Jacob Blessing the Sons of Joseph, Rembrandt, 1656
You poor bastards. My only advice to you is to have a child who is a doctor.
Open Thread – Tues 14 Feb 2023
- Bumtree #5
- The beach which banned vanilla ice cream
- Bumtree #4
- Open Thread – Thurs 2 May 2024
- Bumtree #3
I really enjoyed this: Arrested Emory U. Prof. No Victim Despite Leftist Outrage, Admitted She Hit Cop While He Was…
Skiing in Japan has been a perfectly acceptable alternative to taking the boat to Rotto or heading down to Eagle…
Exactly Roger. I work with CMFEU types regularly. Rank and file miners are pretty good and socially conservative. The old…
Diogenes at 12:59 Got seen by haematologist 5 minutes late, but then sent for blood test, then had to wait…
Hmm, nobody around?
Must be first then.
I’m just in now, Gabor.
What’s up?
Ah st*ff it, I’ve got no conversation to make. Off to bed.
Tomorrow I’ve got to take apart and replace the front wheel bearing, hub and crown, of a Massey, and remove the power steering pump to replace an alternator belt on a compacted Landini. Not looking forward to it, but luckily wifey is at work so I can pinch her bluetooth speaker and listen to Podcast of the Lotus Eaters.
Surabaya, 1 hour 40 minutes to work, same on return, and still less shit than Meldanisbad!
John Spooner.
Mark Knight.
Mark Knight #2.
Peter Broelman.
David Rowe.
Christian Adams.
Patrick Blower.
Steve Bright.
A.F. Branco.
Matt Margolis.
Tom Stiglich.
Ben Garrison.
Thanks Tom.
Surabaya, 1 hour 40 minutes to work, same on return, and still less shit than Meldanisbad!
still trying to convince yourself
I made it. Catamaran port was a long way from my apartment , I didn’t realise how many harbours Malta had so I agreed to pay a pretend taxi driver €20 to take me to the place in his smoky old Toyota. He was a nice old guy, I asked him what the Maltese for hello was and he said hello, and that most people in Malta speak English because of once being a British colony, perhaps a few little old ladies don’t. I did know that but I’d forgotten.
We chatted briefing about this and that, normal things, like where he went for holidays and how lots of Italians came to Malta to work.
Anyhow everything is signed in English including in the supermarket where English was the only language on the shelves so I will stop worrying about lack of language skills.
The houses are pretty in this area, two, three stories with little wooden enclosed balconies in whites and blues.
Dont worry, I don’t have a balcony, just two flights of pesky steep spiral stairs to climb.
Shall do some exploring tomorrow.
Release the distraction balloons.
Current gas storage in Germany is running at 72.86%.
A month ago it was at 95%.
It looks like the cargoes from the US to Europe have slowed & the industrial limits have been loosened.
@ rosie:
Looking for the original of that black bird statue?
feelthebern says:
February 14, 2023 at 6:28 am
Reasonably mild weather in Europe at least in parts, from what I read, so that drop in reserves can be disturbing.
I’m sure money will fix it, every time there is a shortage some shonk is ready to fill it, at a price of course.
Can arms industries scale up production to meet Ukraine’s sudden demand? | DW News
Spy agency ASIO not aware of secret Sydney Communist China police station
Malcolm Roberts
Here it comes.
‘The Only Solution:’ Yale Prof Suggests Mass Suicide for Elderly in Japan (13 Feb)
The “Only Solution” eh? Sounds a lot like another solution someone came up with once. What is it about the Left and mass murder?
Lovely art work for the thread, beautiful composition. Rembrandt captures the tenderness between father and son.
He rescued his entire family, even though they had abandoned him. It’s a wonderful story.
I read about that Narita guy last night. He’s mad.
In a decent world he’d be kept away from influencing young, pliable minds. Sadly we don’t live in a decent world.
Ed Casesays:
February 13, 2023 at 10:09 pm
What’s Jacinta Price’s grounds for opposing The Voice?
She started out touring with Labor renegade Warren Mundine, now she’s switched camps.
What’s Price’s claim to fame?
Has she any achievements to her name?
What’s your claim to fame?
Have you any achievements to your name? Been elected as a member of Parliament?
A tale of two cities…
Over the weekend, in Liverpool England, indigenous working class English men and women took to the streets to protest the housing in nice hotels of mainly young, strapping, “refugee” Afghani, sub-Saharan African and Syrian men, most of whom have entered the UK illegally whilst pretending to be minors. Now perhaps I should provide some context as to why these indigenous English men and women took to the streets to protest because you won’t read any context in the MSM, but it appears some young indigenous English girls have not just been sexually harassed and assaulted by these lusty middle eastern men, but one young girl was gang raped by a group of Afghani males (they like their girls young in Afghanistan). You see, the followers of Mohamed can never quite help themselves where ever they go, rape against infidels is a basic tenet of Islam and it’s served the ideology well over the centuries, it’s an essential tool of jihad, but I digress, how does the UK media describe what’s been happening in Liverpool? Well, it’s the usual dog whistles being parroted about because the media in the west is now so biased, so compromised, and so debased that they can’t help themselves, they loathe their readership, they loathe ordinary indigenous Britons so it’s appropriate they smear those working class protesters in Liverpool as “far-right”, “far-right”, “far-right”. Such descriptions are amusing because the city of Liverpool in the UK is UK Labour party heartland. And therein lies the joke, now the most left-wing part of the UK is far-right!
Across the Irish Sea we’ve seen something similar, indigenous Irish men and women have taken to the streets to protest the housing of thousands of “refugees” (mainly middle eastern men) in Dublin hotels, mainly in working class districts. For their chutzpah in taking to the streets, just like their indigenous cousins in Liverpool across the water, the working class men and women of Dublin are smeared as “far-right”, “far-right”, “far-right”.
.
Too coherent.
Needs more trasnizfitches.
A Boss behaving as a Real BOSS.
Unfortunately, coppers let the bad guy go to rob another day. Easier to pepper spray Grannies lying in the road with broken hips.
Boambee John says:
February 14, 2023 at 7:28 am
Ed Casesays:
February 13, 2023 at 10:09 pm
Just ignore him, his schtick is to be contrarian, if he has enough time to reply he googles up some crap without checking the contents, but if not, he is ready to spew his own.
It’s a sad story, but I do wonder about the briefly mentioned twin, who has been living in a shrine to his dead brother with a severely depressed mother for the last five years:
I have seen this happen in a family of my acquaintance. The parents are so obsessed with the needs of their disabled child that the other two kids are fringe dwellers – more like boarders than family members.
I cannot imagine what life must be like for these parents and others like them, but seeing other children being collateral damage makes it doubly heart-wrenching.
Branco and Spooner are my picks.
“lotocotisays:
February 14, 2023 at 7:48 am
Too coherent.
Needs more trasnizfitches.”
WOW!
rosiesays:
February 14, 2023 at 5:08 am
I made it. Catamaran port was a long way from my apartment , I didn’t realise how many harbours Malta had so I agreed to pay a pretend taxi driver €20 to take me to the place in his smoky old Toyota. He was a nice old guy, I asked him what the Maltese for hello was and he said hello, and that most people in Malta speak English because of once being a British colony, perhaps a few little old ladies don’t. I did know that but I’d forgotten.
And Rosie,
they drive on the same side of the road, as they UK & Australia – it’s a great place – enjoy exploring – buses a great way to get around
Gabor
Just ignore him, his schtick is to be contrarian, if he has enough time to reply he googles up some crap without checking the contents, but if not, he is ready to spew his own.
Indeed. Go back and look at his “predictions” about the Voice. At one point he claimed that the referendum is all about giving power to the Federation of Ethnic Community Councils. Now it is about giving absolute Constitutional power to 13 “indigenous” voices to decide what Parliament may do.
If you are going to monster strangers in public, never over-estimate your abilities of persuasion. 😀
Calli:
Immunocompromised and all, still haven’t caught the Bug O’Death.
Superior genetics?
Nah. Just the odds.
That’s underground gas storage. Germany has only just commissioned its first two floating LNG import/storage terminals – with another three in the works for 2023. First direct LNG imports started in mid-December and German gas buyers are now starting to sign-up US LNG on long term contracts.
Technical Note: This was all in the works well before Seymour Hersh blew up the NordStream pipelines in late September.
Good crop Tom.
Branco nailed it today, big time.
johanna – that’s a heartbreaking story, not because of the death (which is tragic), but the shattered family that the mother seems unable to be a part of any more. She needs some serious help.
Knight is no a great drawer but every now and again shows great cartooning skill. His one today at 4:03 is pure genius. Thanks Tom.
Old Ozzie:
It needs to be tattooed on their pointy little heads until they get it.
Ever wanted to get married on TV, and on Valentine’s Day?
Me neither. However, a couple did just that on FTA just now.
