Belisarius Begging for Alms, Jacques-Louis David, 1781
Interesting character. At least he is honest about himself …. big mistakes made. —— Spanian Uncut: Raw interview with criminal…
Open Thread – Tue 28 Feb 2023
- The beach which banned vanilla ice cream
- Bumtree #4
- Open Thread – Thurs 2 May 2024
- Bumtree #3
- Bumtree #2
Hard Left & Islamists united in hatred for us
Good Lord. 30 year reunion next year and on Facebook there are bulk pics of us as younger members of…
Poland’s honeymoon with Ukraine is over
off the curve ?is protest culture just a search for community by those who feel alienated?
Hopkins: Three linked energy stories… all designed to push behavioural change.
m0ntysays:
February 28, 2023 at 6:33 pm
Monty is here scoffing about a tax change that effects those in the accumulation phase, ie working, like him, when a big percentage of cats are in the taking it out for free stage?
The median Cat would be about 55 I reckon, so right in the target area for this change.
How old are you m0nty=fa?
How the public was captured by the military-industrial complex during the covid era
But the specific claim that 85% received a “dummy tax” is not only unsubstantiated, but doesn’t seem to have a reason.
There had to be a Control Group, since none of the Vaxxes went thru the usual 15 years of testing.
Perhaps it was 95%, but let’s say 85%.
The Drug Companies now know how effective it is in reducing the Population, so it’s reasonable to expect that there won’t be a Control Group next time and everyone will get the Real McCoy.
Now, the last round of Vaxxing, say 85% received the dummy vax and 15% [RIP] received the Real McCoy.
So glad that I never got the Jab and kept drinking lots of red and white wine. Seems to have worked as I never got the ‘Rona. Never got tested for it either. I gave all my free RAT’S away for free.
Better hope property prices hold up and everybody keeps their job mUnty. Otherwise expect more negative in the negative gearing. Was a bout here in Perf about a decade ago – people (including their own employees) being dragged into court to complete off the plan purchases already hopelessly underwater.
How they control you.
Well, m0nty, you will be a bigger property owner than I ever was.
Be careful lest someone decides to eat the rich.
And you are on the menu.
I wonder if this means retirees will be taxed at 30% on income over that 1.7mil.
At least accountants will be rubbing their hands together.
The Drug Companies now know how effective it is in reducing the Population, so it’s reasonable to expect that there won’t be a Control Group next time and everyone will get the Real McCoy.
Well, Head Case and a Suitable Case for Treatment, I do so hope that you are first in line for the jab. And just like this last time, not everyone will get jabbed. Just like I didn’t.
Indeed, Vicki. I raised the issue of Johns’ excellent work in Quadrant, and now in his recent book, in order to show that what I am suggesting re hostels is exactly what is needed, with an iron hand in velvet glove approach. We should refuse to go along with the culture of domestic abuse, faux aboriginal traditions, and feckless wandering, as Johns’ work suggests, in order to improve the aboriginal situation in remote areas.
Naysayers here largely ignored what I was saying (I suspect because it was me saying it, although I speak from both experience and serious anthropological study), with some few raising objections based on older observations as to what happened previously; but a concerted cultural move away from hunter-gatherer adulation (or faux Pascoe stuff) is truly the only way forward. The Voice of course will be a major step backward in achieving any sort of move away from the cultural forms that keep aboriginal people down. It will enhance the dependency culture with more free stuff and further ‘self-determination’ cash grabs by Big Men and miss the indigenous voices of those few who can see the damages done.
At least Monty is delighted at the prospect of paying higher taxes himself in the future.
He knows the Labor party know better how to spend his money more wisely than he himself.
I suspect mUnty might own the letterbox and maybe a bedroom at this point.
Russel Brand – IT’S STARTING TO COME OUT
and
ULTRA Lady Inspector7
@JQL1962
How many have to die?
and
Footballer dies after collapsing on pitch as tributes paid to ‘loving and caring’ man
Dr. Eli David
@DrEliDavid
Bill Gates said Covid comes from bats and it spreads because of climate change. He also warned that
@elonmusk is making misinformation on Twitter worse
Catturd ™
@catturd2
We were right about the lab leak.
We were right about natural immunity.
We were right about masks.
We were right about lockdowns.
We were right about the vaccines.
We were right about boosters.
We were right about them faking COVID numbers.
We were right about the deadly hospital protocol.
We were right about ivermectin.
We were right about evil Dr. Fauci.
We were right about the evil WHO.
We were right about it being a world power grab.
Guess who was wrong about everything?
Yep, the government sheep “TrUsT tHe sCieNCe” cult.
Idle rich used to refer to members of aristocratic families who lived off inherited wealth.
In montyville it’s people who worked hard, saved hard to fund their own retirements instead of the real modern equivalent of idle rich, the idle poor with spotty employment or life on welfare putting out their hand for the age pension, present value, over one million dollars.
We’ll soon see if the population Ponzi can sustain property prices without falling interest rates. I’m not sure it can.
Yes, give up, sell up and spend was our solution to too much paperwork and worry.
Suits us now.
Hairy at the gym and me about to meet up with Mr. Motivator for a spin, because health is what matters now. And serenity. lol.
Assuming we never have a decent government again, it won’t be long before you’re classed as one of the rich.
Watch out!
Dot:
Thanks Dot really appreciated because I can’t get my head around the difference in some of the numbers I’m seeing. One example is Qld + NSW State government debt being around 150 billion, yet all state debt being about 180 billion.
Doc Faustus et al:
The deepest hobs of Hell are not hot enough for those who put e-scooters on the streets of Brisbane.
For me, they should be spending eternity in an agonizing griddle with the Media and Policy Advisers – gasping on the smoke of the Renewables Entrepreneurs sizzling on the coals below.
If an escooter collides with a pedestarian on a Brisbane footpath, who is at fault and who pays for the hospitalisation if needed?
The fun thing about this is it will have the exact opposite effect that Jimbo wants.
Everyone with a brain will suddenly start family companies or go over to fee for service self employment models…where you don’t have to set aside super at all (unless you want to and no one in their right mind would want to).
So there you go our socialist better will immediately incentivize millions of people to become knuckle dragging free market capitalists.
(Btw paying off the mortgage still is a far better ROI than any super return anywhere.)
I wondered why Latham had not appeared on bolta: this article gives a clue; 1st sentence of 3rd paragraph.
And just like this last time, not everyone will get jabbed. Just like I didn’t.
I also remain unjabbed, but living in a nursing home the constant suggestions become tiring, and I feel for the staff who still have to RAT test before each shift, and still have to wear masks all day. I imagine the pressure will be applied again for the next iteration for my own good, of course. The answer will remain the same as the last time I was asked.
Memes.
That may be so, but it doesn’t provide you with an income in retirement.
Johnny Rotten:
You’re quite right. My answer related more to what will happen when they piss all the super funds up against the wall, those monies only being a minor detour on the way to national bankruptcy.
That 3.2 Trillion will disappear like a snowflake in a furnace as most of it will go into hard non Australian currency and gold, thence into the Swiss bank vaults.
Crazy book titles, Cronkite. It should he a regular, but I have to remind you!
That was a ripper! Double plus thanks.
Crazy book titles, Cronkite. It should he a regular, but I have to remind you!
I’m going flat out head prefect; there’s only so many variations of your life as a stud I can come up with. Read the memes.
Seville seems to have invested heavily in dedicated e-scooter and bike paths, at least on the newer, wider roads near the train station.
In the centre, the footpaths are too narrow, at one point yesterday there was a chokepoint for pedestrians, but it had created 20 minutes later when I walked back.
Many, maybe even most tourists in Spain seem to be Spanish people from another part of Spain, many taking bus tours.
There was always a group of Spanish speakers with a guide near the entrance to the metro in Embajadores, always wondered what the attraction was, it just didn’t look like an interesting intersection to me.
If only everyone everywhere just stayed at home and never went anywhere else then no-one would have to put up with anyone.
duncanm at 5:29.
Yes, the real issues going forward are bracket creep and mission creep.
Yep …. I do have one 😉 fastest bolt action rifle of the era 😉
Rockdoctor:
The blokes in the trucks that were in the way of that landslide wouldn’t have had a chance – and any that didn’t get away and survived the initial fall will have been left to die.
Poor bastards.
Nearly saw this happen in Babylon by the Brisbane on the weekend when I was down there.
Lady was walking in the marked pedestrian lane down by the river when an e-scooter came from behind her in the wrong lane and missed her by that much as she was, unbeknownst to her, veering into his path. Had there been a collision, assuming the scooter hire provider didn’t have 3rd party, she would have had to file a civil complaint against the rider. Good luck with that!
Rosie – Owning your own house is worth at least $30 grand after tax income. More in Sinny or Yarragrad. And that’s at your top marginal rate after tax.
As soon as you pay off your mortgage you can put the income into investments. Right now super benefits are damn near worthless, since the time value of money means the decades you wait for it discounts it’s value. Plus all the tax, that Jimbo has just signaled he is increasing. Add that the unions are rapidly gaining 100% control of superannuation and SMSFs are being persecuted into oblivion and I can’t see why anyone would bother if they could avoid it. Letting it sit in a honeypot for any length of time just attracts hungry bears.
Johnny Rotten:
Dragons teeth and Tank caltrops are meant to delay and channel AFVs into defences so they can be destroyed. Nothing reasonable can stop an attack but the whole idea is to make it costly.
But you knew that.
The record, set in 1913, was 38 bullseyes at 300 yards in 60 seconds?
By popular demand book titles for the jaded:
How to Succeed in Business without a Penis: chapters include the strategy of codpieces, trans identification, pregnancy and beards and affairs and blackmail.
The Practical Pyromaniac: building fire tornados, great balls of fire and other incendiary devices while maintaining all relevant insurance.
