Extreme Unction, Nicolas Poussin, 1646
The size of this dog still staggers me. He’s been clocked at 34 mph = 54.717696 kph. When Stevo drops…
Open Thread – Tue 14 March 2023
- Bumtree #6
- Meme of the Day #68
- Open Thread – Mon 6 May 2024
- The Radio Show May 2024 – The Fifties
- Open Thread – Weekend 4 May 2024
The jailing judge was overruled shades of USA
What an utter slimeball. @WallStreetSilv Bill Gates: “I don’t remember talking about masks at all” This is footage of him…
On the subject of Nazis. I notice that a lot of people here reference the loons in the green movement…
Was just down at a local establishment, having a feed with an associate. Obviously, I was rated highly by the…
I’ve now watched various clips of Keating’s very theatrical performance at the National Press Club yesterday. Actually, it wasn’t a “performance” per se, he doesn’t need to “perform”, his various verbal theatrics yesterday were vintage Keating. Watching him, I was reminded me of a Jerry Springer episode. But because we all have short memories, we forget that such nasty verbal theatrics were Keating’s bag of shticks when in parliament. He’s long been a miserable, nasty, vicious, and hypocritical scum bag, and now he’s simply a very old and decrepit miserable and nasty scum bag. When in politics he was, at times, entertaining, but he was also vitriolic and abusive. Parliamentary question time was always packed full of incessant insults and threats by Keating towards his ideological enemies opposite. However, at least then the Liberal Party could and would throw it back at times, once upon a time the Liberal Party actually had some shit kickers in its backbench ranks, such as Wilson “Ironbar” Tuckey and a few others. Now the Liberal Party is full of spineless, vacuous soy toadies who’d run scared of Keating, and then come back to prostrate themselves before him begging for mercy.
I noticed how that ghastly gothic ghoul and hack, Laura Shingle, who really does send shivers down my spine, sat po faced and said nothing to rein in Keating’s appalling and abusive behaviour yesterday. Shingle’s politics are well known, and no doubt she looks at the decrepit Keating with starry eyes or, in Shingle’s case, cold ugly and gothic eyes that would have inspired Mary Shelley when writing Frankenstein. Imagine a John Howard or Tony Abbott abusing female journalists in such a manner, the howls, the screams and the screeches would be heard this morning as far away as Pluto. I remember how Shingle treated Morrison last year, introducing him as a liar, yet yesterday she sat and allowed her withered and decrepit old hero to reign abuse upon women, as he did with News Corp journalist Olivia Caisley.
Since Keating was booted from office in the Howard landslide of 1996, the MSM has run a protection racket around him, a protection racket they’d simply never do for an ex-Liberal PM, oh actually, I stand corrected, they’d probably do similar with Turdbull. There’s a lot that could be said about Keating, a lot that is unsavoury. The Keating family, a very unpleasant family, have long been shielded from any scrutiny. We saw this when pictures emerged of Katherine Keating exiting Epstein’s home in NYC. The MSM went strangely shtum. Very odd.
Now imagine if that had been a daughter of John Howard or Tony Abbott? Actually, you don’t need to imagine, we know exactly what kind of media maelstrom would have ensued, but meanwhile Katherine Keating’s shenanigans are buried deep and forgotten about.
Just a thought, perhaps some journalists could finally expose him? Most here would know what I’m talking about.
I feel so bad for her
Germany’s last-minute refusal to support the EU’s combustion engine ban hurts Europe’s economic interests but also the EU’s ability to regulate its market. Unless Germany backs down, its intervention will cast doubt over the process of EU lawmaking, writes Julia Poliscanova.
Julia Poliscanova is the senior director for vehicles and e-mobility at Transport & Environment, a clean mobility NGO.
Monty will have a solution.
I earn $130,000 but I’m struggling to pay my mortgage. It’s destroyed life for me and my kids
Your rants are classic, Cass. The best.
Monty being one of those investors getting tax breaks.
Thought I’d update Cats and Kittehs. In a world of doom and gloom…some good news.
The Annual Anna Bay Pig Races raised $20k for a children’s cancer charity. 🙂
Did you know.
