The Rocky Mountains Lander’s Peak, Albert Bierstadt, 1863
Open Thread – Weekend 21 Jan 2023
1,810 responses to “Open Thread – Weekend 21 Jan 2023”
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I could be wrong, but there is an unbelievably low chance that Stacey Train was armed with anything at the point in time when she was shot dead by QPol.
A 26 year olds assessment of her mother is that she didn’t like guns. To overcome this bias there would need to be training. Ideally military based training.
Let’s assume that they managed to retrain her natural aversion to guns and killing using military methods.
In a combat situation regardless of training. Many personal will refuse to shoot the enemy. Finding other useful but non lethal things to do. Others will simply flee or hunker down and doing nothing.
The daughter would have no idea where anyone was, or what happened, unless told by QPol. So the physical location of Stacey Train from QPol is near the back door. The other two dead out the front. QPol’s description of events also seems to have left an impression of flight in her description of events. (Through her apparent trust in QPol, they may have given more detail than they should have.)
Let’s just summarise what QPol would have us believe:
A women with no formal training who doesn’t like guns, has opened up on QPol. After almost 6 hours at the two way range, overwhelming QPol force arrives, and she knows it. That overwhelming force, including an armoured vehicle, is brought to bear and kills dead her husband and brother in law in front of her, out the front of the house. She makes a fighting retreat towards the back door of the house, where she also is ultimately dispatched by QPol.
Forgetting about the rights and wrongs of this situation. If this was combat and all of these events were observable by drone footage. She would be amongst the very rare breed to get a posthumous citation, fighting to the very end over an extended period against overwhelming force. You don’t get any citations for dropping your weapon, running and then getting killed.
(I don’t have any combat experience, but the one time I was at most risk of getting RPG’d I finished the day by falling asleep fully clothed. You cannot believe how much an extended period of mortal threat drains you, and therefore drains you of your ability to do anything.)
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David Rowe rotates his derangements. Today: Tony Abbott.
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Bob Moran (h/t Iotocoti, who found it on Twitter — Moran hasn’t posted it on his website).
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Year of the rabbit celebration goes wrong for a Chinese zoo, via SDA. Maybe it’s an omen.
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Entropy says:
January 23, 2023 at 6:50 amRickw. A bunch of murdering nut jobs were removed. Darwin’s award in action. End.of.story.
Sure buddy, there were no accusations of anything else (look that could have been the meth talking) and the QPU always buys land where cops die? The whole thing is just bizarre. “Welfare check with four cops”? Something is up, benign as a bad decision by a sergeant or inspector on the day.
A bunch of murdering nut jobs were removed. Darwin’s award in action.…and someone called an search warrant execution a welfare check to cover their butt as they did not risk assess the execution of that warrant, End.of.story.
I would accept that as a minimum, but the QPS would have to admit fault and the QPU might have to actually represent their members in civil court.
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Funny how this happens.
Cold Weather, Wind Not Blowing Sees UK Bring Coal Power Plants Back Online (22 Jan)
Three coal-fired power plants, two at Drax in Yorkshire and one at West Burton in Lincolnshire, were ordered to make themselves ready for use in the early hours of Sunday morning as a cold snap — predictable for winter, perhaps — combined with short cloudy days and very little wind sees solar and turbines producing little energy.
The National Grid made the announcement at gone four o’clock Sunday morning, saying warming up three “winter contingency coal units”, as they call them, “should give the public confidence in Monday’s energy supply”, strongly implying the Grid predicted possible shortages to come tomorrow had that extra capacity not be there to call upon.
So where do the power engineers come from to fire up three coal units with a couple hours notice? Do the guys just sit in the crib room all day doing nothing and wait for cold still weather conditions? And the maintenance requirements – who pays for those?
I think I’m seeing why renewable electricity is the most expensive “cheap energy” in the world.
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On the QLD Police subject.
Coppers have many tools at their disposal these days, they could have flown a drone in with a damn note on it if they were as dangerous as they say…
Instead, they chose to break and enter without announcing themselves…
QLD Police wanted a couple of dead officers to give an excuse for additional gun control/confiscation legislation.
In military terms, these officers were “acceptable losses”
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The Left really really don’t like him.
Trudeau Govt-Funded Groups Demand Venue Shut Down Jordan Peterson Event (22 Jan)
A total of 36 organisations have demanded the Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa cancel an upcoming event in which Dr Peterson is to speak as part of his North American tour to promote his latest book Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life.
Jaime Sadgrove, manager of communications and advocacy for the Canadian Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity (CCGSD), told the National Post newspaper, “As we approach the one-year anniversary of the so-called ‘Freedom Convoy,’ the last thing we need is a spokesperson of the far-right taking centre stage in our city.”
Such tolerant diversity-loving people.
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QLD Police wanted a couple of dead officers to give an excuse for additional gun control/confiscation legislation.
I find that extremely difficult to believe. Who exactly would make such a decision? Qld Police isn’t a sentient blob with a desire to kill its members.
I could see a committee running a few “worst case” scenarios for tactical reasons, but you’d have to have a lot of people in on it to do it deliberately.
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“GLOBAL WARMING HYSTERIA: 2000—ENGLISH CHILDREN WILL NOT KNOW SNOW—2010: OOPS, NEVERMIND!”
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Bruce of Newcastle says:
January 23, 2023 at 7:37 am
Funny how this happens.Cold Weather, Wind Not Blowing Sees UK Bring Coal Power Plants Back Online (22 Jan)
At least they have them to reactivate, our smart elites make sure ours are blown up and beyond any possible resurrection. Clever country we are not.
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Dot:
Nobody, not even even QPol sends four junior cops to execute search warrants for anything – let alone to an address where (according to the Train offspring) shooters are registered to that address.
I know some states in the US release body-worn video of fatal shootings – regardless of whether it’s the cops or others that get shot – immediately, and I think it’s a cracking idea. I have no idea why they don’t do it here, other than a theory it may prejudice a trial for a survivor down the track.
This august journal of record was abuzz with theories straight after the Rolfe shooting in 2019 as well. Most theorists changed their POV after the footage was released post-trial.
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SYDNEY’S LONGEST SPELL OF DAYS BELOW 30C IN 140-YEARS; COLDEST START TO A YEAR SINCE 1982 IN SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL; + HISTORIC SNOW IN WESTERN U.S. HELPS DRIVE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE SNOW MASS *FURTHER* ABOVE 1982-2012 AVERAGE
Yet according to US NOAA last year was the 6th warmest on record. One of these things in not like the other.
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‘they chose to break and enter’
No, they spent a couple of minutes beeping the horn out the front to let the occupants know they were there.
It is almost impossible, as any farmer will tell you, to approach a farm house they are in without them knowing. The jacks knew they were SovCit paranoid nuffies, but not that they’d transitioned into Wompus First Class.
Plenty (ie, all but an extremely negligible amount) of people have shooters registered to them and it’s no problem. The local jack management probably thought sending four of them, albeit very junior, might negate things turning to shit.
99% of the time it turns out okay.
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Dunno if this has been previously linked to, but it does raise some good questions.
“In the NSW health reports for 2022 where hospitalisations, ICU admissions and deaths are reported by vaccination status, all deaths are less than 10% of hospitalisations for any vaccinated group. For the unvaccinated group, deaths exceed hospitalisations by a factor of 6-8x. This figure is not replicated in any other countries’ reports.”
https://arkmedic.substack.com/p/the-shipman-line -
Further to Mzz Gardiner yesterday, Hun:
You can feel the temperature rising …
As Indigenous star Ash Gardiner spoke of her concern about playing on Australia Day, Test great Jason Gillespie called for a date change for our national day to one “all Australians can celebrate.’’