I haven’t been married for ten years now (and supremely glad of it, considering the poisonous fanged echidna I was previously manacled to) BUT – should someone like Kaley Cuoco or Jessica Alba or Shania Twain (yes) recognise my awesomeness, I wouldn’t ask them to tie the knot with me on Sunrise.
Yerg. Yerg yerg yerg.
Just because. 😉
“The Greeks Vs The Irish
Over a double Latte, the Greek mentions “We built the Parthenon you may recall, along with the Temple of Apollo.”
“Aye, and it was the Irish that discovered the Summer and Winter solstices.”
“But it was the Greeks who gave birth to mathematics.”
“Granted, but it was the Irish who built the first timepieces.”
Knowing that he’s about to deliver the coup de grace, the son of Athens points out with a note of finality: “Keep in mind that it was the ancient Greeks who invented the notion of sex as a pleasurable activity!”
“Aye! True enough, but it was the Irish who got women involved.”“
Or at least ‘as mandatory as we can possibly make it’, eh Scomo?
It won’t make him popular with the Fabians. Goes a long way to understanding the MO of the Left though.
Nothing better illustrates your intellectual limitations than this. Worth repeating. Time for a sock change?
No response can ever be “adequate” because the person you have lost is unique to you. She is trying to fill a hole that can’t be filled. Sometimes grief takes you by the throat and you just can’t shake it off, but all those little reminders deliberately left around the house will make sure that never happens.
Her husband seems to be passive in all this. He’ll be suffering along with the remaining sibling. It’s how you make hell on earth for the people who need you most. I just feel so very sorry for her.
Nails it.
There’s something wrong with Lowe…the man, not the cartoon.
Knuckle Dragger at 8:33 – I hope that wasn’t a slight at MAFS otherwise we are looking at another trucks v trains situation. MAFS is Shakespeare for our times.
Black Ball:
Your post this morning – spot on.
One of the biggest signs of a cult is the need to isolate the victim from any means of support outside the cult itself.
I must admit I couldn’t do a whole hour last night and watched a 20 year old repeat of Rick Stein and Cornish pasties. Weak, I know.
If only Romeo and Juliet had relationship advisors.
‘a slight at MAFS’
Didn’t think of that, Bear.
MAFS differs slightly in that it’s a vehicle for influencers both budding and existing to increase their Insta followings, and hopefully one day get a drive time radio gig.
Nicolle Wallace: “The Typhoid Mary of Disinformation”
You mean like
?
I’m not sure there is anything personal about it (other than a misplaced sense of infallibility of those in leadership positions). He is on a hiding to nothing with one lever to pull. He almost can’t win.
Milton F:
Never forget the USSR actively aided and encouraged these networks of deviants and criminals for decades, and the ill effects are still happening. The Cold War has never stopped. But then the CIA/FBI/HS efforts haven’t stopped either. The existence of the KGB/FSB and the CIA/FBI/HS is one of mutual dependence. They have to have each other in a state of perpetual conflict or their cushy jobs go tits up.
That’s from The Tempest by the way.
Brave New World and all.
Third time I had to look up, what it was.
Definitely something is wrong in my life and my memory is fading too, bugger.
Upward News
@UpwardNewsHQ
BREAKING: Toxic chemicals from the train derailment & explosion in East Palestine have reportedly “contaminated” the Ohio River as far as West Virginia, a water source for over 5 million.
Why are governments still promoting “vaccines” and not investigating excess deaths? Have they been affected by vaccine-induced cognitive decline?
calli – it is basically a study in human frailty. And boob jobs.
fundamental humans rights (unless we decide to use them for leverage)
a tour of towering hypocrisy
We are all striving for something.
“On your mark” gone.
Another great victory for the cult of progressive eco-socialism.
The total ban on removal of native hardwood from Victorian state forests has effectively killed the Wood Chop comps.
A spokesman on rural ABC radio this morning said all the chops are in doubt as they can’t supply the right logs and other plantation woods are not the right trees or just not grown enough for use. He said it could be twenty years before the right trees are available from plantations.
Every foreign culture is valued and lauded in TaliDanistan except a home grown Aussie one.
Tragic Cost of Profit, Secrets & Lies: Half a Million American Youth have “Died Suddenly” due to COVID Vaccination; Secret CDC Report Confirms
Anyone seen Mr Buttigieg? Anyone? Isn’t he supposed to be the Transport czar?
I don’t watch NFL, so missed this stunning rendition of the US national anthem by Chris Stapleton.
Got to be one of the best, and so fitting in style.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcs6HLKz_aQ
“Mandatory euthanasia” is murder, pure and simple. It’s not even remotely surprising that the Tojoist quacktor feels it necessary to obfuscate (again, no doubt).
Massive chemical contamination of a river system would be horrendously racist, surely?
From Hubris Kills Diplomacy
A review of U.S.-Russia relations as the war in Ukraine continues.
Claes Ryn
As I said in sending to Tuesday Lunch mates – A Very Long but Accurate Assessment
And look at who jumps out from the Article
Among the most well-known advocates of this view of America’s role in the world, who had a major influence on post-Cold-War American foreign policy thinking, are Robert Kagan, his wife Victoria Nuland, Paul Wolfowitz, Michael Novak, Irving Kristol, William Bennett, Charles Krauthammer, and, more recently, Mike Pompeo. These individuals are usually called “neoconservatives”. People who might prefer a different label but exhibit the same democratist missionary zeal include Madeleine Albright, Richard Holbrooke, Samantha Power, and Anthony Blinken.
People around the world who are not caught up in the intellectual habits of the U.S.-dominated Western world may be pardoned for thinking that this American ideology looks markedly self-centered and self-serving. There is, however, a very close historical parallel to this American frame of mind. The French Jacobins, the intellectual leaders of the Revolution of 1789, also enunciated supposedly universal principles—“freedom, equality, and brotherhood”— and appointed a certain country, their own, as the Liberator of mankind. They too saw themselves as representing “virtue”. The U.S. foreign policy establishment has appointed as the virtuous leader of the world not France but America–the country whose foreign policy they happen to be directing.
Ever since the 2008 Bucharest Summit Declaration (a major architect of which was then-U.S. ambassador to NATO and current undersecretary of state Victoria Nuland) in which NATO formally endorsed Membership Action Plans (MAPs) for Ukraine and Georgia, Washington has simply ignored Russia’s numerous expressly-stated strong objections to having Ukraine, historically closely connected to Russia, join NATO. As tensions over this issue grew, the U.S. continued the unofficial military integration of Ukraine into NATO, providing weapons and training. This policy accelerated after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. Why Russia perceived NATO conduct as threatening might be conveyed by asking how American leaders might have reacted if Russian soldiers and weapon systems had been a part of maneuvers in Cuba, while at the same time, a military alliance between Russia and Cuba was being considered.
Russian protests against U.S.-NATO conduct in the last couple of decades that the Russians deemed dismissive of Russian interests did not make the U.S. reduce its pressure. The Russians made clear that they would never accept that Ukraine became a member of NATO. Ukraine had to remain neutral. Yet the actions taken by the U.S. showed disdain for these wishes. In fact, one might even wonder if the intent was always to provoke some drastic Russian countermoves. In 2014, for example, the U.S., under the supervision of Victoria Nuland at the U.S. State Department, encouraged and backed a coup in Ukraine that deposed a popularly-elected president who was perceived in the West and among some Ukrainian nationalists as too friendly to Russia. At that time the Russians refrained from large-scale military action but responded by infiltrating troops into Crimea. The U.S. used the heightened tensions and the specter of war to intensify its unofficial military integration of Ukraine into NATO.
In November of 2021, secretary of state Anthony Blinken entered into a “strategic partnership” with Ukraine. This agreement formalized U.S. support for full Ukrainian membership in NATO. It also stated that Ukraine had a rightful claim to Crimea. A person of diplomatic rather than confrontational temperament always asks how possible actions are likely to be perceived by an opponent.
When Blinken concluded the partnership with Ukraine, diplomacy was obviously far from his mind. The reaction of the Russian leaders was, as any realist would expect, one of existential dread. They had to contemplate the prospect of losing its big Black Sea naval base in Sevastopol and of having NATO forces installed there instead—a national security nightmare.
The world is full of brutal, corrupt leaders, and the U.S. interacts and even cooperates with many of them in the national interest or in the private interest of particularly powerful groups. Why not also engage diplomatically with the Kremlin? Because Putin is exceptionally evil, we are told. He simply cannot be tolerated. His security services have killed people! Never mind that killing is something the U.S. does routinely in distant undeclared wars or interventions. Drone strikes are a method of choice when killing particular individuals. But that’s so very different from Putin’s brutality, American imperial actors cry indignantly. Putin is such a devil that he must be regarded as the Hitler of our time. It’s Munich all over again, and we must be wary of “appeasement”. Putin’s goal is to restore something like the Soviet communist regime that enslaved people and murdered millions! It is often asserted that Putin is also mentally unstable, unpredictable, and utterly ruthless, which fits the American habit of demonizing opponents.