The Beginners Guide to Sex in the Afterlife: passion does not end with death; learn the secrets of an eternity of ecstasy.
The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern Australia: a guide to field identification; maximise your profit and satisfaction by knowing which carts to return and which to scrap.
If I recall correctly, the record in British army competition was set at 38 rounds on target at 300 yards in a minute. Not bad for a 10 round magazine, with stripper clip reloads.
Chris:
Certainly, Chris. That’s not the issue.
People join the army to serve the nation, gain skills and if necessary, put their lives on the line to protect all of us.
But when you see them being used to provide photo ops for politicians in flood zones, and digging dunnies for people too lazy to dig their own, perhaps you’re looking at reasons why the armed forces are unable to get volunteers?
Clay Travis
@ClayTravis
Great ad here. This is a 2024 landslide message.
Poliartician’ super is irrelevant. Their real money is at the end of where decades of foreign aid, bank bailouts and cost overruns on gummint contracts went.
The collapse of South Africa
Janet Yellen Claims U.S. Taxpayers Have ‘Duty’ to Defend Ukraine’s Border from Invasion
White House Endorses Gain-of-Function Research in Incredibly Bizarre Exchange
Netflix season 1 of THE BAD GUY .. quirky black comedy on the mafia from Italy with subs .. well worth the effort .. 8/10 ..
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14729094/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_5
Also just finished an excellent detective novel .. translated from the German ..
SNOW WHITE MUST DIE .. Nele Neuhaus .. blurb sez over 1000 000 copies sold .. understandable! it is an excellent no superfluous waffle who-dun-it ….
On a September evening eleven years ago, two 17-year-old girls vanished without a trace from the tiny village of Altenhain, just outside Frankfurt. In a trial based on circumstantial evidence 20-year-old Tobias Sartorius was convicted and imprisoned for the murder of his childhood friend Laura and his beautiful girlfriend Stefanie – otherwise known as Snow White.
After serving his sentence, Tobias returns home. His presence in the little German village stirs up the events of the past. Events that the locals would prefer to remain hidden. When the Sartorius family is subjected to a number of attacks, Detective Inspector Pia Kirchhoff and DS Oliver von Bodenstein are tasked with monitoring the tense atmosphere in the tight-knit community. As the village inhabitants close ranks it becomes apparent the disappearance of Snow White and her friend was far more complex than imagined.
Then history starts to repeat itself in a disastrous manner when another pretty girl goes missing. The police are thrown into a race against time. Will they be able to save her, or is she destined to die?
Slowly at first…then all at once.
The fence is not about stopping the military. It also is a structure to indicate to Belarus that is now regarded with as a potential threat. Hence the military build up at the border. It probably is also designed to prevent citizens crossing the border to seek goods not available in Belarus.
Belarus is going to need more than one nation to support it. In modern economies access to the produce of many nations is essential for development; especially for high tech development. Russia is lousy on the high tech side. They only recently developed ASEA radar capability. Until recently, now banned, Russia had to purchase microprocessors from TSMC.
Jim Chalmers wants to enshrine a lack of upward mobility. This is not a pro worker Labor Party.
Progressive income tax has always stopped people of modest means from getting ahead.
The world laughed, when the Afrikaners proposed a withdrawal into the old Cape Colony, defended from invasion by atomic weapons…
I read that from start to finish on a plane going somewhere a few years ago.
Gripping.
Still doesn’t pay your bills, especially $2000 plus rates PA.
That died with Mark Latham’s first political career.
callisays:
February 28, 2023 at 6:42 pm
Well, m0nty, you will be a bigger property owner than I ever was.
Be careful lest someone decides to eat the rich.
m0nty=fa doesn’t expect that the Party will come for loyal “useful idiots” like him. As his properties are confiscated to house asylum seekers, his plaintive cry will be: “If only Elbow or Talidan knew.”
IIRC there was a story on ACA or the local news where the escooter provider insurer refused payment to the struck pedestrian (broken hip, leg, collar bone & assorted injuries) because the (uninjured) person riding the scooter was not wearing a helmet.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China
US Hegemony and Its Perils
February 2023
Contents
Introduction
I. Political Hegemony—Throwing Its Weight Around
II. Military Hegemony—Wanton Use of Force?
III. Economic Hegemony—Looting and Exploitation
IV. Technological Hegemony—Monopoly and Suppression
V. Cultural Hegemony—Spreading False Narratives
Conclusion
Introduction
Since becoming the world’s most powerful country after the two world wars and the Cold War, the United States has acted more boldly to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, pursue, maintain and abuse hegemony, advance subversion and infiltration, and willfully wage wars, bringing harm to the international community.
The United States has developed a hegemonic playbook to stage “color revolutions,” instigate regional disputes, and even directly launch wars under the guise of promoting democracy, freedom and human rights.
Clinging to the Cold War mentality, the United States has ramped up bloc politics and stoked conflict and confrontation. It has overstretched the concept of national security, abused export controls and forced unilateral sanctions upon others.
It has taken a selective approach to international law and rules, utilizing or discarding them as it sees fit, and has sought to impose rules that serve its own interests in the name of upholding a “rules-based international order.”
This report, by presenting the relevant facts, seeks to expose the U.S. abuse of hegemony in the political, military, economic, financial, technological and cultural fields, and to draw greater international attention to the perils of the U.S. practices to world peace and stability and the well-being of all peoples.
Conclusion
While a just cause wins its champion wide support, an unjust one condemns its pursuer to be an outcast.
The hegemonic, domineering, and bullying practices of using strength to intimidate the weak, taking from others by force and subterfuge, and playing zero-sum games are exerting grave harm. The historical trends of peace, development, cooperation, and mutual benefit are unstoppable. The United States has been overriding truth with its power and trampling justice to serve self-interest. These unilateral, egoistic and regressive hegemonic practices have drawn growing, intense criticism and opposition from the international community.
Countries need to respect each other and treat each other as equals. Big countries should behave in a manner befitting their status and take the lead in pursuing a new model of state-to-state relations featuring dialogue and partnership, not confrontation or alliance. China opposes all forms of hegemonism and power politics, and rejects interference in other countries’ internal affairs. The United States must conduct serious soul-searching. It must critically examine what it has done, let go of its arrogance and prejudice, and quit its hegemonic, domineering and bullying practices.
Richard Cranium
The Drug Companies now know how effective it is in reducing the Population, so it’s reasonable to expect that there won’t be a Control Group next time and everyone will get the Real McCoy.
And to whom will they sell their products in future, to keep those luverrrrly billions coming in?
These look like fun. Sort of a tooled up Davros vibe about the whole thing.
It’s Indigenous Culture, Nothing but the Culture
24th February 2023 – Ron Pike
I watched with a mixture of dismay and disgust the rancour which came to a head on this year’s Australia Day, all the while wondering why our Australian way of life is the target of such widespread enmity? The happy, relaxed, egalitarian and successful society we have built appears very much under attack from a vocal leftist brigade hell bent on destroying the best of what we have achieved while rewriting our nation’s history to focus not on admirable milestones but on myths of genocide and the like. It is a warped, irrational and profoundly dishonest perspective and, alas, also the one that has taken root in schools, the mainstream media and the young hearts and minds of those who have been denied the opportunity to know better.
I am reminded of the age-old wisdom Quos Deus vult perdere prius dementat — Those whom the Gods would destroy they first make mad. This quote seems an ideal diagnosis of so many of our present so-called leaders. Sadly, across all spheres of government and all major political parties, we have people who personify that mental and cognitive deficiency, many of them policy-setting bureaucrats and heads of departments.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in the handling of Aboriginal affairs, an area of failed management that has seen billions of dollars wasted.
At last assessment, Aboriginal affairs cost taxpayers in excess of thirty billion dollars per year ($30,000,000,000.) Yes, that is the bill year after year to sustain the obvious failures of policy we see being played out on, amongst too many other locations, the streets of Alice Springs.
Those of us who have not been stripped of our wits can only be taken aback by so little benefit, if benefit at all, flowing from such stupendous sums.
Why the unwavering devotion to an approach so clearly at odds with reality, with the horrors to be witnessed almost every night of late on the TV news? Because present leaders (a misnomer, forgive me) lack the will and diligence to seek out, expose and act meaningfully in response to the truth. Were they to do so, they would realise the problem with outback Aboriginal communities is rooted in the falsely hyped “culture.” You know, the one we hear has continued unbroken for 60,000 years. Surely that has been enough time to grasp that it is a curse enforced by those who now extol it.
So what is Aboriginal culture and why should we laud or condemn it?
Surely it isn’t exemplified by the shuffling of dusty feet to the beat of clap sticks. Just as surely it cannot be the moaning drone of a didgeridoo or the claiming of eternal sovereignty over all the land amid a smokescreen of burning gum leaves.
Nor is it a culture – forgive me for being blunt — based on any notable achievement other than survival and adaption on and to an often harsh continent.
Aboriginal culture as practiced when Europeans settled our wide brown land, and as it’s noxious vestiges persist in remote settlements, was and remains a vile, dominating, patriarchal ethos that condemns women and children to physical and sexual abuse by older men.
Before we start tampering with the Constitution, let our so-called leaders find the courage to acknowledge the truth and act upon it. This abuse often results in hospital admission, sometimes in death. That this unacceptable debasement of human dignity continues to prevail is evident in the hospitals of Alice Springs, or Katherine, or any other hospital catering for Aboriginal people in remote areas. That this abuse is magnified with the uncontrolled access to alcohol is beyond dispute, except by those who find it expedient to claim victimhood rather than face the truth.
Present Aboriginal culture provides its unassimilated people with no opportunities, no hope and an endless future in which dignity is destroyed by hand-outs and sit-down money.