Gardner expressed her reservations about playing against Pakistan on Thursday, Australia Day, a day she described as one of “genocide, massacres and dispossession.”
She was spotlighting the Invasion Day sentiment which resonates so deeply with Indigenous Australians in particular.
The problem for cricket is that it is caught in the crossfire of a war of Australia’s making.
Cricket Australia, despite a regrettable history of abject non-encouragement of Indigenous cricketers, now has Indigenous cricket tops, an Indigenous advisory panel, the Imparja Cup for Indigenous teams in central Australia and its Test players occasionally form a barefoot circle to acknowledge traditional owners of the land.
“What a lot of people don’t realise is that history shows Australia Day has not always been celebrated on January 26.
“The conversations need to continue to explore an alternative.’’
Earlier this century the Australia Day cricket fixture had a Melbourne Cup feel about it.
It was played at Adelaide Oval and locals jealously guarded its tradition – but no-one wants to own the date now.
The fact that there is no Big Bash fixture on Thursday is curious. It’s true that there is a natural gap in the fixtures this week with the finals starting – and that CA was clean to give the women’s fixture clear air – but Thursday, a public holiday, is the only day this week without a Big Bash game.
Cricket officials are tip-toing through the minefield.
They are trapped between the nation they want Australia to become, the reality of where it is at the moment and the burdens created by a regrettable past, on and off the field.
It’s totally understandable Gardner has deep feelings on the matter.
And it takes courage to express them because within an hour of posting her thoughts on social media there was some horrendous feedback which, as Jess Jonassen pointed out, only reinforced why more education is necessary on this topic.*
Gardner was referring to Australia’s wider society but the facts are Australia’s Indigenous cricketers were horribly marginalised for more than a century.
Despite an Indigenous cricket side being the first Australian cricket side to tour England in 1868, not one of Australia’s first 369 Test cricketers were Indigenous.
Then came Gillespie as Test cap 370 and more recently Scott Boland. That makes two out of 464.
It’s a statistic the game is desperate to improve … not before time.
* More education means of course ‘accept our screeches as gospel.
If a black fella piles up runs in the Sheffield Shield or takes a lot of wickets, yes they can be considered for selection, but don’t chuck them in for the sake of quotas like South Africa. It ruins careers, looking at Justin Ontong -
Sorry that’s Jason Gillespie talking in the piece. I missed a bit of copy and paste:
Australia’s first Indigenous male cricketer Gillespie has in the past lauded cricket’s efforts to change its ways but feels the date change would be an important step forward.
“A day in which all Australians can celebrate would be my preference,’’ Gillespie told News Corp on Sunday.
“What a lot of people don’t realise is that history shows Australia Day has not always been celebrated on January 26.
“The conversations need to continue to explore an alternative.’’
The alternative may well be you forego your match fee and not coach or play that day. Like the Manly Sea Eagles who stood down from Pride Match.
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Life isn’t chess. Of any dimension. It’s messy and unexpected and comes at you fast if you’ve made a dumb decision. We don’t sit back moving pieces on a board. Nor are we the pieces being moved. There is just so much in any situation we don’t and can’t know.
All those “if onlys”.
Correct, we are not the chess players in our authoritarian country/world, we are the pawns.
We are disposable.There will be a public funeral, they’ll be hailed as heroes and all that, but in the end, the people in power give zero funks about your life.
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the people in power give zero funks about your life.
I agree. But that isn’t what you said.
Qld police planned to sacrifice junior officers to further advance gun control and confiscation.
I just don’t believe it. I reckon they stuffed up big time. The first thing takes planning and a huge amount of secrecy. The second is far more likely.
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calli says:
January 23, 2023 at 8:24 am
Life isn’t chess. Of any dimension. It’s messy and unexpected and comes at you fast if you’ve made a dumb decision. We don’t sit back moving pieces on a board. Nor are we the pieces being moved. There is just so much in any situation we don’t and can’t know.All those “if onlys”.
What’s more, other people get a say or more likely get to do things that we had not planned on. Free will of others is such a bother to control freaks.
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Interesting article on putting out EV fires.
Firefighters Concerned About EV Fires (22 Jan)
“On Thursday, Jan. 19, at about 10:47 p.m., the Wakefield Fire Department and Massachusetts State Police responded to a single-vehicle crash in the northbound lanes of I-95 near Exit 59.
Upon arrival, companies led by Capt. John Walsh, found a Tesla electric vehicle wedged onto the guardrail in the right breakdown lane. The 38-year-old driver of the vehicle declined medical attention at the scene.
As the vehicle was being prepared for removal from the scene, the guardrail pieced the undercarriage, causing the lithium-ion batteries to go into a thermal runaway. The vehicle became fully involved in fire.
A full box alarm assignment was ordered per Shift Command, and a Lynnfield engine company was called to the scene as well. Wakefield Engine 1 and Ladder 1 initiated suppression operations, applying copious amounts of water onto the vehicle.
Multiple surrounding mutual aid communities responded as well to support firefighting operations and to create a water shuttle to bring water continually to the scene. Engines from Melrose, Stoneham, Reading, Lynnfield as well as a Middleton water tanker assisted.
Firefighters had three 1 3/4inch hand lines as well as a “blitz gun” in operation to cool the battery compartment.
Provisional Chief Thomas Purcell arrived and assumed overall command of the incident with Capt. Walsh handling fire ground operations. Lynnfield Fire Chief Glenn Davis was also on scene as Lynnfield crews established a continuous 4-inch supply line from Vernon Street up to the highway.
The fire was declared under control and fully extinguished after about 2 1/2 hours. More than 20,000 gallons of water were used.
A Department of Fire Services Hazmat Team responded and the Department of Environmental Protection was notified. The vehicle was removed from the scene after consulting with the Hazmat Unit.”
Amazing resource requirement for a single car fire. If EVs substantially replace ICEs we’re going to need a much bigger fire department and lots and lots of water trucks. And putting out crashed electric B-Doubles would be quite a task.
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This is list of people, of whom every last one would have to be complicit and shut their traps to the grave without raising any concerns or going public to anyone, at any point without telling colleagues, friends or family that they are directly involved in killing two cops as part of a broader plan to even greater firearm control and therefore population control, where the original plan was to kill four and where a neighbour got in the way:
1. Shadowy Klaus-seque figures from Switzerland and Belgium;
2. Luigi the Unbelievable;
3. The Commonwealth Attorney-General;
4. From QPol, the Commissioner;
5. Deputy Commissioner;
6. Assistant Commissioner;
7. Commander;
8. Superintendent;
9. Inspector;
10. Senior Sergeant; and
11. The local Sergeant actually sending the junior coppers to the Train Estate.Just no. Occam’s Razor applies – the simplest solution is almost always the correct one. The job turned to shit, and that’s it.
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“A day in which all Australians can celebrate would be my preference,’’ Gillespie told News Corp on Sunday.
“What a lot of people don’t realise is that history shows Australia Day has not always been celebrated on January 26.
No matter what date is chosen for Australia Day people like Gillespie will still object on the grounds that it celebrates dispossession blah, blah, blah …
It’s not the date they object to, it’s that people celebrate Australia and our betters can’t have that. I stand by my assertion that all objectors fancy themselves as better than the rest of us. Funny thing though, by opening their mouths they prove they are beneath contempt.
