1,276 thoughts on “Open Thread – Weekend 25 Feb 2023”

  1. Further from comments about social media and young women yesterday:

    Social Media is a Major Cause of the Mental Illness Epidemic in Teen Girls. Here’s the Evidence (23 Feb, via Instapundit)

    As I showed in my Feb. 16 Substack post, the big surprise in the CDC data is that COVID didn’t have much effect on the overall trends, which just kept marching on as they have since around 2012.

    To see why this difference matters, imagine that in 2011, just before the epidemic began, a 12-year-old girl was given an iPhone 4 (the first with a front-facing camera) and began to spend 5 hours a day taking and editing selfies, posting them on Instagram (which had launched the year before), and scrolling through hundreds of posts from others. This was at a time when none of her friends in 7th grade had a smartphone or any social media accounts.

    There’s that year again, although I put it at 2013. I think the targeting of young women is also at least partly overt, along the lines of what I wrote at 10.52am.

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  2. Ukrainians have reached the stage where they don’t even bother hiding their war crimes

    Just like their Grandfathers!

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  3. FMD! Every liar/filth pollie and every 3rd nation activist and their media sycophants should be…well I don’t know what should happen to them, but nothing good. This is an entirely man/woman/lbqwoke problem. They have caused this. Rub and tug should be stripped naked and tied to one of these hovels. Disgusting!

    This is a little over the top. Just because the governing class perpetuate the dysfunction makes it no less the responsibility of the elders past present and emerging to feed their own kids, to raise them to be decent people, and to do the right thing by their neighbours.

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  4. I am not so charitable – their craven compliance ruined my children’s future….

    Completely agree, most Australians are scared sheep. Having personally tested most aspects of the lockdown shit. The Government had virtually no physical control. What they did have was control of peoples minds.

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  5. China have apparently opened up their weapons “depot” and are going to send arms to Russia… the link I keep pasting breaks the Cat (so you’ll just have to believe me!!! :P)

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  6. In a letter seen by The Australian, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland raised concern with how Twitter would effectively manage “hateful content” that could be posted in the lead-up to the referendum on an Indigenous voice to parliament, following Elon Musk’s axing of more than half the platform’s staff last year.

    Sure.
    What is the problem exactly?

    “I understand the Australian presence has been substantially reduced, and the Australian public policy team disbanded,” Ms Rowland wrote to Twitter’s vice-president for trust and safety, Ella Irwin, on Sunday.

    Oh, right.
    The friendlies at Twitter Asia-Pacific “public policy” who used to censor for the Green-Liars have been rissoled, so we need to go to HQ to shut down any criticism. But Mzzzz Rowland is whistling in the wind if she thinks anyone at Twitter HQ will go out on a limb for this one. Musk doesn’t give a shit about Da Voice either way, but his guys will be on the lookout for any manual interventions which have political undertones.

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  7. Just because the governing class perpetuate the dysfunction makes it no less the responsibility of the elders past present and emerging to feed their own kids, to raise them to be decent people, and to do the right thing by their neighbours.

    Damn straight.

    Sit down money + grog = low expectations fulfilled.

    Indigenous folk have moral agency and should be held accoutnable for their actions. Whilst ever the progressives deny that the dysfunction will continue and likely get worse, if that’s at all imaginable.

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  8. Finished Series 2 of Clarkson’s Farm last night.
    Top stuff.
    I see the UK papers are reporting “Record Streaming Ratings Despite Clarkson’s Comments About Megan Markle”.
    Despite?
    Err, no.
    The ratings are driven by people outside the media bubble who either heartily agree with Clarkson or don’t care either way.

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  9. QLD Human Rights Commissioner urges QPol to be alert for vigilantism in wake of youth crime wave. Apparently it’s not in his remit to urge them to be more proactive in preventing youth crime.

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  10. The ratings are driven by people outside the media bubble who either heartily agree with Clarkson or don’t care either way.

    Also he’s a gifted entertainer! Like Neil Oliver. From Paul Homewood’s blog today:

    ‘My money says a rationing app is already sitting ready on a hard drive somewhere’ | Neil Oliver (26 Feb)

    Andrew Bolt: ‘Wilful ignorance’ on climate change is making people ‘poorer and weaker’ (26 Feb)

    Homewood’s editorial comment is: “We could do with Andrew Bolt and Sky Australia over here!” To which I could say we’d just love Neil Oliver on Sky News.

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  11. Lysander says:
    February 27, 2023 at 11:37 am

    China have apparently opened up their weapons “depot” and are going to send arms to Russia… the link I keep pasting breaks the Cat (so you’ll just have to believe me!!! :P)

    SITREP 2/26 – Urgent Update

    Another persistent rumor is that the Chinese military is nearing a sort of Lend Lease of its own to Russia. Not only have there been increasing statements from the CIA that China is about to supply “hundreds of drones” to Russia:

    But now a Chinese military blogger has stated the following:

    From the largest storage of reserves of the Chinese army in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (not far from the border with Russia), artillery systems began to be reactivated and brought into combat condition, writes military analyst Zhu Shufang.

    Among other things, these are PLZ-05 howitzers with a caliber of 152 mm (an analogue of the Russian Msta-S), as well as Chinese AR1A multiple launch rocket systems (an analogue of the Russian Smerch MLRS). It was here that high-ranking Russian military personnel arrived 8 days ago, the author writes.

    If this should prove true—some might wonder, why would Russia need vast Chinese military support of this sort? But remember, Russia is openly preparing for something much larger than just Ukraine. The pieces currently in motion feel increasingly like they’re headed toward an eventual ‘Great Power’ clash, in whatever form that may take. So it’s obviously prudent for Russia to begin stockpiling weapons from everywhere it can against a potential clash against the U.S. or various other NATO countries.

    The U.S. themselves admitted recently they have 10,000 American troops in Poland as we speak, and that’s presumably not counting the additional ~10,000 that were said to be in Romania months ago (101st Airborne and 2nd Cavalry ‘Dragoons’ fast response force).

    Russia doesn’t want to be caught ‘with its pants down’ should NATO open up a much larger war, but we’ll see if there’s even any merit to these Chinese rumors. Recall that there were rumors for a long time about Iranian ballistic missiles which never came to fruition.

    Lastly, as a quick update to Bakhmut – the situation is getting dire for Ukraine.

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  12. China have apparently opened up their weapons “depot” and are going to send arms to Russia… the link I keep pasting breaks the Cat (so you’ll just have to believe me!!! :P)

    I saw this being discussed yesterday here and here.
    Just rumors atm.

    BTW, comment was spammed. Now fixed.

    2
  13. The Energy Department, previously undecided on how the virus emerged, joins the FBI in saying Covid-19 likely spread via a mishap at a Chinese laboratory.

    And who was the poisonous elf funding and guiding the Chinese lab work?

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  14. Walked into the cafe this morning. Cappuccino please! “Yes we know! We’ve almost finished it!” They’re not locals, happy to serve people who don’t grunt at them!

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  15. haven’t scrolled back (just back from my bike ridin’ ..!) so not sure if anyone has posted today’s excellent column from TIM BLAIR on the VOICE .. I’m assuming it’s pay-walled in the Tele so this is a pix of the page .. enjoy!

    https://postimg.cc/dhD3624h

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  16. shatterzzz says:
    February 27, 2023 at 12:10 pm

    haven’t scrolled back (just back from my bike ridin’ ..!) so not sure if anyone has posted today’s excellent column from TIM BLAIR on the VOICE .. I’m assuming it’s pay-walled in the Tele so this is a pix of the page .. enjoy!

    https://postimg.cc/dhD3624h

    Thanks shatterzzz – with + was able to easily read Tele Article from Tim Blair

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  17. I see the UK papers are reporting “Record Streaming Ratings Despite Clarkson’s Comments About Megan Markle”.

    Amazon Prime is also well aware of this – hence Clarkson’s Farm 3.0 is going to remain in production for release in 2024.

    Be a brave production executive who, in late 2023, says: “Yes it’s making us a motza, sure it’s going to appear on some other platform and load-shed viewers from Prime – but he’s upset the Sussex’s and people who don’t watch him, and it’s the right thing to do…

    Slow-release woke.

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  18. The ratings are driven by people outside the media bubble who either heartily agree with Clarkson or don’t care either way.

    Clarkson is probably the only person in the entire entertainment industry worthy of having a beer with.

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  19. UKRAINIAN HERESIES

    I’ve seen several perspicacious queries about media coverage of the Ukrainian war, namely, why don’t we see very much battle footage—or very much front line footage for that matter? All we seem to get are some set-piece videos, practically b-roll at this point, of long-range artillery being fired. Are there no reporters embedded at or near the front lines?

    Back in the primitive days of Vietnam, when any film footage had to be developed and shipped back to the U.S., we still got a lot of front line footage from journalists like Dan Rather and Morley Safer.

    Why not in this case?

    Another comparative question: back in the Vietnam War, the media was relentlessly hostile to the U.S.-aligned leaders of South Vietnam, especially President Thieu. We heard endless reports about his authoritarianism and corruption. But if anyone today raises the same issues with regard to Ukraine’s government of President Zelensky, you are immediately accused of being a pro-Putin apologist

    Look, I think Zelensky is doing a good job leading the country (and especially playing to American media and thought leaders—you’d expect no less from someone with a TV entertainment background),

    but isn’t the media canonization of him more than a bit thick?

    Moreover, does anyone have confidence in Biden Administration’s ability to manage the conflict?

    Seems to me they are making the exact same mistakes as the Democratic defense and foreign policy geniuses of the 1960s—the “best and the brightest” in David Halberstam’s memorable phrase—did in thinking we could “calibrate” our involvement in Vietnam through their doctrine of “flexible response,” and thereby manage a favorable outcome. How’d that work out for us—and for Vietnam?

    So it comes as something of a surprise to see Timothy Garton Ash, one of the leading analysts of Eastern Europe since the 1980s, depart slightly from the Ukraine Party Line recently in the New York Review of Books. Here are the relevant excerpts:

    Ukraine is asking questions of the West, but there are also questions for Ukraine. Many Ukrainians are privately asking themselves these questions, as are many in the West.

    In 2021, Freedom House, the American NGO well known for its freedom index, classified Ukraine as only “partly free,” highlighting corruption and problems with the judiciary. On Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, Ukraine was the worst-scoring European country—unless you count Russia, which scored even lower. The country’s oligarchs still had far too much power. Ukraine is certainly fighting for democracy against tyranny today, but it would be wrong to pretend that yesterday it was a model liberal democracy. It had a heap of problems then and has a heap more now. If the high hopes of brave Ukrainians are not to be disappointed, these need to be identified and addressed. . .

    Decentralization is one of the success stories of Ukraine’s pre-war reforms, but at the moment—understandably, since there’s a war on—the country is essentially being run by the presidential administration. A member of parliament from Zelensky’s own Servant of the People party told me that she and her colleagues are hardly consulted.

    What is more, all the main TV channels run just one version of the news, 24/7.

    The United News telethon is watched by some nine out of ten of the estimated 36 percent of Ukrainians for whom television is their main source of news.

    Independent online publications and social media diversify the information flow for those who regularly access them, but such a television-news monopoly will be a major democratic deficit if it continues into the next presidential election, due in March 2024.

    Media running “just one version of the news”? Sounds rather familiar, doesn’t it? Needless to say we’d be better served with some media skepticism about everything, but especially our grand strategy with regard to a conflict that could easily spin out of control.

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  20. This is a little over the top. Just because the governing class perpetuate the dysfunction makes it no less the responsibility of the elders past present and emerging to feed their own kids, to raise them to be decent people, and to do the right thing by their neighbours.

    Understood. 3rd nations avoid personal responsibility for a variety of reasons including their tribalised social structure. But for years they have been told about the non-existent wrongs done to them by white society and how noble and better they are by the left. They have been used by the left as a perpetual victim with no consequences for their actions simultaneous with the left’s denigration of Western democracy. This is a situation created and exacerbated by the left. Some aboriginals have broken free of this trap but the left is expert at doing this; and combined with the 3rd nation grubs from thorpie to lagton to pearson the average aboriginal is stuffed.

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  21. I’m making a prediction here: this story is the tip of a very large green iceberg of corruption and rorting:

    How Italy’s generous green homes scheme turned ‘wicked’ (via Phys.org, 26 Feb)

    “An Italian scheme to make homes more energy efficient has been wildly popular, but the government is seeking to rein in its “out of control” costs amid fears it could send the deficit soaring.

    Environmentalists were skeptical about its benefits but Italians rushed to take advantage of the program, in which the state paid 110 percent of the cost of making homes greener, with the subsidy delivered via a tax credit or tax reduction.

    As intended, it boosted the construction sector—but it has so far cost the state 61.2 billion euros ($64.8 billion), according to the finance ministry.

    She said the scheme had led to fraud worth nine billion euros, while the tradeable nature of the tax credits had “generated a sort of parallel currency, and that parallel currency risks having a devastating impact on the budget”.

    The superbonus scheme was introduced by former premier Giuseppe Conte, whose populist, environmentalist Five Star Movement led the coalition government at the time.

    It allowed homeowners to either deduct the cost of work from their taxes over several years or sell the tax credit to their builder, who would sell it to a bank, which would then claim the money from the state.”

    Oh, wow. They gave people 110% of the price of solar panels and whatnot? Then allowed them to trade that tax credit to the builder for cash in hand? In the nation which invented the Mafia? Let me guess here, they’re going to find millions of mythical solar panels and oodles of non-existent insulation which was never installed. Then they’ll finally find how much of the money found its way to Mafia bank accounts in Switzerland.

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  22. Housing, in Alice Springs/blockquote>

    Good on Avi for getting to the heart of the matter with his report.
    It should be aired on every TV station in Australia, because the solution is so simple (I’ve mentioned it previously here myself) – a hostel where kids can go to feel safe, and loved, get a decent bed, get cleaned up, and where they can get fed, amuse themselves, and learn from trusted adults about boundaries to behaviour and present themselves ready for daily school.

    The other thing is that is not a specifically aboriginal problem. It is a problem in all of our drug-addled public housing areas where people exist on benefits. I’ve seen it myself here in Sydney, been into properties that look similar, actually done some cleaning up of them myself when it is rellies or people I know either living in them, or having to live with others around them producing such chaos. Those with rentals are often joined by homeless people seeking shelter. The only difference is that in Sydney there is a bit more inspection of properties and sometimes (rarely) tenants are told to do a minimal clean up or lose the tenancy. There should be more of this as people can and do respond. Mental incapacity can be part of the problem as it seems to be in Alice Springs – either due to drug and alcohol abuse or fetal alcohol syndrome in adults, combined with other psychiatric conditions made worse by a victim mentality.

