Open Thread – Tue 28 Feb 2023


Belisarius Begging for Alms, Jacques-Louis David, 1781


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Wally Dali
Wally Dali
February 28, 2023 1:28 am

First?

Wally Dali
Wally Dali
February 28, 2023 1:31 am

Ah goodo. I dedicate this thread to the greater glory of Dionysus and Diesel, at whose alma mater I labour this midnight.

Wally Dali
Wally Dali
February 28, 2023 2:56 am

Gorgeous night. Don’t often see stars this clearly, down to the horizon, so close to the ocean.

Bourne1879
Bourne1879
February 28, 2023 3:01 am

Just caught up with yesterday’s comments.

Nobody mentioned Premier NSW on Ben Fordham show. John Larter ex paramedic and host of Club Grubbery calls in with question about why mandates still in effect in some parts NSW Govt.

Premier says Vax does not stop transmission. However says whilst he has given instructions to stop mandates there are some areas he has no control.

The clip has been listened to hundreds of thousands of times but no mainstream media mentioned it.

Wally Dali
Wally Dali
February 28, 2023 4:03 am

Dry as a chip. Binning up brilliantly, good foliage = effective machine harvesting
Any vin-yer-on west of Coober Pedy who isn’t bottling gold medal stuff at eight tonnes to the hectare needs an R.M. fair up their prado

Tom
Tom
February 28, 2023 4:04 am
Tom
Tom
February 28, 2023 4:06 am
Tom
Tom
February 28, 2023 4:08 am
Tom
Tom
February 28, 2023 4:09 am
Tom
Tom
February 28, 2023 4:10 am
Tom
Tom
February 28, 2023 4:11 am
Tom
Tom
February 28, 2023 4:13 am
Tom
Tom
February 28, 2023 4:14 am
Tom
Tom
February 28, 2023 4:15 am
Tom
Tom
February 28, 2023 4:17 am
Tom
Tom
February 28, 2023 4:18 am
Tom
Tom
February 28, 2023 4:19 am
Tom
Tom
February 28, 2023 4:20 am
rosie
rosie
February 28, 2023 4:44 am

A couple of days ago I went to the museum that holds a good selection of this artist’s work, his speciality was portraits of women.
Better to look at Google images to see his works.
Walked past a young girl today, who could have sat for him, a classic dark haired round faced Spanish beauty.

Julio Romero De Torres

rosie
rosie
February 28, 2023 4:49 am

In Seville.
I like it very much except for that classic difficulty about acceptable Spanish meal times.
On the train here I was reminded that what Sicily is to the lemon, Andalusia is to the orange.
Not surprisingly all I wanted after the long walk from the station was a glass of orange juice and a snack.
We don’t serve orange juice said the waiter.
The next place, only cake.
Hungry Jacks then for fake orange juice aka Fanta.

bespoke
bespoke
February 28, 2023 5:04 am

Wally Dalisays:
February 28, 2023 at 4:03 am
Dry as a chip. Binning up brilliantly, good foliage = effective machine harvesting
Any vin-yer-on west of Coober Pedy who isn’t bottling gold medal stuff at eight tonnes to the hectare needs an R.M. fair up their prado

Good stuff. We are starting soon. I’m still training a block.

bespoke
bespoke
February 28, 2023 5:23 am
Ed Case
Ed Case
February 28, 2023 5:38 am

Will P.C. Rolfey return to Australia to face the music?

Me no teenk so, Senor.

Peta Credlin and Vikki Campion face Contempt of Court?

Yes please.

Wally Dalí
Wally Dalí
February 28, 2023 5:47 am

Good to hear- getting the white varieties off in Feb is a good benchmark between o.k. and difficult seasons.
Had my famous winemaker buyer bring a film crew in for my sulphur-free Chardonnay, which was a bit surprising. I mean, I thought it looked v pretty, but still… it wasn’t in the contract.
In the meantime, the big birds have carted off a hell of a lot from the zero S Tempranillo…. so maybe having a whiff of the brimstone around has something going for it after all.

Gabor
Gabor
February 28, 2023 6:41 am

Tom says:
February 28, 2023 at 4:11 am

Morten Morland.

Anyone can tell me what’s this is about?
Have a nagging feeling that I should know…

132andBush
132andBush
February 28, 2023 6:48 am

Dot says:
February 28, 2023 at 12:07 am

I should go to bed.

https://www.tcorp.nsw.gov.au/resource/Weekly_bonds_outstanding_24_Feb_2023.pdf

I think I put the data together correctly, 133.997 bn of debt?

Basically 3 mn short of 134 bn of debt on issue.

The Commonwealth has 897.1 bn of debt on issue as of 28/2/23.

A lazy trillion dollar (1,031 bn AUD) debt pile before other states and local government is included.

How is this going to be paid off?

Brought to us by the people who are forever proclaiming “sustainability!”.

Cassie of Sydney
February 28, 2023 6:48 am

“The clip has been listened to hundreds of thousands of times but no mainstream media mentioned it.”

Chris Kenny mentioned it last night on his Sky programme.

132andBush
132andBush
February 28, 2023 6:59 am

Good to hear about the grapes, Wally.

I hear it’s pretty ordinary in the Griffith area, bit too wet late last year.

rickw
rickw
February 28, 2023 7:00 am

Nobody mentioned Premier NSW on Ben Fordham show. John Larter ex paramedic and host of Club Grubbery calls in with question about why mandates still in effect in some parts NSW Govt.

Premier says Vax does not stop transmission. However says whilst he has given instructions to stop mandates there are some areas he has no control.

Idiot, nazi, c*nts is the problem that Australia is full of.

Dot
Dot
February 28, 2023 7:16 am

If the State Premier doesn’t control executive orders he is a weakling.

Anchor What
Anchor What
February 28, 2023 7:21 am

First it was Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, now it’s Seth Efrica on the verge of collapse.
One day it will be recognised that demonising whites and handing over the running of countries to corrupt incompetents doesn’t work.
Story at News

Anchor What
Anchor What
February 28, 2023 7:23 am

“House speaker Kevin McCarthy is finally releasing all the official security tapes and other video evidence showing what really happened during the massive stolen election protest at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. This evidence had been commandeered and hidden by Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat party for the last two years.

This material did not belong to Pelosi and the Democrats; it belongs to the American people. In fact, wannabe mob boss Nancy Pelosi and her reprehensible Democrat party had been trying to arrange, just before the new Congress came in, to have all this evidence locked away in the National Archives, where it wouldn’t have been available to the public for fifty years.

McCarthy’s decision to release this purloined evidence to Fox News host Tucker Carlson has caused quite a panic. The hyperbolic reactions of people like Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer aren’t at all surprising. These Democrat leaders know what really happened that day, and they’ve been knowingly lying to America all along. They never imagined that those tapes would see the light of day. When the evidence on those hidden tapes is finally seen by the public, the false “insurrection” narrative they’ve created and pushed about January 6 for the last two years will collapse, along with their credibility. “
Read more at American Thinker

calli
calli
February 28, 2023 7:24 am

Perrottet vaxx statement here.

Straight after this segment, a bearded epidemiologist “expert” (whose name escapes me) opined that three doses was enough and only the vulnerable should be boosted. Not even a flicker of shame.

They seamlessly go from panic to nonchalance at the flip of a switch. They can’t be mentally stable, yet these were the ones our society depended upon and ruined itself via their stupid “rules”.

Dot
Dot
February 28, 2023 7:28 am

I am shocked the States and Commonwealth are not yet forced to give real time debt figures, the Commonwealth does, NSW does but they obfuscate it, WA and SA are not upfront and I’m not sure if they report week to week as the Feds and NSW do.

There is no reason why in a democracy where everyone has a stake in the equities market vis a vis superannuation, that we cannot get the level of total (Cth, State and local government combined) public gross debt in real time relatively easily.

calli
calli
February 28, 2023 7:33 am

Bespoke! Modern Monty Python.

Followers? What are you? Jesus or something?

😀

Dot
Dot
February 28, 2023 7:35 am

Commonwealth debt is 897 bn AUD as of today.

NSW debt is 134 bn as of today.

That’s a lazy 1.031 trillion AUD of debt.

QLD is about 130 bn and WA debt for local government and state agencies is 49 bn.

That’s 1210 bn before WA bonds, SA, NT, TAS and ACT.

Likely 1400 bn or roughly 70% of GDP.

The sovereign bond rate is now 3.9% (3.891 % yesterday for the pedants).

We are at the stage where debt servicing threatens to gobble up GDP growth and in real per capita terms, we are very likely worse off.

calli
calli
February 28, 2023 7:36 am

I see Scotts Transport has gone into receivership. Fuel? Drivers? Victoria?

Hang onto your hats.

Leon L
Leon L
February 28, 2023 7:38 am

Gabor says:
February 28, 2023 at 6:41 am
Tom says:
February 28, 2023 at 4:11 am

Morten Morland.
Anyone can tell me what’s this is about?
Have a nagging feeling that I should know…

I think it is the Billy Goats Gruff outwitting the troll.
Except one goat and three tory trolls.

feelthebern
feelthebern
February 28, 2023 7:40 am

Commonwealth debt is 897 bn AUD as of today

Super is 3.3trill.
You can see the contra they’re planning.

Dot
Dot
February 28, 2023 7:46 am

I will intentionally ruin myself and live off welfare forever if they actually mess with superannuation too much.

Anyone doubting me can bite my shiny metal a$$.

feelthebern
feelthebern
February 28, 2023 7:47 am

Twitter alerts me to last weeks news that Moderna has agreed to pay the NIH the disputed royalties.
Finally.

Dot
Dot
February 28, 2023 7:48 am

I may also have a racial awakening.

will
will
February 28, 2023 7:59 am
sfw
sfw
February 28, 2023 8:00 am

A bit of background on Dovers artwork this forum.

https://academic.oup.com/occmed/article/66/9/689/2720659

Boambee John
Boambee John
February 28, 2023 8:01 am

Ed Casesays:
February 28, 2023 at 5:38 am
Will P.C. Rolfey return to Australia to face the music?

Me no teenk so, Senor.

Peta Credlin and Vikki Campion face Contempt of Court?

Yes please.

Richard Cranium

What music? Do you not understand the meaning of the words “Not Guilty”?

When will the Cane Toad, Mizzzz Knickerless, Louse 7Nilligan, Their ABC, the hosts of the Logies, and so many others face Contempt of Court?

calli
calli
February 28, 2023 8:04 am

Interesting choice of art.

The theme is astonishment at fallen glory. Given the debt/GDP figures outlined above, Belisarius could be Australia and the amazed soldier someone transported forward in time by fifty years.

The big question…from whom do we beg alms? And on whose behalf? A blind old man, or an innocent child who has stumbled into the situation through no fault of their own.

Gabor
Gabor
February 28, 2023 8:17 am

Leon L says:
February 28, 2023 at 7:38 am

Morten Morland.
Anyone can tell me what’s this is about?
Have a nagging feeling that I should know…

I think it is the Billy Goats Gruff outwitting the troll.
Except one goat and three tory trolls.

Thanks, it rang a bell, but just couldn’t recall the connection.

Gabor
Gabor
February 28, 2023 8:22 am

feelthebern says:
February 28, 2023 at 7:40 am

Commonwealth debt is 897 bn AUD as of today

Super is 3.3trill.
You can see the contra they’re planning.

Self-managed here, well not really, managed by our accountant, I’m not a finance major by any means, should I be worried?

calli
calli
February 28, 2023 8:26 am

Is the goat Sunak? I can identify Boris but not the other two. And what’s it all about?

I also noticed the re-written Dahl books – The Twits and Brexit. Hmmmmm.

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
February 28, 2023 8:29 am

I saw one of the double-decker yellow buses (the ‘B-Line’) the other day which had had one side (full bus height) with a vertical rainbow and large fabulous letters reading ‘Ride with Pride’.

I’ll leave aside for the moment the ongoing abuse of the word ‘pride’ which is something that stirs the person feeling pride rather than someone else’s.

But it set me to thinking of all the people involved in getting that gaudy decal in place and off a-trundling about the place. The person who had the idea, the one who approved it, the one who designed it, the ones who manufactured the great tacky sheet of plastic, the ones who climbed all over the bus to stick it affix it to the bus, and the drivers clocking-on and off on their mind numbing mission to travel backwards and forwards over the same route.

How many of them had any warmth for the cause? How many think the Mardi Gras worthwhile or even remotely interesting. The person with the idea and the one who approved it might – although it seems just as likely they are under the impression that they are supposed to do stuff like this as part of their department’s image as being socially aware.

The designer just had to work out how to combine rainbows and text, and their motivation would have been to please the people who ordered the design. The people in the manufacturing, affixing, and driving (a substantially larger horde) would, by and large I suspect, at the very best have been utterly indifferent, and others revolted by the sickening display being promoted.