If these “renewable” energy power lines run through my property, as proposed, I have to apply for a permit to use my machinery under the lines.
So the government steals your property and devalues it but also removes your right to carry out the job of farming without the consent of a corporation that you never willingly entered into a contractual relationship with, except through coercion.
Thanks, JC.
I would rather give them a royal flush.
They’re gangsters, Gez.
My parents sold their devalued home to the RTA aeons ago because Warringah Expressway extension was going to be built through their property. They just wanted to move on from all the worry.
Never actually happened. Someone cleaned up bigly though when it was sold “surplus to requirements”.
Gez I’ll be down with my battery powered disc grinder when you’re out off with an alibi.
Gez I’ll be down with my battery powered disc grinder when you’re out off with an alibi.
Thermite isn’t that hard to make. Just sayin’.
Keating?
Life is doing him slowly, and doing him no favours.
He certainly came across as a sad old bastard who should be shouting at pigeons or sitting at the bar with a pony and a pile of coins. He’s not “doing anyone slowly” anymore.
Credit Suisse has been on the skids since 2007 , probably a good thing it disappears.
I keep asking “how deep is the rot in the USA”, and every day it is revealed as deeper.
Didn’t watch or read any of the waffle of what Keating had to say other than what is appearing in comments, simply cos anything he has to say is of no interest to me.. but gotta hand it to whoever thought up the idea of trotting out an irrelevance of his level .. nuttin’ better than a, way past it, former PM still slurping at the tax payers trough to get another chance to praise his Chicom maaates and kick everyone else whilst improving someone’s viewer/listener ratings along the way..
Well dun that producer .. 10/10!
I love The Five on Fox.
But then, I’d probably watch Dana Perino read from the white pages phone directory. Classic beauty and a nice person as well.
Watters just gave the Dems (including the apologist on the panel) a good dressing down.
Maybe they could rename what’s left Project Verysilly.
James O’Keefe Launches ‘O’Keefe Media Group’ (15 Mar)
PV’s board would have even more egg on their faces if eggs weren’t so expensive.
Peta Credlin has a good article up at The Oz.
OMG
shatterzzz – I only caught 30 seconds till I could find the remote and turn over to the dog program while getting my 400ml of dinner that somehow keeps me going. La Tingle (like Kervalas) has certainly found her natural home at the ALPBC.
When Keating said he was “redistributing the wealth”, his persecution and with the assistence iof Heather Ridout destroyed the self employed and small business .Little did we know he who meant Australia’s wealth.
Remembering the grovelling MSM who reported every wise crack shrieked with laughter at the insults and adulated the messiah when Keating said that we were to be a “service industry nation”. Are we all enjoying the insults we are receiving from the Chinese Ambassador almost on a daily basis.as if we were a wayward colony of China.
‘Extreme weather this winter may lead to gas shortfalls, especially if coal and renewable alternatives to meet demand are unavailable, the energy market regulator has warned.’
An energy rich nation facing shortfalls.
File under “We are governed by idiots.”
Remdesivir estimated to have killed 100,000 Americans
In the mid 80s Mrs D’s bridesmaid purchased a house very cheaply from the RTA that was surplus to requirements when the M4 was truncated at Strathfield. It was so cheap as it stood empty for 5 years and there were no unsmashed windows, and every internal wall and door had been damaged. We spent a few weekends helping them clean the garden and get rid of rubbish
We spotted her on the Teev protesting about her house being resumed 40 years later on for WestConnex.
He’s a bit of a global warming caused by CO2 nut but this is interesting.
https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2022/10/11/why-high-speed-rail-hasnt-caught-on/
High speed rail is a bad idea.
I wonder to what extent the Hawke/Keating period was just the Australian chapter of the wider Reagan and Thatcher era on the world stage and would have happened anyway? Certainly a lot of the banking deregulation was well underway (for mUnty’s benefit we studied it in Econs). That is not to diminish their achievements, which I still regard as the most successful period of governance in my experience.
File under “We are governed by idiots.”
I’m going with idiots maliciously bent on destruction of our country.
Because that’s exactly what it is.
Catturd ™
@catturd2
This anti-woman bullshit has got to stop.
win
Are we all enjoying the insults we are receiving from the Chinese Ambassador almost on a daily basis.as if we were a wayward colony of China.
