Open Thread – Tue 31 Jan 2023


The Surrender of Granada, Francisco Pradilla Ortiz, 1882


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cohenite
January 31, 2023 6:42 pm

Ultimately, of course, Trump, DeSantis, or any other Republican, can’t possibly win the 2024 election, because it will be stolen. Again.

Correct.

Robert Sewell
January 31, 2023 6:44 pm

Salvatore:

Full-time and part-time employees can take paid FDVL at their full pay rate for the hours they would have worked if they weren’t on leave.

So on their first day of work as a full timer, they can ring up and say I’m on DV leave for the next couple of weeks?
That’s bizarre.

Zipster
January 31, 2023 6:46 pm
Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
January 31, 2023 6:46 pm

Knuckle Draggersays:

January 31, 2023 at 6:41 pm

‘I contribute nothing, but I don’t like it. Dance for me, the way I want.’

HJM

Snort, cackle.
Quite so.

Eyrie
Eyrie
January 31, 2023 6:47 pm

state public debt will reach c. $20bn this financial year before doubling to $40bn by 2025/26 “if present trends continue”.
AFAIK Qld debt is waaaay north of $40 billion already.

Robert Sewell
January 31, 2023 6:49 pm

Chris:

Have you seen the episode of ‘A Current Affair’ partnered up with Roland Browne and Samantha Lee, who taught us ‘We are going to have a massacre in Tasmania!’ in October 1995?

I haven’t watched TV for over 30 years.

Indolent
Indolent
January 31, 2023 6:50 pm
another ian
another ian
January 31, 2023 6:51 pm

“Something’s Buggin’ Tucker Carlson, Food Production Is a National Security Issue

January 30, 2023 | Sundance | 79 Comments”

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/01/30/somethings-buggin-tucker-carlson-food-production-is-a-national-security-issue/

https://youtu.be/ZkYeOxWiVzs

You can have three guesses as to what the cause is’

And if you blamed Putin you struck out badly.

See the blame list in that Conservative Tree House link

And goes with food shortages

“War On Agriculture”

The genii of Canada

“Documents reveal feds considered carbon tax-like rule for farm fertilizers”

http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2023/01/31/war-on-agriculture-8/

As does this – next post

Eyrie
Eyrie
January 31, 2023 6:51 pm

Last night’s thread is a prime example.

Dover did end it somewhat early. It was a mercy killing.

JC
JC
January 31, 2023 6:51 pm

Dover seems more than happy for the abuse, like this, to continue. Last night’s thread is a prime example. JC must have a hell of a hold over this blog’s administrator.

Kezz, except you fail to mention that I never started it. You neglect to mention the other couple of participants, with one of them having no direct relevance to the ongoing argument with Turtlhead but just jumping in to inflame the situation and to stoush troll. You should also note this particular commenter jumped into not one but two discussions that bore no relevance to him in order to stoush troll.
You’re, of course, as objective as ever.
And here’s my take on you: The only things you contribute to the site are your attempts to have me banned and your sullen, exacting agreements with other commenters. You’re about as original as ten A4 repcopies. Give it a rest, FFS. You’re so boring.

another ian
another ian
January 31, 2023 6:52 pm

The next post for that

comment image

JMH
JMH
January 31, 2023 6:53 pm

And in prances JC’s pet Chihuaua. On command of course. Followed by LEAPing lizard, KD.
As we were.

Ed Case
Ed Case
January 31, 2023 6:54 pm

Looks like von Manstein was more or less a surrogate.
His mother’s sister couldn’t have children, so she gave him to her to raise.
Another of the sisters also contributed a girl to the von Mansteins.

Of course, all the sister had married Prussian Generals, so the kids never went without.
Von Manstein’s birth family surname was Lewinski, believe it or not!

So, there’s always been a history of surrogacy among families, but nobody ever thought about making a Quid outta it before.

Robert Sewell
January 31, 2023 6:57 pm

Indolent:

Arizona Regime Is Investigating Kari Lake And Trying To JAIL Her On Felony Charges For Exercising First Amendment And Exposing Election Fraud

This is what the 2nd amendment was designed to prevent. Fat lot of good it’s going to be now.

JC
JC
January 31, 2023 6:57 pm

And in prances JC’s pet Chihuaua. On command of course. Followed by LEAPing lizard, KD.
As we were.

Ban them all. Ban them all, Dover!

Kezz, if you think I have a pet Chihuahua, then how would you describe the Driller’s interventions like last evening in two different conversation threads that had exactly nothing to do with him?

Roger
Roger
January 31, 2023 6:58 pm

AFAIK Qld debt is waaaay north of $40 billion already.

Who knows?

That was an estimate from Chartered Accountants A/NZ following the last (2022) state budget, which claimed a relatively modest operating surplus due to mineral royalties.

In short, without coal we’re stuffed.

Lysander
Lysander
January 31, 2023 6:59 pm

Ridiculous the WA meeja are now blaming Nick Goiran (WA’s most conservative Lib) for their annihilation at the last election:

https://www.watoday.com.au/politics/western-australia/so-be-it-nick-goiran-accepts-mettam-power-move-declares-clan-dead-20230131-p5cgsb.html

Their election loss, apparently, had nothing to do with the fact that the former Lib leader proclaimed his indigeneity, mental health issues and a climate policy a few hundred kilometres left of the WA Greens.

Eyrie
Eyrie
January 31, 2023 7:01 pm

In short, without coal we’re stuffed.
Yep, which is why the chook will continue exports while promising her clean green pumped hydro utopia costing $62 billion.
Queensland exports at least ten times as much coal as it burns for itself for power.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
January 31, 2023 7:01 pm

JMHsays:

January 31, 2023 at 6:53 pm

And in prances JC’s pet Chihuaua. On command of course. Followed by LEAPing lizard, KD.
As we were.

Easy, Tiger.
Just take a chill pill, champ.
You’re getting a little bit hysterical.
It’s unbecoming.

JMH
JMH
January 31, 2023 7:05 pm

The Chihuahua:
Yappity yapity, yap, yap yap.

Ed Case
Ed Case
January 31, 2023 7:08 pm

Talking of Monicas, whatever else one might say about The Australian, they’re good on the hypocrisy of Progressives.

Some waste of space named Sally’s Rugg is taking fanatic Irishwoman Dr. Monica Ryan to Court over a breach of General Protections under the Fair Work Act.
No details yet, but it’s too bad The Oz didn’t tell us about the small but perfectly formed Dr Mon’s controlling personality before the 2022 Federal Election?

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
January 31, 2023 7:08 pm

Hi CMD Longtime Lurker!

JC
JC
January 31, 2023 7:08 pm

JMH says:
January 31, 2023 at 7:05 pm

The Chihuahua:
Yappity yapity, yap, yap yap.

The most original comment Kezza has ever made here.

JC
JC
January 31, 2023 7:12 pm

Iron ore is our largest export. Coal is next.

In 2019- 2020, iron was as ~22% of our exports. Coal was ~12%, gas 10%.

Can’t get more up to date numbers.

https://www.dfat.gov.au/publications/trade-and-investment/trade-and-investment-glance-2021

JMH
JMH
January 31, 2023 7:13 pm

JCsays:
January 31, 2023 at 6:57 pm

And in prances JC’s pet Chihuaua. On command of course. Followed by LEAPing lizard, KD.
As we were.

Ban them all. Ban them all, Dover!

Note the second quote JC has attributed to me which, clearly, I did not say. This is why JC is repeatedly called a liar.

Ed Case
Ed Case
January 31, 2023 7:13 pm

More Googlin’.

Von Manstein had a Pet Dachshund that he trained to do the Ave Salute on the command of H… H…..
The guy had a sense of humor, plus he could train a Dachshund to obey a command, no mean feat.

Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity

Robert Sewell says: January 31, 2023 at 6:44 pm
So on their first day of work as a full timer, they can ring up and say I’m on DV leave for the next couple of weeks?

Yep.
“You sent me a job offer letter, saying I start today, & I woulda started except I live with mum & dad, they’re arguing over a few things, this is causing toxicity in the household, I’ll be taking two weeks leave to deal with this – that’s two weeks on full pay, with accrual of 1/26 of my annual leave, 1/26 of my sick pay entitlement, full super, you wanted me to work this weekend, pay me full Saturday & Sunday loadings, plus penalty loading because due you to saying you are shorthanded, you had me on a quick turnaround between Friday & Saturday, so there’s the time & a half loading I’m due because I wouldn’t have been able to have 10 hours sleep between shifts”

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
January 31, 2023 7:15 pm

Travis J.I. Corcoran “The Powers of the Earth” and “Causes of Separation”.

Thanks, Eyrie! Just bought both of ’em. I love the 21stC.

The blurb on the first one is reminiscent with James Blish’s Cities in Flight series.