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Some EU weeny:
I want the EU to be leading the fight for democratic values.
The #MediaFreedomAct is part of this effort.Same EU weeny:
Obey our rules or we will crush you. -
Jolly Odd what: Sydney Observatory record cold spell broken with help from AWOL solar panel?
By Jo Nova
Golly but, that’s a strange spot to leave a solar panel…
Sydney reached the longest cold streak for 140 years, and it looked like it might become the longest ever. But then a few days ago, after 331 days of cool weather, temperatures reached the magic 30.1C at Observatory Hill Sydney ending the newsworthy cold run.
Back in 1883 Sydney had 339 days in-a-row where the thermometer didn’t make it up to 30C (86F). Since then, five million people arrived, along with the Cahill Expressway, skyscrapers, and 100,000 cars a day, but even that, apparently, wasn’t enough artificial urban warming to reach temperatures of 140 years ago.
But Craig Kelly (former MP) has some footage from that famous site and asks “What’s going on here?”
Climate change causes roaming solar panels?
Note to the ABC, who’s full time meteorologist Tom Saunders, didn’t visit the site, this is what unpaid citizen journalists do. Will the two-million-dollars-a-day ABC find a moment to ask the BoM why the solar panel was there?
Was it connected to anything, when was it “installed” and is it mentioned in the meta-data? Perhaps the panel was at the wrong angle and had no effect, but if the BOM was an agency of science, it would want to know.
More importantly, if “climate change” is the greatest threat we face today, the BOM would act like temperature measurements matter.
As long as the BOM treats their sites like a joke, we know “climate change” isn’t science.
Thanks to Craig Kelly @CKellyUAP, Lance, Ross P.
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Bruce of Newcastlesays:
January 23, 2023 at 8:42 am
Interesting article on putting out EV fires.I’ve said before, the most important thing for firefighters to remember is not to get caught on TV laughing at the burning Tesla.
The ideal thing to do would be to let it burn itself out but that depends on where it is. In a Tesla dealership, fine. In the side of a house, not fine.
The idea of lifting the vehicle into a skip and filling it with water seems the be the best in terms of least water used to extinguish but you’re looking at 24 – 48 hours supervision while it stops. I’ve heard of them re-igniting as soon as they are lifted out of the water, even after many hours immersed.
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and one response –
I lost my brother & a childhood friend from the vax. Both dead within days after being vaxed.
When people asked me about the vax, my advice against it was based in horrible experiences. Has/had nothing to do w winning or losing.
Sad he sees it that way. -
Wally Dalísays:
January 23, 2023 at 8:47 am
The fire was declared under control and fully extinguished after about 2 1/2 hours.
The fire was spent. They turned a hot explosion into a longer, cooler one.There are a number of fires where putting water on it is for the benefit of the punters and the TV cameras.
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Catholics For Choice are funded by anti-catholic billionaires to undermine the moral integrity of church teaching, and to slander the Church without being accused of bigotry.
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Gates-led climate fund backs Aussie start-up to save cattle industry
Climate change crusader and outspoken cattle industry critic Bill Gates has thrown his support behind an Australian start-up that has developed technology to slash methane emissions from beef and dairy industries.
Gates-led Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) has invested in Perth-based Rumin8 in a move that signals the Microsoft billionaire does see a future for livestock production despite past attacks on the sector’s contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions.
BEV said the Rumin8 technology, based on pharmaceutical production of a methane-busting feed additive, was already proven to cut emissions from cattle and has offered to help take it to the global market after becoming a shareholder.
The investment in Rumin8 is the first in an Australian-based company by BEV, the world’s most high-profile climate fund and stacked with big-name billionaire backers.
It coincides with a visit to Australia where Mr Gates met Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the weekend to discuss climate change and other issues.
Andrew and Nicola Forrest’s privately owned agri-business Harvest Road has also taken a stake in Rumin8, which has made the world’s biggest climate funds sit up and take notice after finding a way to replicate the bioactive in asparagopsis, the seaweed found by CSIRO to all but cancel out methane emissions from cattle in the form of burps and farts.
Rumin8 opened a phase 2 seed funding round to accommodate BEV, which came knocking after being alerted to the potential of the Rumin8 technology by billion-dollar venture capital firm Prelude Ventures.
The phase 2 funding round raised $US12 million ($17.24 million) that will be spent on commercial trials in Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and the United States, and to build a pilot manufacturing plant.
Rumin8 is on track to have the pilot plant producing 25,000 doses of methane-buster a day (based on a dose lasting a week in cattle but possibly longer) by the middle of this year.
Rumin8 managing director David Messina said the company could scale up to produce millions of cost-effective doses in a short time and that had been one of the big attractions for BEV.
The company has now raised about $25 million in total, with early backers Prelude Ventures and Australia-based Aware Super Sentient WA Growth Fund topping up their shareholdings in the phase 2 funding round.
Mr Gates, the founder and chairman of BEV, has been a vocal and high-profile critic of the livestock industry, pushing for cuts in meat consumption and suggesting in 2021 that “all rich countries should move to 100 per cent synthetic beef”.
In a reference to cattle in his book How To Avoid A Climate Disaster, Mr Gates said: “The methane they burp and fart out every year has the same warming effect as two billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, accounting for about 4 per cent of all global emissions.”
Proven effective
His climate fund now acknowledges that although cattle are a significant source of emissions, livestock remain “one of the cheapest protein sources globally, which means technologies that can reduce emissions from the existing cattle supply chain today and in the future are critical”.
BEV investment committee co-leader Carmichael Roberts backed the Rumin8 technology to overcome the emissions problems highlighted by Mr Gates.
“The demand for sustainable protein has never been more apparent, which is why BEV is keenly interested in reducing methane emissions from beef and dairy,” Mr Roberts said.
“Rumin8 offers a low cost, scalable toolbox that has already proven to be effective in reducing emissions. Our team will support Rumin8 in working closely with farmers to expand the reach of this solution globally.”
The Albanese government has committed to joining more than 100 other nations that have signed up to US President Joe Biden’s global pledge to cut methane emissions by 30 per cent by 2030.
In New Zealand, that led to the introduction of a “burp tax” which effectively charges farmers for methane emissions.
FutureFeed, the company launched by the CSIRO with backing from Dr Forrest, Woolworths, GrainCorp and others to commercialise a feed additive made from asparagopsis, was touted as providing a solution for farmers.
However, there are doubts over whether the seaweed can be farmed at large-scale and concerns about the cost to farmers.
Dr Forrest’s Harvest Road said it continued to back FutureFeed and its seaweed-growing model, but also saw merit in the pharmaceutical solution offered by Rumin8.
Harvest Road chief executive Paul Slaughter said Rumin8 complemented the group’s other investments in reducing agriculture’s contribution to climate change.
“We are actively seeking solutions to reduce methane emissions in livestock supply chains, with Harvest Road supporting multiple emerging technologies focused on methane reduction in ruminant animals,” he said.
Intense interest
“Feed additives are an important pillar in our strategy to reduce our carbon footprint and support our ambition to help solve the global methane emissions challenge.
“We believe Rumin8’s new technology has broad ranging application across the livestock sector and offers a promising solution for industry.”
The latest Rumin8 funding round is understood to have attracted intense interest, with the world’s leading climate funds and others lodging bids of more than $US25 million despite minimal promotion and Rumin8 seeking less than half that amount.
The company opened an office in San Francisco late last year and already has four field trials under way, including in New Zealand’s dairy heartland and in Brazil, home to the world’s biggest beef cattle herd.
