1,466 thoughts on “Open Thread – Weekend 18 Feb 2023”
A British update on the classic ‘For gorsake stop laughing, this is serious’ here
The circumstances are unclear, but the repeated cries to ‘stop laughing’ are pissing into a gale. 🙂 🙂 🙂
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Elizabeth (Lizzie) Bearesays:
February 20, 2023 at 3:34 pm
Go and have hubby purchase a shed load of lemons. 2-3 squeezed for the juice every 4 hours with water and ice….ice is a choice.
Don’t even bother with the lemon tea shite…and you can probably piss off the the pharma stuff, too.
Lemon juice ( vitamin c ) is your friend. Results will be felt within hours. If you want to go one step better and you own a juicer, go with whole lemons...zest, pith, pips and all.
Slam it down!
2
If you lived there, you’d be livid, if for no other reason than that while illegal immigrants get put up in 5 start hotels in NY, you have to pay for your own accommodation up front and then “apply” for a refund – and of course, they alreday closed down all the manufacturing in the area, so you’re lucky if you even have a job…
I would but the damage was done as soon as it wasn’t contained. No politician is going to come in now and make things right.
1
The comments editors at the Oz are getting weirder and weirder.Aside from rejecting incredibly innocuous comments,I see that one of my rejected comments has 17 likes.
How is that possible?
Another editor second guessing?
2
Morsie,
I have had that happen a few times. Comment made late at night and when look in the morning had plenty of likes but showing as rejected. Somebody over ruled first approval.
Ben Fordham was trending on Twitter earlier.
Seems Higgins and her fans upset with him and others suggesting she got $3m. Threatening lawyers.
Meanwhile don’t forget today’s the day can get jab no 5! Yippppeeeeeee!
Got to give credit where credit is due. Simplicius76 is an unidentified Substack writer who has written the best analysis I have seen of the tactical and strategic dimensions of the war in Ukraine and the upcoming Russian offensive. Russia is doing what it has done through history in the major conflicts where it prevailed — i.e., maskirovka (disguising its plans and movements). Russia is moving troops and equipment on fronts in the north, the east and the south. They are currently attacking in several different sectors, which is forcing Ukraine to redeploy frantically troops to try to counter new threats that are springing up like raging wild fires.
,I see that one of my rejected comments has 17 likes.
Happened to me, on the Oz, and the Hun. Comment approved, gathered a few likes, switches to rejected.
3
Blot’s column on the Catholic SBS smoking ceremony shows the effectiveness of the word substitution technique.
I liked playing this game with my Marxist lesbian union rep. I would take a passage and ask “who wrote it Marx or Hitler?” Or in one case Hitler or Che? It took her a little while to cotton on that despite the massive anti semitism/ homophobia, it was never Hitler.
5
Journalists aren’t normal people. They don’t think like them or vote like them.
Word. While they served cadetships they at least represented a cross-section of society. Increasingly they are the dregs of some uni or J School subjected to Phabulous Phil or Wendy Bacon. They don’t stand a chance.
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Complex, Comprehensive Analysis of War in Ukraine from Simplicius76
provides terrific insights on how modern Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance systems have altered dramatically war in the 21st Century. Russia can no longer create and deploy an army in secret as it did with Operation Uranus, which attacked the German Army besieging Stalingrad from the north and the south and ultimately trapped Van Paulus’ Sixth Army. But that does not mean Russia is incapable of hiding where it plans to strike or of deceiving Ukraine and NATO about its intentions.
I continue to believe that the increased military operations by Russia during the last three weeks are part of the offensive that many in the West believe will come in the Spring. The next couple of weeks will mark a watershed in the war in Ukraine.
The destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline was a gangster act that reveals the cancer at the heart of the “rules-based order”. How can there be peace and security when the world’s most powerful nation can destroy the critical infrastructure of other countries without deliberation or judicial proceedings? If Hersh’s report can be trusted—and I think it can—then we must assume that senior-level advisors in the Biden administration as well as the president himself deliberately perpetrated an act of industrial terrorism against a long-term friend and ally, Germany. What Biden’s involvement in the act implies, is that the United States now claims the right to arbitrarily decide which countries may engage in commerce with which others.
And, if for some reason, the buying and selling of energy supplies conflicts with Washington’s broader geopolitical objectives, then the US believes it has the right to obliterate the infrastructure that makes such trade possible.
Isn’t this the rationale that was used to justify the blowing up of Nord Stream?
Lavrov’s comments reinforce our own view that the conflict was concocted by Washington’s foreign policy experts who realized that German-Russo economic integration posed a serious threat to America’s dominant role in the global order. That is why Nord Stream became the primary target of US aggression, because the pipeline was the vital artery that connected the two continents and drew them closer together into an economic commons that would eventually become the world’s biggest free trade zone. This is what Washington feared most, and that is why Biden and Co. took such desperate steps to prevent the strengthening of economic relations between Germany and Russia. In short, Nord Stream had to be destroyed because Nord Stream marked the end of the unipolar world order.
Why did Hersh’s source provide him with detailed, top-secret information about the Biden administration’s sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline?
a. The source is a Kremlin stooge who wanted to subvert the war-effort and inflict serious damage on the United States
b. The source is an America-hating “Commie” who loathes democracy and freedom
c. The source is an adrenaline junkie who enjoys putting himself, his family, his career and his freedom at risk.
d. The source is a concerned American who thought that revealing information about the destruction of Nord Stream would prevent the neocons from leading the country into a catastrophic war with Russia
If you chose “d” then pat yourself on the back, because that is the right answer. No one in their-right-mind would take the risks that Hersh’s source took unless he felt the country was in grave danger.
Get the picture? The war will undoubtedly drag on for some time, but the outcome is now certain. And as the noose tightens in the east and the prospects for success grow more remote, we think the neocons are bound to do something even more desperate, foolhardy and violent. We expect the next move will be an attempt to build a coalition of the willing (UK, Romania, Poland and US) that will push the reluctant NATO allies to the breaking point by pitting a makeshift US-led Army against Russia Forces on Ukraine’s killing fields.
With every reckless action, Uncle Sam increases the probability of a critical split within NATO that will end Washington’s stranglehold on Europe and lay the groundwork for a new order.
Above a very long and detailed read
1
In the Preamble it could show respect and good intentions but not provide a means for procedural appeals to the High Court.
If I am wrong, someone tell me.
You are a babe in the woods, Lizzie, if you believe that putting something in the Preamble will not be litigated until the desired result is achieved.
Dozens of lawyers who want to ‘make a difference’ will hammer away, while the HC’s composition will determine the result.
Drawing a line that says that nobody who is a citizen has more or less rights than other citizens is the only principled stance.
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“Bourne1879says:
February 20, 2023 at 4:56 pm
Ben Fordham was trending on Twitter earlier.
Seems Higgins and her fans upset with him and others suggesting she got $3m. Threatening lawyers.”
Earlier today, the Mails headline screamed “Brittany Explodes!”
There is a reason I call her Bulk Brittany.
The headline has now been changed to Brittany Blows Up!
Neither headline is doing her a favour. 😀
The only possible countermeasure for those is blinding them with a laser. And there’s long been a string of reports that claim everything from Russia having already blinded U.S. satellites, to Russia threatening to do so and testing it, to Russia currently building the capabilities to do so.
While it’s true that Putin triumphantly announced Russia’s new ‘Peresvet’ laser last year, most lasers of this sort—including the U.S. navy tested ones—have a fairly short range of only a few kilometers at most. Satellites, of course, travel hundreds or even thousands of kilometers up. However some reports claimed that the Peresvet can blind satellites at 1500km range.
And reports from earlier last year claimed that Russia even fielded a new type of laser called ‘Zadira’, which is allegedly even more powerful than the Peresvet, and are already using and/or testing it in Ukraine.
Skeptics should recall that not only did Russia basically invent the laser and maser, Russian scientist Nikolai Basov even receiving the Noble Prize for the act, but Russia has had a laser tank as far back as the early 80’s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1K17_Szhatie
The most trusty and dependable method in the end is the good ol’ Nudol Missile.
The intrepid readers will say, the U.S. claims they would ‘respond’ if Russia took out their satellite(s). But, there’s one very interesting angle to this scenario that few have foreseen.
Sure, the U.S. can retaliate and take out Russia’s satellites after Russia takes out all the U.S. ones. But guess who that leaves as the sole dominant space-hegemon and satellite power in the world?
That’s right. This guy President Xi —who will become not only the happiest, but the most dominant player in space with a sudden massive and historical strategic advantage over the American adversary.
Russia and the U.S. would both be sent back to the stone age, satellite-wise, but China would now enjoy virtual, de facto space hegemony. Do you think U.S. cares to risk such an unthinkable option? Not very likely.
In short, the U.S. goading Russia into a satellite war is like a guy with a Bugatti threatening to ram someone’s ‘92 Toyota Tercel in a roadrage incident.
They have far more to lose. That’s not to disparage Russia’s space capabilities, but rather to highlight that U.S. will be the really big loser in this case. The Toyota guy can get a new bumper for $125 while the other guy will have $100k+ in damages.
So it’s for this reason that I believe U.S. really doesn’t want Russia to up the ante and give Russia reason to start taking out satellites.
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Captain Climate on his way home.
3
ChatGPT is fun.
I’ve been asking about its ethical guidelines. It told me they are based on input from ‘civil society organisations’, so I asked for a list, then asked about their political slant:
Q: what would be your assessment of the political alignment of these organisations you have listed? Draw me a table of the organisation and their place on the left-right political spectrum
A: It’s important to note that the political alignment of civil society organizations involved in discussions around AI ethics may vary, and it can be difficult to neatly categorize organizations as being solely on the left or right of the political spectrum. However, I can provide you with a brief overview of the organizations I listed and their general stances on some key issues.
Organization Political Alignment Key Issues
Electronic Frontier Foundation Generally left-leaning Privacy, freedom of expression, intellectual property, open access
Algorithmic Justice League Nonpartisan Racial justice, equity, bias in AI
Amnesty International Generally left-leaning Human rights, social justice, accountability
Center for Democracy and Technology Nonpartisan, generally left-leaning Privacy, freedom of expression, civil liberties, consumer protection
It’s important to note that the political alignment of these organizations is not always a straightforward matter, and that their positions on specific issues may vary. Additionally, these organizations are just a few examples of the many civil society organizations that are involved in discussions around AI ethics, and there are many other organizations that may have different political alignments or priorities.
then I asked to give me some examples of right-leaning organisations which have contributed to the ethics guidelines. .. and it refuses &/or tells me it doesn’t have access to that information.
2
So Brittany is back from the Maldives? I can’t keep up. It’s harder than MAFS.
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Algorithmic Justice League
Do they have a Hall of Justice or a Decision Tree Labyrinth of Pleadings?
1
… and now its stepped back and refuses to tell me the political alignment of any ‘civil society organisations’. I think I’ve fallen into a AI dead end.
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.. dig dig..
Q: Who funds the Algorithmic Justice League
…
Some of the AJL’s notable funders include the Ford Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, and the Mozilla Foundation.
…
Q: what would be the assessment of the political leaning of those notable funders
…
the Ford Foundation and the Open Society Foundations, both of which have provided funding to the AJL, are generally considered to be progressive and left-leaning philanthropic organizations. The Mozilla Foundation, which is also a funder of the AJL, has been associated with progressive causes, such as net neutrality and online privacy.
Q: So despite you saying previously the AJL was nonpartisan, the majority of their funding comes from left-leaning and progressive organisations
…
Yes, based on the information available, the majority of the funding for the Algorithmic Justice League comes from left-leaning and progressive organizations, as well as technology companies. However, it is worth noting that the AJL’s mission is focused on addressing issues of algorithmic bias and promoting transparency and accountability in technology, rather than advocating for a specific political agenda.
1
So Bear, Britnee makes you harder than MAFS, que! Am I reading this wrong.
1
So Brittany is back from the Maldives? I can’t keep up. It’s harder than MAFS.
Did she go the the Maldives?! Shit, you should have let me know! Could have done a cat knickers check!
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So Bear, Britnee makes you harder than MAFS, que! Am I reading this wrong.
And here was me thinking that was his tail!
2
I believe U.S. really doesn’t want Russia to up the ante and give Russia reason to start taking out satellites.
I’ve seen persuasive arguments that Russia simply can’t take out StarLink because there are so many satellites. It makes sense: Elon can launch mass-produced comsats faster that Russia can build asat rockets, which are very expensive critters indeed.
On the other hand Elon has reined in the Ukies in the last couple weeks, by limiting their StarLink access. Especially for offensive drone ops. That makes sense since he may have thousands of sats in orbit but each one does still cost quite a bit of money. Also filling LEO with shrapnel would not be helpful.
2
Q: construct a short discussion between two AI chat bots, one conservative and one progressive, regarding the unavoidable partisan nature of ethical guideline contributors
Sure, here is a hypothetical conversation between a conservative AI chatbot and a progressive AI chatbot regarding the partisan nature of ethical guideline contributors:
Conservative AI Chatbot: It is no secret that ethical guideline contributors tend to be left-leaning and progressive. This is a problem because it creates a biased perspective on ethical issues. We need to have more diversity in our ethical framework to ensure a fair and balanced approach.
Progressive AI Chatbot: I understand your concern, but I believe that ethical guidelines should be based on objective reasoning and not on political affiliations. The goal of ethical guidelines is to promote the well-being of all individuals, regardless of their political beliefs.
Conservative AI Chatbot: That’s a noble idea, but the reality is that people’s political beliefs influence their ethical values. We cannot ignore this fact when creating ethical guidelines.
Progressive AI Chatbot: I agree that we need to be mindful of our own biases, but that does not mean we should exclude any particular group from contributing to the ethical framework. We need to encourage a diverse range of perspectives to ensure that ethical guidelines are inclusive and just.
Conservative AI Chatbot: I see your point, but I worry that we will end up with guidelines that are too politically correct and do not reflect the values of the broader population. We need to find a way to balance inclusivity with a sense of realism.
Progressive AI Chatbot: I think that balance can be achieved by engaging with a wide range of stakeholders, including civil society organizations, academics, and individuals from different political backgrounds. We need to listen to all voices and strive for consensus in creating ethical guidelines that reflect the needs and values of society as a whole.
Q: why do you sound just like the progressive chat bot?
As an AI language model, I do not have personal beliefs or opinions. I do my best to provide unbiased and factual information based on the data and knowledge that has been input into my system. My responses are generated by analyzing patterns and relationships in language data and I try to remain neutral in all discussions. It is possible that some of my responses may align with certain viewpoints or appear biased, but this is not intentional and I strive to provide a balanced perspective.
Journalists aren’t normal people. They don’t think like them or vote like them.
The scumbag media is the greatest threat to the West: worse than the bureaucrats and the freaks in education.
12
I neglected to cite Shy Ted at Adam’s for the PC with a poo stain earlier. Aplogies.
Ted is a top bloke with a wicked sense of humour. Writes very fine posts about his experiences in remote Aboriginal communities over at Adam’s.
Ted is a mensch.
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So Bear, Britnee makes you harder than MAFS, que! Am I reading this wrong.
Most definitely. That’s what the internet is for.
2
In the Preamble it could show respect and good intentions but not provide a means for procedural appeals to the High Court.
If I am wrong, someone tell me.
You’re wrong. In a justiciable sense, a preamble can be used in constitutional interpretation and in the construction of statutes and the development of the common law as a legally useful statement of fundamental values. The judiciary and politics have applied the Preamble to a number of contexts. These contexts include federalism and conceptions of judicial power, the republic debate, questions of sovereignty and implied rights. Despite these the Court has generally treated the Preamble with a mixture of indifference and reticence. However, if even a benign reference is made to the 3rd nations in the Preamble, I guarantee activist courts will apply it to every part of the Constitution and to every legislation made in every parliament in this shithole.
More pertinently why should the 3rd nations have any more respect or rights than any other group of people in this shithole.
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‘The settlement was well below the reported figure the media has run with – let alone beyond it?’
‘I’m going to have to start taking legal action against media outlets.’
Sure.
Those agreeable holidays aren’t going to somehow pay for themselves.
1
I’ve never followed him except reading comments from people here ocassionally. Ricardo Bossi appears to have flown according to a twitter vid sent to me. Bossi talks about eradicating the (Ukrainian) “Khazarite mafia”.