I’m going to have to find and reread the whole quartology now. 😀

Ed Case
Ed Case
January 31, 2023 7:16 pm

Note the second quote JC has attributed to me which, clearly, I did not say. This is why JC is repeatedly called a liar.

He’s trolling you.
Perhaps give the Big Guy a break, he’s probly fielding a few thousand requests a week to ban one commenter or another.

Robert Sewell
January 31, 2023 7:17 pm

Dover Beach:

If people engaging in surrogacy overseas understood that if they did so that on their return they would be prosecuted and denied custody of the child I’d wager they wouldn’t engage in it.

Damn straight. I think the real issue is going to be the possibility of artificial wombs – even if they are registered etc etc etc.
Illegal ones will churn out babies for all kinds of nefarious purposes, despite the surplus of orphans from wars and poverty all over the world.
This is nightmare stuff.

H B Bear
H B Bear
January 31, 2023 7:19 pm

Everyone’s pasty white and weird.

Correlation is not causation.

Roger
Roger
January 31, 2023 7:20 pm

Iron ore is our largest export. Coal is next.

We’re talking QLD, JC.

JC
JC
January 31, 2023 7:20 pm

Note the second quote JC has attributed to me which, clearly, I did not say. This is why JC is repeatedly called a liar.

I was being sarcastic, Kezza. I was being sarcastic in a sort of honest way to amplify your constant banning embarrassments, you angry little zero.

If we’re going to be pedantic then, the yapping comment suggests you believe Sanchez is a dog? That’s not just lying, it’s delusional.

Bar Beach Swimmer
January 31, 2023 7:22 pm

Cassie of Sydneysays:
January 31, 2023 at 6:15 pm

Cassie, I couldn’t agree more with you. Apart from the commodification of humans in the form of babies and the removal of that baby from its mother, as well as possibly from its genetic inheritance, and to satisfy the needs of others, there is also the potential of physical harm to the “surrogate.”

Not every pregnancy goes to plan. Pregnancy, though entirely natural, carries risks that may have long term consequences for the mother.

And the idea that the female body does not yearn for the child that is delivered ignores reality. Since the childless couple’s yearning is accepted as natural, how can it then be logically reasonable that the “baby maker” will get over hers.

Of course, the alternate argument will postulate that she’s entered the “transaction” knowing full well where it will end. But people change their minds all the time, especially when reality arrives.

So what may have been at the outset academically understood, when it comes to what may be called “the desire of the body” to be fulfilled with the “possession” of the end product, the transactional value has every possibility of taking its toll, physically, emotionally, and psychologically.

There is no other description that the commodification of the female body and the selling of a child.

JC
JC
January 31, 2023 7:25 pm

What about the child? How can it do them no harm to deliberately deny them a father or mother or both simply to assauge the wants of a single person or couple?

Dover, I don’t quite see the harm. More than anything else, a child needs love from parents. If a couple go to that extent in their desire for a child the love will be present and the child would likely acknowledge that.

That is also missing in surrogacy as well for one of them.

It depends if it’s a fertilized egg before implantation. In any event, one is better than nothing.

H B Bear
H B Bear
January 31, 2023 7:28 pm

Can someone put up Craig Emerson’s column in today’s AFR, please? Thank you

Jebus. People pay for this?

flyingduk
flyingduk
January 31, 2023 7:29 pm

Dover seems more than happy for the abuse, like this, to continue. Last night’s thread is a prime example. JC must have a hell of a hold over this blog’s administrator.

I for one just page past any personal attack posts, and think this blog would be easier to read at times if others did the same. To borrow another analogy – get a room.

Dot
Dot
January 31, 2023 7:31 pm

There is no other description that the commodification of the female body and the selling of a child.

That’s rather quaint, look into spermless & eggless embryos and artificial wombs.

The left will always own conservatives as long as they fall prey to the hardwired protective instinct.

If surrogacy is bad, then the surrogate mothers should be punished as well. If a child is being sold and this bad under all circumstances, then who is selling it?

Dot
Dot
January 31, 2023 7:33 pm

Can someone put up Craig Emerson’s column in today’s AFR, please?

If I could I wouldn’t as a matter of common decency.

Cassie of Sydney
January 31, 2023 7:38 pm

” and to satisfy the needs of others, there is also the potential of physical harm to the “surrogate.””

Thank you for your comment BBS and I agree wholeheartedly. I also note that there have been cases in the US of surrogates dying, you won’t read about it because it doesn’t suit the narrative. The following statement was issued a few years ago by the The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network (CBC), and it was signed by a diverse group of men and women who are famous and not famous, of various political persuasions, religious and non-religious, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists and Agnostics, lesbian, homosexuals and heterosexuals, feminists and those who don’t identify as feminists…

Stop Surrogacy Now Statement

We are women and men of diverse ethnic, religious, cultural, and socio-economic backgrounds from all regions of the world. We come together to voice our shared concern for women and children who are exploited through surrogacy contract pregnancy arrangements.

Together we affirm the deep longing that many have to be parents. Yet, as with most desires, there must be limits. Human rights provide an important marker for identifying what those limits should be. We believe that surrogacy should be stopped because it is an abuse of women’s and children’s human rights.

Surrogacy often depends on the exploitation of poorer women. In many cases, it is the poor who have to sell and the rich who can afford to buy. These unequal transactions result in consent that is under informed if not uninformed, low payment, coercion, poor health care, and severe risks to the short- and long-term health of women who carry surrogate pregnancies.

The medical process for surrogacy entails risks for the surrogate mother, the young women who sell their eggs, and the children born via the assisted reproductive technologies employed. The risks to women include Ovarian Hyper Stimulation Syndrome (OHSS), ovarian torsion, ovarian cysts, chronic pelvic pain, premature menopause, loss of fertility, reproductive cancers, blood clots, kidney disease, stroke, and, in some cases, death. Women who become pregnant with eggs from another woman are at higher risk for pre-eclampsia and high blood pressure.

Children born of assisted reproductive technologies, which are usually employed in surrogacy, also face known health risks that include: preterm birth, stillbirth, low birth weight, fetal anomalies, and higher blood pressure. A surrogate pregnancy intentionally severs the natural maternal bonding that takes places in pregnancy—a bond that medical professionals consistently encourage and promote. The biological link between mother and child is undeniably intimate, and when severed has lasting repercussions felt by both. In places where surrogacy is legalized, this potential harm is institutionalized.

We believe that the practice of commercial surrogacy is indistinguishable from the buying and selling of children. Even when non-commercial (that is, unpaid or “altruistic”), any practice that subjects women and children to such risks must be banned.

No one has a right to a child, whether they are heterosexual, homosexual, or single-by-choice.

We stand together asking national governments of the world and leaders of the international community to work together to end this practice and Stop Surrogacy Now.

I think this statement says it best.

Ed Case
Ed Case
January 31, 2023 7:38 pm

Illegal ones will churn out babies for all kinds of nefarious purposes, despite the surplus of orphans from wars and poverty all over the world.

I’m guessing you’re parodying a rural Qld weirdo, right?

Bar Beach Swimmer
January 31, 2023 7:39 pm

Dot:
That’s rather quaint, look into spermless & eggless embryos and artificial wombs

Whatever that is, it’s not human reproduction.

The left will always own conservatives as long as they fall prey to the hardwired protective instinct.

I’m sorry you think the hardwired protective instinct is some type of obstruction.

If surrogacy is bad, then the surrogate mothers should be punished as well. If a child is being sold and this bad under all circumstances, then who is selling it?

It’s reducing a woman to an empty vessel, the end result of which is her and the baby’s commodification.

Zipster
January 31, 2023 7:42 pm
Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
January 31, 2023 7:44 pm

So, GMH, do you want anyone banned or not?
Spit it out.

Cassie of Sydney
January 31, 2023 7:44 pm

“That’s rather quaint, look into spermless & eggless embryos and artificial wombs.

The left will always own conservatives as long as they fall prey to the hardwired protective instinct.

If surrogacy is bad, then the surrogate mothers should be punished as well. If a child is being sold and this bad under all circumstances, then who is selling it?”

You need to put down the pipe.

Roger
Roger
January 31, 2023 7:44 pm

We’re talking QLD, JC.

Where coal is king…for as long as the export contracts extend, anyway.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
January 31, 2023 7:54 pm

Woof!!!

pete of perth
pete of perth
January 31, 2023 7:58 pm

Will Steffen brown bread. “courageous” climate scientist.

Top Ender
Top Ender
January 31, 2023 7:59 pm

Henry VIII dodges the axe as school votes to keep his name after local councillor got ‘conflicted’ about honouring a wife-killing king

Unlike two of his wives, Henry VIII has escaped the chop after parents won a battle to keep his name on their school.

The Tudor monarch, who founded the King Henry VIII School in Abergavenny, South Wales, in 1542 and even appointed its first headmaster, faced being axed under merger plans.