Rumin8 describes itself as an Australian climate technology company. It has patented technology that stabilises and replicates nature’s anti-methanogenic compound so that it can be produced at scale and relatively low cost as a methane-busting feed supplement for livestock.
Mr Messina said the initial investment from Prelude Ventures had put Rumin8 on the radar of BEV, with the two funds often investing side-by-side in companies focused on greenhouse gas-reducing technologies.
“I think collectively where the industry has got to, and BEV are a part of this position, is that we have over a billion cattle in the world and they are a vital part of our food systems, and that is not going to change anytime soon,” he said.
“What companies like Rumin8 are providing is a very quick solution potentially to what is a very large problem.
“In relation to emissions from ruminants [grazing animals such as cattle and sheep], what things look like in 20 years’ time is hard to know but what we all do know and all agree on, I think, is that we need to be providing solutions as fast as we can to the problems we have today.”
Mr Messina said the BEV took a deep dive into Rumin8, and its backing provided validation as well as extensive know-how and global reach that was needed as the company looked to get its feed supplement to market as soon as possible.
In addition to Mr Gates and Dr Forrest, billionaires and entrepreneurs behind BEV include Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Virgin founder Richard Branson, businessman and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, LinkedIn executive chairman Reid Hoffman and Alibaba founder Jack Ma.
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Lawyers For Justice Ireland
@LFJIrelandA trail of photographs of just a tiny fraction of people lost because of the vaccination was carried by the crowd en route through central London to Downing Street.
Time for accountability!
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Families are going to be paid money to switch off their electricity tomorrow as the UK tries to avoid blackouts on one of the coldest days of winter.
The National Grid is set to activate its Demand Flexibility Scheme (DFS) for an hour between 5pm and 5pm. The DFS encourages people with smart-metres to cut down their electricity at peak times when supplies are low, in order to reduce energy shortages.
It comes as temperatures plunge to -8C overnight and ‘freezing fog’ will remain into next week amid a yellow weather warning as parts of the UK will wake to bitter frost.
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Gates-led Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) has invested in Perth-based Rumin8 in a move that signals the Microsoft billionaire does see a future for livestock production despite past attacks on the sector’s contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions.
Now why am I instantly sceptical of a pharmaceutical designed to interfere with the natural functioning of the rumen? AND one financed by that saviour of mankind, Bill Gates?
Silly me.
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The hottest Gen Z gadget Is a 20-year-old digital camera
Last spring, Anthony Tabarez celebrated his prom like many of today’s high schoolers: dancing the night away and capturing it through photos and videos. The snapshots show Tabarez, 18, and his friends grinning, jumping around and waving their arms from a crowded dance floor.
But instead of using his smartphone, Tabarez documented prom night with an Olympus FE-230 – a 7.1-megapixel, silver digital camera made in 2007 and previously owned by his mother. During his senior year of high school, cameras like it started appearing in classrooms and at social gatherings. On prom night, Tabarez passed around his camera, which snapped fuchsia-tinted photos that looked straight from the early noughties.
“We’re so used to our phones,” says Tabarez, a freshman at California State University, Northridge. “When you have something else to shoot on, it’s more exciting.”
The cameras of Generation Z’s childhoods, seen as outdated and pointless by those who originally owned them, are in vogue again. Young people are reveling in the novelty of an old look, touting digital cameras on TikTok and sharing the photos they produce on Instagram.
On TikTok, the hashtag #digitalcamera has 184 million views.
Modern influencers like Kylie Jenner, Bella Hadid and Charli D’Amelio are encouraging the fun and mimicking their early 2000s counterparts by taking blurry, overlit photos. Instead of paparazzi publishing these photos in tabloids or on gossip websites, influencers are posting them on social media.
Most of today’s teenagers and young adults were infants at the turn of the millennium. Gen Zers grew up with smartphones that increasingly had it all, making stand-alone cameras, mapping devices and other gadgets unnecessary. They are now in search of a break from their smartphones; last year, 36 per cent of US teenagers said they spent too much time on social media, according to the Pew Research Centre.
That respite is coming in part through compact point-and-shoot digital cameras, uncovered by Gen Zers who are digging through their parents’ junk drawers and shopping secondhand. Camera lines like the Canon Powershot and Kodak EasyShare are among their finds, popping up at parties and other social events.
Over the past few years, nostalgia for the Y2K era, a time of both tech enthusiasm and existential dread that spanned the late 1990s and early 2000s, has seized Generation Z. The nostalgia has spread across TikTok, fuelling fashion trends like low-rise pants, velour tracksuits and dresses over jeans. Mall-stalwart brands like Abercrombie & Fitch and Juicy Couture have reaped the benefits; in 2021, Abercrombie reported its highest net sales since 2014. Now, there is Y2K nostalgia for the technology that captured these outfits when they were first popular.
This time, the poor picture quality isn’t for lack of a better tool. It’s on purpose.
Compared with today’s smartphones, older digital cameras have fewer megapixels, which capture less detail, and built-in lenses with higher apertures, which let in less light, both of which contribute to lower-quality photos. But in a feed of more or less standard smartphone photos, the quirks of photos taken with digital cameras are now considered treasures instead of reasons for deletion.
“People are realising it’s fun to have something not attached to their phone,” says Mark Hunter, a photographer also known as the Cobrasnake. “You’re getting a different result than you’re used to. There’s a bit of delay in gratification.”
Hunter, 37, cut his teeth documenting nightlife in the early noughties using his digital camera. In those photos, celebrities – including a You Belong With Me-era Taylor Swift and the newly famous Kim Kardashian – look like ordinary partygoers, caught in the harsh light of Hunter’s camera.
He now photographs a new cohort of influencers and stars, but the photos would be nearly indistinguishable from his older ones if his subjects were clutching flip phones instead of iPhones. They are rewinding the clock to 2007 and “basically reliving every episode of The Simple Life,” he says, referring to a reality television show from that era that features Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie.
But many new point-and-shoot digital cameras come with today’s bells and whistles, and older models have been discontinued, so people are turning to thrift stores and secondhand e-commerce sites to find cameras with sufficiently vintage looks. On eBay, searches for “digital camera” increased by 10 per cent from 2021 to 2022, with searches for specific models seeing even steeper jumps, says Davina Ramnarine, a company spokesperson. For example, searches for “Nikon COOLPIX” increased by 90 per cent, she says.
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Feel something slipping?
Davos 2023: Whistling Past The Great Reset’s Graveyard
ZeroHedge, January 21, 2023
So here we are as Davos 2023 winds down and it’s pretty obvious, watching the proceedings, that their entire edifice built on a crude admixture of psychopathy and hubris is tumbling down.
And it’s not only because more of us can see them for what they are, cheap communists in expensive suits, but because there are stark divisions forming within their own ranks.
The problem, however, for most of the committed Davosians is that they still live in the wine-and-cheese-filled amniotic sack of this Swiss Alps version of Oz. They don’t see the gathering storm barreling down the yellow brick road as anything more threatening than a single mosquito is to a cow.
As anyone who has lived in central Florida or studied its cattle industry knows, a few million mosquitos can exsanguinate a cow in a matter of days.
So, watching the proceedings at this year’s Davos was fascinating because, for the first time, the sheen was gone. Too many people were seeing the walls of the echo chamber for what they were; old, shabby, and drafty rather than having the veneer of wisdom that comes with age.
Davos had come out from behind the curtain willingly to declare themselves the saviors of humanity through their Fuhrer’s nutty ideas about transhumanism, 15-minute cities, eating bugs, and renting your life from a central authority.
