Extreme Unction, Nicolas Poussin, 1646
Apparently Justine is threatening to arrest Bibi. Is Anal threatening to do the same? Justine likes to go to Taytay…
Open Thread – Tue 14 March 2023
- Open Thread – Mon 25 Nov 2024
- The more you gets the less you eats
- Open Thread – Weekend 23 Nov 2024
- Open Thread – Thurs 21 Nov 2024
- Open Thread – Mon 18 Nov 2024
Craig Kelly Albanese enters the Guinness Book of Records – 11 porkies in 33 seconds. A new world record.
Surely an app could be written that can block certain social media which the parents can download onto their children’s…
I once had an AFP officer tell me that I was p*ssing him off, so he was going to have…
I was trying to edit my post about Malcolm Roberts’ comments on the under 16 bill but ran out of…
Rose bud.
These new threads are coming more frequently than usual.
The greatest tragedy of the war in Ukraine is the loss of Ukraine’s future. As a little bit of a historian, I would expect that Russia has made a rather brutal calculation that they can withstand greater losses for longer. And I say that as someone whose nephew from a former marriage is currently fighting in Ukraine, having been drafted from the Russian Far East despite having a pregnant wife. My former sister-in-law’s partner volunteered to fight alongside him.
I expect that Ukraine and Russia will eventually come to a negotiated peace. But nothing will replace the men – sons, husbands and fathers – who are now dead and who in many cases will never reproduce. The loss of infrastructure – apartment buildings, power plants, bridges, roads – will be a part of Ukraine’s future long after the West’s attention has moved elsewhere and it is no longer fashionable to have the Ukrainian flag on one’s Twitter bio.
I remember driving to work one day, listening to Billy Joel’s ” Goodnight Saigon” and having a type of epiphany that those who wage war seldom put their own sons in harm’s way. And, at the same moment, I felt the loss of human potential and spirit that war entails.
Most people on understanding my family history believe I will automatically support Russia in this conflict. But my heart is with the Ukrainian people (be they Ukrainian or Russian or Hungarian speakers) who are suffering a cataclysm that will reverberate for generations.
Two a week, Gabor; it’s us that are slowing down…
You can never have enough ‘Freds’. Well done the Contributors.
You know AOC is kind of hot:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/D3O9aM_bDZc
I say that as someone whose nephew from a former marriage is currently fighting in Ukraine, having been drafted from the Russian Far East despite having a pregnant wife. My former sister-in-law’s partner volunteered to fight alongside him.
Neither Zelensky or Putin are worth a drop of anyone’s blood. Like fighting and dying for Albo FFS.
John Spooner.
Speaking of Netflix watching that German true crime doco on Brigit Meier; despite her brother being head of the Hamburg police, local police completely bungled the investigation, even leaving behind mountains of evidence in the main suspect’s ‘secret room’.
He committee suicide after being caught with a machine gun in his boot, his wife remarried, then died and the second husband had left it all there so it was still there when the brother retired nearly twenty years later, and decided to investigate his sister’s death.
A reminder too how poor many Germans were after the war. The suspect’s family had been evicted in the early fifties and moved to a “refugee camp’ no sewerage, no heating.
Mark Knight.
Peter Broelman.
David Rowe.
Graeme Bandeira.
Christian Adams.
Steve Bright.
Morten Morland.
Michael Ramirez.
A.F. Branco.
Bob Gorrell.
Ben Garrison.
TheirABC has an entirely predictable response to Perrottet’s stupid thoughtbubble about creating miniscule (by the time they mature) taxpayer subsidised savings accounts for anklebiters, which will require yet another bureaucracy. Instead of pointing out that it is a stupid idea, in a revelation that will surprise nobody with a functioning brain:
What’s more, this brainfart was based on something dreamed up by Justin Blackface’s idiotic, bumbling and authoritarian regime. Yep, that where the SFLs now go for policy inspiration.
Notice that it requires creating a centralised government database of all children in NSW.
The stupid, the unprincipled, it burns. (h/t Anthony Watts)
Been catching up at The Conservative Woman, an excellent UK site. Link on the sidebar.
One article which touched me was about how old folks’ homes are run like institutions, prisons even. Look, I get that they have to maintain some sort of order. But, as is asked, why is it a rule that everyone has to be up and dressed by 9 am? One of the joys of retirement is that I can get up or not whenever I like, ditto for getting dressed. Paying a fortune for being treated like a child at boarding school, or a prisoner in jail, is a very unattractive proposition.
My link above is to an article about how parts of the NHS have turned into bed-clearing operations for elderly patients. The stories are appalling – patients being denied food and water, no doctor in sight, only the intervention of relatives averted what I would classify as murder.
Combine that with the push for ‘assisted death’ and it would seem that one of the main strategies for dealing with soaring health costs is bumping off patients.
But nothing will replace the men – sons, husbands and fathers – who are now dead and who in many cases will never reproduce.
Ya think?
Via Michael Smith, the Russkies are using photos of Biden in their Dementia Care advertising. LOL!
After reading articles recently about a glut of pineapples emanating from Queensland, in a remarkable coincidence, there is also a glut in those coming from the Azores into the UK:
Lovers of pizza should care deeply about this.
Not much detail about why Signature Bank went under. A couple of interesting snippets in this story though:
Signature Bank Closes After SVB Collapse (13 Mar)
“Signature was a commercial bank with private client offices in New York, Connecticut, California, Nevada and North Carolina, and had nine national business lines including commercial real estate and digital asset banking. As of September, almost a quarter of its deposits came from the cryptocurrency sector, but the bank announced in December that it would shrink its crypto-related deposits by $8 billion.
…
The bank had a long-standing relationship with former President Donald Trump and his family, providing Trump and his business with checking accounts and financing several of the family’s ventures. Signature Bank cut ties with Trump in 2021 following the deadly Jan. 6 riots on Capitol Hill, and urged Trump to resign.”
So (1) they were into commercial real estate, which is probably suffering after the lockdown related work from home shift, (2) they were into cryptocurrency, which means the FTX collapse probably impacted them and (3) they shafted Trump.
I don’t know if they were as woke as SVB but when a corporation does nasty things to Trump there’re usually a wave of righties withdrawing patronage from that corporation. Interesting to know if that occurred.
There is no retreat to the redoubt of the states. You either win on the substance or you lose. And no retreat to ‘no surgery on minors but adults are free to disfigure’ either. It’s all or nothing. The halfway houses of liberals are DOA.
rickwsays:
March 14, 2023 at 2:59 am
It moved plenty during the Ukraine offensive. Not so much during the current Russian one.
Please join up so you’re there for the glorious Uke victory! We all want to see it, hello kitty AK-47 aloft, haversack full of krispy kreme’s, pudgy donut dusting cover face spouting stories of Uke skill at arms! Way better than Malmo!
The fat fascist fool calls for a Great War Against Wussian Imperialism, but has no enthusiasm for actually fighting in it.
“Luzusays:
March 14, 2023 at 1:05 am”
Great comment Luzu. Thank you.
I went to a well regarded specialist yesterday and was suitably masked up as directed by the receptionist.
On entering the consulting room I offered for us both to go maskless if she was OK wth that.
“Absolutely not” was the reply. It’s a legal requirement I was told, and anyway masks prevent the transmission of covid, of which there is a lot around. 3 of her patients that day had cancelled face-to-face because they had the Wuhan Flu (my term, not hers)
Just as well her professional advice was excellent, because she is well and truly caught up in the pandemic paranoia.
I assume most of the medical profession is the same.
More on the banking mess:
HSBC Snaps up Collapsed Silicon Valley Bank UK as World Races to Stem Fallout (13 Mar)
“AP reports the UK Treasury and the Bank of England announced they had facilitated the sale of Silicon Valley Bank UK to HSBC, Europe’s biggest bank, thus ensuring the security of 6.7 billion pounds ($8.1 billion) of deposits.
A nominal £1 ($1.2) was paid for the acquisition.
British officials worked throughout the weekend to find a buyer for the UK subsidiary of the California-based bank.”
Probably a good buy in the circumstances since the wokest sections are more likely to’ve been centred in the main California bit. On the other hand HSBC has had its own woes, quite a lot of them, so their judgement isn’t necessarily great. I wonder if their grotty history gave the Poms leverage to twist their arm?
I think it’s safe to say that Adam’s blog hasn’t just descended down a rabbit hole of Jewish R*thschild conspiracies, it’s plunged into the Mariana Trench of Jewish R*thschild conspiracies.