One Labour councillor, Ben Callard, said he was ‘conflicted’ about it still being named after a wife-killing king, pictured, who ‘entrenched inequality’.

But history-loving parents battled against the bid to rename the 1,000-pupil state school as ‘Abergavenny Learning Centre’.

A poll found 4,069 in favour of the status quo with just 405 wanting a change.

Daily Mail

Colonel Crispin Berka
Colonel Crispin Berka
January 31, 2023 8:01 pm

calli says: January 31, 2023 at 3:43 pm

Ban surrogacy.
It’s human trafficking.

A simplistic formula perhaps, but may I suggest:
Surrogacy = IVF + organ donation + adoption.

What synergistic extra is there in surrogacy that not present in either IVF, organ donation, or adoption? How could one justify banning surrogacy without banning at least one of the other three?
I note in a later comment you are against donor sperm, but not IVF in general.

re: the Dingle tearjerker (via Goodreads.com)

The man who’d raised Sarah wasn’t her father; in fact, she had no idea who her father was. Or who she really was.

What a load of nonsense. She had two loving parents (or a Mum and Dad in the social role sense, to be pedantic) which is better than what a lot of naturally conceived kids get. She knew *who* she was about as well as anyone else does – as that is a function of (present) state. Discovering *what* conceived her, a function of history, does not change who she is. It is a contrived crisis exploited to sell a book.

A quote from a book review:

That insatiable hunger to ‘know’ runs deepest in those who have had it removed from them by circumstances relating to their birth.

There it is, the argument of special knowledge. How dare I make excuses for Big IVF without acknowledging my naturally-born privilege! How could I possibly know what is acceptable without it having happened to me? Well I don’t know and nobody needs that experience to see that each person can understand themselves irrespective of the identity of their biological parents. Because how and who are different propositions.

I don’t believe it’s a right to have a child.

I agree, it is a privilege which is earned, and should be earned if natural selection is to continue. That is not a sufficient condition for banning gamete donation for everyone. It is a reason to attach some conditions to IVF from donated gametes, so reproduction is still earned somehow, so the argument is about the conditions.

Your argument against donor sperm based on wanting unification of reproductive rights and responsibilities has more legs to it. But if you aren’t allowed to conceive a child without also raising it yourself, that eliminates both donated gamete IVF and adoption. As long as you are not going to ban adoption, what conditions would you place on gamete donation to make it more equivalent?

As for the rights of the child and their welfare, who wants the kid the most, the couple who conceive naturally, or the couple who had to jump through hoops to get it made the expensive high-tech way? The environmental aspect of a test-tube baby’s welfare when adopted by two “parents” should be good more often than those conceived naturally.
But this still leaves all the deficiencies of the donor which can be genetically inherited and which may not yet have a genetic screening test available, which are attributes couples could suss out early in their relationship if intending to conceive naturally. This is where donated gametes are not a complete replacement for tradition. OTOH, it is easier to test IVF gametes for (e.g.) sickle-cell anaemia than to ask your hot new date whether their grandparents ever had sickle-cell anaemia. As long as natural births have that risk too, I don’t think genetic risk is enough reason to ban donations.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
January 31, 2023 8:02 pm

California Can’t Even Retain the Marijuana Industry… HAHAHA!

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting something different.

Legalising marijuana could generate $28 billion as new Parliamentary Budget Office report invigorates Greens Party campaign (Sky News, 30 Jan)

Allowing Australians to grow six marijuana plants in their homes could yield $28 billion, according to a parliamentary body report.

Those six pot plants are obviously very valuable if they’re worth $28 billion.

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
January 31, 2023 8:04 pm

Not sure these things are managed but Trump may be ineligible to run in 2024 if his return to the Presidency within the next few hours counts as a second term.

31st Jan is the deadline, right?

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
January 31, 2023 8:04 pm

pete of perthsays:

January 31, 2023 at 7:58 pm

Will Steffen brown bread.

Heatstroke?

Dot
Dot
January 31, 2023 8:05 pm

Whatever that is, it’s not human reproduction.

It will be openly done soon and has probably already happened. It is now confirmed as possible for human embryos to be created without eggs or sperm and it is verified and well known that sheep foetuses have been grown using artificial wombs.

It’s reducing a woman to an empty vessel, the end result of which is her and the baby’s commodification.

WHO. IS. SELLING. THE. BABY?!

“We must protect women”

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
January 31, 2023 8:08 pm

Will Steffen brown bread.

He may be experiencing a bit of global warming right now.
Assuming Hell hasn’t frozen over.
Which’d be ironic.

(You may get the idea that I wasn’t a fan of Dr Steffen. In that you would be correct.)

Cassie of Sydney
January 31, 2023 8:09 pm

“re: the Dingle tearjerker (via Goodreads.com)

The man who’d raised Sarah wasn’t her father; in fact, she had no idea who her father was. Or who she really was.

What a load of nonsense. She had two loving parents (or a Mum and Dad in the social role sense, to be pedantic) which is better than what a lot of naturally conceived kids get. She knew *who* she was about as well as anyone else does – as that is a function of (present) state. Discovering *what* conceived her, a function of history, does not change who she is. It is a contrived crisis exploited to sell a book.”

Gee, such glib tosh, tell me Crispy, did you always know who your biological father was?

Oh and Crispy, were you conceived from a sperm bank that paid the donor male (he wanked there regularly for a buck) and you didn’t find out that the man who you always thought was your biological father was not?

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
January 31, 2023 8:10 pm

Mother Lodesays:

January 31, 2023 at 8:04 pm

Not sure these things are managed but Trump may be ineligible to run in 2024 if his return to the Presidency within the next few hours counts as a second term.

31st Jan is the deadline, right?

Ineligible?
No.
Because less than half a term doesn’t count.
He can serve 2.499 terms effectively.
This is the brilliance of Q.
Possibly.

Frank
Frank
January 31, 2023 8:12 pm

Sancho Panzer says:
January 31, 2023 at 8:04 pm

Too soon.

Dot
Dot
January 31, 2023 8:13 pm

Allowing Australians to grow six marijuana plants in their homes could yield $28 billion, according to a parliamentary body report.

I don’t see how, most of us here could construct a simple bong from an Orchy juice bottle, a bit of stolen hose, a lighter and the metal smoky thingy even if we’ve never used one.

I used to homebrew beer and I can’t see how it had anything other than a marginal impact on retail sales or pub trading, even with millions of others doing it. It got quite popular in the early 2000s.

There just isn’t an economic boom coming from legalising weed. The benefit is in we stop wasting police resources and some people can get the pain relief and do on they need. Some people might not drink heavily as they used to. Other people might deal with chronic stress better.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
January 31, 2023 8:14 pm

Franksays:

January 31, 2023 at 8:12 pm

Sancho Panzer says:
January 31, 2023 at 8:04 pm

Too soon.

OK.
Now?
Was it heatstroke?

cohenite
January 31, 2023 8:14 pm

Will Steffen brown bread.

Good. This SOB was the expert (sic) witness in multiple law cases and did immense damage to our society.

Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity

The benefit is in we stop wasting police resources…

Wasting police man-hours keeps them occupied & unable to go bash a few middle-class housewives or arrest gran because she took a breather on a park bench.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
January 31, 2023 8:17 pm

Police petition to block Pell funeral protesters

By Noah Yim
Cadet Journalist
8:00PM January 31, 2023
No Comments

Police are seeking a court order to block a protest outside George Pell’s funeral because of “safety concerns”.

Community Action for Rainbow Rights, an LGBT campaign group, had organised a march on Thursday outside St Mary’s Cath­edral where a requiem mass for the former cardinal is due to be held that day.

The protest’s Facebook event page invites “all supporters of LGBTI and women’s rights to join us for a protest” to show they “reject George Pell and everything he stood for”.

The protest is centred around Pell’s stances on same-sex marriage and abortion, and his leading role in the Catholic Church during the child sexual abuse scandal.

NSW police are seeking an urgent court order to prevent protesters from marching outside the cathedral.

At the time of writing, the Facebook event for the protest had more than 100 people registered to attend.

“Despite attempted negoti­ations with organisers, safety concerns associated with their proposed assembly cannot be adequately mitigated without amendments to the proposal,” a police spokesperson said.

“As such, the commissioner will apply to the NSW Supreme Court to prohibit the assembly.

“The NSW Police Force recognises and supports the rights of individuals and groups to exercise their rights of free speech and peaceful assembly, however the first priority is always the safety of the wider community.”

After it had been revealed police were petitioning the court, event organisers posted on Facebook “We can’t let the police get away with denying us our right to protest this bigot’s funeral!”

This is not the first time Pell’s funeral has been mired in controversy. After his death on January 10, the NSW and Victorian governments said they would not host a state funeral.

