sober. Oh, give us a break – I’m on holidays, FFS. 🙂
Interesting, there were NO rules, as the rule were always there.
Stick to lifting jokes. And close the lid to the bin.
A number of commenters used the blog to libel and defame Higgins in the vilest of terms.
Does Richard Cranium have the hots for Mzzzz Knickerless?
Rabz, I kinda understand your pain. When I had cancer a couple of years back a sibling of mine didn’t visit or even call me for ten weeks. I have since reprioritised that sibling about ten rungs lower on the list of people I care about.
However, I still force myself to ring that sibling every now and then to ensure I do not echo said sibling’s poor behaviour.
If that sibling was in hospital I would visit. I would not feel happy and would bitterly whinge to my wife afterwards, but I’d still visit. Duty doesn’t make you feel better but you have less regrets later. Thinking of you, mate. You’re a decent fella.
Real Deal.. Dude, hope you’re okay these days.
He may be waiting for you to come before he feels he can shuffle off this mortal coil, Rabz.
Death is a funny thing that way, not at all like the movies.
Play it by ear.
Thanks, JC. Doctor found a nodule in August in another place, I have another scan in late March. A long wait but that may mean it’s actually nothing and I shouldn’t worry. Apparently as you age you get spots on organs just like moles on the outside. I hope that is all it is but I hate waiting. Thanks for your kind words.
Mater is no sentimental woman. Nor is Hairy, as you know, Rabz, and he just came in after dipping into the Cat and said are you going to get in touch with Rabz? Hairy thinks maybe you should go as they have put out a sort of olive branch. So I’m saying here my view that he’s your brother Rabz, and he ain’t heavy (in spite of appearances) he’s down and possibly out forever, so see him even though he’s not been fair to you. You shared a childhood, and that is about all I shared with my brother as we grew apart, but that was enough as he lay dying. I held his hand and whispered into his ear that I was here also for mum and dad who’d already passed away and Big Sis who was in hospital down south. He was totally immobile but sentient – he could only move one hand. He squezed mine with it, twice, to show affirmation. Do as Calli and Rosie say as well, go and see what happens. You will know then how bad it is and what you are well rid of if there can’t be any reconciliation. They have all hurt you badly, but that’s what it’s like with families. Sometimes they just don’t know what they are doing. Hairy says they have been conquered by irrational fear, simply that. Don’t live with regrets.
Rabz
Go see him.
I had no solace in being right, my family member “died suddenly”.
Just go.
He can’t get past all that skin. 2023 sorted and it even January yet.
… redder too
We aren’t really. You replied to an answer by neither accepting or denying what I said but asking, who decides? I simply responded by saying that the same people or institutions that decide now would decide under this other arrangement too. As to the limits now, for instance, a school will pretend a student is of the other sex, allow that student to wear clothing of the other sex, behind the back of the parents, and so on.
I’m not professing their rules because they do not all profess the same rules. I mentioned them because they don’t employ the term nature in the sense your earlier comment did. For example, glasses are not contrary to nature. It is in the nature of the eye to see so an instrument that can correct some defect in the eye is in accord with its nature. The same would be true of something that augmented some human capability and in the case of a plane it’s locomotion.
A number of commenters used the blog to libel and defame Higgins in the vilest of terms.
Facts don’t defame crotchless.
Thanks again, everyone. Looks like I’m off to see him tomorrow morning.
Something like that. Coming soon.
..
And the nurses.
All the old boomer ones have mostly retired now.
Dover
Forget the wall, forget the three old philosophers.
Just explain what you mean by liberalism in the present context. It’s not an attempt to trap you or anything.
Rabz….you need to go and see your brother.
Real – thanks, Squire.
Just explain what you mean by liberalism in the present context. It’s not an attempt to trap you or anything.
Modern liberalism is communism head prefect.
I’m not sure that’s what he means Cronkite. If you’re needed to explain some point, I’ll ask you, so don’t worry.
cohenitesays:
December 26, 2022 at 9:10 pm
Just explain what you mean by liberalism in the present context. It’s not an attempt to trap you or anything.
Modern liberalism is communism head prefect.
Not really. Communism at least claimed to care about the masses. Modern “liberalism” doesn’t even pretend to care. It is intensely focussed on benefiting the well off, while forcing those at the bottom (and middle) of the pile into a life of subservience..
Modern “liberalism” has no resemblance to the classical liberalism of Menzies.
Dinner for us now. Yummy whole trout with tarragon, done in olive oil and wrapped in foil.
One of my salads, and some new potatos, one each. We had a brunch with my brother’s son and his extended family in Nowra this morning, with much memory-trawling about times past.
Attapuss is overjoyed to see us home from the South Coast.
Glad we were coming back not going down, where the traffic was awful.
We heard on the radio that it was very bad going up north to…
Our street and others nearby to The Gap were parked out for the Sydney-Hobart start.
Luckily we had the garage as a last resort but managed street parking arriving after 3pm.
It was a lovely sunny day and obviously people had stayed on to go to the harbour beaches.
I would go.
Knuckles – 11:25 on 25/12
Took your time to reply, I be been sitting here stroking my pussy cat
Like all kraut rejects they are sent to England.
Best bakers best mechanics, best engineers, builders , musicians and organisation.
Country full of blonde hair and blue eyes.
Mix a German with another race and have a look at the gorgeous off spring – grace Kelly German with Irish, Marilyn Monroe
Krauts rule
This is interesting but is it a pipe dream?
Ignore da Pascoe. It might be really good work, but I’m sceptical.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/nov/10/australian-researchers-find-native-grasses-could-be-grown-for-human-consumption
So you’ll have your native millet (channel millet?), curly mitchell grass and kangaroo grass instead of wheat, barley and triticale?
Guardian:
Does this mean Putin is going to solidify gains then talk peace?
Rabz,
It may be your mind is made up and I can see you’ve received various pieces of advice.
The one thought I would leave with you is that forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves, not the person who gave offence. Forgiveness is simply an act of the will, one which says there is no longer any debt to be repaid and never expects the other to acknowledge their wrongdoing or even perceive it. If we wait to ‘feel’ forgiving, it may never happen.
I hope that whatever happens tomorrow, you have peace on the other side. You’re a good soul.
You are a good soul Rabz. Always enjoy your insights and humor.
Its very interesting. If it requires less water than wheat imagine growing millions of hectares of it and exporting it, building new rural towns and earning billions in FX.
Not really. Communism at least claimed to care about the masses. Modern “liberalism” doesn’t even pretend to care. It is intensely focussed on benefiting the well off, while forcing those at the bottom (and middle) of the pile into a life of subservience..
Communism/liberalism both pay lip service to the masses and great causes all of which are just methods to gain power for a few over the many. The psychology of the commie is based on his sense of superiority which doesn’t exist; because it doesn’t exist he invents great causes -racism, sexism, wokism, alarmism – to justify his superiority and claim to power. The causes undermine the democratic structure which gives power to everyone and by subverting democracy the commie gains power at the expense of the masses.
It’s elementary. Don’t guild the lily. Commies/liberals are power hungry sh.ts. They’re a disease within humanity. The problem is they have infiltrated the conservative non commie parties and done their great march through the institutions. At this stage the West is basically f..ked.
The decaying coruptocrat in the Whitehouse certainly invites foul language bacause the old thief and ‘dr’ Jill are a foul pair. Anyone who seriously suggests that PoS legitimately won in 2020 does not deserve to be taken seriously.