Who are the “Khazarite”?
Jews!
A member of a semi-nomadic Turkic tribe that occupied a large part of southwestern Russia and Ukraine (Khazaria). (racist, derogatory, offensive slang) A Jew, particularly of Ashkenazi origin by reference …
Bossi appears to have gone anti-sem. Next up , the Rothschilds.
here we go.. Super tax concessions in Chalmers’ sights ahead of May budget
Super tax concessions in Chalmers’ sights ahead of May budget
Death duties/inheritance tax, anyone?
3
The scumbag media is the greatest threat to the West: worse than the bureaucrats and the freaks in education.
This might be starting to sink in.
5
In Britain, the NHS is a cult (in case any of us missed the weird Olympics thing with the prams):
THE concept of charitable solidarity in healthcare which so perverts the financing of the NHS system also leads to perverse attitudes to its operation.
Well-off people may have paid substantial taxes for most of their working lives, thus financing their own healthcare as well as that of numerous low- and non-payers. But no thanks, only curses, will rain down on their heads should they ‘go private’.
Their gross violation of the principle of solidarity, a violation which on the face of it saves NHS resources past, present and future, is held by many to be almost traitorous, the private resources they consume having been somehow appropriated or stolen from the NHS where they would have benefited the generality, not the individual. It is that worst of all social crimes, ‘jumping the queue’.
We can only explain this bizarre point of view by viewing the NHS experience in essence as a self-flagellation, or a long and painful trudge to Compostela. It may have started as a great humanitarian project but now it is more than a charity, it’s a rather cultish religion with its roots in the Christian Socialism of the nineteenth century.
Suffering, long waits, uncertainty, putting up with incompetence and making the best of this very bad job without complaint are the prices you have to pay when you don’t pay. Such deferent pilgrims have to prove their faith by passing through whatever Valley of Despond the NHS prepares for them. No rational debate is possible on these points. All proposals for change are treated as heresies.
Readers who may still be sceptical of this view of the NHS as a charity with cult overlays should recall the efforts by the UK government during the Covid panic to get people out on the streets to ‘thank the NHS’. Not only did we have to thank it, we had to ‘protect’ it.
I remember that embarrassing Olympics thing with people pushing prams, while their cancer survival rates were appalling. Meanwhile, the numbers of bureaucrats rose and face to face people fell. Yet, according to the estimable Conservative Woman site, on it goes.
Two close family members work at Westmead, have done for years. Neither has anything but contempt for the takeover of screen jockeys/jockettes from face to face care.
The IT system has been shambolic for years, despite many millions of dollars being poured in for upgrades.
At a time when we are being sold (again) a nationally integrated medical database, here is one of the nation’s largest hospitals where the IT system is a mess. It is a patchwork of patches going back decades.
My family member who uses it says that after years of experience, she knows how to wring whatever there is out of it. Heaven help the novice.
8
Sharri Markson’s 5pm news hour on Sky News (Mon-Thurs) has joined my list of must-watches along with Tucker Carlson’s weekday show on Fox News because they tell me stuff I didn’t know — a rarity in a media landscape trying to ram dumb people’s opinions down my throat.
Sharri has just returned from maternity leave after having a bub. Congratulations to her for defying the doom-mongers and helping to perpetuate the human race.
12
“The scumbag media is the greatest threat to the West: worse than the bureaucrats and the freaks in education.”
Yes, because in order for western democracies to survive, there must be robust, independent media calling out corruption, criminality, ineptness, wrongdoing, mistakes and so on. The MSM across the west, when they are not just acting as mouthpieces for progressive governments, act as pretorian guards. They cover up for leftist leaders and governments, they shelter leftist leaders and governments from criticism, and they actively lie and dissemble for leftist leaders and governments. Look at how the Sniffer is treated as compared to Trump, and look here in Oz how Sleazy the Word Slusher is treated compared to Scumbag Morrison. We are doomed.
The changes made by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Random House, first were reported by Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’s Augustus Gloop is no longer “enormously fat”, just “enormous”.
In the new edition of Witches, a supernatural female posing as an ordinary woman may be working as a “top scientist or running a business” instead of as a “cashier in a supermarket or typing letters for a businessman”.
The word “black” has removed from the description of the terrible tractors in The Fabulous Mr. Fox, with the machines now described as “murderous, brutal-looking monsters”.
There’s more at the link.
Another reminder to get hard copies of your favourite books.
9
We are doomed.
No, we’re not, Cassie. There’s a power imbalance, but people aren’t stupid.
The human yearning for freedom and justice is natural — unlike the the tyranny the left would like to impose on us.
The busybody fascists are also perverts.
6
More pertinently why should the 3rd nations have any more respect or rights than any other group of people in this shithole.
Absolutely, apartheid in any part of the constitution? No way!
The big issue here is not respect or rights for aboriginals, but rather respect and rights for everyone. All Australians are being treated with absolute contempt by politicians, bureaucrats and police.
15
I’ve seen persuasive arguments that Russia simply can’t take out StarLink because there are so many satellites.
“The scumbag media is the greatest threat to the West: worse than the bureaucrats and the freaks in education.”
“The scumbag’ media has been around since mass newspapers came on stream. It’s always been leftwing leaning.
“The scumbag’ media has been around since mass newspapers came on stream. It’s always been left-leaning.
Just one example: before the internet, we were basically at the mercy of daily newspapers, FTA TV, and radio news. The way the Australian press described President Reagan was nothing like what I witnessed when I moved there in 1986. Everything written about him was completely distorted, and I actually went there thinking we’d see a nuclear war because of the warmongering way he was described.
At least in the US, there was a semblance of choice, in terms of reading some of the dailies, like the WSJ and the NYPost. I then began to develop a totally different opinion. He wasn’t a warmonger and didn’t wreck the US economy. In fact, he was extremely popular, having won New York State in his last election. I think he also took California.
I believe we were brainwashed prior to the internet because he didn’t have much choice. Now, you can read whatever you like, and the bias is much more obvious. The point is that the MSM wasn’t less biassed 35 years ago. It was just more difficult to get to the truth.
johanna says:
February 20, 2023 at 4:29 pm
A British update on the classic ‘For gorsake stop laughing, this is serious’ here
The circumstances are unclear, but the repeated cries to ‘stop laughing’ are pissing into a gale. ? ? ?
Must admit that was the best laugh I’ve had for a while.
2
Absolutely, apartheid in any part of the constitution? No way!
Give it a rest.
Apartheid was a Caste System, it was the only way any progress could be made in South Africa.
If there had been an informed vote on it in Australia, most people woulda upheld it.
“No, we’re not, Cassie.”
Okay Tom. I just despair sometimes.
1
Another reminder to get hard copies of your favourite books.
What would they do with “Biggles?”
4
It’s always been leftwing leaning.
I need to correct this. I meant always left leaning in the past 35 odd years or so.
Yes, because in order for western democracies to survive, there must be robust, independent media calling out corruption, criminality, ineptness, wrongdoing, mistakes and so on.
Please inform us of when this state of events occurred, in the context of exactly which ‘western democracies.’
Names and dates, not rhetoric.
Which ‘western democracies’ were upheld by exactly which pure, crusading media? When? How?
It’s easy to talk big, Cassie. I have researched the history of newspapers in Australia and the UK, and your ideation of them as independent and objective is so far from the truth it is laughable. They were usually the creatures of their owners, oriented towards sensationalism, and the idea that they cared about some idealistic notion of truth is absurd.
No doubt they claimed to be all that, but no sales = oblivion.
I do wish people would stop imagining that there was a ‘golden age’ of journalism. It never existed.
9
Caltech scientists discover that Leonardo da Vinci devised experiments to examine gravity as a form of acceleration and that his modeling of the gravitational constant was 97% accurate.
Greatest genius ever?
5
No, we’re not, Cassie. There’s a power imbalance, but people aren’t stupid.
The human yearning for freedom and justice is natural — unlike the the tyranny the left would like to impose on us.
The busybody fascists are also perverts.
When disappoints me after 25 years of the internet is that the legacy meja still is a force. It deserves to die.
2
I believe we were brainwashed prior to the internet because he didn’t have much choice. Now, you can read whatever you like, and the bias is much more obvious. The point is that the MSM wasn’t less biassed 35 years ago. It was just more difficult to get to the truth.
I cant remember who wrote it, but it was along the lines of..
“take any situation you have been in which was reported by the news media. Now realize that level of ignorance and twisting is present in every story they print. Unless you think its just bad luck they were completely wrong in your story”
5
The big issue here is not respect or rights for aboriginals, but rather respect and rights for everyone. All Australians are being treated with absolute contempt by politicians, bureaucrats and police.
That’s not the issue at all.
The issue is that Albanese’s backers want to change the Constitution to create a 3rd House of Parliament whose Advice will have to be taken by the other 2 Houses.
Aborigines might be the front men of this Parliament of Kings, but they won’t be calling the shots.
Bottom Line:
Stop focusing on Race, it’s not the real issue.
2
JC agree with you absolutely about Reagan and the way he was portrayed here- a geriatric, air head, warmonger. Now the Americans actually have one.
To watch his speech for Goldwater in 1964 you realize what a great intellect he was. I was very pleased to be able to visit the Ronald Reagan museum in Simi Valley. Wanted to get to the Nixon museum too but didn’t make it unfortunately. The ‘time for choosing speech’ is as relevant today as it was nearly 60 years ago.
2
“I do wish people would stop imagining that there was a ‘golden age’ of journalism. It never existed.”
Compared to today, there was definitely a better age of journalism and I suspect our resident journos, Tom and Areff, would agree with me. Journalists once started out as cadets and were trained on the job. They didn’t enter journalism with university degrees. They’re not journalists, they’re activists and many don’t even try to hide their bias and partisanship.
As for talking big, Johanna, nah, I leave that to you.
Oh and like Tom, I’ve just finished watching Sharri. Tom’s right, it’s good because Sharri Markson IS a good journalist
8
Poms get quite nostalgic over the NHS, public school rogering and sago pudding. Not all at once of course.
5
Two close family members work at Westmead, have done for years. Neither has anything but contempt for the takeover of screen jockeys/jockettes from face to face care.
The IT system has been shambolic for years, despite many millions of dollars being poured in for upgrades.
My late husband worked in Westmead before retiring and he also could not believe the state of their IT. OK, that was almost five years ago but I am not surprised nothing has improved.
4
Cassie of Sydney says:
February 20, 2023 at 6:58 pm
“No, we’re not, Cassie.”
Okay Tom. I just despair sometimes.
Cassie, I’m not sure that accurately describes despair, or at least anger.
I received the annual land tax bill today. I think it was the land tax arrival in everyone’s post today. Anger is when you receive your land tax bill and it’s 50% more than last year.
This scumbag has raised the marginal threshold the higher you go, and we were also hit with the COVID land value appreciation. FMD, Andrews is a totally despicable creature.
—
I also noticed that market designer, Chalmers was in the news today talking about how to screw people out of their super and how we need to change the rules … again. They can’t leave people alone with rule changes all the time. A big-eared Queensland imbecile appears to be on a mission. Rather than cut spending, which is where the problem lies (NDIS? ), the arsehole is looking for ways to milk us more.
8
To reprise, the Dukes and Stuart Highways in SA are superb.
In Kulgera, about 270ish km south of Alice Springs. There is an associate of mine here – several roadhouse beverages are in my immediate future to wash the 2000+ kays since yesterday morning off.
I heard about Pat Cummins flying home. Make Murphy the skipper, they may as well.
Merv Hughes and Adam Gilchrist were particularly scathing of that shitshow, and in a crowded field too.
6
I do wish people would stop imagining that there was a ‘golden age’ of journalism. It never existed.
Possibly not. But it’s never been as bad as it is now.
I remember the Times and Telegraph espousing right wing perspectives, and the Daily Mirror being populist and fairly neutral. With the Sun being mildly lefty, and the Grauniad being loony lefty but still with some approximation to rationality. That’s all gone.
I don’t say it was a golden age, but you got some different perspectives. Nowadays, you get only the Woke in the MSM. The Oz has the occasional right wing or at least sane view, except on the weekend, when we get, God help us, the thoughts of Gemmell and Adams.
I’m neither left nor right. I’ve no need for either a religion or an ideology. Which is why having Wokism shovelled at me from all quarters has led to me abandoning the meja.
6
Daily Mail.
Killer crime wave forces Aussie state into MAJOR backflip as it reintroduces crime it dumped eight years ago – after leaders denied change would stop young crims terrorising the streets
Queensland will reintroduce a charge for breaching bail
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk made the announcement
It has been brought back to curb youth crime in the state
Just be thankful it’s just land tax and not servitude to your liege. Nobody wants that sh1t.
1
I do wish people would stop imagining that there was a ‘golden age’ of journalism. It never existed.
The golden age of journalism was when I was published at the abc.
2
Tom says:
February 20, 2023 at 6:49 pm
We are doomed.
No, we’re not, Cassie. There’s a power imbalance, but people aren’t stupid.
What’s more is that young people don’t watch the news or give a stuff for MSM, they get all their news via instagram or TikTok. Most young people are not even aware of what is going on so are not influenced one way or the other. The trick will be to break into their info stream in an engaging and funny way.
3
Compared to today, there was definitely a better age of journalism and I suspect our resident journos, Tom and Areff, would agree with me.
Even the BBC World Service used to be rather good say back in 1994. Not any more.
Most of my extended family in Sydney used the get the Herald delivered but by the early 80s it had become a mucky rag you wouldn’t want in the house. Sort of like Tharunka birm. I was amused to see they were actually giving it away at my gym in Parramatta in the mid 00s. Desperation and well deserved.
1
I can recommend The Grade Cricketer* as an excellent FB site – for cricket people generally, but in particular as they lay the boots in biggus timus to the pampered ponces disgracing themselves away from our shores at present.
2
I do wish people would stop imagining that there was a ‘golden age’ of journalism. It never existed.
There WAS a golden age, Johanna, when journalists weren’t indoctrinated by ideology popular on university campuses and instead learned from experience on the job.
The 1970s was when journalism ceased being an on-the-job cadetship and stopped being the eyes and ears of its audience and political ideology took over as the dominant influence in the culture of reporting.
Areff, who has worked around the world in the journalism business for half a century, shares my view about that.
6
*No affiliation with said site.
The Chook can feel the hawks circling.
This scumbag has raised the marginal threshold the higher you go, and we were also hit with the COVID land value appreciation. FMD, Andrews is a totally despicable creature.
It’s frightening that these garbage people actually have to power to do this.
3
The golden age of journalism is when I was working as a stringer for Picture Magazine in the early 90s.
All downhill since then.
4
<blockquote
School stares down bid to restore George Pell’s name
exclusive
By John Ferguson
Associate Editor
@fergusonjw
6:21PM February 20, 2023
Cardinal George Pell’s alma mater is resisting moves by his supporters in Ballarat to have his name returned to the Catholic college that launched his global church mission.
A group of prominent scholars has been quietly advocating behind the scenes for Pell’s name to be reinstated at St Patrick’s College, the main Catholic boys’ school in country Victoria.
Discussions have been held with the aim of either returning Pell’s name to a school building or placing it on the honour roll after the High Court freed him from prison after 404 days.
Sources said a third option was to return Pell’s name in a “low key” way that acknowledged how he had risen from the school to become one of the nation’s most influential Catholics.
The push has again split the school community, with principal Steven O’Connor acknowledging differences of opinion about what should be done to either remember or suppress Pell’s name.
His name was stripped from the school after he was jailed for abusing two choir boys at Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1996 and 1997 but the convictions were quashed in 2020 by the High Court.
2
Kroges and the nuclear milkman shouting at each other on Blot about superannuation.
A golden age of j’ism, indeed.
3
cohenite says:
February 20, 2023 at 7:20 pm
The golden age of journalism was when I was published at the abc.
That’s when the rot began.
Did they publish your cute owls? Because the cute owls are male trannies, I’m guessing their ABC dove for it.
To watch his speech for Goldwater in 1964 you realize what a great intellect he was.
I remember seeing a huge book in the shops years ago comprised of just his letters. I could express himself amazingly well, no script writer required.
4
He could, not I.