Sydney on Sunday down George Street was eye opening. The rainbow flag on almost every light pole and at the base of Queen Victoria were some Muslim people handing out flyers, guessing as educational thing or recruitment drive, not sure as I didn’t take the flyer.
Down to Circular Quay and that area is sublime. So much happening and stunning views of the bridge and Opera House.
The Aboriginal flag however on every ferry was I think strange.
By the time we had lunch and walked around gawking and taking snaps, there was 2 hours gone. Really need the whole day at least so retired to the Opera Bar whereupon a lesbian couple were taking snaps after their marriage overlooking the Harbour Bridge.
Go to catch the train back home, and David Lim was walking around with his sandwich boards. He had some younger people around him taking selfies when we trundled by.
Sydney shits all over Melbourne, there is no argument as to what is the better city though.
Encouraging story for Catholic cats especially.
Canadian Catholic High School Student Punished for Insisting God Made Two Genders (13 Mar)
“Canadian Catholic high school junior Josh Alexander has insisted on his religious right to believe God created two genders, for which he was suspended from school, then arrested when he tried to return.
Appearing on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” this weekend, Alexander said that the ordeal began last year when “female students complained to me that they were concerned because males were using their washrooms.”
“This turned into a debate at the school. I stated my opinion on it, and I used Scripture to back it up,” Alexander said.
“Males do not belong in female washrooms is our message,” Josh said at the time.
“Protect the girls from this evil narrative. Stop depriving our students of a healthy and natural environment. ‘God made them male and female: Mark 10:6,’” he said in a social media post.”
Discouraging also of course that a Catholic high school can be so woke as to ignore the clear teaching of the bible, and persecute a student for quoting it. Sounds like a school to avoid. I hope young Mr Alexander goes far.
Tickler on the old thread:
That’s the way.
Airstrikes.
Far more accurate than a silly old meteorite.
But an F-15?
Surely the Me-109 or Stuka would be your weapon of choice.
Most Nazis will say that.
Why not just sieze them?
Like you lot did the last time.
OSC if your specialist is as good as you think why are they caught up in the Coof BS. 3 cancelling that day coz of the coof sounds like BS as well. At the peak of the insanity, if there was any peak, my specialist suggested I take off my mask due to the obvious discomfort I was in.
But wait, there’s more:-
Plenty of people here cover issues raised in the MSM.
Why single Cassie out?
Do you imagine she is connected with Rothwells Merchant Bank?
my favourite holiday spot when I was young
in fact, my only holiday spot when I was young; not much choice back then
OSC, my local medical practice dropped mask wearing months ago. Not sure where the “legal requirement” comes from. Probably someone’s bottom.
It appears to be dependent on the individual organisation. The pathologists next door have strict mask wearing policy. So you go from the surgery to dracula’s daughters and Covid is there…lurking in the hallway.
On old age care – Cats know I have a pal in a facility here. It’s as good as it gets. The foyer was buzzing last week as residents were being shipped off to a local club for lunch – every walking aid known to man or beast was lined up…walkers, wheelchairs, scooters, sticks. The best thing was the happy, expectant voices. I caught the driver out the back having a quick dart before his onerous job of getting the lot of them on the bus. Meanwhile they were wondering where he was…I said zip.
The small homes run by matrons have all gone, swallowed up because prime real estate and government regulation (read strangulation). To pay, facilities have to be massive and highly dependent on taxpayer subsidy. And still they cost the earth to get a spot in a good one. I’ve already had my eye on one for my parents should they become too feeble to live unassisted. And a heads-up – any government sponsored assisted living program is a chimera, you have to be lucky to get any service at all. Do not depend on it.
Including Beetrooter’s F-i-L I see.
“Plenty of people here cover issues raised in the MSM.
Why single Cassie out?
Do you imagine she is connected with Rothwells Merchant Bank?”
I’ve just read Tickler’s vomit on the old thread. It’s clear he’s landed at the rocky bottom of the Mariana Trench.
Speaking of maritime endeavours:
Australia will spend up to $368bn to deliver a historic nuclear submarine program featuring at least three boats bought from the US, upgrades to extend the life of our existing fleet and eight homemade nuclear subs hitting the water from the 2040s.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese unveiled the long-awaited AUKUS plan at a US naval base in San Diego on Tuesday morning Australian time alongside US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, in what the leaders say is a crucial move to keep the peace in the Indo-Pacific amid increasing Chinese aggression.
More than 20,000 jobs will be created over the next three decades, with the entire scheme to cost between $268bn and $368bn (so the standard Labor view of costing is to double that amount)– the equivalent of 0.15 per cent of Australia’s gross domestic product averaged over the life of the program.
The AUKUS partners have agreed after an 18-month planning process to a four-phase plan which will:
INCREASE the regularity of US nuclear-powered submarines visiting Australia from this year, with more UK boats to visit from 2026.
ENABLE forward rotations of up to four US nuclear submarines and one UK boat through HMAS Stirling near Perth from 2027.
DELIVER three US Virginia-class nuclear submarines to Australia in the 2030s, with the potential for up to two more to be handed over to prevent a capability gap as the existing Collins-class fleet is retired. These boats – which could be new or second-hand – will also be based out of Western Australia.
CREATE a new SSN-AUKUS fleet based on a UK design with cutting edge technology – including common combat and weapons systems – from all three countries.
The UK will start building its first boat this decade and deliver it in the late 2030s, before the first SSN-AUKUS built in South Australia goes into service in the early 2040s.
Mr Albanese and Defence Minister Richard Marles said it was “the single biggest investment in our defence capability in our history and represents a transformational moment for our nation, our Defence Force and our economy”.
“Together with our AUKUS partners, the Albanese government will deliver the optimal pathway, providing a superior and sovereign capability, generations of jobs and a record level of investment which will keep Australians safe,” they said in a statement.
In a trilateral meeting prior to the announcement, asked by reporters whether the US could be relied upon to deliver the AUKUS plan, Mr Biden said: “We can always be relied upon.”
Australia will also spend up to $6.4bn to extend the life of its six conventional Collins-class boats into the 2040s, meaning the Navy may be operating three separate submarine models by then.
The life-of-type extensions will begin in 2026, supporting 1500 jobs at South Australia’s Osborne shipyard.
Overall, the government will invest $9bn in the May federal budget over the next four years, including $2bn in South Australia and $1bn in Western Australia.
Mr Albanese, Mr Biden and Mr Sunak said in a joint statement that the plan “elevates all three nations’ industrial capacity to produce and sustain interoperable nuclear-powered submarines for decades to come, expands our individual and collective undersea presence in the Indo-Pacific, and contributes to global security and stability”.
Hundreds of Australian civilian and military personnel will begin to work at US and UK shipyards from this year so they are trained to lead the industrial transformation down under.
Australia will also make a “proportional investment” in American and British shipyards of about $3bn over the next four years, while the US invests an extra $US2.4bn ($A3.6bn) by 2027 to boost its submarine construction capacity so it can maintain its own fleet before delivering Virginia-class boats to Australia next decade.
While the three leaders acknowledged the need for “robust, novel information sharing and technology co-operation”, the White House did not detail how it would cut through export controls that experts have warned could hamper the AUKUS plan.
In South Australia, the construction of a new nuclear submarine shipyard will start this year, supporting up to 4000 jobs at the peak.
A further 4000 to 5000 jobs will be supported at the peak of the submarine construction program in 20 to 30 years – almost double what was forecast for the cancelled French Attack-class submarine scheme.
“The AUKUS submarines will be the most complex machines that have ever been built in human history. And they will be built here in South Australia,” South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas said.
Construction will begin in South Australia this decade on the first SSN-AUKUS boat, which is due to be ready in the early 2040s. One is expected to be produced every two years after that, taking the life of the program out to the 2050s.
Over the next decade, up to $8bn will also be invested in a massive upgrade of WA’s HMAS Stirling base, creating 3000 jobs. This will cater for the forward rotation of US and UK nuclear submarines and provide opportunities for Australian workers to pitch in on maintenance work.
A separate nuclear submarine base will also be built on Australia’s east coast but the Albanese government is yet to confirm its location. (maybe, in the face of Chinese aggression, don’t disclose the site of the base. Ever.)
A new workforce strategy to deliver on the AUKUS plan will include a dedicated skills and training academy in South Australia, a nationwide training plan with universities and vocational education providers, and new nuclear science and engineering courses.