Do U.S. policymakers actually believe what is alleged about Putin’s mental condition? If they do, their backing Putin, the president of a major nuclear power, into a corner seems utterly reckless. The avalanche of disparaging allegations suggests that it is not Putin who is the real problem. What ultimately rankles U.S. leaders is that Russia is not complying with America’s demands. The portrayal of the Russian president is yet another attempt to justify a policy of pressing America’s wishes and disregarding those of Russia.
Despite his background in Soviet intelligence, President Putin is no communist. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, perhaps the most profound anti-communist of all, believed that Putin was the kind of leader Russia needed to hold the country together after the fall of the Soviet Union. The vastness of his country, its diverse populations, and its enormous problems, including domestic power struggles, might seem to require superhuman powers.
Putin’s support for Russian Orthodoxy and related traditions is all the more irritating to Western leaders in that it is combined with expressions of scorn for what is today called “Western values”. Putin’s disdain for cancel culture and “wokeness” align him most uncomfortably with “populist” and “authoritarian” sentiment in the West.
The sources of anti-Russian sentiment are complex, but the main thrust of U.S. policy towards Russia might be described as emanating from a mixture of arrogance and vindictiveness.
Ed Casesays:
February 13, 2023 at 10:09 pm
What’s Jacinta Price’s grounds for opposing The Voice?
She started out touring with Labor renegade Warren Mundine, now she’s switched camps.
To keep it simple . First hand knowledge. Whats yours?
Happy Valentine’s Day to all lovers past and present.
I have already seen speculation about a deliberate derailment which is a sign of our times. Previously there would be a search for whom to blame for shoddy management but since pandemic people are suspecting sabotage. COVID mismanaging has destroyed trust in almost every institution of modern life.
Alright, I’ll bite. How has Jacinta switched camps?
still trying to convince yourself
No need to convince, Australia is a low bar to beat given that it deprived me of employment.
Yes, because collectivists’ “ultimate goal” hasn’t been blindingly obvious for well over a century.
All together now:
You will exist in a pod
You will eat the bugs
You will own nothing
You will be happy …
… or else.
Mark Steyn Has Been Silenced
The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters
Animals Are Dying Miles From Massive Ohio Railroad Chemical Spill
A 50-car train went off the rails near East Palestine, Ohio, on Feb. 3, causing evacuations and health scares for the people near the crash site. Some believe the derailment is causing far more ecological damage than the Biden Administration is letting on.
FAST FACTS
The train was carrying numerous toxic chemicals, many of which spilled, causing massive fires.
. Five cars contained chemicals that “are very deadly if inhaled.”
. Everyone within a one-mile radius of the crash site was forced to evacuate.
. A controlled burn was conducted to avoid further explosions.
. East Palestine firefighters now need new gear, including breathing apparatus, due to damage from exposure to the chemicals.
“We basically nuked a town with chemicals so we could get a railroad open,” hazardous materials specialist Sil Caggiano told WKBN News.
Residents have been allowed to move back home though air and water tests are still being conducted by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
But now, animals in proximity to the chemical-spill nightmare are mysteriously dying.
Philip Lowe just another incompetent public servant who’s never had a real job — tailor-made for the Canberra swamp.
He joined the Reserve Bank straight out of high school at the age of 17. He’s still there. FMD.
Terrific.
The organisers certainly didn’t want to miss out on attracting a “diversity” of viewers.
1. A wonderful anthem
2. The jet flyover was crewed by women only
3. A woman of colour sang the unofficial black national anthem.
On maternity leave, chest feeding.
Probably.
He is.
He “was” a Lt Col in the KGB.
You do not get such a position without a genuine and passionate hatred of western traditional values and capitalism.
He stole 200 bn USD he never worked for.
Presumably in East Germany he was supervising the Stasi.
He is allied to Iran, North Korea and China.
His rise to the Russian Premiership was enabled by a false flag terrorist attack that was an excuse for the Second Chechen War.
That’s all true, but you need to be pragmatic, no one is marching on Bejing or Moscow to spread democracy. Not unless they have a death wish for tens if not hundreds of millions of innocent people.
Have a read of what happened to Putin’s family in WWII. No surprises that he hates Nazis.
Rabz says:
February 14, 2023 at 9:32 am
A new report makes clear the ultimate goal: tiny, uncomfortable apartments and bicycles for all
Yes, because collectivists’ “ultimate goal” hasn’t been blindingly obvious for well over a century.
All together now:
You will exist in a pod
You will eat the bugs
You will own nothing
You will be happy …
… or else.
You will eat the bugs
Our local Blockbuster here in Bend, you know the very last one in the world, created a 40 sec #SuperBowl ad that ran locally and online. It’s incredible. ?
It’s the end of the world, and streaming is gone, you may be left bereft, but Blockbuster will remain “until the bitter end.” The employee will even burst out with a friendly “Hey, Steve!” to the cockroach as it comes in.
The last Blockbuster in the world in Bend, Oregon ran that ad on Instagram live and YouTube. They even had a watch party at the store that people could come to. To show they’re serious about their commitment, you can also rent the ad on VHS from them. That got them national media coverage.
Hey, I apologise for my nasty statements last night about you guys upsetting Gaia by discussing Flannery.
It’s raining, at last!
Not much, but if you heap a huge pile of manure on him it might keep going.
If Taiwan is going to be the Ukraine of the East, will Australia be the Ukraine of the South?
Further to my earlier comment about “far-right riots” in Liverpool and MSM malfeasance, it appears that progressive UK media outlets, such as the Guardian, are now saying that the hotel residents are now living in fear of their lives from the indigenous “far-right rioters*” and they are afraid to leave their hotels so as to, I kid you not, go to “church”.
There used to be more truth published in Pravda.
* I should add that most of those who are now being smeared as “far-right”, if they’ve ever cast a vote in their lives, it would have have been for the UK Labour party.
“He is.”
No he is not.
3 Things You Might Not Know About St. Valentine
(2) The popular customs of displays of love and affection on St. Valentine’s Day dates back to the Middle Ages. At that time, it was commonly believed in England and France that birds began mating each year on Feb. 14. English poet Geoffrey Chaucer wrote about this in his famous poem, “Parliament of Foules” (in Old English).
“For this was on Seynt Valentyne’s day. When every foul cometh ther to choose his mate.”
And so, in addition to the saints’ behavior, the birds’ love-struck behavior added to the feast by giving it the dimension of a day for lovers.
Never forget that Morrison said this.
He led the entire charge to mandates and the destruction they wrought.
I’d very much like to know his reason for doing so.
Whatever he said later, no matter what backdown manoeuvrings and wriggling he did when he realised he had miscalculated, this was his intent from the beginning.
When these loonies say what they mean – the WEF, the UN, WHO, overreaching bureaucrats and politicians, greenies, local wannabe block wardens – understand that they DO mean it and will use whatever means they can to make it happen.
The one thing you can take to the bank: when “progressives” lie and cheat their way into political power, they are absolutely, cluelessly incompetent.
That’s because they can’t think.
Their “thinking” is reciting Marx’s Das Kapital translated into 21st century wokespeak by the left’s designated narrative police (the media).
Real Clear Defense
Rich Lowry Tries to Have it Both Ways on Ukraine
National Review’s Rich Lowry writing in Politico acknowledges that we are fighting a risky proxy war against Russia that is expensive and is drawing down our stock of weapons, and admits that a negotiated settlement is likely the best outcome of the war, but scolds Republican conservative populists for seeking to abandon Ukraine. His solution: keep doing what we are doing with the hope that if we prevent Putin from obtaining what he wants in Ukraine he may be forced to sue for peace. And he accuses conservative populists and realists of courting a “fantasy.”
Lowry, of course, was a full-throated supporter of the Iraq and Afghan wars, even after President George W. Bush transformed them into a crusade to democratize the Middle East. And he has fully supported arming Ukraine, while downplaying the risks of escalation and putting forth a moral basis for our co-belligerency with Ukraine. But now he is hedging a bit. He admits that the Ukraine war is “profoundly destabilizing” and that military struggles are “always unpredictable.” He writes that “The longer the war goes on, more of Ukraine will get wrecked, the Western alliance will risk splintering, and domestic political support for supplying and funding Ukraine will continue to slip.”
We need to stop Russia, he writes, “before it is tempted to bully or grab part of a NATO country in a vastly more dangerous adventure.”
For Lowry, the “domino theory” lives–the same theory that bogged us down in Vietnam, which also began by supplying arms to our allies, sending advisers, then gradually committing American forces to the conflict.