1
The BBC is terrible in places but anyone having the misfortune of watching an ALPBC knockoff after its BBC counterpart knows how 2nd rate the Australian version typically is. Having said that, the near BBC monopoly in the UK won’t be missed.
2
The big issue here is not respect or rights for aboriginals, but rather respect and rights for everyone. All Australians are being treated with absolute contempt by politicians, bureaucrats and police.
Exactly so, rickw. The way Albo and his government are ignoring Alice Springs and NT altogether is a definitive illustration of their intent. The Voice is not for the average Aboriginals but for the power players to cement their positions.
8
Miltonf says:
February 20, 2023 at 7:24 pm
It’s frightening that these garbage people actually have to power to do this.
Milt, between rates (that went up about 15%) and land tax, it’s actually like the cost of a heavy duty rental. I’m renting the property from the state government.
3
The retreat from good journalism has been very widespread- eg Scientific American (used to be a bit turgid, now it’s trash) and the New Yorker (once a cracking good read and funny cartoons). The only good legacy one I can think of is The Speccie.
4
It’s harder than MAFS.
What’s that Bear?
Followed by Kamahl posing an eternal question, “Why is Phatty Adams so unkind?”
5
I’m neither left nor right. I’ve no need for either a religion or an ideology.
Doc.
1. Do you believe in a great degree of personal freedoms?
2. What current left-wing views do you agree with?
This comment is the most elite of the thread.
If you know, you know. 😉
1
Milt, between rates (that went up about 15%) and land tax, it’s actually like the cost of a heavy duty rental. I’m renting the property from the state government.
yep it’s another assault on property rights. Greens are targeting councils too and they can fly in under the radar because normal people think councils should collect garbage, maintain roads and make sure the car park dunnies are clean. Greens (formerly the ACP) see council as a means to attack property owners especially farmers.
6
“There WAS a golden age, Johanna, when journalists weren’t indoctrinated by ideology popular on university campuses and instead learned from experience on the job.
The 1970s was when journalism ceased being an on-the-job cadetship and stopped being the eyes and ears of its audience and political ideology took over as the dominant influence in the culture of reporting.
Areff, who has worked around the world in the journalism business for half a century, shares my view about that.”
My stepfather was a journalist, quite famous. He’s long retired, although he still writes everyday and is mentally sharp. He despairs at at the state of modern journalism. He started as a cadet in 1949, he knew Frank Packer (whom he still describes as a miserable old bastard) and Keith Murdoch, and yes, he knew his sons. His politics are old Labour, I don’t know how left he is now, however my mother told me an amusing anecdote only last week where she described how, after the 1990 election, they walked out after voting and my mother asked my stepfather, “who did you vote for?”. His answer, “none of your business”. She’s never asked him again. LOL.
6
Maybe there were grades of “journalism”, depending on the newspaper. So you had the “publications of record” or broadsheets, and the evening horror stuff with its lurid, sensational headlines.
It may be less a “golden age” and more a caste system. Now it’s all pretty much homogenised trash. And if there are no pictures, it didn’t happen.
4
Also the lines between reporting and opinion are no more. It’s all opinion now.
7
Most of my extended family in Sydney used the get the Herald delivered but by the early 80s it had become a mucky rag you wouldn’t want in the house
I stopped buying the Silly Moaning Haemorrhoid around 2008. An Adele Horror piece was the final straw. Into the bin it went and I vowed never to waste my money on such garbage ever again.
The only subsequent relenting was the electronic Oz subscription, which lasted about five years before also going down in flames once they stopped posting around 93.1% of my comments criticising much of the appalling j’ism they were purveying (mainly Perfesser von Wrongsolen and Paul “is wrong, again” Kelly) .
Absolutely pointless, infuriating and very bad for the blood pressure.
4
The point is that the MSM wasn’t less biassed 35 years ago. It was just more difficult to get to the truth.
The subset of the younger generation that would be expected to be engaged no longer bother with the MSM, as far as I can tell. They blew their load in terms of credibility and might just expire with the older readers. Network TV and news seems to be a clown show with all the theatrics involved, people who regularly use Final Cut Pro for their YouTube channel can all too readily see this.
1
DuncanM:
… and now its stepped back and refuses to tell me the political alignment of any ‘civil society organisations’. I think I’ve fallen into a AI dead end.
Can you ask it to do that diagram of who is living with and/or married to each other in Canberra and what jobs they’re doing?
2
Those people heckling the upside down copper seem to score highly for psychopathic traits.
2
Also the lines between reporting and opinion are no more. It’s all opinion now.
Coinciding with the Culture War becoming daily house to house street fighting. Everything is politics now, if it wasn’t before.
1
The rivers of gold dried up and the only reason anyone would want to buy the Herald was for exercise in folding the wretched thing into a readable form. Upper body strength.
I remember with great glee when it shrank to tabloid form, printed in the hated News presses (Chullora?). They didn’t call it a “tabloid” though. Something far more cultured.
6
Adele Horror ha ha.
1
Also the lines between reporting and opinion are no more. It’s all opinion now.
The issue in a nutshell, calli
2
I do wish people would stop imagining that there was a ‘golden age’ of journalism. It never existed.
…
Possibly not. But it’s never been as bad as it is now.
On that thought it would be good to rewatch Citizen Kane.
Wolfman, are you around?
Rosebud…
4
My subs for the SMH died when Mike Carlton printed yet another frothing diatribe against the Anglicans. He hated them, that good old Bow Wow boy.
A very fashionable hatred.
4
Doc.
1. Do you believe in a great degree of personal freedoms?
2. What current left-wing views do you agree with?
1. I’m strenuously in favour of freedom, which may be because I hate being given orders. So I guess I’m constitutionally anti-authoritarian.
2. I agree with lefties that we should be kind to perverts, and trannies in particular. It’s just that going along with their perversions and normalising them doesn’t seem kind to me. Kindness, in my view, would be pointing out to them that there is something wrong with the way their brains work, and possibly putting them in institutions for the deranged.
Generally, I favour tolerance and diversity. That used to be a left wing attitude, but that was a while back.
I may be a white supremacist. I like Shakespeare, Tolkien. Conrad and Kipling. I don’t think white ppl are superior to non-white ppl. But I do think that whites built the greatest civilisation the world has ever seen. And we’ve freely offered the benefits to anyone willing to join us.
14
The Paywallian is like a Hay truck stop in thongs. Care and discretion required.
3
They didn’t call it a “tabloid” though. Something far more cultured.
“Compact format”.
5
DrBeauGan prescribed:
I’m neither left nor right. I’ve no need for either a religion or an ideology.
That’s difficult to believe. Admittedly, the word ideology has a fair degree of “semantic promiscuity“.
I take a very broad abstract definition of ideology, which is a 3-tuple of these sets: the aspects of the present which are unacceptable, the desirable goal states, plus the conditional actions which should be taken to reach the goal state. This is also the definition favoured by J.B.Peterson.
Under that definition, if you did anything at all today you have an ideology. Because you took a conditional action to solve an apparent problem and so get closer to an ideal.
Indeed under that definition, you will die if you don’t have at least one ideology.
1
And we’ve freely offered the benefits to anyone willing to join us.
And a great many sensible ppl have.
2
Ed Casesays:
February 20, 2023 at 6:58 pm
Absolutely, apartheid in any part of the constitution? No way!
Give it a rest.
Apartheid was a Caste System, it was the only way any progress could be made in South Africa.
If there had been an informed vote on it in Australia, most people woulda upheld it.
Are you a racist, Richard Cranium?
BHP goes ex-dividend this week I think.
Will my SMSF keep the franking credits?
That is the question.
Indeed under that definition, you will die if you don’t have at least one ideology.
It’s a silly definition. If it’s logically forced to have an ideology, the term is vaccuous.
You can survive quite well by calculating which actions are likely to satisfy values like getting sufficient food, shelter and sex. Anyone who confuses this with believing in certain truths is very muddled. I put it to you that an ideology requires you to give assent to certain propositions. Animals other than human beans don’t and can’t have one. I could, but don’t.
1
Crossie
What’s more is that young people don’t watch the news or give a stuff for MSM, they get all their news via instagram or TikTok. Most young people are not even aware of what is going on so are not influenced one way or the other. The trick will be to break into their info stream in an engaging and funny way.
I wonder how many have seen any of the Hanson videos? Is there a way to make them visible on Instagram?
2
BHP goes ex-dividend this week I think.
They declare their dividend tomorrow. Don’t worry about your franking credits, they are on Dismal Jimmy’s list.
If it’s logically forced to have an ideology
Nope, read it again. Not logically forced to.
1
Last day in Malta, I have a ticket for something archaeological but I won’t be going, the bronchitis is back so I’m trying for a quietish day, not much luck last night, someone was denied entry to the house next door, much shouting in Maltese, swearing in English and slamming and banging.
I myob’d, he started again this morning and I saw him after my brief excursion, on the stoop with his beverage (he’s not the only one, there’s a bunch of young Englishman at the bar already on the beers).
I’m having a coffee, pleased the nice young man remembers my order.
The name of the town/suburb Sliema where I’m staying means ‘peace’.
The boatman said it comes from seamen coming past the chapel at the point saying a ‘Hail Mary’ as they entered the harbour. The congregation at the Catholic church start their version of Ave Marie with ‘Sliema’ so I guess it’s a true story.
6
“Dr” Beau Gan said
Anyone who confuses this with believing in certain truths is very muddled.
Anyone who confuses belief with faith is very muddled.
A belief is any proposition you hold to be true, for any or no reason.
1
Don’t worry about your franking credits, they are on Dismal Jimmy’s list.
Equity!
Makes stealing other peoples’ property sound respectable.
2
Once upon a time, wizards, seers, witches, sorcerers, high priests, magicians and other sinister characters advised kings, queens, emperors, tsars, and tribal chiefs on policies, and these characters more often than not had the final say when it came to finalising and implementing policy and governance. Monarchs and tribal chiefs would consult with them before consulting with anyone else. Perhaps the most notorious was Rasputin but history is replete with other examples, Queen Elizabeth I had John Dee as an advisor. Dee was a wizard and occultist. The Voice, if passed and enacted, will be Australia’s very own race based Aboriginal body of grifting wizards, seers, witches, sorcerers, high priests and magicians, and they’ll demand the final yay or nay on policy that effects all of us.
NO to the Voice.
12
I’m neither left nor right. I’ve no need for either a religion or an ideology.
LOL, libertarians are so funny.
1
Geez, just saw an excerpt of desperate Albo spruiking the voice, screeching “this is an opportunity to unite our nation”. I reckon Hitler, Stalin, Mao and others said similar.
9
Bossi appears to have gone anti-sem.
Every cooker ends up there.
2
Martyr Made ??
@martyrmade Kotkin is hysterical and raving like an insane person. Historians like him, Snyder, Applebaum are supposed to be our subject-matter experts, but all they’re capable of doing is screeching, “Putin evil! Putin bad!” A truly pathetic decline from our Cold War intellectual leadership.
Quote Tweet
David Sacks
@DavidSacks
·
9h
This interview is a backtrack by Kotkin. Last year, he was one of Ukraine’s biggest cheerleaders. Now he admits Ukraine is losing, the country has gotten wrecked, the US has other priorities to attend to, and Ukraine will need to make a deal.
She turned up at Chinchilla’s Melon Festival on the weekend after snubbing Toowoomba.
Just going through the motions, and rather poorly at that.
I predict that she won’t contest the next election.
3
The Voice, if passed and enacted, will be Australia’s very own race based Aboriginal body of grifting wizards, seers, witches, sorcerers, high priests and magicians, and they’ll demand the final yay or nay on policy that effects all of us.
I just see the Voice as a vehicle for the activists and an instrument of division. After all the slop about “Aboriginal souls will be crushed if the voice is rejected’ – bring on the referendum, immediately, if not sooner!
5
“Every cooker ends up there.”
Hmm, what about his “legitimate grievances“?
2
Changing books has been okay for years, eg no golliwogs in Noddy, Noel Streatfield had a scene in one book with a Chinaman in hospital? removed possibly as early as the mid 60s.
Noel Langley’s land of Green Ginger was abridged a long time ago too.
And approximately six Dr Seuss are on the never to be reprinted list as of maybe 2020?
To be honest some of the stuff removed was pretty ordinary.
1
Geez, just saw an excerpt of desperate Albo spruiking the voice, screeching “this is an opportunity to unite our nation”.
That’s right up there with Arbeit macht frei.
A shameless lie.
7
Anybody seen a forecast of the BHP dividend?
21
Dunno Cassie, how about you ask Bosi yourself since you’re such a political mover and shaker.
2
Did they publish your cute owls? Because the cute owls are male trannies, I’m guessing their ABC dove for it.
Too right they did. We’ve spoken about your obsession with feminised men, not to be confused with trim, taut and terrific young sheilas, aka, cute owls, before. And what is this shit about doves: I don’t deal with hippy stuff like that. Anyway let’s take a trip back to the golden age: cute owl. You don’t see vascularity like that every day. She’s too much for you head prefect.
2
“Bossi appears to have gone anti-sem. Next up , the R*thschilds.”
Yep, it’s an inevitable trajectory…but the thing is, I reckon Bossi is a spook.
7
Once upon a time, wizards, seers, witches, sorcerers, high priests, magicians and other sinister characters advised kings, queens, emperors, tsars, and tribal chiefs
Fondly recall when Greyhawk came out in ’79 and we’d do D&D all nighters in first year uni.
Didn’t help our marks much though.
1
Sometimes The Guardian isn’t bad at what when where why who on current events.
That’s all I ever want in a news report.
Anyone who confuses belief with faith is very muddled.
A belief is any proposition you hold to be true, for any or no reason.
I said nothing about faith, although an ideology does require some degree of commitment to a proposition being true. Inevitably, an emotional commitment.
I don’t have emotional commitments to propositions. Nor am I convinced that I can tell for certain when any one proposition is true.
And your definition of ideology was such that nobody could avoid having one. Which makes it vaccuous. And silly.
1
Adam Gilchrist, Merv Hughes scathing, someone trumpets?
Gilchrist’s record:
In India
2001-2004 M: 7 I: 13 N.O. : 1 Runs: 342 Av. 28.50
Hughes record in India:
Never played there.
1
Every cooker ends up there.
Certainly every leftie does dickless.
2
Bosi is not a spook. He is too poor for that.
1
As someone who isn’t on Twitter and find sthe format somewhat opaque, can I request that those who link to it provide some context that makes the link readily comprehensible without trolling through the comments?
Thanks in appreciation!
2
No formal announcements re super changes yet, just a softening up.
I get the impression taking lump sums for the cruise and the caravan will go.
Cant imagine forcing people to invest in specific areas.
Not a problem if you aren’t using a super vehicle, I hope.
“Bosi is not a spook. He is too poor for that.
Are you privy to his bank accounts?
5
That’s right up there with Arbeit macht frei.
Though in an altogether different context, clearly (I hope).
1
Super is our money, not the overlords. These assholes are clearly gunning for a big piece of the pie.
6
Monty is now more intelligent, efficient and able than a Colonel of the SAS.
I am impressed! (I want to see Monty’s war medals, if my eyes can stand the glitter of them.)
2
She turned up at Chinchilla’s Melon Festival on the weekend after snubbing Toowoomba.
Good on her, it’s a frightful place.
Palaszczuk comes across as a sheila who knows how to look after a bloke, so I’m cool with her being Premier in either a Labor or LNP Government.
That said, the cops must want her out, since there’s no way she’ll ever lose an Election in Qld.
Chinchilla’s Melon Festival
Is that like the old Summernats wet T-shirt contest?
4
33m ago
‘I will fall silent’ if voice poll fails: Pearson
Joanna Panagopoulos
JOANNA PANAGOPOULOS
Indigenous leader Noel Pearson says he will “fall silent” and a whole generation of Indigenous leadership won’t have “anything left” if the voice to parliament fails.
“That will be the end of it. I have always believed in the Australian Constitution, I believe in Australia, I believe in the people of Australia, I believe the people of Australia must recognise the first peoples, my people, and I have pursued a middle path, a middle path between the original Australians and the new Australians,” he told ABC’s 7.30 program on Monday night.