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  23. A ray of light ?
    NRL club bosses overwhelmingly against Pride Round

    I’m guessin’ they’ve taken the huff cos Manly got a knock-back on their queer parade float .. LOL!

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  24. COVID lab leak is a scandal of media and government censorship

    By Jonathan Turley

    The Wall Street Journal reports that the Energy Department has concluded that the COVID pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak.

    The conclusion is reportedly based on a classified intelligence report recently provided to the White House and key members of Congress. Many will be exploring why the scientific evidence of a lab leak was so slow to emerge from intelligence agencies.

    However, for my part, the most alarming aspect was the censorship, not the science.

    There will continue to be a debate over the origins of COVID-19, but now there will be a debate.

    For years, the media and government allied to treat anyone raising a lab theory as one of three possibilities: conspiracy theorist or racists or racist conspiracy theorists.

    Academics joined this chorus in marginalizing anyone raising the theory. One study cited the theory as an example of “anti-Chinese racism” and “toxic white masculinity.”

    As late as May 2021, the New York Times’ Science and Health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli was calling any mention of the lab theory as “racist.”

    She embodies the model of the new “advocacy journalism” at the Times. Reporters who remained wedded to the dated view of objective journalism were purged from the ranks of The Times long ago.

    Mandavilli and others made clear that reporters covering the theory were COVID’s little Bull Connors.

    She tweeted wistfully “someday we will stop talking about the lab leak theory and maybe even admit its racist roots. But alas, that day is not yet here.”

    However, one former New York Times science editor Nicholas Wade chastised his former colleagues for ignoring the obvious evidence supporting a lab theory as well as Chinese efforts to arrest scientists and destroy evidence that could establish the origin.

    Others in academia quickly joined the bandwagon to assure the public that there is no scientific basis for their theory, leaving only racist or politics as the motivation behind the theory.

    In early 2020, with little available evidence, two op-eds in The Lancet in February and Nature Medicine went all-in on the denial front.

    The Lancet op-ed stated, “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that Covid-19 does not have a natural origin.”

    We were also supposed to forget about massive payments from the Chinese government to American universities and grants of some of these writers to both Chinese interests or even the specific Wuhan lab.

    No reference to the lab theory was to be tolerated. When Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) merely mentioned the possibility in 2020, he was set upon by the usual flash media mob. The Washington Post ridiculed him of repeating a “debunked” coronavirus “conspiracy theory.”

    The categorical rejection of the lab theory is only the latest media narrative proven to be false. The Russian collusion scandal, the Hunter Biden “Russian Disinformation,” the Lafayette Park “Photo Op” conspiracy, the Nick Sandmann controversy, the Jussie Smollett case, the Migrant Whipping scandal.

    On the lab theory, media like the Washington Post piled on senators like Cruz and Cotton for mentioning the lab theory only later to admit that it could be legitimate.

    All of those experts and writers who were called racists or suspended by social media were simply forgotten in media coverage.

    That is why this is really about censorship.

    The media guaranteed that we did not have a full debate over the origins of the virus and attacked those who had the temerity to state the obvious that there was a plausible basis for suspecting the Wuhan lab.

    None of this has diminished demands for more censorship. Even after Twitter admitted that it wrongly blocked The New York Post story before the 2020 election, Democratic senators responded by warning the company not to cut back on censorship and even demanded more censorship.

    Recently, the Twitter Files revealed an extensive and secret FBI effort to censor citizens on social media.

    This included undisclosed efforts by members like Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Cal.) to get Twitter to ban a columnist and target critics. In a House hearing, democratic leaders like Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md). called for more censorship and opposed investigations into the censorship efforts

    These same figures in politics and media are just moving on to the next approved narrative.

    President Biden previously called for more censorship and accused Big Tech of “killing people” by not censoring more views deemed “COVID misinformation.”

    The opposite is true. By suppressing alternative scientific and policy views, the public was denied a full debate over mask efficacy, vaccine side effects, COVID origins and other important issues.

    Many of those questions are only now being recognized as legitimate and worthy of debate.

    Jonathan Turley is an attorney and a professor at George Washington University Law School.

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  25. Bruce of Newcastle says:
    February 27, 2023 at 10:52 am

    The food supply
    The fuel supply
    The transport system
    The electricity system.
    *ALL* 4 above are being attacked by the green movement.

    And human fertility.

    This seems to be an overt strategy, with five prongs, in order of first appearance:
    1. Feminism and women’s lib
    2. Attack on marriage
    3. Climate scares, causing fearful lefties not to have kids
    4. Covid and the mRNA vaccines
    5. Radical transgenderism and “gender affirmation”, since tranny fertility is extremely low

    The Malthusian view of the Left never went away, and is especially strong in the green-progressive movement.

    “In the Land of Promise”: An Encounter with a Pro-Life Painting

    During a brief sojourn in my nation’s capital to participate in the March for Life this year, a few friends and I were able to visit the National Gallery of Art. With limited time, I was intent on prioritizing works by such great painters as Sargent, Whistler, or Monet. Though I was able to examine some of their works in person and marvel at their mastery, a chance encounter with a somewhat unknown artist was what left the deepest impression on me.

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  26. Completely agree, most Australians are scared sheep. Having personally tested most aspects of the lockdown shit. The Government had virtually no physical control. What they did have was control of peoples minds.

    Correct, I committed the following ‘COVID crimes’, yet in the end they had to fall back on an AFP frame up – which I beat too.

    1) (AHPRAs words) “stated in the media that Ivermectin was an
    effective treatment for COVID-19 in contradiction to ATAGI
    guidelines”
    2) (AHPRAs words) “issued patients with instructions on how to
    obtain Ivermectin to treat COVID-19 in contradiction with ATAGI
    guidelines”
    3) (AHPRAs words) “stated in the media that the COVID-19
    vaccines were unsafe and this information was being
    systematically suppressed by governments, professional bodies
    and the media in contradiction to Ahpra and the National Boards
    position statement regarding COVID-19 vaccines”
    4) Discouraged vaccination of children for COVID (my words: “Dont rush it, healthy children have ZERO risk of serious COVID, yet face a lifetime of risk of side effects … pause to consider the ethics of vaccinating children to protect their grandparents”
    5) (AHPRA’s words) – acted anti-semetically by comparing the ‘othering process’ of the unvaccinated to that of the jews in the lead up to the holocaust – including reference to the ‘Ten Stages of Genocide”
    6) Crossed a closed border (multiple times)
    7) Failed to wear a mask in contravention to CHO directive (multiple times)
    8) Left home (whilst under lockdown) without lawful excuse – multiple times
    9) Criticised my state MP, persistently and publicly (earned a home visit from the Police for this)
    10) Failed to report of ‘contact tracing’ (multiple times).

    Whatever happens, I can hold my head high and know I stood up for my childrens future. Otherwise, the noose just continues to tighten. They regard themselves as our rulers now, not our servants.

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  27. Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare says:
    February 27, 2023 at 12:38 pm

    Housing, in Alice Springs/blockquote>

    Good on Avi for getting to the heart of the matter with his report.
    It should be aired on every TV station in Australia, because the solution is so simple (I’ve mentioned it previously here myself) –

    a hostel where kids can go to feel safe, and loved, get a decent bed, get cleaned up, and where they can get fed, amuse themselves, and learn from trusted adults about boundaries to behaviour and present themselves ready for daily school.

    Lizzie,

    “Stolen Generation Again” – To the Stocks for such a Sensible Suggestion

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  28. ABCcess posts a “its totally a conspiracy theory” sharticle on the “15 minute cities”.

    Unasked: Why we should give government the benefit of the doubt after the last 3 years of covid bastardry?

    Unfortunately their x-spurts parrot the WEF lines.

    “Your carbon footprint is a lot lower, so it’s a powerful climate change mitigation tool … It promotes urban health and thus promotes the actual reduction of public health costs … It promotes individual affordability and household affordability because you don’t need to own the second car or maybe even the third car.”


    As NSW minister Rob Stokes put it last year: “The pandemic has seen demand for walking and cycling infrastructure soar, and outdoor spaces valued more than ever. Our vision for 15-minute neighbourhoods will also improve health and wellbeing outcomes, and ensure local communities thrive.”

    Government have proven, for 3 years they are mendacious shits only too happy to use the organs of state to violate people lives and livelihoods.
    So excuse me if it automatically assume bad intentions for your every proposal going forward.

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  29. I should also add that I think a flying squad of clean-up assistants would be a very good investment, because often these people are so damaged, depressed or simply incapable, that they don’t know where to start once they have let things get so bad. It should be made clear that this is a one-off gift, and that next time they will be out on their ear. Free or subsidised cleaning materials would also be a good investment, available from a central depot to tenants, because people on benefits don’t have the money to spend on such things. A culture of cleaning could be established, and it would be a start. Similarly, in remote communities, picking up litter should be prioritised and ensure by litter fines of some sort (maybe withdrawal of certain privileges). If it all sounds authoritarian and intrusive, well, it needs to be.

    The ‘fix the broken window’ system enlarged to cover housing care.

    4
  30. a hostel where kids can go to feel safe, and loved, get a decent bed, get cleaned up, and where they can get fed, amuse themselves, and learn from trusted adults about boundaries to behaviour and present themselves ready for daily school.

    Several years ago, in Western Australia, with a State election looming, the Liberal Party proposed a similar scheme for Aboriginal children.

    Les then a day later, a certain Aboriginal politician played the “Stolen Generation” card.

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  31. OldOzzie says:
    February 27, 2023 at 12:00 pm
    Lysander says:
    February 27, 2023 at 11:37 am

    SITREP 2/26 – Urgent Update – Today it has been confirmed by reputable sources that the AFU has attacked Belarusian soil—specifically a drone attack on a Russian early warning A-50U Beriev plane parked in Machulishchi airbase, just outside of Minsk. The UA side claims the A-50U was damaged, while there is no confirmation from the Russian side.

    If true, this is a significant escalation by Ukrainian forces.

    6
  32. Quite unbelievable looking through some of the comments on the abortion story linked upthread. Here is an example:

    Judy Gubinski
    @GubinskiJudy
    ·
    5h
    Replying to @FrMatthewLC
    Please stop preaching medical disinformation. Duggar was undergoing a spontaneous abortion. Her fetus was not necessarily dead but “non viable” and not expelled, so like countless women – she had to undergo a D&C(surgical abortion) to prevent sepsis & death…

    A ‘spontaneous abortion’ is a miscarriage. She wasn’t ‘undergoing’ it, it had happened; there was no fetal heartbeat so the child in utero was now dead. The D&C was not of a live child in utero, but of a now dead child in utero that now threatened sepsis and death if not attended. No one is opposed to the removal of dead child in utero via D&C. Trying to pretend there is no morally relevant difference between spontaneous abortion and induced abortion is manifest dishonesty.

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  33. a hostel where kids can go to feel safe, and loved, get a decent bed, get cleaned up, and where they can get fed, amuse themselves, and learn from trusted adults about boundaries to behaviour and present themselves ready for daily school.

    Essentially what the missions used to do.

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  34. “Stolen Generation Again” – To the Stocks for such a Sensible Suggestion

    Well, Avi’s interviewee, the ex-cop housing contractor, who knows more than a thing or two, has solved that one. He has suggested the kids should ‘self-refer’, and thinks many of them would so do.

    Home visits to encourage creation of an environment that would attract the kids back could be part of the deal. Kids probably would only use such a service on a part-time basis anyway – but it would be a good start. Staffed by ‘aunties’ please, of the indigenous variety. Many of the women are fed up with what is happening to the kids, but can’t say too much nor change much without help.

    4
  35. Free or subsidised cleaning materials would also be a good investment, available from a central depot to tenants, because people on benefits don’t have the money to spend on such things.

    1) they aren’t free – I pay for them
    2) ‘free shit’ is NEVER valued by the recipients – it cannot be – they have no means of judging what its worth if they didnt have to pay for it – this is the ‘Communist Calculation Problem’ devolved all the way down to the individual level.

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  36. Innovative programs involving aboriginal input would do so much more to improve these remote community (or township) situations than the wretched Voice, with its victim-building culture and huge waste of money, would ever do. That money, along with what we give now, could be put to such better purposes. I am all for the decent aboriginal people I grew up with, and who married into my family, returning to the cultural fore and demanding that joining in with the mainstream culture is the way to go and looking after your kids is the number one purpose in life.

    3
  37. If true, this is a significant escalation by Ukrainian forces.

    Or a false flag to increase the pressure for Belorussian entry.

    5
  38. The Government had virtually no physical control. What they did have was control of peoples minds.

    yep, my 4 adult kids, at the time, had nothing but praise for the gummint(s) “saving lives” with vax and prompt actions to the extent of cutting me off from grandee contact .. cos no vax! .. 2 of ’em still believe it.. FFS!

    13
  39. From the Tim Blair blog referred to earlier:

    Vote no to the Voice and get called a racist. Vote yes and be a racist.

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  40. Staffed by ‘aunties’ please, of the indigenous variety.
    With a large burly pacific Islander “uncle” there with the express remit of flogging 7 shades of poop out of any parasites/abusers trying to access the place.

    7
  41. 1) they aren’t free – I pay for them
    2) ‘free shit’ is NEVER valued by the recipients

    Plenty of things are ‘subsidised’, including pharmaceutical prescriptions and university education.
    We don’t live in a libertarian Ayn Rand paradise. Look at it rationally, saying it is what it is.
    Public housing is also subsidised, and not an ideal solution, but when a ‘stopgap’ as it used to be, while people got on their feet, it still has value. Getting a minor form of subsidy on cleaning gear to maintain public housing in a hygienic state will also have an ROI. Fewer repairs and biocleans needed.

    Yelling ‘let them die in their own squalor’, especially when children are involved, is no solution to anything. The current situation, as Avi’s interviewed cop/contractor knows, has been let go on for so long that something is required to repair the current set of practices that have led to this squalor. I am suggesting some positive actions which could have positive effects. A change in the public housing culture about hygiene and care of property.