And sending arms of greater lethality to Ukraine, Lowry believes, will “send a signal to China that the West will cohere and push back against territorial aggrandizement; and to resist the efforts of the de facto Russia-Chinese-Iranian alliance to undermine Western power.” If that is really what is at stake in Ukraine, why does Lowry shy away of advocating direct U.S. military intervention in the conflict–boots on the ground, fighters and bombers in the air, and ships off the coast of Crimea?
And perhaps Lowry thinks he knows the Russian mind better than George Kennan did, and Jack Matlock does–both former ambassadors to Russia/Soviet Union who warned that NATO expansion would revive the worst aspects of Russian nationalism/imperialism.
Lowry admits that even with more American and NATO weapons, Ukraine at best will “maintain a stalemate,” and he advises U.S. policymakers to provide more weapons so that Ukrainians can “continue to hold their own.” Holding their own, of course, means more destruction, more terror, more dying for Ukrainians.
Lowry is generous with Ukrainians’ courage and bravery from his editorial perch in New York.
It is Rich Lowry, not conservative populists, who courts a fantasy–the fantasy that vital national security interests are at stake in the Ukraine War.
Yep. Always a problem, especially for that sort of role. Also being in one job too long (which will vary from job to job. Chairman of CA was the classic example.)
Academic responds to ‘mass suicide’ outrage
Dr. Yusuke Narita says his suggestion that the elderly kill themselves was “taken out of context”
His comments went largely unnoticed until they surfaced online last month and were quoted in a New York Times article on Sunday. The Times revealed Narita’s long history of promoting suicide, including his suggestion to a group of students last year that people could simply throw themselves off cliffs, and an interview in which he said that “making [euthanasia] mandatory” will one day “come up in discussion.”
According to last year’s data, Japan had the highest senior population ratio in the world, with almost 30% of its people being over the age of 65. The country also has one of the lowest birth rates and the highest public debt in the developed world.
The Times did not directly endorse Narita’s “solution,” but noted that his comments may open the door “to much-needed political conversations about pension reform and changes to social welfare,” and that a majority of the Japanese public supports legalizing voluntary euthanasia.
The fat stupid failure also came up with this classic:
“We haven’t mandated vaccines, except when we have.”
He remains right near the top of a very long list.
Olympics chief responds to Ukraine’s boycott calls
Kiev’s demands go against the “principles we stand for,” Thomas Bach says
International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach has criticized Ukraine’s calls to boycott the Paris 2024 Games if Russian athletes are allowed to take part. The role of the Olympics is to unify, not escalate and contribute to confrontation, he said.
“It’s not up to governments to decide who can take part in which sports competitions because this would be the end of international sport competitions… as we know it,” Bach told journalists on Sunday.
In late January, the IOC said it may allow athletes from Russia and Belarus who do not publicly support Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine to participate in the 2024 Summer Olympics under a neutral flag.
The announcement angered Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, who called on countries to boycott the Games if this happens. Speaking on Friday, Zelensky said the presence of Russian athletes would be a “manifestation of violence” that “cannot be covered up with some pretended neutrality or a white flag.”
In comments cited by France 24, Bach stated that “history will show who is doing more for peace, the ones who try to keep lines open and communicate or the ones who want to isolate and divide.”
Ukraine’s calls for a boycott of the Summer Olympics go against the “principles we stand for,” he said.
Bach added that these calls are premature, saying: “we are talking about the sporting competitions to take place this year. There is no talk about Paris yet, this will come much later.”
In deciding the fate of Russian and Belarusian athletes, the IOC must address the “serious concerns” of the UN Human Rights Council that banning them “only because of their passports is a violation of their rights,” he explained.
“We have seen a Belarusian player under neutral status winning the Australian Open. So why shouldn’t it be possible in a swimming pool for instance, or in gymnastics?” the IOC chief said. He was referring to the success of tennis star Aryna Sabalenka, who won the Australian Open in Melbourne last month.
Bach added, however, that Ukrainian athletes should “know how much we share their grief, their human suffering and all the effort we’re taking to help them” as a result of the conflict.
We don’t have nuclear weapons and defence has been white anted for decades, particularly in procurement.
We are totally beholden to the US. You can point out how stupid or shitty US policy is and it doesn’t matter. No I am just not being argumentative.
You cannot reason away our self inflicted vulnerability. The trade off is that our defence is implicitly designed to make tacit acceptance of all US statecraft. It is a pathetic position to be in.
Australia’s full time military force is about 60k personnel. We have one strategy and if it doesn’t work (say from very high casualties) we’re stuffed.
???
Who cares what you think, Malcolm? You are irrelevant. “The dogs may bark, but the caravan moves on!”
Those of us who have many and varied jobs will understand just how dangerous that can be for a person with a lot of power. It’s not that they are bad people – simply that they view the world through a single lens, and a very narrow one.
It also illustrates why having the Parliament infested with lawyers and former political party operatives produces such awful results.
At the risk of agreeing with anybody at the IOC, he’s right.
Rosie, English is understood everywhere so the buses are a good way to get around as driving in the busy towns is perilous, but take water with you, as we discovered on our bus trip to Ggintija that they can often be late or one missed entirely, as happened to us. We spent time waiting in the heat to get home on a bus stop with a crowd of others, all tired out from walking the sites. We got on when the bus finally arrived but others waiting at stops further along the route just waited on for longer. However, well worth that slight inconvenience.
I know that the Christian days of Malta (which are fascinating) are of more interest to you, but the ancient megalithic structures are well worth a visit, especially to Ggintija.
Elon Musk Responds to Tweets About the Insanity of Leftists Pushing World War III
By Joe Hoft
The Biden regime continues to push for a war with Russia and is doing all it can to instigate that war. Elon Musk opined on the subject yesterday.
Biden’s actions make the world a scarier place. Escalating the war between Russia and Ukraine is a key example.
As reported last week, it is likely that Biden blew up the Nord Stream II pipeline between Russia and Europe. If Biden was behind this act of war, Biden should be impeached. This was an act of war committed by a President without Congressional approval on a nuclear power.
The US Constitution requires that Congress be the only entity to pass an Act of War. Biden cannot do this by himself. His actions related to Ukraine have been nothing but dangerous.
President Trump says he could have a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine within 24 hours of beginning the effort. Through his actions, Biden shows that he doesn’t want peace.
Elon Musk
@elonmusk
Replying to
@StationCDRKelly
You’re smart enough not to swallow media & other propaganda bs.
Starlink is the communication backbone of Ukraine, especially at the front lines, where almost all other Internet connectivity has been destroyed.
But we will not enable escalation of conflict that may lead to WW3.
Elon Musk shared yesterday a tweet showing the insanity of the left. The left said President Trump would get the US in World War III but now Biden and the left and the WEC are pushing for war with nuclear Russia.
Dover’s painting is also a gentle reminder of not letting your abusers get off scot free. His brothers were made to know fear and apparent cruelty before they realised who Joseph was. They had to understand the magnitude of their crime before they could move on.
BoN touched upon it yesterday in our discussion on truth and vengeance.
A good, timely choice.
Old Ozzie at 9:20.
That article rambles all over the shop.
What is the point?
White House NSC Spox John Kirby Says Pentagon Has No Idea What Objects They Shot Down and Still No Recovery of any Debris
February 13, 2023 – Sundance
The statements by National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications at the White House, John Kirby, could not be more incredulous if he tried. “The truth is that we haven’t been able to gain access to the objects that were shot down Friday, Saturday and yesterday because of the weather conditions. The third one was shot down yesterday over Lake Huron so it’s underwater,” Kirby declared earlier this morning.
According to John Kirby, the pentagon has no idea what objects they have shot out of the sky, no idea what they are used for, no idea where they came from and not a single one of the three this weekend has been recovered. At this point all of these government officials are beclowning themselves.
Kirby even says these objects could be commercial in nature, belonging to some tech company doing mapping etc and do not have to be ‘nefarious at all’. Yet if that were the case, the people who launched them would need licenses and would likely be making some form of admission. This is well beyond silly.
According to Kirby, “there could be totally explainable reasons for why these objects are flying around all there,” he said, adding, “there are corporate entities that operate these kind of things, we just don’t know as soon as we can get to the debris we’ll share what we can. It doesn’t have to be nefarious.“
Pentagon officials held a press conference Sunday night in the middle of the Super Bowl. They failed to answer any questions. General Glen VanHerck was specifically asked if it’s possible the objects are indicative of extraterrestrial life; yes, aliens. General VanHerk’s response, “I’ll let the intel community and the counterintelligence community figure that out. I haven’t ruled out anything,” he said.
Goofy. All of it.
Kirby will deliver another briefing from the White House at 1:00pm ET.
Narita’s reasoning appears to be:
Old people must die before young people can have babies.
He’s demented, madhouse material. Just commit to someone of the opposite sex and create families you young, idiotic, self centred chumps. Stop blaming everyone else for your lack of gumption.
I want to know why Philip Lowe is so bad a character, not just incompetent.
Did people think 2% mortgages on interest only loans were going to last forever?