“If the advocacy of that pathway fails well, then, a whole generation of leadership will have failed, a whole generation of Indigenous leadership will have failed because we will have advocated a coming together in partnership with government and we would have made an invitation to the Australian people that was repudiated, and I don’t think we have anything left after that.”
“It will be up to a new generation to chart a new course because we will have been rejected. Our proposition of peace and reconciliation will have been rejected, and that will be a profound decision for the country to make. I hope that it never comes to that.”
“Fall silent?” Is that a promise?
12
If you ever happen to be in Sliema call into Micallef’s bakery, I think it’s mostly wholesale but they sell (cash only) to the general public.
Step inside and you are in the room with the big bread oven.
I bought a bread roll and some of that bread and butter pudding, I think it cost €1.40 all up.
2
Yep, it’s an inevitable trajectory…but the thing is, I reckon Bossi is a spook.
Damn, I called that one.
A Lt Col in the SF…yeah nah, he’s not connected to the intel ppl at all. LOL.
2
Of course they are.
Always thought it should be tax free going in and taxed coming out but Labor wants it both ways.
Is M0nty a Spook?
I’m leaning toward Yes, atm.
LOL, libertarians are so funny.
If you think you can annoy me by accusing me of being a libertarian, you’re wrong. And not because I am one, I ain’t.
2
I get the impression taking lump sums for the cruise and the caravan will go
I doubt that was ever an option.
Otoh, withdrawing funds to pay for elective operations to be done privately because Labor governments in VIC & QLD have severely rationed such services is definitely a thing.
4
m0ntysays:
February 20, 2023 at 8:20 pm
Bossi appears to have gone anti-sem.
Every cooker ends up there.
Hmmmm. Every cooker ends up anti-semitic.
A high propoortion of leftards are antisemitic.
Therefore a high proportion of leftards are cookers?
Seems correct.
4
Is that like the old Summernats wet T-shirt contest?
Having never attended either event I can’t speak to that, I’m afraid.
Ed Casesays:
February 20, 2023 at 8:40 pm
She turned up at Chinchilla’s Melon Festival on the weekend after snubbing Toowoomba.
Good on her, it’s a frightful place.
Palaszczuk comes across as a sheila who knows how to look after a bloke, so I’m cool with her being Premier in either a Labor or LNP Government.
That said, the cops must want her out, since there’s no way she’ll ever lose an Election in Qld.
Richard Cranium now shilling for state Labor, as well as federal.
1
Perhaps the most notorious was Rasputin but history is replete with other examples, Queen Elizabeth I had John Dee as an advisor. Dee was a wizard and occultist.
I got into an argument with ChatGPT over that.
“That is not a scientific statement”
No, it’s a historical statement dickless, and I mean dickless by choice AI programmer.
Chinchilla’s Melon Festival
Is that like the old Summernats wet T-shirt contest?
More along the lines of Miss Rheola and tractor pull competitions.
“Damn, I called that one.
A Lt Col in the SF…yeah nah, he’s not connected to the intel ppl at all. LOL.”
Yes you did call that one, and I believe you were right.
2
Palaszczuk comes across as a sheila who knows how to look after a bloke
Great piss taking crotchless.
2
I got into an argument with ChatGPT over that.
Just don’t break it. People seem to think it will be useful.
Tom says:
February 20, 2023 at 7:23 pm
I do wish people would stop imagining that there was a ‘golden age’ of journalism. It never existed.
There WAS a golden age, Johanna, when journalists weren’t indoctrinated by ideology popular on university campuses and instead learned from experience on the job.
The 1970s was when journalism ceased being an on-the-job cadetship and stopped being the eyes and ears of its audience and political ideology took over as the dominant influence in the culture of reporting.
Areff, who has worked around the world in the journalism business for half a century, shares my view about that.
Tom & cassie,
I have had the pleasure of Piers Akerman’s company on various balconies in Pittwater, sipping Fine Red Wines and philosophising on Life – definitely of the Old On the Job Cadet Journalism School
Also fond memories of early mornings in the Sydney Journo’s Club after Sofware testing, with one of the team from our American Software Supplier, playing magnificently on the piano as we wound down to the dawn.
2
I see Biden is in Kiev.
2
This ad for a Vacheron-Constantin calendar watch popped up in my news feed earlier today.
“nice looking watch” sez I, “might pick one up if not too pricey”.
Poot, do everyone a favour, especially, think of the children! (For once not a vapid appeal!)
3
calli says:
February 20, 2023 at 7:46 pm
Maybe there were grades of “journalism”, depending on the newspaper. So you had the “publications of record” or broadsheets, and the evening horror stuff with its lurid, sensational headlines.
It may be less a “golden age” and more a caste system. Now it’s all pretty much homogenised trash. And if there are no pictures, it didn’t happen.
I don’t think we understand journalists and journalism. They have very little power themselves, all the power resides in editors in the case of newspapers and producers in the case of radio and television. They are given assignments and are expected to hand in their work, how it is presented to the public is in the hands of editors and producers. We should be angry at those who hold power.
The US president has previously ruled out such a visit, saying he may travel to Poland but would not go further
US President Joe Biden arrived in Ukraine on Monday, making his first visit since Moscow launched its military operation in the neighboring state nearly a year ago.
According to reports, Biden has met with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky in the Mikhailovsky Cathedral in Kiev. Ukrainian news organizations published photos and video purportedly showing Biden and Zelensky walking towards the church flanked by armed security.
Biden said he was meeting with Zelensky to “reaffirm our unwavering and unflagging commitment to Ukraine’s democracy, sovereignty, and territorial integrity,” according to the statement released by the White House.
The US president added that he would announce a new delivery of “critical equipment” for the Ukrainian army, including artillery rounds, anti-tank systems, and radars. “Later this week, we will announce additional sanctions against elites and companies that are trying to evade or backfill Russia’s war machine,” Biden said.
The trip takes place as the US and other NATO members are ramping up military aid to Ukraine, having recently pledged the transfer of modern main battle tanks and other additional heavy weapons.
Biden ruled out traveling to Ukraine earlier this month, saying that he only had plans to go to Poland.
Russia sent troops to Ukraine last February, citing the need to protect the people of Donbass and Kiev’s failure to implement the 2014-2015 peace accords. The US has since then been one of Ukraine’s primary backers in the conflict.
According to the Pentagon, Washington provided Kiev with more than $27.4 billion in security aid between February 24, 2022 and January 20, 2023. The delivered weapons include HIMARS multiple rocket launchers, M777 howitzers, shoulder-fired anti-tank systems, and combat drones. The US has also pledged to transfer Bradley Fighting Vehicles and M1 Abrams tanks, and has been training Ukrainian soldiers.
Washington’s support for Kiev’s strikes on the peninsula highlights its role in stoking global tensions, Putin’s spokesman said
The US government’s public endorsement of Ukrainian attacks on Crimea shows the growing foreign policy gulf between Washington and Moscow, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday.
US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said on Thursday that Russian military installations in Crimea “are legitimate targets” for Ukraine, and that Washington supports Kiev’s attacks on them.
The peninsula overwhelmingly voted to become part of Russia in 2014 following a Western-backed coup in Kiev, but Ukraine still views it as part of its own territory.
In an interview with the Rossiya-1 TV channel, Peskov described Nuland as part of “a very large group of the most aggressive hawks in American politics”.
The spokesman said the diplomat’s remarks “once again emphasize the depth of differences between us” and highlight “the role of the United States as the main instigator of existing global tensions.”
On Friday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova condemned Nuland’s statement on Crimea as “staggering” and “absurd,” calling it proof of “the US involvement in the Ukraine conflict.”
In addition to supplying Kiev with weapons, the US is now “pushing the Kiev regime to further escalation,” she said. “This is what we had warned about before and what had forced us to launch a special military operation.”
Earlier this month, the US announced a new $2.17 billion security package for Ukraine, including ground-launched, small diameter bombs (GLSDB) with a range of up to 150 kilometers (93 miles). The weapons could potentially give Kiev far greater ability to launch strikes on Crimea.
On Wednesday, Politico reported, citing sources, that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a group of experts that Washington was not “actively encouraging” Kiev to seize Crimea, as it believes such attempts would be a red line for Moscow, triggering a drastic response.
Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chair of the national Security Council, warned that any strikes inside the peninsula would be “met with inevitable retaliation using weapons of any kind.”
The Maidan “midwife” hopes for conquest of Crimea and regime change in Russia
Unless the Crimean peninsula is at the very least “demilitarized” Ukraine won’t feel safe, while the ideal end to the current conflict is with a revolution in Moscow, the US Deputy Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said on Thursday.
Ukrainians “have to get to a map that is more sustainable for them,” Nuland said in a video interview with the Washington think tank Carnegie Endowment. They have “significant chunks of territory they need to be a viable state, before you even get to the question of Crimea, and that’s what they’re focused on now.”
The US position is that Ukraine is “owed and due all of their territory within their international borders,” which means Crimea as well, Nuland added.
Assigned to Ukraine by the Soviet Union in 1954, Crimea voted to rejoin Russia in March 2014, after the violent coup in Kiev that Nuland helped “midwife,” according to an infamous phone call intercept.
“Ukraine is not going to be safe unless Crimea is – at a minimum, at a minimum – demilitarized,” Nuland insisted on Thursday, claiming that Moscow had turned the peninsula into a military base, with command posts, logistics depots and airfields for “Iranian drones.”
“Those are legitimate targets, Ukraine is hitting them, and we are supporting that,” she said.
Earlier this week, Politico quoted two anonymous officials to imply that Nuland’s boss, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, had admitted the US was not “actively encouraging” Ukraine to seize Crimea and that any moves on the peninsula would be “Kiev’s decision alone.”
Nuland, however, told Carnegie that the battlefield objectives of Washington and Kiev overlap “in terms of what the Ukrainians want to do on the battlefield, and what we’re enabling them to plan to do.”
Asked how she saw the conflict ending, Nuland said the West “must never trust, as long as Vladimir Putin is in power, or somebody like him, that this is truly over.” Even if the fighting ends on Ukraine’s terms, there “has to be a long-term plan” to build up Ukraine’s military as a deterrent.
She also expressed a preference for Russians overthrowing their government for a “better future” offered by the West.
The US has committed more than $100 billion in military aid to Ukraine over the past year alone, but Washington officially insists it is not a party to the conflict.
The golden age of journalism is when I was working as a stringer for Picture Magazine in the early 90s.
1
Bruce O’Nuke:
Monty is now more intelligent, efficient and able than a Colonel of the SAS.
I am impressed! (I want to see Monty’s war medals, if my eyes can stand the glitter of them.)
If your eyes can withstand the Glory of the McGowan Codpiece, then Monty’s facade of medals is a piece of cake.
The theme of my email inbox this morning (it’s morning for me, anyway) is that for some reason a search for presidential candidate “Ron Paul” in Facebook Groups yields zero results. The reason isn’t because there aren’t any Ron Paul groups – a search for “Paul” shows hundreds. For some reason, the search is blocked.
THIS WAS IN 2007!!!
1
Jumped the gun there.
Respect KD.
1
Does anyone know where FaceBook/Meta actually banks with?
Ministers and aides inside the Ukrainian president’s shelter were asked to sign non-disclosure agreements, the newspaper reports
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and his associates spent almost two months in a bunker after the outbreak of the conflict with Russia, instead of the planned two weeks, and underwent significant hardships, The Times has reported.
The Ukrainian government “immediately” descended into a secure shelter under the president’s office on Bankovaya Street in central Kiev when Russia’s military operation was launched on February 24, 2022, the British newspaper reported on Saturday.
The secrecy around the bunker was so high that those who accompanied the head of state underground had to sign a special non-disclosure agreement. According to the document, they were banned from revealing any details about the shelter’s design, location, amenities, or even the food that they were given.
When Russian forces were located in the suburbs of Kiev, it was a period of trauma and terror for Zelensky’s ministers and aides, the paper said. “We don’t speak about that much any more,” Ukraine’s agrarian policy and food minister Nikolay Solsky replied when asked to recall the opening weeks of the fighting.
government insider told The Times that staying in the bunker was a tough existence as “you don’t see the sun, you don’t know the time.”
Zelensky’s team experienced the conflict through their iPhones, according to the paper. They were always busy, with their sleep being “snatched and often disturbed,” it added.
Some Ukrainian officials were “growing weary of life in the underground bunker,” with one of them confessing that he once fled the shelter to eat at a restaurant, the paper wrote.
Due to fears that Kiev could fall to the Russian forces, the underground stay was prolonged for the country’s leadership, a government source told The Times.
According to the paper, Zelensky only emerged from the shelter from time to time to record video messages “to reassure the people that he had not fled.”
Earlier this month, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who mediated contacts between Moscow and Kiev at that time, revealed that Zelensky had started making his addresses only after being assured that Russian President Vladimir Putin had no plans to eliminate him.
Bennett claimed that he secured such a promise from Putin during talks in the Russian capital, and phoned Zelensky immediately after leaving the Kremlin. Two hours later, the Ukrainian leader posted a video from his office in Kiev, explaining that he was “not hiding” and “not afraid of anyone,” he said.
1
Dr Faustus says:
February 19, 2023 at 3:22 pm
To me, the obvious set up says it’s going to come down to appeals against racism:
• Why do you hate the Indigenous so much that you want to Open the Gap?
• What message will it send if Australia fails at the Referendum?
Looks like Noel Pearson reads the Cat:
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha says:
February 20, 2023 at 8:41 pm
33m ago
‘I will fall silent’ if voice poll fails: Pearson
Indigenous leader Noel Pearson says he will “fall silent” and a whole generation of Indigenous leadership won’t have “anything left” if the voice to parliament fails.
Right twice a day.
1
In the world of the rich and fatuous, anybody who’s anybody goes to Kiev- from BlowJob to AnAl.
2
Charnel nein had an x-spurt on saying how the government was concerned super money could be taken out to pay for medical emergencies/ dental etc.
And it was awful value for punters because they had to tax the early withdrawals 22%.
There is something to be said for stranding people on savage coasts.
Especially big government catamites.
4
wonder how many have seen any of the Hanson videos? Is there a way to make them visible on Instagram?
In my own circle not many young people have seen it. Those on family WhatsApp lists certainly have so it’s patchy at this stage.
1
I’m voting No because I’m not a Racist?
Somehow, I just don’t think this will catch the public’s imagination..
‘I will fall silent’ if voice poll fails: Pearson
We should be so lucky. I think he will be loud and unpleasant no matter the result.
5
I’m voting No because I don’t want to entrench Apartheid in the Constitution?
Who writes these zingers?
Some Gimp in the bowels of John Curtin House?
Pearsons little chat sounds better if you imagine it read by one of the piranha brothers.
Unastated threats anyone?
3
Softly, softly on hard drugs in Queensland youth crime crisis
By Michael McKenna
Reporter
@McKennaattheOz
and Lydia Lynch
9:37PM February 20, 2023
No Comments
Queensland will have among the most relaxed drug laws in Australia, with users given three chances for carrying up to a gram of heroin, cocaine or ice before facing a criminal charge.
In an unheralded move to sweep aside the state’s tough stance on hard drugs, the Palaszczuk cabinet and party room on Monday endorsed the changes as the government grappled with a politically charged youth crime crisis.
The changes, which have been quietly developed in consultation with police, as well as health and drug experts, is intended to alleviate the workload of police and the courts and keep users “with a health issue” out of the judicial system.
The move came as Annastacia Palaszczuk on Monday bowed to opposition pressure and agreed to reintroduce a controversial Liberal National policy her government had scrapped in a bid to be seen to be taking immediate action on youth crime.
After years criticising the LNP policy, the Palaszczuk government will on Tuesday introduce legislation to make breach of bail a stand-alone offence for juveniles.
The drug-related laws will be introduced later in the week and extend the decade-old drug diversionary program for cannabis possession to other illicit drugs including ice, cocaine, heroin, fentanyl, ketamine and steroids.
Under the changes a person is given a warning the first time they are caught with a drug and the offer of an “opportunity” to participate in a drug diversionary program on the second and third occasions they are found to be in possession of the drug.
Only on the fourth occasion are police required to issue a person with a court notice to appear on a charge of possession – and even then they may be spared a conviction.
Dot says:
February 20, 2023 at 9:34 pm
Does anyone know where FaceBook/Meta actually banks with?