Another protest, organised separately but circulated on the Thursday protest’s event page, is to be held on Wednesday morning at St Mary’s Cath­edral where attendees intend to tie ribbons around the forecourt to “amplify the voices of survivors and victims of child sexual abuse”.

Dot
Dot
January 31, 2023 8:18 pm

Wasting police man-hours keeps them occupied & unable to go bash a few middle-class housewives or arrest gran because she took a breather on a park bench.

They’re not smoking a joint after a shitty week at work in Alice Springs.

JC
JC
January 31, 2023 8:19 pm

Do I harm the child if I walk into the local maternity ward and take whichever child I think will make me a fine son or daughter?

Define harm? You’re not harming a just born baby as the rug rat has no idea,

If the parents can be anybody why would that still be wrong?

You’re most certainly harming the parents of the kid, but the child itself wouldn’t be at the early stage.

Please, no more analogies. 🙂

Often no one receiving the child is biologically related.

Do you have an actual number?

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
January 31, 2023 8:19 pm

Steffen died of pancreatic cancer.
It is the worst.

Colonel Crispin Berka
Colonel Crispin Berka
January 31, 2023 8:22 pm

Police launch attempt to halt Pell funeral protesters

Protecting the dead and bashing the living. Funny job description, eh?

Eyrie
Eyrie
January 31, 2023 8:23 pm

AI: World likely to hit key warming threshold in 10-12 years (Phys.org, 30 Jan)
The problem for AIs is GIGO. If you feed them lies they have no choice but to believe them.

SF author Michael F. Flynn called then “artificial stupids” in his “Firestar” quadrilogy. I agree.

Dot
Dot
January 31, 2023 8:24 pm

That’s actually horrifying.

Let’s say Sal is right.

We then have to have thousands of victimless crimes so the cops are too busy enforcing them all and your chances of being flogged with a nightstick then go down.

Horrifying; the price of freedom is petty tyranny?

Eyrie
Eyrie
January 31, 2023 8:25 pm

Will Steffen brown bread.
Good. This SOB was the expert (sic) witness in multiple law cases and did immense damage to our society.

+1000. Evil prick. He had to know what the results of his advocacy would be. Burn in hell.

calli
calli
January 31, 2023 8:26 pm

calli says: January 31, 2023 at 3:43 pm

Ban surrogacy.
It’s human trafficking.
A simplistic formula perhaps, but may I suggest:
Surrogacy = IVF + organ donation + adoption.

What synergistic extra is there in surrogacy that not present in either IVF, organ donation, or adoption? How could one justify banning surrogacy without banning at least one of the other three?
I note in a later comment you are against donor sperm, but not IVF in general.

You have two commenters mixed up.

I made no comment about donor sperm or IVF.

My objection is about selling babies.

Dot
Dot
January 31, 2023 8:26 pm

Community Action for Rainbow Rights, an LGBT campaign group, had organised a march on Thursday outside St Mary’s Cath­edral where a requiem mass for the former cardinal is due to be held that day.

This is just bullying. It’s like those American arse holes who turn up to funerals to protest against gays.

JC
JC
January 31, 2023 8:27 pm

Sancho Panzer says:
January 31, 2023 at 8:19 pm

Steffen died of pancreatic cancer.
It is the worst.

You wouldn’t wish that on your worst gerbil warmer. What an ugly way to die. It’s basically a vomitathon up to the point of death.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
January 31, 2023 8:29 pm

Firestar quadrilogy

Not buying those just yet, I have too many on my book pile already.
Thanks for the recommendation though! 😀

Eyrie
Eyrie
January 31, 2023 8:30 pm

Gunpowder was mentioned earlier today. Here’s a catchy little tune to remind you how to make it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VGuup6g5aQ

JC
JC
January 31, 2023 8:31 pm

Eyrie says:
January 31, 2023 at 8:25 pm

+1000. Evil prick. He had to know what the results of his advocacy would be. Burn in hell.”

Not quite the Hallward daily death wish but close.
Hallsie, I guess the doll and needle thing did the trick this time hey?

Colonel Crispin Berka
Colonel Crispin Berka
January 31, 2023 8:31 pm

State driver’s licences could one day be integrated into myGov accounts along with Medicare cards as the Albanese Government looks to make the platform a piece of “critical national infrastructure”.

Faulty was right. It just took a while.

IIRC, the Battlestars of the Council of The Twelve Colonies had different computers completely separated from each other to prevent any Cylon cyberattack that succeeds on one computer from then infecting all the others on the ship.

Shorten said:

“It requires a long-term vision, but the proposition that Australians could go to one app to deal with government, I think is a very exciting thing. People don’t have to remember all their passwords, they don’t have to deal with multiple government accounts.

Okay, let’s develop that long-term vision with some long-term thinking. It is unacceptably risky over the long term to put all your identity and authorisation eggs into one myGov basket.

Colonel Crispin Berka
Colonel Crispin Berka
January 31, 2023 8:35 pm

Calli says:

You have two commenters mixed up.

No I thought I was replying to Cassie.
My mistake was to repeat Cassie’s quote of yourself but not address Cassie in my first line.
Sorry.

Dot
Dot
January 31, 2023 8:35 pm

The exciting prospect and vision of a national driver’s licence.

What a time to be alive.

Eyrie
Eyrie
January 31, 2023 8:37 pm

BoN, Firestar is fun with lots of serious points made. Mike Flynn has written a fair bit of stuff. Worth checking out. Including “Eifelheim” and “The Wreck of the River of Stars”. The latter’s first chapter details the somewhat unfortunate history of the ship “The River of Stars” and ends with … and then her luck turned bad.

Eyrie
Eyrie
January 31, 2023 8:39 pm

Okay, let’s develop that long-term vision with some long-term thinking. It is unacceptably risky over the long term to put all your identity and authorisation eggs into one myGov basket.

Look on the bright side: One decent cyber attack and you get rid of the whole thing. Or a Carrington event will do.

H B Bear
H B Bear
January 31, 2023 8:41 pm

Good. This SOB was the expert (sic) witness in multiple law cases and did immense damage to our society.

Seconded. Too many like him in positions of power and influence. Don’t care what views they hold in private, once they start affecting public policy they’re fair game.

JC
JC
January 31, 2023 8:43 pm

This is terrible.

Only because you consider it to be so. However, I’m responding to your analogy which strictly references the child. And no, a newly born kid wouldn’t be harmed.

Why does the child need to know to be harmed or wronged?

How else do you acknowledge harm if you’re just focusing on the kid and not the parents?

If I subbed the child for another and the parents couldn’t tell, would they be harmed?

The parents of the other child? Sure.

Boambee John
Boambee John
January 31, 2023 8:49 pm

Police are seeking a court order to block a protest outside George Pell’s funeral because of “safety concerns”.

Arrest anyone who utters the word “paedophile”, charge them with hate speech against a man found innocent by a margin of 7-0 in the High Court. Use the leftards’ lawfare against them.

bons
bons
January 31, 2023 8:49 pm

Indig leader on Kenny “we cannot have solutions imposed from another culture”.
OK. Good generate your own funds untainted by whitefella racism..

Arky
January 31, 2023 8:49 pm

I love these channels where they fix peoples stuff for free and get millions of views. It’s like a new economic model.
This guy on Florida fixes people’s gaming PCs, my daughter loves watching:
..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4idwFV_Cbg
..
There is another guy who mows peoples overgrown gardens.
..
Also my daughter is fascinated by Blacktail Studio, where the guy makes tables, mostly out of walnut and resin:
..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD93VgIAM0M

JC
JC
January 31, 2023 8:50 pm

Does anyone have the scoop about what happened in Iran. Twitter was throwing a mini orgasm over all those so-called bombings in Iran and then the weekend passed and no one gave a shit. Were there any attacks?

H B Bear
H B Bear
January 31, 2023 8:51 pm

IVF should be banned for the same or similar reasons given re surrogacy. Further, it is extraordinarily wasteful.

I think you can draw a valid distinction between donor sperm or egg IVF for altruistic reasons (particularly where the child is informed of the arrangement and knows the identity of the donor, as is encouraged) by consent and surrogacy.

Bar Beach Swimmer
January 31, 2023 8:52 pm

Dot:
It will be openly done soon and has probably already happened. It is now confirmed as possible for human embryos to be created without eggs or sperm and it is verified and well known that sheep foetuses have been grown using artificial wombs.

Just because something can be done doesn’t mean it should be done. As to whether the product of this technology is human, that remains to be seen. Given, also, that we already know that certain technologies, as Cassie pointed out, have a habit of producing less robust progeny than naturally conceived children, what the long term medical condition of this “human” will be is fully unknown at this stage. But that’s alright – “we can work out the particulars later,” say the technology boffins.

There would have to be a moment – a coming understanding when this person realised that they were truly parentless. With no connections there would be nothing to hold on to – or be a part of. How would that affect them?