    3
  42. Wolfman & Cassie:

    I’m still quietly seething over the whole COVID debacle but I won’t let it distract from me going about my daily life now.
    However, whenever I’m in the company of any fwit who verbalises their love and support for the COVID tyranny we went through I am very vocal in my condemnation and contempt for them – I will not suffer these cretins sprouting their evil garbage.

    I still wear my Tshirts with the Morgan David & Biohazard symbol. And will continue until the legislation which enables this atrocious removal of one class of citizen from our society.
    I can carry a grudge with the best of them now.

    11
  43. Duk the only thing you did wrong was 9. You failed to rip the head off the said politician and shove it up his bountiful posterior.

    3
  44. Calli:

    As for Channel Seven…Sunrise has been switched off in this house since early 2021. I will never forgive them for their “Red filter of panic” and their foul, biased reporting of the presidential elections.

    I swapped my TV for a bread maker, which gets more use than the TV. The lounge room looks refreshingly uncluttered.

    10
  45. With a large burly pacific Islander “uncle” there

    Yes. As a role model. Many of these kids have never seen what a good man can do to keep order, they have been effectively fatherless and the only men they have known have been drunks and druggies.

    11
  46. Bourne1879:

    The monologue was met with mixed reactions, with some saying it fell flat, others finding it humorous, while some decried Harrelson’s words as anti-vaccine conspiracy theories.

    And a large percentage of people said “That’s about right”.

    4
  47. I should also add that I think a flying squad of clean-up assistants would be a very good investment, because often these people are so damaged, depressed or simply incapable, that they don’t know where to start once they have let things get so bad. It should be made clear that this is a one-off gift, and that next time they will be out on their ear. Free or subsidised cleaning materials would also be a good investment, available from a central depot to tenants, because people on benefits don’t have the money to spend on such things. A culture of cleaning could be established, and it would be a start.

    I’m assuming you aren’t aware that, these dayz, NSW Housing has no, automatic, right of access to properties without good reason? .. like all landlords in NSW they have to ask for, prior, permission in writing to enter from you, the tenant, or go thru the Rent Tribunal with a damn good excuse! .. just turning up at the door is classed as “harassment” if you decide to complain ..!
    I wouldn’t fancy the chance of HC fronting the Tribunal and claiming the joint needs cleaning!..
    Ist they’d have to prove it and, of course, once you were made aware as the rules say you have to be .. you’d clean-up vid it .. lob into the Tribunal and say, “Who, moi? .. look at this.. victimzation, they is always pickin’ on me!” ..
    All part of the everyone-winz-a-prize-cos-we-is-all-equal syndrome that the woke have inflicted thru-out the gummint rule books …….. and when your dealing wiv “houso” ‘professionals” .. duuuuh!

    7
  48. B’Hell – just reading SMH Article

    Fertility, obesity, productivity… The crazy cost of a Sydney house is not just financial

    and my wife, who had been weeding the driveway, came in to tell me she had spoken to the Guy who is now doing our lawns (my Lawn guy of over 20 years had sold his lawn run & bought one in Kiama late last year – The new Guy, who I assume works for the Strata Maintenance Person who bought the run), about doing our lawns on thursday nearer weekend –

    Turns out the Guy drives down from Tamworth, where he lives, stays at his Father’s House in Lake MacQuarie and comes down to Sydney to do 3 -4 days Lawns/Hedging work

    Ouch!

    1
  49. (Govt provided Islander ‘Uncle’) As a role model. Many of these kids have never seen what a good man can do to keep order, they have been effectively fatherless and the only men they have known have been drunks and druggies.

    I got an update on this recently. In the context of my mothers death, the aboriginal kids she taught came to her funeral or spoke to me personally before and afterward.
    Made me realise how completely our lives had separated from theirs since primary school.
    But one neighbour who was still in contact told me about a shelter they made in the garden; they went to the Aboriginal houses in town and scrounged all the flagons left from long ago, and built them into concrete as a glass garden wall. The aboriginal kids we knew, now in their sixties, said what we didn’t get about those times was that the problems we knew were only on pension day. The rest of the time they had great lives!
    My takeaway is that I actually know little about their lives, and will let them speak for themselves.

    3
  50. I swapped my TV for a bread maker, which gets more use than the TV. The lounge room looks refreshingly uncluttered.

    TV is very non-U anyway.

    1
  51. “Touching grass” is a great idea but building a lot cabin and drinking raw milk is illegal. Very, very illegal!

    Live in ze pod, eat ze bugz!

    1
  52. Essentially what the missions used to do.

    Exactly. I am a great fan of rewriting the historical role of missions in improving aboriginal welfare and education, and knocking over the ‘stolen generations’ mythologies. We are currently seeing in places like Alice Springs what happens when people are left without attachments to the wider society and its norms. They become feckless, all the more so when they become dependent on welfare funding, especially when it comes with no reciprocal strings attached. When one significant string, the cashless welfare card, was removed by the ideological Labor government, no prizes for guessing the result. These are the people who denigrated missions, pushed for outback ‘settlements’, invented a ‘stolen generation’ and gifted land rights royalties without strings to be squandered. This money then became controlled Big Men who profit from further moneys offered to ‘improve’ the very conditions created by the monies already offered.

    But it is what it is, we’ve got what we’ve got, and I start from there with policies for change.

    1
  53. The timid civilized world has found nothing with which to oppose the onslaught of a sudden revival of barefaced barbarity, other than concessions and smiles.

    — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

    the Liberal/National Coalition comes to mind – as well as all the Conservatives criticising Matt Walsh for his robust language.

    8
  54. Ok here a in-voice hypothetical.

    We have seen the “super early for Abbos” court case.
    It will probably fail in court.

    If the constitutionally enshrined in-voice gets up and “advises” that this is actually something that should be in place, its guaranteed a rails run to the High court (if the government doesnt capitulate immediately).

    No run nearly every legal challenge with a tenuous connection to Aboriginality through that same filter- does it seem a modest proposal to anybody now?

    Such as this one
    https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/thousands-call-on-pm-to-help-reunite-heartbroken-aboriginal-mother-with-2-year-old-daughter/gt54ame3n

    Remember they dont have to justify any intervention

    4
  55. The aboriginal kids we knew, now in their sixties, said what we didn’t get about those times was that the problems we knew were only on pension day. The rest of the time they had great lives!

    Government “help” is capable of destroying any peoples.

    5
  56. but isn’t the media canonization of him more than a bit thick?

    Consumer fatigue has always been a big threat to the State Department’s grand plans.
    So he’s Foggy Bottom’s marketable face. For the moment.
    If he is smart, he’ll know he needs to be more recognisable to the general US public than whoever’s currently hot on American Idol.
    So that when the Administration decides to cut their losses,
    Joe Paycheck Karen Whitewhine will be the insurance policy
    that ensures he gets to walk away too.

  57. My takeaway is that I actually know little about their lives, and will let them speak for themselves.

    Indeed, Chris. But not with Albo’s Voice, which will not be listening to them but an urban elite.
    Does ‘speaking for themselves’ involve any local organisation, and to whom should they speak?
    Or perhaps they are doing fine as they are? From most appearances though, that doesn’t seem to be the case in many more remote areas.

    1
  58. Very sceptical of the China supplying Russia with weapons story.
    Selling them the building blocks & tech?
    Sure.
    But to do more than that without several cut outs in between would be too inflammatory for the US.

  59. But not with Albo’s Voice, which will not be listening to them but an urban elite.

    I just see the Voice as being the vehicle for such an urban elite.

    6
  60. Or perhaps they are doing fine as they are? From most appearances though, that doesn’t seem to be the case in many more remote areas.

    It may also be a version of ‘stories my Nana told me’. Back in the early 1970s my Mum the teacher said that the threat of removal meant that the parents sent the kids to school; those kids were literate at a high rate, but I understand half their grandchildren are not.
    But then half the kids I was at school with have died, too.

    4
  61. I’m assuming you aren’t aware that, these dayz, NSW Housing has no, automatic, right of access to properties without good reason? .. like all landlords in NSW they have to ask for, prior, permission in writing to enter from you, the tenant, or go thru the Rent Tribunal with a damn good excuse!

    I am very aware of this Shaterzzz. You are not the only person on this blog intimately acquainted with NSW Housing. Housing have the right to make regular inspections of property, which they do, informing of the date by letter first. My bipolar son, whose place is often a squalid mess, gets regular visits that I am thankful about, because they do make him clean up a bit. I provide the equipment.

    That Housing are slack in these duties is also true, they take the path of least resistance with difficult tenants. On one occasion in a public housing unit in a three story walk up block in Sydney I had to write to the Fire Department notifying them of their legal responsibilities in case of fire. I pointed out that I had notified Housing three times that the corridors were being filled with lumbar and other pieces of construction material that one tenant wanted to keep. It was so bad that I had to crawl over it to get to visit my grandchidren living there at that time. Only after I did this was the material removed. That tenant was also dealing drugs. The police knew about him, and the Police Welfare Officer told me they couldn’t do anything about it as they hadn’t caught him doing it. Come round any night and you will see the druggies lined up in the corridor, often fighting, and you can get him, I said.

    He’s still there and still dealing and there is still noise and fighting all the time.
    My grandkids don’t live there any more, but other people’s kids still do.

    3
  62. Back in the early 1970s my Mum the teacher said that the threat of removal meant that the parents sent the kids to school;

    Aboriginal children attending country boarding hostels had all their school fees paid, right down to textbooks, school uniforms and pocket money.

    7
  63. Trump’s Ukrainian peace plan mocked:

    “The saddest part about the war is that this is a war that should’ve never happened, right, okay?” the 45th president said. “So now it happened. Now you have to get people in a room. You have to knock heads and you have to get it done.

    “That would mean saying things to Putin and saying things to Zelensky that they’re not gonna want to hear and getting them into a room and getting it done.”

    Twitter users had a field day with the former president’s simplistic solution.

    But Trump understands that’s exactly how big men in that part of the world resolve issues.

    9
  64. There could be a cease fire in Ukraine today if the US & China agreed on the terms that would be force fed to Ukraine & Russia.

    4
  65. Elizabeth (Lizzie) Bearesays:
    February 27, 2023 at 12:56 pm
    Innovative programs involving aboriginal input would do so much more to improve these remote community (or township) situations than the wretched Voice, with its victim-building culture and huge waste of money, would ever do. That money, along with what we give now, could be put to such better purposes. I am all for the decent aboriginal people I grew up with, and who married into my family, returning to the cultural fore and demanding that joining in with the mainstream culture is the way to go and looking after your kids is the number one purpose in life.

    You are correct Lizzie. There is no purpose in remote communities. No-one in the MSM, except a few on Sky News, state the obvious: remote communities are a dumb idea. Take any group of people, stick ’em out in the boondocks, with no prospects of employment or doing something constructive with the land, and they will degenerate. In my experience the indigenous people who did well were those who chose to live in the present and take advantage of the opportunities possible through mainstream culture.

    7
  66. I’ve commented long ago here on my experiences with NSW Housing and I don’t relish returning to them, even those that are ongoing; however, the blog has constant newcomers so that’s why I still relate them. A voice from the coal-face, now joined by Shaterzzz. It is also why I get the extreme irrits with those dickless uptickers who think I know nothing of the world beyond Vaucluse, and not just from my own childhood in Housing Commission in Sydney’s outer west.

    4
  67. I’ve just brought a new Subaru. $1k cheaper than a second hand one with 30,000km on the clock. How does that work? Salesman said people want to drive out with a car, not wait. Pick it up tomorrow. It had to be white otherwise it was next week delivery.

    1
  68. In my experience the indigenous people who did well were those who chose to live in the present and take advantage of the opportunities possible through mainstream culture.

    “Assimilation” was Government policy until the 1970’s – 80% of Aborigines live in the present – but, no, along came that pair of fools, Gough Whitlam and “Nugget” Coombes, with their policy of “the noble savage, living on his traditional lands” , and it’s been downhill ever since.

    13
  69. Chrissays:
    February 27, 2023 at 1:22 pm
    My takeaway is that I actually know little about their lives, and will let them speak for themselves.

    Mine too. They are suffering under indigenous and western socialism. Seems the only solution left is to cut funding. Grand ideas of what others should do just don’t cut it.

    6
  70. Pfizer in Early-Stage Talks to Acquire Seagen

    Pfizer is in early-stage talks to acquire biotech Seagen, valued at about $30 billion, and its pioneering targeted cancer therapies.

    Seagen is doing some incredible stuff.
    If Pfizer get it, it will stifle their innovation.

    6
  71. Whatever happens, I can hold my head high and know I stood up for my childrens future. Otherwise, the noose just continues to tighten. They regard themselves as our rulers now, not our servants.

    Flyingduk, you can take the convict out of serfdom but, even generations later, the impulse to put on the shackles again remains.

    Most Australians detest politicians and politics and believe they can be left alone by busybodies and the chattering classes simply by wishing it.

    They’re now getting an intense practical education about the fascists who’ve seized the power to control us, most of them unelected government bureaucrats.

    I’m optimistic a new generation of courageous warriors and leaders will emerge from the moral ashes of the past three years.

    10
  72. Seagen is doing some incredible stuff.
    If Pfizer get it, it will stifle their innovation.

    Remember HP buying Apollo! The innovators were frrrrizzled like frrritters.

    3
  73. NationalVictoriaYoorrook Justice Commission

    Opinion
    ‘Family violence is not part of Aboriginal culture’, but Katrina knows it too well
    By Katrina Harrison
    February 27, 2023 — 5.00am

    I am a 58-year-old proud Palawa woman, living on Gunaikurnai land.

    I am many things: the matriarch of my family, a single mother to nine children, a dedicated family violence advocate and deputy co-chair of the Victim Survivors’ Advisory Council. I am a survivor of child sexual abuse, a survivor of being criminalised in my youth and made a ward of the state. I am a survivor of 20 years of intimate partner abuse as an adult. Last year, I survived a major stroke that has trapped me in hospital ever since.

    As a young woman, I was sexually abused by male relatives. When I lashed out, rebelled and became involved in petty crime, not one person took an interest in understanding why. At 15 years of age I was displaced. I became a ward of the state and spent three months in jail.

    I’m writing this submission to Yoorrook because my entire life has been disrupted – littered with the injustice of neglect and violence. I have not “slipped through the cracks”, I have been made invisible. The effects of colonisation and oppression have tarnished each stage of my life.