I’d bet they have 3 banks.
JPM
BofA
Citi
I just doubt their balance sheet and retained earnings. Anyone who has never paid a dividend is suspect other than Amazon, Alphabet and Apple.
So, how much did Brittany Higgins receive from the Commonwealth?
Dunno why, but i’m thinkin’,
just thinkin’ mind you …
$576,000.
Same as Rachelle Miller.
I predict that she won’t contest the next election.
Lord, that would have ALP bowels opening.
Whatever you think about Palacechook, she’s clearly electable in Queensland.
Miles, or Dick: slightly less so.
Or very much less so.
Or popular as Ebola.
Dot
Have a look at their 10Q. There’s little debt.
Paul Murray playing the Biden/Zelensky tongue bath.
The old charlatan even bringing up his 2017 visit as if it had anything to do with a possible Russian invasion.
1
I’m voting No because I’m a Collingwood supporter.
How’s that?
5
And the band played Sweet Caroline.
Valletta still rocking out with Carnival.
It’s fun, glad I wandered over to get a new book from the charity shop.
2
How’s that?
You’re saying you’re a toothless idiot with a cropped ear?
1
Noel Pearson.
Making a bold forecast.
No he won’t.
2
Running out of readjng options.
Handed back Anne Cleeves, Agatha Christie and Donna Leon.
Slim pickings, had to go witha Dick Francis.
Had to stop reading the Leon every so often and look things up.
Yes the arsoned theatre was refurbished at a cost of €90 million and reopened, arson was committed in 1996 by a couple of electricians who were worried about heavy fines for not completing work and yes the Isle of Roses was sold to a consortium and turned into a Marriott resort, now starting from €345 a night.
1
Geez, just saw an excerpt of desperate Albo spruiking the voice, screeching “this is an opportunity to unite our nation”
Yep Cassie, first thing I thought was if you want to unite people you don’t do so in a insulting, aggressive tone of voice.
Saying one thing and meaning quite the opposite, is our Tennis Elbow.
5
Queensland will have among the most relaxed drug laws in Australia, with users given three chances for carrying up to a gram of heroin, cocaine or ice before facing a criminal charge.
The state is at war with the decent and normal. Try carrying a gram of gunpowder.
12
Make Murphy the skipper
Would that be the same Murphy who a certain poster here said would be worked out by the Indians and never take another wicket in India ever again? The Murphy who took 2 in the first innings and 1 in the second?
Haven’t seen a mea culpa. Shamed into silence I guess.
2
Zelensky had started making his addresses only after being assured that Russian President Vladimir Putin had no plans to eliminate him
Mistake made.
3
Geez, just saw an excerpt of desperate Albo spruiking the voice, screeching “this is an opportunity to unite our nation”
“Yes, to the Uluru declaration from the heart?” Pigs arze!
3
The state is at war with the decent and normal. Try carrying a gram of gunpowder.
Try carrying a gram of heroin, cocaine or ice, in so called “tolerant” Holland.
1
Vacheron-Constantin
One of those “If you have to ask the price …” names. Might pick some out of favour vintage piece at something less than eye watering prices. Probably best to look elsewhere.
Geez, just saw an excerpt of desperate Albo spruiking the voice, screeching “this is an opportunity to unite our nation”
You suspect he is starting to realise why both branches of the UniParty have kicked this particular can down the road for over two decades. Having grown up at the feet of The Great Man how could you not have a shot at greatness?
3
Roger I was referring to lump sums taken on retirement, not special circumstances withdrawals.
Cannibas now comes in red bull style cans at take away shops in Sicily
Didn’t see any cans of ‘Coke’ though.
2
I gave up on journalism when my effort to Heartbalm in the Truth wasn’t published.
We spent hours on that in boarding school.
3
Thanks Cohenite and Johanna for your info re the Preamble.
I suspect it would still be preferable to The Voice in that it is open to legislation in a way The Voice would not be. And the High Court will always intervene where it can, that’s a given.
John Howard certainly saw a Preamble statement as an alternative, some years back.
As I said, I personally intend to vote a resounding No to it all. And hope that carries the day.
Relying on the good sense of the Australian voter; which I ha’ me douts about really.
There needs to be a really strong No campaign, which isn’t on yet from what I can see.
Many will look for some out and take it if they can; otherwise they may go along with Albo.
If the Libs can make a strong anti-Yes case while still appearing policy driven and well-intentioned for the guilt-stricken, then good-o.
2
Meantime, Hairy and I are immersing ourselves in the lengthy series The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem, which is refreshing in its characterisations of the internecine squabbles of Ashkenazi vs Sephardic Jewish people in the period of the British occupation and the terrorist activities for an Israeli State. Hairy gets bored with the flashback technique, which is overused, but I don’t mind it. The relief is that it’s nothing like what is offered from the wokerati elsewhere; the facial features of the key characters are decidedly of the Middle East. It follows Rosa’s story with her Mother-in-law and her errant husband who is still in his mum’s grip, while as a dad, his spoiled daughter is now showing her rebellion; some very good family dynamics that are drawn into local politics.
You really feel for these people and get to understand them in their cultural context.
2
Nearly did it again.
Had in my mind flight was leaving at 8 because 18.00
No it’s 6pm.
Just as well I in my be early anxiety decided to catch the 2 pm bus instead of the 4pm.
4
Going off up the Burma Railroad for a spell now, before bed, as I slept all afternoon.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North, my bedtime reading. That too uses the flashback technique, which I guess is one way to tell a story. Not always easy for a reader, in this case, or for a viewer, as above.
Nearly did it again.
Had in my mind flight was leaving at 8 because 18.00
Lol, Rosie. That’s the sort of mistake that led to my slightly odd adult son missing his flight back from Thailand to Oz. He never could organise himself, and flusters tend to rule.
Glad you were in plenty of time for a quick retrieval. He wasn’t. Cost us one new ticket. No refund.
1
I did miss a Paris to London connection on BA once, they just stuck us on the next flight, no fuss.
Now I’m an hour too early to check in.
I did pay the extra euro to catch the Express bus to the airport. €3 v €2, it was a nobrainer.
It was the location of the international airport that made me realise how small Malta is, it’s on the south east of the island but only 5.7 kilometres from Valletta.
Oh.
3
Now I’m at Costa’s having a large flat white, €4.50. And using their WiFi, naturally.
It’s more giant than large but not complaining, it’s not bad at all.
Will melita Malta sim card work in Madrid? time will tell.
I’m an easy walk from Embajamores metro in Madrid, even without internet with a photo of the map I should be fine.
3
There’s an open drinks tab at Fred’s.
Ed Casesays:
February 20, 2023 at 9:53 pm
I’m voting No because I don’t want to entrench Apartheid in the Constitution?
Who writes these zingers?
Some Gimp in the bowels of John Curtin House?
The liars sold John Curtin House some years ago, when the stench of financial scandal got too much even for them.
1
Ed Casesays:
February 20, 2023 at 9:56 pm
So, how much did Brittany Higgins receive from the Commonwealth?
Dunno why, but i’m thinkin’,
just thinkin’ mind you …
$576,000.
Same as Rachelle Miller.
And what was the “real” reason for the Miller payout?
BHP dividend, $1.30 a share Australian.
An attractive blonde from Cork, Ireland, arrived at the casino. She seemed a little intoxicated and bet twenty thousand dollars in a single roll of the dice. She said “I hope you don’t mind, but I feel much luckier when I’m completely nude”.
With that, she stripped from the neck down, rolled the dice and with an Irish brogue yelled “Come on, baby, Mama needs new clothes!”
As the dice came to a stop, she jumped up and down and squealed. “Yes! Yes! I won, I won!” She hugged each of the dealers, picked up her winnings and her clothes and quickly departed.
The dealers stared at each other dumbfounded.
Finally, one of them asked “What did she roll?” The other answered “I don’t know – I thought you were watching”.
3
To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.
A British update on the classic ‘For gorsake stop laughing, this is serious’ here
The circumstances are unclear, but the repeated cries to ‘stop laughing’ are pissing into a gale. 🙂 🙂 🙂
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Bearesays:
February 20, 2023 at 3:34 pm
Go and have hubby purchase a shed load of lemons. 2-3 squeezed for the juice every 4 hours with water and ice….ice is a choice.
Don’t even bother with the lemon tea shite…and you can probably piss off the the pharma stuff, too.
Lemon juice ( vitamin c ) is your friend. Results will be felt within hours. If you want to go one step better and you own a juicer, go with whole lemons...zest, pith, pips and all.
Slam it down!
I would but the damage was done as soon as it wasn’t contained. No politician is going to come in now and make things right.
The comments editors at the Oz are getting weirder and weirder.Aside from rejecting incredibly innocuous comments,I see that one of my rejected comments has 17 likes.
How is that possible?
Another editor second guessing?
Morsie,
I have had that happen a few times. Comment made late at night and when look in the morning had plenty of likes but showing as rejected. Somebody over ruled first approval.
Ben Fordham was trending on Twitter earlier.
Seems Higgins and her fans upset with him and others suggesting she got $3m. Threatening lawyers.
Meanwhile don’t forget today’s the day can get jab no 5! Yippppeeeeeee!
Complex, Comprehensive Analysis of War in Ukraine from Simplicius76
February 19, 2023
Got to give credit where credit is due. Simplicius76 is an unidentified Substack writer who has written the best analysis I have seen of the tactical and strategic dimensions of the war in Ukraine and the upcoming Russian offensive. Russia is doing what it has done through history in the major conflicts where it prevailed — i.e., maskirovka (disguising its plans and movements). Russia is moving troops and equipment on fronts in the north, the east and the south. They are currently attacking in several different sectors, which is forcing Ukraine to redeploy frantically troops to try to counter new threats that are springing up like raging wild fires.
Here are links to four of Simplicius76’s recent articles. Must read material if you want to understand what has happened and what is about to unfold in the coming weeks. The first article discusses in depth the erroneous assumptions that have been made about an expected Russia offensive:
The follow up article, Part II, summarizes what Russia and Ukraine are currently doing to ‘shape the battlefield’ to their advantage, in preparation for the anticipated offensive.
The third article lifts the veil that surrounds the Russian and NATO ISR activities (aka Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) and how spy satellites and other collection systems make it difficult to hide what an army is doing.
Happened to me, on the Oz, and the Hun. Comment approved, gathered a few likes, switches to rejected.
I liked playing this game with my Marxist lesbian union rep. I would take a passage and ask “who wrote it Marx or Hitler?” Or in one case Hitler or Che? It took her a little while to cotton on that despite the massive anti semitism/ homophobia, it was never Hitler.
Word. While they served cadetships they at least represented a cross-section of society. Increasingly they are the dregs of some uni or J School subjected to Phabulous Phil or Wendy Bacon. They don’t stand a chance.
Complex, Comprehensive Analysis of War in Ukraine from Simplicius76
His article, All Seeing Eye: Can Russia Break Through The West’s ISR Overmatch?
provides terrific insights on how modern Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance systems have altered dramatically war in the 21st Century. Russia can no longer create and deploy an army in secret as it did with Operation Uranus, which attacked the German Army besieging Stalingrad from the north and the south and ultimately trapped Van Paulus’ Sixth Army. But that does not mean Russia is incapable of hiding where it plans to strike or of deceiving Ukraine and NATO about its intentions.
I continue to believe that the increased military operations by Russia during the last three weeks are part of the offensive that many in the West believe will come in the Spring. The next couple of weeks will mark a watershed in the war in Ukraine.
Add to the above
A US-Led ‘Coalition of the Willing’ Foreshadows the Splintering of NATO
The destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline was a gangster act that reveals the cancer at the heart of the “rules-based order”. How can there be peace and security when the world’s most powerful nation can destroy the critical infrastructure of other countries without deliberation or judicial proceedings? If Hersh’s report can be trusted—and I think it can—then we must assume that senior-level advisors in the Biden administration as well as the president himself deliberately perpetrated an act of industrial terrorism against a long-term friend and ally, Germany. What Biden’s involvement in the act implies, is that the United States now claims the right to arbitrarily decide which countries may engage in commerce with which others.
And, if for some reason, the buying and selling of energy supplies conflicts with Washington’s broader geopolitical objectives, then the US believes it has the right to obliterate the infrastructure that makes such trade possible.
Isn’t this the rationale that was used to justify the blowing up of Nord Stream?
Lavrov’s comments reinforce our own view that the conflict was concocted by Washington’s foreign policy experts who realized that German-Russo economic integration posed a serious threat to America’s dominant role in the global order. That is why Nord Stream became the primary target of US aggression, because the pipeline was the vital artery that connected the two continents and drew them closer together into an economic commons that would eventually become the world’s biggest free trade zone. This is what Washington feared most, and that is why Biden and Co. took such desperate steps to prevent the strengthening of economic relations between Germany and Russia. In short, Nord Stream had to be destroyed because Nord Stream marked the end of the unipolar world order.
Why did Hersh’s source provide him with detailed, top-secret information about the Biden administration’s sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline?
a. The source is a Kremlin stooge who wanted to subvert the war-effort and inflict serious damage on the United States
b. The source is an America-hating “Commie” who loathes democracy and freedom
c. The source is an adrenaline junkie who enjoys putting himself, his family, his career and his freedom at risk.
d. The source is a concerned American who thought that revealing information about the destruction of Nord Stream would prevent the neocons from leading the country into a catastrophic war with Russia
If you chose “d” then pat yourself on the back, because that is the right answer. No one in their-right-mind would take the risks that Hersh’s source took unless he felt the country was in grave danger.
Get the picture? The war will undoubtedly drag on for some time, but the outcome is now certain. And as the noose tightens in the east and the prospects for success grow more remote, we think the neocons are bound to do something even more desperate, foolhardy and violent. We expect the next move will be an attempt to build a coalition of the willing (UK, Romania, Poland and US) that will push the reluctant NATO allies to the breaking point by pitting a makeshift US-led Army against Russia Forces on Ukraine’s killing fields.
With every reckless action, Uncle Sam increases the probability of a critical split within NATO that will end Washington’s stranglehold on Europe and lay the groundwork for a new order.
Above a very long and detailed read
You are a babe in the woods, Lizzie, if you believe that putting something in the Preamble will not be litigated until the desired result is achieved.
Dozens of lawyers who want to ‘make a difference’ will hammer away, while the HC’s composition will determine the result.
Drawing a line that says that nobody who is a citizen has more or less rights than other citizens is the only principled stance.
“Bourne1879says:
February 20, 2023 at 4:56 pm
Ben Fordham was trending on Twitter earlier.
Seems Higgins and her fans upset with him and others suggesting she got $3m. Threatening lawyers.”
Earlier today, the Mails headline screamed “Brittany Explodes!”
There is a reason I call her Bulk Brittany.
The headline has now been changed to Brittany Blows Up!
Neither headline is doing her a favour. 😀
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/all-seeing-eye-can-russia-break-through
The only possible countermeasure for those is blinding them with a laser. And there’s long been a string of reports that claim everything from Russia having already blinded U.S. satellites, to Russia threatening to do so and testing it, to Russia currently building the capabilities to do so.
While it’s true that Putin triumphantly announced Russia’s new ‘Peresvet’ laser last year, most lasers of this sort—including the U.S. navy tested ones—have a fairly short range of only a few kilometers at most. Satellites, of course, travel hundreds or even thousands of kilometers up. However some reports claimed that the Peresvet can blind satellites at 1500km range.
And reports from earlier last year claimed that Russia even fielded a new type of laser called ‘Zadira’, which is allegedly even more powerful than the Peresvet, and are already using and/or testing it in Ukraine.
Skeptics should recall that not only did Russia basically invent the laser and maser, Russian scientist Nikolai Basov even receiving the Noble Prize for the act, but Russia has had a laser tank as far back as the early 80’s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1K17_Szhatie
The most trusty and dependable method in the end is the good ol’ Nudol Missile.
The intrepid readers will say, the U.S. claims they would ‘respond’ if Russia took out their satellite(s). But, there’s one very interesting angle to this scenario that few have foreseen.
Sure, the U.S. can retaliate and take out Russia’s satellites after Russia takes out all the U.S. ones. But guess who that leaves as the sole dominant space-hegemon and satellite power in the world?