Had one of those ghastly twirly lights die over the weekend. Said twirly was replaced about a year ago.
Remember when we were told that one of the benefits of getting rid of incandescents was that the new ones would last much longer? Another Green lie.
I have had incandescents that have lasted for years, more than two, in one case still going after five when I moved out.
I’ve got a stash of incandescants – started buying them up when the writing was on the wall. Unfortunately, they don’t fit into a lot of new light fixtures.
Another example of why Turnbuckle was a net negative as PM. Grrr.
Sancho Panzer says:
February 14, 2023 at 10:13 am
Old Ozzie at 9:20.
That article rambles all over the shop.
What is the point?
In today’s Western world there is no more common form of self-delusion than for personal or group interests to dress up as moral benevolence.
Self-Destructive Conceit
The contrast between the thinking and temperament of the current U.S. foreign policy establishment and those who designed the U.S. Constitution could not be sharper.
The American Constitution assumed that human beings are flawed and that omniscience is out of the question. No individual or group has a monopoly on truth or virtue. A better society, even a common good, may be possible, but achieving it takes special effort. Specifically, our lower natures have to be contained. Mere partisanship and self-indulgence must be held in check. The Framers set up a system of checks and balances that encouraged genuine deliberation and compromise for the sake of a common good. The other side in a controversy had to be heard. There had to be self-restraint and respect for minorities. The implications of this view of policymaking for foreign relations are obvious. A premium is put on working out differences. Consider the contrast between this prudential, realistic way of dealing with competing interests and the current American assumption that America’s opponents must simply yield.
With regard to Ukraine, Washington has acted as if determined to have Russia simply abandon all its claims or face a proxy war—or more—with the U.S.: this at the expense of the Ukrainians who would do the actual fighting and dying and suffer the destruction of much of their country.
U.S. policymakers seem to be telling themselves that the risk of the conflict spiraling into a horrendous conflagration is morally warranted. Militarily, the European members of NATO are little more than American protectorates, and their leaders, closely intertwined as they are with America’s oligarchic imperial regime, are under permanent pressure to acquiesce to U.S. demands.
Interpreting U.S. policy toward Russia and Ukraine in the last many years as designed to trigger a Russian invasion would attribute to American leaders an extraordinary level of ruthlessness and cynicism, but the result of the invasion has been to strengthen European support for America’s anti-Russia campaign.
Fear and emotion caused by the invasion made European leaders go along with U.S. opposition to European reliance on Russian energy and to other closer ties between Europe and Russia. Important decisions, with far-reaching implications for the future—which should have been made only after calm, lengthy, and thorough deliberation—were instead made hastily and in the midst of the passion of the moment.
One example of major decisions of great significance for particular countries that were made after only the briefest and most superficial discussion is the decision by Sweden and Finland to apply for NATO membership—a subject that would deserve separate treatment. Since the invasion, some European leaders have acted almost as if they lacked all critical and historical distance to the events of the moment and, not least in the case of the sanctions, as if oblivious of possibly disastrous consequences for their respective populations.
Still, the human and economic cost to the Europeans of the war and the sanctions seems insignificant in comparison with the cost to the Ukrainians. It is the people on the ground in that country who are paying the horrendous price for the intransigence and lack of statesmanship of leaders.
On top of all the death, destruction, and dislocation, Ukrainians are now suffering the indignity of foreign investors swooping down to buy up Ukrainian homes, enterprises, buildings, and other assets for pennies on the dollar. How appalling yet familiar this pattern: wars that diplomacy and negotiations should have averted turn out to be, for circling foreign investors, great opportunities for enrichment.
Another disheartening paradox resulting from the lack of statesmanship is that what is for Ukrainians an unmitigated disaster is for the American military-industrial complex another bonanza. In America’s progressively oligarchic and plutocratic culture and system of government, one permanent and major source of bias against statesmanship is the insatiable desire for more defense spending.
To point to American arrogance and inflexibility and shortsighted European complicity is certainly not to approve of Putin as a leader or to excuse his invasion of Ukraine, but it cannot be plausibly denied that American attitudes help explain much of that conduct. He is up against a power that is in the habit of dictating terms to or demonizing opponents and against many leaders who seem to harbor a special resentment towards Russia.
American assertiveness, which is sold to self and others as admirable moral zeal, produces ever-new tensions. The unwillingness to consider the expressly-stated interests of Putin and Russia is a case in point, and has put the world in great danger. The pride of those who direct U.S. foreign policy seems at times to know no bounds, a subject to which this writer has devoted considerable study. The neoconservative and liberal internationalist claim to moral superiority is often frightening in its conceit and in its potential for uncompromising conduct. “Pride goeth before destruction”, says the Bible. “Whom the Gods will destroy they first make mad”, the ancient Greeks believed.
Assuming that reckless, aggressive U.S. leadership does not trigger a world-ending nuclear holocaust, the historians of the future will undoubtedly be astounded by the arrogance and shortsightedness of America’s treatment of Russia.
In a historical situation that calls for the breadth of vision, restraint, give-and-take, and flexibility of statesmanship, all-important decisions are being made by small-minded men and women with bloated and irritable egos.
As someone legally trained (who left pretty much as soon as possible – make a note Groogs) I might offer an opinion. Lawyers tend to get involved at 2 stages, the first theoretical while everyone is trying to reach agreement and the second when everything has gone wrong and people are trying to extricate themselves from whatever mess they have largely created. This gives you a certain world view.
Much of my working life was spent working alongside a highly entrepreneurial boss – at one stage I was the sole employee and didn’t get paid for a few months because there was literally no money coming in. Periodically he would come in and hand me a contract “we need to get out of”. This reflects a common view of what lawyers do.
Beyond a basic understanding of the legal process (which anyone could gain with a weeks work) lawyers have little to offer the political process.
Narita’s reasoning is the State knows best when the regime has like minded people to him.
It can make you happy, prosperous and even annihilate you for your own good.
It is the same stuff argued against by JB Say in France and the arguments collated by Aesop in the classical era.
It’s the consequence of trading obedience to the state to satisfy one’s avarice through the falsehood of abundance by imperial largesse.
House Oversight Committee Chair Questions if Joe Biden Is Compromised
Is the Pope a Catholic? (OK – No with the current Idiot)
House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) expressed “a sense of urgency” on Sunday to find out whether President Joe Biden is compromised by his family’s foreign business dealings in China, Russia, and Ukraine.
“There’s a sense of urgency for our investigation to be able to determine whether or not this administration is compromised,” Comer told the Wall Street Journal.
Comer, who is investigating the Biden family for nine violations, including tax evasion, money laundering, and wire fraud, has sent out demand letters to Hunter and James Biden, demanding their financial records and communications with business associates to ascertain whether their foreign business deals in China have compromised the president. Hunter has rejected the demand, causing Comer to hint at launching a subpoena to compel.
Speaking with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, Comer said he is worried about the security of the nation under the Biden administration in the wake of recent Chinese national security threats.
“China continues to steal our intellectual property. They continue to steal our patents. They manipulate their currency. We believe they have a big footprint in academia with a massive spy ring within our research universities. They continue to steal our hard-earned research and development,” Comer said. “China is a problem.”
“This administration thus far has not set a very good example of standing up to China. I think that shooting the balloon down… is very disturbing,” he added. “Americans are outraged that China flew a balloon over the United States… I think Americans would be outraged to know how much money the Biden family has taken in from China,” Comer said.
Comer’s investigation could ultimately lead to the formulation of stronger ethics and financial disclosure laws to block political families from peddling influence.
Throughout Joe Biden’s political career, the Biden family has conducted business deals with Chinese entities. In one example, according to Hunter’s “Laptop from Hell,” an email revealed a proposed percentage distribution of equity in a company created for a joint venture with CEFC China Energy Co. and the Biden family. The proposed business venture, sent on March 13, 2017, included “10 held by H for the big guy?”
The CEFC deal was between Hunter’s former business partner, Tony Bobulinski, the Biden family, and high-ranking members of the Chinese Communist Party. Bobulinski confirmed “the big guy” was a reference to Joe Biden.
Sort of like designing a giant white elephant on the back of a drinks coaster, eh Mal?
Him weighing in on the Voice rubbish after this new Snowy 2.0 disaster is cute, really cute.
Maybe he likes squirrels, they’re pretty cute too.
I made a Maltese Cross once, poked him in the eye.
Some people need to be protected from themselves.
A Nation of Victims is Doomed to Fail
The obsession with victimhood is destroying our future.
America has become a nation of ‘victims’ and ‘survivors’. Everyone is getting over a ‘trauma’ or ‘processing’. They demand special privileges because of the suffering of their ancestors. They trot out studies which prove that they are somehow disadvantaged. They gorge on self-help books and deploy therapy terminology to accuse everyone else of mistreating them.