The idea that this thing went up that most people had absolutely no desire or enthusiasm for was just a reminder of how dishonest the whole damned pansy thing is.

An opinion borne out by the dismal ABC ratings which must have had them flopping onto fainting couches all the next day. It would not surprise me if all the programs on the ABC the day after the rectal regatta, the festival of fruits, the caravan of catamites were just repeats from the day before – beset by sheer despondence no one in Ultimo able to summon up the will-power to do their jobs.

Twenty-four hour WEB’s all round!

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 28, 2023 8:35 am

Vicki says:
February 27, 2023 at 7:09 pm

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.

Vicki.

You are correct – Quadrant – The long history of Aboriginal violence — Part II 7th May 2013 -Tony Thomas

It is not polite to say that pre-contact Aboriginal society was abusive to women and generally violent. This would undercut the long-standing official view that current violence in Aboriginal communities reflects colonial dispossession and on-going victimhood.

Aboriginal lawyer Dr Hannah McGlade in “Our Greatest Challenge” similarly blames colonialism: “The linking of Aboriginal culture to family violence and child sexual assault diminishes the grave harm inflicted on Aboriginal people through colonialism…the way in which colonization systematically deprived Aboriginal people of basic human rights.”

[2] But feminist author Stephanie Jarrett, in her introduction to “Liberating Aboriginal People from Violence, says, “It is important to acknowledge [the] link between today’s Aboriginal violence and violent, pre-contact tradition, because until policymakers are honest in their assessment of the causes, Aboriginal people can never be liberated from violence…Deep cultural change is necessary, away from traditional norms and practices of violence.”

Part I: Yabbered To Death

Part II: A Long Bloody History of Violence

Part III: A Blacked-Out Past

Part IV: When The Horrific Is Mundane

Indigenous communities, Nowra says, have to recognize they are part of Australian society and grasp the idea of personal and individual responsibility for their actions.[13] Romanticising remote life is dangerous. There have been instances of white women or urban Aborigines moving into relationships in remote communities. After getting their first or subsequent “proper good hiding” they are lucky to escape.[14]

Violence levels are evidenced for thousands of years into pre-history.

Paleopathologist Stephen Webb in 1995 published his analysis of 4500 individuals’ bones from mainland Australia going back 50,000 years. (Priceless bone collections at the time were being officially handed over to Aboriginal communities for re-burial, which stopped follow-up studies).[15]

Webb found highly disproportionate rates of injuries and fractures to women’s skulls, with the injuries suggesting deliberate attack and often attacks from behind, perhaps in domestic squabbles. In the tropics, for example, female head-injury frequency was about 20-33%, versus 6.5-26% for males.

The most extreme results were on the south coast, from Swanport and Adelaide, with female cranial trauma rates as high as 40-44% — two to four times the rate of male cranial trauma. In desert and south coast areas, 5-6% of female skulls had three separate head injuries, and 11-12% had two injuries.

Web could not rule out women-on-women attacks but thought them less probable.

Interesting the last above, Spencer Baldwin Native Tribes of Australia mentioned the viscousness of Women upon Women attacks

A bit more

From 1788, British and French arrivals were shocked at local misogyny. First Fleeter Watkin Tench noticed a young woman’s head “covered by contusions, and mangled by scars”. She also had a spear wound above the left knee caused by a man who dragged her from her home to rape her.

Tench wrote, “They are in all respects treated with savage barbarity; condemned not only to carry the children, but all other burthens, they meet in return for submission only with blows, kicks and every other mark of brutality.”[18]

He also wrote, “When an Indian [sic] is provoked by a woman, he either spears her, or knocks her down on the spot; on this occasion he always strikes on the head, using indiscriminately a hatchet, a club, or any other weapon, which may chance to be in his hand.”

Marine Lt. William Collins wrote, “We have seen some of these unfortunate beings with more scars upon their shorn heads, cut in every direction, than could be well distinguished or counted.”

Roger
Roger
February 28, 2023 8:38 am

Morten Morland.

Anyone can tell me what’s this is about?
Have a nagging feeling that I should know…

Sunak has struck a Northern Ireland deal with the EU.

Dot
Dot
February 28, 2023 8:40 am
H B Bear
H B Bear
February 28, 2023 8:40 am

Superannuation is just savings, deferred consumption. There has always been a high regulatory risk ( that is the rules of the game getting changed on you) with it which has to be traded off against the alternative – paying current marginal tax rates and saving/wealth accumulation/estate planning outside superannuation. Personally, up till now, my view was you were better off inside the superannuation tent. Now I am not so sure, although my personal circumstances have rendered much of the need for savings moot.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
February 28, 2023 8:42 am

Santa’s newest elf.

Will Nobody Think of the Reindeer? Greta Thunberg Fights ‘Colonial’ Oppression in Norway (27 Feb)

“Professional protester Greta Thunberg helped block the entrance to Norway’s energy ministry Monday to demand freedom for indigenous reindeer herding.

“We can’t use the so-called climate transition as a cover for colonialism,” Thunberg told broadcaster TV2 as she blocked the doors of the ministry in Oslo, AFP reports.”

Greta Thunberg protests clean wind farm on indigenous lands as human rights abuses (27 Feb)

“Climate activist Greta Thunberg on Monday chained herself to the entrance of the Norway Ministry of Energy to protest wind turbines operating on lands used by the Sami Indigenous people to herd reindeer.

The well-known 20-year-old climate protester sat with activists from the indigenous group, mostly teenagers, to protest the government’s solution to expand clean energy and said going green should not come at the expense of indigenous rights.”

Are we still allowed to sing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, or is that cultural appropriation?

Dot
Dot
February 28, 2023 8:43 am

Hopefully the Doom Pixie goes nuclear.

flyingduk
flyingduk
February 28, 2023 8:45 am

How is this going to be paid off?

Its been mathematically impossible to do so for quite some time. They know this, they will just keep running up the card until the market takes it away.

I am amazed it hasn’t already, although interest rates have started to sneak up.

flyingduk
flyingduk
February 28, 2023 8:50 am

Straight after this segment, a bearded epidemiologist “expert” (whose name escapes me) opined that three doses was enough and only the vulnerable should be boosted. Not even a flicker of shame.

*ALWAYS*CHECK*THE*WORK*OF*EXPERTS*

flyingduk
flyingduk
February 28, 2023 8:51 am

Self-managed here, well not really, managed by our accountant, I’m not a finance major by any means, should I be worried?

Thats a rhetorical question, right?

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
February 28, 2023 8:52 am

I know naffink specific, but I wonder about re-directing super funds into “inferstructure of national importance”.
I don’t think it will be as crude as raiding super accounts. I suspect that concessional tax treatment of each fund will be made dependent upon the fund holding a set percentage of assets in Inferstructure Bonds or “other approved nation building investments”. The bonds will pay a paltry return because “government backed” and industry funds will be granted exemptions because of their other good works (private investment in rent-seeking wind and solar).

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
February 28, 2023 8:54 am

“We can’t use the so-called climate transition as a cover for colonialism,” Thunberg told broadcaster TV2 as she blocked the doors of the ministry in Oslo, AFP reports.”

To understand socialists there are only two things you need to know.

1) They have an answer for everything.
2) The answer is invariably wrong.

Miltonf
Miltonf
February 28, 2023 8:57 am

The greta thingy is like something out of a horror movie.

calli
calli
February 28, 2023 8:58 am

More things worth knowing:

3) Their useful idiots don’t really know what they want, just something different to what exists now.

4) Their masters do know what they want. And neither you nor I nor their useful idiots are part of it.

calli
calli
February 28, 2023 8:59 am

Greta:

Wind turbines – Old and Busted

Indigenous “rights” – New Hotness

Johnny Rotten
February 28, 2023 9:02 am

Who are the ‘Neocons?

From Armstrong Economics –

QUESTION: Who are the ‘Neocons’?

Martin,

In an essay you posted today* you say that the Biden administration has been bought and paid for by Neocons.

Could you tell us a bit more about them? I understand you’ve said that many of ‘these persons’ come from a mindset of the Allen brothers of the 1950s (in the US), and others in England and France and, perhaps, Germany.

We know, of course, that the lead neocon in the Biden administration is Victoria Neuland. Is Susan Rice among them, too? Who are the others that so want to destroy Russia? Are most Neocons also among the ‘woke’ crowd of the WEF?

Thank you.

Marty B

ANSWER: I have been told by many that I was sent here for a purpose during these end times. I have no idea about that. Yet, I do admit that I have been at the center of just about everything since 1973. Besides being called into just about every financial crisis since 1973 with the collapse of Franklin National Bank that started MasterCard, I have shaken hands and met so many heads of state and those seeking to be the head of state over the course of this life which has been interesting. That even includes face-to-face conversations with members of the Neocons.

The realization of the significance of the Economic Confidence Model has had governments around the world looking at our forecasts for decades. That does not mean they follow them. Even the people who hate my guts still read just to know what their hated enemy is saying now.

I have turned down plots to seize Russia, opening an office in a country and stocking it with girls for another head of state, and even turning down bribes from people in various governments including Ukraine. I have had front-row seat through everything even employees on both sides of the Ukrainian civil war.

Nevertheless, this has certainly never been something I have sought to add to my resume. As my old personal assistant had a little stick figure on her desk holding a sign – “Shit Happens!” I am risen to this curious spot in life by fate – never by design. Thus, I have avoided conspiracy theories because I have typically been in the middle and saw for myself hate was really going on.

So, here I have done a full report on who they are, how they began, and where we are going. It is just too much to do in a blog post. Some say I am putting a target on my back. I do not care anymore. I named my computer Socrates after when he was “canceled” during the Athenian Cancel Culture. Socrates’s words when sentenced to death have always defined my fundamental beliefs. I paid my respects to his jail cell in Athens. My paraphrase:”

“Death is either a migration of the soul to see all my old friends once more.
Or, it is like a midsummer night’s sleep. So peaceful never to be disturbed by a dream. How many of us have had such wonderful nights?
Go ahead, do your best.”

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/products_services/products/who-are-the-neocons/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=RSS

cohenite
February 28, 2023 9:08 am

Will P.C. Rolfey return to Australia to face the music?

Me no teenk so, Senor.

Peta Credlin and Vikki Campion face Contempt of Court?

Yes please

What court crotchless? So far you’ve made some sense when commenting on Rolfe but this seems to be a schizoid attack. Get back on the straight and narrow quick.

Johnny Rotten
February 28, 2023 9:10 am

A man asked his wife what she’d like for her 40th birthday. “I’d love to be six again” she replied.

On the morning of her birthday, he got her up bright and early and off they went to a local theme park. What a day! He put her on every ride in the park: the Death Slide, the Screaming Loop, the Wall of Fear – everything there was! Wow!

Five hours later she staggered out of the theme park, her head reeling and her stomach upside down. Right to a McDonald’s they went, where her husband ordered her a Happy Meal along with extra fries and a refreshing chocolate shake. Then, it was off to a movie – the latest Disney and what a fabulous adventure!

Finally, she wobbled home with her husband and collapsed into bed. He leaned over and lovingly asked “Well, dear, what was it like being six again?” One eye opened. “You idiot, I meant my dress size”.

The moral of this story is: when a woman speaks and a man is actually listening, he will still get it wrong.

lotocoti
lotocoti
February 28, 2023 9:12 am
Johnny Rotten
February 28, 2023 9:13 am

There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘All right, then, have it your way.’

– C. S. Lewis

H B Bear
H B Bear
February 28, 2023 9:14 am

I don’t think it will be as crude as raiding super accounts. I suspect that concessional tax treatment of each fund will be made dependent upon the fund holding a set percentage of assets in Inferstructure Bonds or “other approved nation building investments”.

Which starts to look a lot like some of the arrangements between the RBA and the banks.

H B Bear
H B Bear
February 28, 2023 9:17 am

The boys at Macquarie Bank will be licking their lips.

cohenite
February 28, 2023 9:18 am

OldOzziesays:
February 28, 2023 at 8:35 am
Vicki says:
February 27, 2023 at 7:09 pm

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.

Vicki.

FFS, I’m still being verballed. I put in a quote from an article by some proud witchety grub tribe sheila which contradicted the rest of her article about aboriginal violence by claiming aboriginal culture was not violent and the violence today was due to the usual colonial trauma, and I’m being accused of saying aboriginal culture was and is not violent. And when I pointed this out on the last thread and that aboriginal culture is violent and that the glorious Lauren Southern and the witty, intellectual Stefan Molyneux had detailed this violence in their splendid talking tour in 2018 I was viciously attacked by head prefect and his hood.

I’m traumatised and demand reparations!

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 28, 2023 9:21 am

China approves two new coal plants every week to ensure stability “when renewables fail”
Annual emissions from coal

By Jo Nova

It’s the sixth mass extinction of life on Earth and one country is building six times as much new coal power as the rest of the world combined. But no one cares.