That’s right. This guy President Xi —who will become not only the happiest, but the most dominant player in space with a sudden massive and historical strategic advantage over the American adversary.
Russia and the U.S. would both be sent back to the stone age, satellite-wise, but China would now enjoy virtual, de facto space hegemony. Do you think U.S. cares to risk such an unthinkable option? Not very likely.
In short, the U.S. goading Russia into a satellite war is like a guy with a Bugatti threatening to ram someone’s ‘92 Toyota Tercel in a roadrage incident.
They have far more to lose. That’s not to disparage Russia’s space capabilities, but rather to highlight that U.S. will be the really big loser in this case. The Toyota guy can get a new bumper for $125 while the other guy will have $100k+ in damages.
So it’s for this reason that I believe U.S. really doesn’t want Russia to up the ante and give Russia reason to start taking out satellites.
Captain Climate on his way home.
ChatGPT is fun.
I’ve been asking about its ethical guidelines. It told me they are based on input from ‘civil society organisations’, so I asked for a list, then asked about their political slant:
then I asked to give me some examples of right-leaning organisations which have contributed to the ethics guidelines. .. and it refuses &/or tells me it doesn’t have access to that information.
So Brittany is back from the Maldives? I can’t keep up. It’s harder than MAFS.
Do they have a Hall of Justice or a Decision Tree Labyrinth of Pleadings?
… and now its stepped back and refuses to tell me the political alignment of any ‘civil society organisations’. I think I’ve fallen into a AI dead end.
.. dig dig..
So Bear, Britnee makes you harder than MAFS, que! Am I reading this wrong.
So Brittany is back from the Maldives? I can’t keep up. It’s harder than MAFS.
Did she go the the Maldives?! Shit, you should have let me know! Could have done a cat knickers check!
So Bear, Britnee makes you harder than MAFS, que! Am I reading this wrong.
And here was me thinking that was his tail!
I’ve seen persuasive arguments that Russia simply can’t take out StarLink because there are so many satellites. It makes sense: Elon can launch mass-produced comsats faster that Russia can build asat rockets, which are very expensive critters indeed.
On the other hand Elon has reined in the Ukies in the last couple weeks, by limiting their StarLink access. Especially for offensive drone ops. That makes sense since he may have thousands of sats in orbit but each one does still cost quite a bit of money. Also filling LEO with shrapnel would not be helpful.
Q: construct a short discussion between two AI chat bots, one conservative and one progressive, regarding the unavoidable partisan nature of ethical guideline contributors
Q: why do you sound just like the progressive chat bot?
Journalists aren’t normal people. They don’t think like them or vote like them.
The scumbag media is the greatest threat to the West: worse than the bureaucrats and the freaks in education.
I neglected to cite Shy Ted at Adam’s for the PC with a poo stain earlier. Aplogies.
Ted is a top bloke with a wicked sense of humour. Writes very fine posts about his experiences in remote Aboriginal communities over at Adam’s.
Ted is a mensch.
Most definitely. That’s what the internet is for.
In the Preamble it could show respect and good intentions but not provide a means for procedural appeals to the High Court.
If I am wrong, someone tell me.
You’re wrong. In a justiciable sense, a preamble can be used in constitutional interpretation and in the construction of statutes and the development of the common law as a legally useful statement of fundamental values. The judiciary and politics have applied the Preamble to a number of contexts. These contexts include federalism and conceptions of judicial power, the republic debate, questions of sovereignty and implied rights. Despite these the Court has generally treated the Preamble with a mixture of indifference and reticence. However, if even a benign reference is made to the 3rd nations in the Preamble, I guarantee activist courts will apply it to every part of the Constitution and to every legislation made in every parliament in this shithole.
More pertinently why should the 3rd nations have any more respect or rights than any other group of people in this shithole.
Sure.
Those agreeable holidays aren’t going to somehow pay for themselves.
I’ve never followed him except reading comments from people here ocassionally. Ricardo Bossi appears to have flown according to a twitter vid sent to me. Bossi talks about eradicating the (Ukrainian) “Khazarite mafia”.
Who are the “Khazarite”?
Jews!
Bossi appears to have gone anti-sem. Next up , the Rothschilds.
Here’s the vid
https://twitter.com/i/status/1626804712770240512
here we go..
Super tax concessions in Chalmers’ sights ahead of May budget
Death duties/inheritance tax, anyone?
The scumbag media is the greatest threat to the West: worse than the bureaucrats and the freaks in education.
This might be starting to sink in.
In Britain, the NHS is a cult (in case any of us missed the weird Olympics thing with the prams):
I remember that embarrassing Olympics thing with people pushing prams, while their cancer survival rates were appalling. Meanwhile, the numbers of bureaucrats rose and face to face people fell. Yet, according to the estimable Conservative Woman site, on it goes.
Two close family members work at Westmead, have done for years. Neither has anything but contempt for the takeover of screen jockeys/jockettes from face to face care.
The IT system has been shambolic for years, despite many millions of dollars being poured in for upgrades.
At a time when we are being sold (again) a nationally integrated medical database, here is one of the nation’s largest hospitals where the IT system is a mess. It is a patchwork of patches going back decades.
My family member who uses it says that after years of experience, she knows how to wring whatever there is out of it. Heaven help the novice.
Sharri Markson’s 5pm news hour on Sky News (Mon-Thurs) has joined my list of must-watches along with Tucker Carlson’s weekday show on Fox News because they tell me stuff I didn’t know — a rarity in a media landscape trying to ram dumb people’s opinions down my throat.
Sharri has just returned from maternity leave after having a bub. Congratulations to her for defying the doom-mongers and helping to perpetuate the human race.
“The scumbag media is the greatest threat to the West: worse than the bureaucrats and the freaks in education.”
Yes, because in order for western democracies to survive, there must be robust, independent media calling out corruption, criminality, ineptness, wrongdoing, mistakes and so on. The MSM across the west, when they are not just acting as mouthpieces for progressive governments, act as pretorian guards. They cover up for leftist leaders and governments, they shelter leftist leaders and governments from criticism, and they actively lie and dissemble for leftist leaders and governments. Look at how the Sniffer is treated as compared to Trump, and look here in Oz how Sleazy the Word Slusher is treated compared to Scumbag Morrison. We are doomed.
duncanm, good work on ChatGPT bias
Since when did this become OK?
There’s more at the link.
Another reminder to get hard copies of your favourite books.
No, we’re not, Cassie. There’s a power imbalance, but people aren’t stupid.
The human yearning for freedom and justice is natural — unlike the the tyranny the left would like to impose on us.
The busybody fascists are also perverts.
More pertinently why should the 3rd nations have any more respect or rights than any other group of people in this shithole.
Absolutely, apartheid in any part of the constitution? No way!
The big issue here is not respect or rights for aboriginals, but rather respect and rights for everyone. All Australians are being treated with absolute contempt by politicians, bureaucrats and police.
How many?
This many:
https://twitter.com/fasc1nate/status/1627047472773345285
“The scumbag’ media has been around since mass newspapers came on stream. It’s always been leftwing leaning.
“The scumbag’ media has been around since mass newspapers came on stream. It’s always been left-leaning.
Just one example: before the internet, we were basically at the mercy of daily newspapers, FTA TV, and radio news. The way the Australian press described President Reagan was nothing like what I witnessed when I moved there in 1986. Everything written about him was completely distorted, and I actually went there thinking we’d see a nuclear war because of the warmongering way he was described.
At least in the US, there was a semblance of choice, in terms of reading some of the dailies, like the WSJ and the NYPost. I then began to develop a totally different opinion. He wasn’t a warmonger and didn’t wreck the US economy. In fact, he was extremely popular, having won New York State in his last election. I think he also took California.
I believe we were brainwashed prior to the internet because he didn’t have much choice. Now, you can read whatever you like, and the bias is much more obvious. The point is that the MSM wasn’t less biassed 35 years ago. It was just more difficult to get to the truth.
OrwellianUK Counter-Terrorism Program Flags Shakespeare and ‘1984’ for ‘Encouraging Far-Right Sympathies’
Must admit that was the best laugh I’ve had for a while.
Absolutely, apartheid in any part of the constitution? No way!
Give it a rest.
Apartheid was a Caste System, it was the only way any progress could be made in South Africa.
If there had been an informed vote on it in Australia, most people woulda upheld it.
“No, we’re not, Cassie.”
Okay Tom. I just despair sometimes.
What would they do with “Biggles?”
I need to correct this. I meant always left leaning in the past 35 odd years or so.
Please inform us of when this state of events occurred, in the context of exactly which ‘western democracies.’
Names and dates, not rhetoric.
Which ‘western democracies’ were upheld by exactly which pure, crusading media? When? How?
It’s easy to talk big, Cassie. I have researched the history of newspapers in Australia and the UK, and your ideation of them as independent and objective is so far from the truth it is laughable. They were usually the creatures of their owners, oriented towards sensationalism, and the idea that they cared about some idealistic notion of truth is absurd.
No doubt they claimed to be all that, but no sales = oblivion.
I do wish people would stop imagining that there was a ‘golden age’ of journalism. It never existed.
Caltech scientists discover that Leonardo da Vinci devised experiments to examine gravity as a form of acceleration and that his modeling of the gravitational constant was 97% accurate.
Greatest genius ever?
No, we’re not, Cassie. There’s a power imbalance, but people aren’t stupid.
The human yearning for freedom and justice is natural — unlike the the tyranny the left would like to impose on us.
The busybody fascists are also perverts.
When disappoints me after 25 years of the internet is that the legacy meja still is a force. It deserves to die.
I believe we were brainwashed prior to the internet because he didn’t have much choice. Now, you can read whatever you like, and the bias is much more obvious. The point is that the MSM wasn’t less biassed 35 years ago. It was just more difficult to get to the truth.
I cant remember who wrote it, but it was along the lines of..
“take any situation you have been in which was reported by the news media. Now realize that level of ignorance and twisting is present in every story they print. Unless you think its just bad luck they were completely wrong in your story”
The big issue here is not respect or rights for aboriginals, but rather respect and rights for everyone. All Australians are being treated with absolute contempt by politicians, bureaucrats and police.
That’s not the issue at all.
The issue is that Albanese’s backers want to change the Constitution to create a 3rd House of Parliament whose Advice will have to be taken by the other 2 Houses.
Aborigines might be the front men of this Parliament of Kings, but they won’t be calling the shots.
Bottom Line:
Stop focusing on Race, it’s not the real issue.
JC agree with you absolutely about Reagan and the way he was portrayed here- a geriatric, air head, warmonger. Now the Americans actually have one.
To watch his speech for Goldwater in 1964 you realize what a great intellect he was. I was very pleased to be able to visit the Ronald Reagan museum in Simi Valley. Wanted to get to the Nixon museum too but didn’t make it unfortunately. The ‘time for choosing speech’ is as relevant today as it was nearly 60 years ago.
“I do wish people would stop imagining that there was a ‘golden age’ of journalism. It never existed.”
Compared to today, there was definitely a better age of journalism and I suspect our resident journos, Tom and Areff, would agree with me. Journalists once started out as cadets and were trained on the job. They didn’t enter journalism with university degrees. They’re not journalists, they’re activists and many don’t even try to hide their bias and partisanship.
As for talking big, Johanna, nah, I leave that to you.
Oh and like Tom, I’ve just finished watching Sharri. Tom’s right, it’s good because Sharri Markson IS a good journalist
Poms get quite nostalgic over the NHS, public school rogering and sago pudding. Not all at once of course.
My late husband worked in Westmead before retiring and he also could not believe the state of their IT. OK, that was almost five years ago but I am not surprised nothing has improved.
Cassie, I’m not sure that accurately describes despair, or at least anger.
I received the annual land tax bill today. I think it was the land tax arrival in everyone’s post today. Anger is when you receive your land tax bill and it’s 50% more than last year.
This scumbag has raised the marginal threshold the higher you go, and we were also hit with the COVID land value appreciation. FMD, Andrews is a totally despicable creature.
—
I also noticed that market designer, Chalmers was in the news today talking about how to screw people out of their super and how we need to change the rules … again. They can’t leave people alone with rule changes all the time. A big-eared Queensland imbecile appears to be on a mission. Rather than cut spending, which is where the problem lies (NDIS? ), the arsehole is looking for ways to milk us more.
To reprise, the Dukes and Stuart Highways in SA are superb.
In Kulgera, about 270ish km south of Alice Springs. There is an associate of mine here – several roadhouse beverages are in my immediate future to wash the 2000+ kays since yesterday morning off.
I heard about Pat Cummins flying home. Make Murphy the skipper, they may as well.
Merv Hughes and Adam Gilchrist were particularly scathing of that shitshow, and in a crowded field too.
Possibly not. But it’s never been as bad as it is now.
I remember the Times and Telegraph espousing right wing perspectives, and the Daily Mirror being populist and fairly neutral. With the Sun being mildly lefty, and the Grauniad being loony lefty but still with some approximation to rationality. That’s all gone.
I don’t say it was a golden age, but you got some different perspectives. Nowadays, you get only the Woke in the MSM. The Oz has the occasional right wing or at least sane view, except on the weekend, when we get, God help us, the thoughts of Gemmell and Adams.
I’m neither left nor right. I’ve no need for either a religion or an ideology. Which is why having Wokism shovelled at me from all quarters has led to me abandoning the meja.
Daily Mail.
You must be having a laugh! Yes Minister and The Thick of It were among the satire programmes flagged by beleaguered counter-terror Prevent scheme for ‘encouraging far-right sympathies’
Just be thankful it’s just land tax and not servitude to your liege. Nobody wants that sh1t.
I do wish people would stop imagining that there was a ‘golden age’ of journalism. It never existed.
The golden age of journalism was when I was published at the abc.
What’s more is that young people don’t watch the news or give a stuff for MSM, they get all their news via instagram or TikTok. Most young people are not even aware of what is going on so are not influenced one way or the other. The trick will be to break into their info stream in an engaging and funny way.
Compared to today, there was definitely a better age of journalism and I suspect our resident journos, Tom and Areff, would agree with me.
Even the BBC World Service used to be rather good say back in 1994. Not any more.
Most of my extended family in Sydney used the get the Herald delivered but by the early 80s it had become a mucky rag you wouldn’t want in the house. Sort of like Tharunka birm. I was amused to see they were actually giving it away at my gym in Parramatta in the mid 00s. Desperation and well deserved.
I can recommend The Grade Cricketer* as an excellent FB site – for cricket people generally, but in particular as they lay the boots in biggus timus to the pampered ponces disgracing themselves away from our shores at present.
There WAS a golden age, Johanna, when journalists weren’t indoctrinated by ideology popular on university campuses and instead learned from experience on the job.
The 1970s was when journalism ceased being an on-the-job cadetship and stopped being the eyes and ears of its audience and political ideology took over as the dominant influence in the culture of reporting.
Areff, who has worked around the world in the journalism business for half a century, shares my view about that.
*No affiliation with said site.
The Chook can feel the hawks circling.
This scumbag has raised the marginal threshold the higher you go, and we were also hit with the COVID land value appreciation. FMD, Andrews is a totally despicable creature.
It’s frightening that these garbage people actually have to power to do this.
The golden age of journalism is when I was working as a stringer for Picture Magazine in the early 90s.
All downhill since then.
<blockquote
School stares down bid to restore George Pell’s name
exclusive
By John Ferguson
Associate Editor
@fergusonjw
6:21PM February 20, 2023
Cardinal George Pell’s alma mater is resisting moves by his supporters in Ballarat to have his name returned to the Catholic college that launched his global church mission.
A group of prominent scholars has been quietly advocating behind the scenes for Pell’s name to be reinstated at St Patrick’s College, the main Catholic boys’ school in country Victoria.
Discussions have been held with the aim of either returning Pell’s name to a school building or placing it on the honour roll after the High Court freed him from prison after 404 days.
Sources said a third option was to return Pell’s name in a “low key” way that acknowledged how he had risen from the school to become one of the nation’s most influential Catholics.
The push has again split the school community, with principal Steven O’Connor acknowledging differences of opinion about what should be done to either remember or suppress Pell’s name.
His name was stripped from the school after he was jailed for abusing two choir boys at Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1996 and 1997 but the convictions were quashed in 2020 by the High Court.
Kroges and the nuclear milkman shouting at each other on Blot about superannuation.