As such it has no place in a society that recognises every citizen as the equal of every other citizen, regardless of ethnic origin. If progress is at last to be made, the toxic elements of traditional Aboriginal culture must be consigned to the garbage bin of history. Only then can those Aboriginal people totally reliant on taxpayers enjoy the pride that comes with work and self-sufficiency.
It may be hard to credit right now, when the advocates of separatism and division are everywhere and growing louder, but Australians really can enjoy lives of harmony as one people, all of us united by the land we share, but only when we recognise that everyone born in Australia is indigenous to Australia and that no one has the right or need to ‘welcome’ fellow citizens to their own country. Australia belongs to all of us.
We are fortunate to share in its bountiful resources.
Attempts to have different laws based on race, as proposed with the Voice, can only drive a further wedge into Australian society, making the racial division wider and even more entrenched.
No jab, no transplant
Covid vaccine rules are heartless and senseless
Rebecca Weisser
Vicky Derderian is a fighter. For seven years her heart has struggled to pump blood around her body, stretching thinner and growing weaker, a condition called dilated cardiomyopathy. In 2020, she was fitted biventricular assist devices, implantable pumps that help both sides of her heart function while she awaits a transplant.
There’s only one obstacle. The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne insists she get a Covid vaccine even though Vicky has a permanent exemption provided by the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) because of the well-known risk that Covid vaccines can trigger heart inflammation.
Dr Peter McCullough, one of the most published cardiologists in the world, has been in Australia this month speaking at sold-out events about treating Covid. He says that under no circumstances should Vicky, or any heart transplant patient, get a Covid vaccine because of the damage it can do to the heart.
That’s what happened to Natalie Boyce. She was only 21 and a competitive netball player. Yet she died of heart failure at the Alfred in March 2022, six weeks after receiving a Moderna booster.
Natalie had been diagnosed with antiphospholipid syndrome (APS), an autoimmune disorder that can cause the body to make antibodies that attack the cells lining blood vessels causing blood clots.
Tragically, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) failed to warn Australians of the risk Covid vaccines pose to people with APS. Three months later Natalie died after the Moderna booster triggered catastrophic clotting causing kidney and heart failure.
A last problem for Vicky is that there are studies in corneal and lung transplantation which show that vaccination in either the donor or the recipient can increase the risk of organ rejection or failure. There is no data yet on heart transplants but in an ideal world, says Dr McCullough, it would be better to receive a donated organ from an unvaccinated person.
Nobody knows better than Vicky that this is not an ideal world as she battles on in search of doctors and regulators with a heart and a brain.
Dotsays:
February 28, 2023 at 8:31 pm
Sancho Panzer says:
February 28, 2023 at 5:29 pm
It looks like the tax rate change only applies to the accumulation phase.
Jim Chalmers wants to enshrine a lack of upward mobility. This is not a pro worker Labor Party.
It hasn’t been a pro-worker party for at least three decades.
The biggest winner from the pending super changes are issuers of investment bonds.
Grant Hackett gunna make serious bank.
Victoria ‘kidding’ itself if it excludes gas from energy transition
Mark Ludlow Queensland bureau chief
Energy experts say Victoria is “kidding” itself if it thinks it can get to more than 85 per cent renewables without back-up gas capacity.
As former energy chief Kerry Schott accused state governments, especially Victoria, of “demonising” gas, big energy users said gas would be needed for heavy industry for decades to come and that more needed to be done to boost supply.
But Victorian Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio hit back at the criticism on Tuesday, saying the state was in a once-in-a-generation transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
“This nation-leading transition will require us to take full advantage of technologies like batteries while developing long-duration technologies like pumped hydro and hydrogen, but we’re not in the business of shying away from difficult challenges,” she said.
“We’re progressing the most ambitious renewables agenda in the nation and bringing back the [State Electricity Commission], hitting our emission reduction targets and getting Victorians the best deal on their bills.”
As households and businesses struggle with soaring power prices, the Andrews government has moved to get gas out of households and push renewable energy options, like big batteries and offshore wind.
But Grattan Institute energy program director Tony Wood said Victoria was being “unrealistic” thinking it could ditch gas on the way to net zero by 2045, ahead of Australia’s national target of net zero by 2050.
“Emissions reduction can be done without excluding gas from the equation. We are kidding ourselves if we think we do this without gas,” he said.
The Australian Energy Market Operator last month urged urgent investment in reliable, dispatchable capacity to avoid shortfalls by 2027, which Mr Wood said was effectively “code for more gas”.
“But they were never going to say that. Of course, gas is a fossil fuel and we are going to get off it and that’s why new investment is gas peaking plants which are only used when we need them. You don’t have to go from one extreme to the other,” Mr Wood said.
Energy Users Association of Australia chief executive Andrew Richards said heavy industry often didn’t have an option to use anything but gas for their production processes.
“The availability of alternative technologies for heavy industry just don’t exist at the moment. We will need to use gas for many years to come,” he said.
“No matter how much renewable energy is in the system, you need the safety net of support from gas peaking plants.”
Australian Energy Council chief executive Sarah McNamara said state-based limitations on developing new gas supplies were not helpful to tackling the energy transition.
“It is important not to rule out contributions from any technologies given the task at hand,” she said.
“Gas in particular will continue to have an important flexible and firming role in our grid for quite some time. Ensuring reliable gas supplies into the future will help affordability and allow gas generation to support the exit of coal plants and the introduction of more renewables.”
A spokeswoman for federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen acknowledged there would be an ongoing role for gas for firming capacity in the transition to net zero.
“We have a national emissions reduction target of 82 per cent by 2030, with 2030 just 82 months away – this is a huge task, and we need to ensure the lights stay on while we do it,” the spokeswoman said.
“That means an increasing role for storage and pumped hydro, and an ongoing role for gas in peaking and firming renewable supply.”
Dr Schott, the former chairwoman of the Energy Security Board who is now on the board of AGL Energy, also took aim at federal and state energy ministers for their decision on Friday to dump a plan to charge wind and solar projects for their transmission to join the grid.
She said many renewable developers just wanted to build wind and solar projects as quickly as possible and sell them, rather than connect them to the grid.
But renewable advocates, including the Clean Energy Investor Group, opposed the congestion management model proposed by the ESB, saying it would hurt investment in the sector.
Australian Energy Regulator chairwoman Clare Savage told the Infrastructure Partnerships Australia energy summit in Sydney on Tuesday it was important the regulator got it right on the rules for new transmission projects.
“If we don’t get it right, the costs could be higher, and the benefits of renewables and storage not realised. Worst case, we rebuild the grid twice,” she said.
“Understandably, it’s a very tricky area of policy to get right as there are a lot of strong views in the market.”
The peak oil and gas industry body said the Albanese government should prioritise new gas supply rather than challenge international partnerships with export rule changes on the “gas trigger”.
The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association said the proposed changes to the Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism risked undermining Australia’s role as a trusted trade partner, while doing nothing to address the underlying factors behind domestic gas shortfalls.
The piece of advice that isn’t in Rich Dad, Poor Dad is tax arbing.
If you haven’t set yourself up to tax arb by the time you’re 30, you’re not trying hard enough.
Fun fact, most tradies in their mid 20’s would understand tax arb better than the average public servant in their 50’s.
If you mentioned tax arbing to the average Teal voter, they’d ask what language you are speaking.
P/A.
F/T.
P/L.
SMSF.
PAF.
I/B.
IYKYK.
War Footing or Ukraine? – Biden Waives Section 303 of DPA Related to Weapons, Ammunition, Explosives and Components
February 27, 2023 – Sundance
The Defense Production Act (DPA 1950 amended, pdf) essentially is a legislative hurdle that stops the executive from stepping into the private sector and restricting trade, commerce or manufacturing, unless the President says a critical shortage of “xxxx” is present and national security is at stake. It prevents citizens from the threat of govt nationalization of resource “xxxx”.
In the event the President makes a national security determination, he/she is required to inform congress, invoke the waiver authority, and identify which sectors he/she is now outlining as a national security… such that government purchase orders take precedent in the supply of “xxxx”. Yesterday, President Biden invoked this authority.
Given the pandemic shortages are over, and given the sectors outlined, it looks like munitions, raw material, explosives, electronics and certain component issues related to the Defense Dept are outlined.
Key section: “Therefore, I waive the requirements of section 303(a)(1)-(a)(6) of the Act”…
…”specifically for defense organic industrial base supply chains critical to the Department of Defense and critical supply chains for electronics, kinetic capabilities, castings and forgings, minerals and materials, and power and energy storage.” (link)
It’s a use of the DPA definitively targeting defense materials. Which raises the question(s):
Is this to secure weapons for shipment to Ukraine?.. OR, Is this to secure a buildup of weapons for a larger purpose? Meaning, is this preparing for an expanded war effort?
There is a lack of media curiosity. However, perhaps drawing attention to it will stimulate someone to ask the Pentagon?
In the interim, ammunition might become a little harder to find.
The US defence supply chain is just so brittle.
All can be traced back to Clinton & Gingrich filleting the FTC in the late 90’s.
There are 5 primes now.
There should be 25.
I watched the weather segment at the end of Channel 9 News this evening. They were carrying on endlessly about warmer nights. Not a single word about daytime temperatures, of course. That wouldn’t suit the agenda.
Steve Milloy
@JunkScience
Zero US warming in 18 years, per US Climate Reference Network temp stations.
That’s no US warming despite 30% of total manmade CO2.
Emissions-driven warming is a hoax.
There is enormous profit waiting to be made by an up and coming law firm.
Fractures in Feraldton were up near 100% for the year they introduced the purple people smashers. Deliberate placement outside pubs in the evening suggests to me that saying “ I haven’t been drinking” ticked 1/2 way through 1000 words of boilerplate legal “ indemnity” would be as effective as chucking a “ not for use by kids” on a cigarette and beer vending machine outside a high school.