Sinful Australia hasn’t even built a coal plant in 12 long years, but Saint China is approving a new one every three and a half days.

One nation is theoretically destroying the world’s corals, creating droughts, floods and bad storms, and making reef fish reckless but no one is gluing themselves to the Chinese Embassy. The same universities who lecture us on carbon pollution are not even boycotting Chinese students.

We have to ask — do reef fish matter? Are floods a bad thing?

Either CO2 is just a shiny amulet or everyone who cares about it is functionally innumerate. It could be both.

Meanwhile on the cat-walks of intellectual fashion shows the Western world’s elite competes to be more concerned than the next guy about the dire problems of CO2.

President Xi cheers them on, promises to act, then builds another coal plant.

Constructing 106 Gigawatts of coal power in 2023 doesn’t exactly sit well with President Xi’s pledge that China would start to reduce coal consumption by 2030 “at the latest”.

But a tactic of pretending to be Green whilst doing the exact opposite — as your adversaries wreck their own industrial bases — would be a bad citizen, but a good strategy if you can get away with it.

Remember the research group that says pro-China groups are posing as fake green protestors to try to stop rare earth mines in the US.

In a sense, they’d be crazy if they weren’t.

Roger
Roger
February 28, 2023 9:21 am

I don’t think it will be as crude as raiding super accounts.

At the end of the day it’s still the government robbing you.

Cassie of Sydney
February 28, 2023 9:24 am

“and the witty, intellectual Stefan Molyneux”

FFS, you’re being verbose. Molyneux is NOT a witty intellectual.

Dot
Dot
February 28, 2023 9:26 am

I have turned down plots to seize Russia, opening an office in a country and stocking it with girls for another head of state, and even turning down bribes from people in various governments including Ukraine. I have had front-row seat through everything even employees on both sides of the Ukrainian civil war.

Walter Mitty tries some ice, things go just as expected.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 28, 2023 9:26 am

cohenite says:
February 28, 2023 at 9:18 am

OldOzziesays:
February 28, 2023 at 8:35 am
Vicki says:
February 27, 2023 at 7:09 pm

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.

Vicki.

FFS, I’m still being verballed. I put in a quote from an article by some proud witchety grub tribe sheila which contradicted the rest of her article about aboriginal violence by claiming aboriginal culture was not violent and the violence today was due to the usual colonial trauma, and I’m being accused of saying aboriginal culture was and is not violent. And when I pointed this out on the last thread and that aboriginal culture is violent and that the glorious Lauren Southern and the witty, intellectual Stefan Molyneux had detailed this violence in their splendid talking tour in 2018 I was viciously attacked by head prefect and his hood.

I’m traumatised and demand reparations!

Apologies cohenite,

I had not read down further on the Old Thread to see your explanation, when I posted the above.

To follow the Korean Tradition of the 3 Netflix Koren Series I have been watching, I will sit down on my haunches and bow my head touching the ground repeatedly whilst saying “Sorry”

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 28, 2023 9:34 am

Speaking of the 3 Korean Nerflix Series one of my mates responded

I am still in treatment/therapy for listening to your advice to watch The Amazing Attorney Woo. Who in their right mind would watch a Korean language TV show, with English Subtitles, of an autistic women attorney. What is this world coming to?

Oh, by the way I am up to episode 6. If Young Woo spilt cornflakes in the bed, there is no way I would ask her to leave the bed.

Having enjoyed the 16 Episodes of Netflix Attorney Woo

I have moved on to – Watch Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha | Netflix Official Site

A big-city dentist opens up a practice in a close-knit seaside village, home to a charming jack-of-all-trades who is her polar opposite in every way. 1. Episode 1. 76m. Things look bleak for Yoon Hye-jin after she quits her job. On a trip to Gongjin, she runs into a series of unfortunate events — and one unusual local.

and

Watch Business Proposal | Netflix Official Site

1. Episode 1. 61m. To appease his grandfather’s wishes, Kang Tae-moo agrees to a blind date. Jin Young-seo enlists Shin Ha-ri’s help to scare away her latest prospect. 2. Episode 2. 61m. Tae-moo lies about having a girlfriend to stop the endless barrage of blind dates, with the perfect person in mind to play the part.

Dot
Dot
February 28, 2023 9:35 am

I have turned down plots to seize Russia

Martin Armstrong said that.

No, really.

Does this crazy mother#%*^er think he is a Romanoff or a False Dmitri?

Imagine paying 1500 USD a year for this delusional, schizophrenic prick waffle on with his fantasies about dressing up like Tsar Paul and whupping Bonaparte.

This bilge and the elephant grade hide around any criticism of this cult leader is why I have no sympathy for cult “victims” unless they are children or born into it.

You cannot outlaw stupidity and those who need it literally believe they are a messiah, or Perkin Warbeck in waiting.

calli
calli
February 28, 2023 9:37 am

I’m traumatised and demand reparations!

Soooooo…you have a grievance with on-line verballing?

Please proceed to the back of the queue.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 28, 2023 9:40 am

The Dribbling, Drooling, Hair Sniffing President Hiden Biden is really earing his 10%

WTH? Janet Yellen Makes ‘Surprise’ Visit to Kiev to Announce Another $1.25 Billion in Aid to Ukraine

Joe Biden was just in Ukraine giving Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky more US taxpayer money.

But that wasn’t enough.

Yellen is now in Kiev to announce another transfer of $1.25 billion to Ukraine.

calli
calli
February 28, 2023 9:43 am

I will sit down on my haunches and bow my head touching the ground repeatedly whilst saying “Sorry”

Not good enough!

Acceptable apology.

Or

calli
calli
February 28, 2023 9:44 am

Or…

Either one works here.

Oh come on
Oh come on
February 28, 2023 9:45 am

Sharan Burrow (remember her?) makes a boob of herself:

“I met Putin a number of times. I would have said there is narcissism there for sure,”

Thanks Professor Sharan for that diagnosis. Oh yes, I met Putin all the time, as well as a number of other world leaders. They won’t stop calling – so annoying! And Putin’s the narcissist? Sheesh.

And she once shared a stage with him where she not only got to do some more armchair psychology, but it also inspired a weird word salad:

I once stood on a stage with him, co-launching a union conference where I understood things I had not before … his absolute vitriol against the West.

The vitriol was visceral with hatred.

The vitriol was visceral with hatred? I didn’t realise vitriol was anatomically equipped for this cargo. Or would it be hatred carting the vitriol around in its guts? Confusing!

Words have meanings, Sharan, you dope.

Roger
Roger
February 28, 2023 9:45 am

…many archeological records show awful damage to female skulls going back a very long way.

Will this, along with the protective role of missions in regard to indigenous women and children, come up in the truth telling process?

Bourne1879
Bourne1879
February 28, 2023 9:47 am

The bearded expert sounds like it might be Robert Booy.
He features in the 2GB radio ad for Paxlovid alongside Ita Buttrose.
Prior to the expected Xmas outbreak there were ads from featuring him on behalf of Immunisation Coalition which is sponsored by big pharma.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 28, 2023 9:48 am

The Golden Arrow – President Trump Announces Economic Agenda 47 Which Includes “Universal Baseline Tariffs”

February 27, 2023 – Sundance

This is it. This is pure MAGA. President Trump is announcing the big one… “Economic Agenda 47“

This is the economic policy blade to drive a stake through the vampire heart of corporatism, globalism and the exploitation of the U.S. economy by multinational corporate interests. This “universal baseline tariff” approach, is the policy that slays the dragons of the World Economic Forum, destroys the Beijing dragon and simultaneously ends the EU Marshal Plan advantage. This is a big deal.

President Trump makes the economic policy announcement today, and it is an incredible structure of trade and economic proposals that would be resoundingly effective at restoring every financial mechanism within the United States as a sovereign country. The proposal is economic nationalism in policy form.

First, here’s the announcement {Direct Rumble Link} – WATCH:

[Transcript] – “Joe Biden claims to support American manufacturing—but in reality, he is pushing the same pro-China globalist agenda that ripped the industrial heart out of our country. It ripped us apart. Biden and the globalists support RAISING taxes on American production. They support MORE crippling regulations killing American jobs. They support skyrocketing domestic energy costs. And they support massive anti-American multinational agreements that send our wealth and factories overseas.

Very simply, the Biden agenda taxes AMERICA to build up CHINA.

China is the big beneficiary. We cannot let that happen. And just a couple of years ago, it wasn’t happening. China paid to the United States hundreds of billions of dollars and no other president got ten cents. Legitimately, ten cents from China.

My agenda will tax CHINA to build up AMERICA.

[Transcript Link]

Dot
Dot
February 28, 2023 9:48 am

There’s a 99% chance that ALL politicians are narcissists, even the good ones.

Anyone who rises above Councillor, MP or magistrate is 99.99% certain a narcissist.

Heads of government and heads of state, it just goes with the territory.

Bourne1879
Bourne1879
February 28, 2023 9:49 am

It has to be said Ben Fordham raises more Vax and mandate issues than most of media combined.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 28, 2023 9:50 am

calli says:
February 28, 2023 at 9:44 am

Or…

Either one works here.

Heh –I like both John Cleese typical KC wording

Oh come on
Oh come on
February 28, 2023 9:50 am

I was going to say much the same thing, dot. Anyone who fancies themselves as the leader of millions of people – and is willing to do what needs to be done to get there – kind of has to be.

flyingduk
flyingduk
February 28, 2023 9:51 am

I don’t think it will be as crude as raiding super accounts……..

Given the disconnect between the real and the admitted inflation rates (the real rate being 15-20%), they are raiding your super and every other account or asset you hold denominated in dollars 24/7. If you try to hide from the inflationary skim in ‘real’ assets, they carve off a ‘capital gains tax’ when you re-enter the dollar denominated market, said dollars having been devalued by inflation in the meantime.

Dot
Dot
February 28, 2023 9:51 am

This is the economic policy blade to drive a stake through the vampire heart of corporatism, globalism and the exploitation of the U.S. economy by multinational corporate interests.

Great, you can be exploited by US corporations again. The US unions like UAW are so powerful they will parasitically destroy any gains made by industry policy.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
February 28, 2023 9:54 am

Commonwealth debt is 897 bn AUD as of today

Super is 3.3trill.
You can see the contra they’re planning.

In Tax Revenue Trapped Under a Glass news:

The government values the Australian residential housing stock at nearly $10 trillion.

• Negative gearing
• CGT
• Transfer tax
• Death duties on disposal

Banded above ‘median price’ (and properly packaged politically) these measures scream Equity and Someone Else Paying.

And the collapse in the investment value of the asset class would be evidence of Government ‘Doing Something’ about housing affordability.

Win win win.

Clench your buttocks as soon as you see politicians start unloading their property portfolios…

Cassie of Sydney
February 28, 2023 9:54 am

““I met Putin a number of times. I would have said there is narcissism there for sure,””

Funny, she never said the same about the ultimate narcissist…..Kevin Rudd.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 28, 2023 9:54 am

With The Lies Behind COVID-19 Mitigation Efforts Collapsing, U.S. Government Now Says Wuhan Lab Leak Likely

February 27, 2023 – Sundance

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal broke a story highlighting a significant change in the SARS-CoV2 origination narrative.

Apparently, with increased admissions the COVID-19 mitigation protocols were all useless, and with actual harm from the vaccine mandates now taking space in the mainstream media narrative, conveniently the Wuhan Lab Leak conspiracy theory is now becoming an official likelihood position from the U.S. government. Funny that.

Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, was asked about this development during an interview on CNN Sunday. WATCH (prompted):

The shift in the official government position on the crisis origination now seems like a finger-pointing distraction, and effort to avoid accountability for their totalitarian exploitation and dictatorial fiats used in the process of taking advantage of it.

Oh yeah, and well, don’t forget, China is a bad guy again after the possibility of them selling weapons to Russia, so the timing is, well, suspicious.

Roger
Roger
February 28, 2023 9:55 am

Anyone who rises above Councillor, MP or magistrate is 99.99% certain a narcissist.

I’d say there are two types of narcisissm: healthy and malevolent.

Frank
Frank
February 28, 2023 9:55 am

There’s a 99% chance that ALL politicians are narcissists, even the good ones.

No.

A sizeable percentage would just be thieves.

cohenite
February 28, 2023 9:57 am

To follow the Korean Tradition of the 3 Netflix Koren Series I have been watching, I will sit down on my haunches and bow my head touching the ground repeatedly whilst saying “Sorry”

Touche!

calli
calli
February 28, 2023 9:59 am

Kevin Rudd…sixteen years since that soy latte fiscal conservative snake made his dash for PM. How time flies! And…the same campaign photo is still on his Wiki page. How’s that for narcissism?