Arky
January 31, 2023 8:54 pm

If you had told execs in the days of network TV, “In the future people will make a living by rocking up to strangers homes and offering to do their overgrown lawns for free, and get thousands more views than any of the shit you put to air…”

shatterzzz
January 31, 2023 8:59 pm

been following the media reports from the RC into ROBODEBT and starting to wonder why if this Commission is fair dinkum several high level CentreLink employees haven’t already been charged or still have jobs .. coupla past ministers should also be in serious trouble .. but, apparently, lying and interpreting “outcomes” to fit the Departmental targets is OK if your high enuf up the Public Service ladder ..
these folk may even be more teflon-ated than an Alice Springs 251

rosie
rosie
January 31, 2023 9:01 pm

Wasn’t there a barney early about how many staff cross benchers were entitled to?
Elbow said no to demands for extras I’m sure.
Rugg ruggedly sticking to office hours.
No sacrifice for the cause once feet are under the table.
It’s only a climate emergency between 9 and 5.

Frank
Frank
January 31, 2023 9:01 pm

Sancho Panzer says:
January 31, 2023 at 8:14 pm

OK, have at it.

P
P
January 31, 2023 9:02 pm

From The Catholic Weekly By Marilyn Rodrigues:

Cardinal Pell’s body will lie in state in the cathedral from the time of its reception there at 9.30am on Wednesday 1 February.

For mourners unable to attend the Requiem Mass on 2 February or who wish to pray separately, there will be a Mass for the Dead at St Mary’s Cathedral on Wednesday 1 February at 1.10pm and 8pm.

There will also be an Evening Prayer and Vigil for the repose of the Cardinal’s soul on Wednesday 1 February at 5.30pm.

Watch the live-stream of the Solemn Pontifical Mass of Christian Burial of Cardinal George Pell AC HERE.

Top Ender
Top Ender
January 31, 2023 9:08 pm

Albanese government’s issues are not going anywhere fast

Policies that the Albanese government triumphantly locked in last year are already beginning to look like a case of ‘be careful what you wish for’, writes James Morrow.

There are probably some in the business community that are experiencing “a few pangs of buyer’s remorse” when it comes to backing in Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, according to Sky News host James Morrow. “Remember that in the run-up to last year’s election, it was no secret that the nation’s C-suites were, at least quietly, hoping in many cases for the end of Scott Morrison and big gains to be made by the teals and Labor,” Mr Morrow said. “Now, though, as Anthony Albanese reveals himself as a Whitlam in Hawke’s clothing, businesses are starting to have second thoughts.”

Instead, it’s all headlines about the appalling violence in Alice Springs, the Prime Minister’s anaemic fly-in, fly-out response, a predicted four more interest rate rises by August, happy talk about avoiding a recession as the Treasurer tries to re-invent capitalism and photos of the PM having a beer at the Australian Open.

But it’s not just bad headlines.

Policies that the government triumphantly locked in last year are already beginning to look like a case of “be careful what you wish for”.

Chaos in the energy markets, brought about by price caps and pushback from producers who feel that on the one hand they are being hounded out of business for sins against climate and on the other are asked to keep the lights on for less money, is just the beginning.

Australians should brace themselves for more of the same with Treasurer Jim Chalmers flagging more such interventions across the economy in sectors as diverse as housing, manufacturing and “data and digital”.

Having vaguely figured out that the long run of money printing that started with the GFC and reached its peak with Covid won’t cut it anymore, Chalmers now looks keen to tap our superannuation and perhaps even our property portfolios to keep things going in the name of “values”.

And of course there is the Voice to Parliament, which was supposed to pass handily on nothing more than the vibe of the thing and secure Albanese’s legacy as much as Paul Keating’s Redfern speech but which has crashed smack bang into the reality of the need for practical solutions to the dreadful problems within Indigenous communities.

The fact that we have already reached this point should come as no surprise.

The basic physics of politics were on Labor’s side going into last May’s election and the pent up anger among progressives who felt dudded by Scott Morrison’s shock 2019 win – and much of his subsequent behaviour – was always going to be an advantage for Albanese.

Yet Albanese made the mistake of understanding what happened at the last election not as a cautious transfer of power borne of a rejection of Morrison but rather as a mandate to remake the nation.

More than that, the current crises facing the government – and by extension the nation – were all foreshadowed by the election campaign.

Media outlets such as this one, which pointed out the then-opposition leader’s left wing roots, were lambasted and lampooned by Albanese’s supporters.

Yet for those who followed the stories documenting Albanese’s long history on the left and noted the fact that in the Hawke government he worked as an advisor to Tom Uren, one of Hawke’s most anti-reform ministers, what has happened since should come as no surprise.

The man who on the campaign trail couldn’t have associated himself more with Bob Hawke if he lit up a Romeo y Julieta cigar mid-speech is instead now acting like a two-bit Gough Whitlam.

So if the honeymoon is over, does that mean the country is headed for divorce?

Not hardly.

Another basic rule of political physics is that it takes a long time for voters to publicly recant their choices.

Like many who have married in haste but repented at leisure, voters swept up in the whole change of government Australians will still tell pollsters everything is fine … for now.

But that will be no consolation for a government whose whole plan was to hope the enthusiasm of last May would carry them through sweeping reforms and into a second term, likely after an early election.

Now that the momentum is gone, the Prime Minister’s challenge is that none of his problems can be solved simply by waiting out a news cycle or cynically trying to touch up former Morrison government ministers about their failings in office.

Instead they are deeply structural and not going anywhere – and in the case of the Treasurer’s attempt to undo the last three or four decades of economic reform, that is just the way they like it.

The longer chaos is seen to reign in Alice Springs and other remote Indigenous communities, the more signature agenda items like the Voice will look like the province of virtuous urban types who live in a world of PowerPoint slides and LinkedIn posts.

A cold winter or hot summer next year will expose a power grid that contrary to the promises of the renewables lobby is becoming more, not less, stable as new technologies fail to keep up with the dynamiting of coal stacks and nuclear remains a non-option.

And the big promises that a Chalmers’ mixed economy will somehow pay big dividends for ordinary voters – and not the big corporates and unions who will be cutting up the spoils of the economy with government – are a massive risk for Labor.

It is worth noting that New Zealand’s kinder, gentler, vibe was the thing former PM Jacinda Ardern ran for years on a very similar platform, promising 100,000 new homes to fix the housing crisis.

When she left office in January in the face of apocalyptically bad poll numbers, 1365 had been built.

All of which puts one in mind about the old joke about leaders throughout history trying socialism despite its proven record of failure: “I’m sure it’ll work … this time.”

James Morrow

shatterzzz
January 31, 2023 9:09 pm

Elbow said no to demands for extras I’m sure.
He, originally, said “NO” to one of the Teals but within the same week changed his tune and upped the quota ………!

Frank
Frank
January 31, 2023 9:10 pm

M3GAN is amusing for a supposed horror flick.

Wally Dalí
Wally Dalí
January 31, 2023 9:14 pm

Thanks TE

Delta A
Delta A
January 31, 2023 9:17 pm

Son, visiting from KI for our housemate’s 90th b/day, recounted this evening at dinner his interaction with the cop who pulled him over today in a one horse town for breathalizer and drug test.

“How lucky can you get!” he exclaimed. “First time I’ve been driving under .05 and completely drug free and… what’s wrong, Mum?”

Naughty nieces laughed their pretty heads off.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
January 31, 2023 9:17 pm

M3GAN is amusing for a supposed horror flick.

Wednesday died yesterday Vale.

rosie
rosie
January 31, 2023 9:24 pm

Obviously yesterday paramedics were unable to do much about sleeping beauty because she was back today, along with a compradre who muttered disagreeably and loudly enough to force two elderly parishioners to change seats.
Then, thankfully, he left, taking along someone’s reading glasses they’d left behind.
After that, foolishly walked through the market, on my way to coffee, where I was once again beguiled by the ricotta rolls, with oregano not rosemary, shaken on from a little branch.
Sat and watched the world go by, especially the man who walked past twice, carrying on his shoulders, hopefully two different whole dead pigs, cut in half.
There were Spanish speakers next to me asking for coffee in English, she should have just asked in Spanish, it’s so similar.
And I bought a couple of little water colours from a street artist, who handed me back €5 as an unrequested discount when I bought three.
I know it will cost a lot more than I paid for them to get them framed but I’m sure grandchildren will like pictures of balenas, squalos and polpo.
Musk has commented that Italy is dying with a birth rate now down to 1.26.
It’s true. They will be colonised by the newcomers. I see there is a sufficiently large population of Tamil speakers for a Tamil mass to be offered at a church on La Maqueda and both young nuns at mass this morning were Indian.
And the secondary school groups on excursion that walked past me were predominantly muslim and/or African.