The AUKUS leaders maintained the submarine plan would comply with all nuclear non-proliferation requirements, with reactors provided to Australia in welded units that will not require refuelling.
Defence land is likely to be used to dispose of nuclear waste in a new purpose-built facility.
It’s interesting how apparently difficult it is to build enough houses in Lisbon but no shortage of capital to build pilgrim accommodation in Fatima.
I’m not critising the building of hotels and guest houses in Fatima just wondering what on earth the stupid Portuguese government is doing that housing investment cant keep up.
I jumped on the metro blue line to go home, stopped at Marques da Por bal, and nothing, more and more people started getting on then off to stand on the platform, and with visions of a sardine packed train stuck in a tunnel I did a runner and found a bus that got me pretty close to home.
They are also spending 73 million on expanding the metro, will be interesting to see how that improves things because it is a weird system atm.
Tomorrow Belem.
I’m staying about halfway between the two new stations. Maybe better public transport will incentivise some development of the four storey pigeon coops around here.
The Silicon Valley Bank Bailout
The bill for bad policy comes due, but there’s risk in a second rescue of the banking system in 15 years.
By The WSJ Editorial Board
The Treasury and Federal Reserve stepped in late Sunday to contain the financial damage from Friday’s closure of Silicon Valley Bank, guaranteeing even uninsured deposits and offering loans to other banks so they don’t have to take losses on their fixed-income assets.
This is a de facto bailout of the banking system, even as regulators and Biden officials have been telling us that the economy is great and there was nothing to worry about. The unpleasant truth—which Washington will never admit—is that SVB’s failure is the bill coming due for years of monetary and regulatory mistakes.
Wall Street and Silicon Valley were in full panic over the weekend demanding that the Treasury and Fed intervene to save the day. It’s revealing to see who can keep a cool head in a crisis—and it wasn’t billionaire hedge-fund operator Bill Ackman or venture investor David Sacks, both frantic panic spreaders.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. closed SVB, and the cleanest solution would be for the agency to find a private buyer for the bank. This has been the first resort in most previous financial panics, and the FDIC was holding an auction that closed Sunday afternoon.
But Rohit Chopra, the Elizabeth Warren acolyte on the FDIC board, is hostile to bank mergers on ideological grounds, and the purchase terms could be too onerous for some potential buyers. The biggest banks are now the safest, and deposits are flooding into them. J.P. Morgan can park that money at the Federal Reserve and earn interest on its reserves. Why take on a new political headache?
SVB executives made mistakes, and they will pay for them, but they were encouraged by easy money and misguided regulation. As the Fed flooded the world with dollar liquidity, money flowed into venture startups that were SVB’s customer base. The bank’s deposits soared—far beyond what it could safely lend.
In a world of near-zero interest rates, SVB put the money in long duration fixed-income assets in search of a higher return. Regulators after the 2008 crisis had deemed these Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities nearly risk-free for the purpose of measuring bank capital. If regulators say they’re risk-free, banks and depositors may be less careful.
But those securities declined in value as the Fed took interest rates up quickly to break the inflation it helped to cause. SVB had enormous capital losses if it were forced to liquidate those assets before maturity. That’s exactly what happened as SVB customers withdrew their deposits.
The San Francisco Fed regulates SVB and somehow missed this rising vulnerability. The Fed and Treasury will try to blame the bankers, but they are as much if not more culpable. The idea of elevating San Francisco Fed president Mary Daly to the Board of Governors seems preposterous after SVB.
All the more so because the duration risk at banks may not be limited to SVB, as last week’s selloff in regional bank stocks shows. The FDIC created an entity to protect SVB’s insured depositors up to the legal limit of $250,000. But something like 85% to 90% of SVB’s deposits are uninsured. The worry is that depositors in other banks will now flee.
Thus the cries for federal intervention. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday there will be no “bailout” for SVB, but she is indulging in semantics. The feds said they will guarantee even uninsured deposits at SVB as well as at Signature Bank in New York. Typically in a bank failure those depositors would get their money back with a 15% to 20% haircut. This would no doubt be a hardship for many customers, but the $250,000 limit was known.
Will a universal uninsured deposit guarantee be next? This would be a monumental policy surrender, essentially admitting that the regulatory machinery established in 2010 by Dodd-Frank failed.
We may be the only people in the world who still worry about “moral hazard.” But a nationwide guarantee for uninsured deposits, even for a limited time, means this will become the default policy any time there is a financial panic.
There’s also a question of the legality of such a guarantee. The FDIC created a “transaction account guarantee” program amid the 2008 panic, but Congress explicitly let it expire in Dodd-Frank.
Congress set the $250,000 insured limit to protect average Americans, not venture investors in Silicon Valley.
The FDIC may have resorted to its “systemic risk exception” for SVB and Signature, but this is a stretch considering their size. The joint statement by regulators said it received the required two-thirds vote of both the FDIC and Fed boards, and we’d like to see the creative legal work by the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department.
The Fed is acting as it should as a provider of liquidity to all comers. But it’s going further and offering one-year loans to banks against collateral of Treasurys and other fixed-income assets. The Fed will value these assets at par, which means banks don’t have to sell their assets at a loss. The Fed is essentially guaranteeing bank assets that are taking losses because banks took duration risk that Fed policies encouraged. This too is a bailout.
Perhaps this will contain any Monday market mayhem, but if it doesn’t our guess is that the Treasury, FDIC and Fed will look to guarantee uninsured deposits across the banking system. The Fed will want to avoid institutional blame for financial damage, and President Biden will do anything to avoid letting a financial panic affect the overall economy as he prepares to run for a second term next year.
But there is political risk from a bailout too. If the Administration acts to guarantee deposits without Congressional approval, it will face legitimate legal questions. The White House may choose to jam House Speaker Kevin McCarthy if markets aren’t mollified. But Mr. McCarthy has a restive GOP caucus as it is, and a bailout for rich depositors will feed populist anger against Washington.
The critics have a point. For the second time in 15 years (excluding the brief Covid-caused panic), regulators will have encouraged a credit mania, and then failed to foresee the financial panic when the easy money stopped. Democrats and the press corps may try to pin the problem on bankers or the Trump Administration, but these are political diversions.
You can’t run the most reckless monetary and fiscal experiment in history without the bill eventually coming due. The first invoice arrived as inflation. The second has come as a financial panic, with economic damage that may not end with Silicon Valley Bank.
maybe, in the face of Chinese aggression, don’t disclose the site of the base. Ever
Impossible
“Including Beetrooter’s F-i-L I see.”
Yep. Not a good look.
It’s curious how people latch onto the “R*thschild” conspiracy. What it does reveal is that as soon as people descend into such conspiratorial lunacy, there’s no turning back. As Rosie wrote last night, plenty of banks through history have been owned by non-Jews, the Rockefeller and Medici families among them.
However there is some humour in it, on Adam’s blog, Old Bloke has posted a comment where he wrote that “Greta Thunberg and Klaus Schwab are cousins, both are connected through the R*thschild family”.
LOL.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese unveiled the long-awaited AUKUS plan at a US naval base in San Diego on Tuesday morning Australian time alongside US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, in what the leaders say is a crucial move to keep the peace in the Indo-Pacific amid increasing Chinese aggression.
So if push comes to shove, we will have to ask China to wait to attack us mid 2035 when we may finally get the subs built and operational.
And what will happen when Sunak gets the lemon and sars later this year? Will Starmer commit?
Cultural appropriation! 😀
Sydney is a beautiful city, no question about it. Most of the grot has been shipped elsewhere. Once the harbour ceased to function as a working harbour and industries along the river/estuary relocated, the sandstone blasted and the tenements gentrified you have something very presentable indeed. I watched the lot happen in my lifetime.
If you were watching the races on the weekend, you’ll notice the same with Newcastle. It’s beautiful. Thought I’d never, ever say that about the dirty old town. Except the port still goes gangbusters, vessels lined up out to sea. Going to be interesting if the stupid wind farm out there goes ahead. When the inevitable east coast low roars into town…all those Pasha Bulkas won’t make it to safety by sea. Or by land.
Hoping the East Coast sub base goes to Jervis Bay. Very close to deep water and my beach house. Property prices will rise. Rentals off the into blue sky. The land earmarked for a Nuclear power plant is available.
Ed Case,
If Ukrainians are anything like Russians, they marry and have children much younger than we do. My nephew whose wife is expecting a child has only just turned 22. So many of the young men dying may already be fathers and others not.