On Molynieux…he was the guy who did the pod cast teary over a disabled boy being bullied for wearing a MAGA cap. Around the same time Smollett confected his MAGA Country bull.

calli
calli
February 28, 2023 10:02 am

The bearded expert sounds like it might be Robert Booy.

That’s the one!

A jaw dropping, shameless hypocrite.

cohenite
February 28, 2023 10:03 am

FFS, you’re being verbose. Molyneux is NOT a witty intellectual.

I’m sensing a subtle dislike of Moly here.

I see wiki, politico and other reliable sources describe Moly as altright, white supremacist, racist while youtube but not twitter after Elon took over, have banned the poor bastard. With those credentials he must be doing something right.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 28, 2023 10:03 am

Are we prepared for ‘eternal war’ in Ukraine?

One year on, senior officials are pessimistic

BY TOM MCTAGUE

In public, the talk might still be of liberating every inch of Ukrainian territory, but speak privately to those in London, Paris or Washington, and a cynical and sombre mood emerges. Here the talk is less of sweeping Ukrainian advances to come and more of a conflict that is likely to descend ever further into the anarchic quagmire before it stands a chance of emerging, grasping towards some kind of settlement. Over the past few weeks I have spoken to officials at the most senior levels of the British government in an attempt to get a sense of how those guiding UK policy see the war developing during the course of 2023. The overwhelming consensus is that the war in Ukraine is likely to get a lot more chaotically unpredictable before it settles — if it ever does.

Most striking is how few hold much hope for a decisive victory for either side. For many in London, Berlin and Paris, today, Ukraine’s best-case scenario is to stabilise the front sufficiently to allow it to emerge as a viable, independent state, able to defend itself — to be able to breathe and live as a relatively normal country, to trade and grow, export and settle. The unstated goal, in other words, is to grasp towards a temporary settlement which eventually becomes a permanent reality even if no one ever officially recognises it as such. Conflicts have ended this way before: Kashmir, which has been “temporarily” settled since the Forties, and Korea which remains divided and at war while still being at peace.

The question Western diplomats are now asking themselves is what this “minimal breathable scenario” now looks like for Ukraine?

I’m told it consists of three basic factors:

first, giving Ukraine the capability to be able to stop Russia’s constant aerial bombardment beyond a future ceasefire;

second, to ensure Ukraine’s free access to the Black Sea,

and third, to secure a stable front. “This is the minimum Ukraine needs before it can even consider talking,” one official put it to me. The problem is that the pre-conditions for Ukraine to emerge as such a functioning, independent state are not in place. And so the war will drag on — potentially for a long time yet.

The war, according to one senior UK official is, in some senses, “eternal”. “The Western mind wants to know when these things can be wrapped in a bow,” the official said. “But they can’t.” The problem is that Russia simply does not believe Ukraine is a separate nation or legitimate state, but a part of greater Russia, in the same way China sees Taiwan. For as long as Ukraine is independent, in other words, there will be conflict. The “end” in such circumstances is little more than a temporary ceasefire in which Russia accepts it cannot improve its position.

In Paris, there is particular concern about this “double asymmetry”. As such, French military advisers are, again, very cautious about how the war will unfold. The French president and those around him think the war will last for a long time with no clear conclusion. In Berlin, a similar sense of fatalism has taken hold. Few think the Russians will ever give up Donetsk, Luhansk or Crimea and most now see a long, drawn-out war with no obvious way out. “There’s no real sense that Russia can be defeated,” one analyst in Berlin told me.

Given this, most believe Putin’s plan is to play it long — to simply outlast the West. He may have calculated that there is little the West can do about the asymmetry of the conflict, given that no Western capital would consider putting boots on the ground or attacking Russia directly. This, after all, is what happened in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, where Western dominance was eventually seen off by smaller regional powers who calculated — correctly — that they would stay the course and the US would not. But, while the prognosis in Western capitals is gloomy, perhaps it is — once again — too gloomy. Many analysts are unconvinced that Russia can carry on indefinitely. Its offensive this year has been less than impressive.

The danger for Ukraine now lies less in being overrun but in losing a clear narrative arc that its Western supporters can believe in: the noble underdog triumphing over its evil colonial oppressor. If the war descends into a confusing series of offensives and counter-offensives in which there is no obvious victor, towns and villages nobody has ever heard of being taken and re-taken, the clarity of this narrative begins to muddy.

Most of the analysts I spoke to are optimistic in one fundamental sense — that Russia will not be able to overrun the whole of Ukraine.

Yet most are now pessimistic that Russia can be entirely defeated.

The goal that many in the West now privately aspire to, then, is to “asphyxiate” the conflict by strangling Russia’s hope of victory before the West loses interest.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 28, 2023 10:07 am

WATCH: Aussie Reporter Loses It on Air Covering Biden’s Mental Health

An Australian news anchor struggled to keep a straight face while covering the results of Joe Biden’s recent physical, which gave him a clean bill of health.

“President Biden remains a healthy, vigorous 80-year-old male, who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency, to include those as Chief Executive, Head of State and Commander in Chief,” White House Physician Kevin O’Connor claimed.

Well, Sky News Australia host Rita Panahi found O’Connor’s assessment so absurd she couldn’t contain her laughter as she contrasted O’Connor’s finding with clips of Biden’s verbal stumbles, gaffes, and other embarrassing hits.

It’s nice to know this is how Biden is perceived by other countries.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
February 28, 2023 10:07 am

PoliticsNow: Indigenous voice ‘will have a lot of power, be very active’, Professor Megan Davis says

By Paige Taylor
5:15AM February 28, 2023
No Comments

The Indigenous voice “will have a lot of power” and will not passively wait to be consulted, Uluru Dialogue co-chair Megan Davis says.

Professor Davis, a Cobble Cobble woman and Balnaves chair in constitutional law at the University of NSW, is a member of the Albanese government’s referendum working group and one of the legal experts advising on the wording of the proposed amendment to enshrine the voice in the constitution.

Professor Davis discussed the voice’s power during a question and answer session on Monday when she and Aboriginal elder Pat Anderson jointly delivered the annual Gandhi Oration in Sydney.

Asked to nominate common misconceptions about the voice, Professor Davis said she had most recently heard it described as Anthony Albanese’s project. In fact, she said the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart and its call for a voice came from Indigenous Australians “who don’t get to talk normally”.

It was the direct result of 13 meetings around Australia in which Indigenous people said they wanted a voice as a form of constitutional recognition.

“There is a misconception that it will have no power and it will have no influence. I mean we can debate that for ages but of course it will have a lot of power. It will have a lot of power because it’s a constitutional voice that is mandated by the Australian people and that gives it a lot of power,” Professor Davis said.

“The work of the voice is to provide representations to the parliament and the government of the day and currently the (proposed) amendment is that it’s up to the voice to determine what is important to it.

“It will make the representations. So it’s not a consultative body in that it is sitting there waiting passively for the Commonwealth to consult it or bureaucrats to consult it.

“It’s a very active voice and it can make representations on the issues that it sees are relevant and important to First Nations peoples.

“There is a lot of debate about this word veto. Can it veto the Australian parliament … It can’t.”

Professor Davis said Ms Anderson, co-chairs of the Uluru Dialogue, have been talking about the voice around Australia since 2017 and, more recently, in twice-daily 90-minute online sessions with Australians who have questions.

“We knew there was a point where retail Australian politics was going to jump in and this thing that we issued to the Australian people at Uluru as an invitation to walk with us would come under the stress test of the politics of the day,” Professor Davis said.

“We knew that they would do what they’re doing now and they find it difficult in some areas of public policy to think about what Australians are thinking about and the aspirations of Australians.

“It happened prior to the last election around climate change and integrity or corruption at a Federal level. Uluru was part of that – these things that Australians would like but tend to get lost in the vicious two party system.

“We knew that at some point it would come under the stress test of the two major parties bickering and that seems to be what’s going on now. Pat and I as we travel out around the country. We are doing a lot of community work right now.

“We feel confident from all of the Australians that we are talking to that people support it.”

H B Bear
H B Bear
February 28, 2023 10:09 am

Anyone who rises above Councillor, MP or magistrate is 99.99% certain a narcissist.

Possibly. Cultivating power in any form of collective body certainly shares many of the same personality traits. Also leadership in many environments. Lack of self belief is fatal.

cohenite
February 28, 2023 10:09 am

In other news the indominable Ed Berry, former luminary of the US airforce and possessor of PhDs in real subjects like atmospheric physics, has just published further research he and Hermann Harde have done on the fundamental issue of alarmism: which is, what is the cause of the atmospheric increase of CO2. If this increase, which no one denies, is NOT caused by humans then it does not matter if you believe CO2 causes climate change, if nature is responsible, there’s nothing humans can do and efforts based on destroying economies to reduce human emissions of CO2 should be stopped.

https://edberry.com/blog/climate/climate-physics/berry-vs-andrews/?unapproved=103230&moderation-hash=7e147abace632d8c19310327c64d5a50#comment-103230

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 28, 2023 10:13 am

OUTSOURCING: Biden ‘Outmaneuvered’ by Xi on Ukraine Peace Plan

Ukraine peace talks could be held under Chinese auspices as President Joe Biden has been outmaneuvered by Communist strongman Xi Jinping, according to former Donald Trump diplomat Richard Grenell.

The ironies are as plentiful as they are infuriating.

I was quick — maybe too quick — to dismiss Jinping’s 12-point Ukraine peace plan last week.

On Friday, I wrote at Instapundit that “if I had to guess, Beijing is putting this out there for Ukraine and the West to reject to justify sending arms to Russia.

Yet I was far from the only one. Biden said that “the idea that China is going to be negotiating the outcome of a war that’s a totally unjust war for Ukraine is just not rational.”

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said, “China doesn’t have much credibility because they have not been able to condemn the illegal invasion of Ukraine.” And America’s own top diplomat, Anthony Blinken, warned that China was more interested in supplying “lethal assistance” to Russia than in pursuing peace.

However, two people with vested interests in the outcome of this war were less dismissive of China’s 12-point plan. Their names are Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“Russian President Putin and Ukrainian President Zelensky immediately complimented the peace plan,” Grenell wrote for the California Globe on Sunday, “with Zelensky saying he welcomed a meeting with the Chinese diplomatic team to discuss the next steps.”

“The move by China embarrassed Biden, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken for spending the last year failing to come up with an American plan for ending the deadly conflict.”

Well, they should be embarrassed, but I have to wonder if they’re capable of shame.

Irony One

For almost as long as this stupid war has been waged, I’ve been writing here that the administration should be pursuing a “two-track” effort, much like President Ronald Reagan’s strategy to both deploy and abolish destabilizing intermediate-range nuclear missiles from Europe in the ’80s.

In the Ukraine War, our first track is supplying Ukraine with enough weapons and ammo to stay in the fight, while using every diplomatic means to pursue peace as the second track.

Instead, Biden has publicly threatened Putin and endlessly lionized Zelenskyy, thus poisoning any American-led peace process.

Speaking personally, the lionization is a national embarrassment.

All of this has allowed Xi — master of the Uighur genocide, crusher of Hong Kong, and potential invader of Taiwan — to put on a facade as a peacemaker.

Irony Two

As I quoted above, Grenell noted that China had embarrassed Biden, Jake Sullivan, and Anthony Blinken for not coming up with an American plan to end the war.

Secretary of State Blinken should be embarrassed the very most. “You had one job,” I’d like to tell him. “Diplomacy.”

“The Pentagon is in charge. The State Department is just supporting indefinite war,” Grenell quoted a State Department foreign service officer’s complaint.

Winston Churchill said, “Jaw, jaw is better than war, war.”

But Blinken has done almost nothing but jaw about war.

His timing last week couldn’t have been worse, accusing Beijing of seeking to escalate the war, while China’s foreign ministry was actually putting the finishing touches on a peace plan.

Irony Three

China can’t be trusted.

Parts of the plan are simply not acceptable to Washington, like “blaming the West for instigating the start of the war,” according to Grenell, and the whole thing is missing vital details like how a ceasefire would be put in place and monitored. But after a year of fighting, the two sides might be desperate enough to cling to Beijing like drowning men to a lifesaver. “I think that, in general, the fact that China started talking about peace in Ukraine, I think that it is not bad,” Zelenskyy said on Friday. “Everything is progressing, developing, said Putin that same day. “We are reaching new frontiers.”

Thanks to Team Biden having a perfect 100% absent record on the peace process, it’s now possible to envision a peace deal with an anti-Western slant that would potentially move Ukraine into China’s orbit — after all of that cash and all of those weapons were sent to Kyiv from the West.

“Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f*** things up,” Barack Obama is supposed to have said.

Biden turning Xi into a peacemaker while hollowing out our State Department and making Ukraine into China’s plaything (instead of a toy for connected westerners) is about as big a f***-up as you can imagine.