    You cannot imagine the depth of grief I felt as a young woman who had been so severely abused and was then abandoned and punished. Aboriginal women make up less than 1 per cent of Victoria’s population, yet in 2020 we represented 10 per cent of all women in the state prison system. It seems little has changed since I was 15.

    Children deserve environments where they are cherished and encouraged to be whoever and whatever they want to be. They deserve to be safe. I did not ever experience the joy and innocence children deserve. I grew up in a hostile environment, surrounded by trauma and hurt that manifested itself in the abuse I experienced.

    Who cares for Aboriginal youth? Who takes an interest in understanding the trauma that lies beneath the trouble? Who speaks to the injustice of criminalised Aboriginal women?

    As I grew out of my youth and into an adult woman, I was determined to break the cycle. I longed to be loved and to build a family of my own. Yet without a healthy point of reference, I quickly fell in and out of destructive relationships.

    I spent 19 years with one man, I had a strong desire for a healthy marriage, and I longed to model a respectful partnership for my children. Instead, I was subjected to sexual, physical, emotional, financial and psychological abuse by my husband. I was 35 weeks pregnant during one physical assault that resulted in the loss of my baby girl. My heart still aches for her today; she is my stolen child.

    Throughout those 19 years, I worked hard to protect my children. I attempted to leave several times, but each time I hung on to a promise of change from him while I discarded intervention orders from the state. No service walked alongside me or offered understanding, but I felt the judgment of many white institutions. Police were fed up, and the threat from the Department of Health and Human Services of child removal for my supposed failure to protect was a dark shadow following my every move.

    Eventually, I found the strength and an opportunity to leave. I worked with the police to achieve a criminal conviction against my abuser that gave me just enough room to start a new life for my children and me. Despite these interventions, no one ever really listened to my whole story.

    Studies have shown the prevalence of strokes and acquired brain injuries in victims of domestic violence, particularly women who have been subjected to non-fatal strangulation – women like me. No one ever provided me with a full health check or ongoing medical monitoring. Adequate responses to victims of intimate partner violence are absent for Aboriginal women – we’re not only subject to men’s abuse, but we’re largely invisible within mainstream responses to family violence.

    White women focus on dismantling the patriarchy, but that struggle often neglects an understanding of the experiences of Aboriginal women. As a family violence survivor, advocate and practitioner I have seen the impacts of family violence in our communities and relationships.

    We must have real recognition that family violence is not part of Aboriginal culture, and that recognition must include an acknowledgement of the injustices that Aboriginal women like me have faced throughout our lives. Each of those injustices are attached directly to the dark, violent history of this country.

    Rebuilding my life involved finding a new purpose – one to help other Aboriginal women and children who had suffered like us. My lived experience informed my leadership in local, regional and statewide family violence prevention and response work. I flourished in finding professional purpose. I established a career that gave me financial freedom and I made new, enduring friendships. I was happy, and I was healing.

    In August last year, at the height of one of the most fulfilling periods of my life, I suffered a major stroke. I collapsed at home and my young children found me unconscious in the shower. Quick-responding medical attention, and my determination, meant I survived that too. But life has changed and the sense of freedom and healing I recently felt is once again challenged. I will continue to fight because I have to. Being a mother to my nine children has grounded me in my purpose and given me the reasons to keep fighting.

    Aboriginal women are more than our stories of injustice; we are also our stories of resilience and resistance. I am determined to continue to show my children what healing and freedom look like. I will always fight for the rights of my community, my children and all Aboriginal women. I will not privilege other people’s comfort over the need for truth-telling. I will not let the injustices continue.

    You’ll note that it’s all the effects of “colonialism” and “Oppression.”

    15
  74. Zulu Kilo Two Alpha says:
    February 27, 2023 at 2:22 pm

    NationalVictoriaYoorrook Justice Commission

    Opinion
    ‘Family violence is not part of Aboriginal culture’, but Katrina knows it too well
    By Katrina Harrison
    February 27, 2023 — 5.00am

    I am a 58-year-old proud Palawa woman, living on Gunaikurnai land.

    You’ll note that it’s all the effects of “colonialism” and “Oppression.”

    Zulu,

    at what stage do “Aboriginals” pull the Finger out & start taking responsibily for their Own Lives

    I spent 19 years with one man, I had a strong desire for a healthy marriage, and I longed to model a respectful partnership for my children. Instead, I was subjected to sexual, physical, emotional, financial and psychological abuse by my husband. I was 35 weeks pregnant during one physical assault that resulted in the loss of my baby girl. My heart still aches for her today; she is my stolen child.

    Throughout those 19 years, I worked hard to protect my children. I attempted to leave several times, but each time I hung on to a promise of change from him while I discarded intervention orders from the state. No service walked alongside me or offered understanding, but I felt the judgment of many white institutions.

    At what stage does she understand Self Responsibilty?

    13
  75. You’ll note that it’s all the effects of “colonialism” and “Oppression.”

    Apart from their intensive crash course in big government fascism, Australians are now getting an in-your-face education in the use of propaganda language techniques wielded by activists and the media, which is now effectively a new political party to the left of the Greens.

    12
  76. I’m optimistic a new generation of courageous warriors and leaders will emerge from the moral ashes of the past three years.

    Tom, perhaps. It would be great. I am searching for how to be part of building it but I am convinced that the real outcome will be sideways of our generation’s better hopes.

    3
  77. Dammit, Im just going to post mincing Marr sans commentary, as something is pissing off wordpress.

    Hes a mincing anti-Catholic bigot.
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/26/catholic-schools-hang-on-for-dear-life-to-the-shame-of-homosexuality
    Shame is the business model of most churches. Understand that and so much becomes clear. Fifty years ago their pews were packed, but numbers are way down and falling as they lose source after source of shame.

    So they are hanging on for dear life to the shame of homosexuality even in the face of the exuberant celebrations this week of Sydney WorldPride.

    When the dancing is done, hardliner faiths and congregations will be back on the warpath against the decent proposal of the Australian Law Reform Commission that faith schools lose their right to sack gay teachers and expel gay kids.

    It matters to them. It’s business. It’s influence and cashflow. Without shame like this, how can you sell forgiveness?

    So many lucrative sources of shame have disappeared in the last 60 or 70 years. How can faiths recruit any more by putting the boot into single mothers and “illegitimate” kids?

    Society won’t have a bar of it.

    Fulminating against sex outside marriage goes on, of course. But the shame factor has been whittled away almost to nothing. It no longer fills the pews and the plate.

    So the continued loathing of homosexuality and transgender matters a great deal for these operations – particularly the so-called conservative wings of the Catholic and Anglican churches and evangelical congregations here and across America.

    Humans are strange beasts. In expert hands, their capacity for shame and guilt about sex is depthless. Those same experts promise their members forgiveness, redemption and everlasting life.

    But first, to the depths of your soul, you must experience shame

    That gay and transgender kids kill themselves as a result with appalling frequency does not worry the shame brigade. George Pell stood outside St Patrick’s cathedral in Melbourne one day and declared the risk of gay children killing themselves was “another reason to be discouraging people going in that direction”.

    He was also a great fan of gay conversion, now being energetically defended as New South Wales at last prepares to ban this particular cruelty. Try to find a place in your heart for these churches. How can they win customers unless they can keep promising to eradicate with prayer and sometimes electrodes the profound evil of homosexuality?

    Church schools are both reassuring and baffling when they promise to treat gay pupils will with dignity but insist that the law leave them free to expel those kids at any time they wish. Pastoral care on one hand and, on the other, a threat of humiliation too profound to imagine.

    It’s a glitch in the business model. Parents, apart from a few crazies, insist all their kids be treated decently. But the churches that own the schools insist homosexuality still be flagged in the law of the land as evil.

    Candour is not a KPI of the leaders of these faiths. They don’t admit it’s good for business. They say they need to be able to sack gay teachers and expel gay kids to preserve the ethos of their faiths.

    What a wonderful, lofty word. We are invited to pull back and see the big picture, to admit (and it is true) that churches are capable of wisdom, love and charity. But what sort of ethos is this that has as a key component legal dispensation to deal brutally with homosexuals of any age who come within their reach?

    It’s up to us – the rag tag people of Australia, straights and gays, people of many faiths and none – to decide if the law Labor passed in 2013 should still give them this cruel privilege.

    The churches say they’re fighting in the name of freedom. I hear, out in the vestry, the faint ring of the cash register.

  78. Or hoping the burning shame he was feeling was more than the burning feeling in his monkey-pox riddled nether regions.

    6
  79. I just see the Voice as being the vehicle for such an urban elite.

    It’s yet another trough for the parasites to get their snouts in.

    9
  80. I’m always struck by the difference between the indig and islander communities in QLD.
    Admittedly most islander families have been here longer than most Euros.
    But they have kept their culture, are family focused and are solid community members.
    Going to the rugby in SEQ is a ball because of the islander families. They turn up in droves with their giant eskies and flocks of kids and have a ball. The kids charge around like nutters but cause no trouble. Everyone is happy.
    It would be a good thing if some of the staid “go you good thing” euro crowd exercised some islander passion.
    A bit of diet reform could be useful, but it ain’t gonna happen.
    It could be considered racist to compare the two communities simply because they are both black. Colour is not the criteria for comparison, but rather
    conmunity groups identifiable by their culture.

    19
  81. bespokesays:
    February 27, 2023 at 2:48 pm
    Exercise more effective than medicines to manage mental health, says study

    Via instapundit.

    As I just advised some friends a key symptom of depression is psychomotor retardation. Good luck with their strategy because they’ll need it.

    1
  82. Zulu Kilo Two Alphasays:
    February 27, 2023 at 2:22 pm
    NationalVictoriaYoorrook Justice Commission

    Opinion
    ‘Family violence is not part of Aboriginal culture’, but Katrina knows it too well
    By Katrina Harrison
    February 27, 2023 — 5.00am

    I am a 58-year-old proud Palawa woman, living on Gunaikurnai land.

    Good essay; apart from this bullshit paragraph:

    We must have real recognition that family violence is not part of Aboriginal culture, and that recognition must include an acknowledgement of the injustices that Aboriginal women like me have faced throughout our lives. Each of those injustices are attached directly to the dark, violent history of this country.

    5
  83. George Pell stood outside St Patrick’s cathedral in Melbourne one day and declared the risk of gay children killing themselves was “another reason to be discouraging people going in that direction”.

    That’s hard to argue against.

    9
  84. The reason I bring that up is that I find the “born that way” argument credible, but we are told there is no scientific basis to gender, that’s a social construct.

    2
  85. I’m optimistic a new generation of courageous warriors and leaders will emerge from the moral ashes of the past three years.

    Certainly, one hears the words ‘freedom’ ‘tyranny’ and ‘fascism’ from the mouths of the public more often now than 3 years ago.

    9
  86. From todays ‘Australian’:

    Making super voluntary and abolishing the means test on the pension would solve many of our problems.

    That should read ‘making retirement, and the funding thereoff, a personal responsibility, would solve many of our problems…’

    7
  87. Lizzie:
    I should also add that I think a flying squad of clean-up assistants would be a very good investment, because often these people are so damaged, depressed or simply incapable, that they don’t know where to start once they have let things get so bad.
    You first Lizzie.

    10
  88. Someone turn it off, wait 5 seconds & then turn it back on again.

    Chuckle. That’s second on the list after “did you turn it on”.

    2
  89. Australia needs a reset.
    Someone turn it off, wait 5 seconds & then turn it back on again.

    er …. no skulls, no salting, no ‘fire them all from orbit’ etc etc etc?

  90. I am a 58-year-old proud Palawa woman, living on Gunaikurnai land.

    I am mystified by this pride insistence. Is it like the gay pride thing?

    14
  91. re the idea of a place where the kids can go for a feed and to feel safe.
    .1 How about arresting and locking up the ones who make them feel unsafe?
    .2 Who is mad enough to take on the job as a male protector? Within a week the sorry bastard will accused of kiddie fiddling!
    .3 At the end of the week, the entire tribe will pull down the protective fences, raid the sanctuary, take the kids back and burn it down. All while the ABC televises it live.
    .4 Notice the ones making the most noise are thousands of kilometers away from where the need for their intervention is highest, and living in conditions that would be considered Paradise to the ones living in the wreckage?
    You’re all being taken for mugs.
    Just walk away, the cost of doing that is high, but it will be a damn sight higher if we interfere.

    17
  92. The reason I bring that up is that I find the “born that way” argument credible, but we are told there is no scientific basis to gender, that’s a social construct.

    Gender is definitely a social construct. It refers to parts of speech, for example der, die, das in German.

    Sex is something else. There are a lot of physical factors, but whether or not you have a dick is a big giveaway. This isn’t a social construct.

    10
  93. Someone turn it off, wait 5 seconds & then turn it back on again.

    Had to do that with the fat back last night. Am thinking of caving.

  94. That Housing are slack in these duties is also true, they take the path of least resistance with difficult tenants.

    NSW Housing is still operating work-from-home with local offices closed (except by appointment) .. at least out here .. one of the reasons they don’t/can’t deal with ‘difficult” tenants is that head office is top heavy with folk who were lower grade area clerks in the 90s .. the folks who took the drug bribes & other rorts (sex for swaps was quite popular)..
    lotza tenants, like me, still around who are capable of naming & shaming so they operate on the 3 monkeys principle ….
    We ain’t playing 2019 rules anymore .. it isn’t proof that matters just the accusation, these days …

    7
  95. Very interesting article this arvo in the Oz by Robert Gottliebsen

    https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/robert-gottliebsen-superannuation-changes-a-repeat-of-horror-1987-labor-union-fund/news-story/7eccef92bcc2cfdd4bd85c29cb45e2ef

    Superannuation reform: Super changes a repeat of horror 1987 Labor, union fund, says Robert Gottliebsen | The Australian

    The Albanese government’s confusing superannuation agenda is becoming clearer – they are in the process of introducing a 2023 version of the Australian Labor Party/Australian Council of Trade Unions’ 1987 superannuation blueprint – and that blueprint is horrific.

    It proposed that the Hawke-Keating government of the day conscript 20 per cent of Australian superannuation income for a body to be set up to promote government-favoured projects and union agendas.

    When former ACTU official and current Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones last week stunned the superannuation community by claiming that members money was “honey” that should be managed in the best interest of the “hive” (i.e. the government hive) – no mention of returns – old timers, like me, went scrambling back to the records to confirm memories.