Anyone who thinks I’ll be profiteering would be correct. Of course the government will claim the capital gains.
OldOzzie says:
March 14, 2023 at 8:09 am
The Silicon Valley Bank Bailout
The bill for bad policy comes due, but there’s risk in a second rescue of the banking system in 15 years.
By The WSJ Editorial Board
From the Comments
– Fact #1: Joe Biden has caused more long term severe financial harm to more Americans than anyone in history.
Fact #2: Biden actually thinks just the opposite.
– never use the word biden and thinks in the same sentence.
mutually exclusive
– Don’t over complicate it.
SVB prioritized ESG and DEI over risk management. This is coming straight from this administration.
Yelled held a meeting last month not to talk about liquidity risk, which should have been obvious to see with the fairly quick increase in rates, but for “climate change”. This is the “treasury secretary”.
This country is in big big big trouble because so many people refuse to even admit what the problem is, even as it smacks you in the face.
It will get way worse before it gets better.
– SVB depositors were all high tech venture players and start up high tech & biotech companies. All, big donors to the democratic party. Of course they were going to be bailed out.
– To quote from nearby comentary in WSJ : “CEO Greg Becker should have known better too. Until Friday he was a board member of the San Francisco Fed. He was also savvy enough to sell $3.6 million in stock days before his bank collapsed.”
– Most customers were Democrats. Biden will bail them out. Buying votes is getting very expensive lately.
– But it’s great if you can buy votes with tax payer’s dollars.
Good luck to you Ranga.
Lots of private Canberra investment around there so of course that’s where the boom will be. No harm in getting your share too!
I get the message, she wants us conservatives to DIE.
US Intel Agencies Need To Focus Intensely On ‘Diversity, Equity, Inclusion,’ Intelligence Chief Says (14 Mar)
How about doing some, like, intelligence? For example on the Chinese penetration of every university and right up to the White House, as we saw last week? It’s a thought. But no I suspect she wants to chase Christians who pray outside abortion clinics more than she wants to do her actual job.
The real banking conspiracy is between Wall St and Congress.
No silliness about ethnicities, lizard peeps, tunnels, red shoes or nano wrigglers.
I am even suspect about Biden’s corruption. I don’t doubt he is. How important is it that his son is a thieving, sex addicted crackhead?
Banks are failing and being propped up by the taxpayer and public schools and family law judges are cutting *your* kid’s dicks off.
The steal! Hunter Biden! Zelensky is not a real leader! Trump is still President!
Here’s where the rubber meets the road.
Whom is getting screwed here, how hard, how often and in what position?
How can anyone write such rubbish with a straight face? It beggars belief just how incredibly stupid and unserious our quisling political class is.
Takes me back to the inglorious days of the breathless hype surrounding Waffles Turnbuckle’s imaginary cheese eating surrender monkey non-nukular unterzee diesel coffins that ended up costing taxpayers many many billions of dollars before the entire preposterous brain fart vanished into the ether. The public face of which was this monstrous blandwhale. What was those unterzee coffins imaginary delivery date again – sometime in the 2040s?
The only thing likely to prevent a Chinese attack on this country will be the fact that the entire CCP politbureau is unable to stop rolling around on the floor laughing at such (almost) unimaginable stupidity and utter cluelessness.
We are maladministered by the most traitorous useless corrupt and utterly embarrassing execution worthy imbeciles to have existed in human history.
Facts Matter with Roman Balmakov
Black Pigeon Speaks
Another diversity hire for the Biden regime.
Presumably she has followed the Biden family’s lead and is now on the Chinese Communist Party payroll.
ignore the last link, cut & paste fu
Till the LAST UKRAINIAN [Documentary]
Black Pigeon Speaks
Australia will spend up to $368bn to deliver a historic nuclear submarine program featuring at least three boats bought from the US, upgrades to extend the life of our existing fleet and eight homemade nuclear subs hitting the water from the 2040s.
More than 20,000 jobs will be created over the next three decades, with the entire scheme to cost between $268bn and $368bn (so the standard Labor view of costing is to double that amount)– the equivalent of 0.15 per cent of Australia’s gross domestic product averaged over the life of the program.
I suppose if you put this into “real world” money it’s a fairly cheap deal..! After all, for the, estimated, start-up we is only gonna outlay 12 and a bit years expenditure equivalent to the 251 ‘welfare” yearly fund and we will get 11 new subs, our “oldies” upgraded and 20 000 jobs ..*
which adds up to some physical hardware you can, actually, see plus all those jobs .. the 251 fund in its entire expenditure life, to date, has created absolutely nuttin’ ………!
*Sadly, most of the above “benefits” will never happen in most of our lifetimes so we’ll just have to take Luigi & his maaates words for it ..
Thankfully, we can assure our Grandees “you can trust Labor” .. LOL!
No joke.
We could get 71 Virginia Class subs for the price we’re paying, including maintenance.
Calli I may not have been looking too hard, but I think a reliable indicator of cleanliness of a city is along its train routes.
Sydney’s were, from what I saw, good. Not much rubbish along these lines, if any.
Melbourne you would have garbage bags dumped over fences, a shopping trolley or 2.
China isn’t going to attack Australia. They don’t need to. They already own our politicians and much of the country anyway. A war might damage their investment.
the meagre doughnut rations are entirely unattractive
Our biggest danger is the effwit Americans starting something they can’t finish. See Ukraine.
We could get 71 Virginia Class subs for the price we’re paying, including maintenance.
But, but think of the “jerbs fer wukkas ” created .. the reality that each boat from Adelaide will cost 10 times the “made in USA’ price pales alongside 20 000 Oz jerbs .. LOL!
Re the White House Chinese thing, that’s from this story:
“It’s As Bad As We Thought”: CCP Money Flowed To Biden Family According Bank Records, Documents Obtained By House GOP (13 Mar)
Republicans on the House Oversight Committee have been working with four witnesses with close ties to the Bidens, who have provided documents and other evidence tying the Bidens to the Chinese Communist Party.
“It’s as bad as we thought… Since we’ve last spoken we have bank records in hand. We have individuals who are working with our committee,” Committee chair James Comer (R-KY) told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures.”
We Cats have known this for a long time, so it isn’t Wussians-in-reverse. Fair bit of stuff comes from Hunter’s laptop too. The most interesting thing is you now have a Republican accusing Joe effectively to his face, hitherto the Republican Party has been cautious about such things.
A bigger conundrum than the Rothwell’s intrigue is why Tickler suddenly goose-stepped up to our front door.
He used to hate this place.
Wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole, he said.
It’s a mystery.
The reticence to engage is pure cowardice, he would be happy to get by through scavenging the ample amounts of carrion.
Ithn’t Rothwell where the Americanth take the alienth?
I expect that will be the case.
Basing most of the fleet in Perth would not make sense when most of the population and vulnerable infrastructure is in the east. What is there to protect against in the west? An attack from South Africa or an invasion by Antarctic penguins?
The lure of secret knowledge is too much for many…many people. Sadly, this includes a lot of Christians who should know better. They’re handy to bestow a stamp of respectability on the theories, or be dismissed as cranks by actual wrongdoers. They lose either way.
The collusion before our eyes is more than enough to satisfy curiosity and provoke anger. Perhaps that’s why conspiracies are so handy as a distraction from the real action and a club to beat any opposition provided it goes down that path.
The MO is perfectly obvious – it was demonstrated a couple of weeks ago when I mentioned the 2020 election. Like Chesterton’s story of the Broken Sword, you hide the real crime within another, as you would hide a particular tree in a forest. Like hiding a money churn in a war. Or a submarine deal.
Yeth.
But that ith a different plathe.
Don’t confuthe thingth.
Rothwells wath a bank run by the Jewth with Latht Rethort Laurie ath a front man.
Shouldn’t we also have a naval base in northern Queensland? All of the threats to Australia are from the north and east.
I laughingly consider NZ as a threat as well. At present they get Chinese frozen vegetables that they relabel as NZ products and send to us. How long before they do the same with the Chinese military.
“It is based on Canada’s “Registered Education Savings Plan” (RESP), which helps families save for their child’s post-secondary education”.
C’mon, Jo.
Seems like a good idea.
For a man with 7 kids.
Leave it with me.
I will make the connection between Roswell, Jewish bankers, Big Pharma, the Bermuda Triangle and Global Veganism by lunchtime.
eyrie – I wouldn’t be too sure about that – at some point the chinese will want an occupying force on the ground – just to rub our noses in it.