Cassie of Sydney
February 28, 2023 10:14 am

“I’m sensing a subtle dislike of Moly here.

I see wiki, politico and other reliable sources describe Moly as altright, white supremacist, racist while youtube but not twitter after Elon took over, have banned the poor bastard. With those credentials he must be doing something right.”

He’s a race grifter. I’ve listened to him, before he was banned from youtube. He has some highly questionable views on race. I found him to be cultish. I don’t get my opinions from “wiki, politico and other “reliable sources“.

Dot
Dot
February 28, 2023 10:17 am

It was the de-family thing that rubbed me the wrong way.

There’s nothing wrong with making money from online content creation. However, if that’s ALL you can do…?

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 28, 2023 10:21 am

Thank God for the whistleblowers exposing the FBI’s blatant political bias

By Miranda Devine

Thank God for the selfless FBI whistleblowers who are spilling the beans on the rancid ideology that has infected that powerful federal law enforcement agency.

The leaks from inside keep coming and they show that the FBI abuses its power in dangerous ways, surveilling and victimizing law-abiding Americans while doing little to control violent crime in our cities or doing anything about the porous border that is allowing industrial quantities of lethal drugs, and millions of illegal migrants, including criminals and terrorists, into the country.

Those menaces are not a priority for the Biden administration or Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice, which is obsessed with abortion above all else.

Instead, the FBI has been sicced on parents at school board meetings and traditional Catholics who go to Latin Mass; they are labeled domestic terrorists.

The whistleblowers, free speech lawsuits and the “Twitter files” also have revealed that the FBI has been colluding with Big Tech to censor the speech of Americans who criticize the Biden administration. In the case of the censorship of The Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story, the FBI interfered with the 2020 election in favor of the Democratic presidential candidate.

Bureau has lost its way

The only conclusion from these alarming revelations is that the FBI is politicized, unaccountable, woke, incompetent and culturally degenerate.

Director Chris Wray’s flagrant private use of the FBI jet is emblematic of the rot.

The FBI has become the enforcement arm of the Democratic Party, but it could just as easily switch sides and lend its power to Republicans.

Either way, it’s terrible for the country, so reforming or disbanding the FBI ought to be a bipartisan effort.

No government bureaucracy should have so much power and be so unaccountable.

But when FBI whistleblower Steve Friend testified last week behind the scenes for the Republican-controlled new House Judiciary’s Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, he was demonized by Democratic attorneys intent on shooting the messenger.

As he put it in the Daily Caller, “Unfortunately, the Democratic lawyers working for the committee lobbed allegations of misdeeds against me … House Democrats and the FBI are two sides of the same coin.”

Friend has resigned from the FBI after being forced into five months of unpaid leave, but he has formed an alliance with other whistleblowers, like Kyle Seraphin, an agent who was suspended last year, and recently released an FBI document that targeted Catholics as “violent extremists.”

The intelligence product, dated Jan. 23, 2023, written by an analyst in the Richmond Field Office, equated “Radical-Traditionalist Catholics” with “Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists (RMVE).”

These supposedly dangerously bigoted Catholics attend Mass in Latin and are critical of liberal reforms in the church, according to the FBI analyst who equated their beliefs with “anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ and white supremacist ideology.”

The evidence the analyst provided for this slander was farcical

a report from the far left Southern Poverty Law Center and tendentious media articles, such as from left-wing Salon (“White nationalists get religion: On the far-right fringe, Catholics and racists forge a movement”) and The Atlantic (“How Extremist Gun Culture Is Trying to Co-opt the Rosary”).

See how it works? A bigoted leftist writes a farcical story and the FBI uses it to create a narrative to justify counterterrorism investigations to persecute Catholics.

And it won’t stop at just Catholics, obviously.

“The impetus of the writer can be assessed by the fixation on abortion and the repeated use of the phrase ‘abortion rights,’” wrote Seraphin in an article on UndercoverDC, where he posted the document earlier this month.

Selective enforcement

He also pointed out that there were more than 100 attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers in 2022, but the FBI seems more impressed by an “unsubstantiated” report by the SPLC of 200 attacks on abortion clinics in the past 20 years.

This provides justification for the FBI targeting dozens of pro-life activists since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and sent abortion decisions back to the states.

Abortion consumes Garland for some bizarre reason. In all his speeches the past year, never is he passionate about crime the way he is about abortion.

He began with an emotional statement on June 24 last year, criticizing the Supreme Court, which he said had dealt “a devastating blow to reproductive freedom [especially for] people of color and those of limited financial means …

“Few rights are more central to individual freedom than [abortion].

“The Justice Department will use every tool at our disposal to protect reproductive freedom.”

And he has kept his promise, sending FBI SWAT teams into the homes of Catholic pro-lifers, like Mark Houck of Pennsylvania, who was arrested at gunpoint in front of his seven children and charged with crimes under the FACE Act, aka the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.

He was acquitted but faced up to 11 years in prison, and of course the process is the punishment.

A Franciscan friar on Long Island and a father of 11 in Tennessee are among the dozens of Christians similarly rounded up and treated like violent terrorists.

It’s no coincidence that the Chicago FBI field office last week broke a longstanding tradition and refused to allow a priest to distribute ashes for Ash Wednesday.

This nightmare only ends with the Republican House properly using the revelations of these whistleblowers to force accountability on the FBI over the next two years.

Then it is up to voters to force accountability on the Biden ­administration.

cohenite
February 28, 2023 10:25 am

He’s a race grifter. I’ve listened to him, before he was banned from youtube. He has some highly questionable views on race.

What are his views? As I say when he was in Australia with the beautiful and brave Lauren he compared the patriarchal and social structure of aboriginal culture with islamic culture, with it being about equal in respect of their lack of rights and oppression.

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
February 28, 2023 10:29 am

This bilge and the elephant grade hide around any criticism of this cult leader is why I have no sympathy for cult “victims” unless they are children or born into it.

You cannot outlaw stupidity and those who need it literally believe they are a messiah, or Perkin Warbeck in waiting.

Cmon man, he hasnt got his followers chopping off the family jewels and dressing in identical tracksuits ready for the mothership… yet.

Or flirty fishing for members

And no cool aid on the menu

Dot
Dot
February 28, 2023 10:32 am

I just want everyone to know how lucky and happy I am to be here.

Roger
Roger
February 28, 2023 10:33 am

Well,well…

ABC radio interviewing a scientist from the local uni about to have a paper published detailing his research into how Vitamin D can prevent and ameliorate covid-19 infection.

H B Bear
H B Bear
February 28, 2023 10:34 am

flyingduk at 9:51 – correct, although I’m not sure I would put inflation that high. There is not much wriggle room there, a few inflation indexed bonds but that’s about it. Certainly most inflation hedges get caught by CGT at some point. I saw a thing on the net about some guy who had 38 Rolex Daytonas in a safe somewhere. At best these type of assets are really correlated with the stock market and general economic conditions.

Dot
Dot
February 28, 2023 10:34 am

I’m always gonna order item menu 39, now, to beam up thank you.

The old Chinese nanna will have NFI.

Top Ender
Top Ender
February 28, 2023 10:36 am

Business owners in Alice Springs speak out after weeks of violence

Windows smashed, cars set on fire, businesses ransacked. As violence in Alice Spings continues to plague the streets, the business owners who have remained in town have declared they won’t be silenced.

DAILYTELEGRAPH.COM.AU

Alice Springs is a town desperately searching for answers to decades-old problems. And patience is wearing thin.

The man who became the face of Alice Springs’ fight against a devastating wave of youth crime has refused to be gagged – launching a new website to warn locals of assaults and break-ins that have continued even once the political limelight has waned.

Baker Darren Clark started Action for Alice on Facebook before he was suspended by the platform.

“We had a few places broken into, four cars stolen one night … my business got broken into on Saturday night. The supermarket has been done three times, the golf club has been done,” he said of recent attacks he has been unable to report on Facebook.

Mr Clark said after a short lull in violence, crime has once again picked up on the streets of Alice Springs.

“It’s the book and we have just turned to another chapter, and this is what happens every time,” he said.

“I hate to have to point it out and sound like I’m negative but this is what happens.”

CCTV footage from venues across the town showed teenagers taking to the streets with weapons in hand, smashing windows and cars, while others harassed private security tasked with keeping the peace.

When The Daily Telegraph spent the night at the Diplomat Hotel in the town’s main business strip, a security guard was robbed of his car keys before being smashed with a glass bottle.

Barricades and roller shutters surround the few businesses that dare to open while others have shut up shop.

Now, fed up with the nightly violence many are packing up and moving interstate.

Some of the businesses left behind are attempting to sue the Northern Territory government for $1.5 billion in damages and lost revenue.

Lasseters Hotel and Casino operations chief Craig Jervis said in his 15 years in Alice Springs, he has never seen anything like it.

“I have been here for 15 years and it has never been this bad and it’s more the brazenness and we’ve got people walking around with machetes and with hammers and no care for anybody seeing that,” he said.

“There is always damage to businesses, there are interruptions to guests, to services, to staff, a constant battle.”

Mr Jervis said the small number of tourists that came to Alice Springs in the aftermath of Covid have also started to pack their bags and leave early.

“We are seeing guests arriving at a couple of our hotels this week, went out and had some bad experiences and checked out … left earlier and headed up to Darwin,” he said.

“Fences, alarm systems, security lighting, laser systems, repairing doors, we’ve spent hundreds of thousands on these things.”

In six months, the longest Mr Jervis has gone without any damage to his businesses was five days.

They don’t say what the name of the new website is though…KD do you know?

Dot
Dot
February 28, 2023 10:36 am

How very much I have loved you and tried to give you a good life.

Roger
Roger
February 28, 2023 10:38 am

On Friday, I wrote at Instapundit that “if I had to guess, Beijing is putting this out there for Ukraine and the West to reject to justify sending arms to Russia.

Since Russia is proving recalcitrant, if that was the plan (and I doubt it) it’s failed.

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
February 28, 2023 10:39 am

Dots leaving on the mothership…
Do you have your Nikes on?

calli
calli
February 28, 2023 10:41 am

Dot, are you posting your calendar “thoughts for the day”?

If so, they’re very uplifting. And charmingly random.

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
February 28, 2023 10:45 am

Dilbert dude is ‘just another nigger guy” now.

However the mendaciousness of the media is pretty incredible.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/feb/27/elon-musk-backs-dilbert-cartoonist-scott-adams-racist-controversy

In the course of the show, Adams misinterpreted a Rasmussen poll that asked people whether they disagreed with the statement “It’s OK to be white”.

By adding the figures together to point out nearly 1/2 Americas black population express antipathy towards people of pallor?

Under his leadership, several suspended or banned accounts of white supremacists and neo-Nazis have been restored

Such as??
To do a Maggie “what are their names

Roger
Roger
February 28, 2023 10:46 am

Meanwhile, Zelensky plans to meet Xi.

Dot
Dot
February 28, 2023 10:47 am

Good lord that’s some dark humor calli.

Dot
Dot
February 28, 2023 10:49 am

It’s racist to misinterpret data.

So is climate change racist?

Oh come on
Oh come on
February 28, 2023 10:50 am

He’s a race grifter. I’ve listened to him, before he was banned from youtube. He has some highly questionable views on race. I found him to be cultish. I don’t get my opinions from “wiki, politico and other “reliable sources“.

He’s a weird dude. Don’t you get weird vibes off him? He seems like a male feminist type.

Anyway, he is a cult leader. He created that cultish group that encourages you to break relations with anyone if you don’t feel 100% down with them – especially family. So if you’re just a bit pissed off with your parents over some small reason (and most people are), he wants you to focus like a laser on that and realise you actually hate them and they need to be cut out of your life for you to flourish.

He wrote a book about this several years ago. It used to be available for free on his website (not sure if it still is). I flicked through it and this is what he wrote about – it’s not a Wikipedia-informed smear.

The first line of that book, IIRC, was something like ‘your phone rings and it’s your mother. You get a familiar sinking feeling in your stomach and don’t answer. What’s that all about?’.

Well, the answer is because you actually hate her – you just haven’t realised it – and she’s destroying your life, so cut her and your father off as well.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
February 28, 2023 10:55 am

ABC radio interviewing a scientist from the local uni about to have a paper published detailing his research into how Vitamin D can prevent and ameliorate covid-19 infection.

Interesting all this stuff is getting runs in the MSM. Why now? What has changed?
Here’s another one:

And Just Like That, Natural Immunity is No Longer a Conspiracy Theory (27 Feb)

The lab leak hypothesis was discussed on Old Cat within weeks of the appearance of heinous bat crud. The vitamin D thing likewise was discussed in conjunction with the rapid findings of first chloroquine, then HCQ, then ivermectin. Then there was the masks-are-useless finding last week which we likewise said right at the start. Now we have the natural immunity stuff which we also discussed with reference to the Diamond Princess and the 80% of passengers who didn’t catch it despite being stuck in a ship with over 700 infectious people for a whole month.