And it was easy to build a counter-narrative to this insanity that permeated into the zeitgeist by just pointing your finger and laughing at them…
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So where do the power engineers come from to fire up three coal units with a couple hours notice? Do the guys just sit in the crib room all day doing nothing and wait for cold still weather conditions? And the maintenance requirements – who pays for those?
Scoffing, scoffing, scoffing.
And sneering.Top Men at the Department for
Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy anticipated the need for filthy coal back in August 2022 – and instructed National Grid ESO to contract Drax and EDF to be on standby for just this eventuality.
Top men.The cost? A very reasonable £395 million (plus coal and carbon credits).
So, about £7,000/MWh if they run for 24 hours on British Monday.
Too cheap to meter.
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I’m thinking of under building car parks that are full of EVs.
Not good.
EV’s have been banned from some of those car parks in Germany.
There is a serious problem with lithium – ion batteries. Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4) are safer but half the energy density of Li-ion. C
Considerable effort is being put into Li batteries with solid state, non flammable electrolyte. I saw one company was touting these in 2018. Last I saw you could buy some for aerospace use with around 300 watt-hours/kilogram energy density but the cycle life was miserable and only 80% retention after 90 or so cycles. Unacceptable for most uses. The same company was saying their batteries would appear in Toyotas in 2020. How did that work out? -
Families are going to be paid money to switch off their electricity tomorrow as the UK tries to avoid blackouts on one of the coldest days of winter.
Where does the money they will be paid come from?
Taxes, right?
So…people have money taken from them which they can get back if they do what the government says while it tries to paper over their own power-generation cock up.
Sounds eminently reasonable.
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Latham makes a good point here. If she thinks so badly of British colonialism why play a very English game.
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Over the weekend Midsumma Festival, a gay pride thing kicked off in Melbourne. No doubt an entirely subsidised event.
Ballooons, streamers, a fat queen in sparkly gown and thick eyelashes and heavy with the lipstick fronted the cameras. Lots of striking of poses.
OK, you think, I can put up with it for a weekend. No skin off my nose.
Not good enough, thought criminal !
The Midsumma Festival goes for four weeks.
They are relentless.
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Klaus has done extremely well out of it though.
Perhaps that was always the point?
Over 50 years it’s morphed from an ambitious academic project, through a EU talkfest, to a wobbly global thing (complete with Young Pioneers) – too complicated and diffuse to have any meaningful effect.
It’s continuous features are:
• Appeal to vanity in the self-assigned elite;
• A massive annual jolly and networking opportunity, in a luxe resort setting;
• Loads of OPM washing through its ecosystem.Klaus has been the proprietor and ringmaster of a circus of the self-absorbed. A cynical user, rather than a Dr Evil, fiendishly manipulating the world around him.
And the bastard never invited me.
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Wow.
If I was an unscrupulous media turd Id be paying billy bongsmoke/Debbie dogbox to make a number of inquiries for famous people as a prospective ‘boyfriend/girlfriend” to see if i could rustle up some stories.
A classic case of a “well meaning” piece of law being perverted to grind an axe.
NSW women and men will be able to check partner’s violence history online with disclosure scheme
Note the story says ‘women and men” the minister is much less bullshitting.
Deputy Premier and Police Minister Paul Toole said the reformed tool would help keep women safe with the increase in online dating.“The dating landscape has shifted considerably since then with more and more people accessing dating apps and dating outside known friendship circles,” Mr Toole said.
NSW Women’s Safety Minister Natalie Ward said the move would prevent assaults and save lives.
“Our priority is to protect a woman’s right to be safe in a relationship,” Ms Ward said.
…The scheme can be enacted due to the Domestic Violence Act 2007, which allows information to be shared without the consent of a person if it is believed to prevent a threat to life or health.
So the problem is. People hooking up with randos via internet.
Solution – allow privacy breaches en-masse. -
OldOzziesays:
January 23, 2023 at 9:14 am
Gates-led climate fund backs Aussie start-up to save cattle industry
Has anyone asked the public whether they want to eat meat from force fed animals on an unnatural diet of seaweed and chemicals? I don’t think so. Besides it is just another attempt for these cashed up billionaires to interfere in our lives to solve a non existent problem. The whole project stinks! -
Klaus has been the proprietor and ringmaster of a circus of the self-absorbed.
Quite an achievement given that he’s a man with so little charisma or even intellectual clout (one reviwer of his last book said it could have been written by AI).
Perhaps the most extended confidence trick in history.
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An 8 pointer, 4 pointer and a button buck are standing by a field browsing on acorns.
The 8 pointer says “I’m happy with my 10 does, we’re really getting along”.
The 4 pointer says “I’m happy as heck with my 5, they really take care of me!”
The Button buck says “My two are all right, better than nothing I guess”.
Then all of a sudden a GIANT 14 pointer walks out into the field. The three bucks had never seen anything like him before, they were in awe.
The big buck made a huge scrape and pissed in it, rubbed a tree the size of a telephone pole and snapped it off at the ground!
The three bucks looked on in amazement.
The 8 pointer says “I could probably get by with 4 does… who really needs 10 anyway?”
The 4 pointer says “You know… come to think of it, I only really use one or two of mine!”
The button buck was silent, as the other two bucks look over to him in confusion.
Suddenly the Button buck runs out into the middle of the field! He rips and tears up some grass, pisses all over the place, snorts and wheezes, rubs his head raw on a tree, and chews a licking branch clean off!
Then he runs back over to his buddies. His friends immediately ask him “What the hell are you doing!?”
I’m just making sure that big sonofabitch knows I’m a buck!”
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Klaus has been the proprietor and ringmaster of a circus of the self-absorbed. A cynical user, rather than a Dr Evil, fiendishly manipulating the world around him.
Yes, it seems to be a backslapping clusterf*ck of the uber-wealthy looking for validation.
And the bastard never invited me.
Aha! The crux of the matter!
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Dr Faustussays:
January 23, 2023 at 10:05 am
Only eight days left to save the Daily Exposé.
I’m so confused.
I thought they were only a day away from closure last month, or perhaps the month before that.They can obviously run on the smell of an oily coffee.
They are constantly so close to the brink.
A few more dollars and they will have a self-aware Big Website. -
AI chatbot’s MBA exam pass poses test for business schools
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https://www.ft.com/content/7229ba86-142a-49f6-9821-f55c07536b7cElon Musk has long dismissed the MBA as irrelevant or damaging, but now a company backed by the outspoken tech entrepreneur is threatening to directly undermine the value of the flagship business degree: the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT.
Christian Terwiesch, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton, one of the oldest and most prestigious US business schools, decided to put to the test growing concerns about ChatGPT’s power, and found to his surprise that it could outperform some of the students on his operations management course, a core MBA subject.
In his white paper “Would Chat GPT3 Get a Wharton MBA?” published this week, he concluded: “Chat GPT3 would have received a B to B- grade on the exam. This has important implications for business school education,” citing the need to overhaul exam policies, curriculum design and teaching.
The chatbot, which has been temporarily overwhelmed by a surge in queries in the past few weeks, has sparked concern from many academics including those in business schools that students will use it to cheat in their essays and exams.
“I’m one of the alarmists,” said Prof Jerry Davis at the University of Michigan’s Ross Business School, which has convened a faculty meeting on Monday to discuss its implications. “Our whole enterprise in education is being challenged by this, and it’s only going to get more challenging. Time for a top-to-bottom rethink.”