I love Jervis Bay, always hoped to retire there.
Unfortunately, by the time I did retire, I was gazumped, well and truly. Prices had tripled in 15 years.
Still, I have stayed in the Commodore’s house at Creswell (daughter was a friend.)
I’ve stayed in plenty of plastic expensive hotels, they can go jump. 🙂
“willsays:
March 14, 2023 at 7:55 am
Pogriasays:
March 14, 2023 at 12:00 am
Rose bud.
my favourite holiday spot when I was young
in fact, my only holiday spot when I was young; not much choice back then”
Will, I have never been to Rosebud. Heard nice things though. Actually, I was channelling Citizen Kane.
Dead of night, place is like a morgue at that time, maybe Wolfman will take the hint. 😉
With China off the list, who are our likely military threats? India? I don’t think so. They’ve got enough trouble with China and Pakistan. Indonesia, maybe but they’ve got enough trouble holding 2000+ islands together as a nation. We should be armed well enough to stop them thinking about South Irian though.
Who else?
I think he might be in the go-slow over there Sancho. There were “words”.
No tales out of school…there are many contributors over there that I like very much indeed and the site is still on my go-to list. Adam appears to be running a tight ship on the abuse front, but the banking issue has me stumped. I’m still trying to work out what that photo with Charles means – it could be anything unless it was accompanied by a legitimate sound bite.
The only place you’ll cop a hiding now appears to be here. 😀
Sub delivery from SA now out to 2042. It is like an auction 2032, hep…, 2042….hep, 2052…hep
Taiwan, nope. Ain’t interested in defending Taiwan in a conventional war. Taiwan needs to secretly build enough nukes and delivery systems to make taking it a suicide mission. Then make a quiet phone call to Mr Eleven. Make all the noise you want for domestic propaganda purposes but we know where you live.
From Tim Blair. Note the colour. So independent or as Blair notes, asking for Climate 200 Holmes a Coins. Chortle
calli says:
March 14, 2023 at 8:56 am
Also, people of any creed with lots of money, therefor power, bound to upset at least a few if not many along the way, some also powerful in their own right, so they are easy target for conspic theorist.
Yes, very chuckle worthy though I am not surprised at the claims. It seems you can link everyone in Europe to everyone else if you go back far enough.
Rabz, the Chinese are smarter than that. The only people wanting to rub other’s noses in it are the Americans and the stupid EU, except the latter can’t do much except screw up the world with their stupid EU edicts on just about everything.
Farrelly…one of Blair’s original bevy of Frightbats.
Now a Tealbat. It makes perfect sense.
Had forgotten about about the chicom vegies purporting to come from NZ.
I have the military skills of the average wombat. But the question that occurs to me is:
What strategic benefit does Australia actually acquire by purchasing a small fleet of nuclear submarines (yes, long range, yes, long submerged duration) without equipping them with strategic (ie nooclular) weapons?
Is the PLA really going to be that discomfited by the prospect that an Australian submarine might pop up anywhere to fire a couple of conventional torpedoes, or anti-ship missiles at a Chinese naval group before being sunk?
Answers genuinely appreciated.
Same problem as Brisbane, basically only 1 channel out through the little reef that could, and well within missile interdiction range.
Speaking of missiles I stumbled across an interesting YouTube which I haven’t been able to find again , saying we have already lost control of our eastern shipping lanes.
The reasoning is that most analysis we see says Chinese missile type X has a range of Y nautical miles, and then draw the “danger” arcs from the Chinese coast. The reality is missile type X can be launched from any Chinese controlled territory, eg the Solomons with very little effort.
“Crossiesays:
March 14, 2023 at 8:59 am
Shouldn’t we also have a naval base in northern Queensland? All of the threats to Australia are from the north and east.”
Queensland may be the only place to build the subs. In all the excitement about the subs, not one question about how they are going to power the shipyards to build said subs. SA has to bring most of its power from VIC. When VIC sheds its last coal plant, they will be adding an extra extension lead to NSW. NSW will be bulldozing its coal stations shortly, where to next? Queensland will be the only place with a Coal fired station.
When channel surfing last night, I caught a bit of Conjob being interviewed. He was actually talking up Gas Power and Exploration. Stated the Greens were behind the times when it came to Gas use. Laying the ground work for overturning the Gas bans I reckon. I didn’t listen for long. I can’t stand Conjob. Whenever I see him I always picture him with red underpants on his head. He and Reese should be a couple.
Not a threat to subs, I note.
eyrie – we’ll just have to agree to disagree. There are several scenarios where china could attack this country although ultimately I’d hope that the distance and logistics involved would be beyond them attempting to occupy it.
Wouldn’t stop them possibly lobbing some missiles our way regardless.
Before going into a retirement facility my late mother had the the home service twice a week. Once a week to clean the house and another person to take her shopping. Both were unsatisfactory. I would visit her and notice the cleaning hadn’t been done. When I asked whether the cleaner had not been mum would say that she had but wanted to talk most of the time and mum was too kind to interrupt her. At the end of her time she would just go.
The person who took her shopping also, of course, had a time limit so mum was rushed through the shopping centre and the supermarket. Mum admitted to me that after the home service shopping assistant left she would get in her car and go back to shop at her own pace. At that point mum was getting frail but was still capable of driving.
Living space.
Mystery solved.
China has a lot of problems internally but they decided in the last 20 years to become expansionist.
Blunting their ambition is not a bad thing. Nor is our own deterrent to the crazy NK regime.
Took me a while to work out who you meant by Conjob but the reference to Reese lit a lightbulb that it’s Stephen Conroy. I don’t think anyone in government cares what is said on Sky, as long as the Greens rule we are headed for an energy catastrophe. By greens I mean all politicians in all parties spouting of the renewables rubbish.
Solution:
1) Select 20,000 Australians at random – rigorously excluding maaates and anyone with any connection to the public sector.
2) Pay each selectee $5 million, tax free, spread over 10 years.
3) Spend the saved $268 billion doubleplus on something else.
Or not.
LOL.
Does anyone honestly believe these subs will be built?
Play them at their own game:
1) Tell them you have an exemption
2) Repeatedly say ‘pardon’ when they speak, then add ‘I am hard of hearing and need to see your lips so I can lipread – I need you to take off your mask…’
More seamen for South Australia. Coincidence?
“Living space.
Mystery solved.”
I think the German is….”lebensraum”
Does anyone honestly believe these subs will be built?
Definitely! .. 32% of the, voting, population are “true believers” .. LOL!
Sinking any Chinese shipping would be a benefit and not taking on the PLA navy.
There are many missiles that can be launched from a container ship, either the components are in individual containers, or the ships are set up like the Q ships of old where whole panels of container sides would come down exposing a launch platform.
Rabz says:
March 14, 2023 at 9:16 am
eyrie – we’ll just have to agree to disagree. There are several scenarios where china could attack this country although ultimately I’d hope that the distance and logistics involved would be beyond them attempting to occupy it.
Wouldn’t stop them possibly lobbing some missiles our way regardless.
Rabz,
I don’t know what your neighbourhood looks like, but we gave been slowly, softly gaining Chinese – a lot of those homes left empty after purchase.
Nothing like Chatswoo, EppingWoo or Eastwoo – or catching train back from Airport on Saturday night (pure farce) it could have been spot the Caucasian Aussie, like North Sydney Boys High & North Sydney Girls High.
Logistics involved would be beyond them attempting to occupy it
They are already here.
We can’t even build a power plant. Or a blast furnace. How the hell are we going to build something as sophisticated as a submarine?
Getting Australia to build anything more substantial than a block of flats is like asking a chimpanzee to compose a symphony.
The US Government deciding which Countries need Democracy
Meanwhile in Geopolitical News, Moldova Protests Against NATO Escalating War Against Russia Lead Western Media to Blame Putin
When the U.S. activates NGOs in European countries (Moldova, Hungary, Georgia) the media call it “spreading democracy.”
However, when the people who live in the country organically rise up in the opposite direction against the government outcomes from the NGO pressure, the media call it “Russian interference.” NBC pushes the NATO message:
Any Australian noocular submarine base should not be located in Queensland.
Most definitely not in Brisbane.
Possibly on the Gold Coast, but probably better in SA, or WA.
Or Grayndler.
The best way to grow pineapples is from suckers or slips, like any bromeliad. You can slice the top off a supermarket one, but it takes forever.