Colonialism is only baaaad when whitey does it.
Chainerr taking over its former colony of Tibet, great. Chainerr demanding its former colony of Taiwan back, fine, Chainerr casting its cloak over its former colony of Korea, goooood. Chainerr treating Australia like it is a future colony, wonderful (but let’s not even consider what the Chinese reaction to the Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance might be at some future date).
Houston – We Have a Serious Problem in Biden Administration
“We have a MAJOR problem with this Biden Administration. It is so radically left, it is now endangering the entire economy, not just the banking system. Biden lied to the public claiming there were no buyers for the Silicon Valley Bank. In fact, in London, HSBC immediately stepped forward to strike a deal for SVB in London. Why was HSBC buying SVB’s overseas operation but Biden claimed there were “no buyers” for SVB in the USA? When I was told that it made no sense. Something was not panning out with the regulators who typically call in other banks immediately and work out their shot-gun weddings. I know, I got one of those calls from the Japanese government to buy a brokerage house in Tokyo when the French bank Palace went bust.
When Biden tried to reassure Americans that the banking system was safe and not to worry, the professionals just in their gut had a raw feeling of distrust. The Markets took a nose-dive on Monday and many bank stocks plunged with some down 60% or even more. I found it unbelievable that there was nobody in the wings looking to buy up this bank. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said it couldn’t find a private buyer for SVB when HSBC was buying up SVB quickly in London.
The rumors began to circulate that what was really taking place was that the FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg rejected deals. Rather, there were actually talks of covering just the $250,000 and screwing the rest. The uninsured depositors were about 85%. Then there were the cross-bank obligations that exist in any such deal the Biden Administration wasn’t acknowledging. Take Mr. Biden’s pledge that “no losses will be borne by the taxpayers.” He actually said: “the money will come from the fees that banks pay into the Deposit Insurance Fund.” The fees paid by banks would NEVER cover 85% of deposits that were not insured.
It became obvious that if the FDIC let the bank fail and 85% of the deposits would lose everything, including Oprah Winfrey, it would set off a monumental banking crisis nationwide. I could not scream that loud enough from the top of every roof in Washington. Sources say that since SVB was in California, the hopelessly leftist state, the lines lit up in Washington as the Democratic donors began to wail loudly and that forced the FDIC on Sunday to announce it would cover uninsured deposits at SVB and Signature Bank under its “systemic risk” exception. The “guy” to pull that off was most likely not common sense, but Democratic insiders and they saw their donation evaporate in the middle of the night.
Biden had also claimed that:
“Investors in the banks will not be protected. They knowingly took a risk and when the risk didn’t pay off, investors lose their money. That’s how capitalism works.”
What I know is that where most sophisticated banks hedge their interest rate risk but in the case of SVB and Signature, they apparently believed the leftist vision that inflation would subside and the Fed would not continue to raise rates. These are clearly political fools who are so indoctrinated into the leftist regime, that they know nothing about central banks. Inflation began rising from January 2020. Why did the Fed wait until 2022 to begin raising rates?
Simply because the Fed KNOWS the most significant fact in driving inflation historically is ALWAYS war! Remember WWI, WWII, Korean War, & Vietnam? As soon as the Ukraine War began, that is when the Fed raised rates and there is NO WAY Powell will ever even mention war because he cannot criticize this insane Biden Administration.
The Fed will not publically criticize the administration or Congress which controls the fiscal policy. This Ukrainian War has been instigated by the Neocons, directed by the Neocons who have infiltrated the Biden Administration, and now are fully in control of US foreign policy acting unconstitutionally. They have waged this war against Russia with no end in sight, and no intention of ever engaging in any peace negotiations, and should be called before Congress and held accountable for the FIRST TIME in more than 30 years of endless wars.
As always, Biden blamed the bank panic on the Trump Administration for modifying some 2010 Dodd-Frank Act rules, which was a 2018 bipartisan banking law. That simply raised the threshold for systemically important financial institution (Sifi) classification to $250 billion from $50 billion in assets. That was not Trump’s personal position. That revision would not have prevented the failures of SVB or Signature. Dodd-Frank encouraged banks to load up on these assets, which were especially sensitive to the rapid rise in interest rates. Yet somehow regulators failed to monitor this interest-rate duration risk. But everything that ever goes wrong is always Trump’s fault right down to the migration crisis and global warming. Biden never takes responsibility for anything.