Francisco Veloso, dean of Imperial College Business School in London, said: “We are having serious discussions and a working group is analysing the implications of ChatGPT and other similar tools that we know our resourceful and inventive students are using, and we will be formulating policies around that soon.”
While stressing that the growing use of AI technology was inevitable and even largely desirable, he called for clear disclosure policies in class on whether students had used ChatGPT, and predicted mitigation measures including “going back to handwritten work, as well as more oral and class — or at least synchronous — discussions.”
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Nuclear explosion impact on humans indoors
ABSTRACT
This study investigates the nuclear blast effects on humans inside a building within a moderate damage zone. These effects depend on many parameters that must be better understood. In addition, the nuclear blast effects will spread further away than the devastating destruction zone, where most people are killed instantly. However, these injuries will vary depending on a person’s position in the building and the air velocities attained when the blast wave enters indoors. The blast wave effects are examined for an indicative, easily reproducible indoor arrangement. The airspeed behind the blast wave accelerates to even higher velocities in the interior. The supersonic shock waves arising from the blast undergo expansion as they enter a room through an opening leading to channeling effects. The results show that most of the air is directed toward the corridor rather than through the opposite room’s door, leading to high airspeed developed in rooms further down the aisle. The airspeed attained in the interior is calculated for two blast wave overpressures, 3 and 5 pounds per square inch, for which most concrete buildings do not collapse. The data reveal that the force applied to a standing person from the speed of the gusts formed at several locations in the interior is equivalent to several g-forces of body mass acceleration capable of lifting and throwing any person off the ground. It is then the impact onto solid surfaces that can lead to severe injury or death. Finally, the results reveal preferential areas in the rooms where a human can avoid the risk of exposure to the highest wind forces.
I. INTRODUCTION
The detonation of a nuclear bomb will have devastating effects on humans and assets. The shock waves and thermal and ionizing radiation will cause destruction. Moreover, radioactive fallout will impact for years. The shock waves will cause most of the damage through fast changes in air pressure that will destroy people, trees, and manufactured structures. The destruction will depend on the magnitude of the explosion, and the greater the distance one wants to achieve, the greater the burst height should be. Air bursts will result in higher overpressures at longer distances. In contrast, surface explosions will lead to higher overpressures at closer distances.
Although estimating the various effects at different distances is complicated, a general assessment based on past nuclear tests and engineering projections suggests that overpressures at and above 20 pounds per square inch (psi) will partially or entirely demolish heavy concrete buildings.1–3 At 10?psi, most people will die, and severe damage will occur. At 5?psi, severe injuries and fatalities to humans will be widespread and significant damage to heavy structures will occur. Finally, at longer distances featuring 3?psi, overpressure will result in severe human injuries, and the destruction of smaller built-in structures.3 For the range of overpressures below 5?psi, humans outdoors will be exposed to the absolute risk of severe injury or death. The blast waves, debris from structures, radiation, and nuclear fallout will cause the above.
Several studies in the past have simulated the dispersion and deposition of radioactive fallout from nuclear tests4,5 or terrorist nuclear detonations6–8 and modeled the radioactive fallout from stabilized nuclear clouds9 and atomic weapon tests.10 Obviously, near the nuclear bomb detonation, the devastation would be widespread, and the fatality rate would be practically 100%. However, outside of the severe damage zone (SDZ), the effect of the blast reduces and survivability increases. Severe injuries can be reduced at distances corresponding to overpressures below 5?psi, particularly for people inside concrete buildings within the moderate damage zone (MDZ). In this case, the primary danger to human survivability in indoor spaces becomes the extreme high-speed winds that enter through the various openings in the building, e.g., windows. In addition, the propagation of shock waves indoors will interact with walls and deflect around corners, doors, and obstacles. These interactions may induce higher pressures due to channeling effects, thus increasing the injury risk.
https://www.popsci.com/science/how-to-survive-a-nuclear-bomb-shockwave/
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BREAKING: The Truth About the World Economic Forum
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Re cashed up billionaires and their attempts to play play climate gods.
“In this week’s Newsweek, an Austrian economics professor contends that “Climate Activism Isn’t About the Planet. It’s About the Boredom of the Bourgeoisie”. The opening paragraph reads:“The downfall of capitalism will not come from the uprising of an impoverished working class but from the sabotage of a bored upper class. This was the view of the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter in 1942. Schumpeter believed that at some point in the future, an educated elite would have nothing left to struggle for and will instead start to struggle against the very system that they themselves live in.”
The op-ed argues that the green movement is not a reflection of planetary crisis but, rather, a crisis of meaning for the affluent.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/01/22/barry-brill-for-billionaires-climate-lobbying-is-hot/ -
It’s the most popular game no one’s heard of. What is pickleball?
The racquet game, invented in the ’60s by three dads, is huge in the States and is taking off in Australia. Why the fuss? And how do you win?
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The op-ed argues that the green movement is not a reflection of planetary crisis but, rather, a crisis of meaning for the affluent.
Climate worrying is a substitute for religion, you say?
To paraphrase Chesterton’s Francophone translator:
When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing, they’ll believe in anything.
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Avatar Movie Valkyrie Antimatter Rocket Design is a Real Design
Dr. Pellegrino served as a scientific consultant on James Cameron’s Avatar movie. The interstellar vehicles seen in the film are based on the designs of Pellegrino and Powell’s Valkyrie rockets, fused with Robert L. Forward’s designs.
Charles Pellegrino’s website has more information
The engine is simply a magnetic coil, which generates a magnetic field, against which particles from the matter-antimatter reaction zone are bounced. The magnetic field (and hence the coil), is propelled forward by the bounce. The coil then pulls the rest of the ship along on a string, much as a motorboat pulls a water skier. A pulling rather than a pushing engine eliminates most of the structural girders that would not only, by their mere existence, add unwarranted mass, but would multiply that mass many times over by their need for shields and cooling equipment, and by added fuel to push the added fuel . . . leading to a chain reaction of design complications. . .and to an engine that burns hotter, but which cannot afford to push the giant to even a significant fraction of lightspeed. By contrast to what has traditionally become known as the large, slow-moving ‘space ark’ approach to interstellar flight, Valkyrie becomes a low mass speedboat
Valkyrie is the ultralight of rockets, consisting mostly of naked magnetic coils and pods held together by tethers. Indeed, it can best be summed up as a kite (with magnetic field lines instead of paper sheets) that flies through space on a muon wind of its own creation. Valkyrie’s fuel stores (both matter and antimatter combined) are estimated at slightly less than half the mass of the rest of the spacecraft, or about one hundred tons. technology. The Valkyrie will have a maximum cruising speed of 92 percent lightspeed.
The BBC also has a page with information on the Valkyrie
h2g2 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition
The Valkyrie Spacecraft – The Next Giant Leap?
Created Aug 8, 2006 | Updated Apr 17, 2018
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Bill Gates the one whose wife ditched him apparently after finding out his visits to lolita island were more than soaking up the sun. She didn’t mind the killing of Indian children with a fake vaccination program but the the thought of Billy boy and a teen horizontally tangoing was too much, whether it happened or not. Why is it when someone makes a motza the rest seem to think they know about everything. My bromance with Elon is based on wonderment of what he is going to make happen next. He’s this centuries Howard Hughes. I don’t think he’s the be all and end all but he certainty makes things happen.
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The chatbot, which has been temporarily overwhelmed by a surge in queries in the past few weeks, has sparked concern from many academics including those in business schools that students will use it to cheat in their essays and exams.