I hate the way the tops are now removed. Presumably for packing and shipping. Not really a pineapple any more.
They have an interesting history – in times gone by they were considered a delicacy and a symbol of wealth and hospitality. Stone ones adorned gateposts, images on wallpaper and crockery. And a pineapple house with sub floor heating was part every grand home’s gaggle of glasshouses.
Not only the doctors, but the parents must be jailed.
NT barramundi, beach salmon & crab fishery closed by indigenous owners.
Fishermen will already have spent c. $100k preparing for the season.
blandwhale
Ha! Rabz, what a ripper word. I’m culturally appropriating it
On such things.
Mayor of Seoul Says Ukraine War Shows South Korea Should Get Nuclear Weapons (13 Mar)
Actually I think it’s more to do with a certain other belligerent state, since China almost certainly regards the Korean Peninsula as a historic Chinese province.
It’s E-ping, by the way.
North west Sydney has become a go-to place for sub-continentals, particularly around Rouse Hill and Kellyville. Amazing aromas around dinner time, I’m told.
If it doesn’t tie into HAARP, Doppler radar, and hygroscopic aviation fuels it won’t be worth a handful of beans.
The ABC is calling the figure “mind-boggling.”
What’s mind-boggling is that over the same period we’ll spend c. 1/10th of that on the ABC.
Mavis has got out his Keating pom poms (or does he just not put them away?) in the Paywallian.
calli says:
March 14, 2023 at 9:43 am
It’s E-ping, by the way.
Thanks calli, will update my vocabulary
Land of my bleedin’ fathers.
Visually impaired amputee, Horatio Nelson, died at the age of 47.
The sheep shaggers have a labour government.
Faustus – My view is they would make excellent drone motherships. They can lurk deeply and distantly and release shorter-legged drones to extend reach without making it easy for the sub to be found.
I have no idea what the doctrine the RAN is evolving on drones, but subject to automation and communication issues they seem to be the likely way naval tech is going.
I have no experience and haven’t been reading up on such things aside from the odd noticed article, so I will defer entirely to navally aligned Cats.
That would be “the wrong historical narrative”.
It was once called The Truth.
Wouldn’t stop them possibly lobbing some missiles our way regardless.
Which a few subs will not prevent.
If you go text to speech, Mr Xi comes out as Mr Eleven.
NT barramundi, beach salmon & crab fishery closed by indigenous owners.
Fishermen will already have spent c. $100k preparing for the season.
FMD. Guessing that not enough money was transferred to big men’s accounts?
I have an article out in the next Speccie on the submarines.
Basically says yes buy Virginias but as fast as possible, and no, don’t build a UK-based submarine here. The last submarine we built and launched was 20 years ago, in which field we have a terrible track record, let alone trying to build nuclears – the most complicated machine on the planet.
Spongebob?
Silicon Valley Bank Got Woke, Went Broke
Corporate responsibility, huh?
Six months ago, SVB, the parent company of Silicon Valley Bank, announced an audit so important to its business that it sent out a press release to promote it and hired Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to conduct it.
In hindsight, the audit could have saved billions of dollars and prevented the ruin of so many. The fact that it really wasn’t an audit in any traditional sense, in the same way that Silicon Valley Bank did not conduct itself as a traditional bank, prevented that.
Instead of auditing its own books, SVB used the largesse made off customers’ funds to conduct an “equity audit” to determine its effectiveness in “advancing women and Black and Latinx individuals to positions of influence in the innovation economy.”
Somehow such a project struck SVB as essential to its primary mission, which, somewhere along the way, became something other than banking.
No record exists of Paul, Weiss’ findings. But why do we need a middleman to tell us the answer? The women, black, and LatinX depositors and employees of Silicon Valley Bank cannot possibly give the insolvent institution a positive assessment.
Institutions not committed to not becoming woke inevitably become woke. Institutions that become woke inevitably suffer a corruption of purpose.
This corruption of purpose helps explain Silicon Valley Bank’s inability to perform the most base-level function of a bank: to secure the deposits of customers.
SVB boasted in September of joining a group called CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion, in November of subsidizing Diversity VC’s report “The Equity Record” lamenting that less than 2 percent of industry assets under management go toward diversity, equity, and inclusion investments, and in December of investing $17.5 million in “Black-, LatinX-, and Women-led Community Development Financial Institutions.”
SVB dedicated whole bloated divisions of the company’s bureaucracy to promoting leftist causes, which strikes as about as relevant to banking as bowling balls are to medicine.
Here, SVB press releases touted additions to its “growing” Technology Equity Research Team; there, SVB boasted of hiring a new head of its Access to Innovation program.
Would the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation underwrite the accounts held by a bank that fixated on investing in white-owned businesses, diverted its funds toward combatting the environmentalist movement, and hired scores of employees to act as commissars ensuring conformity to a conservative company line?
Politics so blinds the woke that they do not see the utter recklessness of Silicon Valley Bank devoting such an enormous amount of its resources to promoting leftism.
Its 2022 “Environmental, Social and Governance Report” reads as a banking non sequitur in highlighting the financial institution’s political commitments. It claimed “4,653,500 tons of annual CO2 avoided across 18 deals completed by SVB’s Project Finance team,” bragged that “45 percent of our board of directors are women,” and pointed to the “6 Employee Resource Groups established, fueling a culture of belonging.”
If you did not believe SVB’s words, then the accompanying stock photographs of smiling black people and a woman wearing a boy’s regular haircut convey the message.
Elites, as corrupted as Silicon Valley Bank, bestowed honors upon a failing bank because of its ideological correctness. The awards acted as bright, shiny objects distracting onlookers from the reality that Silicon Valley Bank had fatally made political distractions the focus of its efforts.
Bloomberg recognized Silicon Valley Bank in its Gender-Equity Index for the fifth consecutive year in January.
A year ago, the Foreign Policy Association honored SVB Financial with its Corporate Responsibility Award. A month ago, Forbes named SVB Financial Group the 20th-best bank in America.
Corporate responsibility, huh?
Hypothetically?
1. Catch fish.
2. Log them caught elsewhere.
3. Profit?
London to a brick this will happen.
Neither the land council nor the NT govt returned the ABC’s calls, BB.
I guess they’re still working up a plausible narrative.
(Daily Mail)
So both Cranston siblings have now been convicted of defrauding the Commonwealth and conspiring to deal with the proceeds of crime worth more than $1 million for their role in the Plutus Payroll scandal.
Yet all they asked Dad for was some insider knowledge of ongoing tax office investigations.
Never once got information from him on how to deceive the tax office!!!!!!
The other clue as to her high level expertise in tax matters is lower down in the same article:
The jury was told Cranston, whose only other professional experience was working at a supermarket
(sound of leg playing jingle bells)
The AUKUS leaders maintained the submarine plan would comply with all nuclear non-proliferation requirements, with reactors provided to Australia in welded units that will not require refuelling.
Top Ender says:
March 14, 2023 at 10:01 am
I have an article out in the next Speccie on the submarines.
Basically says yes buy Virginias but as fast as possible, and no, don’t build a UK-based submarine here. The last submarine we built and launched was 20 years ago, in which field we have a terrible track record, let alone trying to build nuclears – the most complicated machine on the planet.
Top Ender,
you thoughts on the Bolded bit above with reactors provided to Australia in welded units that will not require refuelling.
Probably a Dumb question but wouldn’t those same welded units be able to supply Electrical Power to smaller cities?
Like a panther, Peter Dutton springs amongst the herd of AUKUS political antelopes.
Get ready for $200 billion in ‘savings’ to show up in the ‘debate we have to have’ about wasteful government spending on CGT concessions, inheritance, and income tax reductions.
* More than $200 billion” and “up to $362 billion” is becoming code for ‘$362 billion, which was a preliminary estimate that obviously didn’t take account of construction costs, or inflation’.
Want a job in Treasury?
Very slowly.
Very badly.
And very expensively.
with reactors provided to Australia in welded units that will not require refuelling.
The obvious way for UK to provide them. IIRR the US provided the UK with reactors in a similar way for their original nuke boat program way back in the 60s.
Probably a dumb question but wouldn’t those same welded units be able to supply Electrical Power to smaller cities?
I have no knowledge of how you would do such things, but hopefully it would be possible.
In the much same way I want amoebic dysentery.
Suckers were rarely worth the trouble.*
Twist the top off, pine goes into a 1 tonne bin, top gets chucked on the row to be bagged** after the harvest is done. The bagged tops sit in a shed until the next planting.