“almost certainly [be] going beyond Russian doctrinal guidelines”.
Maskirovka.
Communism/liberalism both pay lip service to the masses and great causes all of which are just methods to gain power for a few over the many. The psychology of the commie is based on his sense of superiority which doesn’t exist; because it doesn’t exist he invents great causes -racism, sexism, wokism, alarmism – to justify his superiority and claim to power.
yes they make up ‘problems’ (manufacture is too polite) with the aid of the meja
Try a 58 Austin that that had a cabin like a thermomix and the petrol vaporised regularly on a hot day on the way to a fire.
I’m not sure there were any gears.
I always wondered if running Avgas in these heaps of shit would have fixed the vapour lock issue. Vapour pressure in Avgas is tightly controlled to prevent vapour locks at altitude.
Rabz, go.
The constant liberation of persons from all constraints.
Dog waffle update-
Danno, the teflon dog of the southwest, is a-ok on his third night alone. My dad touched in with him christmas eve with a chicken neck, christmas day took him to their place for lunch where, true to form, he drifted back home by himself- boxing day roo shank for brekky and a ute tour of the troughs. Just had a neighbour phone me and say they could hear a real lonesome howlin’ from the homestead and was asking if she should try go comfort him but for the risk he might follow her away again… i thanked her most kindly but told her we’d most likely be home by noon tomorrow.
He’s a good dog. We’ve probobly got one more blessed generation before the spread of the west coast conurbation means a man won’t be able to leave a home unlocked and a dog untied any more.
It could, it can also mean they are using these layered defensive positions to prevent another Kharkov while deploying existing and mobilised units for an offensive. Who knows?
Rich Baris “The People’s Pundit” @Peoples_Pundit · Dec 25
The line from Baris might be LibertyQuoteworthy?
Seconded.
There is no way to get the ‘right’ answer to these kinds of human dilemmas. So much of what angers us about family disappointments lies in the shadows of our childhood.
Don’t feel pressured to go because you might regret it if you ignore the call. It’s equally possible to regret what you do in haste as much as what you don’t do out of caution for your own heart.
The decision is yours, and yours alone.
It’s summer and it’s not just the bush-fire time- the small plane crash season begins.
Michael J. Morrison @OfficeOfMike · 22h
Lots of moisture in the air down here. You notice it by the street lights.
Rabz,
I have a brother that’s trouble.
there’s no real bad blood between us.
we just went different ways
he’s hard and dangerous and I wouldn’t for instance go fishing with him
a Christmas lunch where he was, is where I wouldn’t be
but when it was time … I’d go see him
we both both came from the same place
and we’re both going the same place
The “Rent ‘a’ Riffers” in their prime:
“I made a wish …
I said it out loud … “
Ask AI if covid came from a Lab
Asked AI if Rabz should go see his brother.
AI still has some way to go, JC. 🙂
Christmas Day at my nephew’s place in Nowra is always interesting. He lives in an estate started in the 80’s and grown since then. The housing is all project homes, some with Federation bits on them, others with gables left ungarnished, but all of a type. It’s a difficult estate to navigate as everything looks similar, the roads are often cul de sacs and there are few items to note as waystations. His is an early build on a large block, with room for a caravan and a boat and three cars – ideal family living for a working family man of that vintage on a smallish wage, which most of the purchasers were and still are. The general tenre can be gauged by one tradie’s van which had sticker on it, pic of a bloke holding a beer bearing the tag line of ‘Time to get pissed’. Possibly just there for Christmas.
We hadn’t put the address in the Sporty Beamer so Hairy was doing some bold navigation from the map alone. In the middle of it a phone call came in from grandson in New York on the hands-free system which we had to take and so we lost the map and Hairy, who kept driving for the duration of it, lost his way. Thus we were maginally late for Chrissie lunch, as we did more circuits than we had to in order to arrive. We knew as we drew up into the concrete apron that Big Sis and her sixth husband had made it because we saw their electric car, which set the tone for topics to be avoided to enable Christmas cheer. Family is what you have, not what you wish for. Each of them has changed over the years, replacing the cognitive pegs by which people feel they know each other. You have feel for the newer versions, locking into the past to hold them close in tidal shifts. We love this lot for the years spent making Christmases together, for their friendliness, their honesty and for being Australian to the core. Presents galore and food to spare. My eldest son came down with us but all of my other children and grandkids were out of town by then. A Christmas lacking little ones, my nephew’s children all adults and working, and everyone else there skewing towards the older set. Different.
2 to 3 years tops and then you won’t be able to tell AI from a human. It’s that close and after that the world won’t be recognizable.
AI can’t cook
and free range hens can’t even tell the difference
Marinas gas lamp is because it ended up being dropped there from London when Narnia was being formed.
The magicians nephew has the details….
Doing the drive down for Christmas, so much easier on the new dual freeway, I couldn’t help being impressed at the way in which Christmas pulls out the crowds and reinforces everyone’s bonds of family. We all come from families, however constructed and however good, bad or indifferent. Even if absent, they live on in our heads. Families are going to be harder to shift out of consciousness than the Marxist left ever imagine, a thought I consoled myself with as we sped along with the trail of traffic. Every car seemed to be a small and compact ‘up yours’ to the familial naysayers of this world, heading out to reinforce something unspoken but deeply ingrained. Christmas is family. It starts with The Holy Family and the miracle of birth, renewal and salvation, of the linkages birth makes between families, and you just can’t beat that. As Tom said earlier, the Greatest Story Ever Told.
One of the most beautiful songs in human history, Cats.
The rim of her mouth was golden …
Her eyes were just desert sands …
But that’s not her …
That’s just the light …
It’s only an image of her …
Just a trick of the light …
lol. You can almost see the algorithms for the programmatic specificity the question returned.
Compare to Cassie’s directness of ‘go and see your brother’. Or other shared feelings and considerations offered to Rabz. No Virginia, we are not there yet. A load of AI burble is simply all bases covered.
I loved “ the last battle”
Tashlan heresy, evil cat getting its just desserts and the end of the world thrown in for free.
Some families are closer than others.
Watching the western movie Panhandle 1948, so looked up the star Rod Cameron on Wikipedia, as is my wont. Divorced his wife and married his mother in law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panhandle_(film)
As one does … 😕
Those would be some wonderful family Christmas gatherings.
Terrible news. The Tele:
Oh dear. How sad. Never mind.
Arky.
Mate left his wife to marry his brothers ex- wife (who had 3 kids with him).
I’ve known them since we were both 14 year olds, she’s 8 years older.
When the family tree becomes a Venn diagram…
There will never be another band as good as The Triffids come out of Perth. Perf punches above its weight on this score.
..
I think something like that started the English reformation.
It is important to note who fed these ideas into this program.
If ‘from a lab’, then ‘stress animal transmission’.
You’d have to wonder if the brother would turn up at the hospital when the worst happened.
Gary Lyon shacks up with Billy Brownless’ missus. That must have been percolating away for a while.
John Spooner.
Morten Morland.
A.F. Branco.
Tom Stiglich.
Matt Margolis.
Thanks. Tom.
ASSERTIVE WOMEN’S CONFERENCE
The first speaker, a lady from England, stood and said “During last year’s conference, we spoke about being more assertive with our husbands. Well, after the conference, I went home and told my husband, Barrington, that I would no longer cook for him and that he would have to do it himself”.
“After the first day, I saw nothing. The second day, I saw nothing, but on the third day, I saw that he had cooked a wonderful roast lamb”.