Bar Beach Swimmer
January 31, 2023 9:24 pm

I asked upthread if someone could put up the Craig Emerson column in today’s AFR. Does no one read that august publication? /sarc

Rockdoctor
Rockdoctor
January 31, 2023 9:26 pm

Sorry why is NSW Police waiting till last minute for the injunction? Shades of BLM during lockdowns type incompetence or wilful behaviour in an attempt to be seen doing something all over again…

That said very enlightening the free pass the MSM has given Sleazy on being dragged kicking and screaming to the Alice. Then quaffing beer at the Tennis in Melnorne for 9 times the duration he was in the Alice. I note lightweights who think they are jimists like Sam Clench at News Ltd are very muted compared to Scomo.

Imagine if sleazy went to Hawaii…

Rockdoctor
Rockdoctor
January 31, 2023 9:27 pm

Damn auto correct, Melbourne. Unsure where that nonsense word came from.

JC
JC
January 31, 2023 9:30 pm

It is objectively terrible that you think a child could be taken from its parents and this doesn’t constitute harming or wronging that child.

No, it’s subjectively terrible. It’s not objectively so. You can’t harm a newly born child by transferring parenthood in the way you described. You are wronging the child, but that’s different from harm. You most certainly are harming the parents, though.

How does this address the question re harm requiring knowledge of the harm? If it’s wrong to deprive a child of the custody of its parents whether or not the child knows this is neither here nor there.

Harm and wrong don’t mean the same thing, and you are wronging the newly born, but it’s not harming the kid. Dover, you shouldn’t magically insert a key word like “wrong” and then blindly suggest it means the same thing as “harm.” It doesn’t.

Why only the parents of the other child?

If the Parents A subbed their kid for another, then they obviously consider that to be beneficial to them. It harms the other parents (parents B). but it doesn’t harm those who did the subbing. How could it?

If Parents A substituted their child for another, they obviously believe it is advantageous to them. It harms the other parents (parents B), but it doesn’t harm those who did the subbing. How could it?

Let’s analogize here, seeing as you like doing so.

Assume Parents A had a child who was extremely ugly. It’s so bad that they cry every time they look at the little monster. You know what I mean? Occasionally you come across a child who is unbearably ugly. Assume parents A were in this situation and decided to replace the child with a much more attractive baby that everyone would adore by taking the baby from parents B and giving them theirs. Parents A aren’t harmed and would consider themselves the beneficiaries of the theft. That monstrosity would almost certainly harm Parents B. And obviously so.

cohenite
January 31, 2023 9:30 pm
Black Ball
Black Ball
January 31, 2023 9:35 pm

Was just on, just one of the great scenes in any movie ever made.

feelthebern
feelthebern
January 31, 2023 9:36 pm

Were there any attacks?

Yes, Israel bombed Iranian weapons factories.
They used some pretty cool drones.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
January 31, 2023 9:37 pm

Colonel Crispin Berkasays:

January 31, 2023 at 8:31 pm
…….
Faulty was right

You’re delirious.
Have a Bex and a lie down.

feelthebern
feelthebern
January 31, 2023 9:38 pm

At the gym this evening a chap was walking around drinking a two litre milk.
Odd.

H B Bear
H B Bear
January 31, 2023 9:39 pm

I asked upthread if someone could put up the Craig Emerson column in today’s AFR. Does no one read that august publication? /sarc

Might be a bit late but you could try the foyer of any major law firm. Arrange to meet someone for lunch and go for a beer or coffee. Make a day of it.

feelthebern
feelthebern
January 31, 2023 9:39 pm

Faulty was right

Secretly quintuple vaxxed.

JC
JC
January 31, 2023 9:42 pm

Whoops, delete this para as I changed it with the second one.

If the Parents A subbed their kid for another, then they obviously consider that to be beneficial to them. It harms the other parents (parents B). but it doesn’t harm those who did the subbing. How could it?

Bar Beach Swimmer
January 31, 2023 9:42 pm

Black Ballsays:
January 31, 2023 at 9:35 pm

watching it

duncanm
duncanm
January 31, 2023 9:42 pm

Jenna Price tried jumping into the Opus Dei pile-on.

It hasn’t gone so well, with most comments giving her a pasting. And that’s in fauxfacts!

JC
JC
January 31, 2023 9:44 pm

feelthebern says:
January 31, 2023 at 9:36 pm

Were there any attacks?

Yes, Israel bombed Iranian weapons factories.
They used some pretty cool drones.

How come no one gave a rats past the weekend? It was barely spoken about after. Israel attacking Iran is a big deal, no?

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
January 31, 2023 9:44 pm

‘Ceylon cyberattacks’

‘Council of the Twelve Colonies’

About goddamned time we had some Battlestar Galactica analogies in this august journal of record.

flyingduk
flyingduk
January 31, 2023 9:45 pm

State driver’s licences could one day be integrated into myGov accounts along with Medicare cards as the Albanese Government looks to make the platform a piece of “critical national infrastructure”.

I was in discussion with my Super Fund today and they asked me what my Div 293 and ‘Surcharge Debt’ was in relation to said Super Acct/

I said ‘ I dont know’

They said ‘ you can look it up on your MyGov Account’

I said ‘ I dont have one – I avoid all Government Surveillance Platforms’

They said ‘ you need one to find out what you owe’

I said ‘nup – if the Feds want money out of me its their job to come and ask for it’

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
January 31, 2023 9:46 pm

Cylon. Cylon cyberattacks.

Also obviously part of The Big Plan.

Black Ball
Black Ball
January 31, 2023 9:47 pm

Thought I was subscribed Bar Beach Swimmer but alas no. His latest article was dated yesterday. Under the headline “Why Australia Day will just die of old age” his first paragraph is:

When Australians in the middle of this century look back on us, they will be astonished that we supported a national day that insulted the original inhabitants of the continent, we refused even to mention them in our constitution, we stuck a British flag in the corner of our flag, and we had a foreigner as our head of state.

rosie
rosie
January 31, 2023 9:49 pm

Poor little ugly baby no-one wants.

Bar Beach Swimmer
January 31, 2023 9:49 pm

Black Ballsays:
January 31, 2023 at 9:47 pm

BB, that’s the one I wanted – I thought it was from today.

Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity

More on Domestic Violence Leave:

If an employee takes family and domestic violence leave, they have to let their employer know as soon as possible. This can happen after the leave has started.
Employees also need to tell their employer how long they expect the leave to last.

Oh my lordy lord – KD was skimming the surface to call it a rortfest.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
January 31, 2023 9:50 pm

Pell’s funeral should include, as the procession leaves the cathedral, a Gregorian chant by 100 priests in front of the Nilligan-inspired crowd:

‘Se-eeeeeven ni-iiiillll, Se-eeee-eeeven nilllllll, Se-eeeeven niii-illll’

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
January 31, 2023 9:51 pm

State driver’s licences could one day be integrated into myGov accounts along with Medicare cards …

We’re already there.
I opened a Term Deposit today online.
They can instantly check any ID you like – passport, licence, Medicare.

JC
JC
January 31, 2023 9:51 pm

rosie says:
January 31, 2023 at 9:49 pm

Poor little ugly baby no-one wants.

Rosie, it’s an awful thing to say, but haven’t you come across a really ugly kid? Nearly every kid is cute, but just very occasionally you come across a freaking monster. I think there was a Seinfeld episode on this very thing.

JC
JC
January 31, 2023 9:54 pm
Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
January 31, 2023 9:54 pm

Ceylon cyberattacks

Is that when Arjuna Ranatunga hacks your computer and orders five family sized Hawaiian pizzas?

cohenite
January 31, 2023 9:55 pm

Watching PML intone that he supports the transition to fu.king ruinables but that the problem, and only problem in his fat head, is that the transition away from fossils, and ignoring nuclear, is it is proceeding just a tad fast.

FMD. No where, fast or slow, have ruinables worked. They can never work because they are:
1 weather dependent
2 lack energy density
3 Have an EROEI of < 1
4 use resources which cannot supply them and produce more CO2 through their mining than fossils.
5 require basically a new grid and attendant vast and bankrupting expense
6 man made global warming is complete and utter bullshit

But this witless government will ignore the complete failures everywhere overseas. May they enjoy a fate similar to good old Will's.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
January 31, 2023 9:57 pm

Why Australia Day will just die of old age

Migration and changing attitudes of the young will ensure fewer conservatives with the power to cling to Australia’s colonial past.
Craig EmersonFormer Labor minister and economist
Jan 30, 2023 – 12.42pm

When Australians in the middle of this century look back on us, they will be astonished that we supported a national day that insulted the original inhabitants of the continent, we refused even to mention them in our constitution, we stuck a British flag in the corner of our flag, and we had a foreigner as our head of state.

Australia Day will vanish, along with the flag. Paul Rovere

It’s not that the citizens who oppose change to any of these absurdities will have changed their minds by 2050, it’s that there won’t be many of them around.