    The superannuation community is currently being confused by the gymnastics that trigger higher taxes or bans on superannuation balances above $5m or $3m. But that is only part of base agenda which revolves around the ALP’s entrenched belief that superannuation is government rather than members’ money.

    The ACTU and the Hawke/ Keating government combined in 1987 to set out an “Australia Reconstructed” strategy document that included the establishment of a “hive” called the National Development Fund to invest government money in enterprises in accordance with the agenda of the day.

    The Albanese government has embraced a duplicate body called the National Reconstruction Fund (the word “development” has been replaced by “reconstruction”) to “support, diversify and transform the Australian industry and economy helping to create secure and well-paid jobs, securing future prosperity and driving economic growth”.

    Behind that lofty ambition is a plan to invest across seven priority areas including renewable and low-emission technologies; medical science; transport; value added agriculture; forestry and fisheries; value added resources and defence capability.

    The government has allocated $15bn for this enormous task. It is clearly not nearly enough to do the job properly. Where will the extra money come from? We go back to “Australia Reconstructed” for the likely answer.

    Back in 1987 the ALP/ACTU proposed National Development Fund aimed to provide equity capital and “soft loans” to invest in industrial capacity. Priority would be given to investments in import replacement, export expansion, industry modernisation and reconstruction activities – an incredibly similar set of aims to the 2023 fund.

    But added to the priorities was a set of extra criteria for enterprises to be eligible for funds including union approved dispute settlement procedures, work and management practices and other union agendas – for example, the recipients of the 1987 development fund money would be fully unionised.

    To fund the proposed National Development Fund “all superannuation funds will be required to make available up to 20 per cent of their future income to be drawn on by the “National Development Fund”. Presumably that would include retail and self-managed funds.

    At that time the Keating compulsory superannuation levies were still in the pipeline so total superannuation funds were much smaller than today. “Australia Reconstructed” proposed that if there was insufficient money there would be a one per cent tax on all imports supplemented by a surcharge on luxury imports.

    The 1987 fund would be managed by the government’s Australian Industry Development Corporation (AIDC) which was established in 1971 by a Coalition government and by 1987 had a large portfolio of investments.

    The 1987 National Development Fund/superannuation strategy was interrupted by a Wall Street crash, a recession and a government change. But had it proceeded then almost all the “conscripted” members’ superannuation money would have been lost given the massive $3bn plus losses that were later incurred in the AIDC “hive”.

    Victoria’s ALP government tried a similar government investment strategy and the consequent mountain of losses that followed cost Victoria its State Bank which was snapped up by the Commonwealth Bank. Government sponsored bodies are not good at investment selection

    Back to 2023 and the Albanese government will no doubt deny in strong terms that it has plans to conscript 20 per cent of Australians’ superannuation funds income for the “National Reconstruction Fund”

    But in last year’s election campaign the government promised that there would be no changes to superannuation when we now know major changes were being plotted.

    Government denials and statements on future superannuation policy therefore now have limited credibility.

    One of the Industry Fund masterminds Garry Weaven bemoans that what’s happening under the Albanese government is “undermining the whole basis of super”.

    Fascinatingly Jim Chalmers did a PHD on the Paul Keating era which included “Australia Reconstructed”. Accordingly Chalmers now appears to be defining superannuation in a way to make it easy for Australian superannuation members’ money to be the “honey” that can be conscripted for the government “hive” – the National Reconstruction Fund.

    Chalmers is also proposing that his definition of superannuation include the word “retirement”. These days most people know that the best retirement asset is owning a dwelling. Superannuation is great but it is second.

    Unlike Chalmers, the ALP/ ACTU designers of “Australia Reconstructed” also understood the importance of dwelling ownership in retirement and set out that the “National Development Fund”, should provide loans for houses preferably for first home buyers and low income earners.

    The government will almost certainly ignore this part of the “Australia Reconstructed” master plan because its too close to Coalition policy.

    Instead it looks like industry fund money will be sucked into social housing projects instead of helping new home buyers.

    If the full 1987 Australia Reconstructed agenda (outside housing) is embraced there will be a 15 per cent of invested funds limit on how much superannuation funds can invest overseas.

    The sad thing is that governments, and particularly Australian governments are not good at running these enterprise investment funds so if superannuation income is conscripted the outlook for superannuation in Australia is bleak.

    14
  96. That gay and transgender kids kill themselves as a result with appalling frequency does not worry the shame brigade. George Pell stood outside St Patrick’s cathedral in Melbourne one day and declared the risk of gay children killing themselves was “another reason to be discouraging people going in that direction”.

    Pell was right and Marr is wrong, as simple as that. I doubt Marr had ever considered the possibility that it wasn’t the shame that shocked the kids but the reality of their new lifestyle.

    18
  97. What a great troll account, can’t tell if this is real or not.

    https://twitter.com/TrackInflation/status/1624447924229836801?cxt=HHwWgsC4_fixmYstAAAA

    I met a guy at the bar in 2021 who told me he was a multimillionaire from Dogecoin. I took him home that night and cuffed him to the bed and forced him to get off inside of me. I got pregnant with a hope to secure some money. He lost it all and can’t pay child support. Single mom

    Phillip Retweeted
    Phillip
    @TrackInflation
    I met a guy at the bar in 2021 who told me he was a multimillionaire from Dogecoin. I took him home that night and cuffed him to the bed and forced him to get off inside of me. I got pregnant with a hope to secure some money. He lost it all and can’t pay child support. Single mom
    3:39 AM · Feb 12, 2023

    Feb 12
    Replying to
    @TrackInflation
    Is this real?
    Phillip
    @TrackInflation
    ·
    Feb 12
    Replying to
    @jesse_z06
    Yes

  98. I’m always struck by the difference between the indig and islander communities in QLD.

    Simple. Aborigines are nomads used to the privations of famine, drought and flood.

    Islanders are mostly sea-going melanesians who, compared to Aborigines, are much more like indigenous southern Africans who thrive on community and its rituals, like singing in harmony, and home-making.

    Sadly, the Mills sisters no longer sing their harmonies outside the Federal Hotel on Thursday Island, but I bet the same harmonies have been passed down to a new generation.

    Islander culture is a happy culture. Aboriginal culture is a culture of survival in a harsh land.

    5
  99. Candour is not a KPI of the leaders of these faiths. They don’t admit it’s good for business. They say they need to be able to sack gay teachers and expel gay kids to preserve the ethos of their faiths.

    As far as I know nobody is expelled for being gay but for openly practicing that lifestyle.

    5
  100. Odd how Marr does not mention homosexual rape in schools as part of his tirade against…nasty churches. Doesn’t do to imagine something that would spoil the narrative.

    6
  101. The superannuation community is currently being confused by the gymnastics that trigger higher taxes or bans on superannuation balances above $5m or $3m.

    That’s actually quite low and envy based crap.

    If you’re never going to work again, why discourage people from avoiding the OAP the best they can?

    1
  102. Amazon Prime is also well aware of this – hence Clarkson’s Farm 3.0 is going to remain in production for release in 2024.

    And beyond I would wager.
    They’ve thrown a bone to the noisy mob and made cancellation noises which they have no intention of following through on. Truth is, Amazon Prime probably just see it as an opportunity to hose down any requests from Clarkson for more money.

    Be a brave production executive who, in late 2023, says: “Yes it’s making us a motza, sure it’s going to appear on some other platform and load-shed viewers from Prime – but he’s upset the Sussex’s and people who don’t watch him, and it’s the right thing to do…”

    Exactly. Winners are hard to find in a content-hungry world where tonnes of banal crap like MAFS gets served up. When you find a gold nugget like this, you don’t bin it.
    How did “Top Gear” go after the departure of Clarkson, May and Hammond?

    4
  103. I am mystified by this pride insistence. Is it like the gay pride thing?

    The media luvs it .. it sets them apart from “us” .. tho whether folk actually, use it, or not, in real speech, I’ve no idea bit like the “auntie & uncle” waffle, smoke ceremonies, welcome to country which all come across as “newbie” stuff .. i can’t imagine the “noble savage” striding Oz 300 000 years ago was addressing & greeting each other with those terms or “ceremonies” .. probably more concerned with catching a kangaroo for tea …

    3
  104. If the rumor that China is beginning arms shipments to the Ruskies is true, we could end up being royally rooted. If the US imposes wholesale sanctions on the Chinese, they could demand we stop shipping commods to the fcukers.

    5
  105. I’m always struck by the difference between the indig and islander communities in QLD.

    They are also practicing Christians who adhere to the individual responsibility philosophy.

    7
  106. The superannuation community is currently being confused by the gymnastics that trigger higher taxes or bans on superannuation balances above $5m or $3m.

    Being an OAP (75) can someone explain to me the joys of having $Amillions in super once you pass 65?
    Your entering old age (can’t be avoided) and money is the MAIN concern? .. wierd! ..
    by 65 your health should be the BIG issue not wealth .. doesn’t matter how much you have if you don’t have good health you ain’t gonna enjoy it …….
    I still swim 1kms at least twice a week and bike ride around 250kms a week, haven’t seen a quacktician since the all clear from Cancer 10 years ago, take no pills or had any of the vaxs .. and wouldn’t swap this level of old age health for any amount of money …….!
    Hopefully, this will last until I get my “telegram” .. not because I want to live forever but because I, thoroughly, enjoy having CentreLink cough up every fortnight ….
    most of which i don’t spend, anyway … LOL!

    6
  107. 30 years on Aged Pension numbers have barely changed. Garry Weaven and the unions have made off like bandits. How long before you just scrap the lot?

    3
  108. “insistance on pride”
    It makes a statement: placing their aboriginal heritage above their white heritage

    5
  109. Shatterzz thoroughly, enjoys having CentreLink cough up every fortnight.
    I can’t imagine why, when it is taxpayer’s money which is being coughed up.

    I turn 76 next month and despite having gone through two divorces (the quickest way to destroy wealth), I am fully self-funded and will stay that way.

    Work hard, spend less than you make, stay healthy and stay out of trouble.

    Simple.

    19
  110. There was an earlier succession movement in the US prior to the Civil War.

    Thomas J. DiLorenzo wrote, “From 1800 to 1815, there were three serious attempts at secession orchestrated by New England Federalists, who believed that the policies of the Jefferson and Madison administrations, especially the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, the national embargo of 1807, and the War of 1812, were so disproportionately harmful to New England that they justified secession.”

    He called them Yankee Confederates.

    He wrote, “These Yankee Confederates were not an isolated band of radicals. They were among the leaders of the Federalist Party, many of whom had participated in the Revolutionary War and had even helped write the U.S. Constitution. John Hancock and Samuel Adams are among the best known of the New England Federalists who, by the late eighteenth century, were reaching their twilight years. The push for secession came primarily from the younger generation of Federalist leaders, including George Cabot, Elbridge Gerry, Theophilus Parsons, Timothy Pickering, Theodore Sedgwick, John Quincy Adams, Fisher Ames, Harrison Gray Otis, Josiah Quincy, and Joseph Story, among others.”

  111. Martyr Made ??
    @martyrmade
    I visited w/@Heminator & @MZHemingway last year, and we connected on a similar point. My politics boil down to my defensiveness of the people – mostly (not all) white, middle- & working-class deplorable – w/whom liberal elites of both parties have been at war since the 1970s.
    Quote Tweet

    ? Aristophanes ?
    @Aristos_Revenge
    ·
    Feb 23
    This type of attitude towards the American people is really the core root of my politics. I’ve long struggled to classify where that falls on the ideological scale, but economic policy needs to be as loose as it can be while not being detrimental to the people at large.

    Have to agree.

    4
  112. Work hard, spend less than you make, stay healthy and stay out of trouble.

    and your ‘thankyou from a grateful nation’ …. they will demonise you and steal your shit!

    18
  113. Zipstersays:
    February 27, 2023 at 4:15 pm
    full interview
    Educating the World | Prof. James Tooley
    John Anderson

    Cheers

  114. wolfman, can I alert you to a youtube contributor called ‘British B movies and more.’

    Right up your alley, and some excellent content. 🙂

    3
  115. Shatterzz thoroughly, enjoys having CentreLink cough up every fortnight.
    I can’t imagine why, when it is taxpayer’s money which is being coughed up.

    Your assuming folk on the OAP never paid taxes? .. not everyone has a job earning enuf to ensure a self-funded retirement ….. or support two exes .. LOL!

    7
  116. Cliff Boof says:
    February 27, 2023 at 4:25 pm

    Shatterzz thoroughly, enjoys having CentreLink cough up every fortnight.
    I can’t imagine why, when it is taxpayer’s money which is being coughed up.
    I turn 76 next month and despite having gone through two divorces (the quickest way to destroy wealth), I am fully self-funded and will stay that way.
    Work hard, spend less than you make, stay healthy and stay out of trouble.
    Simple.

    I fully agree with your comment.
    Boasting about getting taxpayers money way above what you paid in tax in your working life is not on.
    It is right and proper that we look after our old, and I have no problem with that at all.

    6
  117. The reason I bring that up is that I find the “born that way” argument credible, but we are told there is no scientific basis to gender, that’s a social construct.

    I’ve met gay men that say the only reason they are that was is because they got buggered as a youngster. I believe them. There are others that are such obvious queens it is impossible to imagine them ever shacking up with a woman.

    4
  118. I have to pay full whack this week for my MRI. LOL!

    Apparently I’m too old for the Medicare rebate and too rich for the pension card.

    Lucky me. 😀

    8
  119. Death of The Derailleur? Honda’s Incredible Bicycle Gearboxes (All 3 Generations)

    Inside The Revolutionary Honda Bicycle Gearboxes (All 3 Generations)
    byAlee Denham
    February 18, 2023
    Table of Contents

    . The Advantages of a Gearbox Drivetrain for Racing
    . Why Are Derailleurs Still Common in Racing?
    . The Honda CVT Gearboxes
    . The Honda Derailleur in a Box
    . The Downsides of a Derailleur in a Box
    . The Next Generation
    . How Does the Honda CVT Gearbox Work?
    . Summary

    But Honda’s innovation isn’t just limited to products with motors. Two decades ago, they were experimenting with some top-secret bicycle gearbox drivetrains. And after a handful of seasons on the downhill World Cup MTB circuit, the Honda gearbox bikes had won the world championships and five World Cup rounds.