Our society has turned into a cross between a Marxist academic conference and therapy session where Marxist terminology like “systemic racism” and therapy talk like “gaslighting narcissist” form key parts of the grammar of perpetual victimhood.
Politics has been reduced to victimhood advocacy and we are worse off for it.
Victims are not good people. Postmodern influencer culture conflates ‘victim’ and ‘survivor’, but they are two very different things.
Survivors are people who pick themselves up and go on. Victims give up and spend the rest of their lives doing nothing except blaming everyone else.
Hardly surprising coming from a self confessed smartest man in the room. Just FOAD.
Railing is all very well, but as I have said before, there are obviously powerful cultural and economic forces at work. Blaming individuals is not going to get us very far.
Rich people have always farmed out childcare (including breastfeeding). The fact is, bearing and raising children is hard and tedious work. We are now in an age where people all over the world are richer, in practical terms, than the aristocrats who farmed out their childcare. Why are we surprised? The only part that isn’t completely outsourced is pregnancy, and as we know, inroads (surrogacy, synthetic wombs) are being made on that as well.
There is no way to turn back the clock. What’s more, on behalf of all those women who produced a baby a year, and the men who had to support them, I’d remind you that the cute family model you espouse had a very short lifespan.
Haha, this one should make it into the next WIP!
Doofus Of The Day #1,104 (13 Feb)
That was a cathartic rail, I’ll have you know! 🙂
My beef was mainly with Narita and the weird shortcut to population growth. The reasons why young people are not having families are complex, but a lot has to do with delayed adulthood. Families have been established in far worse economic conditions than today.
Not sure I would agree with that. From prehistory till the 1970s that was the model.
I don’t think my family model was particularly cute, just normal and functional. Two parents, two kids keeps the population steady, three children for growth. The beneficial social aspects of two parents in residence is pretty well documented too.
There will always be exceptions. I’m not advocating some sort of compulsory Stepford model, just a general principle.
Faith leaders warn future of religious education under threat
14 February 2023
The group – including more than 30 leaders from the Christian, Jewish and Islamic faiths – wrote a letter to Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus yesterday sounding the alarm on a controversial reform proposal put forward in late January by the powerful Australian Law Reform Commission.
Under the ALRC plan, principals would be barred from preferencing the employment of teachers with the same beliefs and spiritual outlook as the educational institution.
I want to know why Philip Lowe is so bad a character, not just incompetent.
Did people think 2% mortgages on interest only loans were going to last forever?
Standard Labor tactic .. fear! .. sack the realist and the replacement will be too subdued to follow thru on any increases ……..
When I said there was something wrong with him I didn’t mean he was a bad person.
Something about the way he conducts himself suggests a deficit of some sort in his personality. I’ve known similar types in professional life and, while high functioning, you wouldn’t put them in a position of such responsibility. I’m not qualified to make diagnoses, though, so I’ll leave it at that.
From the OOT:
My pleasure, C.L. It was probably remiss of me not to post a link as well on the OT. Ryn mentions Jack Matlock, the last US ambassador to the Soviet Union, he recently spoke with Alexander Mercouris and Glenn Diesen, Losing the peace after the Cold War, on the Duran. It’s a very good interview. The discussion elaborates in detail a lot of what is discussed and argued in Ryn’s essay.
The standard economic unit is the family. Which is why it is under constant attack by the Left. Which means salary splitting should be available as of right. Get government out of childcare (and preferably education as well).
We had a Queensland equivalent: the turnoff from the Pacific Highway just south of Beenleigh had an exit sign shared by Yatala Pies and the nearby crematorium.
The humourless bastards at Main Roads took it down for some reason.
Old Ozzie:
Not complex, OO.
Just business as usual, to keep ones place at the top end of the trough – with a side ordering of a chance of nuking the world. “Whatever it takes”.
Roger at 11:07 – leadership is a whole special subject in itself. You would have hoped this was canvassed at the appointment phase. I suspect RBA Governor is like PM, you don’t really know if people can do the job until they have it.
Delayed adulthood goes with affluence.
The family model has undergone many changes since prehistory, in many cultures. The model of a family which could afford to live comfortably and look after all of the kids is hardly the norm.
See above. There has been a brief moment in history which looked like that.
The rest of history is not so pretty.
Mr. Dreyfus may not be as alarmed as the faith leaders, given that he comissioned the ALRC report and set its terms of reference.
The only thing that will prevent him following through with legislation is the prospect of an electoral backlash in Labor’s heartland, western Sydney.
Types such as Lowe are excellent in the back room as part of a team where they have one or more foils.
Correct, Calli.
Millenials are filthy rich and swimming in all the symbols of conspicuous consumption (e.g., $1000+ mobile telephones), yet they’re encouraged to think they’re hard done by.
Buying property is the best way of accumulating personal wealth and financial security, yet millenials are chickening out and living with their parents into their 30s because financial discipline and sacrifice are alien concepts in a lifestyle that demands instant gratification.
Crossie:
Apparently there is film of one of the wagons on fire underneath 20 miles from the derailment site.
Make of it what you will.
(From the TV Video – please sack the anchor woman’s make up artist.)
I think the problem with Phillip Lowe is that he went straight from High School into the RBA and has never held a job anywhere else…
Don’t worry Tom, 800,000 IO mortgages at QE rates will soon be P&I at 8%+.
The honeymoon will be over soon, for some poor folk who were just born in the wrong year.
To continue my points above, how can we compare our society to one where at least one in three children died before age five? Where women died in childbirth?
Anyone who has read Victorian novels know that orphaned children, inheritances and chronic/fatal illness are central themes. It was a different world.
While I deplore a lot of the modern trends with regard to reproduction, stopping the lives of women as brood mares is a major achievement. Those who are angry about The Pill should be consigned to a world of constant nausea, piles, incontinence, constipation and inability to get comfortable. For years.
That certainly hasn’t helped.
“It’s a great report, but it hasn’t been adopted, it’s 300-pages long… it’s not government policy” he said.
That would be the “great report” that mentions funding 3 times in 300 pages.
Arse licking dribbling buffoon.
She does her own! Should have gone to specsavers.
It certainly isn’t, but one of the constants is family, however variously the family unit was conceived (sic!).
He strikes me as a “we had to destroy the village in order to save it” type of ideologue.
Having said that, I do have some sympathy for him, given the situation he’s found himself in. But that doesn’t mean you couldn’t train a monkey to occasionally bash some levers marked “rates up” or “rates down” based on it receiving certain stimuli. Another benefit is that we’d be spared the monkey attempting to explain its courses of action.
Apparently not.
The old bloke in the painting above had two wives, two concubines, twelve sons and one daughter (that we know of). The father of a nation.
They weren’t a particularly happy family. And definitely not a model one.
No one’s perfect. 😀
As I have said, if we want to talk about birthrates, we need to talk about culture.
To me, one of the most startling statistics is that the birthrate in Italy, home of the Vatican, is way below replacement and lower than most of Europe. In the home of opposition to birth control … here we are.
I’m still waiting for anyone here to demand that women have 8, 10, 12 children because it’s God’s will. The ones who decry the Pill. Come on out, fellas!
Know what you’re saying. Given the role of the Reserve Bank and the tools available to them that is pretty much what is required. Given the nature of the Australian economy and its place in the world you could argue whether domestic monetary policy has any impact at all. I expect JC and others will have a view.
I would have liked four children, just to make the battles equal. (We had some doozies.)
The Beloved said No! Fortunately, now they’re all middle aged, the battles are no more. They are more their own nation state with wives, husbands and children tagging along. A formidable trio.
GOP Lawmaker To Ex-Twitter Execs: ‘This Is The Investigation Part, Later Comes The Arrest Part’
forbes
Chaotic government makes People Rage:” Not lower the cost of childbirth but lower moral standards”
China Insights
The mounting demographic pressures have highlighted the fact that the CCP hasn’t done enough to avert what would happen in the coming decades.
In September 2022, China’s National Health Commission held a press conference to brief its work on seniors since November 2012. Data show that China’s senior population over 65 years old reached 191 million in 2020, accounting for 13.5% of the total population. We doubt that the ratio of 13.5%, not 14%, was carefully crafted by the staff because reaching 14% would mean that officially, China was declared to be an aged society. At the same time, the National Health Commission predicted that around 2035, China’s senior population aged 60 and above would exceed 400 million, accounting for more than 30% of the population, i.e. entering the super-aged stage.
Wouldn’t it be fun if it’d been the Liberals who did this? There’d be screeching and wailing from the MSM for weeks and weeks.
Goverment cuts funding for home care support (Sky News, 14 Feb)
Surely, led by the ABC, the MSM will decry these Labor Party heartless bastards picking on poor granny. Surely. I’m almost certain they will.
Ok no, they won’t, especially with the NSW Election so close.
Some people think I shouldn’t be allowed near small children. I give Mad Uncles a bad name.
I reckon that NZ has had one or two bumpy events before, but
s an emergency!