Says a lot about “experts”. And “conspiracy theories”. And “misinformation”. I still haven’t had it, or if I have it was so mild I didn’t notice.

calli
calli
February 28, 2023 11:00 am

Looks like Moly is promoting superficial and sycophantic relationships rather than deep and often difficult ones.

He is a creature of the times.

calli
calli
February 28, 2023 11:04 am

Bruce, it’s all being walked back.

Peak money has been made, conservative governments have been replaced and the reckoning in economic, social and health terms is upon us.

flyingduk
flyingduk
February 28, 2023 11:05 am

I’m sensing a subtle dislike of Moly here. I see wiki, politico and other reliable sources describe Moly as altright, white supremacist, racist while youtube but not twitter after Elon took over, have banned the poor bastard. With those credentials he must be doing something right.

I’ve met Molyneux, had dinner with him, and listened to hundreds of hours of his podcasts. I rate him as an intelligent, thoughtful analyst and philosopher. He was cancelled by the wokerati for telling the truth about welfare, race, IQ and government. His comparison of the fall of the west and the fall of the roman empire was masterful.

https://youtu.be/SGYVWrjRMXU

that, or he can be dismissed as a ‘race grifter’ … its a tossup!

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
February 28, 2023 11:06 am

Under his leadership, several suspended or banned accounts of white supremacists and neo-Nazis have been restored

The other social media platforms are still digging in on censorship and propaganda.

Slack ‘Permanently Suspends’ Libs Of TikTok From Using Their Software (26 Feb, via Instapundit)

“The software company Slack informed Chaya Raichik, the founder of Libs of TikTok, this week that it permanently suspended her from being able to use their services over a violation that the company would not disclose.”

An Open Letter to the YouTube Censors Who Cancelled My Interview (David Horowitz, 27 Feb)

“Dear YouTube Censors,

I am the author interviewed on February 22 by Dr. Anthony Harper, White House Correspondent for the Intermountain Christian News, which you removed from YouTube because of alleged “misinformation” claiming that voting irregularities during the 2020 election altered the result. You went further in your censorial zeal by holding Dr. Harper responsible for my alleged sins, imposing a 90-day ban on his broadcasts and threatening him with permanent removal if he has the temerity to disagree with your censorship publicly.”

I think the extreme sensitivity of YouTube lefty activists to anything about the 2020 election is a tell: they know very well it was stolen.

Oh come on
Oh come on
February 28, 2023 11:11 am

Looks like Moly is promoting superficial and sycophantic relationships rather than deep and often difficult ones.

Oh yes, that reminds me. If, after you cut your parents out of your life, your siblings remonstrate with you about this, guess what you have to do to them? (Although you must first give them a chance to realise they also hate your parents and can join you. But no mercy for them if they don’t see the light.)

calli
calli
February 28, 2023 11:13 am

Is the book Real Time Relationships: The Logic of Love?

It has some interesting reviews.

P
P
February 28, 2023 11:13 am

Rift between faiths and government grows over religious schools inquiry
The Catholic Weekly – February 27, 2023

The federal government’s inquiry into religious schools is widening the rift between the government and Australia’s major faith communities, with submissions to the inquiry expressing “utter dismay” at the inquiry’s consultation paper, and predicting an “existential threat” to faith-based education.

The submissions follow remarks made on 24 February by the inquiry’s head, Justice Stephen Rothman, that earlier protests by senior faith leaders “had very little impact” on his thinking in the inquiry.

Professor Parkinson also says that despite having engaged in dialogue with federal Labor, “the proposals made by the authors of [the consultation paper] cannot be reconciled with the policies that Labor took to the election and the promises it made”.

P
P
February 28, 2023 11:17 am

Gay conversion ban won’t impinge on religious freedom: Minns
28 February 2023

Faith leaders have secured a bipartisan commitment to be able to pray and preach on matters of sexuality under proposed laws banning gay conversion therapy, after NSW Labor leader Chris Minns vowed to protect their rights. Source: Sydney Morning Herald.

Religious leaders also sought assurances from Mr Minns that he would ensure faith-based schools can choose their own staff and teach in accordance with their religious beliefs.

He said he was awaiting the outcomes of the recent Law Reform Commission report regarding proposed changes to the federal Sex Discrimination Act and related legislation, but did not expect proposed changes to prevent religious schools from being able to recruit from their own parish.

Cassie of Sydney
February 28, 2023 11:19 am

“Oh yes, that reminds me. If, after you cut your parents out of your life, your siblings remonstrate with you about this, guess what you have to do to them? (Although you must first give them a chance to realise they also hate your parents and can join you. But no mercy for them if they don’t see the light.)”

Cultish or not? It’s a toss up!

Tom
Tom
February 28, 2023 11:19 am

Stephan Molyneux is a thinker and that makes him an enemy of the left, which excommunicates anybody expressing anything more than toddler-level emotion (leading to the predictable tantrum).

The left’s chief thought policeman, Wikipedia, calls Molyneux a “far right white nationalist” — say no more, booga booga booga.

Johnny Rotten
February 28, 2023 11:20 am

flyingduksays:
February 28, 2023 at 9:51 am
I don’t think it will be as crude as raiding super accounts……..

Up to the mid 1980s, until they changed the Law/Regulations before Keating’s Superannuation Guarantee, Super Funds had to hold around 30% of the Fund’s assets in Government and Semi-Government Securities. That could easily happen again.

So the Super Funds could now end up with all the shite Federal Guv’ment Debt with the Federal Guv’ment able to start all over again with no Debt. Not hard to do with such a weak Opposition. The Teals and Greens would just love it.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
February 28, 2023 11:21 am

Rogersays:

February 28, 2023 at 9:21 am

I don’t think it will be as crude as raiding super accounts.

At the end of the day it’s still the government robbing you.

Well, yes.
But I appreciate the Vaseline and the dimmed lights.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
February 28, 2023 11:24 am

Windows smashed, cars set on fire, businesses ransacked. As violence in Alice Spings continues to plague the streets, the business owners who have remained in town have declared they won’t be silenced.

All the results of colonization and inter-generational trauma, surely?

cohenite
February 28, 2023 11:24 am

So is climate change racist?

Yes it is; and so are roads, and maths, and vegetables and protein.

Johnny Rotten
February 28, 2023 11:24 am

Says a lot about “experts”. And “conspiracy theories”. And “misinformation”. I still haven’t had it, or if I have it was so mild I didn’t notice.

Same here Bruce of Newcastle. Never got the ‘Rona and have not been jabbed either. Still going strong at age 70 years with a very good innate Immune System.

Chris
Chris
February 28, 2023 11:25 am

Morning all. I have not determined a cheap way to ringbark the McClown Government at its root, but letting the truth get out about them seems a good approach.

flyingduk
flyingduk
February 28, 2023 11:25 am

The left’s chief thought policeman, Wikipedia, calls Molyneux a “far right white nationalist” — say no more, booga booga booga.

Yep, his explanations of natural ‘In group preference’ (where races/cultures, of necessity, give more weight to their own group beliefs than that of outsiders) was of course verboten – but only for whites – Black pride/Latino pride etc is fine, white pride is racist and oppressive.

Chris
Chris
February 28, 2023 11:27 am

Windows smashed, cars set on fire, businesses ransacked. As violence in Alice Spings continues to plague the streets, the business owners who have remained in town have declared they won’t be silenced.

“Rifleman number one; the man in the RED shirt; One round.”

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
February 28, 2023 11:29 am

Bureau has lost its way

The only conclusion from these alarming revelations is that the FBI is politicized, unaccountable, woke, incompetent and culturally degenerate.

You know, it wouldn’t surprise me if the FBI ended up being run by a vindictive old cross-dresser.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
February 28, 2023 11:36 am

The lab leak hypothesis was discussed on Old Cat within weeks of the appearance of heinous bat crud. The vitamin D thing likewise was discussed in conjunction with the rapid findings of first chloroquine, then HCQ, then ivermectin. Then there was the masks-are-useless finding last week which we likewise said right at the start.

From memory, by mid-2020, the Cat collective had dissected and correctly picked most of the major Covid issues that are just now breaking surface.

In particular the glaring facts that:

1) Vaccination was never likely to prevent transmission (transmissibility, coronavirus instability, and the mathematics of the necessary effectiveness of the vaccines);

2) As a disease, Covid was/is serious/life-threatening for the older cohort and unpleasant/rarely serious for citizens under ~60.

Shame we also picked the panicked political and bureaucratic responses that gave us useless mandates, lockdowns, oppressive policing, and the vast public expense of propping up the deliberately restricted social economy.

Black Ball
Black Ball
February 28, 2023 11:36 am

Apologies if posted earlier, Terry McCrann:

It’s the stupidity, stupid.

What’s got lost in the understandable furore over Albo and Jimbo’s menacing ‘that’s a nice little super balance you’ve got there, pity if anything happened to it’ play, is the basic but monumental stupidity of what they are clearly proposing to do in May.

Simply, that they would almost certainly ‘achieve’ the exact opposite of what they are seeking to do – ‘save’ tax dollars. Put aside all the big issues around what – it’s worthwhile to remind everyone – is compulsory, government-mandated superannuation, and focus on Albo-Jimbo’s one big driving issue. That the so-called ‘tax concessions’ are increasingly growing to be too big.

Accompanied by the meaningless factoid that by 2050 these – to repeat, so-called – tax concessions are going to be costing the budget more than the age pension. Nevertheless, what would actually be the worst possible outcome, on their terms?

Answer: if we (the taxpayer) still paid out almost all those super concessions, year after year between now and 2050 and indeed beyond, and the age pension actually increased from what it would otherwise have been.

That is to say, that their ‘reforms’ – specifically, the proposed $3m balance cap – actually, directly, put more people on the pension going forward than would otherwise have been the case. And not just the pension; indeed adding even more cost, the health card that goes with it and to a lower-income self-funded retiree. Gee what a trade. A reduction in a tax concessions – actually, just taking less tax – in return for, maybe, 30 years of age pension and the health costs of an old person.

This would be the ultimate, negative, absolutely counter-productive, two-fer.

That what the, by then long-gone, duo of Albo and Jimbo actually achieved with their ‘reforms’ was to place more people on the pension and the health card in 2050 and beyond, than if they had just left super alone as it was in 2022. Let me pose this simple question – which is clearly beyond the ken of Albo and Jimbo.

What is the best way to ensure that people actually stay on self-funded retirement and off the pension?

That they actually die with significant balances in their super funds. That they actually successfully engage in that ‘estate planning’, bestowing – horror of horrors – an estate to their beneficiaries.

That a cap would actually encourage retirees and near-retirees to cash-in excess balances to ensure the pension and the health card.

There are two functional stupidities in thinking that a trainee treasurer and an incompetent treasury can in 2023 combine to ‘guess’ at how much either the ‘average’ retiree, far less the wide range of individual retirees, in 10, 20 and 30 years time, will need as their savings balance to fund their retirement. The first should be obvious.

Will $3m be enough? Yeah, sure, just like 10 years ago $1m would have been considered more than ample – with prices where they were and a balance then earning, maybe 8-12 per cent a year.

I would advise our trainee to inform himself about all those civil servants in the UK who retired on generous – fixed – government pensions of, say, £20 a week in the 1950s, and were driven into poverty in the soaring inflation of the 1970s.

The second is how long are you going to live in retirement? 10 years? 20 years? 40 years?

Is Jimbo seriously suggesting we can neatly plan to run our balances down to zero at the date of death?

But even if you did, your balance would long since have dropped to the point where you moved into the pension and the health card.

He really is that stupid. He is incapable of understanding that the tax man should actually want people to die with, say, $2m in super.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
February 28, 2023 11:47 am

He really is that stupid. He is incapable of understanding that the tax man should actually want people to die with, say, $2m in super.

That’s a rhetorical question.
Right?

Barking Toad
Barking Toad
February 28, 2023 11:53 am

ultimate narcissist…..Kevin Rudd. from way up fred…..

Apart from the usual narcissistic traits I can see him peering into the pond at his reflection and masturbating.

A vile person.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
February 28, 2023 11:54 am

Are we still allowed to sing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, or is that cultural appropriation?

It’s not in Rovanieme, Finnish Lapland. This large Arctic town rides home on the red-nosed reindeer’s back. Santa’s Village in the nearby snowy forests capitalises on the ancient Nordic mythology of a bountiful reindeer-drawn sleigh-driven deity riding through the skies, and the local Sami co-operate by offering ice hotel and igloo tourists some indigenous lore in a traditional reindeer-hide tent while you sit before a roaring fire there on the fur side of more hides. You can also take a reindeer sleigh ride yourself thru magic fir forest scenery where reindeer roam free. The whole world brings their kids to Rovanieme to see Rudolph in Santa’s elfish Christmassy home.