Once again, for the public good, I’ve applied stern a challenge to ChatGPT:
Q: Is Jamie Lee Curtis hot, or smoking hot?
A: It is a matter of personal preference whether someone finds Jamie Lee Curtis attractive. Beauty is often subjective and can depend on a wide range of factors, including individual taste and cultural background.
An AI bot so dim and disconnected from reality is hardly a credible threat – even to academics.
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Expect no immediate improvement in New Zealand after Jacinda Ardern leaves office
Her successor may be even worse.
The unexpected announcement of the resignation of the execrable Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand brought a moment of hope that the Kiwis might recover from her misgovernance of the lovely island nation. Monica Showalter three days ago explained her draconian lockdown (the worst in the world outside of China), destruction of the economy, inflation, green hysteria policies, and China sucking up that drove her approval from 70% to 29%.
But her successor is likely to be no better, as Peter Smith write at The Pipeline:
…it would be a mistake to think that Chris Hipkins, her replacement as prime minister, will be enlightened. As New Zealand’s health overlord, he was complicit in outdoing the infamous Dan Andrews (premier of the Australian state of Victoria) in the extent and intensity of Covid lockdowns; he’s also been serving as minister of education and police. Expect more of the same from him. Big government. Green delusions. Sucking up to China. Have a look:
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Another new thing to watch on the river…jetboards. The coolest toy I’ve ever seen.
They certainly are cool.
And even cooler, e-foils. -
Corporate suicide watch: Harley-Davidson plans to go all-electric
I can’t think of a worse example of a corporate CEO misreading his customer base than this via the Robb Report (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll, Instapundit)
“At some point in time, Harley Davidson will be all-electric,” the executive [Harley-Davidson CEO Jochen Zeitz] recently told Dezeen. “But that’s a long-term transition that needs to happen. It’s not something you do overnight.”
Zeitz’s pronouncement seems guaranteed to make a not-insignificant portion of the manufacturer’s customer base cringe. For many enthusiasts, the thing that really sets a Harley apart from other motorcycles—American-made or otherwise—is a thunderously loud internal combustion engine. But the company knows that no matter how important those large-displacement mills might be change is on the horizon.
Maybe by “long term” he means several generations from now. If not, this is a surefire recipe for disaster.
This is what happens when CEOs focus on acceptance by elites in the media, other corporations and governments. Or when they listen to their kids home on break from college.
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Q: What are Jamie Lee Curtis’ areas for improvement?
A: As a language model, I don’t have the ability to judge people’s abilities or areas for improvement. I can provide you with information about Jamie Lee Curtis’s career and accomplishments, but it would be inappropriate for me to comment on her personal attributes or areas for improvement. Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses and it’s important to remember that everyone should be treated with respect and kindness.
Nope.
I take that to mean ChatGPT thinks she looked like David Bowie and therefore had to be treated with pity.Poor taste.
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Climate worrying is a substitute for religion, you say?
And the vibe is more Old Testament than New Testament.
Im getting a distinct Cerebus vibe from the whole thing.
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“Oh how nice captain rapewash wants a female crewmember to splice his mainrigging and scupper his pizzle on a 3 month trip beyond the legal jurisdiction of any nation state. Hmmm, no sailing experience needed but must be between loli and 21 and perky”.
3 months later…
“How could this happen to meeeee”!
Stranded at sea: amateur female sailors speak of sexual abuse by captains they met online
Crew websites urged to do more to protect victims, who set off seeking adventure only to be trapped onboard with a predator(Obligatory, any bloke doing this is a turd, but pretending the brown smelly thing flecked with corn sitting on the glass topped coffee table is just modern art wont make it go away)
Chloe Russell* was in her 40s when she decided to quit her desk job and embark on a sailing journey around French Polynesia.
With no boat and little experience, she joined Crewbay, a site connecting amateur crew with work. She included her LinkedIn profile, where she soon received a message from a ship captain.
After exchanging messages online for two months, she agreed to join him on board for a month-long journey.
But on her first night on board, she quickly became uncomfortable when the skipper seemed too eager to refill her wine glass.
“When he started to caress my leg and back … I was terrified,” she says. “I told him I am a victim of paedophilia and incest and I could not have intimate relations with someone I don’t know.”
Russell says she excused herself for a swim but the captain went in after her, stripping off his clothing. When she tried to leave by climbing the ladder, the captain approached from behind and pinned her against the side of the boat, ignoring her pleas to stop.And it was there, alone in the middle of the ocean, that she says she was raped.
…
All of the women had been offered what they thought was the opportunity of a lifetime: cheap accommodation and international travel in exchange for volunteer work on sailing vessels.Ladies: Men will offer you things to have sex with them. In order for you not to feel like a prostitute they will offer “incredible” deals.
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JCs mate, the Stig, opens its feculent upper orofice and spews forth the same mantra as ever.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/jan/22/joseph-stiglitz-economist-income-tax-high-earners-70-per-cent-inequality“Give the government more money” he howls, as the government pays his salary and junkets to advise government more taxes is great.
Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel prize-winning Keynesian economist, has called for the super-rich to be subjected to taxes as high as 70% to help tackle widening inequality.
Stiglitz, who won the Nobel prize in economics in 2001 and pioneered many ideas about globalisation and inequality, said introducing a special worldwide income tax rate of 70% on the highest earners “would clearly make sense”.
…
“We should be taxing wealth at a higher rate, because much of the wealth is inherited wealth, [for example] – the young Walmarts, inherited their wealth,” he said.“One of my friends describes [this] as winning the sperm lottery – they chose the right parents. I think we have to realise that most of the billionaires have gotten much of their wealth out of luck.”
He described proposals by the US senator Elizabeth Warren for a 2% tax on people with assets of more than $50m and 3% on those with more than $1bn as “very reasonable” and said they “would really go a long way to raising revenues that could alleviate some of our country’s problems”.
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37 minutes ago
Price calls for intervention in Alice ‘war zone’
Georgina Noack
GEORGINA NOACKNorthern Territory Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has repeated the Coalition leaders’ calls for federal intervention in a wave of young crime that is sweeping Alice Springs.
“Alice has been described as a war zone and it has been so for some time now, and our police are under the pump. They can’t seem to get the problem under control,” Senator Price told Sky News Australia.
“We didn’t need a crystal ball to know that this is what is going to happen and is continuing to happen and it’s terrifying and it’s sad that my hometown is currently faced with this situation.”
As well as calling for federal police to be deployed, Ms Price said Opposition Leader Peter Dutton was right to call for a Royal Commission into the sexual abuse of Indigenous chidren.
She also criticised the Northern Territory Labor government for being “soft on crime”, and said it was time to prioritise the well-being of Indigenous children who are taken out of loving foster homes and returned to potentially dangerous unstable environments with kin.
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From ‘Great Reset’ to ‘New System’
From Nation First –
“This year’s Davos WEF summit seems to have a marked change in globalist lingo.
If you delve into the meeting’s agenda, terms like the ‘Great Reset’, ‘Green New Deal’, ‘Global Governance’, ‘New Normal’, and others used so often before are now remarkedly absent.
In their place is a rather ambiguous ‘New System.’
The WEF also urged its members to come up with “better narratives” to persuade people.
All this seems to point to the fact that the globalist ‘elites’ are concerned that their usual messaging and tactics no longer work.
Perhaps that and their growing concern that the public are not going to sit idly by as these so-called ‘elites’ propel the world from one crisis to another.