Goverments all over declare ’emergiecies’ so that that they can suspend civil and legislative rights.
I doubt that this is so unusual in The Shaky Isles.
Reporter Asks John Kirby Point Blank: Why Is US Now Shooting Down UFOs?
forbes
That cost of living relief has to come from somewhere. Not many hollow logs left. Or stuff to sell.
What home care support? Been waiting for the tiniest bit for over six months and … nothing. They’d be happy to pay a bit towards the cost.
Meanwhile, in other areas, people twenty years younger are showered with free benefits.
The whole thing is a sham.
most people in Malta speak English because of once being a British colony
Just reading Testament of Youth, by Vera Brittain. She served as a nurse in England, Malta, and on the Western Front in WWI.
A good read, once you get past the rather flowery first quarter, which seems to be mostly taken up with her yearnings – and vice-versa – from her young man, who then went off to the war…
Serious questions:
Will indigenous citizens be spared the cuts to their packages?
Or are there already special provisions, separately administered, for indigenous folk receiving home care packages.
If so, what is the criterion for those provisions, need or race?
Lysandersays:
February 14, 2023 at 11:33 am
I think the problem with Phillip Lowe is that he went straight from High School into the RBA and has never held a job anywhere else…
The majority of Labor politicians went straight from High School into politics via University and have never held a job anywhere else. That’s THE problem.
No one has the data. If there’s mortgage stress this year it will be enlightening if:
Just belt tightening, no more private schooling, sell the cars and get beaters.
Mum and Dad x II help out, hopefully for some there aren’t large extended families.
Supply of labour to more remote work.
Some people start second jobs, side gigs or entirely new businesses. Journeymen for example start hanging out their own shingle.
I can’t see much else but havoc myself because I think people are almost at their limit. They likely have made purchasing decisions for example to get into the right zone for the Catholic school their kids go to. With three kids they might only save 10-20k a year at the non GPS schools. Hmmm.
In the marginal cases (of which there may be hundreds of thousands) that won’t be enough; selling the new chattel mortgages cars will only raise enough cash for a couple of years and that assumes those “assets” exist at all. How many have leases, older mortgages cars or cars several years out of currency now?
I was thinking as I was writing the above, “I’m sure calli will have something to say on this.”
I feel for your parents, calli, not that that will be much consolation.
The Irish Dwarf trying to con former Qantas Staff to come back to work.
The comments are not kind.
Comments re family/families above would be ‘cisgender families’ I guess.
Gray Connolly @GrayConnolly · 3h
Ashfield is in Sydney’s inner west & has a very diverse population, born overseas, young families etc. It is hard to see how, on a hot Sunday in February in the west, far from Sydney’s beaches, a local council could exclude …. “cisgender families”.
https://twitter.com/GrayConnolly/status/1625245266323591169
Not for them and their prog-left ilk!
They’re the new, propertied, intermarrying* Establishment class.
* Just such a case popped up here last night.
I wouldn’t want not to be a cisgender family in Ashfield.
You could get thrown off a tall building.
Hmmm…. Some of pies I’ve had from there have been pretty tough. I must have consumed an octogenarian or two.
Well – I went to the Sydney Convention Centre last night to hear Dr. Peter McCullough, Dr. Pierre Kory (FLCCC) and some surprising others to speak on the Covid vaccination debacle here and overseas. Some of my observations :
The auditorium was at capacity – so, I guess about 2,500 seated. Obviously, most would have been unvaccinated, although I found that some had vaccine injured children or other injured relatives. As you could guess, it was an emotional evening. All knew the cost that the speakers had suffered for speaking publicly of their experience and opinions in lost jobs and curtailed careers. They were all given standing ovations.
Australian GP Dr. Melissa McCann from Qld was the first speaker. She delivered an astonishing account of her experience of treating Covid patients and vaccine injuries. Like most GPs she accepted the initial assurances regarding the vaccine safety profile, but as patients began presenting with alarming subsequent symptoms, she turned to her own investigations of the evidence of clinical trials – past and current – re the novel vaccines. She became convinced that the vaccines should be immediately withdrawn and wrote to the appropriate authorities. Result? Silence and subtle advice to desist.
The address or Dr. Pierre Kory, the celebrated frontline emergency physician and founder of FLCCC, was forceful and so humane. He is the epitome of the caring physician, as you would expect, and scathing in his appraisal of the pharmaceutical giants who did everything they could do eliminate the prospect of employment of effective repurposed drugs in the treatment of Covid.
But everyone was anticipating the appearance of Dr. Peter McCullough, the renown and much published cardiologist who, early in 2020, recognised the disastrous effect of the mRNA vaccines on the heart. This man has unflinchingly devoted all his hours to appealing to government policy makers to repeal the approval for the vaccines. He did not disappoint. He was informative, expert in his analysis, and inspiring in his words.
Then, towards the conclusion, an unexpected (for me at least) figure came to the microphone. It was Clive Palmer. The UAP has sponsored the entire tour of these Covid warriors. He recounted his own encounter with Covid when he was given a forecast of less than a day to live (as we know, he contracted Covid) in a Qld hospital where he was to be put on a ventilator. He said he (forcefully!) declined the ventilator, concluding that he would rather die at home with his wife & son at his side, and was loaded into an ambulance. He then found himself in the company of a young doctor who said he would give him Ivermectin, if he was willing. Of course, he was. He said that within 24 hours he was feeling better, and within the next four days recovered completely. Not surprisingly, he has been a fan of Ivermectin ever since and believes that the medical bureaucracy has failed us all. Craig Kelly spoke in support.
If any of you can obtain a UTube or some such record of he Convention speeches, I highly recommend the speeches. These are exceptional physicians that out so many to shame.
Ok Cats, have been enjoying more of Clarkson’s Farm, so which of the Top Gear “travel series” is best to chase?
Looked up the list, which seems considerable. Mrs TE is more into the travel aspect than the motoring side, so might be best to go there initially to ease her into them. We prefer Clarkson’s sort of humour too.
I forget to mention the address of writer John Leake, who has penned the following as a description of his tour with Kory & McCullough:
Touring Down Under
Many Australians still care about their constitutional protections and liberties.
PETER A. MCCULLOUGH, MD, MPH™
FEB 14
By JOHN LEAKE
For decades I thought Australian guys were the most fearless and freedom loving in the world. I grew up watching the movies of George Miller, Bruce Beresford, and Peter Weir, and their characters (especially Mad Max and Breaker Morant) struck me as the pinnacle of tough guy masculinity. Steve Irwin, Russell Crow, Greg Norman, and the great Australian surfer, Mick Fanning, reinforced this notion.
And then the pandemic struck. One day in April of 2020, while visiting a musician friend at his ranch in West Texas, he received a call from an Australian musician in Sydney. Because my friend was driving, he put the call on speaker, and I was astonished to hear the abject terror in the Aussie rocker’s voice. He seemed to believe that if he caught COVID-19, there was a high probability he would die of it.
“Listen man, I don’t think this thing is all that dangerous,” my friend told him. “I mean, maybe for old-timers, but not for a young guy like you.” After the call concluded, my friend burst out laughing. “That kid is isn’t even thirty! What in hell has happened to the Australians?”
What happened to the Australians is that their government and media relentlessly terrorized them. Nowhere in the previously free world (except maybe Canada) has the State been more brutally paternalistic than in Australia. Nowhere has the State’s playbook been more clear and ruthless:
1). Blitz of media terror. 2). Invoke Emergency Power. 3). Suspend constitutional liberties. 4). Lock everyone up. 5). Bodyslam and blast with rubber bullets anyone who protests the lockdowns. 6). Relentlessly push of the COVID-19 vaccines as the key to safety and freedom. 7). Delist any doctor who publicly questions the safety and efficacy of the gene transfer products.
For the last week, Dr. McCullough and I (along with Dr. Pierre Kory and the courageous Australian doctor, Melissa McCann) have been touring Australia, courtesy of the great businessman and former MP, Mr. Clive Palmer.
Our tour has taught us that many Australians still care about their constitutional protections and liberties. Our fear that everyone Down Under is suffering from Stockholm Syndrome was completely unfounded.
Every event has been sold out, and the excitement and enthusiasm of the audiences has been so great that it has prompted us to coin a new expression for Drs. McCullough, Kory, and McCann—DOC STARS.
Or are there already special provisions, separately administered, for indigenous folk receiving home care packages.
Special, you ask, yep! rooly, rooly special provisions apply!
251s can apply for aged care home packages from the age of 50 .. cos .. wait for it ..!
life expectancy is significantly lower than for the rest of us ..!
And if you don’t believe me go to .. https://www.myagedcare.gov.au/eligibility-checker
and tick the over 50 box for 251/TSI ……….
And I’m betting 251 packages are exempt from any cuts .. standard procedure for most gummint cuts ..
You’ve confirmed my suspicion, shaterzzz.