Plus the links between council grubs and the scooter companies are very… very open to graft.
😀
They’ve been disappearing from my local area, also the purple e-bikes. Beam seems to’ve decided we’re insufficiently woke for their holy Gaia chariots to make any money. I’ve seen exactly one Beam bike and no Beam scooters being ridden in a whole year.
Meanwhile:
Car 20mph speed limit could make cities safer, says Lime scooter boss (28 Feb)
“Speed limits in cities should be cut to 20mph to protect e-scooter riders, the boss of a rental company has suggested.
Wayne Ting, the chief executive of Lime, said that “slowing down” cars had been proven to “improve safety”.
Lime is the world’s largest e-scooter and e-bike hire firm, with a significant presence in London.
A total of 12 fatalities involving e-scooters and 1,349 occurred in the year up to June 2022, according to Government statistics.
Analysis by the Department for Transport (DfT) has found that scooter users are approximately three times more likely to get hurt compared to cyclists.”
LOL. No one ever proposed that car speed limits be reduces to protect bicycle riders, and e-scooter riders are mad bastards at the best of times. I think scooters are a wonderful Darwinian way of improving the species. But this guy can take his 20 mph speed limit and stick it up his own clacker.
Mark Steyn perfectly sums up LINOs in Australia, RINOs in the US, and CINOS in the UK and Canada…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2zmADyrhS4
Roger:
Would the escooter been liable for leaving the scene of an accident, if the prang between them had been videod? Or does that only apply to vehicles?
LOL there are no poor suffering workers that will be affected by this. It’s all silvertails and spivs.
It is hilarious how you lot all huff and puff about the right now being on the side of the proles, but the minute any of your precious Costello-bestowed tax rorts come under threat it’s all class warfare frightbattery with you playing Marie Antoinette, the communists are here to chop off your heads!!
the communists are here to chop off your heads!!
Well, they can’t chop of your dick.
Alan Moran’s latest climate and energy info.
Latest poll: Trump v DeSantis and others:
https://gellerreport.com/2023/02/no-contest-look-at-who-leads-big-in-fox-news-poll-for-top-2024-republicans-for-white-house.html/?lctg=125336260
No, that’s not true at all.
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my Soul to keep;
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my Soul to take
But not tonight.
‘Cause I still got a month to go.
(Or maybe 25).
m0nster at 10:26
has jugears chalmers put a tax on punctuation or are you just very excited and cant control yourself
IIRC there was a story on ACA or the local news where the escooter provider insurer refused payment to the struck pedestrian (broken hip, leg, collar bone & assorted injuries) because the (uninjured) person riding the scooter was not wearing a helmet.
Dunno how it works in general insurance but in aviation insurance but unless the law broken was a proximate cause of the accident the insurer has to pay. Can’t see how the escooter rider not wearing a helmet caused the accident. The insurers, will of course , try it on.
Monty cheering on government changing a compulsory scheme after explicitly ruling out the change at the election?
What a pillock
Anyway, “Sliante” to all you mob.
Mme Zulu drove her car for the first time in over a year, today…
Anyway, “Sliante” to all you hairy mob.
Mme Zulu drove her car, for the first time in over a year, today…
Well played.
Psychedelics may improve mental health by getting inside nerve cells
This is an important finding. Put quickly, it is consistent with other studies showing rapid improvement in depression. That relates to growth factors. A number of studies highlight that psychedelics promote growth factors. The success of depression treatment generally seems to be dependent on growth factors being elevated. There are other factors involved but unfortunately the research is very much focused on the relevant receptor.
This opens the possibility that there might be benefits to microdosing. There are some studies which offer support for that. Others don’t.
John I may have some questions tomorrow for you after I track down government finances.
Also this super stuff is so bad it could derail Chris Mini’s chance of being Premier of NSW.
Contact, contact, contact, wait, out.
Chris Minns, damn you autocorrect.
m0nty declarupted:
m0nty wants to change the incentive structures in society so that the smartest among us will not try to take any big risks. Because we’ll all be better off that way.
m0nty, you fool.
Yep, and 7 ‘News’ reported that todays Melbourne temp was the LOWEST last day of summer in over 30 years…. yet failed to come to the obvious conclusion (the ice age has started and we are all about to die).
I have found even Spain has annoying public holidays.
Andalusia day, today, nearly all retail, including supermarkets shut all day.
Fortunately all the main tourist attractions and some eateries are open.
There is a queue though at the lottery shop.
Nothing stops for Once.
Zulu,
well done your missus. Keep us up to date with her recovery and milestones.
And well done you for sticking by her. Nice to know there are good men out there who understand what “in sickness and in health”, means.
Not Luigi the Unbelievable and Big Ears greatest day. They are going to go to the next election seeking a mandate as the Government for something they said as Opposition they would not do prior to the last one. No wonder democracy has struggled for over a decade. And the Voice still to come. Dutton has played this like a Strad.
Wow ! Check out this article at News com au . However unable to make comment.
10 myths told by Covid experts — now debunked
In the past few weeks, reports published by highly respected researchers have exposed a truth about public health officials during Covid.
Article by
Marty Makary MD, MPH is a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and author of “The Price We Pay
That’s not obvious at all. The mild day could have happened one day earlier or later and you would have given it no significance. One mild summer day doesn’t spell a re-glaciation any more than one record hot day spells climageddon. Change point detection in noisy data is notoriously difficult.
The climate in the 30-year outlook is expected to cool from solar effects alone, but you could not know that from one day.
mUnty has drunk deeply from the well of wrongology today. Of course if it’s only 18,000 this year it won’t be me next year. Phew!
The last comment on previous page was Bourne1879 citing the article
10 myths told by COVID experts — and now debunked
By Marty Makary
Which can be found in various places, such as https://nypost.com/2023/02/27/10-myths-told-by-covid-experts-now-debunked/
Kris Kristoffersen and Lorrie Morgan “For the Good Times.”
Thank you. She takes a perverse delight in reminding me that our defacto relationship has lasted several times longer then the total of both our marriages…….
Colonel,
Thanks for putting up the link.
However article also on News com au and looks might be allowing comments.
Probably one of the best summaries seen so far.
m0nty says:
February 28, 2023 at 10:22 pm
It looks like the tax rate change only applies to the accumulation phase.
Jim Chalmers wants to enshrine a lack of upward mobility. This is not a pro worker Labor Party.
LOL there are no poor suffering workers that will be affected by this. It’s all silvertails and spivs.
From an earlier iteration of it’s not “silver-tails or spivs” news:
https://www.news.com.au/national/federal-election/federal-election-2019-tradie-dumped-from-job-after-bailing-up-bill-shorten-on-tax-cuts/news-story/160b2b90be6a2959b7ba59542ca7ebf2
Families go to court after nurse in Spain accused of faking children’s jabs
Vaccine status of more than 400 children near Bilbao investigated amid concerns about anti-vaxxer nurse
I wonder if Monty will sing a different song if cgt discounts get wound back.
John Spooner.
Warren Brown.
Mark Knight.
Mark Knight #2.
David Rowe.
Christian Adams.
Morten Morland.
Michael Ramirez.
A.F. Branco.
Matt Margolis.
Chip Bok.
A man is dining in a fancy restaurant and there is a gorgeous redhead sitting at the next table. He has been checking her out since he sat down, but lacks the nerve to talk with her.
Suddenly, she sneezes and her glass eye comes flying out of its socket towards the man. He reflexively reaches out, grabs it out of the air, and hands it back. “Oh my, I am so sorry” the woman says as she pops her eye back in place. “Let me buy your dinner to make it up to you” she says.
They enjoy a wonderful dinner together, and afterwards the theatre followed by drinks. They talk, they laugh, she shares her deepest dreams and he shares his. She listens. After paying for everything, she asks him if he would like to come to her place for a nightcap… and stay for breakfast.
The next morning, she cooks a gourmet meal with all the trimmings. The guy is amazed!! Everything had been SO incredible!! “You know” he said “you are the perfect woman. Are you this nice to every guy you meet?” “No” she replies “You just happened to catch my eye”.
The best way to teach your kids about taxes is by eating 30% of their ice cream.
– Bill Murray
Maybe now that should be increased to 50%……………………………………
Tesla dropping the price on their solar tiles.
This is the future.
Sotomayor uses this “standing” crutch again.
It’s now becoming habit in cases she is against.
Don’t question the legal arguments, go back to something the court already agreed on, that is, they will hear the case in the first place.
Will play well to the low information segment of the population.
Tom you are amazing doing the cartoons across three countries . Laughing out loud before daylight is fun inits self.
When the MSM attribute the days talking point to “experts ” I have a mental image of these poisonous spindly toad stools deciding ,having had their orders from the Labor spin machine ,how they were going to influence the community narrative.
These are the Experts who tell us all that THEY hey think we should know.
Dilbert the word salad edition
Three of my offspring are working their arses off in meaningful trades*, already investing in stocks and property and well on the way to their first $M.
Myself? Well sh*t, I only grow and harvest food, averaging at least 20hrs a week more than the likes of monty and his intellectual drinking buddies.
To be called a “silvertail and spiv” by a parasite such as this after risking so much sort of grates.
I suppose being able to accommodate so many parasites is what makes our society so good because it would suggest those who genuinely can’t help themselves have already been looked after.
Once upon a time the fantasy football would’ve been left on the nearest anthill.
Daily Telegraph has article up about NSW Premier and Vax mandates. Comments open.
To be called a “silvertail and spiv” by a parasite such as this after risking so much sort of grates.
The only ‘value’ in having the fat toadstool here is to illustrate the moral exhaustion, stupidity and evil of the modern left. A really nasty piece of work.
We aren’t on the side of rich people or poor people.