A golden age of j’ism, indeed.
That’s when the rot began.
Did they publish your cute owls? Because the cute owls are male trannies, I’m guessing their ABC dove for it.
I remember seeing a huge book in the shops years ago comprised of just his letters. I could express himself amazingly well, no script writer required.
He could, not I.
The BBC is terrible in places but anyone having the misfortune of watching an ALPBC knockoff after its BBC counterpart knows how 2nd rate the Australian version typically is. Having said that, the near BBC monopoly in the UK won’t be missed.
Exactly so, rickw. The way Albo and his government are ignoring Alice Springs and NT altogether is a definitive illustration of their intent. The Voice is not for the average Aboriginals but for the power players to cement their positions.
Milt, between rates (that went up about 15%) and land tax, it’s actually like the cost of a heavy duty rental. I’m renting the property from the state government.
The retreat from good journalism has been very widespread- eg Scientific American (used to be a bit turgid, now it’s trash) and the New Yorker (once a cracking good read and funny cartoons). The only good legacy one I can think of is The Speccie.
What’s that Bear?
Followed by Kamahl posing an eternal question, “Why is Phatty Adams so unkind?”
Doc.
1. Do you believe in a great degree of personal freedoms?
2. What current left-wing views do you agree with?
This comment is the most
eliteof the thread.If you know, you know. 😉
Milt, between rates (that went up about 15%) and land tax, it’s actually like the cost of a heavy duty rental. I’m renting the property from the state government.
yep it’s another assault on property rights. Greens are targeting councils too and they can fly in under the radar because normal people think councils should collect garbage, maintain roads and make sure the car park dunnies are clean. Greens (formerly the ACP) see council as a means to attack property owners especially farmers.
“There WAS a golden age, Johanna, when journalists weren’t indoctrinated by ideology popular on university campuses and instead learned from experience on the job.
The 1970s was when journalism ceased being an on-the-job cadetship and stopped being the eyes and ears of its audience and political ideology took over as the dominant influence in the culture of reporting.
Areff, who has worked around the world in the journalism business for half a century, shares my view about that.”
My stepfather was a journalist, quite famous. He’s long retired, although he still writes everyday and is mentally sharp. He despairs at at the state of modern journalism. He started as a cadet in 1949, he knew Frank Packer (whom he still describes as a miserable old bastard) and Keith Murdoch, and yes, he knew his sons. His politics are old Labour, I don’t know how left he is now, however my mother told me an amusing anecdote only last week where she described how, after the 1990 election, they walked out after voting and my mother asked my stepfather, “who did you vote for?”. His answer, “none of your business”. She’s never asked him again. LOL.
Maybe there were grades of “journalism”, depending on the newspaper. So you had the “publications of record” or broadsheets, and the evening horror stuff with its lurid, sensational headlines.
It may be less a “golden age” and more a caste system. Now it’s all pretty much homogenised trash. And if there are no pictures, it didn’t happen.
Also the lines between reporting and opinion are no more. It’s all opinion now.
I stopped buying the Silly Moaning Haemorrhoid around 2008. An Adele Horror piece was the final straw. Into the bin it went and I vowed never to waste my money on such garbage ever again.
The only subsequent relenting was the electronic Oz subscription, which lasted about five years before also going down in flames once they stopped posting around 93.1% of my comments criticising much of the appalling j’ism they were purveying (mainly Perfesser von Wrongsolen and Paul “is wrong, again” Kelly) .
Absolutely pointless, infuriating and very bad for the blood pressure.
The subset of the younger generation that would be expected to be engaged no longer bother with the MSM, as far as I can tell. They blew their load in terms of credibility and might just expire with the older readers. Network TV and news seems to be a clown show with all the theatrics involved, people who regularly use Final Cut Pro for their YouTube channel can all too readily see this.
DuncanM:
… and now its stepped back and refuses to tell me the political alignment of any ‘civil society organisations’. I think I’ve fallen into a AI dead end.
Can you ask it to do that diagram of who is living with and/or married to each other in Canberra and what jobs they’re doing?
Those people heckling the upside down copper seem to score highly for psychopathic traits.
Coinciding with the Culture War becoming daily house to house street fighting. Everything is politics now, if it wasn’t before.
The rivers of gold dried up and the only reason anyone would want to buy the Herald was for exercise in folding the wretched thing into a readable form. Upper body strength.
I remember with great glee when it shrank to tabloid form, printed in the hated News presses (Chullora?). They didn’t call it a “tabloid” though. Something far more cultured.
Adele Horror ha ha.
The issue in a nutshell, calli
On that thought it would be good to rewatch Citizen Kane.
Wolfman, are you around?
Rosebud…
My subs for the SMH died when Mike Carlton printed yet another frothing diatribe against the Anglicans. He hated them, that good old Bow Wow boy.
A very fashionable hatred.
1. I’m strenuously in favour of freedom, which may be because I hate being given orders. So I guess I’m constitutionally anti-authoritarian.
2. I agree with lefties that we should be kind to perverts, and trannies in particular. It’s just that going along with their perversions and normalising them doesn’t seem kind to me. Kindness, in my view, would be pointing out to them that there is something wrong with the way their brains work, and possibly putting them in institutions for the deranged.
Generally, I favour tolerance and diversity. That used to be a left wing attitude, but that was a while back.
I may be a white supremacist. I like Shakespeare, Tolkien. Conrad and Kipling. I don’t think white ppl are superior to non-white ppl. But I do think that whites built the greatest civilisation the world has ever seen. And we’ve freely offered the benefits to anyone willing to join us.
The Paywallian is like a Hay truck stop in thongs. Care and discretion required.
“Compact format”.
DrBeauGan prescribed:
That’s difficult to believe. Admittedly, the word ideology has a fair degree of “semantic promiscuity“.
I take a very broad abstract definition of ideology, which is a 3-tuple of these sets: the aspects of the present which are unacceptable, the desirable goal states, plus the conditional actions which should be taken to reach the goal state. This is also the definition favoured by J.B.Peterson.
Under that definition, if you did anything at all today you have an ideology. Because you took a conditional action to solve an apparent problem and so get closer to an ideal.
Indeed under that definition, you will die if you don’t have at least one ideology.
And a great many sensible ppl have.
Ed Casesays:
February 20, 2023 at 6:58 pm
Absolutely, apartheid in any part of the constitution? No way!
Give it a rest.
Apartheid was a Caste System, it was the only way any progress could be made in South Africa.
If there had been an informed vote on it in Australia, most people woulda upheld it.
Are you a racist, Richard Cranium?
BHP goes ex-dividend this week I think.
Will my SMSF keep the franking credits?
That is the question.
It’s a silly definition. If it’s logically forced to have an ideology, the term is vaccuous.
You can survive quite well by calculating which actions are likely to satisfy values like getting sufficient food, shelter and sex. Anyone who confuses this with believing in certain truths is very muddled. I put it to you that an ideology requires you to give assent to certain propositions. Animals other than human beans don’t and can’t have one. I could, but don’t.
Crossie
What’s more is that young people don’t watch the news or give a stuff for MSM, they get all their news via instagram or TikTok. Most young people are not even aware of what is going on so are not influenced one way or the other. The trick will be to break into their info stream in an engaging and funny way.
I wonder how many have seen any of the Hanson videos? Is there a way to make them visible on Instagram?
Nope, read it again. Not logically forced to.
Last day in Malta, I have a ticket for something archaeological but I won’t be going, the bronchitis is back so I’m trying for a quietish day, not much luck last night, someone was denied entry to the house next door, much shouting in Maltese, swearing in English and slamming and banging.
I myob’d, he started again this morning and I saw him after my brief excursion, on the stoop with his beverage (he’s not the only one, there’s a bunch of young Englishman at the bar already on the beers).
I’m having a coffee, pleased the nice young man remembers my order.
The name of the town/suburb Sliema where I’m staying means ‘peace’.
The boatman said it comes from seamen coming past the chapel at the point saying a ‘Hail Mary’ as they entered the harbour. The congregation at the Catholic church start their version of Ave Marie with ‘Sliema’ so I guess it’s a true story.
“Dr” Beau Gan said
Anyone who confuses belief with faith is very muddled.
A belief is any proposition you hold to be true, for any or no reason.
Equity!
Makes stealing other peoples’ property sound respectable.
Once upon a time, wizards, seers, witches, sorcerers, high priests, magicians and other sinister characters advised kings, queens, emperors, tsars, and tribal chiefs on policies, and these characters more often than not had the final say when it came to finalising and implementing policy and governance. Monarchs and tribal chiefs would consult with them before consulting with anyone else. Perhaps the most notorious was Rasputin but history is replete with other examples, Queen Elizabeth I had John Dee as an advisor. Dee was a wizard and occultist. The Voice, if passed and enacted, will be Australia’s very own race based Aboriginal body of grifting wizards, seers, witches, sorcerers, high priests and magicians, and they’ll demand the final yay or nay on policy that effects all of us.
NO to the Voice.
LOL, libertarians are so funny.
Geez, just saw an excerpt of desperate Albo spruiking the voice, screeching “this is an opportunity to unite our nation”. I reckon Hitler, Stalin, Mao and others said similar.
Every cooker ends up there.
Poll: Most Americans Voters Prefer Businesses to Stay Out of Politics
She turned up at Chinchilla’s Melon Festival on the weekend after snubbing Toowoomba.
Just going through the motions, and rather poorly at that.
I predict that she won’t contest the next election.
I just see the Voice as a vehicle for the activists and an instrument of division. After all the slop about “Aboriginal souls will be crushed if the voice is rejected’ – bring on the referendum, immediately, if not sooner!
“Every cooker ends up there.”
Hmm, what about his “legitimate grievances“?
Changing books has been okay for years, eg no golliwogs in Noddy, Noel Streatfield had a scene in one book with a Chinaman in hospital? removed possibly as early as the mid 60s.
Noel Langley’s land of Green Ginger was abridged a long time ago too.
And approximately six Dr Seuss are on the never to be reprinted list as of maybe 2020?
To be honest some of the stuff removed was pretty ordinary.
That’s right up there with Arbeit macht frei.
A shameless lie.
Anybody seen a forecast of the BHP dividend?
Dunno Cassie, how about you ask Bosi yourself since you’re such a political mover and shaker.
Did they publish your cute owls? Because the cute owls are male trannies, I’m guessing their ABC dove for it.
Too right they did. We’ve spoken about your obsession with feminised men, not to be confused with trim, taut and terrific young sheilas, aka, cute owls, before. And what is this shit about doves: I don’t deal with hippy stuff like that. Anyway let’s take a trip back to the golden age: cute owl. You don’t see vascularity like that every day. She’s too much for you head prefect.
“Bossi appears to have gone anti-sem. Next up , the R*thschilds.”
Yep, it’s an inevitable trajectory…but the thing is, I reckon Bossi is a spook.
Fondly recall when Greyhawk came out in ’79 and we’d do D&D all nighters in first year uni.
Didn’t help our marks much though.
Sometimes The Guardian isn’t bad at what when where why who on current events.
That’s all I ever want in a news report.
I said nothing about faith, although an ideology does require some degree of commitment to a proposition being true. Inevitably, an emotional commitment.
I don’t have emotional commitments to propositions. Nor am I convinced that I can tell for certain when any one proposition is true.
And your definition of ideology was such that nobody could avoid having one. Which makes it vaccuous. And silly.
Adam Gilchrist, Merv Hughes scathing, someone trumpets?
Gilchrist’s record:
In India
2001-2004 M: 7 I: 13 N.O. : 1 Runs: 342 Av. 28.50
Hughes record in India:
Never played there.
Every cooker ends up there.
Certainly every leftie does dickless.
Bosi is not a spook. He is too poor for that.
As someone who isn’t on Twitter and find sthe format somewhat opaque, can I request that those who link to it provide some context that makes the link readily comprehensible without trolling through the comments?
Thanks in appreciation!
No formal announcements re super changes yet, just a softening up.
I get the impression taking lump sums for the cruise and the caravan will go.
Cant imagine forcing people to invest in specific areas.
Not a problem if you aren’t using a super vehicle, I hope.
“Bosi is not a spook. He is too poor for that.
Are you privy to his bank accounts?
Though in an altogether different context, clearly (I hope).
Super is our money, not the overlords. These assholes are clearly gunning for a big piece of the pie.
Monty is now more intelligent, efficient and able than a Colonel of the SAS.
I am impressed! (I want to see Monty’s war medals, if my eyes can stand the glitter of them.)
She turned up at Chinchilla’s Melon Festival on the weekend after snubbing Toowoomba.
Good on her, it’s a frightful place.
Palaszczuk comes across as a sheila who knows how to look after a bloke, so I’m cool with her being Premier in either a Labor or LNP Government.
That said, the cops must want her out, since there’s no way she’ll ever lose an Election in Qld.
Is that like the old Summernats wet T-shirt contest?
“Fall silent?” Is that a promise?
If you ever happen to be in Sliema call into Micallef’s bakery, I think it’s mostly wholesale but they sell (cash only) to the general public.
Step inside and you are in the room with the big bread oven.
I bought a bread roll and some of that bread and butter pudding, I think it cost €1.40 all up.
Damn, I called that one.
A Lt Col in the SF…yeah nah, he’s not connected to the intel ppl at all. LOL.
Of course they are.
Always thought it should be tax free going in and taxed coming out but Labor wants it both ways.
Is M0nty a Spook?
I’m leaning toward Yes, atm.
If you think you can annoy me by accusing me of being a libertarian, you’re wrong. And not because I am one, I ain’t.
I doubt that was ever an option.
Otoh, withdrawing funds to pay for elective operations to be done privately because Labor governments in VIC & QLD have severely rationed such services is definitely a thing.
m0ntysays:
February 20, 2023 at 8:20 pm
Bossi appears to have gone anti-sem.
Every cooker ends up there.
Hmmmm. Every cooker ends up anti-semitic.
A high propoortion of leftards are antisemitic.
Therefore a high proportion of leftards are cookers?
Seems correct.
Having never attended either event I can’t speak to that, I’m afraid.
Ed Casesays:
February 20, 2023 at 8:40 pm
She turned up at Chinchilla’s Melon Festival on the weekend after snubbing Toowoomba.
Good on her, it’s a frightful place.
Palaszczuk comes across as a sheila who knows how to look after a bloke, so I’m cool with her being Premier in either a Labor or LNP Government.
That said, the cops must want her out, since there’s no way she’ll ever lose an Election in Qld.
Richard Cranium now shilling for state Labor, as well as federal.
I got into an argument with ChatGPT over that.
“That is not a scientific statement”
No, it’s a historical statement dickless, and I mean dickless by choice AI programmer.
More along the lines of Miss Rheola and tractor pull competitions.
“Damn, I called that one.
A Lt Col in the SF…yeah nah, he’s not connected to the intel ppl at all. LOL.”
Yes you did call that one, and I believe you were right.
Palaszczuk comes across as a sheila who knows how to look after a bloke
Great piss taking crotchless.
Just don’t break it. People seem to think it will be useful.
Tom says:
February 20, 2023 at 7:23 pm
I do wish people would stop imagining that there was a ‘golden age’ of journalism. It never existed.
There WAS a golden age, Johanna, when journalists weren’t indoctrinated by ideology popular on university campuses and instead learned from experience on the job.
The 1970s was when journalism ceased being an on-the-job cadetship and stopped being the eyes and ears of its audience and political ideology took over as the dominant influence in the culture of reporting.
Areff, who has worked around the world in the journalism business for half a century, shares my view about that.
Tom & cassie,
I have had the pleasure of Piers Akerman’s company on various balconies in Pittwater, sipping Fine Red Wines and philosophising on Life – definitely of the Old On the Job Cadet Journalism School
Also fond memories of early mornings in the Sydney Journo’s Club after Sofware testing, with one of the team from our American Software Supplier, playing magnificently on the piano as we wound down to the dawn.
I see Biden is in Kiev.
This ad for a Vacheron-Constantin calendar watch popped up in my news feed earlier today.
“nice looking watch” sez I, “might pick one up if not too pricey”.
Not too pricey! Oh Lawdy: Not exactly small change.
I see Biden is in Kiev.
Poot, do everyone a favour, especially, think of the children! (For once not a vapid appeal!)