The face of evil.
Not hyper-bowls either.
Transgender reality star Jazz Jennings’ mom breaks down in tears as she recalls how her daughter was made fun of for ‘acting girly’ in preschool – revealing people would ‘whisper and point’ when they walked into a room
Jeanette Jennings, 56, opens up about Jazz’s childhood on I Am Jazz
Jazz, who was assigned male at birth, transitioned to female in kindergarten
On Tuesday’s episode of the family’s TLC reality series, I Am Jazz, Jeanette Jennings, 56, reflects on the challenges Jazz, 22, faced when she was in preschool in Florida, where she was born and raised.
The trans activist, who was assigned male at birth, started verbalizing that she was a girl as soon as she could speak*. After being diagnosed with gender dysphoria, she transitioned to female when she was in kindergarten.
‘With Jazz, when she was little or, you know, a minor, I was always putting out fires before she got burned. I walked her into preschool, everybody was whispering and pointing fingers and just looking down upon us,’** Jeanette explains in a preview clip shared by People.
…
‘I held my hand high and held my child’s hand and I said, “We’re going to go in there and don’t care what the other kids think and it doesn’t matter what the parents think. You’re special. You’re unique. You’re you and I’m so proud of you and I’m so proud to be your mom,” and I’m saying this to a four-year-old.’***
…
The episode features footage of Jeanette speaking on behalf of transgender children like Jazz at a TransAction | Equality Florida rally.
‘There’s going to be a board meeting today to decide whether gender-affirming care will be allowed in the state of Florida,’ she explains. ‘And they need someone to speak on behalf of the kids and support hormone blockers and I’m that person.’****
…
‘Jazz herself has told us if she was forced to go through male puberty, she would have taken her life. As a young child, she would have nightmares about having facial hair.*****
*Lie
** Id say the reference to her feelings in this is a massive red flag.
*** All about mum again.
**** Shes all for turning kids into mutilated simulacrums of the opposite sex. Castrati and post menopausal teenagers.
***** But totally fine with being chemically stunted, castrated and having its cock turned inside out.
Don’t count your chickens just yet, Aussie lobster farmers.
Tucker Carlson used “corollary” in a statement. A term not used enough.
Lucky Luigi a working corollary.
-Albo is an idiot.
-All Albo’s policies are therefore idiotic.
“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained”
? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956
HBBear:
No.
Some people need to be aware their main function in society is to be the person others point at and laugh. Ridicule is a powerful moderator of stupidity.
preferencing minorities because you’re on the alphabet bandwagon – good
preferencing mainstream because you believe in traditional faiths – bad
As with most of these things, the ALRC plan will just need to bump up against a Muslim school to see how well it’ll fly.
.. not so much ‘intersectionality’ as ‘collision’
Watermelons doing what they do best.
Providing cover for Luigi the inconceivable to enact his wildest Trot dreams.
Greens party room agrees to support housing fund – with terms
The Greens are a qualified yes on the government’s future housing fund legislation, with the party room agreeing to a set of key negotiation aims that include:
A minimum of $5bn invested in social and affordable housing every year (indexed to inflation) and removing the $500m cap
A national plan for renters, including the prime minister putting a national freeze on rent increases on the national cabinet agenda and an immediate doubling of commonwealth rent assistance in the budget
$1bn investment in remote Aboriginal housing over five years
All housing funded through the fund should meet minimum inclusive design standards (liveable housing Australia silver)
The Greens also want some operational issues changed, like adding a definition of affordable housing. From its release:
The government has claimed the fund will finance the construction of 30,000 social and affordable homes over five years, which actually see the shortage of social and affordable housing continue to grow. Australia has a shortage of 640,000 social and affordable homes. That shortage will grow by 75,000 in five years.
The Greens continue to also have serious concerns about the $500m spending cap that will see real term cut in spending on housing every year.
Max Chandler-Mather said there are still serious concerns, but there needs to be action on housing:
The Greens have serious concerns about a housing plan that will literally see the housing crisis get worse than it is now, and so we will seek to negotiate in good faith with the Labor government.
Labor’s centrepiece housing legislation locks in permanent real-term cuts to housing funding, does nothing for renters and will see the shortage of social and affordable housing grow, seeing the housing crisis get worse.
Freezing rent increases and doubling commonwealth rent assistance will ensure we provide immediate relief to the millions of households in serious financial stress as a result of soaring rents.
Rather than gambling $10bn on the stock market and investing sporadic returns capped at $500m, the Greens want to see a minimum $5bn invested in social and affordable housing every year.
If the government had introduced their housing plan last year, it could have seen a $120m loss through the Future Fund and literally zero dollars spent on housing. Why should people in need of social and affordable housing be forced to rely on a volatile stock market to receive what should be a basic right?
A $5bn investment every year could fund hundreds of thousands of good-quality public homes over the next decade, clearing the wait lists and ensuring we actually tackle the scale of the housing crisis.
With over 20% of First Nations people living in overcrowded homes, a $1bn capital investment will help address the shocking inequality in housing outcomes in this country.
Ultimately the Greens are standing on behalf of the millions of people this bill leaves behind, whether they are homeless, stuck on social housing waitlists or struggling to pay the rent, and will fight to make sure Labor doesn’t forget them.
Indeed; but it’s not aimed at them.
How many out & proud teachers want to work in an Islamic college?
Umm – somebody want to explain to the Greens WHY “First Nations” peoples live in overcrowded houses?
Not unusual though. To often it takes an outsider to play the “bad guy”.
Wodger:
The three faiths have a powerful weapon to use against recalcitrant politicians – the votes of their congregations. I don’t know about Judaism and Islam, but excommunicating certain politicians who take advantage of their congregations while undermining the Church’s teachings would at least let the scoundrels know the free kicks at the Church are over, and that the Church will bite back.
Further to my comment upthread:
Archbishop Fisher leads opposition to Federal education reform proposals
Alongside Archbishop Fisher and his Anglican and Orthodox counterparts, Catholic bishops Peter Comensoli, Archbishop of Melbourne, and Maronite Bishop Antoine-Charbel Tarabay also signed.
The letter also attracted signatures from the National Imams Council, Islamic Council of Victoria and Islamic Schools Association of Australia, and from Peter Wertheim AM, the co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.
Leaders of the Seventh-day Adventists, Presbyterians, Hillsong, the Baptists, the Australian Christian Churches, Copts, Assyrian Church of the East, Australian Christian Lobby, NSW Council of Churches and other groups joined the most significant revolt of religious groups to a government proposal in recent history.
johanna – that’s a heartbreaking story, not because of the death (which is tragic), but the shattered family that the mother seems unable to be a part of any more. She needs some serious help.
I have seen one like this a while ago, chilling in the extreme.
Background: Mother and daughter, father probably abused daughter, mother sort of “knew” but was in denial.
Daughter killed herself, mother split from father and spent the rest of her life pining for daughter.
Me and my ex went and visited her, as my ex (who was her friend) said she didnt sound “right”.
Nice older lady, pics of daughter everywhere and quite sad and reserved i thought.
We stayed the night, when i had a shower I got out to have a shave and on the mirror was a heap of writing drawn in the steam from lady.
“Why didnt you tell me”
“Im sorry”
“I love you”
“I will always be with you”
etc etc..
Real hackles on the back of the neck/goose walking across the grave stuff.
I mentioned it to my ex who said she saw it as well.
3 months later the old duck was dead, cancer. She was crook but didnt see a Dr until she was near death- almost certainly deliberately.
A life destroyed by grief (and a shit of a man)
Headline in today’s West Australian
“Bail denied for a man who brought a shotgun to a fist fight..”
Zipster:
If I were these four defendants, I’d be looking for safe harbour in a foreign country. One that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the US. Like North Korea.
HBBear:
That’s my role in our extended family.
The usual reply to my escapades from the grown up kids is “What’s he done now?”
Whenever I read TWIP, I go to the comments just to see what memes people have added.
I liked this.
Hearing Breaks Down After Marjorie Taylor Greene Interrupts Democrat To Confront Ex-Twitter Exec
forbes
Chaotic government makes People Rage:” Not lower the cost of childbirth but lower moral standards”
China Insights
The mounting demographic pressures have highlighted the fact that the CCP hasn’t done enough to avert what would happen in the coming decades.
In September 2022, China’s National Health Commission held a press conference to brief its work on seniors since November 2012. Data show that China’s senior population over 65 years old reached 191 million in 2020, accounting for 13.5% of the total population. We doubt that the ratio of 13.5%, not 14%, was carefully crafted by the staff because reaching 14% would mean that officially, China was declared to be an aged society. At the same time, the National Health Commission predicted that around 2035, China’s senior population aged 60 and above would exceed 400 million, accounting for more than 30% of the population, i.e. entering the super-aged stage.
A good slap would have sorted out that manipulative, abusive and selfish behaviour.