With declining fertility of our citizenry, immigration is outpacing natural increase as a source of population growth. In the years immediately before the COVID-19 pandemic, net overseas migration accounted for about 63 per cent of Australia’s population growth.

In the most recent Intergenerational Report, net overseas migration is projected to contribute a whopping 75 per cent of Australia’s population growth in 40 years’ time.

The two biggest source countries for immigrants nowadays? China and India. And the fastest growing countries of birth between the 2016 and 2021 census periods were India, Nepal, the Philippines, Vietnam and China. Not many monarchists there.

Nor will younger Australians of Anglo-Celtic heritage follow in their parents’ footsteps and become more conservative as they replace their parents in the aged cohort of the voting population.

We know this from the Australian National University election study and other ANU analysis. The Coalition vote among under-35s has slumped from about 60 per cent in 1967 to less than 20 per cent. And while 40 per cent of those born between 1981 and 1996 previously voted for the Coalition, only 25 per cent do now.

Moving Australia Day to a day that can be celebrated by all Australians will happen sooner rather than later.

Celebrating the day of the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788 and the proclamation of Australia as a British colony, Australia Day also marks the beginning of the dispossession of First Nations people, the prior occupants of the continent.

A 2021 Deakin contemporary history poll of more than 5000 people found that while 60 per cent of all respondents wanted to keep Australia Day on January 26, 53 per cent of Millennials (born 1986-2002) wanted it moved. Baby Boomers strongly opposed change, but many of them will be gone by 2050.

Moving Australia Day to a day that can be celebrated by all Australians will happen sooner rather than later.

Our constitution fails even to recognise the truth of prior occupation of the continent, relying on the bizarre notion that the continent was unoccupied before the First Fleet arrived.

It took a decision of judges in the Mabo and Wik cases to dispel the notion of terra nullius and replace it with native title. Paul Keating, as prime minister, was obliged to draw on all his guile and determination to press the Senate to pass native title legislation.

The passing of a referendum on the Voice would acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the constitution.

Just as the conservatives’ campaign against the referendums of 1988 – if you don’t understand it, don’t vote for it – was highly effective, they are running the same strategy against the Voice, demanding more detail.

And when the detail is provided, they will say it’s terribly complex, so if you don’t understand it, don’t vote for it.

As for a referendum for an Australian republic, it, too, will come. The 1999 referendum was defeated 55 per cent to 45 per cent, quite a close result. In an Australia of the 2050s, of rich cultural diversity and in which young people feel no bond to the British monarchy, we will be a republic.

By then our national flag will no longer include the Union Jack. In the post-colonial era, only four countries outside of Britain retain it: Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Tuvalu.

As Effie Stefanidis of the 1999s comedy show Acropolis Now would say, “How embarrassment!”
Ahthony Albanese’s constitutional mind now is not with the Republic but with the Voice to Parliament.

Our national anthem will be replaced too, hopefully by an abbreviated version of I Am Australian.

In Bob Hawke’s address to the Twenty-Twenty Vision forum series that I co-convened in the early 1990s, he advocated an Australian republic and a just reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

Hawke’s greatest disappointment was his failure to achieve that reconciliation through a referendum or a treaty. Conservatives in his own party warned him off it, and he lamented he shouldn’t have listened to them.

But the future is full of promise and the dwindling number of conservatives among the Australian people will have neither the power nor the numbers to force Australia to cling to its colonial past.

Hogwash and bilge are words that spring to mind!

cohenite
January 31, 2023 10:02 pm

After watching the divine Elsa Dutton die I’m a bit worried that the genius bastard writer will knock off Beth when Yellowstone returns. If he does I’ll be off to hollywood to kick his arse through his nose.

Black Ball
Black Ball
January 31, 2023 10:03 pm

Yet that colonial past is how Emerson and his ilk got into positions of power. Leave sir and leave now.

Bar Beach Swimmer
January 31, 2023 10:03 pm

thankyou, Zulu!

HB, I was trying to think of something witty to say about lawyers, but I got nothing,

rosie
rosie
January 31, 2023 10:06 pm

I know JC.
We make a joke about anyone who looks at a new baby and comments about how long their fingers are, thanks Elaine.
Sometimes their little faces are bruised and swollen from getting born and sometimes they have pushed up skulls, poor little things.
Generally speaking if they look like mum or dad, all is forgiven.

Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity

Emerson has always been a complete cockhead.
The above piece reaffirms his condition.

JC
JC
January 31, 2023 10:07 pm

I’m surprised you liked Elsa, Cronkite, as she looks quite feminine. They really milked her death throes though. Bit much I thought.

Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity

Bar Beach Swimmer says: January 31, 2023 at 10:03 pm
HB, I was trying to think of something witty to say about lawyers, but I got nothing,

Heh.
Why did God invent lawyers?
So used car salesmen have someone to look down on.

Cassie of Sydney
January 31, 2023 10:10 pm

“Emerson “

Emerson the adulterer.

Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity

Emerson the adulterer.

*Gulp*

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
January 31, 2023 10:13 pm

Emerson the adulterer.

Old age, and a liking for strong drink, have dulled my memory. Wasn’t there something about swallowing a contact lens, left in a glass of water?

Black Ball
Black Ball
January 31, 2023 10:23 pm

Switch over to The Castle, didn’t realise Albo got a part

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
January 31, 2023 10:23 pm

Heh.
Why did God invent lawyers?
So used car salesmen have someone to look down on.

Lawyer: “How was your first marriage terminated?”
Witness: “By death.”
Lawyer: “And by whose death was it terminated?”
Witness: “Guess.”

Lawyer: “Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?”
Witness: “All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight.”

Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity

Zulu, you supposed to now say “snap” to me.

cohenite
January 31, 2023 10:27 pm

Poof hollywood vermin alan cumming hands back his OBE because of English toxicity. Surely it must be coming that shitheads like this are beaten when they show their mugs in public.

Mark from Melbourne
Mark from Melbourne
January 31, 2023 10:29 pm

All newborns look like ET, and largely stay that way for a few weeks.

Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity

“You’re a high-priced lawyer! If I give you $1500, will you answer two questions for me?” “Certainly. What’s the second question?”

cohenite
January 31, 2023 10:34 pm

All newborns look like ET, and largely stay that way for a few weeks.

I didn’t. I was born handsome and stayed that way.

Black Ball
Black Ball
January 31, 2023 10:35 pm

Had a quick look at the Price SMH article, scrolled down a bit and this popped up. Fair to say gawd almighty in exasperation.

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
January 31, 2023 10:40 pm

M3GAN is amusing for a supposed horror flick.

The Critical Drinker concurs.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for today.

Go away now!

JC
JC
January 31, 2023 10:42 pm

If you are wronging the child you are harming it. You cannot wrong someone but not harm them, but you can harm them and not wrong them. Further, how are the parents harmed if the child isn’t? Both the parents and the child are being deprived of each other.

Harm: Harm generally relates to the physical and mental side.

to damage or injure physically or mentally : to cause harm (see harm entry 1) to
No animals were harmed in the making of the film.
the national interest … was gravely harmed by this attack

Wronged: Generally relates to injustice.

wronged; past participle: wronged

act unjustly or dishonestly towards.
“they would kill a man who wronged a family”
mistakenly attribute bad motives to; misrepresent.
“perhaps I wrong him”

The child in your analogy was wronged, but it wasn’t harmed.

You’re really asking if the parents were harmed by having their kid taken away? You don’t think mental anguish is harmful?

A newborn has no idea who its parents are. All it wants is a tit to suck on. The parents are undoubtedly deprived of the child, but the child cannot think beyond a nipple to suck on.

Sure, but tell me how are they different given what you’ve just argued? If you are going to narrow harm to physical injury or loss how do the parents suffer either but not the child?

We’ve been discussing a newborn. A newborn won’t suffer the mental anguish the parents would.

I didn’t bring a child to the maternity ward, I simply switched two babies around.

How does that make a huge difference? I don’t understand why it would.

rickw
rickw
January 31, 2023 10:42 pm

Saw a wooden cargo ship today. Probably about 120ft long. High out of the water, just finished unloading, wonder how low it was fully loaded! From India.

Top Ender
Top Ender
January 31, 2023 10:44 pm

ATSIC Mk 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 – and forever:

Indigenous leaders expect to take up to six months after the voice referendum to sort out a model for the advisory body, as ­architects of the landmark Uluru Statement from the Heart prepare a major pitch to try to bring Peter Dutton and the Liberal Party into the Yes campaign.

Some questions about the voice – such as how many people will sit on the proposed body – will not be settled until the government and Indigenous communities complete “a process of dialogue” into mid-2024.

The proposal will then go to a parliamentary committee before legislation is proposed to establish the form of the voice. The process will be thorough and invite contributions from all Australians but sources in the Albanese government have said the voice may not be operational until after the next federal election, due in 2025.