    Unfortunately for us, the gearboxes that Honda developed were never meant to be commercial products. It turned out that Honda poured money into this program purely to challenge the minds of their engineers.

    As the patents on these gearboxes are expiring soon, I thought this would be a great time for us to analyse all three generations of the Honda bicycle gearboxes. You’ll learn about the designs and how they all work, we’ll examine why there aren’t more gearboxes following similar designs, and we’ll look into the next generation of gearboxes in this space.

    But first, let’s find out the advantages and disadvantages of using a gearbox over a derailleur drivetrain for mountain bike racing.

    Plus

    https://gearjunkie.com/biking/derailleur-death-bicycle-gearboxes-future

    1
  120. Clarkson is probably the only person in the entire entertainment industry worthy of having a beer with.

    A beer? Just one? Not bloody likely! 🙂

    His story about dealing with the local council so that he could open a restaurant, using local meat and veg, was very powerful. They blocked him at every turn, the council being full of greenies who hate any kind of change or growth. They got ridiculed and attacked from all over the UK.

    But this is Oxfordshire, where the infamous 15 minute city is to be trialled.

    I note that TheirABC ran a ‘story’ (yes, it is) today about how those opposed to it are ‘conspiracy theorists’ and all round nutters.

    Here we go again.

    20
  121. Apparently I’m too old for the Medicare rebate and too rich for the pension card.

    You need a better accountant.

    3
  122. Inside Info: Honda RN01 – The Silver Bullet

    One of the most mysterious, secret and probably expensive downhill bikes ever created was the Honda RN01. Raced from 2004-2006 by the G Cross Honda Team, the RN01 was a bike in a class of its own.

    The chrome finish and the Honda wings all added to the UFO nature of the bike, RN01 stood for Racing, Natural (apparently referring to natures power) and 01 was because it was their first attempt/modelA. Very little information was released to the public in regards to this bike when Greg Minnaar, Matti Lehikonen, Brendan Fairclough and various Japanese riders were racing them. Mechanics would remove the gearbox from the frame so if the bikes were stolen the gearboxes weren’t.

    This did pay dividends and two of the team bikese were stolen, without gearboxes! One ended up on Ebay and was later recovered. The hugely secretive nature of the program came at a time when downhill was no where near as professional as it is today, Steve Peat and Cedric Gracia (of course) ran into the restricted accessA. Honda tent at a race with a camera snapping pictures to have a cheeky dig at the way Honda were running things.

    The first series of the gearbox was said to allow a huge number of gears to be accessed by the riders, so much so the UCI introduced a rule limiting the number of gears to nine for downhill bikes. It was a CVT system as found in modern day cars.

    That does pose an interesting question as to whether this rule has been updated now that ten speed systems are available?!

    The second series of these gearboxes were a simpler designer basically a derailleur and cassette within the housing. Other parts on the bike, such as the forks and brakes were made specifically for Honda and this bike by various Japanese manufacturers.

    The linkage was a single pivot design, rumored to try and replicate their motorbike suspension. The total bike weight was around 18.5kg/41 pounds, depending on the build. The R and D costs alone ran into the hundreds of thousands! Unfortunately these bikes were never made available to the public, despite many reports they would be and almost all were apparently crushed at the end of the project with only Greg Minnaar having one at his house/shop sans the gearbox. We are willing to bet some Japanese collector managed to get their hands on one though… Then of course there was the four-cross/dual slalom bike Greg occasionally used!

    1
  123. feelthebern says:
    February 27, 2023 at 5:06 pm

    I think some of this Arizona cartel story is horseshit.

    Have a read of Sundance – Goes into Detail

    About That “Explosive” Arizona Senate Testimony Alleging Sinaloa Cartel Influence Over Public Officials

    February 26, 2023 – Sundance

    If it sounds too good to be true….

    Okay folks, this is a story that dragged me into a rabbit hole for two days. If you have seen the video testimony of Ms. Jacqueline Breger in front of the Arizona Senate Committee investigating election issues, this outline is intended to help you navigate the story

    Are you starting to get that… “wait, wha.. OMG.. nah, hard pass” feeling yet?

    Given the nature of the personal background of the people involved, their relationships and the emotional overlay of an ongoing child custody battle, it becomes almost impossible to assert the claims by Mr. Thaler and Ms. Breger are not motivated by the family drama.

    Unfortunately, the claims by Thaler and Breger may be accurate as documented. The scale and scope do seem “delusional and fantastical,” and that might be… because it is.

    Decide on your own.

    I simply advise to proceed with caution, and I have now spent two days in this rabbit hole…. so there’s that.

    Trust your instincts…

    1
  124. You need a better accountant.

    No. I need a better birthday. There might be some overlap but I’m not holding my breath.

    2
  125. ABC staff to receive ‘impartiality’ training on Indigenous voice to parliament
    EXCLUSIVE
    By Sophie Elsworth
    Media Writer
    @sophieelsworth
    5:26PM February 27, 2023
    No Comments

    The ABC has taken the unprecedented step of reminding journalists they must be objective when reporting on the voice ahead of the referendum.

    An email to staff on Monday outlines that a “deep-dive” session into “impartiality” will discuss “some knotty editorial policy issues” and how reporters should ensure they do not favour one view on the Indigenous voice parliament.

    It goes on to explain that staff are about to “embark on one of the most difficult and consequential stories of recent times”.
    Read Next

    The session – to be held on Tuesday – will be headed by editorial policy manager Mark Maley and editorial policy adviser and Indigenous woman Bridget Caldwell-Bright.

    The email outlined impartiality standards, including:

    ? “No significant strand of thought or belief within the community is knowingly excluded or disproportionately represented”.

    ? “Staff do not unduly favour one perspective over another”.

    It also says “the ABC takes no editorial stance other than its commitment to fundamental democratic principles including the rule of law, freedom of speech and religion, parliamentary democracy and equality of opportunity”.

    The guidelines must be adopted to “avoid the unjustified use of stereotypes or discriminatory content that could reasonably be interpreted as condoning or encouraging prejudice”.

    Staff were warned to abide by the ABC’s “broader commitment to inclusion and diversity”.

    New & improved business newsletter. Get the edge with AM and PM briefings, plus breaking news alerts in your inbox.

    An ABC spokeswoman defended the training, saying: “The ABC regularly runs editorial training to ensure our coverage of news and major events is in line with our editorial policies and charter obligations.”

    Ms Caldwell-Bright previously criticised an opinion piece published in The Australian on January 25 by voice campaigner Professor Marcia Langton titled. The article appeared with the headline: “Cultural warriors shamed by confected outrage over voice.”

    Ms Caldwell-Bright tweeted her support for then Greens senator Lidia Thorpe after ABC Radio National host Patricia Karvelas posted Professor Langton’s article with the comment: “Powerful piece of writing by Marcia Langton – on Jan 26, voice, Alice Springs #auspol”.

    The ABC editorial adviser condemned the article and disputed the radio host’s views: “Hard disagree, this is a divisive and dangerous piece, erasing the work of Lidia (Thorpe) and many others (including the “three blak greens” referenced here).

    In the piece Professor Langton wrote: “Greens senator Lidia Thorpe knows how this culture war works too, and has done more than her fair share to wreck the chances of Australians voting for a voice.”

    The ABC came under fire this month after airing a controversial radio report claiming there were elements of “white supremacy” at an Alice Springs community meeting, resulting in the story having to be significantly edited, with apologies issued by the public broadcaster.

    Managing director David Anderson blamed “logistical and editorial breakdowns”. When he was grilled at Senate Estimates, he said he had no idea how it made it to air and was seeking information from news director Justin Stevens.

    The ABC sent staff a stern warning several weeks later about the language reporters use when discussing alcohol restrictions in the Northern Territory.

    In the memo emailed to staff, Mr Maley said “grog” would be banned because it was “inappropriately colloquial” and could “potentially be stereotyping”.

    “The issue of restrictions to access to alcohol in the Northern Territory and elsewhere is highly contentious and newsworthy,” the memo said.

    “It is very important that the ABC is seen to report these issues in a way that is accurate, impartial and does not inadvertently perpetuate stereotypes.”

    Mr Maley goes on to explain to staff: “Refer to ‘alcohol’ not ‘grog’ and ‘booze’ or similar slang in news, current affairs or interview programs”.

    Ek roll ap die vloor…

    4
  126. Teacher’s thread claiming sex between adults and minors is not ‘intrinsically harmful’ HORRIFIES Twitter

    THIS teacher is more than horrified.

    9
  127. johanna says:
    February 27, 2023 at 4:47 pm
    wolfman, can I alert you to a youtube contributor called ‘British B movies and more.’

    Right up your alley, and some excellent content. ?

    Thanks . . . I’ve subscribed and will have a look.

    2
  128. calli says:
    February 27, 2023 at 5:04 pm
    I have to pay full whack this week for my MRI. LOL!

    Apparently I’m too old for the Medicare rebate and too rich for the pension card.

    Calli, the magic age is 50 and then it has to be a suspected anterior cruciate ligament tear or acute meniscal tear with inability to straighten the knee.
    The rationale is that at age > 50years, you supposedly need a knee replacement rather than remedial arthroscopic surgery as the studies, “The Science”, show no benefit to arthroscopic surgery at age > 50 years. Treating patients for many years, using the right carpenter, tells me this is crap.

    The explainer is here on the medicare site.

    2
  129. Teacher’s thread claiming sex between adults and minors is not ‘intrinsically harmful’ HORRIFIES Twitter

    THIS teacher is more than horrified.

    I don’t know whether sex between adults and minors is harmful or not. Since I don’t get turned on by minors, this is an academic point, and although the conventional wisdom among conservatives is that it has terrible effects, I’m prepared to look at any evidence. Conservatives have been wrong before.

    The trouble is that anyone taking the position that it’s possible for a child to consent, and there’s no harm in it, is immediately suspect of being a pedophile and hence incapable of being disinterested.

    7
  130. I am mystified by this pride insistence. Is it like the gay pride thing?

    It’s the Murdoch Press running another Narrative.

    Another example is spelling black Blak and capitalising it.

    Another is Pat Dodson, known as the Father of Reconciliation

    An oldie was HIV, the disease which causes AIDS

  131. it has to be a suspected anterior cruciate ligament tear or acute meniscal tear with inability to straighten the knee.

    And yet I still have to pay. And that’s exactly what is suspected.

    I’m not really whingeing…well, yes I am. And no, a pension card is useless anyway.

    Ageists!

    3
  132. On the other hand, I’m thankful that the technology exists to work out what the dickens is wrong with my knee. I earned many…many Brownie points with the grandsons with the suspected hamstring injury.

    They imagined I’d been wrecked on the field defending the ball. 😀

    3
  133. The trouble is that anyone taking the position that it’s possible for a child to consent, and there’s no harm in it, is immediately suspect of being a pedophile and hence incapable of being disinterested.

    Geebus! I hope your just being contrarion, DrBG. Still poor judgement.
    – 8

    3
  134. Tony Wood before the senate today demanding that in effect all coal power be closed down. When the shit hits the fan and blackouts occur and this economy turns into a puddle of scrap metal, food queues and fortified elites no consequences will be sheeted home to this bastard.

    9
  135. Stupid Old Fogey alert:

    Bons opines:
    I’m always struck by the difference between the indig and islander communities in QLD.

    Bons is confusing Torres Strait Islanders, who have little presence in Brisbane and are Rugby League followers, with Pacific Islanders, who do have a large presence in Brisbane and are interested in Rugby Union where their children make up 60% of the State side.

    Tom blunders in:
    Simple. Aborigines are nomads used to the privations of famine, drought and flood.

    Islanders are mostly sea-going melanesians who, compared to Aborigines, are much more like indigenous southern Africans who thrive on community and its rituals, like singing in harmony, and home-making.

    Tom:
    Bons was confusing economic migrant Pacific Islander Polynesians with indigenous Torres Strait Melanesians.
    They might seem happy to you, but the violence against females up there beggars belief.

    2
  136. These people never ever seem go away. Why I have no idea. Like Kroger and Loosley they pop up like cockroaches at every election.

    NSW Labor win may just be because ‘it’s time to change the government’ (27 Feb)

    A significant amount of people will be looking to vote Labor in the upcoming New South Wales election “just because it’s time to change the government” despite growing approval for the Liberal Party, says Political Consultant Kerry Chikarovski.

    “There doesn’t seem to be a huge level of anger against…the Premier, there doesn’t seem to be a huge level of anger against his government,” Ms Chikarovski said.

    She has not a single clue in her empty skull. Ms Chikarovski is why I voted Labor for the first and only time in my life when she dropped a lie about Carr which was so outrageous that I voted for him in complete fury at her. Which I regret. But having Chika commenting on this election is like getting educated in climate science by Greta.

    7
  137. The trouble is that anyone taking the position that it’s possible for a child to consent,

    DrBG the problem, in many instances, and especially in teaching, is a power imbalance. Did the child really consent or were they gaslit into believing they consented?

    I cannot speak to harms generally as each person reacts differently, but the problem occurs when the person looks back and realises they didn’t actually consent and were tricked.

    Please don’t ask me how I know this.

    11
  138. 30 years on Aged Pension numbers have barely changed. Garry Weaven and the unions have made off like bandits. How long before you just scrap the lot?

    Many people can’t save money, so they’re happy to let the Government do it for them.
    The only way to kill it is to make it optional.
    The non savers will change their tune when the Opt Outers get an instant 10% Pay rise.

  139. so they’re happy to let the Government do it for them

    Nothing says happiness like compulsion.

    You utter mong.

    3
  140. calli says:
    February 27, 2023 at 6:13 pm

    it has to be a suspected anterior cruciate ligament tear or acute meniscal tear with inability to straighten the knee.

    And yet I still have to pay. And that’s exactly what is suspected.

    I’m not really whingeing…well, yes I am. And no, a pension card is useless anyway.

    yep, old age is not for the faint-hearted.

    Pulled a ligament in my hip more than a year ago, and it still hurts like buggery.

    5
  141. But they have kept their culture, are family focused and are solid community members.

    Islander Family:
    Christian with a Dad.

    Aboriginal “Family”:
    Pagan sans a Dad.