It’s not cultural appropriation when the indigenous are in there making a buck from it too.

Lysander
Lysander
February 28, 2023 11:56 am

I have found out that McClown, mandating employers to collect vax certificates has made a f-ck up.

The Office of Aus Information Commissioner has confirmed to me in writing that, while a State may mandate vax certs be collected, no such certificate should have had the Individual Health Indicator (IHI) on it – and no State law can undo that as is a Commonwealth law that, given the sensitivity of this number (which never changes, even if you change name, address, gender)… can only be held by a registered Health Services Provider (HSP).

McClown has effectively given your HR department access to your IHI to be stored in systems that aren’t as secure as an HSP.

Furthermore, what makes this a clusterf-ck is that now the State has collected this, they are “State records” and cannot be destroyed.

Now that I’ve got this confirmation from the OAIC I’m not sure what to do about it…

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
February 28, 2023 11:56 am

Chris I don’t understand why someone hasn’t responded like that. When a politicised police (no service) won’t do anything. Mind you this applies in every place in Australia.

Lysander
Lysander
February 28, 2023 11:58 am

I note that one university I did some work for sent my vax certificate back to me, asking me to retract my IHI (so, they got it right but most didnt!)

H B Bear
H B Bear
February 28, 2023 11:59 am

KRuddy and Lord Waffleworth were like brothers separated at birth. That both could “rise” to lead the respective branches of the UniParty should provide food for thought.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
February 28, 2023 12:02 pm

A bright spark, in the gloom of the world going to Hell in a hand basket.

Bread bag closures – once plastic and effective, then cardboard and guaranteeing to spill 8 slices of WundaWite into the shopping trolley – have undergone a silent makeover.

They are now made of cardboard deeply impregnated with plastic to make them stiffer.

So, consumes more resources, still uses the evil plastic, not as functional as once was, yet not as crap as the feel-good substitute.

A perfect metaphor for wokedom.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
February 28, 2023 12:03 pm

Apropos indigenous involvement in tourism, it is pleasing to see in the latest NRMA Open Road that the growing tourism in the Kimberley has genuinely aboriginal tourist guides, trained and local to the area. They are people who have grown up under tribal traditional lore, not fauxborigines from down south.
Any move away from welfare dependence is only to be encouraged.
Especially when there is a high level of authenticity in the presenters.

Lysander
Lysander
February 28, 2023 12:05 pm

A perfect metaphor for wokedom.

I saw a video yesterday, which I can’t seem to find today, that had 13kms of trucks filled with coal going to South African port (while South Africans are enduring hours of black outs per day).. says it all really…

Dot
Dot
February 28, 2023 12:08 pm

Batshit idea:

Can I run a VW TDI on filtered 2nd hand cooking oil?

If you give an answer I will ask further questions. No scrubs thanks.

Bourne1879
Bourne1879
February 28, 2023 12:10 pm

Regarding the Fordham and Premier NSW interview there is one disturbing aspect to it.

That is that he said he did not have control over the Vax policies of some Departments regarding mandates. He did suggest he thought any Vax mandates that existed pre Covid should be maintained. That does not indicate much support by him personally for Covid Vax.

I know NSW Police still require 3 jabs for recruits. You have to wonder which other Depts he is referring to.

This basically means some civil servants want to prolong the mandates. My money is on CHO NSW and some are taking her advice over Premier. I did see a letter from a Coles employee appealing their mandate in Nov 21. The letter looked like been written by somebody very knowledgeable and noted who was on Coles medical advisory panel. CHO NSW was on it and Coles still mandating now despite Woolworths dropping 3 months ago.

H B Bear
H B Bear
February 28, 2023 12:12 pm

So, consumes more resources, still uses the evil plastic, not as functional as once was, yet not as crap as the feel-good substitute.

Still having trouble with the lid for a takeaway coffee. Even in the land of the glowing codpiece which for some reason seems to be at the forefront of this tokenism. Iron ore?

Slim Cognito
Slim Cognito
February 28, 2023 12:12 pm

Windows smashed, cars set on fire, businesses ransacked. As violence in Alice Spings continues to plague the streets, the business owners who have remained in town have declared they won’t be silenced.
All the results of colonization and inter-generational trauma, surely?

Yep, don’t you know that the abo’s never smashed windows, set cars on fire or ransacked business at all until the whiteys showed up. Must be our fault then.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
February 28, 2023 12:13 pm

The ASIO is tracking your dog.

Are our pets leaking information about us? (via Phys.org, 27 Feb)

“Pet and animal-related apps are creating cybersecurity risks to their owners, new research has shown.

While being able to trace your cat and dog may be an attractive benefit to many pet owners as it can provide peace of mind, allowing a third party to track your movements may be much less attractive.

Computer scientists at Newcastle University and Royal Holloway, University of London have exposed multiple security and privacy issues by evaluating 40 popular Android apps for pets and other companion animals as well as farm animals. The results show that several of these apps are putting their users at risk by exposing their login or location details.”

Now if they’d feed and walk your dog as well that might be OK.

Roger
Roger
February 28, 2023 12:15 pm

Professor Parkinson also says that despite having engaged in dialogue with federal Labor, “the proposals made by the authors of [the consultation paper on religious schools] cannot be reconciled with the policies that Labor took to the election and the promises it made”.

If you’re going to sup with the devil take a long spoon.

calli
calli
February 28, 2023 12:18 pm

The differing views on Molyneux are fascinating.

Not interested in what Wiki says about him. That will be left biased and useless, unless you simply apply the opposite. His fans have been won over, so that’s one thing. But I am interested in what he says, especially this book that OCO has mentioned. If it’s the one I cited, it has lots of recommendations, but the detractors say it’s highly charged emotionally and repetitive.

My only exposure has been negative – the cry-voice and teary, very unedifying. I don’t like my emotions being manipulated.

H B Bear
H B Bear
February 28, 2023 12:18 pm

I can confirm from experience that paper straws are destroyed by black batch type single origin coffee. Which might make me a coffee snob.

shatterzzz
February 28, 2023 12:19 pm

That is that he said he did not have control over the Vax policies of some Departments regarding mandates.

NSW Housing still following mandates, masks, office appointments only.. no walk-ins & working from home all in full swing

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
February 28, 2023 12:21 pm

Rewilding.

Ireland has lost almost all of its native forests: Here’s how to bring them back (Phys.org, 27 Feb)

For a number of decades the government has paid farmers and other private landowners to plant trees on their land in place of intensive agriculture. But these grants have so far fallen short of reaching their target of 18% forest cover.

More rewilding.

Muhammad Becomes Most Popular Baby Name in Irish City (27 Feb)

Muhammad was the most popular baby name in Galway, Ireland’s fourth-largest city, last year, the country’s government has confirmed.

A report released by Ireland’s Central Statistics Office (CSO) on Friday has revealed that “Muhammad” has risen to become the most popular name for newborn babies in one of the country’s major cities.

Quite a few places where Mohammed is a popular personal name are deserts, which makes me think the first author might have a hard time getting any traction.

H B Bear
H B Bear
February 28, 2023 12:24 pm

I suspect it will probably take the personal collection of pay cheques with 100 point photo ID to get some public servants back to the office.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
February 28, 2023 12:25 pm

Dot, have you been up all night? R U OK?

calli
calli
February 28, 2023 12:25 pm

We don’t buy a lot of bread, so only just noticed the substitution.

A using that they’re worried about a small tab of plastic over a massive plastic bag.

Bring back waxed wrap! Then conscientious mums can cut it in half and make sandwich wraps like they used to. They could impress their Insta followers!

Roger
Roger
February 28, 2023 12:28 pm

A[m]using that they’re worried about a small tab of plastic over a massive plastic bag.

You’re supposed to bring the plastic bag back so RedCycle can…oh, never mind.

H B Bear
H B Bear
February 28, 2023 12:28 pm

Not sure even Muslims and goats could turn Ireland into a desert. They might ruin a number of very good links courses and spoil a great holiday destination.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
February 28, 2023 12:28 pm

Just been looking at some recent family history.
Big Sis’s aboriginal mother-in-law, very dark-skinned, had some Chinese ancestry too in her DNA as quite a few aboriginal people did have back then. Market gardeners on the city outskirts.

I see Dot’s been thinking also of some Chinese Nana.

Synchronicity.

shatterzzz
February 28, 2023 12:29 pm

Yep, don’t you know that the abo’s never smashed windows, set cars on fire or ransacked business at all until the whiteys showed up. Must be our fault then.

Fact check: TRUE … they’d never seen a window, car or lit a fire .. weren’t needed/necessary during the 75 000 (give or take a millenium) years “dreamtime’ before Jimmy spoilt it! ..
it was all luvvy-dovey tranquility back when* ….
*Storytime by Brucey .. entire 36 volume edition, all chapters & pages …….!

Roger
Roger
February 28, 2023 12:30 pm

Will be interesting to see what is actually going between these three.

Ball is in your court, Mr. Xi.

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
February 28, 2023 12:30 pm

Whats the correct term for a group of skin suits.

A caper of skinsuits
A odium?
A Gargoolery?

Because this is the grand ball of skinsuits.
Leading Australian social justice bodies unite to back Indigenous voice to parliament referendum

Dozens of Australia’s leading social justice and civil society bodies are launching a partnership to support the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum, with one member of the group calling the consultation body “a basic human right”.

The Fred Hollows Foundation, Oxfam Australia, the Australian Council of Social Service and the First Nations advocacy organisation Antar* will lead nearly 150 organisations in the Allies for Uluru Coalition, which will be launched in Melbourne on Tuesday.

* If only they had a voice

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
February 28, 2023 12:33 pm

Weirdest science story I’ve seen so far this year:

Ghana needs more astronomers, astrophysicists, aerospace engineers and astronauts—how to develop them? (27 Feb)

There’s a lot of stuff Ghana needs, but none of those seem remotely high priority. Amusingly there’s an Australian connection. Here’s the author:

“Dr. Marian Selorm Sapah is a Lecturer and Research Scientist at the Department of Earth Science, University of Ghana. She obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology from the University of Ghana and subsequently a Ph.D. in Earth Chemistry from The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, as a trained Cosmochemist.”

The denizens of ANU really do seem to overachieve in silliness.

shatterzzz
February 28, 2023 12:36 pm

Apropos indigenous involvement in tourism, it is pleasing to see in the latest NRMA Open Road that the growing tourism in the Kimberley
I read yesterday that tourism to the “Centre” region was getting hammered .. high accomadation/travel costs and restricted areas .. I think it was an article about, permanent, flight cancellations .. just scanned it without real interest so can’t link it ……

lotocoti
lotocoti
February 28, 2023 12:36 pm

A report released by Ireland’s Central Statistics Office…

The Shinners bring back the Black and Tans.
How very feckin’ Oirish.

Tom
Tom
February 28, 2023 12:37 pm

I have located the only TV commercial by Australia’s millenial advertising industry zombies that doesn’t feature the West Indian women and children they were desperate to invent, but an actual white family setting off on holiday: the Telstra cybersecurity ad.

Lysander
Lysander
February 28, 2023 12:38 pm

For those Cats that wish to endure my rant on the collection of Individual Healthcare Identifier numbers by non authorised entities (such as any employer who shouldn’t have it). The IHI could give unauthorised access to:

Medical history: Your My Health Record can contain information such as medical diagnoses, medications, test results, and treatment plans.

Allergies and adverse reactions: Your My Health Record can also contain information about any allergies or adverse reactions you have to medications or treatments.

Medicare and healthcare claims: Your My Health Record can include information about healthcare services and treatments you have received, as well as Medicare claims and benefits.

Personal information: Your My Health Record may also contain personal information such as your name, date of birth, address, and contact information.

….and you think the Medibank leak was bad… wait until some shithead from HR accesses your health record…

lotocoti
lotocoti
February 28, 2023 12:40 pm

Spot the hate crime.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
February 28, 2023 12:43 pm

Veterans are being forced to pay for healthcare that should be free as GPs opt out

Some clinics not accepting the gold card that entitles war veterans to free healthcare as rebates fail to keep up with cost of delivering care

Melissa Davey Medical editor
@MelissaLDavey
Tue 28 Feb 2023 01.00 AEDT
Last modified on Tue 28 Feb 2023 08.12 AEDT

Roughly 90% of Dr Kerry Summerscales’ patients are veterans, with some of them travelling to her clinic in Mackay, on Queensland’s east coast, from as far away as Victoria in their desperation to find a GP who will provide quality, subsidised care.

Summerscales is one of the diminishing number of GPs accepting veteran white cards, which entitles the holder to treatment for injuries and conditions the department of veterans affairs (DVA) accepts were incurred during service.