We’re on the side of right – the Golden Rule, civilization and truth – whereas you’re on the side of wrong – hypocrisy, poverty, misery and lies.
^* not lesbian dance theory
Rita Panahi:
Australia’s leading sporting bodies are determined to play a dangerous and divisive game of race politics that’s certain to alienate huge segments of the community.
The AFL together with the NRL, NBL, Rugby Australia, Football Australia, Cricket Australia and Tennis Australia and Netball Australia are working with the Albanese government to push the “yes” campaign for the race based referendum for an indigenous voice to parliament.
What they want to do is guilt Australians into enshrining racial politics into the constitution; a move that manages to be foolish both commercially and ethically.
The AFL in particular appears to be a slow learner after recklessly diving into toxic race politics again and again.
The ongoing Alastair Clarkson and Chris Fagan inquiry, sparked by Hawthorn’s discredited review, will embarrass the league on several fronts, all of them self-inflicted and entirely avoidable.
Gill McLachlan’s legacy is set to be tarnished together with the game.
For a league obsessed with spin and brand management, the AFL sure have developed an unfortunate knack for hara-kiri.
It was McLachlan who falsely labelled large swathes of footy fans racist for booing Swans great Adam Goodes, a false narrative pushed by the race-baiting media and accepted as gospel.
There was a time, decades ago, when the AFL was at the forefront of stamping out racist abuse and ensuring everyone was treated equally, now it routinely engages in divisive political posturing, advocate for special treatment of particular racial groups and buy into the most absurd notions of victimhood.
The so-called indigenous voice is not only divisive and, many would argue, racist, but it also undermines the democratic principle of “one man, one vote”.
It is a policy that is highly controversial and with a decent chance of failing particularly if the Liberal Party grow a backbone and come out strongly against the referendum.
Details have thus far been scant but what little we do know paints a disturbing picture of how “the voice” can be weaponised by activists in the High Court.
Former High Court Justice Ian Callinan warns that we may see a “decade or more of constitutional and administrative law litigation” if the ‘yes’ vote gets up.
“Like Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and many other Australians, including many, many lawyers of goodwill, I do not think the voice is the way,” he wrote.
Most sports fans, whatever their political persuasion, would prefer politics to stop intruding into the game they love. Sport is supposed to be an escape, not a vehicle to push political ideology.
Labour has to get more tax money to pay for Medicare and NDIS blowouts.
If only we knew who to blame for these bottomless cash pits?
.. and here’s Dilbert with a take on the reaction to Scott Adam’s comments:
https://dilbert.com/strip/2023-02-26
NDIS was always Cloward-Piven material.
Why do so many conservatives and others on the right, when accused of being mean and unkind, then quickly quiver, tremble, submit, and prostrate themselves before the left by saying…
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry for being mean
I’m sorry, I’m sorry for being unkind
I’m sorry, I’m sorry for being such a meanie, forgive me, forgive me”
all for speaking truth, be it about climate change, the Voice, or particularly the lie and absurdity that is transgenderism?
Why?
But here’s something that’s actually worse, far worse than the above. Why do so many on the right, who like to pretend they are warriors when fighting the culture wars, yet when real warriors like American Matt Walsh and Brit Kellie Jay Keen dare to speak some home truths about transgender freaks, then quickly ally themselves with progressives, wave the coward’s flag and join in on the howls of outrage and condemnation of Walsh, Keen and others by stating “oh…oh….oh….we agree what that meanie Matt Walsh said was awful, just awful, unkind, and hurtful, Matt Walsh should never have said that, I would never say that”.
Why?
No wonder we’ve lost the culture wars, but it’s worse than that. Do you wonder why the situation arose in Scotland, where a double rapist with a penis decided to “identify” as a women in order to be sent to a female only prison, and that double rapist didn’t even try to hide his penis, he was pictured comfortably walking into court with skin tight gym pants on that squashed and squeezed his todger, but his todger was very evident for all and sundry to see? Do you wonder why the absurd situation arose where a young male pervert decided to identify as a woman in order to cheat at swimming, and why he felt comfortable walking around the female only change room swinging his todger for embarrassed young girls to see? Well stop wondering, one of the reasons is because for far too long even conservatives have played along with the ‘gotta be nice’ narrative, and the ‘we have to respect their feelings’ narrative. Being nice, being respectful of feelings, being considerate, and all the rest of the bulldust, has simply empowered the perverts and freaks.
This is why I admire American commentator Matt Walsh. A little over a week ago, Walsh spoke some plain truths about that gothic freak and all round pervert, Dylan Mulvaney, who was last year entertained at the White House by the old Sniffer. Hmm, I wonder if Putin would have granted Mulvaney an audience? I somehow think…..NYET. Anyway, I digress, once upon a time an ugly and very sinister freak like Dylan Mulvaney would have belonged in either a mental asylum or a circus. Among other sinister things, Mulvaney is obsessed with tampons, menstruation, and female only bathrooms, and recently HE put out a video which shows HIS latest facial feminisation surgery (one day HIS face will collapse) and HIS whole shtick is one of parodying females. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, putting on women face is as obscene as someone putting on black face. Anyway, in HIS latest video stunt, Mulvaney, when not flicking his hair and pouting his lips because HE thinks that’s what women do, insists that HE, with HIS new surgery, would be able to steal cis women’s husbands. Sure Dylan, sure.
So, in a Youtube video last week Matt Walsh decided to call out Mulvaney and his sinister shtick. Walsh was brutal in his takedown of Mulvaney and I approve wholeheartedly of every word Walsh said. But many on the right, or even those who are not on the right but call out progressive rubbish, accused Walsh of being a meanie! But Walsh hasn’t backed down, he won’t apologise and he says, accurately, that one of the reasons why this transgender insanity has taken over our culture is because too many on the right are too timid, too scared and too cowardly to stand up and say enough.
Here’s what Matt Walsh said about a bloke called Dylan Mulvaney…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h02TFnsxHYc
Walsh is pretty succinct in his appraisal of the pervert. Culture wars are not won by being “nice”. As Matt Walsh says…
“Stop Sacrificing Truth On The Altar Of Nice”
It isn’t much to ask, is it?
Interesting, Cassie. The guy’s as solid as a hologram. As Walsh says, everything is fake…everything.
We need to reserve the right to be offensive, especially when something asserted is clearly a lie. It’s a bit harder to unpack hyperbole in a way that doesn’t offend, especially for subjects near and dear to the speaker/crowd.
Why These Cities Are More Doomed Than Others (Pt. 1) | Peter Thiel | TECH | Rubin Report
If anyone half decent ever occupies the White House again it will have to be fumigated.
The EU is set to ban glyphosate and wants to pass on its non-science policies to any country that exports to the EU in order to protect Euro farmers from competition as farming costs inevitably rise.
Remind me again why we’re at war with Russia.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing – and by that reckoning mUnty has a lethal radius of 500km.
If his ignorance was ever directed and focused on a single thing that matters, such as the design of a bridge, then hundreds would be killed in the design phase before the first sod of earth was turned or the first stake pushed into the ground.
And if he was ever introduced through malice or accident to the heart of a nation from which his baleful thoughts might be carried by to the furthest extremities of the nation and thence carried across the world then, well, in 65 million years or so, some new species of intelligent life would assay the mineralised bones and crumbling concrete fragments from our time and, perplexed by their abrupt disappearance from the history, speculate wildly on such things as rogue asteroids the size of mountains or global volcanic cataclysms.
Australian Gov travel advice for South Africa.
https://www.smartraveller.gov.au/destinations/africa/south-africa
In the Oz today:
The reason given? It was linked to one case of anaphylaxis under general anaesthesia – ONE, ONE! ONE! ONE!!.
Yet the TGA still push the COVID injections, after many more than one suspicious death.
BASTARDS – CORRUPT CORRUPT BASTARDS
CGT ‘discounts’ are of course illusory in many cases because the supposed gain in value of the capital asset is generated not be a true increase in value of the asset, but rather a fall in the value of the dollars it is denominated in.
Even if you accept the official inflation numbers (and you cant, you should double them), any ‘capital gain’ this year would have to be discounted by 8 or 9% just to account for inflation.
Using a declining dollar to ‘value’ any asset (wages, property, gold etc) is one of the governments biggest scams, and they run it year in year out.
Mark Knight reads this blog. I think.
An Absolutely Detailed Analysis from Past to Present to Future
The Changing Face Of War – Future of the Russian SMO
Simplicius The Thinker
“There are decades when nothing happens, and there are weeks when decades happen.” – Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov
How historical conflict inflections steer us into modern unknowns.
An Amazing Read
In the end, we can’t predict how long the Ukrainian conflict will last, though it’ll likely be some time, at least several years, barring any unforeseen black-swan events. And that’s more than enough time to witness a truly epochal turning of the page in the evolution of combat systems, which will forever change the face of all warfare.
One day we’ll look back at these dim birthing moments of consumer-grade drones crudely hoisting bomblets into trenches in the same light we took to that seemingly lawless, antediluvian world of aerial pistol shoot-outs, long before the Red Baron’s Fokker scourged the Allied skies. And with the galvanized national spirit, the unprecedented solidarity of the Russian narod, and fervor of ingenuity seen daily in their fighters, it’s clear that Russia will be the one who takes the reins—and leads the world by the hand through the inchoate darkness of this new era.
monty’s idea that workers won’t be affected by these new superannnuation rapes (taxes) is piffle.
If you have been a HC truck driver for 30 years, tell me why a modest equity market return can’t accumulate to 3 mn. The maths says it is entirely possible from equities.
“Truck drivers aren’t blue collar wukkas, think of the poor graduate political staffers who only get paid 90% of a linehaul guy…”
As much as I want the NSW Liberals to get punished, the ALP make it easy for you to not want them in office.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/the-changing-face-of-war-future-of
Autonomous drones fly through Chinese bamboo forest
South China Morning Post
Decent analysis from ‘American Thinker’ asking why electric vehicles, given their inferior performance by just about any metric (price, range, weight, environmental foot print), are being shoved down our throats anyway..