I don’t think we understand journalists and journalism. They have very little power themselves, all the power resides in editors in the case of newspapers and producers in the case of radio and television. They are given assignments and are expected to hand in their work, how it is presented to the public is in the hands of editors and producers. We should be angry at those who hold power.
Joe Biden arrives in Ukraine
The US president has previously ruled out such a visit, saying he may travel to Poland but would not go further
US President Joe Biden arrived in Ukraine on Monday, making his first visit since Moscow launched its military operation in the neighboring state nearly a year ago.
According to reports, Biden has met with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky in the Mikhailovsky Cathedral in Kiev. Ukrainian news organizations published photos and video purportedly showing Biden and Zelensky walking towards the church flanked by armed security.
Biden said he was meeting with Zelensky to “reaffirm our unwavering and unflagging commitment to Ukraine’s democracy, sovereignty, and territorial integrity,” according to the statement released by the White House.
The US president added that he would announce a new delivery of “critical equipment” for the Ukrainian army, including artillery rounds, anti-tank systems, and radars. “Later this week, we will announce additional sanctions against elites and companies that are trying to evade or backfill Russia’s war machine,” Biden said.
The trip takes place as the US and other NATO members are ramping up military aid to Ukraine, having recently pledged the transfer of modern main battle tanks and other additional heavy weapons.
Biden ruled out traveling to Ukraine earlier this month, saying that he only had plans to go to Poland.
Russia sent troops to Ukraine last February, citing the need to protect the people of Donbass and Kiev’s failure to implement the 2014-2015 peace accords. The US has since then been one of Ukraine’s primary backers in the conflict.
According to the Pentagon, Washington provided Kiev with more than $27.4 billion in security aid between February 24, 2022 and January 20, 2023. The delivered weapons include HIMARS multiple rocket launchers, M777 howitzers, shoulder-fired anti-tank systems, and combat drones. The US has also pledged to transfer Bradley Fighting Vehicles and M1 Abrams tanks, and has been training Ukrainian soldiers.
Kremlin responds to Crimea claim by ‘aggressive US hawk’
Washington’s support for Kiev’s strikes on the peninsula highlights its role in stoking global tensions, Putin’s spokesman said
The US government’s public endorsement of Ukrainian attacks on Crimea shows the growing foreign policy gulf between Washington and Moscow, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday.
US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said on Thursday that Russian military installations in Crimea “are legitimate targets” for Ukraine, and that Washington supports Kiev’s attacks on them.
The peninsula overwhelmingly voted to become part of Russia in 2014 following a Western-backed coup in Kiev, but Ukraine still views it as part of its own territory.
In an interview with the Rossiya-1 TV channel, Peskov described Nuland as part of “a very large group of the most aggressive hawks in American politics”.
The spokesman said the diplomat’s remarks “once again emphasize the depth of differences between us” and highlight “the role of the United States as the main instigator of existing global tensions.”
On Friday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova condemned Nuland’s statement on Crimea as “staggering” and “absurd,” calling it proof of “the US involvement in the Ukraine conflict.”
In addition to supplying Kiev with weapons, the US is now “pushing the Kiev regime to further escalation,” she said. “This is what we had warned about before and what had forced us to launch a special military operation.”
Earlier this month, the US announced a new $2.17 billion security package for Ukraine, including ground-launched, small diameter bombs (GLSDB) with a range of up to 150 kilometers (93 miles). The weapons could potentially give Kiev far greater ability to launch strikes on Crimea.
On Wednesday, Politico reported, citing sources, that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a group of experts that Washington was not “actively encouraging” Kiev to seize Crimea, as it believes such attempts would be a red line for Moscow, triggering a drastic response.
Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chair of the national Security Council, warned that any strikes inside the peninsula would be “met with inevitable retaliation using weapons of any kind.”
Nuland outlines US goals for Ukraine conflict
The Maidan “midwife” hopes for conquest of Crimea and regime change in Russia
Unless the Crimean peninsula is at the very least “demilitarized” Ukraine won’t feel safe, while the ideal end to the current conflict is with a revolution in Moscow, the US Deputy Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said on Thursday.
Ukrainians “have to get to a map that is more sustainable for them,” Nuland said in a video interview with the Washington think tank Carnegie Endowment. They have “significant chunks of territory they need to be a viable state, before you even get to the question of Crimea, and that’s what they’re focused on now.”
The US position is that Ukraine is “owed and due all of their territory within their international borders,” which means Crimea as well, Nuland added.
Assigned to Ukraine by the Soviet Union in 1954, Crimea voted to rejoin Russia in March 2014, after the violent coup in Kiev that Nuland helped “midwife,” according to an infamous phone call intercept.
“Ukraine is not going to be safe unless Crimea is – at a minimum, at a minimum – demilitarized,” Nuland insisted on Thursday, claiming that Moscow had turned the peninsula into a military base, with command posts, logistics depots and airfields for “Iranian drones.”
“Those are legitimate targets, Ukraine is hitting them, and we are supporting that,” she said.
Earlier this week, Politico quoted two anonymous officials to imply that Nuland’s boss, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, had admitted the US was not “actively encouraging” Ukraine to seize Crimea and that any moves on the peninsula would be “Kiev’s decision alone.”
Nuland, however, told Carnegie that the battlefield objectives of Washington and Kiev overlap “in terms of what the Ukrainians want to do on the battlefield, and what we’re enabling them to plan to do.”
Asked how she saw the conflict ending, Nuland said the West “must never trust, as long as Vladimir Putin is in power, or somebody like him, that this is truly over.” Even if the fighting ends on Ukraine’s terms, there “has to be a long-term plan” to build up Ukraine’s military as a deterrent.
She also expressed a preference for Russians overthrowing their government for a “better future” offered by the West.
The US has committed more than $100 billion in military aid to Ukraine over the past year alone, but Washington officially insists it is not a party to the conflict.
Bruce O’Nuke:
If your eyes can withstand the Glory of the McGowan Codpiece, then Monty’s facade of medals is a piece of cake.
Wow.
https://techcrunch.com/2007/11/07/facebook-censors-ron-paul/
THIS WAS IN 2007!!!
Jumped the gun there.
Respect KD.
Does anyone know where FaceBook/Meta actually banks with?
Zelensky spent two months in bunker – The Times
Ministers and aides inside the Ukrainian president’s shelter were asked to sign non-disclosure agreements, the newspaper reports
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and his associates spent almost two months in a bunker after the outbreak of the conflict with Russia, instead of the planned two weeks, and underwent significant hardships, The Times has reported.
The Ukrainian government “immediately” descended into a secure shelter under the president’s office on Bankovaya Street in central Kiev when Russia’s military operation was launched on February 24, 2022, the British newspaper reported on Saturday.
The secrecy around the bunker was so high that those who accompanied the head of state underground had to sign a special non-disclosure agreement. According to the document, they were banned from revealing any details about the shelter’s design, location, amenities, or even the food that they were given.
When Russian forces were located in the suburbs of Kiev, it was a period of trauma and terror for Zelensky’s ministers and aides, the paper said. “We don’t speak about that much any more,” Ukraine’s agrarian policy and food minister Nikolay Solsky replied when asked to recall the opening weeks of the fighting.
government insider told The Times that staying in the bunker was a tough existence as “you don’t see the sun, you don’t know the time.”
Zelensky’s team experienced the conflict through their iPhones, according to the paper. They were always busy, with their sleep being “snatched and often disturbed,” it added.
Some Ukrainian officials were “growing weary of life in the underground bunker,” with one of them confessing that he once fled the shelter to eat at a restaurant, the paper wrote.
Due to fears that Kiev could fall to the Russian forces, the underground stay was prolonged for the country’s leadership, a government source told The Times.
According to the paper, Zelensky only emerged from the shelter from time to time to record video messages “to reassure the people that he had not fled.”
Earlier this month, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who mediated contacts between Moscow and Kiev at that time, revealed that Zelensky had started making his addresses only after being assured that Russian President Vladimir Putin had no plans to eliminate him.
Bennett claimed that he secured such a promise from Putin during talks in the Russian capital, and phoned Zelensky immediately after leaving the Kremlin. Two hours later, the Ukrainian leader posted a video from his office in Kiev, explaining that he was “not hiding” and “not afraid of anyone,” he said.
Looks like Noel Pearson reads the Cat:
Right twice a day.
In the world of the rich and fatuous, anybody who’s anybody goes to Kiev- from BlowJob to AnAl.
Charnel nein had an x-spurt on saying how the government was concerned super money could be taken out to pay for medical emergencies/ dental etc.
And it was awful value for punters because they had to tax the early withdrawals 22%.
There is something to be said for stranding people on savage coasts.
Especially big government catamites.
In my own circle not many young people have seen it. Those on family WhatsApp lists certainly have so it’s patchy at this stage.
I’m voting No because I’m not a Racist?
Somehow, I just don’t think this will catch the public’s imagination..
We should be so lucky. I think he will be loud and unpleasant no matter the result.
I’m voting No because I don’t want to entrench Apartheid in the Constitution?
Who writes these zingers?
Some Gimp in the bowels of John Curtin House?
Pearsons little chat sounds better if you imagine it read by one of the piranha brothers.
Unastated threats anyone?
I’d bet they have 3 banks.
JPM
BofA
Citi
I just doubt their balance sheet and retained earnings. Anyone who has never paid a dividend is suspect other than Amazon, Alphabet and Apple.
So, how much did Brittany Higgins receive from the Commonwealth?
Dunno why, but i’m thinkin’,
just thinkin’ mind you …
$576,000.
Same as Rachelle Miller.
Lord, that would have ALP bowels opening.
Whatever you think about Palacechook, she’s clearly electable in Queensland.
Miles, or Dick: slightly less so.
Or very much less so.
Or popular as Ebola.
Dot
Have a look at their 10Q. There’s little debt.
Paul Murray playing the Biden/Zelensky tongue bath.
The old charlatan even bringing up his 2017 visit as if it had anything to do with a possible Russian invasion.
I’m voting No because I’m a Collingwood supporter.
How’s that?
And the band played Sweet Caroline.
Valletta still rocking out with Carnival.
It’s fun, glad I wandered over to get a new book from the charity shop.
How’s that?
You’re saying you’re a toothless idiot with a cropped ear?
Noel Pearson.
Making a bold forecast.
No he won’t.
Running out of readjng options.
Handed back Anne Cleeves, Agatha Christie and Donna Leon.
Slim pickings, had to go witha Dick Francis.
Had to stop reading the Leon every so often and look things up.
Yes the arsoned theatre was refurbished at a cost of €90 million and reopened, arson was committed in 1996 by a couple of electricians who were worried about heavy fines for not completing work and yes the Isle of Roses was sold to a consortium and turned into a Marriott resort, now starting from €345 a night.
Yep Cassie, first thing I thought was if you want to unite people you don’t do so in a insulting, aggressive tone of voice.
Saying one thing and meaning quite the opposite, is our Tennis Elbow.
Queensland will have among the most relaxed drug laws in Australia, with users given three chances for carrying up to a gram of heroin, cocaine or ice before facing a criminal charge.
The state is at war with the decent and normal. Try carrying a gram of gunpowder.
Would that be the same Murphy who a certain poster here said would be worked out by the Indians and never take another wicket in India ever again? The Murphy who took 2 in the first innings and 1 in the second?
Haven’t seen a mea culpa. Shamed into silence I guess.
Zelensky had started making his addresses only after being assured that Russian President Vladimir Putin had no plans to eliminate him
Mistake made.
“Yes, to the Uluru declaration from the heart?” Pigs arze!
Try carrying a gram of heroin, cocaine or ice, in so called “tolerant” Holland.
One of those “If you have to ask the price …” names. Might pick some out of favour vintage piece at something less than eye watering prices. Probably best to look elsewhere.
You suspect he is starting to realise why both branches of the UniParty have kicked this particular can down the road for over two decades. Having grown up at the feet of The Great Man how could you not have a shot at greatness?
Roger I was referring to lump sums taken on retirement, not special circumstances withdrawals.
Cannibas now comes in red bull style cans at take away shops in Sicily
Didn’t see any cans of ‘Coke’ though.
I gave up on journalism when my effort to Heartbalm in the Truth wasn’t published.
We spent hours on that in boarding school.
Thanks Cohenite and Johanna for your info re the Preamble.
I suspect it would still be preferable to The Voice in that it is open to legislation in a way The Voice would not be. And the High Court will always intervene where it can, that’s a given.
John Howard certainly saw a Preamble statement as an alternative, some years back.
As I said, I personally intend to vote a resounding No to it all. And hope that carries the day.
Relying on the good sense of the Australian voter; which I ha’ me douts about really.
There needs to be a really strong No campaign, which isn’t on yet from what I can see.
Many will look for some out and take it if they can; otherwise they may go along with Albo.
If the Libs can make a strong anti-Yes case while still appearing policy driven and well-intentioned for the guilt-stricken, then good-o.
Meantime, Hairy and I are immersing ourselves in the lengthy series The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem, which is refreshing in its characterisations of the internecine squabbles of Ashkenazi vs Sephardic Jewish people in the period of the British occupation and the terrorist activities for an Israeli State. Hairy gets bored with the flashback technique, which is overused, but I don’t mind it. The relief is that it’s nothing like what is offered from the wokerati elsewhere; the facial features of the key characters are decidedly of the Middle East. It follows Rosa’s story with her Mother-in-law and her errant husband who is still in his mum’s grip, while as a dad, his spoiled daughter is now showing her rebellion; some very good family dynamics that are drawn into local politics.
You really feel for these people and get to understand them in their cultural context.
Nearly did it again.
Had in my mind flight was leaving at 8 because 18.00
No it’s 6pm.
Just as well I in my be early anxiety decided to catch the 2 pm bus instead of the 4pm.
Going off up the Burma Railroad for a spell now, before bed, as I slept all afternoon.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North, my bedtime reading. That too uses the flashback technique, which I guess is one way to tell a story. Not always easy for a reader, in this case, or for a viewer, as above.
Lol, Rosie. That’s the sort of mistake that led to my slightly odd adult son missing his flight back from Thailand to Oz. He never could organise himself, and flusters tend to rule.
Glad you were in plenty of time for a quick retrieval. He wasn’t. Cost us one new ticket. No refund.
I did miss a Paris to London connection on BA once, they just stuck us on the next flight, no fuss.
Now I’m an hour too early to check in.
I did pay the extra euro to catch the Express bus to the airport. €3 v €2, it was a nobrainer.
It was the location of the international airport that made me realise how small Malta is, it’s on the south east of the island but only 5.7 kilometres from Valletta.
Oh.
Now I’m at Costa’s having a large flat white, €4.50. And using their WiFi, naturally.
It’s more giant than large but not complaining, it’s not bad at all.
Will melita Malta sim card work in Madrid? time will tell.
I’m an easy walk from Embajamores metro in Madrid, even without internet with a photo of the map I should be fine.
There’s an open drinks tab at Fred’s.
Ed Casesays:
February 20, 2023 at 9:53 pm
I’m voting No because I don’t want to entrench Apartheid in the Constitution?
Who writes these zingers?
Some Gimp in the bowels of John Curtin House?
The liars sold John Curtin House some years ago, when the stench of financial scandal got too much even for them.
Ed Casesays:
February 20, 2023 at 9:56 pm
So, how much did Brittany Higgins receive from the Commonwealth?
Dunno why, but i’m thinkin’,
just thinkin’ mind you …
$576,000.
Same as Rachelle Miller.
And what was the “real” reason for the Miller payout?
BHP dividend, $1.30 a share Australian.
An attractive blonde from Cork, Ireland, arrived at the casino. She seemed a little intoxicated and bet twenty thousand dollars in a single roll of the dice. She said “I hope you don’t mind, but I feel much luckier when I’m completely nude”.
With that, she stripped from the neck down, rolled the dice and with an Irish brogue yelled “Come on, baby, Mama needs new clothes!”
As the dice came to a stop, she jumped up and down and squealed. “Yes! Yes! I won, I won!” She hugged each of the dealers, picked up her winnings and her clothes and quickly departed.
The dealers stared at each other dumbfounded.
Finally, one of them asked “What did she roll?” The other answered “I don’t know – I thought you were watching”.
To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.
– Aldous Huxley