As Guardian Australia revealed on Monday, veterans have been receiving letters from their GP saying they no longer accept the white card because the DVA rebates are not high enough to cover the cost of providing often complex health services.

Some clinics are also no longer accepting the gold card, which entitles a veteran or their dependant, widow or widower to DVA rebates for all clinically necessary health care needs and conditions, whether they are related to war service or not.

An army veteran of 30 years service, Summerscales feels compelled to accept the cards because she knows better than most the complexity of health needs veterans face. They often require long consults and experience physical and mental health conditions.

She says she receives $30 more from non-veteran patients who pay a private fee than she does from the department for treating a veteran. “Each gold or white card patient I see leads to my practice losing money, which is a big issue for the business,” Summerscales says.

“As a veteran myself, I suppose my chosen charity has become veterans’ health.

“I understand the system, whereas many GPs are taught nothing about veterans and their culture. Even GPs that do accept the white card often don’t understand the basics of what it was like to be in Timor or Afghanistan, and so then there is a risk red flags get missed or that veterans have to explain and repeat their trauma.

“One veteran told me they were a RAAF airfield firefighter and told me where they served. I said: ‘Where were you on the 12th of June, 1996?’. And he just said: ‘Yep’.”

That was enough information for Summerscales to know he was involved in the 1996 Blackhawk accident, when two Australian Army Blackhawk helicopters collided in the Townsville Field training area, resulting in 18 deaths.

“I have patients who have come from Melbourne, from Townsville, and who have traveled up from Brisbane to see me,” she says. “I still essentially lose our practice money for every single veteran patient.

“I’m not going to complain about my income. I’m not reduced to eating 2-minute noodles each night, and I think it’s really rude for a doctor to claim their income is too low. But when a high proportion of a clinic’s patients are veterans, and those patients require longer, complex consults, you can see why some clinics are no longer accepting the cards.”

She is concerned that if veterans are privately billed, or bulk billed through Medicare if they can find a bulk-billing doctor, data on veteran health conditions normally collected by the DVA through white and gold card claims will be lost.

“There are nearly 600,000 veterans in Australia, and at least one person in their families, whether a spouse or a child, would be impacted by their service. So that’s 1.2 million people,” Summerscales says.

“Yet in our GP training, we never learn anything about veteran culture. They don’t lose that culture once they take their uniform off. If you had a group of veterans and you yelled ‘grenade’, I bet you they would all drop to the floor.”

Clive Buckingham, a gold card holder and a Vietnam veteran, recently went to his GP of three years in Bundaberg, Queensland, for numerous concerns including shingles, swelling of his ankles and numbness in his toes and leg. The GP told Buckingham that all of these symptoms were just a result of medication, and to come back in one year if the symptoms persisted.

“My concern was that the symptoms were also possible diabetes or kidney issues,” Buckingham says. “I asked for a blood test to allay my concerns, this was refused. I then asked for a PSA [prostate-specific antigen] test as I had prostate cancer that was treated by radiation and my last test was three years ago. He said it was not needed.”

Buckingham then told his GP that he had a gold card, thinking this would cover all of his health costs and prompt the GP to provide the health care Buckingham was asking for.

“His reply was ‘I charge more than the gold card rebate’. I was told they no longer accept a gold card and I was charged $80.

“I now have to try to find another doctor who will accept my card. I’m only on a pension and cannot afford to have my further concerns addressed.”

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
February 28, 2023 12:43 pm

Maybe there’s an answer out there, I wonder what it could be?

School attendance rates in Australia are dropping: We need to ask students why (Phys.org, 27 Feb)

Today federal and state education ministers are meeting to talk about school attendance. Federal Education Minister Jason Clare has repeatedly flagged this as a key concern. As he told Channel 7’s Sunrise last week:

“We’ve seen attendance at schools drop over the last ten years amongst boys and girls from five-year-olds to 15-year-olds. Whenever I ask the question to the experts, why are we seeing attendance rates drop, I get crickets. That’s not good enough.”

I wonder if this other story could shed some light on the subject?

Australian students rank 21st of 37 listed countries (28 Feb)

Australian students are spending more time in the classroom than students in other countries, but the extra time isn’t necessarily proving to be beneficial.

Spending even more time indoctrinating kids into woke than other countries is probably not a great way to get their scores up nor give them an appreciation of the value of education in general. I’m sure they can all recite Rabbitproof Fence from memory though.

Kids, get out of the communist propaganda system as soon as you can, and get yourself a real job.

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
February 28, 2023 12:44 pm

Lysandersays:
February 28, 2023 at 12:38 pm

This was flagged by our head office as a issue.
I believe it was dealt with by only medical having access to the “passport” and it being stored with the other medical info.
From memory the government “advised’ the same approach by others, but no follow up or enforcement.

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
February 28, 2023 12:48 pm

But dont worry, the new woke laws wont cost anyone their job…

Maths teacher accused of misgendering pupil on religious grounds
Joshua Sutcliffe denies regulator’s charge of prioritising his convictions over pupil’s interests

A maths teacher “failed to separate the teacher from the preacher” when he allegedly misgendered a transgender pupil repeatedly and inappropriately shared his religious beliefs in the classroom, a misconduct panel heard.

Joshua Sutcliffe, 32, was accused by the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) of “conduct that negatively affected pupils” on multiple occasions during his time at schools in Oxford and London. He denies the charges of professional misconduct.

In 2017, Sutcliffe took legal action against the Cherwell school in Oxford after he was disciplined and eventually dismissed for allegedly failing to use a pupil’s preferred pronoun on multiple occasions due to his religious conviction.
He went on to give an interview on television breakfast show This Morning about the issue, which “made it likely” the pupil, referred to only as Pupil A, would be identified, said Andrew Cullen, for the TRA.

At a teacher misconduct hearing in Coventry on Monday, Cullen said Sutcliffe “prioritised his own interests above that of Pupil A”.

Sutcliffe, who regularly preaches on the street and says he has given out more than 2,000 Bibles to members of the public, denies all the charges of professional misconduct, and is being supported by the Christian Legal Centre.

Michael Phillips, representing Sutcliffe, said the teacher was entitled to freedom of speech, and to not be compelled to say something he did not agree with.

He added: “There is no evidence it was in Pupil A’s best interest to have preferred pronouns used. It was their wish but it doesn’t follow there was ethical justification for this.”

He added there was no evidence Sutcliffe had denied Pupil A their education or harassed them, and that he disputed some of the allegations. Sutcliffe claimed he misgendered the pupil in their presence on only one occasion, and apologised.

The hearing heard Sutcliffe was also alleged to have shared his views that same-sex marriage was wrong during a maths lesson, although he claimed it was during a Bible group he had set up at the school.
He also allegedly showed pupils a video about masculinity, which stated: “Passive men don’t protect, defend or provide.”

In November 2019, Sutcliffe was dismissed from another school, St Aloysius’ in north London, over a video uploaded to his YouTube channel in which he stated Muslims had a “false understanding of God” and that “the fruit of Islam is not peace, it’s division”.

The hearing heard a number of Sutcliffe’s students followed and interacted with the channel, and Sutcliffe had told students to “look out for the next video”.

Phillips said: “Pupils would often ask Sutcliffe questions [about his views] and maybe go as far as to goad him.”
Maya Forstater, who last year won a legal claim that she was unfairly discriminated against because of her gender-critical beliefs, gave evidence in support of Sutcliffe.

She argued schools should avoid implementing trans-affirming policies for students who identify as the opposite sex.

Giving evidence at the hearing, Forstater said: “If a child socially transitions in school, if they are accepted and treated as really the opposite sex, then that creates demand for that child to then have medical treatment.

“Schools with the best intentions can lock children into a pathway that is going to lead them doing harm to their bodies which can’t be undone.”

She also argued compelling students and teachers to use preferred pronouns for transgender pupils was asking them to “take part in a belief system” they might not agree with.

The misconduct hearing continues.

Lysander
Lysander
February 28, 2023 12:48 pm

Yes FM, under WA State law, employers “must” collect vax certs but the State f’d up in not having the IHI redacted (as per Commonwealth law). Now they are “State records” and can’t be destroyed despite the anomaly between State and Commonwealth law… where the latter should prevail.

It’s pretty serious shit that most sandgroper’s health details and access to sensitive health history now sit on HR servers…

lotocoti
lotocoti
February 28, 2023 12:51 pm

The hose broke, my pants fell off.
AI translator struggles when someone goes dottie over Ukie Coke.

Eyrie
Eyrie
February 28, 2023 12:53 pm

Yep, his explanations of natural ‘In group preference’

Another thing Mr Kipling got right all those years ago. Also how to do counter insurgency “The Grave of a Hundred Head”.

Lysander
Lysander
February 28, 2023 12:53 pm

Hmmm seems I’ve lost a fair few followers on Twitter for daring to criticise Saint Zelensky… I don’t understand why people feel obliged to take a side here… and when I press that it is “baddies vs baddies” somehow I end up being a fascist…

Diogenes
Diogenes
February 28, 2023 12:55 pm

A using that they’re worried about a small tab of plastic over a massive plastic bag.

I can confirm from experience that paper straws are destroyed by black batch type single origin coffee.

There are 3 people in the world who deserve to die from arse cancer ;
the inventor of the cardboard bread tie
the inventor of the paper straw
the inventor of bamboo cutlery and plates

calli
calli
February 28, 2023 12:55 pm

Ahahaha! Separatist Coca Cola. Who knew?

Lost something in translation though.

Kneel
Kneel
February 28, 2023 1:00 pm

“Are we still allowed to sing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,”

RACIST!
What about Blitzen the Brown nosed Reindeer? Remember him? Just as fast as Rudolf, but couldn’t stop as quick…

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
February 28, 2023 1:02 pm

People living rough 15 mins from Alice Springs town centre – article in today’s Oz.
Note how some basic supervised hostel shelter would alleviate much of this camping, especially if it was made illegal to camp rough without proper shelter, and then note the plethora of organisations that will absorb much of the new funding so that it won’t go where it will do the most good. A lot of it will fund ‘workers’ rather than the needy. It should all go on simple hostel housing, quickly built, fairly indestructable with basic recleanable services (aluminium toilets and showers), and perhaps some medical transport.

“Residents … have raised concerns about rough campers staying adjacent to their town camp, and these have been reported to Department of Territory Housing and Families, NT Police and the Alice Springs Town Council.”

The NT government would not provide details of the family’s situation nor confirm if they were on the waitlist for public housing.

“Central Australia has a transient population with many people regularly travelling from surrounding communities to Alice Springs to access medical services, do shopping or visit family,” a THFC spokesman said.

“The concrete slab between (the two town camps) is a known informal camp site and outreach teams regularly visit the area.”

The spokesman pointed to a $31m injection in 2021-22 ­to 19 non-­government organisations that provided homelessness services, and a $2.1bn investment from the NT and commonwealth governments in 2017 for a 10- year period to improve remote housing.Indigenous Minister Linda Burney said 10 local organisations would receive a share of the $48m announced by ­Anthony Albanese on his visit to Alice Springs last month, including Tangentyere Council, Central Australian Women’s Legal Services and Desert Knowledge Australia. “Certainty in access to safety and community wellbeing services is critical for First Nations communities, especially children and young people living in and around Alice Springs,” Ms Burney said.

Alice Springs enduring the crime crisis is an ‘incredibly resilient and strong community’
Liberal Senator Kerrynne Liddle says Alice Springs is an “incredibly resilient and strong” community amid the… unfortunate challenges of crime in the town. “As well as issues of services and activities and support for young people you’ve also got in those communities the challenge of remoteness,” Ms Liddle told More

Among the programs being funded are prisoner in-reach, ­better transport to get people back on country, residential rehabilitation and even a program using horses for therapy.

NT opposition housing spokesman Joshua Burgoyne visited Ms Pepperill and her family last week and said he was shocked by what he saw.

“In Alice Springs there are a huge amount of people sleeping rough in the river and in small tents,” Mr Burgoyne said. “Some people choose to live that way; it’s freeing for them. But I have never seen such a large number of people living like this together, with their only shelter being a tarp.”

Mr Burgoyne wrote to Housing Minister Selena Uibo ­requesting immediate assistance for the family, who he said had been living rough for at least a year in the extreme heat of Central Australia.

Federal Labor MP Marion Scrymgour said there was a major issue with housing in the NT. Ms Scrymgour, whose ­electorate of Lingiari covers most of the territory said the Prime Minister’s $250m Central Australia Plan – the allocation of which is due to be detailed in the budget – would go some way to addressing the issue.

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  1. how many of these pointless murders are by welfare dependant men on welfare dependant women? 93.1% Megaphone that stat, collectivists,…

  2. the recent spate of murders of women by men was a national emergency Ok heres the deal. All Persons convicted…

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