The crowd applauded.
The second lady from Russia, stood up and said “After last year’s conference, I went home and told my husband, Ivan, that I would no longer do his laundry and that he would have to do it himself. The first day, I saw nothing. After the second day, I saw nothing, but on the third day, I saw that he had done not only his own washing, but mine as well”.
The crowd again applauded.
The third speaker, an Aboriginal lady from Australia, stood up and said “Afta lass year’s conference, I wen ‘ome and tole dat lazy husband of mines, Dingo Jack, dat I was froo pickin up his beer cans, cookin’ his tucker and washin’ his undaweah and dat he was goin to haf to do dem himself.
The crowd went wild with applause.
She continued “Afta da first day, I nevah see nuffin. Afta da second day, I nevah see nuffin, but afta da fird day, I could see a little bit outa my leff eye”.
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
– Marie Curie
Johnny Rotten says:
December 27, 2022 at 5:55 am
Didn’t you post it before already?
I must be getting old, I’ve seen these jokes told and retold with different scenarios a dozen times.
True, there are no old jokes, only old people, for a newborn every joke is new, but do you realise that there are hardly any newborns on this blog ?
Happy new year
There is No Defence to Hypersonic Missiles & Russia’s Plans to Expand
From Armstrong Economics –
“Russia announced yesterday that it will increase its military strength from 1 million to 1.5 million. The Western Press keeps putting out the propaganda that that this is all because Russia has lost momentum and many soldiers in Ukraine. I reported before that sources from Ukraine, not Russia, put the death toll at over 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers. That was also in the draft speech of the head of the EU, but it was removed to keep up the image that Ukraine is winning.
What is not being said here is that Poland has been instructed by the US to increase its military from 100,000 to 250,000 making it the largest force in NATO. It is only a 14-hour drive from Warsaw to Moscow. This in addition to NATO’s plans to incorporate Finland and Sweden, has also played a role in this decision.
The Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu declared that the country needs a force of 1.5 million “to guarantee the fulfillment of tasks to ensure Russia’s security.” China has about 2 million and the USA has about 1.4 million. North Korea has 1,280,000 active with another 600,000 in reserve. Belarus has an army of only 62,000 with 344,750 in reserve.
Currently in Russia, the regular draft, calls up 120,000 to 140,000 men twice a year for a one-year tour of compulsory service. What is becoming very obvious is that the West wants war. There is no desire for peace whatsoever. This has changed the game. The Western Press keeps just putting out propaganda about Ukraine winning, while it is ignoring the mobilization of NATO which is clearly anticipating war. This is not going to be just about Ukraine as we head into 2023. You have to be blind not to see that the West is clearly preparing for war. This is what Russia is now responding to. With Poland raising its army to 250,000, that presents a serious threat to Russia for the exceeds the active personnel in Belarus.
On top of all of this, Putin has wisely instructed that they should be studying how the weapons the US has been handing Ukraine and to regard these as valuable lessons to be learned during the fighting to modernize the armed forces. Thus, Ukraine has been an experiment to study the weapons systems of one’s opponent on both sides.
Putin also made it clear that Russia will start to deploy more hypersonic weapons, noting that the first warship equipped with state-of-the-art Zircon hypersonic missiles will be commissioned by the navy next month. There is no question that defense against Russia’s hypersonic weapons is not something that may be possible. Russia has been using some hypersonic missiles in Ukraine. It is believed among our sources that this may have been more to intimidate NATO and the United States. Obviously, the conventional wisdom has been that there is just no effective defense against hypersonic weapons. Hence, their use has been to intimidate the USA and NATO, but this does not seem to have succeeded.
The USA is exploring how to defend itself against hypersonic missiles. One theory is the exploration of “boundary layer phenomenology,” which is the idea that disrupting the airflow surrounding a hypersonic projectile may throw it off course. Disrupting the airflow may send it off course, but it will still hit something. The other hope is to deploy lower-flying networked satellites in an effort to establish a continuous targeting track of an approaching hypersonic weapon.
The reason there is no defense is that a hypersonic projectile will travel much too fast to track them because it will move from one radar aperture to another, making it virtually impossible to establish a consistent targeting track or lock.
Meanwhile, our brilliant world leaders are playing with everyone’s life all because they prefer war rather than reform whereby they might lose power.”
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/war/the-no-defense-to-hypersonic-missiles-russias-plans-to-expand/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=RSS
Bette Midler says that Kyle Rittenhouse is an example of grooming
All I can say, Rabz, is if in doubt, play it with a straight bat. Second guessing people is a fool’s errand. Make of this what you will.
“Give me my shit!”
Chuckle!
Interesting that no one seems to know who is doing these attacks.
3 Washington State Electric Substations Vandalized (26 Dec)
This suggests the DHS know who it they are. But if so they aren’t naming them, which is curious.
Another thing that really pisses me off about the modern yookay is that I and my Dad would get admitted for 3 months with ‘no recourse to welfare’. Seeing Dad and Grandfather risks their lives for the mother country, that is a very poor state of affairs. And now if you turn up in a boat in Dover you get whisked off to a fancy hotel. Hate filled marxist established indeed. And boy oh boy we miss her maj. Can’t understand why her kids didn’t absorb her values.
Bruce of Newcastle says:
December 27, 2022 at 6:34 am
They know when and where you fart.
Claiming not knowing about who is doing these attacks is ridiculous.
Paris has fallen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHoM7ORqHMo
Rabz if you’re reading this, the thing about horrible family members is that ‘the leopard doesn’t change its spots’ and what ever happened before usually repeats and it all ends in tears AGAIN and AGAIN.
How Klaus Schwab’s WEF Is Weaponizing Banking
The Twitter Files on Covid just dropped and HOO BOY were the “conspiracy theorists” right
Zelensky – Not What You Thought
After COVID, flu and RSV, is a strep outbreak next?
Miltonf,
that has been my experience.
Englishman, African and an Aussie sitting in a restaurant, waiting for their food. They’re looking around the place and spot a man sitting by himself drinking water in the corner. After a few minutes they recognise him as Jesus Christ himself. They agree that he’s a great bloke and all chip in to buy Jesus some food.
The waiter goes over to Jesus, explains the gesture and gets the food in for him, which Jesus enjoys whole-heartedly.
After the meal, he walks over to see the three generous men. He first of all thanks them all, and shakes the hand of the Englishman.
The Englishman gets the shivers, feels all tingly etc then says “Hang about, I’ve had chronic arthritis in this wrist for 20 years, you’ve just cured it, it’s a miracle!”
Jesus smiles, then shakes the hand of the African.
“Bloomin ‘eck, you’ve cured my back! I’ve had problems with that for nearly 30 years, thank you Jesus!”
Jesus smiles, then turns to the Aussie, who looks terrified, turns and runs away knocking over tables and chairs. They all ask what’s wrong, to which the Aussie shouts “I’m on workers comp mate – Bugger off!”
A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money.
– W. C. Fields
The names & faces of the 150 Bilderbergers who have influenced & controlled the response to COVID-19
are covid vaccines causing persistent covid?
PfizerGate: Tragic Truth behind COVID Vaccines: 50k Brits have Died Suddenly in 8 Months due to Vaccination causing a 5-Month Countdown to Death
Pogria says:
December 27, 2022 at 6:44 am
Far be it from me to offer advice on family matters, but if the reason for a break was serious enough, then that’s it. Unless something has changed in the meantime, and sudden health problems is hardly the reason.