    6
  142. Tom. The Mills Sisters wow.
    That brings back great memories and long delayed hangover trauma – almost intergenerational.
    I’m not sure our ‘gone native’ behaviour on TI was memorable but the sisters banging out their harmony certainly was.
    A pal was up there about 10 years ago and went looking for them – no luck, but he did locate the young (then) priest who used to keep an eye on the girls and the pub generally.
    They were all Hemingwayesque characters pre bureaucratic takeover. Unique memories.
    My reference to Islander communities was not related to TI’s, rather to Kanaka descendants including the bloke who put me in hospital for a long stay following an impossibly violent tackle.

    2
  143. Cohenite:

    We must have real recognition that family violence is not part of Aboriginal culture, and that recognition must include an acknowledgement of the injustices that Aboriginal women like me have faced throughout our lives. Each of those injustices are attached directly to the dark, violent history of this country.

    Wrong.
    Violence toward women and children has been an essential part of aboriginal culture since they arrived here 12,000 years ago. It’s time that fact was acknowledged and dealt with, no matter how distasteful it is.

    26
  144. My reference to Islander communities was not related to TI’s, rather to Kanaka descendants including the bloke who put me in hospital for a long stay following an impossibly violent tackle.

    Well you’re still wrong.
    Kanakas don’t go to Queensland Reds games, their presence in Brisbane is almost non existent, they aren’t particularly religious, and they follow Rugby League.

  145. Ed
    You are invited, my treat, to QLD Uni field any winter Saturday afternoon to observe the people who aren’t there.

    8
  146. Geebus! I hope your just being contrarion, DrBG. Still poor judgement.

    I take it you’re not attracted to mynahs?

  147. Bons:
    Samoans, Tongans and Fijians are not Kanakas.

    Name one Kanaka who ever played for University or the Queensland Reds?

    1
  148. Yet another visit to Emergency. This time me.

    I was stupid enough to go out on the ride-on mower to mow, in a stiff wind, without protective eye glasses. Don’t trust local hospital – so drove down to Sydney to Sydney Eye Hospital.

    I wasn’t aware that it also serves as a general Emergency for inner Sydney city. Wow – an eye opener (no pun intended!). People seeking “clean needles”, and other assistance.

    Waited several hours and was beckoned into the inner sanction where a young nurse examined me prior to the specialist. She asked whether she could have at establishing what was causing the extreme pain in my left eye. She wiped the inner eyelid with a cotton bud and Lo! slow please from the intense irritation of the last 5 hours – 3 hours travel & 2 hours waiting. Shortly after the young eye specialist repeated her work on the other eye – slightly miffed, I might add, that a mere nurse had been so successful.

    Anyway, learned a painful lesson – put the damn glasses on before you mow or do hedging!

    BTW after years of medical free life – including the last 3 Covid years – husband has been in Emergency 3 times (impacted bowel/suspected cellulitis (it was gout)/ & more recently 3 stitches to back of head after fall down spiral stairs in Sydney cleaning up after storm) …& now me with garbage in eye.

    Cant help but think it is heaven’s correction to excessive hubris!

    9
  149. yep, old age is not for the faint-hearted.

    The radiologist looks over his glasses and says “Well, your knees really have seen better days, haven’t they?”

    2
  150. Who will you believe, special-ed or your own lying eyes (and damaged organs)?

    Look out!
    It’s idiot O’clock at the New Cat.

    Bons has been caught out rewriting history to discredit Aborigines, now CornHolio wants to jump in?

    Kanakas are extremely religious, play Rugby Union and have intact families, you’re kidding yourself.

  151. Violence toward women and children has been an essential part of aboriginal culture since they arrived here 12,000 years ago. It’s time that fact was acknowledged and dealt with, no matter how distasteful it is.

    Sadly right, Robert.

    I am really surprised, Cohenite, that you claim that violence towards women is not inherent in Aboriginal culture. I respect your belief. But many archeological records show awful damage to female skulls going back a very long way. There is so much later evidence when early surveyors and explorers made first contact – that it is impossible to ignore. It was, and is, a fundamentally patriarchal culture – even though matrilineal lines are important to identity.

    There is much to be deplored and regretted in EVERY culture. But it is a pointless path down the track of denial.

    12
  152. I’m distressed at this talk of singing outside a pub.
    They should go inside & liven the place up.

    4
  153. As far as I know nobody is expelled for being gay but for openly practicing that lifestyle.

    Exactly.
    And the shame and guilt for homosexuals is the result of how they live.
    Bathhouses and all the rest.

    7
  154. Well, I thought I’d try one of Mr. Motivator’s ‘sit downs’. It’s ok, it works. Try it.
    Number 3 in his daily schedule is all sit down, for both of them, the garrulous Mr. M. and his silent lady.
    I’m sweating from it, so it must have done some good. Or maybe it’s just Sydney’s February sauna.
    I did his all-stretch one before, so with a 24 minute total think I’ve earned a cool-down G & T now.

  155. Women destroy Culture, we’re seeing it in Australia right now.

    Aborigines had a choice, protect their way of life or let Women wear the pants.
    Aborigines chose the only thing that makes any sense, Europeans chose Pussy Worship.

  156. in many instances, and especially in teaching, is a power imbalance. Did the child really consent or were they gaslit into believing they consented?

    The power imbalance is the key.
    Teachers rooting kids has to stop & needs to be dealt with more seriously.

    7
  157. I hate having to edit a post for using the f-word.
    But it’s dover’s blog so thems the rules.

    1
  158. “I am really surprised, Cohenite, that you claim that violence towards women is not inherent in Aboriginal culture. I respect your belief. But many archeological records show awful damage to female skulls going back a very long way. There is so much later evidence when early surveyors and explorers made first contact – that it is impossible to ignore. It was, and is, a fundamentally patriarchal culture – even though matrilineal lines are important to identity.

    There is much to be deplored and regretted in EVERY culture. But it is a pointless path down the track of denial.”

    I agree, although I believe almost all stone age cultures were violent, particularly towards women.

    4
  159. That’s a bold statement I haven’t seen till now: Women are destroying culture in Australia.

    Certainly in the vanguard
    Women in droves happily took the advice of the false prophet Greer; ‘for better, for worse’ was ditched.
    They’ve had their sights set on culture for some time.

    5
  160. Hmm….

    1. The amphibian from Mosman prejudices a rape trial with her Logies speech. Has she been charged? No.

    2. Brittany Higgins and her partner, David Sharaz, illegally tape private telephone conversations. Have they been charged? No.

    3. In October 2022, Brittany Higgins, minutes after being warned by the judge in court, walks out of court and further prejudices any further rape trial. Has she been charged? No.

    4. Lidia Thorpe lies down in front of a float at Mardi Gras and then when forced to stand up, menaces a police officer. Has she been charged? No.

    One thing is now clear, very clear, the rules and laws are for me but not for Brittaneeee, or David, or the Amphibian or Thorpe.

    28
  161. What Vicki said at 7.09. Of interest though is that traditional aboriginal culture, while very harsh on women’s craniums, was quite soft re children, who were never severely physically disciplined. They had very little restraint placed upon them until puberty, when cruel initiations began.

    5
  162. NSW State Election: From the National Shooting Council.

    AS MANY OF YOU WILL HAVE SEEN, shooters in WA are having a horrendous time with new policies that the Labor government there have brought into place. WA shooters have fewer guns available under categories A and B, expensive permits to transfer firearms ($256), and a registry that won’t recognise interstate licences.

    Now shooters in WA are being lined up for mandatory regular mental health checks – and have just found out that the government is banning many of the larger calibres that they use. This is a cancer that could easily find its way to other states.

    The NSC also gives a form email to send to your local member:
    SUBJECT: Why its hard to trust Labor on gun laws in NSW

    EMAIL:
    Dear Labor candidate
    You may not be aware, but Western Australian has the worst gun laws in the nation. Part of the reason why is that WA government dumped key aspects of the National Firearms Agreement several years ago.
    The most significant problem is that WA no longer relies on the system of firearm categories that other states have and is instead banning specific calibres and guns on an ad hoc basis.
    It’s a system that is unstructured and leads to uncertainty about what guns are and are not allowed to be used in WA.
    In fact WA continues to move further away from the NFA by not having permits to acquire firearms (as is the case in every other state), refusing to recognise interstate licences, and requiring hunters to have ‘individual property letters’ to enable them to go hunting. WA even uses paper licences and only last year, published the locations of where privately held firearms are stored (which, I am sure you will appreciate, is a significant safety problem).
    Earlier this month, the WA Government announced the introduction of regular mandatory mental health checks for every shooter, including when they renew their licences. Again, there has been no justification for this – and is alienating the entire WA shooting community in what is clearly a ‘doubling down’ on its failure to keep its gun laws in line with other states.
    WA’s policies and approach to guns must be rejected for NSW.
    The problem this creates for you is that WA is managed by a Labor Government, and NSW Labor is asking the electorate to trust it at the NSW State Election.
    Late last year, the National Shooting Council (NSC) sought to engage with your party about its concerns in the lead up to the election. However, it failed to respond.

    As a result, the NSC is advising shooters in NSW to not trust any Labor candidate at this election. You can blame your WA colleague, Paul Papalia, for that!
    If you can convince your head office that there is political value in working with the NSC to commit Labor to policies that support shooters while also delivering on good public safety outcomes – and reject the approach used in WA – then that would certainly help. If you have any comments or questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact the NSC at [email protected].
    Thank you

    Please get behind the National Shooting Council on this issue before an incoming Labor government bans ALL firearms.

    3
  163. I am mystified by this pride insistence.

    It’s been borrowed from the American Indians.

    Supposedly an antidote to the shame re their culture they were previously made to feel.

    4
  164. I am really surprised, Cohenite, that you claim that violence towards women is not inherent in Aboriginal culture. I respect your belief.

    I didn’t say this. That paragraph was in the essay put up by Zulu about the aboriginal proud woman who detailed the shit aboriginal women have to put up with and then after sheeting home the blame to where it belongs, aboriginal men and culture, finished with the usual activist BS about colonialism being responsible.

    Aboriginal culture was and still is one the most violent ever. That violence has been given full approval by the liars and filth and is used to attack our democracy.

    13
  165. Robert Sewellsays:
    February 27, 2023 at 6:46 pm

    I didn’t fu.king say that. See my reply to Vicki above.

  166. Aboriginal culture was and still is one the most violent ever. That violence has been given full approval by the liars and filth and is used to attack our democracy.

    Really, the most violent ever? 6 million people were brutally murdered by gas on an industrial scale by supposedly one of the most advanced and sophisticated nation on earth.

    We need to cut down the hyper-bowl.

    2
  167. The Biden regime will let a Chinese spy balloon traverse across the continental U.S. for a full week but does not hesitate to gun down helpless animals.
    A judge last Wednesday gave the U.S. Forest Service a green light to gun down approximately 150 “unauthorized” cattle from helicopters over a rugged forest in southwestern New Mexico known as the Gila Wilderness.
    The judge argued he did “not see a legal prohibition on the operation” and “it would be contrary to the public interest to stop the operation from proceeding.”
    Officials closed a large swath of the forest Monday and began the cow slaughter on Thursday. The killing will continue thru Sunday.

    2
  168. I agree, although I believe almost all stone age cultures were violent, particularly towards women.

    Thanks Cassie. Of course they were. Singling out one group because it suits is really bigoted low IQ

    4
  169. Lecturers at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust told her ‘whites don’t understand the world’ and ‘Christianity is responsible for racism because it’s European’ in a series of ‘politically biased’ talks.
    One of the Tavistock’s seminars was even called ‘Whiteness — a problem for our time’ and included a description on the Trust’s website that ‘the problem of racism is a problem of whiteness’.
    When Amy challenged these controversial views she was ‘bullied’ by staff and suspended from the course, pending an investigation into whether she is safe to work with patients.

    1
  170. My article in The Spectator:

    How to fix the teaching crisis – a series

    Ban mobile phones, absolutely and completely

    Thirty years ago I was teaching in a high school, when a student brought in a very early mobile phone. He used it to create havoc by phoning the school switchboard; having friends at home call him while in a class, and generally being annoying.

    I recall as a head of department this was brought up at a weekly meeting. No-one really knew what to do, but feelings were generally negative. If someone had forecast that 30 years later every student would have one of these devices in their pocket we would have been aghast. We would have been even more appalled if we had been told these new devices could access extreme pornography, find all sorts of dangerous information – an incident a few years later saw a student build a pipe bomb and bring it to school – and be linked to a system of “social media” that seems designed to harass other students.

    Today a vice-principal I know says that around 75% of the student discipline cases he is involved in concern a mobile phone. Students plot extreme methods of basically verbally and visually assaulting their schoolmates. This often leads to actual literal assault, sometimes carried out on the school grounds. But of course students are only at school for six or so hours a day. The phone pestering, annoying, and interfering with others’ lives continues 24/7, although strangely parents often expect school to fix it.

    In many cases the use of mobiles on the school grounds has other detrimental effects. The other day I had to do a car errand at around 745 in the morning. The school buses were everywhere in my suburb. For amusement I did a rough calculation of how many of the students waiting at bus stops, or walking to them, had their heads down, immersed in a mobile phone screen. Around 50% was the answer. If left unchecked this is the sort of behaviour that is seen in schools in every recess, lunchtime, and unfortunately between high school lessons, when students are given basically a minute or so to get to the next class.

    The effects of even innocent behaviour at such times are negative. Students are often reported as not engaging in play with ball games and the like. They are less physically active and therefore less kilojoules are consumed, and less muscle tone achieved. And a flow-on effect is there is much lateness to lessons – another in the list of discipline offences to burden teachers’ lives.

    Who is to blame for this and what is to be done? Perhaps surprisingly, I lay the blame at successive federal governments’ doors. But don’t the States control education? So they do, but the money and the central curriculum come from the feds, who even employ thousands of public servants in the federal arena, although not one teaches a class. The federal government, who like everyone involved in education has lived through the growing disaster of phones in schools, has instead done nothing for decades.

    What they should have done was to lay down the law. This could have been done with a national consultative process, and indeed it would have been likely the states and territories would have been glad to get such leadership.

    At present the states control the rules that govern schools. For example, almost every school now has a uniform policy, although for some years, especially in the years following the “hippie movement” it was sometimes seen that students should be “free to assert their creativity” and so on by having a no-uniform policy. But eventually saner thinking prevailed, in the light of students competing ferociously on the grounds of fashion, and also as uniforms are a useful deterrent to would-be offenders coming onto school property.