*A waste of plant energy, throwing suckers was a characteristic bred out of commercial fruit.
**Shoving ten thousand tops into fertiliser bags gets old real quick.
How are pineapples commercially grown?
I have grown them before at home where it ought to be too cold, a hot summer helped, it was very slow, they just seem to keep on cloning themselves in each crown…???
PJW back at his best today.
Why would you want to do that?
[rhetorical question]
I have heard people comment on how Chris Rock had a dig (or, using internet hyperbole, ‘smashed!’) Meghan Markle for whining that the Royal Family was raaaaacist.
I looked at the beginning of a clip of this supposedly happening and it seems his point was not that she was being malign and dishonest, but that she should not be surprised because the Royal Family invented racism.
I won’t even try to plumb the depths of ignorance such an assertion would need in order to take root.
But it made me think when racism, in its current sense, came from. No, lets go back a generation. Currently ‘racism’ simply means a white person has said or done something that annoys a non-white person as if their only motivation was a hatred for non-whites. Let’s go back instead to when it meant to believe that certain peoples were worth less (or, on occasion, more) on account of unrelated physical characteristics.
Well, when did we become ‘races’ in the modern sense? When did we become Europeans, Africans, Asians, Melanesians, etc? It would be after we came into more than merely sporadic contact. The Europeans met Asians and Africans probably before any Africans had dealings with Asians.
There is another level of racism often noted – Asians can be surprisingly racist. It is so natural that it is no even accompanied by malice, often directed toward other Asians i.e. within their ‘race’.
Racism would seem to be just a manifestation of a far older mentality. In Britain (Rock’s supposed home of racism) the English mocked the Scots – some of Samuel Johnson’s barbs are as breathtaking in their vitriol as they are in their invention. The English had contempt for the Welsh, and about the Irish I think nothing more need be said. They also despised the French, and the French despised them. And both would have been able to give reasons for despising the other. It helps to think of enemies and competitors as a lower person than yourself, and this applies regardless of relative power. If your group is on top then those below you are inferior. It is good for them to be inferior because if they were your equal then they might turn on you and prevail – you would be under threat. Much better to think of them as lower so you can treat them as such. But even among the oppressed you can expect to see loathing for your oppressor. It explains how they got to be on top – by being ‘incomplete’ people, lacking humanity, a sense of fairness. They are ascendant because they do the unspeakable, they lie, they are loyal to no one, they threaten children etc.
And as for the component of ‘racism’ where it is unreasonable, where it assumes non-physical traits on the basis of physical ones, well for the longest time the delineation was far from as clear as we consider it today. There was a belief that certain attitudes and propensities were woven into the the very being. Once it would have been accepted that Asians are by nature docile and submissive – as much part of their intrinsic nature as the high cheekbones. We see that instead a cultural, as upbringing, as conditioning (or whatever) but that is because that is how we have learned to see people. It is cultural, upbringing etc.
I should be very surprised if Africa was not (perhaps still is not) riven with prejudices much like those referred to above: tribes against tribes, villages against villages, hills vs valleys, languages, deities, totemic animals etc. Those old slave-taking tribes in Africa (like the Dahomey, made famous again by the movie ‘Woman King’) surely did not see their quarry as equal.
So not only did racism come into being (so to speak) with greater interaction and conflict across racial lines, the underlying impulse would seem to me to have always been there and always exercised.
Western society has learned to separate out what is mutable from the accidental. The colour of your hair, shape of your eyes, length of bone are no longer associated with intelligence, personality, or worth. It would seem a very remarkable thing that each of us with our own preferences, creeds, loyalties and whatnot can look on a person very different to us and still consider them equal, someone like us but made up differently. I suppose that is the revelation that makes individuality so precious – that everyone contains the intrinsic worth, that you could subtract one by one each trait – take away religion, take away career, take away family, taste in music, sense of humour, strip it all away and yet expect to find something that is none of those things above but something else, precious, ineffable, and kindred – worthy of respect.
Except Chris Rock.
Whoa!
Not a rant.
More of a ramble.
AKA “the Nuclear Milkman”.
I have an article out in the next Speccie on the submarines.
Basically says yes buy Virginias but as fast as possible
Topender,
How feasible is it to anticipate that the US will send their own Virginia class nuclear subs out here to patrol our waters (and adjacent ) prior to the delivery of the 3-5 subs promised for purchase?
“Oats* – food for men in Scotland and horses in England.”
*Steel cut or otherwise
Certainly not in Australia but we will purchase used ones from Poms and Yanks at some point.
Subs aren’t the big news in defence
I think they are called a dreaming.
“Just get married guys.”
A slice of cheese will now be the object of aggravation in a future case echoing Cohen v Sellar [1926] 1 KB 536.
Your future happiness, priceless, or worth $3 for something that wasn’t yours?
Taiwan should make the MAD threat and see if Xi and his underlings are suicidal.
Say what you like about Boob Carr, steel cut oats are the way to go.
Further to above query, this has appeared in the USNI News:
The trilateral agreement also will establish rotational visits by U.S. nuclear-powered submarines to Perth, in western Australia, presumably to help build familiarity and capabilities of Royal Australian Navy submarine crews to operate the nuclear-powered vessels, the official said.
The Australian city is home to HMAS Stirling Bay, a naval base on Garden Island that supports surface ships and submarines and is home to a submarine tender training center. Recent visits of U.S. submarines to the base include USS Asheville (SSN-758), a Los Angeles-class submarine, which arrived Feb. 27 and has been training with Australian subs, and the Virginia-class USS Mississippi (SSN-782), which visited in November 2022.
I don’t mind oats, but everytime I eat the, I remark to myself “Newsflash Lisa, Bart is not a champion racehorse!”
Milkman?
them
!!!
$368 Billion to fund the Aukus Subs. I suspect that is lot of $ for even the Australia Governemnt to run unfunded. Pressure may come for our befuddled leaders to look at ways of generated $. Like approving mining coal and gas. Cheap energy and overseas currency. You know like in the olden days. This could be interesting.
Jobsacked Fauxfacts j’ismist and scourge of uncouth fat smelly tattooed removalists from Sydney’s west, Barkin’ Betty Farrelly, is back – back, baby, back!*
*Seriously hoping I do not have to republish the last eight words of the comment above on the night of 25 march.
:eyes emoji:
Silicon Valley Bank paid out bonuses hours before seizure
https://www.axios.com/2023/03/11/silicon-valley-bank-paid-bonuses-fdic
It is a kind of tenet of faith among HR departments and some of the more flighty people in management roles that diversity in its own right provides better outcomes.
But they are getting it backwards.
If you opened up roles to be filled purely on merit you will likely get a diverse lot, but that is because talent is diverse, not that diversity is talent.
And if you did open appointment to some panel, say, purely based on merit you would not get uniform diversity. Depending on the nature of the task, the available pool of resources, location, and the flux and vortices or demographics, you would expect shifting proportions of age, gender, race etc. As soon as you start kicking out people who earned the position by talent and inserting people with less talent but who tick boxes then at that moment you have compromised outcomes.
Not to mention created a culture within the group where quality of outcome is viewed as secondary.
Crossie – the imbecile burst into tears in parliament telling a heart rending tale about deliveries of milk to wukkin’ class folk (possibly) contaminated by radiation in England in the 1950s.
Yes, he is that stupid and pathetic. Yet anyone with a functioning brain is supposed to take him seriously as some sort of political éminence grise?* It’s not as if the red underpants idiocy wasn’t a staggering subterranean low.
*Sky, you clowns.
Conroy was just another Liar who brought their 1950s Pommy class warfare to Australia. And did quite nicely out of it.
I just realised that that is likely why Hitler’s inner circle referred to Bormann as the Brown Eminence – in reference to his uniform colour and his omnipresent shadowy influence.
At least Albo’s class warfare is home grown (relatively speaking, eh Papa Luigi?).
The Virginia-class stopgap subs can carry Tomahawk missiles, and it
iswas possible to … erm… grow the big mushrooms from Tomahawks. The nuclear warheads were officially retired, but…One step at a time. Softly softly aussie nukey.
Indeed, via Wikipedia…
The SSN-AUKUS will also have vertical launch tubes, something the UK has not deployed before, presumably to be able to use `mercan missiles (like the Tomahawk, or the as-yet unannounced mushroom-growing variety??).
Blair’s annual fright at awards were a good test of the state of political commentary in Australia.