Forgiveness and empathy should be given freely without coercion or obligation atherwise it’s a lie.
Mike Benz: DHS Deputized Burisma Lobbyist To Censor 22 Million Americans Over Election Fraud
Elon Musk
@elonmusk
Much more to The Twitter Files: Covid Editon than this introductory thread.
Follow-up piece to come next week, featuring leading doctors & researchers from Harvard, Stanford & other institutions.
Ahaha! Bespoke! Comments are hilarious.
Dirty filthy creature-this is marxism trashing and humiliating a once great institution
Indeed Calli.
Kevin Downey Jr has a good summary of the Twitter files so far. I’ve linked the ZH repeat of it because PJ Media is being slow.
Why You Need To Start Paying Attention To The ‘Twitter Files’ (26 Dec)
You can see why nothing ever happens about rigged elections and corrupt Democrats. The crook-chasers are now completely controlled by the crooks.
Seasonality: A Story in Pictures (Year 3)
This was linked in a comment under are covid vaccines causing persistent covid? which raises (again) the very frightening concept of mistaking the virus for an allergen and creating a tolerance to it, so there’s no immune response.
I recall this being the publicized method of attack from a exercise where special forces were given free reign to bring the country to it’s knees through unconventional methods. The implication was it’s one of the least effective ways they could think of.
Unvaccinated drivers more likely to crash ??
Old blokes like a kid at Christmas, I think I found a replacement starter for the JD 45 minutes away. According to the info, the starter weighs 60lbs!
I love tinkering too rick
Good, those bastards presume to lead Europe and the world because they are so sophisticated yet they allowed every piece of crap to set up shop in their country. We can thank the French for so many problems and horrors that are happening today. They gave Ayatollah Khomeini asylum from where he plotted and executed his glorious return to and takeover of Iran. How is that working out for the world?
I saw Paris in 1994 and loved it- don’t think I would now.
The Dismissal of Kari Lake’s Election Lawsuit Shows Voter Disenfranchisement No Longer Matters
It’s starting, Bill Gates announces the next pandemic date and outbreak location | Redacted News
Crossie says:
December 27, 2022 at 7:56 am
Paris has fallen:
1789 Jul 14 was the beginning of the end.
I’m actually surprised it has taken this long and still not finished yet
Must be human resilience to BS.
Good for us.
PS, Why did it had it be the French?
Treacherous they are, but did they deserve it?
Adam Smith: “There is a lot of ruin in a nation”
I love tinkering too rick
He’s now a disappointment kid at Christmas, just realised that today is Boxing Day. They’re not open until tomorrow.
Morning program is back to morning grass slashing and continuing on with batch of 6 sand pit excavators for little bloke and his mates.
I honestly have the best sand pit excavator design in the world. It has wrist movement unlike to generic CCP sand pit excavators.
Gabor, I appreciate your thoughts, although I believe Bespoke put it succinctly;
Forgiveness and empathy should be given freely without coercion or obligation atherwise it’s a lie.
3
Good thread about FTX and SBF
The corruption is massive
https://twitter.com/amuse/status/1607464199851999232?s=61&t=Besd8Cg9oLdZ_vxMlGimFg
Absolutely beautiful morning here. The air was fresh and I could smell all the flowers and there were tons of butterflies engaging in their egg runs before the heat of the day.
Took the doggos for a walk up the road, sun was already starting to bite a little. Must remember the bug spray tomorrow.
My little ferals discovered that their new home is not fenced with dog-proof fencing as their last home was not long after we moved here. Although generally obedient, the call of rabbits, wallabies, foxes, wombats and unfortunately snakes, is too great for them. So I have compromised and built a small, dog-proof front yard and I take them for long walks on leads. God knows I need the exercise anyway!
miltonfsays:
December 27, 2022 at 7:58 am
I saw Paris in 1994 and loved it- don’t think I would now.
I saw Paris in 1972. Lovely city, awful people. The scene was set by a visit to the Church de la Madeleine. Wandering around, hear a splashing noise, look around to see a Frog passing on one of the columns.
Every year someone claims Paris has fallen and about every year I fly home from there and it’s pretty much the same.
I’ve watched the yellow jackets march, seen the tail end of riots in Place de Republique with smashed windows and a burnt out car as the riot police packed up and went home.
A few hundred Kurds who were dispersed with tear gas isn’t the end of her.
Still I’ll be there in late March and report back.
I won’t be going to the 19th or the 10th though, any more than I ever visited south side Chicago the five times I went there.
Pogria says:
December 27, 2022 at 8:28 am
Agree, I’m not in the same position so can’t judge, dislike some relatives and avoid them but no hate involved. Probably wouldn’t visit them, the feeling is the same, the circumstance doesn’t matter.
All that nothing but good about the dead I’m afraid is nonsense.
Being dead does not make you a good person posthumously.
pissing, ffs. Spellwreck even tried to change the correction.
Some great thoughts this morning.
I suppose people do coerce by being on their death bed and wanting to see someone they’ve been at odds with one last time, how shocking of them.
You go, it goes badly or goes sadly, that’s it.
As I said last year, I’ve invariably found the French kind and helpful, even struggling with my now heavy suitcase out of the maze of tunnels and stairs out of the metro at Place de Bastille in March 2022 someone kindly helped me carry my bag, one of many times such an unsolicited offer was made.
Though there was that one time a North African tried to rob me so all Parisians are bad.
Oh wait, another North African got rid of the rotten robber.
Hillary email scandal hasn’t gone away. This article linked by DJT himself!
https://conservativebrief.com/hillary-standard-69398/?utm_source=CB&utm_medium=ABC
New World Odor™
@hugh_mankind
·
Dr. Naomi Wolf:
“The weird thing about the Pfizer docs is how obvious it was that this injection was studying the effect on the reproductive system.
The gov authorized the ruination of millions of women’s bodies knowingly with this injection.”
Funny thing about Paris when I visited, I found the people to be very nice and friendly. GSOH too. Don’t blame the French for their rotten political class. It’s become more and obvious to me as the years roll on that ‘democracy’ was a thin veneer. Even little Johnny hoWARd bared his teeth at us.
France was very multi racial in the 90s but it seemed to work ok.
Loved the place tbh.
Hard to pick the best response but I’m very sorry he shot the child molester & his felon friend. Very sad is in the running.
ChatGPT: has artificial intelligence arrived, will it crush Google, or become Google 2.0 and worse?
by Jo Nova
Another Great Disrupter?
What if you had access to an experimental Chatbot that could write your reports, debug your code, design your new ad campaign and answer all your questions? We are already using Google or some search engine to find links to these answers. But now an AI has been released that may disrupt all of that and a lot more. ChatGPT was trained on text culled from the internet and it creates the answer live in seconds — it writes it out in a conversation with you, and in Python code, Norwegian, iambic pentameter, whatever you want. It can do birthday suggestions, business plans, eulogies, speeches — like a personal assistant with a copy of the entire World Wide Web in their temporal cortex.
Google, the dominant gatekeeper to the internet for 20 years, suddenly faces a “make or break” point. ChatGPT could wipe out its’ business model and Google has issued a “Code Red”. An extinction level event couldn’t happen to a nicer company, but will ChatGPT be better?
It was launched on November 30th, and is taking off. Jorden Peterson asks, is this Gutenberg Press Level? It’s engaging, wow.