The conclusion: This coerced conversion plan is clearly a disaster if the goal is to provide the American people a better way to travel. But what if the goal is something other than converting to a “better mousetrap”? Could it be that a coalition of globalists, environmental fundamentalists, and totalitarian-leaning politicians are conspiring to limit the freedom of Americans and control their ability to move about? After all, it is a lot easier to shut down, curtail, or monitor a centrally managed electric grid than it is to close 115,000 gas stations
British journalist shows how the CIA played a ‘direct’ role in the creation of Google
NATO chief says Ukraine will ‘become a member of our alliance’ in the ‘long term’
Kari Lake War Room
@KariLakeWarRoom
Want to know an easy way to “rig” an election?
It’s called ballot adjudication
The normal rate of adjudication is no greater than 4%
Over the last two years in Maricopa?
11.9% in 2020
14.36% in 2022
Why are our election officials increasingly deciding who people voted for?
Here’s a bunch of horror stories from the Canadian health care system that Bernie Sanders wants the U.S. to copy
DiedSuddenly
@DiedSuddenly_
TRAGIC: Walking Dead star, Jansen Panettiere has #diedsuddenly due to heart complications.
The star’s passing was confirmed last week, after law enforcement officials were called to his home in New York.
The actors & extras on set were reportedly ALL mandated to take the (jab symbol)
m0ntysays:
February 28, 2023 at 10:22 pm
It looks like the tax rate change only applies to the accumulation phase.
Jim Chalmers wants to enshrine a lack of upward mobility. This is not a pro worker Labor Party.
LOL there are no poor suffering workers that will be affected by this. It’s all silvertails and spivs.
Keating and the unions were working for the benefit of “silvertails and spivs”? Who knew, except every close observer of the move of the Liars from the party of the urban and rural working class to the party of “silvertails and spivs”?
You really are slow to catch on, aren’t you m0nty=fa?
Catturd ™
@catturd2
This the dumbest statement I’ve heard in a long time … virtue-signaling, race-baiting cringe on steroids.
@BryanCranston, like most Hollywood actors, are complete idiots when they’re not handed a script. It’s amazing to me just how dumb they are in real life.
Inflation is certainly insidious. It is like living in Wiily Wonka land where everything is getting bigger – and then you realise your ruler is shrinking. When I first started consulting around 1990 all our modelling had an inflation number built in because if cashflow could handle it it would have a real impact on debt capacity. If you know you can make repayments (which are predominately interest) there is no real incentive not to just allow the principal to get inflated away. As an individual you cannot do this because your cashflow is not indefinite and the bank wants its principal back, albeit over 30 years.
Couldn’t be more obvious, and has been for years.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/the-changing-face-of-war-future-of
He Who Controls The Chips Controls The Future
We’ve established that those who have the biggest computational power will have the most advanced AI systems, with the most possible pure instruction/operations-churning abilities. And that means, those with the best chips, i.e. semiconductor industries and capabilities, will be the kings of the coming AI wars.
The Intel CEO at Davos said that: “Chip supply chains will shape geopolitics more than oil over the next 50 years”.
U.S. and China, of course, are among the leading nations in this regard, while Russia nurses here one of its most glaring weaknesses. However, not all is lost. U.S. has the technological base, but relies heavily on H1B visa emigres from many other countries like India, China, Russia, etc. (how many, for instance, are aware that Intel’s Pentium line was named after its Russian chief designer, Vladimir Pentkovski?)
This is a major weak point for the U.S. because, as the world continues to de-dollarize, and the worth of American fiat and lifestyle continues to plummet in comparison to the ascendant home countries which these emigres come from, it will become less and less attractive to come work in the U.S., and alternatively, more competitive to stay home. This will lead to a severe degradation of American ‘innovation’ in these fields.
And on the topic of actual human capital as regards the programming and designing of these future AI systems, Russia can be said to have no equal in the world. And its newer generations are shining ever brighter. Just take a look at these results for the renowned ‘International Collegiate Programming’ championships:
Sure, the U.S. finally snatched a single victory in the most recent event. But the entire past two decades have been dominated by Russia.
The institutions with the most wins:
And if you want to see how far U.S. has fallen in its intellectual human capital and native education system, just look at previous decades of the same contest:
The U.S. was nonpareil, back before the disastrous neo-liberal policies condemned the very fabric of society.
One could argue that the future belongs to those with the technology, but the technology will belong to those with the human capital to dream it up and innovate it.
Recall, one of the only reasons for Russia’s putative ‘backwardness’ when it comes to tech advancement in comparison to the West, is due to the vast and unfair handicap artificially imposed upon it—Russia has had its wings clipped at every turn. Via overwhelming sanctions. Obstacles and sabotage imposed for decades. When it came to critical industries, the West had always selfishly ‘hogged’ the tech amongst themselves for iterative development.
And as I touched on in this article, just as the West feigns Russia’s dependence on their chips, they in fact conceal their own, true dependencies on both Russia and China for the resources by which to make those chips. You see, the West has the (H1B imported) technological know-how, but not the raw materials. This article from a U.S. think-tank calls it a national security threat of the highest priority.
UK Gov. secretly confirms Triple+ Vaccinated accounted for 92% of COVID Deaths in 2022
Good on them.
Vermont Girls Basketball Team Forfeits State Tournament Game Due To Trans Player On Opposing Team
That picture of Yellen is stomach turning. It’s like she’s bowing before God.
Catturd ™
@catturd2
America first …… America last.
Albo should invite Buttigieg to march with him at the next Mardi Gras.
Trans Sec. Buttigieg reveals he seeks climate legacy: ‘Dealing with climate change is one of the biggest things that people like me…will be remembered for’ (28 Feb)
Transportation IG Investigating Buttigieg Using Govt Planes for Personal Use (28 Feb)
It was so predictable that when they dug up the contamination from the East Palestine derailment he sent the toxic waste to Texas.
Tolerance is long gone, thanks to the “tolerant” left.
Marjorie Taylor Greene
@mtgreenee
I was attacked in a restaurant tonight by an insane women and screamed at by her adult son.
They had no respect for the restaurant or the staff or the other people dining or people like me who simply have different political views.
They are self righteous, insane, and completely out of control.
I was sitting at my table, working with my staff, and never even noticed these people until they turned into demons.
People used to respect others even if they had different views.
But not anymore.
Our country is gone.
iPhone’s ‘Clean Energy Charging’: the beginning of dystopia
Flat White
iPhone users raged on social media after they discovered why their devices have been a bit sluggish on the charging front… ‘Clean Energy Charging’ is a new feature introduced to iOS version 16.1 by Apple to ‘reduce the carbon footprint’ of their iPhone. Like all things ‘environmental’, it’s also a pain in the arse.
When enabled, the setting only charges a person’s iPhone if the energy grid tells the phone that it is being powered by so-called ‘clean’ energies like solar and wind – which means your phone can be plugged into a perfectly good power source and do absolutely nothing, rejecting energy flowing through the grid (which isn’t saved). It’s about as pointless as the energy wastage that goes on during Earth Hour.
Apple says their new feature ‘lowers your electricity usage’ as well as making you feel all warm and squishy about being a virtuous climate warrior – although they might have phrased it slightly differently in the fine print nobody read.
According to makeuseof.com, ‘When you connect your iPhone to a charger, iOS downloads a carbon emission forecast automatically in the background and relies on your device’s location to find the nearby energy grid. Having retrieved this forecast from the load balancing authority for your region, iOS has the knowledge it needs to automatically restrict charging to lower carbon emission electricity.’
In true Silicon Valley style, this feature kicks in when you connect to your favourite locations, ensuring maximum irritation and inconvenience. Most people who plug their phone in, expect it to charge – not behave like a vegan at an all-you-can-eat BBQ.
So much for the good old days when your iPhone only stalked you for the purpose of Google Maps. Now, in a Chinese-dystopian-style upgrade, your phone is stalking you to place moral limitations on your energy use.
This virtuous upgrade wasn’t exactly well publicised, because furious users are turning it off in fits of anger. They thought their phones were broken, now they find out they’ve gone Woke. It’s almost worse.
How do you fix ‘Woke’?
Thankfully, Apple hasn’t spread this ideological infection to all its users. Americans are the lab rats, but rest assured your phones in Australia will soon start having a sook, going flat in the presence of perfectly good charging outlets.
While Apple include this as part of their ‘battery optimisation’ function, telling your phone not to charge itself because its Silicon Valley parent prefers wasteful, short-lived, Chinese-owned power systems has nothing whatsoever to do with the future health of your battery.
Clean Energy Charging is turned on by default by the upgrade without users being made aware of their phone’s sudden eco-fascist identity disorder.
Blowback already.
Apple iPhone’s Clean Energy feature angers users over charging times (27 Feb)
Great way to red pill a person is to have Gaia deny them the ability to charge their phone.
The ABC in the USA has surprisingly published an article calling into question the logistics of converting to EVs. It is worth reading as it talks from a consumer’s point of view. I noted in the comments that a contributor had calculated that to move to EVs this would require 15 times the number of charging stations as there are current petrol stations. I suspect this is pretty close to reality. Has anyone done any calculations for this in Australia? And who is going to pay for them and where is the electricity to come from? A question for Minister Bowen?https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/02/28/nolte-abc-news-admits-electric-vehicles-are-logistical-nightmare/
The Horrifying Endgame in Ukraine
BY JAMES RICKARD
In yesterday’s issue, I addressed the biggest and most complex topic on the geopolitical landscape today — China.