    Mobile phone policy has been left to the states, and there the rot set in, particularly and especially as the state education authorities were notoriously lax on it. “Leave it to the individual schools” was the cry, largely due to wanting to avoid the problem of having multiple arguments with parents, students, and even teachers, who in some misguided instances argue that having a phone and using it responsibly is something that must be taught. (Along with the other things not being taught, such as literacy and numeracy in many cases.)

    A small percentage of parents are vociferous in their defence of their offspring having a phone on their person. “I demand the right to contact my child at any time, and especially in an emergency” they will say. This ignores decades of the ability of a school office to take a message, and in an emergency multiple messages from scores of students hardly help a situation.

    Phones in schools should have been banned years ago, and the policy should have been one dictated by the federal government, who could have allied it to finance. A national policy should have been set down. Students should not have the phone on their person, nor in their bag, or in their locker, in every school, every day.

    If phones are going to be tied to transport and making purchases, and that is necessary for students before and after school, then schools should have a locker system. And yes, I have read of those valiant institutions that are doing this, and students then buy a toy mobile to be locked up for the day or try similar dodges. But if the overwhelming majority of students obey, and they usually will, then make the penalty for offending a massive one. week’s suspension for the first offence, and two for the second, and so on.

    The result would be better learning, discipline, and friendship. There would be less harassment, misbehaviour, and time-wasting. What a win for all that would be. Get onto this now state and federal governments!

    -o-o-O-o-o-

    Top Ender taught in the high school and adult areas for over 20 years, as well as. serving as a naval officer for 20 years . Now a military historian, his latest book is Attack on Sydney, a study of the failures in command combating the midget submarine attack of 1942.

    10
  171. Cassie is absolutely right about the police and DPP not prosecuting lefties.

    Higgins’ stench could even bring down another government and see high profile figures go down.

    2
  172. Thirty years ago I was teaching in a high school, when a student brought in a very early mobile phone.

    Going “back to school” as a mature age student, in 1990, more then one lecturer warned the class “If you have a mobile phone, and you leave my class to take a call, you needn’t bother coming back.”

    3
  173. The result would be better learning, discipline, and friendship. There would be less harassment, misbehaviour, and time-wasting

    Amen !

    3
  174. re the idea of a place where the kids can go for a feed and to feel safe.
    .1 How about arresting and locking up the ones who make them feel unsafe?
    .2 Who is mad enough to take on the job as a male protector? Within a week the sorry bastard will accused of kiddie fiddling!
    .3 At the end of the week, the entire tribe will pull down the protective fences, raid the sanctuary, take the kids back and burn it down. All while the ABC televises it live.

    Bob, or Winston that was, hostels work elsewhere for aboriginal schooling, they could work in remote communities with police determination, and they could certainly work in towns like Alice Springs where the locals wouldn’t put up with too much nonsense without serious media call outs and publicity about what was happening and not just the ABC, who have egg on their face currently re their reporting biases on such matters.

    As for a clean-up flying squad, it could work if people thought they would lose their tenancy unless they complied with such help. In fact, a Maori relative of mine does exactly that as part of her welfare employment, she goes to such homes and actually show the women how to do a proper clean.

    As for a gratuitous ‘you first, Lizzie’. I’ve already earned my colours doing things like that. I’ve mucked out quite a few units shaming rellies into helping do it. In one high rise disaster public housing unit where my grandson and his schizophrenic mother ended up some years ago I took a paint brush to graffiti in the lift lobby and hosed out human faeces from the laundry – and that was not for the first time, as I’d removed stuff like that from another laundry, that time an external one in a three story public housing walk up. You report it, but nothing is done, so I used self-help. I also told the graffiti yoofs that they’d get painted themselves if they interfered with my work. The contents of a thrown can of paint is very identifying, I told them, and it wrecks your new Nike’s very effectively. They disappeared. And didn’t come back.

    People who say things can’t be done, Winston, are part of the problem.

    3
  175. Cohenite:

    Robert Sewellsays:
    February 27, 2023 at 6:46 pm
    I didn’t fu.king say that. See my reply to Vicki above.

    Quite right. I didn’t realise it was a quote from someone else’s reply.
    My apologies – I was wrong.

    5
  176. TE-
    right on, great scene setting and nice and concise too.
    All mobile phone hazards for kids exist in laptop computers, too. A bit slower and clunkier and harder to be surreptitious, but it’s the same beast.

    1
  177. Plenty of Kanakas have played for Qld and Australia in Rugby League. Meninga and Tallis are the obvious standouts. Never heard of many Kanakas playing club rugby or rep rugby.

    2
  178. Power imbalance I cannot take seriously as the far left use it all of the time. (Except when a government jackboot is stamping on your face).

    Age of consent is as much as I can take seriously. If you get turned on by authority figures when you are 17 or 18 you’ll end up Weinsteined or in NXVIM when you are 23.

    Remember there was one lady who said she was groomed by Epstein when she was 19. I called her a grifter, maybe she seriously thought that.

    A law to protect people from themselves? I can accept that if they give up some fundamental civil rights.

    But that’s what the NXVIM guy said too, I guess.

    1
  179. The power imbalance concept is really insidious as a concept. The easiest way to eliminate as many power imbalances as possible is for people to be made economically equal.

    To eliminate substantive sexual assaults, we need to collectivise farms and factories, comrades.

    1
  180. My apologies – I was wrong.

    Quite alright. Now I’ll attend to head prefect who is being his usual mischievous self:

    We need to cut down the hyper-bowl.

    I said one of the most violent cultures not the most violent head prefect.

    Nazi krauts were an anomaly to German culture as their culture was not based on it. Aboriginal culture was fundamentally and inherently violent; it had to be since they were a hunting and gathering culture. The best exposition of aboriginal culture was done by Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern when they were in Sydney in 2018. There is still some video around about what they spoke about. They compared it to islamic culture with them coming off about equal:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9MgCE933w8

    2
  181. Perhaps the costs of rates, home maintenance, private health insurance, wanting to take a few holidays, have a meal out when they feel like it, running their car etc occupy the minds of those who have worked and saved for their retirements..
    Coasting along on welfare in taxpayer funded housing isn’t everyone’s idea of an ideal lifestyle nor a realistic option for all.

    6
  182. Dotsays:
    February 27, 2023 at 8:47 pm
    The power imbalance concept is really insidious as a concept.

    Strangely (sarc), I don’t recall those words being used during the Clinton/Lewinski affair and subsequent events.

  183. “Really, the most violent ever? 6 million people were brutally murdered by gas on an industrial scale by supposedly one of the most advanced and sophisticated nation on earth.

    We need to cut down the hyper-bowl.”

    Indeed.

    Pre-white settlement Aborigines didn’t have a monopoly on violence, as I wrote above, it’s safe to say that all stone age cultures were violent but so is much of today’s world. All humans have a disposition to violence, we’ve been like this since we came down from trees and walked around and out of Africa. In fact, I strongly suspect those early men and women probably walked, swam or waded out of Africa to escape from violence, only then to create more violence. Violence and war were probably contributing factors to why man managed to walk and settle most of the planet (we didn’t drive or cycle). Violence is part of the human story.

    7
  184. Coasting along on welfare in taxpayer funded housing isn’t everyone’s idea of an ideal lifestyle nor a realistic option for all.

    If the Labor Party muck around with super too much I will torch my super.

    It’s the only way to deal with collectivisation. Scorched earth.

    I am still shocked middle class people are ashamed about taking welfare when the country already has unsustainable public debt we’ll probably never pay back.

    It’s not too much of a stretch to go from a cap on superannuation to total wealth. We’re a few liquid lunches away from the Minkey/Little League version of state socialism, that is, Communism.

  185. “The best exposition of aboriginal culture was done by Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern when they were in Sydney in 2018.

    I think you should find better experts. Molyneux is a grifter.

  186. Franksays:

    February 27, 2023 at 5:10 pm

    Apparently I’m too old for the Medicare rebate and too rich for the pension card.
    …..
    You need a better accountant

    Therein lies the problem.
    Bear mentioned above that we have had compulsory super for more than thirty years, but the needle on numbers on the pension hasn’t moved.
    Why is that?
    Well, it would isn’t people with $3 – $5 meg in super. It is people who have maybe $500-$750k. They retire a few years short of OAP age, do a reno, go on a couple of cruises, gift a bit to the kids and get themselves $1 under the full OAP threshold (which I think is about $400k for a couple who own their house).
    The actions to get below the pension line are not always logical.

    4
  187. “Sunday morning stroll through Hyde Park in Sydney”

    I like how they dress it up as a kink or role playing to legitimise it. Otherwise they would just be sad pricks that like to wear dog masks and ridicule would be appropriate though, in his case, arrest for indecent exposure would seem more appropriate.

    4
  188. I said one of the most violent cultures not the most violent head prefect.

    Oh, one of. That makes it heaps better then.

    Nazi krauts were an anomaly to German culture as their culture was not based on it.

    Why do you say that? Obviously, you’re not counting ww1 but even so, there were lots of small wars between the German statelets before unification.

    Even more, the white tribe’s history is seriously freaking bloody.

    Aboriginal culture was fundamentally and inherently violent; it had to be since they were a hunting and gathering culture.

    As every other hunter gatherer group has been in the past.

    The best exposition of aboriginal culture was done by Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern when they were in Sydney in 2018.

    Oh please.

    There is still some video around about what they spoke about. They compared it to islamic culture with them coming off about equal:

    Cronkite, just stop now. Go to bed.

    3
  189. “dover0beachsays:
    February 27, 2023 at 9:18 pm
    SPEC Capital
    @SPECCAPITAL
    ·
    Feb 26
    Sunday morning stroll through Hyde Park in Sydney”

    I saw similar yesterday, at 11.30 in the morning, I was waiting for a bus at the bus stop next to Hyde Park. A man walked past me and his bottom was completely bare.

    1
  190. A man walked past me and his bottom was completely bare.

    I think Cronkite said he was in Sydney on Sunday, Cass. It was him you saw, or rather his fat rear end.

  191. Frank:

    I like how they dress it up as a kink or role playing to legitimise it. Otherwise they would just be sad pricks that like to wear dog masks and ridicule would be appropriate though, in his case, arrest for indecent exposure would seem more appropriate.

    What they are doing is appropriating public space by behaving in a way that pushes others out. And they will succeed because no one will stand up to them. They are the protected – not you.
    Try it. See who gets arrested for disturbing the peace first.

    2
  192. The government also released a discussion paper canvassing a range of reforms including banning ransomware payments and giving the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) the power to commandeer the I.T. systems of private companies when they are under cyber-attack.

    All zee cyber security eggs must be in zee vun basket, ja?

    3
  193. Oh please.

    A scintillating riposte head prefect.

    I think Cronkite said he was in Sydney on Sunday, Cass. It was him you saw, or rather his fat rear end.

    My arse is not fat head prefect. It is taut, streamlined and very masculine in a powerful yet subtle way; as you well know.

    7
  194. “What they are doing is appropriating public space by behaving in a way that pushes others out.”

    Perhaps that will be the effect but as far as intent goes, more likely to still be off his tits from the mardi gras after party.

  195. Kumanjayi Walker inquest: Rolfe accused of ‘campaign’ against Northern Territory police and coroner’s court

    By NICHOLAS JENSEN
    Reporter
    9:04PM February 27, 2023

    Zachary Rolfe faces disciplinary action by the Northern Territory Police Force after its legal counsel launched an attack in Monday’s coronial hearing, suggest­ing the constable tried to intimidate senior police officers and potentially “pervert the course of justice”.

    On Monday, Ian Freckelton KC said senior police who were due to front the inquest would not be silenced or intimidated by Constable Rolfe’s claims, warning that NT police had served a notice to the 31-year-old’s lawyer indicating “further action” would follow his open letter criticising police and the coronial process.

    Dr Freckelton, who is acting for the NT Police Force, said “depending on what response is received” from Constable Rolfe, the force was prepared to act “swiftly” against him, prompting speculation about his future in the organisation.

    His remarks were followed by an apology by Deputy Commissioner Murray Smalpage, who said the NT police had failed to treat Kumanjayi Walker’s family with the respect they deserved in the aftermath of his death in Nov­ember 2019.

    Constable Rolfe, who flew out of Australia last week, wrote a 2500-word letter accusing the NT police, Coroner Elisabeth Armitage and her counsel assisting, Peggy Dwyer, of trying to publicly vilify him during the coronial inquest into Walker’s death.

    The former soldier, who was found not guilty of murdering the Indigenous teenager in March 2022, also accused NT Police Commissioner Jamie Chalker of refusing to meet him and called for his resignation.

    Barrister Andrew Boe, acting for members of the Walker family, told the court on Monday that Constable Rolfe’s open letter contained “very false alle­gations about Kumanjayi” that were “deplorable and hurtful to the family” and should be publicly refuted during the course of the inquest.

    In opening submissions, Mr Boe referred to Constable Rolfe’s letter and an opinion piece by The Daily Telegraph’s Vikki Campion, as well as an interview between Campion and Sky News host Peta Credlin, which he said should be investigated as contempt of court.

    Mr Boe also referred to a comment on the “I support Zach Rolfe” Facebook page, which he attributed to Constable Rolfe’s mother, Deborah Rolfe. “We understand … that Ms Rolfe is a practising lawyer in the ACT. Consideration should be given by your honour or counsel assisting … to make a complaint about her conduct in being associated with these publications to the ACT Law Society,” he said.

    Dr Freckelton, who warned that Constable Rolfe had a week to respond to the notice served by NT police, said the police officer was persisting in a campaign to destabilise the force and “imputes a variety of slurs against the executive, including that they are ‘narcissists’, ‘liars’, ‘cowards’ and similar”.

    “He describes one senior member of the NT Police Force as a clown who has taken over a castle. We don’t know whether the motive of Mr Rolfe is to try to intimidate the two members of the executive who are going to be giving evidence before you this week,” he said.

    “The NT Police Force is extremely concerned about the conduct of Mr Rolfe and it has taken action already … Depending on what response is received, further action is going to take place, if appropriate, swiftly.”

    Dr Freckelton also criticised an article published by The Australian on February 24 that reproduced parts of Mr Rolfe’s letter, saying it imputed “particular behaviours to Kumanjayi Walker for which there is no evidence whatsoever”.

    The hearing was adjourned in the afternoon following a fault with livestream technology.

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