FJB EyE…
Now Twitter releases the ChinaVirus cover up…
https://twitter.com/davidzweig/status/1607378386338340867?s=20&t=P-6cYJvddTwfTpG0ipKSBw
I don’t know what others find, but for me ploughing the WWW is generally like rummaging through a rubbish bin filled with scraps – a few edible bits in amongst dead cats, potato peelings and lolly wrappers. The result on your plate very much depends on your taste, skill, and stamina.
AI birthday suggestions are going to be an absolute panic. Even in Python.
However, giving up personal discrimination and responsibility is the future.
All bad ideas are French… David Starkey
Rosie, I appreciate your attempt at minimising the situation in Paris but seriously, when even you won’t go to certain places and also acknowledge the damage that ongoing riots are causing, surely you can understand the meaning behind the phrase “Paris has fallen”.
I struggle to understand why you write so many excuses and such forgiving rationale when dire situations are reported.
Footage Shows “Looting Across Buffalo” As City Plunged Into Chaos After Blizzard
“Looting in Buffalo being significantly downplayed by local media,” said one Twitter user. Local media outlet WGRZ reported, “New York State Police confirm reports of 2 looting incidents.” But judging by the footage posted on Twitter, looting appears to be widespread.
Its Guess The Amish Time Again – From the Comments
– Ya America, u took them from the bush, and thought u can take the bush out of them eh?
Can’t beat genetics.
– Vote BLUE? Live @ the zoo. Feed the chimps . . . all day (EBT), AND all nite (runnin, shootin’, steelin’).
– In the good news department, probably a few Mexicans that were thinking about heading north to the land of milk and honey that are watching this thinking “Mamacita I no wanna live in no jungle” and cancelling their Rio Grande excursion plans
– Little child, “Mommy, look what Santa Claus brought me! A Star Wars Lego set!”
Mommy, “You know how many Dollar General stores your baby daddy had to loot to find you that toy?”
– Those stores should have put up “help wanted” signs for protection…
– By the way, this is Joe Biden’s America
And Finally!!!
– Those Amish are at it again… They need to stop hitting up the malt liqueur and going ape crazy….
All bad ideas are French… David Starkey
hmmm Germany is a strong contender in that field
The French gave us neo marxism, the Germans cultural marxism
Just to clarify Rabz’s situation. Those of us who know him personally would know that the big rift with his family was caused by the fact that they rejected him completely for not taking the Covid vaxx. He’s spoken bitterely of that here several times. Previous to that it was abundantly clear to us, his Cat friends who had met his family members, that he loved them dearly, faults and all, leftists though they were.
All Cats who commented last night, whatever they urged, will be wishing him the best today.
PS from – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/footage-shows-looting-across-buffalo-city-plunged-chaos-after-blizzard
– The bookstore remains untouched.
– the door was left unlocked
– What’s a bookstore?
Because – you can take the blank out of the blank, but you can’t take the blank out of the blank.
Hypersonic merely means Mach 5+. Keep in mind radar has velocity c > > Mach 5 and some current or retired western missiles such as the ASAT ASM-135 were hypersonic (ASM-135 had a top speed exceeding Mach 12).
There are several other responses:
Laser weapon systems, deployed by the USN and formerly by the USAF.
Interdiction.
ECM/ECCCM including drone swarms.
Evasion.
Battery fire of guided SAMs.
Anti missile missiles using submunitions to increase their circular error of probability for a successful hit.
Tactical decoys.
In close systems such as CWIS, but won’t work as well.
Old School
There are lots of places you wouldn’t go in cities. I could count the number of times I’ve been to northern Melbourne on one finger. Big deal.
That’s because the frogs have never rioted, right? LOL
The ’68 riots were actually multiples worse. Did Paris “fall”?
This isn’t to suggest these riots etc, shouldn’t be taken seriously, but please spare us the drama queening.
I could probably run a profitable news wire debunking grifters preying on righties such as Martin Armstrong and airhead lefties like Sam Seder.
But why bring attention to such scum and villainy?
Rand Paul’s Annual ‘Festivus’ Report: $482,276,543,907 in Government Waste
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on Friday continued the annual tradition of celebrating “Festivus,” airing out his many grievances as it relates to government waste.
Paul’s 2022 Festivus report highlights $482,276,543,907 in government waste and includes $2.3 million used by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for an experiment involving injecting Beagle puppies with cocaine, $202,000 used by the Department of Defense (DOD) on Starbucks espresso machines, and $3 million for the construction of a Gandhi museum.
“This will be the 10th year in a row that I’ve celebrated #Festivus with you. By celebrated I mean have a little fun at the expense of Washington. If we don’t laugh we might cry,”
The NIH also wasted a significant amount of money. That includes $2.1 million on encouraging Ethiopians to wear shoes, $2.3 million injecting Beagle puppies with cocaine, $1.1 million on “training mice to binge drink alcohol,” over $519,000 using mice to study racial aggression, and $187,500 on “verifying that kids love their pets.”
Rosie
We’re thinking of spending June in St. Jean in the South of France after spending a week or so in Paris. Italy gets a miss this year as we haven’t been to frogland for a long time.
Essential services!
Milo Yanopolis certainly had me fooled but I never gave him any money.
Twitter File Release #11 – The Government Censorship Campaign to Control COVID-19 Information
December 26, 2022 – Sundance
Twitter File release #11 hits on the long-anticipated information surrounding how the platform was instructed by various government agencies to remove content adverse to the expressed opinion of CDC, HHS, and DHS officials. [Release #11 Here]
The first installment of the Twitter COVID-19 files comes from David Zweig, a writer for New York Mag, New York Times, The Atlantic and other publications. Because the U.S. Government COVID-19 information control operation was so extensive, there will likely be several Twitter File releases related to the SARS-CoV2 pandemic issue.
However, in this first release Zweig starts to build the story of how the CDC and HHS set the foundation for the echo-chamber that ended with Twitter executives running amok.
Explain Milton. What happened?
Government.
Sends your tenants broke, then wants to tax you extra for the empty buildings.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/tax-push-to-banish-zombie-shops-from-sydney-s-high-streets-20221209-p5c564.html
A bid to reverse the decline of suburban high streets by punishing landlords who leave their shops vacant has been backed by some business groups, but shunned by both sides of state politics.
Inner West mayor Darcy Byrne has written to Premier Dominic Perrottet seeking a legal change to allow councils to charge higher rates to property owners who leave their shops untenanted, while reducing rates for those who keep their premises filled.
A so-called “vacancy tax” was previously supported in 2019 by then small business commissioner Robyn Hobbs and then small business ombudsman Kate Carnell, but was never implemented.
At least the idea stinks so much neither side wants to do it…yet.
.
He was a distraction clown.
[Twitter File #11 – Release Here]
“When the Biden admin took over, one of their first meeting requests with Twitter executives was on Covid. The focus was on “anti-vaxxer accounts.” Especially Alex Berenson,” Zweig writes as he then begins to give examples of various medical professionals that were targeted by the White House and the platform.
The outcome of the HHS and CDC push circled around politics, which, when combined with the ideological perspectives of the Twitter executives, inevitably ended up making COVID-19 a political issue on the platform. Critics of COVID-19 policy were blocked, censored, removed and restricted. Advocates of government policy were enhanced, amplified, promoted and enlarged.