Anthony Albanese’s referendum working group – a collaboration of 21 senior Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders – will soon add to the eight known principles for the voice agreed to last September, including that it will not have a program-delivery function as ATSIC did before it was abolished by parliament in 2005.

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
January 31, 2023 10:48 pm

Damn auto correct, Melbourne. Unsure where that nonsense word came from.

Siri has evolutionarily problematic dentition, a stomach filled with jagged grindstones, labyrinthine intestines, a distended flatulent bowel, and a spastic sphincter.

The fact that even the word ‘a’ comes out unmangled must be counted a small miracle.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
January 31, 2023 10:51 pm

ATSIC Mk 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 – and forever:

Between the “voice” at Commonwealth level, and treaties at State level, ATSIC will emerge as a pillar of incorruptibly by comparison.

Black Ball
Black Ball
January 31, 2023 10:59 pm

Off to bed but the song at the conclusion of The Castle. Just beautiful

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
January 31, 2023 11:05 pm

If the Voice fails I expect there will be a Vesuvius level of eruption, complete with ash for guilt and a pyroclastic flow of invective blasting over racist Australia.

The MSM will join in of course – in fact they will be the medium – through columns by appalled j’ismists letting us know they are getting impatient with our obstinate ways. They told us what to do!

But I wonder if people will see all this and hear all this and, away from the stentorious priggish bloviators of the MSM, away in those remote corners of the continent that comprises 98% of it, ordinary people will smile inwardly and tell themselves they got it right.

rosie
rosie
January 31, 2023 11:15 pm

Reminding me of the tragic Kyeton baby switch.
When one set of parents found out, they wanted their own baby back and to keep the one they got in error iirc.

Dot
Dot
January 31, 2023 11:24 pm

Just because something can be done doesn’t mean it should be done. As to whether the product of this technology is human, that remains to be seen.

You have to say yes.

This technology will happen if we like it or not. It will change society forever. I don’t want children created in this manner being treated differently to everyone else.

Should we do it? A couple through no fault of their own becomes infertile. They are married and are stable & affluent. You can make them a child which is biologically their own with no ethical dilemma like with IVF, no embryos are wasted. The artificial womb has a lower risk of complications than natural birth.

What reasons could you have to oppose this?

Dot
Dot
January 31, 2023 11:26 pm

feelthebern says:
January 31, 2023 at 9:38 pm
At the gym this evening a chap was walking around drinking a two litre milk.
Odd.

Bro it was Sam Hyde.

JC
JC
January 31, 2023 11:27 pm

The definitions don’t contradict me.

No it doesn’t contradict, but the words describe different things.

But if an injustice is committed against the child it is suffering a loss whether it knows it at the time or not.

Wronged, but possibly unharmed.

But if the wrong doesn’t depend on the child knowing who its parents are why does harm?

Harm can be physically or mentally painful. A child could be mentally or physically harmed without knowing its parents.

Because I didn’t depart with a child, I simply switched two in the ward. If neither parents knows the child in their custody is not theirs they are in the same circumstance as the child. How then are they harmed if the child isn’t?

Oh okay. If both parents are unaware of the switcheroo then neither would be harmed, but they’re obviously wronged.

Dot
Dot
January 31, 2023 11:36 pm

Emmo quoted Steffie from Acropolis Now.

Wow.

$1000 Joe Biden won’t quote Happy Gilmore.

(Actually, he’d quote Bob Barker or Granma Gilmore – “the price is wrong bitch!” or “I drink a warm glass of milk to get to sleep”).

This is a new level of dumb for our ruling class betters, may the asteroid come soon.

Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity

Emmo quoted Steffie from Acropolis Now.

This has less gravitas than Rob Oakeshott quoting from “The Highlander”

Bruce in WA
January 31, 2023 11:47 pm

No comment.

Duncan Pugh: Perth man and former Australian Olympic bobsledder dies aged 48 after brain aneurysm

Australian Olympic bobsledder Duncan Pugh has died at 48 years old after suffering a sudden brain aneurysm.

Pugh, who represented Australia at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, suffered a brain bleed on January 24 in his hometown, Perth and unfortunately could not be saved.

He leaves behind his wife, McKenzie and two sons Charlie, 7, and George, 6.

Pogria
Pogria
January 31, 2023 11:47 pm

Emerson was the dickhead who thought it would be clever, while he was being interviewed for some reason, to suddenly start playing Skyhooks “Horror Movie”, from a mini tape deck he had concealed behind his back. He was grinning the most maniacal and insane grin and thought he was sooooooo clever. I’m not sure if the msm ever found out what he was trying to convey. He was also bouncing up and down as though he had ants in his undies.
I’m sure it can be found on you tube still.

rickw
rickw
January 31, 2023 11:49 pm
Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity

Emerson was the dickhead who … [insert here from a broad selection of Emerson acts of dickheadsmanship] …

This thing was on the front bench!
Aliens arriving from outer space would conclude we don’t elect our best or brightest.

rickw
rickw
January 31, 2023 11:59 pm
Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity

Here is is Pogria. Craig Emerson’s forty-five seconds of infamy.
I’m not sure which is the best part;
A) the Fifteen second freeze-frame while he & the interviewing j’ismists wait for the tape recorder to start playing, or
B) this nugget of applied intellectual rigour:
Dr Emerson said he had been working on the lyrics for a number of days. (Source ABC News)

Oh my aching sides, I need to wear a corset when reading stuff like this!
He worked on that for a “number of days“!
Waste 45 seconds of your life & have a listen it. I reckon The Lion Sleeps Tonight has more complex lyrics.

H B Bear
H B Bear
February 1, 2023 12:15 am

The Liars do like their PhDs don’t they? Shame it makes SFA difference.

Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity

Here is the ABC report.
The “I worked on the lyrics for a number of days” quote is about half way down, about the 5th paragraph after the bold sub-heading “Internet Sensation
(I am not making this up)

For those unwilling to click through, the article contains nuggets such as parliamentary colleague Peter Garret suggesting Emerson should “stick to politics”, Greg Combet suggesting Emerson “could do with some singing lessons” and a political reporting phrase that we never would see written about a serious political leader:
During an interview with the ABC yesterday, Dr Emerson started dancing and singing

Pogria
Pogria
February 1, 2023 12:26 am

Thanks Sal for finding the clip and the story. Dear God, it was even worse than I remembered! He looks as though his Depends were slipping. 😀

Pogria
Pogria
February 1, 2023 12:33 am

Cripes, I didn’t realise it was getting so late. Not that the time means anything, Insomnia is a bitch.

I have though, just spent a delightful half hour watching the first episode of a French comedy on SBS on Demand starring Jean Reno. “All those things we never said”. Seems promising.

Jean Reno is one of the actors on my list that I will watch anything he is in. The other two are Gene Hackman and Gary Oldman.

SBS on Demand has some quality viewing right now. Flatly refuse to pay for television.

Gabor
Gabor
February 1, 2023 12:36 am

Aliens arriving from outer space would conclude we don’t elect our best or brightest.

No we don’t, for the simple reason, that the best & brightest don’t stand for election.
We can only choose from those standing.

Forced sortition is the answer, and for a short enough time that the lives of the selected wouldn’t be disrupted for too long. I’d say 2 max 3 year term.

Gabor
Gabor
February 1, 2023 12:46 am

Because I didn’t depart with a child, I simply switched two in the ward. If neither parents knows the child in their custody is not theirs they are in the same circumstance as the child. How then are they harmed if the child isn’t?

There is potential long term wrong and harm to the child, say one set of parents are responsible well off, the other Ne’er-do-well, violent substance abusers, alcoholics.

How would you feel to be in the place of the correct child?
Not saying I don’t feel sorry for the other one as well but that is beside the point I’m trying to make.

rosie
rosie
February 1, 2023 1:12 am
Farmer Gez
Farmer Gez
February 1, 2023 2:16 am

Will Steffen dead. How?
– sea level rise
– heat stroke
– thirst
– starved
– CO2
– mega cyclone
– grant ran out
Who cares.

Farmer Gez
Farmer Gez
February 1, 2023 2:19 am

Running on Mysore time.

rosie
rosie
February 1, 2023 2:31 am

Very sad to die of a brain aneurysm leaving a young family.
Same thing happened to someone I know at about the same age about twelve thirteen years ago.
Most common in people aged between 30 and 60 and more women than men.

Tom
Tom
February 1, 2023 4:03 am
Tom
Tom
February 1, 2023 4:04 am
Tom
Tom
February 1, 2023 4:05 am
Tom
Tom
February 1, 2023 4:07 am
Tom
Tom
February 1, 2023 4:08 am
Tom
Tom
February 1, 2023 4:10 am
Tom
Tom
February 1, 2023 4:11 am
Tom
Tom
February 1, 2023 4:12 am
  1. Yes, thank you for confirming that in the UN scenario the ratio of global industrial production is 4:1 in China’s…

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