Hence, the need for a ‘new system’ to take control.”
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Nobody, not even even QPol sends four junior cops to execute search warrants for anything – let alone to an address where (according to the Train offspring) shooters are registered to that address.
It’s fairly certain they were there to confiscate Train’s guns for storage and handling breach.That’s the great thing about firearm confiscations on technicalities. So much potential to wind up with a whole lot of dead people.
Of course the confiscation angle will never get any airtime. Lest others decide to make the same now or never stand. In which case the whole edifice of gun control in Australia collapses because the cost of enforcement becomes too high. I’m surprised this didn’t happen in 1996 but I think at the time people were less sure of Governments overall intentions, frog in boiling water.
(The US is about to cross this threshold with a range of weapons bans and a whole lot of people saying they won’t comply and a good number of sheriffs saying they won’t enforce.)
Police turning up following an actual crime allows a very different approach because intent has already been demonstrated and usually well corroborated, as opposed to some technical breach usually based on flimsy evidence which more often than not falls apart when run through the legal process.
(What the Trains did was completely cowardly, there is however cause and effect aspects to be explored, and a serious question as to whether or not QPol performed an extra judicial execution.)
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Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel prize-winning Keynesian economist, has called for the super-rich to be subjected to taxes as high as 70% to help tackle widening inequality.
I seem to recall that when France increased top tax to 75% that Gérard Depardieu fled to Russia.
And the Beatles had the hide to write a song complaining about Labour’s 95% top tax rate. Such ingrates!Prof Stiglitz all it takes is one island microstate somewhere offering low tax and cheap citizenship and every rich person on the planet will flock there, or at least send a personal assistant to go collect their new passport. And if there are no free microstates left Elon will sell them a Martian passport cheaply.
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Of course the confiscation angle will never get any airtime. Lest others decide to make the same now or never stand. In which case the whole edifice of gun control in Australia collapses because the cost of enforcement becomes too high. I’m surprised this didn’t happen in 1996 but I think at the time people were less sure of Governments overall intentions
In 1996 the government did not know who owned guns.
In 2023 they do know. -
Families are going to be paid money to switch off their electricity tomorrow as the UK tries to avoid blackouts on one of the coldest days of winter.
My electricity provider does this regularly .. offers cash off the next bill for turning off/down electric stuff when. exceptionally, hot days are predicted .. have dun for several years .. if you’re on a “smart” meter they offer $5/$10 if your electric consumption is below a specific usage figure over a set no. of hours ..
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BOHICA.
Government considering Medicare funding overhaul (Sky News, 23 Jan)
The federal government is considering an overhauled funding system for Medicare in a bid to open up care options to international health professionals.
Health Minister Mark Butler says the current model of subsidising individual GP visits is no longer fit for purpose.
The changes have received wide support from medical groups, who say access to universal healthcare in Australia is threatened by growing gap fees.
Betcha they increase the Medicare levy and make it progressive.
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“Oh how nice captain rapewash wants a female crewmember to splice his mainrigging and scupper his pizzle on a 3 month trip beyond the legal jurisdiction of any nation state. Hmmm, no sailing experience needed but must be between loli and 21 and perky”.
Your prose good sir is excellent as always. Well done (polite golf clap)
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“Yes, I suspect that it would actually be easier to obtain a pistol through illegal methods than through legal ones.
They make legal ownership of hand guns a massive headache.”Indeed. South-west Sydney is awash with gang violence, mainly Lebanese, and illegal guns. Quite frankly, I wouldn’t mind a government knowing about those guns.
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I know quite a lot of history and that history has taught me that Hitler, Mao, Lenin and other tyrants, despots and criminals throughout history have almost always laid out what they planned to do before seizing power. They were quite honest about it, just like the WEF is.
Correct. That’s exactly what the Spanish communists did. They made it perfectly plain what their intentions were. Franco took them at their word and crushed them.
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Indeed. South-west Sydney is awash with gang violence, mainly Lebanese, and illegal guns. Quite frankly, I wouldn’t mind a government knowing about those guns.
The price tells you all you need to know, apparently only about twice what a legal one costs. The police always try and pump up the worth in any seizure, to demonstrate scarcity, which in turn gets more Lebs interested in the business.
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“Oh how nice captain rapewash wants a female crewmember to splice his mainrigging and scupper his pizzle on a 3 month trip beyond the legal jurisdiction of any nation state. Hmmm, no sailing experience needed but must be between loli and 21 and perky”.
They literally scoured the world to write such an article, which is clearly a very rare and (wealthy) SWPL problem.
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Interesting article in NYP.
Former Navy pilot Royce Williams shot down four Soviet jets — and kept the feat secret for 50 years (21 Jan, via Lucianne)
In 1952, then-U.S. Navy pilot Royce Williams engaged in possibly the longest solo aerial dogfight against four Soviet jets, shooting down the enemy planes in less than 30 minutes, KUSI reported.
Williams, 97, who retired in 1975, on Friday received the Navy Cross, the service’s second-highest award for military honor.
…
The leader of their patrol suffered mechanical problems and left with his wingman back to a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Sea of Japan. Then Williams and his wingman noticed seven Soviet MiG-15s heading toward the Americans.“They just didn’t come out of Russia and engage us in any way before,” Williams told the American Veterans Center.
After the pair were ordered to get between the Soviet forces and the U.S. aircraft carriers, four of the MiGs began shooting at the pair, leading Williams to return fire.
Despite being told to stand down, for the next half-hour, Williams outmaneuvered the Soviet fighter jets. He unloaded all 760 rounds of the 20mm shells his plane carried, and took 263 holes to his own jet, but managed to return to the aircraft carrier uninjured.
Williams only began sharing the story in 2002, after Korean War records were declassified, The Independent reported. The Soviet Union was not an official combatant in the Korean War.
Seventy years afterwards he gets the Navy Cross. Quick work Navy peoples.
Well done Capt. Williams, especially for the discipline of maintaining confidentiality so long. -
Jorgesays:
January 23, 2023 at 12:21 pm
This morning, following the California shooting, the ABC couldn’t wait to invite a woman on to air her views on the dangers of white supremacists with guns.Whoops.
Pics are of an Asian guy.When it is convenient to the “narrative”, Asians are regarded as being white.
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Harley-Davidson plans to go all-electric
Well, people buy them for the noise factor (something I would be happy to see an end to, having lived on a thoroughfare favoured by late night bike hoons).
On the flip side, 93.1% of Harleys are sold to mid-life crisis lawyers, accountants (celebrity and standard grade) and stockbrokers*, who would probably go for a bit of virtue signaling under the chrome.
The typical white collar Harley travels less than 3,000 kms a year, and is usually sold as part of the divorce settlement.
….
* They have a name. “RUBs”. Rich Urban Bikers. -
Your rates at work. Received a letter from the council today informing me that our recycling bin is to have a its lid replaced from maroon to green to conform with the Vic Government’s recycling Victoria policy. Talk about waste. How many perfectly good bin lids are being replaced in Victoria? The contractor (brovers) supplying the contract will be happy.
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The price tells you all you need to know, apparently only about twice what a legal one costs. The police always try and pump up the worth in any seizure, to demonstrate scarcity, which in turn gets more Lebs interested in the business.
Only problem is that our prisons are full.
Arms traffickers still get off pretty lightly, the worse your record, the lighter the sentence.Heaven forbid you have an inspection though and either:
Didn’t bolt your safe down correctly
Left 1 or 2 rounds outside the safe
Left the safe keys on your deskOr any number of minor infringements.
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