The scale of the issue meant supportive algorithms based on key words needed to be created, and the scope of the information battle necessitated the hiring of contractors. As Zweig notes, “contractors in places like the Philippines, also moderated content. They were given decision trees to aid in the process, but tasking non experts to adjudicate tweets on complex topics like myocarditis and mask efficacy data was destined for a significant error rate.”
The Biden administration wanted to use fear as a weapon to control public opinion of COVID-19. The aligned ideological Twitter executives also wanted to assist using fear and fought to controversialize and target any voice who downplayed the fear of covid. One of those pragmatic voices was President Trump.
President Trump sent out this Tweet in 2020 which was not well received by former FBI General Counsel, now Twitter General Counsel, Jim Baker:
Apparently, the phrase “don’t be afraid of Covid” was triggering for those who wanted fear and panic to be the prevalent perspective on the virus.
Twitter General Counsel Jim Baker asked the head of Twitter’s censorship group, Yoel Roth, why wasn’t this statement worthy of Donald Trump being removed for violating the Twitter Covid policy?
As you can see, Jim Baker wanted to censor the optimistic approach of President Trump in order to amplify the fearful and looming message.
The motive of Jim Baker, while undefined by Mr. Zweig, is transparent in hindsight.
The platform officials and the various officials in media, were promoting the fear and worry narrative as part of an election strategy to facilitate mail-in ballots. COVID-19 was as much, perhaps even more of, an election manipulation tool as it was a virus.
miltonfsays:
December 27, 2022 at 7:58 am
I saw Paris in 1994 and loved it- don’t think I would now.
Too much dog shit on the pavements when I was there in 1983 and 1991. Probably still there.
Shit and here I was thinking paying $1,150 for the covid anti-virals was unspeakably expensive.
Naaa, you’re here.
“don’t be afraid of Covid”
No censorship here. Please take note Twatter.
The COVID-19 information control operation was always about control over the public.
That campaign became political because the Biden campaign/administration, Democrats, media and the voices in control over social media weaponized it around their political beliefs.
The COVID-19 narrative becomes a tool to achieve a variety of objectives: debate controls; the deployed ‘excuse‘ for a very visible lack of voter enthusiasm for the puppet (Biden); the use of fraudulent ‘mail-in ballots’; the keeping of socially distant physical auditors, etc. Without COVID as a tool the manufactured process is more difficult. The ‘never let a crisis go to waste‘ strategy includes the creation of a crisis.
The COVID-19 narrative held four primary benefits. Without COVID weaponized we would not see:
(1) Mail-in ballots. The origination material of the 2020 fraud.
(2) Breaking down of alliance-minded gathering and assemblies. COVID blocked group gatherings to discuss what was around us and stopped us from recognizing the scale of our assembly. COVID also took down faith-based leadership and church assembly when it was needed most.
(3) Spending packages that were really blue state bailouts justified under the auspices of COVID relief.
(4) Government providing the crisis solution (and all the ramifications therein).
Lastly, we know in hindsight; the 2016 presidential transition team carried a then unknown motive.
Who was it that recommended: Dan Coats (ODNI), Michael Atkinson (ICIG), James Mattis (DoD), Dana Boente (DOJ-NSD then FBI counsel). Who was the one steering these placements from inside the transition team?
Who was in charge of the transition team and also in charge of the Trump COVID-19 task force?
Look at the Picture Underneath – VP Pence and the Rest of the Gang
OldOzzie, from the comments it is clear that what Critical Race Theory and Black Lives Matter have unleashed does not bode well for what are historically difficult race relations in America. I felt this as I stood in front of empty newly burned out buildings in Selma Albama recently, on the very spot where Martin Luther King led the Civil Rights marchers over the Edmund Pettus Bridge towards a far more hopeful future of genuine inclusion into mainstream America. There was so much goodwill which has now been squandered.
Leftist ‘blame the whites’ victim theorising has inevitably turned into black street violence, which has set some of America’s mainstream back to expressing the attitudinal hatreds of the Deep South’s days of Jim Crow. They will be wielding the spiked truncheons we saw in the historic display in the Selma memorial museum next.
Well done, leftists. On track for your usual destruction of civilised life and behaviour.
“Just to clarify Rabz’s situation. Those of us who know him personally would know that the big rift with his family was caused by the fact that they rejected him completely for not taking the Covid vaxx. He’s spoken bitterely of that here several times. Previous to that it was abundantly clear to us, his Cat friends who had met his family members, that he loved them dearly, faults and all, leftists though they were.”
Nicely said Lizzie. You and I have met his siblings.
I rang Rabz last night, and whilst I said to him that the final decision was his and his alone, sometimes it’s worth swallowing some pride.
JCsays:
December 27, 2022 at 10:05 am
Too much dog shit on the pavements when I was there in 1983 and 1991. Probably still there.
Naaa, you’re here.
So jerkyfist c(r)untface has woken up and can still read. Go and play in the traffic and give us all a rest.
And of course, leftists are doing it again. I can’t see anything other than huge social antagonisms and inevitable failures of improvement emerging from socialist Albanese’s Indigenous Voice should it become enshrined in our Constitution.
Mai’68 brought the whole of France to a standstill – until a counter protest of about a million non-left-wing-lunatics marched up the Champs Élysées.
It’s what they do.
“Inner West mayor Darcy Byrne has written to Premier Dominic Perrottet seeking a legal change to allow councils to charge higher rates to property owners who leave their shops untenanted, while reducing rates for those who keep their premises filled.
A so-called “vacancy tax” was previously supported in 2019 by then small business commissioner Robyn Hobbs and then small business ombudsman Kate Carnell, but was never implemented.”
I can see the merit in this. There’s a big problem all along Parramatta Road and Oxford Street Darlinghurst with empty shops. In Darlinghurst, many of the shop fronts are owned by one family who’ve allowed the shops to remain empty, for years now. They’ve allowed the shops to become dilapidated.
there’s no need to find out where the fences are, just use the pulldown menu
to make free-range living easy and trouble free, your permissable Enum Sets and Lambda functions will be updated daily.
–from the FARM agreement
Poland & Germany Offer to Buy Energy from Russia for 2023
From Armstrong Economics –
“Russia’s Transneft has received applications from Poland and Germany to pump oil for the first quarter of next year, despite reports of unwillingness to continue deliveries. Nikolai Tokarev, president of Transneft, said on the air of the Rossiya-24 TV channel. “They announced that they would not take oil from Russia from January 1. Now we have received applications from Polish consumers asking for 3 million tons next year, and 360,000 tons for December, and Germany has already submitted an application for the first quarter, he said.
On December 12, the Polish Cabinet called for the introduction of ‘full, comprehensive sanctions without exceptions’ against Russia, including ‘comprehensive sanctions against the northern pipeline (Druzhba).’
“If this does not happen, then we will continue discussions together with the [Orlen] concern, or the concern will decide what to do next with the commitments already made,” Anna Moskva, minister of Climate and Environment of Poland, who is responsible for energy issues, told reporters.
We have to wonder if the Politicians in Germany and Poland are starting to fear civil uprising if people have no heat.”
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/russia/poland-germany-offer-to-buy-energy-from-russia-for-2023/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=RSS
BLM is dead, Liz. The boss and I think several underlings have been caught raiding the til. It had legit underpinnings at the very, very beginning but it was subsequently subsumed by demonrat operatives, which obviously meant it became corrupt.
A mother and father took their 6-year-old son to a nude beach. As the boy walked along the beach, he noticed that some of the ladies had boobs bigger than his mother’s, and asked her why. She told her son “The bigger they are the dumber the person is”.