But today I’m discussing what is by far the most alarming topic on the geopolitical landscape today. That’s the war in Ukraine and the dangers of escalation.
I’ve written extensively about two facets of the war in Ukraine that you don’t hear from legacy media in the United States or U.K. The first is that Russia is actually winning the war.
U.S. outlets such as The New York Times (a channel for the State Department) and The Washington Post (a channel for the CIA) report endlessly about how Russian plans have failed, about how incompetent they are about how the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) have pushed back Russians in the Donbass, and how NATO weapons such as U.S. Abrams tanks, U.K. Challenger tanks and German Leopard tanks will turn the tide against Russia soon.
This is all nonsense. None of it is true.
Reality Check
First off, the Ukrainian advances that took place in late summer were against lightly defended positions that the Russians quickly conceded to conserve forces. The Russians were willing to give up the land so that they wouldn’t lose valuable men and materiel.
The Russians withdrew to more defensible positions and have been badly mauling Ukrainian attacking forces ever since. Ukraine has wasted incredibly large amounts of men and equipment in these futile and ill-advised attacks.
In all, credible reports indicate that AFU casualties are nearing 500,000 and are increasing at an unsustainable rate. On the other hand, reports of 100,000 Russian dead are almost certainly wild exaggerations put out by Ukraine. The BBC attempted to verify these numbers and could only find about 20,000 confirmed Russian dead based on extensive searches on funeral notices, public records, etc.
Send in the Tanks — Eventually!
What about the tanks NATO is supposedly sending? Well, the tanks have not been delivered yet and most won’t be for months or longer. Our own M1 Abrams tanks might not even arrive for a year or more.
We actually have to custom build these tanks so that they don’t have the special armor and other advanced systems that our own M1s have. The Pentagon doesn’t want them falling into Russian hands if they’re destroyed or captured. Besides, we’re only sending 31 tanks anyway.
When the NATO tanks do arrive, they’ll likely quickly be destroyed by Russian artillery, anti-tank weapons and precision missiles. They’re good tanks, but far from invincible. For decades, the Russians have been developing powerful weapons specifically designed to destroy these NATO tank models. The Russians aren’t particularly worried about them.
Aside from that, tanks rely on effective air cover for protection, which Ukraine lacks. They’ll be sitting ducks on the battlefield. It doesn’t really make sense to send tanks to Ukraine unless you send combat aircraft to give them cover (more on that below).
Russia’s Winning on the Battlefield
Meanwhile, Russian forces have nearly encircled the city of Bakhmut, which is a major transportation and logistics hub, with several key roads and rail lines passing through it. It’ll probably fall to the Russians within weeks.
Losing Bakhmut will be a major blow to Ukraine, despite claims in the western media that it really isn’t very important. Ukraine’s entire 800-mile defensive line would probably begin to crumble, and they don’t have heavily fortified positions to fall back on. Ukrainian troops, while brave and competent soldiers, are exhausted and running out of supplies as it is.
On top of that, it appears likely that Russia is preparing a devastating offensive with massive amounts of men, tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery, helicopters, drones and fixed-wing aircraft.
This Russian army is not the same army that invaded Ukraine a year ago. It’s much better trained, led and equipped. It’s learned from the mistakes it made during its initial invasion last February. Ukraine shouldn’t expect them to repeat those mistakes.
Does all this mean I’m cheering on a Russian victory in Ukraine? No, I’m just observing the facts on the ground and consolidating them to perform an objective analysis.
That analysis leads me to believe that Russia will win the war militarily. Western military assistance may prolong the fighting but won’t affect the ultimate outcome. It’ll just delay the inevitable and get a lot more people needlessly killed.
The Much Greater Risk
The second facet of this war not reported in the media, or at least downplayed, is the growing risk of nuclear war.
This risk increases with every escalatory step by both sides. The U.S. is the leader in reckless escalation by supplying long-range artillery, Patriot anti-missile batteries, intelligence, surveillance, and now the tanks. Russia responds at each step.
There’s a number of steps before the two sides arrive at the nuclear level, but neither shows a willingness to step back.
By the way, Russia has every legal right to attack those NATO countries supplying arms to Ukraine. By supplying arms to a party to the conflict, they’ve given up their neutrality and have become, in effect, combatants. Russia hasn’t done this because it doesn’t want to bring NATO directly into the fight. But legally, it can.
Gimme, Gimme, Gimme
Ukraine’s demands on the U.S., UK and the rest of NATO for advanced weapons to fight Russians know no limits. The West began by supplying Ukraine with cash, intelligence and anti-tank weapons such as the Javelin missile. Soon we were supplying long-range artillery, drones, and more cash.
As Russian advances continued, Zelensky demanded and got Patriot anti-missile batteries that can destroy incoming Russian missiles. The U.S. artillery was aimed at Russian Crimea. Several drones struck inside Russia at sensitive air bases with nuclear weapons nearby.
The next demand for more weapons involved advanced tanks that are in the process of being supplied by the U.S., UK, Germany, and Poland. In the latest move, that comes as no surprise, Ukraine is now demanding F-16 fighter jets from the U.S., one of the most advanced aircraft in the world.
But Russia has the most sophisticated air defense system in the world and is very capable of shooting down F-16s in large numbers.
Biden has denied Zelensky’s request so far, but he previously ruled out sending tanks before finally giving in. The same thing will probably happen with the planes. But they won’t turn the tide against Russia.
Once these advanced systems show they can’t help, what’s the Ukrainian’s next demand? Russia can escalate just as quickly and lethally as the U.S.
This entire scenario is a long slow march toward nuclear war or the complete disintegration of Ukraine.
Is Anyone Really Prepared for This?
The U.S. won’t end the weapons deliveries because Joe Biden is afraid of losing face and his closest advisors such as Victoria Nuland have an irrational hatred for Russia and are total warmongers.
Now, we can add a new danger, resulting from desperation. This is the fact that the U.S. itself may be the biggest loser in the war.
As Ukraine disappears under a massive Russian onslaught, the U.S. will grow increasingly desperate. Its credibility is on the line after committing so much money, materiel and moral weight to Ukraine’s defense.
The Biden administration has essentially turned the war in Ukraine into an existential crisis for the U.S. and NATO, when it never should have been. Ukraine has never been a vital U.S. interest. But the war is existential for Russia, and won’t give up.
Is the U.S. just going to throw up its hands and concede Russian victory? NATO may actually disintegrate in the face of such spectacular failure. So, we’ll probably double down.
Maybe a desperate Biden orders troops into western Ukraine as a buffer against a complete Russian takeover of the country. You can imagine what could go wrong. That situation may quickly devolve into a direct war between the U.S. and Russia rather than the proxy war that it is now.
The American people and investors in particular are not prepared for any of this. They should be. It’s becoming increasingly likely.
Walsh was rather polite, I expected a more succinct indictment. Mulvaney has managed to turn his face somewhat female with makeup and hair extensions but the rest of him is an epitome of a scrawny boy about to have sand kicked in his face by Mr Atlas.
These sort of lies will be sold to our children and grandchildren so that in future the only way they will be able to tell who is what is by surreptitious DNA tests like those highlighted in the movie Gattaca.
The Abortion Militancy of the Department of Defense
The DoD’s promotion of abortion – including paying for servicewomen to abort their children – puts active service members in a moral dilemma.
As Ronald Reagan once said, “If we ever forget we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.” It is clear that we are on a path to going under when the most vulnerable are open targets to be “terminated,” in active collaboration by an alleged department of “defense.” We must not give up or lose hope, for we know that the Resurrection is a fact that changes reality. And life will always triumph over death. But we must fight. So help us God.
Like the Human Rights Commission who, on discovering that there are simply too few cases to justify their continued existence, are spurred by an instinct to self-preservation which drives them to redefine the evils they must root out.
The HRC was reduced to trying to drum up business, sneaking into various social fora, hawking their wares, begging for people to be offended by opinion pieces to which no one had so far objected. The ‘human rights’ commission which should have been called the ‘Human Rights Commission Commission’ since it was a commission dedicated to the welfare of the HRC rather than people.
I did enjoy Tim Blair’s selection of names for Southpossumarse.
NSW and QLD are rolling out extensive charging station networks.
The tax payer is paying for them.
The electricity will come from renewables.
There is nothing governments can’t do.
Until they can’t.
Yup. But the real agenda was revealed in another story I read about this, where one of the ‘experts’ gleefully said something like – good! Another opioid removed from sale! We managed to get rid of products with codeine in them recently, now this.
Clearly the agenda has nothing to do with public safety, and everything to do with making it harder and harder for people to get effective pain relief without further burdening the already over-stretched GP system. Even then, GP’s are constantly surveilled and monstered by the Health Department about alleged over-prescribing, even as the population ages and more and more people have chronic pain conditions.
Sure, there is a black market for prescription drugs, but instead of dealing with that, they make everybody suffer at vast public expense.
And as Dr Duk says, they are mighty selective about the public safety issues they choose to focus on.
Why hasn’t Russia overran the whole place yet? How could do many Russian tanks and vehicles be destroyed?
Ukraine only had 400k soldiers to begin with. 500k casualties and less than 20k Russian casualties would suggest Russia can just start walking towards Kiev from every direction. There should be virtually nothing left in their way now.
Instead they’re taking weeks and months to take small abandoned cities with some strategic value as logistics hubs.
That just makes me want to go to the black market. Pain kills productivity.
I have taken opiates and not become addicted, if normal analgesics don’t work I want to be able to at least get some desk work done.
This should not be the choice of unelected bureaucrats.
Via Lucianne:
Get Tomorrow’s Disinformation Today! (28 Feb)
“This disinformation business sure has gotten complicated lately.
In the past few days, a key federal agency concluded that COVID was likely the result of a Chinese lab leak. A prestigious medical journal reported that natural immunity is better than vaccines against COVID. Another that mask mandates were worthless. And President Joe Biden’s advanced age is now, according to Biden, a legitimate issue.