These blokes have been absolute champions.
********
HeavyDSparks:
We’re Battling The California Blizzard With Some Very Special Equipment- Day 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtgD5-NegDE
Rabz and Bear,
I have tried to find the footage of Conjob crying, but it seems to have been scrubbed from youtube, of course.
This, from the SMH:
What a tongue bath. And it was all a lie.
Oddly enough, I can’t find an image of the blubbering Conroy being “comforted” by the Labor Senate comfort women. Hilarious stuff.
He also distinguished himself with the Red Underpants comment – now that really did reveal his inner hardboiled Totalitarian.
That’s enough of that. It’s short step from advocating the propagation of that tropical fruit to stridently recommending its plentiful application to a certain Italian culinary treat.
Up with this, we will not put.
So who is advising the SFL on their ‘bipartisan’ approach to the Union Class submarine scam?
Is Chrissy back ?
Calli, the family who recently bought the house next to mine are Chinese. The husband and children speak English but the wife and granny don’t though they try. And as you say, at dinner time the smells wafting from their place are delicious and sometimes they even inspire me to cook. Cooking for one gets tedious.
Snap, Pogria!
He must be ready for another run and his path to glory made clear. It was one of the funniest photos from the RGR years, apart from the laughing Abbott and “distressed” Juliar during the PH kerfuffle.
That day the Indigenous dubbed her “Gingerella” on account of the lost blue suede shoe. Who says they don’t have a sense of humour? 😀
ML, my view is that all people are more or less xenophobic and that throughout recorded history xenophobia has even been demonstrated between people of the same ethnic group, so it’s not necessarily a “race” thing.
Racism as a doctrine developed through the 19th C. on the basis of the science of the time.
What we’ve since discovered in the field of genetics has demonstrated that there was very little scientific evidence for the biological distinctions that were made back then.
Some time back in the ’90s someone did an interesting experiment of sorts. They compiled a set of photographic portraits of people’s faces with various salient physical traits such as skin colour, hair type, eye & nose shape and so on and asked participants to classify each individual by ethnicity. More often than not the participants were wide of the mark.
That fetid old bastard john laws this morning intoned that he thought (sic) Biden was doing a good job.
Like I say the media is THE problem facing the West.
Laws probably envies joe’s dementia which is more florid than laws.
Yes!
Just as we are phasing out the Collins Class subs, the new ones to be built in Australia (which will eventually have so many compromises, shortcuts, shoddy workmanship – all of which will have its genesis in the demands of unions) will be so different from the original Virginia class that they will qualify as a new class of their own.
I reckon ‘Da Werking Class’ submarines.
They could even name them after the Labor people the subs resemble according to the subs’ defects.
HMAS Gillard: Poorly installed mechanical parts will result in a constant deafening screeching and clanging sounds.
HMAS Conroy: Poor fabrication of the inner and outer hull will lead to all the panels and dials weeping salt water, and as water moves about it will produce ‘blubbing’ sounds.
HMAS Turbull: Problems with calibrating the targeting systems will result in every torpedo fired arcing back and hitting other Australian ships from behind.
HMAS Rudd: Cannot submerge. Every time they try to flood the ballast tanks they just refill with hot air.
HMAS Chalmers: This one will be guaranteed to be the fastest, stealthiest, and best built of the fleet. Naturally it will break all these promises and blame the taxpayers for not giving more money so it could have been built better.
Looking at the serried ranks of the side-show alley exhibits that makes up the Labor party we are going to need a massive submarine fleet.
That photo is buried deep within the bowels of the paywalls. It will never be released.
You’d think publishing it would be an act of lèse majesté. Perhaps it is.
In which electorate will the new nuclear submarine waste be stored?
Bet that one gets a very long lead on being announced!
Usually Labor ask this question in parliament to kill off any nuclear power stations.
Where are all the Greenies?
Being paid off with deals I imagine.
Probably aware that the chances of Australia ever building a nuclear submarine is Buckleys or none.
After observing naval shipbuilding in Australia over many decades, I know we cannot do it.
Luzu:
I have – for as long as Australia has tried to make submarines and ships – felt that the crews of these ships and subs should be drawn from the the adult sons and daughters of Trade Unionist, Politicians, and Dept of Defence Support Personnel.
Watch the work quality suddenly improve – or stop altogether.
Liberty Quote?
Guess we’ll have to make do with this,
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=i8hZ0wxSUV0
If one reads the profile and previous utterances of the SVB risk manager it quickly becomes obvious that it wasn’t the Rothschild’s who deep sixed the outfit, it was woke, ESG and D&I.
“As a woman of colour and immigrant who is non binary, I am determined to break the shackles imposed by the hierarchy’s outmoded investment rules by directing investments towards….. blah blah”.
Add in that their CAO had previously been CFO of Lehman Bros and what have you got?
They weren’t completely stupid however. With half of Hollywood, California wokerarty, and Democrats investing in the scam they could be sure that Obama in the guise of Biden would ride to the rescue.
‘Too big to fail’ now reads ‘too woke to fail’.
We’ll just have to make do with this.
How much grift will the CFMEU get out of these submarines? Makes you want to become a good socialist. Some pigs are more equal than others.
Boambee John:
His kind never do. Even the thought of signing the Unlimited Liability document sends them into a panic.
The Liars seem to have lost most of their clowns. Much more tragedy now. They take themselves far more seriously.
When that snow melts in California, it will be a sh*t show. It will be bad…very bad.
I’m hoping the subs never get built for a very simple, humanitarian reason.
Brave men (and likely some brave women) will have to sail them. Underwater.
I reckon the Apollo astronauts took fewer risks.
I love how a low pressure system is now called an “atmospheric river”.
And yes, Cali is in trouble once the meltwater hits. The ground is saturated. I wonder if it will fill Hoover Dam. Finally.
Rita smacking the bottom of some Curious Snail junior j’ismist
who labelled Posie Parker a TERF gave me cause to revisit the works
of RadFem’s Sister Number One.
And yes, I know Hoover isn’t in Cali. I’ve seen it. Fed from the melt water elsewhere. But they slurp water from lake Mead like there’s no tomorrow.
SMH and Calli said…
The revision of Wikipedia’s article on the Windscale fire from 1 week before Conroy spoke about it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Windscale_fire&oldid=462663721
1. If the contamination from the event is a total lie, it isn’t Conroy’s lie as it was in Wikipedia at the time.
2. Conjob was born in (now) Cambridgeshire on the opposite side of England to where Windscale was located, but unknown as to which military base his parents worked at, maybe it was in (the then named) Cumberland somewhere. Also his story was about his uncle not his parents, so there need not be any correlation between his birthplace and the contaminated area. If you aren’t going to believe Conroy on that point, where else will you get his extended family’s living and working arrangements?
3. Given the contamination was in Wikipedia at the time, Conroy was telling porkies by claiming it had been airbrushed from history.
Calli:
I’ve been trying to get a minor issue sorted out with Home Assist for 6 days. Uncontactable, even by email, phone, mobile. Today gout has managed to settle enough I can drive down the street and speak to them in their office.
Are tomatoes not a tropical fruit?
Real bolognese sauce isn’t big on tomatoes and has cream in it.
Roman pizza is served in squares and cut with scissors.
Italian food is a perpetual scandal and it is perpetually in crisis.
Yep. Vanished down the memory hole. Blair’s blog piece had the photo, which of course, is no longer visible. The radioactive milk anecdote dates from the 2011 ALP National Conference. Which reminds me of one of IT’s legendary observations (on the amount of taxes we’re slugged with):
“I’ve got more hands in my pockets than a rent boy at an ALP conference.”
Mirrors their politics really.
B O O M.
https://actuallyitalian.com/authentic-ragu-alla-bolognese/
There’s a lot of confusion about what an actual bolognese sauce is. In fact, it’s been that way for a while which is why the Bologna Chamber of Commerce recognizes only one official recipe for ragu alla bolognese. Although there may be plenty of variations, there is only one official recipe.
300 g of ground beef
150 g of pancetta ground or finely minced
150 g of soffritto finely chopped celery, carrot, and onion
300 g of passata
½ cup of wine
1 cup of whole milk
1 l of chicken broth (or water)
Salt and pepper to taste
WHY WEREN’T WE TOLD!?
He was blubbing for effect.
He opened his mouth and told a b/s story.
Dot needs to get on to his Wiki page and give him a VC.
The Honourable
Stephen Conroy VC
😉