The boy pleased with the answer, goes to play in the ocean but returns to tell his mother that many of the men appear to have larger wangs than his dad. His mother replied “The bigger they are the dumber the person is”.
Again satisfied with this answer, the boy returns to the ocean to play. Shortly after, the boy returned again. He promptly told his mother “Daddy is talking to the dumbest girl on the beach, and the longer he talks, the dumber he gets”.
Cassie of Sydneysays:
December 27, 2022 at 10:13 am
its a good point, Feraldton has a largely rooted town center because somehow its easier to leave a shop empty than have tenants.
Somehow, despite not generating any return or value, the mere aspect of it being land makes it a commercial return.
The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep.
– W. C. Fields
I don’t all I see is another excuse to demish property rights. It’s not my business what the owners do and if they can run at a loss It’s a taxation/rates issue . Councils attract Karens.
miltonfsays:
December 27, 2022 at 6:58 am
Dirty filthy creature-this is marxism trashing and humiliating a once great institution
There should be a rule that trannies must be attractive otherwise they get fired/arrested/put in stocks.
Rules:
2 sexes, 2 genders
Man = adult male
Woman = adult female
Man who likes other men = poofta
Woman who likes other women= dyke
Man who identifies as a woman = pathology
Woman who identifies as a man = pathology
Anyone who identifies as anything else = pathology
Men cannot have children and cannot compete with women in sports.
No sex education in schools; teachers who do it = arrested for child abuse
Marriage is between a man and a woman.
@JC from what I heard here Milo was just living the high life on supporters’ donations. Further, he said he wants to make Trump’s life a misery due to some perceived slight. It was telling years ago that he left Breitbart because other writers refused to work with him.
Cassie
It’s very problematic. It’s possible store fronts are vacant because there aren’t any tenants. In these situations a vacancy tax would be placing extreme pressure on landlords.
Empty or filled, a tax should discriminate.
It most likely means the family is attempting to develop the spread and the holdup is with the approvals regulator. It always is.
Will Putin Step Down in 2023?
“We have a very serious problem. Former Chancellor Merkel has openly stated that there was NEVER any intention to carry out the Minsk Agreement and that not only condemned the people of the Donbas to war, loss of their religion, and the tyranny of Kiev, but they were using them for bait to deliberately force Putin to invade to start a war with Russia. Congressman Adam Kinzinger just came out and said that NATO could destroy Russia in three days. The real danger here is that Merkel, and also the former president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, have both publicly stated that they played Putin for a fool. In 2023, we are entering a very critical time period where Putin may step down during January, or April/May 2023 and then the Neocons will take the reigns of power and they will not be so soft.
What is so dangerous is that this not only demonstrates to China that the West cannot be trusted in making any agreements whatsoever, but that the Russian neocons have been put on notice that the intention of NATO is to wipe Russia off the face of the earth. They DELIBERATELY blew up the Nordstream pipeline showing that this is a long-term objective to crush the Russian economy. Our world leaders WANT WAR and they are the aggressor – not Russia. They deliberately had the Vice President at the Munich Conference state that Ukraine should join NATO. Then on February 23rd, 2022, one day before Putin made his move, Zelensky came out and said Ukraine wanted to rearm itself with nuclear weapons.
Anyone who cannot see what is taking place here is blind. The West NEEDS war to terminate the monetary system as it stands today. They are looking for a war with Russia and China so they can call Bretton Woods II and craft their digital currency managed by the IMF and install their one-world government administered by the United Nations. We will completely lose all freedom and any right to vote whatsoever. Keep in mind that in ALL parliamentary systems, the people never vote for who shall be the head of state. That is unique to the United States. They want to eliminate that ability, Our computer has been warning that we will soon end the right of Americans to vote for a President.
In June 2022, former president Petro Poroshenko said in an interview with several Western media outlets, including Deutsche Welle, publicly admitted that there had never been any question of implementing the Minsk agreements and that they had only been intended to give Ukraine time. He said:
“We got what we wanted. We did not believe Putin, just as we do not believe him now. Our task was, first of all, to remove the threat, or at least to delay the war. We gave ourselves eight years to restore economic growth and build up the strength of the armed forces. That was the first task – and it was accomplished […]. Despite the fact that the war lasted eight years – as far as a large-scale military operation is concerned, I think the Minsk agreements have fulfilled their role.”
Interestingly, the former German Chancellor Angela Merkel said exactly the same thing, on December 7th, 2022, curiously, the very anniversary of Pearl Harbor – Sunday, December 7, 1941. The real question here is that it certainly appears that they negotiated in bad faith and played Putin for a fool. That is highly dangerous now In her interview with the Zeit
Merkel stated very clearly: “I considered the 2008 discussion on the membership of Ukraine and Georgia in NATO to be a mistake. These countries did not have the necessary conditions for it, and the consequences of such a decision had not been fully considered, both in terms of Russia’s actions against Georgia and Ukraine and for NATO and its rules of assistance. And the 2014 Minsk agreements were an attempt to give Ukraine time.”
She continued saying: “We all knew that this was a frozen conflict, that the problem was not solved, but this is precisely what gave Ukraine precious time.”
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/war/will-putin-step-down-in-2023/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=RSS
No worse bores than the returnees who gush over Paris.
And worse than the dog poo on the pavements are the women in their elegant clothes with the baked-in sweat smell; avoid Paris in the cool months – their used winter knitwear gives off that putrid Parisian perfume.
But tastes vary
How does it impact you personally if a couple of queers want to tie the knot? It has none and the world hasn’t ended. Leave them alone. Also, you’re too focused on homosexuality.
Putting some sense back into the “medieval times were hell vs medieval times were heaven on earth” debate:
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/regulation-industry/medieval-peasants-really-did-not-work-only-150-days-a-year/
Some of the comments are really stupid comments from historians and Marxists, one comment quotes Adam Smith to note how feudalism had lords pay an increasingly low tax burden over time and that wages also fell.
(HINT HINT: THERE WAS A REASON WHY THE PEASANT’S REVOLT AND PURITAN PARLIAMENTARIANS HAD POPULAR SUPPORT)
Wow!
Sorry. I imagined something far more profound than disagreement over the vaxx.
I’m still reeling over discovering my own “eligible” grandchildren have been treated like pincushions because the doctors in the family have urged vaxxing because “herd immunity”. And don’t you know there’s a whizz bang 5th dose that will give them even more immunity! I kid you not.
I don’t think they even hear themselves any more. And, because I’m just a retired whateverer, what would I know? Sadly we all have to suck up the idiocy and make the best we can of it.
What we were not taught at school:
The Peasants Revolt, 1381.
Richard II was 14 and up to 60,000 peasants and yeoman rode to confront the government in London, riding in two arms from Maidstone (Kent) and in Essex.
It started over a poll tax to fund an unpopular foreign war; the outrages began as tax collectors were putting their hands up dresses to feel for a young woman’s maidenhead, as unmarried women were not liable but married women were. It turns out that ius primae noctis was a myth, but the methods of tax assessment were dangerously close to the concept.
If peasants were rich and worked 70-150 days a year, I doubt this rebellion and near revolution would have gotten off the ground; several high officials were executed and royal, church & noble castles were sacked or went turncoat.
“It’s very problematic. It’s possible store fronts are vacant because there aren’t any tenants. In these situations a vacancy tax would be placing extreme pressure on landlords.”