All of these claims had been labeled as “disinformation” by the mainstream press, by “independent” fact-checkers, by social media platforms. Anyone who espoused them was attacked as a crazy anti-vaxxer, QAnon racist, Russian stooge who deserved to be de-platformed, demonetized, and discredited.”
RTWT, it’s one of the best editorializations of the plague of propaganda and censorship we’ve been experiencing the last 3 years. They also have personal experience having been monstered by Google themselves.
Sadly they don’t get in to climate hysteria, J6 or the stolen elections, but there’s a limit how much you can squeeze into one column. And the damning stuff on Covid censorship means the identical climate and election censorship is just as much a tell that both those gigantic frauds are quite real.
Anyone else been watching something on you tube then a NSW State election ad diverts to another video with a stupid blonde bint talking about “following Victoria” and funding more parental waste drop off centres?
There certainly not “centres of childhood education excellence” as they are being shilled.
Might get kicked off Google for my trollish reporting of these videos. I’m so bloody sick of them.
Colour me sceptical.
Given that Australia’s energy grid is reliant on coal I can see a lot of Apple users switching to Samsung et al.
do –> so
This was manually edited, then “autocorrected” back! Stupid iPhone!
Of course the aim is to control our movements. The globalists have obviously learned from Mad Max movies that petrol vehicles are far too risky and far too useful in escaping central control.
Apple literally lost a fortune in sales last year when their Chinese suppliers couldn’t keep their inventory stocked in the Christmas lead up.
Figures says:
March 1, 2023 at 7:10 am
We aren’t on the side of rich people or poor people.
LOL.
You sound like Maxwell Smart.
You are right this time, but.
Their ABC nods approvingly:
Rooftop solar poised to become Australia’s biggest power source amid coal’s demise
This glorious record turns on an important word: ‘capacity’. Because sent out power is an entirely different story:
Not sure how OpenNEM actually estimates rooftop solar generation, but these quoted figures demonstrate the massive capacity inefficiency of rooftop solar installations. Even though rooftop solar is only capable of generating about 33% of the day, it appears that significant practical limitations sit on top of that.
The estimates also show that Australia has slow walked itself into being a tempting target for government confiscation of private power via communidy batteries and smart meters.
Never be low-hanging fruit.
Robotics and AI as seen by SF writers in the early 1950’s. The comments are good too. via Instapundit.
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/68808.html
Wasn’t monty bragging about home ownership yesterday in defence of him cheering super changes? Which is fine, home ownership is good. Maybe not for much longer. Terry McCrann:
What will our dynamic duo target next? The single most obvious would be to slap the capital gains tax on the sale of ‘expensive’ family homes.
All the, for want of a better word, arguments that our peripatetic PM and trainee treasurer have deployed for putting a cap on super balances apply equally and exactly to ending the unlimited tax-free status of the family home.
Indeed, they could even use exactly the same figure: $3m. You don’t ‘need’ more than $3m in super, they say. Surely then, no-one ‘needs’ to live in a family home worth more than $3m either?
Why should people with super balances of $5m, $10m and indeed $100m or more get the, for them, super-sized super tax concessions?
Why indeed then, should people living in $5m, $10m or $100m homes pocket millions and tens of millions of tax concessions when they sell?
Those super tax concessions are just getting – according to our duo, unsustainably – bigger and bigger every year. Why, by 2050, according to the duo, they’ll be ‘costing’ $50bn a year.
Well, that’s chicken feed against what it ‘costs’ the budget to leave the family home capital gain-tax free.
According to the Treasury analysis that used to have the fiscally Orwellian title “Tax Expenditures Statement” – now, perhaps in embarrassment, the more bureaucratically anodyne “Tax Benchmarks and Variations Statement” – the cost of the tax concessions on the family home have already surged way past that $50bn.
The last Treasury estimate was a cost of $64bn for the 2021-22 year. An earlier Treasury estimate, by the bye, had them costing nearly $100bn by 2021-22 – just another example of peerless Treasury forecasting.
Why should super become a means of estate planning for the rich and even just the relatively well-off, the duo assert?
Why indeed then should the family home become an even bigger means of estate planning? Far more people pass on their homes than their super balance.
With obviously, those living in $50m and $100m homes able to pass on much bigger lumps of tax saving to their heirs and successors than those living in $3m and $5m homes.
And those in $3m and $5m homes so much tax-free better-off in their estate planning than those in $1m and $1.5m homes. With $500k home-owners better off, courtesy of the tax man, than those renting and passing on diddly squat.
The devil in the relentless inflation-compounding detail is that many – most – could never imagine having a super balance of $3m or living in a $3m home.
So the average person might think they had little-to-zip to fear from the taxing of $3m-plus super balances; and similarly with the taxing of $3m-plus homes.
But ask yourself, how many ever thought they’d be living even in a $1m home – now passe in Melbourne and Sydney?
How many thought they’d ever be in the top tax bracket, hit at $180k? Or even the bracket below that, where you have the pleasure of handing over 39c of every dollar of extra income over just $120k?
Well, more than 500,000 are in the top bracket, heading – rapidly, thanks to accelerating bracket creep – to one million before 2030.
And over 2m, heading just as rapidly towards 3m, are in the second bracket.
I can remember when the first home in Toorak publicly sold for more than the then incredible figure of – $1m.
I can also remember when CEOs got paid around or less than $200k a year.
There’d also be little-to-zip comfort in an Albo promise not to tax the family home. That it’s not in “The Plan”, which we’ve heard zip of since the election.
Nor was any change to super; the absolute promise of “no change” got re-defined post-election as a promise of no ‘big’ change.
Dad, a Pommy veteran of WWII (Navy) used to joke. “The British never retreat. We just retire to prepared positions.”
I think he was joking……
Because, unlike the US, with their short memories and media cycle (remember Bush’s ‘End of Major Combat Operations’ banner?), the Russians know what real victory looks like. It looks like (to quote Arnie), the obliteration of your enemies and the wailing of their women’.
The Russians are doing what is called ‘preparing the battlefield’ – they are relentlessly degrading the combat power of the Ukrainians (albeit more slowly than they expected – due to Western weapons transfers) until it becomes so weak that a general rout ensues. This is the military equivalent of Hemmingways ‘slowly then quickly’ statement.
This was what the ‘Coalition’ did in Gulf War One – they built up slowly, waged an air campaign first, then over-ran Iraq in a couple of weeks. The error they made, however, was in then shifting to a non military mission (building a democracy) which was never possible. Thus they entered a different war which they ultimately lost.
The principle Russian victory goal here is destruction of Ukrainian combat power (which had been used for 8 years to shell ethnic Russians in the Donbass), not to take any particular piece of terrain, especially not prematurely.
Reminds me of that photo of Obama bowing before some Saudi Prince.
Wait until blackouts happen due to coal power station closures. I wonder if we will be able to hear the screams all the way from Sydney eastern suburbs to the outer west.
What these purists need to do is buy portable solar panels to charge their phones during lunchtimes, in the park. As a bonus it could get them out and into fresh air. Cloudy and rainy days may not prove popular.
General Smith, Chosin Reservoir. ” Retreat Help! We are not retreating, but advancing in another direction”. Technically correct, as they were surrounded.
Frikken autocorrect. “Retreat Hell!”
At night too? That’s a miracle!
Er…no.
Firstly, Russia hasn’t declared war against Ukraine. Ergo, nations supporting Ukraine with military aid are not breaking any rules of neutrality.
Secondly, if Russia did declare war, it becomes the aggressor, whereupon the Kellogg-Briand Pact relieves non-belligerent nations of the demands of strict neutrality. Ergo, they do not become combatant nations by supplying arms to Ukraine.
I’m not arguing about the wisdom of supplying Ukraine with arms, but clarifying the legal status of countries that do so. The argument that Russia could legally attack such countries is at best simply wrong, at worst Russian propaganda.
That just makes me want to go to the black market. Pain kills productivity.
I have taken opiates and not become addicted, if normal analgesics don’t work I want to be able to at least get some desk work done.
The campaign against opioids is just evil shit.
Its a great painkiller, most synthetic painkillers flat out mimic its effects.
Millions of people are denied safe, effective pain relief for chronic or long term painful conditions because a % may become addicted.
If I am in constant 7/10 pain from a ongoing degenerative condition of which I will never recover, then damn right I WANT to be addicted to an opioid.
I will maintain a dose to reduce my pain from teeth grinding agony down to a dull ache.
And i want access to a steady supply of cheap, legal, reliable supply.
As for junkies – hows the prohibition working so far – are you winning yet?
If anyone half decent ever occupies the White House again it will have to be fumigated.
It’s a wonder that these so called ‘progressives’ haven’t called the White House racist and demand that it be named by another colour. Maybe, pink for stink. BTW, white is not a colour.
But the problem is unless you use it you lose it. We got solar and battery included in our house. We get to use the solar, then it goes to battery, and the neighbours battery on so on until all the batteries in the village are full. They cannot export more than the equivalent of 1 households worth of solar to the grid (200 houses with solar and battery in the village).
It has been a big a wrench to switch to using power in the peak of the day.
Heavy-lifting drone developed in China raises bar for high-altitude construction work 1 Min 28 Secs
South China Morning Post
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88vS7IhUI54
I love the fact that the goods arrive on the back of Mules/Horses?
I can’t believe the “passes” Russian incompetence gets here.
Surely it does not take one year to soften up a numerically weaker enemy, lacking a proper air force, with apparently massive casualties and you’ve already almost captured their capital and attached international airport and air base on day 3.
Their army seemed to devolve into an imperial police force during the post WWII soviet era and it never got better.
Forgot to add, most days my battery is full by 10am, and often by 9am.