There are willing tenants, I live near Oxford Street and I’ve spoken to various tenants who’ve vacated because the landlord has increased the rent and then the shop remains empty, even after four/five years.
Near me there are rows of shops, empty for years, owned by one family.
Just about every CBD in the country, as well as every metropolitan beachside strip has a 70 year old dilapidated weatherboard house nestled on a quarter or eighth-acre block and surrounded by restaurants, hotels, office buildings or even high rises.
None of them are mine, so I am only surmising that they are owned by either a really old bloke (or chick) or a family trust, watching with glee as its value increases by the hour.
Empty shopfronts are no different. Once you’ve bought it, it’s yours. Unless it’s some sort of health or fire hazard the owners should be able to do what they like with it.
The councils can eat shit. What are they going to do – compel business owner to tout for business? ‘Wanted business to rent my shop. Prepared to make a loss to get the council off my back.’
The other, next-step question is – what type of shop is acceptable? Florists? Travel agents? Vego-lesbian cafes? Off Ya Tree franchises? Methadone wholsesalers?
Why would you buy something worth high-six or seven figures if it’s conditional that officious council housewives can tell you what to do with your investment?
Darcy Byrne, despite being a Green, does occasionally make sense. I agree with him re. the empty shops just like I agreed with him last year when, during lockdown, he called out the hypocrisy of the inner-west being in lockdown yet the state government allowed a Netflix series to be filmed in Ashfield.
Worse places to visit than gay Paree. And very gay on our first visit because pride march down the Bvde St Michel. Sat comfortably in a corner café and watched the wondrous spectacle.
I prefer the countryside and smaller towns. Always good food, even if it’s just a sandwich and a glass of plonk.
Cassie
Rent in a commercial tenancy has very serious implications to the capital value of the real estate holding. Say a 50% drop in rent potentially could mean a 50% drop in the capital value of the property. If there are loans against the store fronts it could impact the LVR. It’s not as simple as just dropping the rent. Sometimes it’s best to leave the joints empty.
Due to tax, council rates and regulations.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Bearesays:
December 27, 2022 at 10:11 am
And of course, leftists are doing it again. I can’t see anything other than huge social antagonisms and inevitable failures of improvement emerging from socialist Albanese’s Indigenous Voice should it become enshrined in our Constitution.
Perth & Townsville already having problems
Insane moment unhinged man goes on a rampage in the middle of a busy intersection smashing cars with a metal bar as drivers are forced to run red lights to escape the carnage
– Man with an iron bar filmed smashing cars on a busy Perth highway
A 15-year-old girl who attacked a pregnant woman while she was wheeling her children in a pram down a Perth street has been jailed.
The teen – who cannot be named for legal reasons – was sentenced to 12 months in prison after being found guilty of aggravated robbery following the assault in Ashfield on September 5.
The terrifying attack was caught on CCTV, with footage showing the 37-year-old mum lying on the ground after she was approached by the girl.
Townsville teens’ road rampage leaves police officer with spinal injuries amid ‘astounding’ spike in car thefts
‘Just unacceptable’
Six of the youths — boys aged 14, 16 and 17 and girls aged 12, 13 and 15 — were arrested and taken to hospital for minor injuries.
Police said a number of the youth were known to police.
Townsville Mayor Jenny Hill said strong action will be taken against the offenders.
“We’re outraged. Don’t tell me that a 17-year-old doesn’t know the difference between right and wrong — it’s just unacceptable,” Ms Hill said.
“These offenders need to be, especially at the age of 16 and 17, treated as young adults. These juveniles think because they are juvenile that the courts will be lenient with them.
“They’re very lucky nobody was killed.”
Ms Hill said many of the children’s families were well known to police.
“Frankly, there has to be a better way than putting these kids back in these homes where you have parents who just don’t give a stuff.”
I own a store front.. actually I inherited it. I left the thing vacant for almost 2 years before I found a decent tenant and it was worth the wait because it’s a name tenant that adds to the capital value.
I will bet his kids and mates will be calling the day after Christmas Boxers Day from now on.
“Rent in a commercial tenancy has very serious implications to the capital value of the real estate holding. Say a 50% drop in rent potentially could mean a 50% drop in the capital value of the property. If there are loans against the store fronts it could impact the LVR. It’s not as simple as just dropping the rent. Sometimes it’s best to leave the joints empty.”
Thanks JC, I understand the economic issues, it’s just isn’t a good look.
Normally rent control type measures are an anathema to me. However they make some sense in strip shopping areas where landlords are often elderly people (often non-Australian, not that this really matters) who acquired the properties in the 1950s or earlier at prices far below today’s market values. Elderly landlords often do not want the market rental income which would often mean losing Centrelink benefits via an income test. Adult children (and potential beneficiaries) have no interest in seeing the property tenanted and maintained which doesn’t take it much beyond land value in any event. It is properly seen as a market failure situation.
Sure Cass.. Also, one last point. You also get smart arse dicks trying to rent the joint. They come up with ridiculous proposals and you tell the agent to not even go back to the morons with a counter. (After I left trading , I learned a new thing in life. There are a lot of complete dickheads populating the world.)
Apparently I am the only person here who has not made multiple visits to the City of Light.
I am okay with this. However, I would like to – noting that Powerball is taking its own sweet time to pay off – walk the following bits of French ground:
Omaha Beach and Ponte du Hoc;
Villers-Brettoneux;
Tours;
Caen; and
The Pyrenees, marking the ancient Franco-Spanish/Moorish border.
What you were lied to about in school: the Saxon “invasion” of England.
At least the fact that the Saxon invasion being a cultural and not literal one is becoming widely known, the Saxon invasion of post Roman Britain hinges on the misunderstanding of the Roman word for Count.
The DNA and archeology say that there was never an invasion. Funnily enough, English has the same sentence structure as Irish.
Also too, the earliest Saxon rulers…had “Welsh” names!
The Normans and Victorians/Tudors had a vested interest in claiming the legitimacy of an invading usurper.*
“Britain AD – The Invasion that Never Was, Francis Pryor”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iejwIpAKPyg
*We all know the Saxons and Normandy intermarried and eventually the lines were married through Margaret of Scotland.
Me too but these tend to lack international airports.
You have to start, leave by some international airport.
I tried to book out of Madrid this time but every time they wanted to put me on a flight to London then Dubai or Singapore, thanks but no thanks.
And all those examples are market failure – are they Bear. Like government policy is clean skin as it doesn’t impact at all on economic decision making.
Your Centrelink example is a little problematic because it’s not just income based, but also capital based too.
And don’t you know there’s a whizz bang 5th dose that will give them even more immunity! I kid you not.
My middle daughter just up from Danistan for the week was telling me she’s had 3 injections (work=wise) and went down with BAT FLU .. spent a week in bed ..
I just howled with “pure-bood” laughter .. nooo sympathy! .. LOL!
We had those in the strip where I had my shop. Refuse to contemplate any tenants, the shops are an eyesore, in one case with added rats, does nothing for other tenants.
Elderly landlords often do not want the market rental income which would often mean losing Centrelink benefits via an income test.
tales your nanna told you level …..
You ain’t gonna be getting much change off CentreLink if you own commercial property of any sort …..
JC’spoint is valid. Increasingly there are fewer “name” tenants to take on leases. And modern mixed use property developments often require commercial use of the ground floor bringing more potentially unleaseable floorspace to market. Even recognised franchisees like Dymocks have struggled on a well known street shopping strip. Vodafone pulled the pin years ago.