We have a REALLY very serious problem inside the Biden Administration. It is a radical LEFTIST administration that is so intent on dividing the country rich v poor that is now threatening the entire economy. The markets are revealing that we have problems with bank balance sheets and/or income statements that run much deeper for there is a duration risk unaccounted for in the face of another Neocon endless war. For the FDIC to even entertain coving only the minimum and to decline to allow a larger bank to acquire SVB in a shotgun wedding because that would allow rich banks to get bigger, meaning we have a serious infiltration of radical leftist agenda in the Biden Administration that can bring down everything.
The White House’s response to such a financial panic was to do nothing, blame Trump, and screw depositors. This is undermining confidence in the government, which would never have been expected with such a degree of incompetence.
This will be yet another Biden scandal but one that destroys the long-term viability of the United States. Personally, nobody could have predicted such a level of complete incompetence would have ever seized the White House. To reject bids for SVB was stupid, and a complete reversal of fiscal responsibility.”
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/banking-crisis/houston-we-have-a-serious-problem-in-biden-administration/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=RSS
m0ntysays:
March 16, 2023 at 8:38 am
James O’Keefe Launches ‘O’Keefe Media Group’
OMG
Are you logging in from Ukraine, where you are preparing to fight in the Great War Against Wussian Imperialism?
OMG!
In Sugary Drinks news:
ACOSS suggests superannuation, wine and soft drink tax changes as part of budget submission
The Cow.
My government-approved daily six bottles of monkey-blood is going to cost an extra $30. That’s got to come from somewhere – and it’s not going to be from my smokes.
He will have to sell and buy a smaller and cheaper place, probably further out of the city than he is now. That’s what people used to do in changed financial circumstances.
Get it right, Roger.
We are not just ‘energy rich’.
We are an Energy Superpower.
Diogenes – bit of a risk. Here in the West we have the Stevenson Highway which has sat on the government books since the 70s threatening to carve a swath through the Western Surburbs of Curtin, including cutting the Royal Wembley golf course in two. In the meantime absolutely nothing has happened and we are surrounded by natural bush.
Crossie says:
March 16, 2023 at 8:57 am
Not knowing his exact financial situation, it’s hard to say, but on his salary it’s quite doable.
On the other hand, with car loan, maintenance to the wife etc. I agree, sell and get a cheaper place, hard to part with a loved house, but sometimes a bullet has to be bitten, reality faced.
The M4 has been a political football since as long as I can remember. When we moved to Sydney in 72 it had already been cancelled, with all bridges complete between Parramatta and Strathfield. My memory is… one mob got it going again and finished that section. The next mob cancelled it again, truncating it. Then the next mob built the bits westward, and it stopped just shy of the Blue Mountains, the the next mob did the Emu Plains Glenbrook section, and then the next mob rechristened the truncated but Westconnex and started again
Just done some Googlin’. Seems some bits of the Stephenson plan have made it into bitumen while others have lapsed.
Paradigms reign, governments adapt.
Eisenhower was a conservative but extended New Deal measures and other federal initiatives, for example.
Unfortunately for us – and especially our offspring – we’re coming under the influence of a very malignant paradigm.
Whoppers.
UN Secretary-General: ‘For Well Over a Millennium, Islam’s Message of Peace Has Inspired People’ (15 Mar)
U.N. secretary-general warns world is at a global warming crossroads (13 Mar)
Maybe he should try for a hat-trick.
SBS man sounds rather odd in his financial decisions:
I bought my Melbourne home in 2001 for $500,000. My mortgage was approximately $240,000 and very comfortable at the time. In 2019 I had to refinance due to divorce and took out a new mortgage of $750,000, just over the average Australian mortgage.
They didn’t manage to pay out a $240k mortgage in 18 years?
A new mortgage of $750k on the same house?
We are also at the mercy of idiots who parrot what’s sent out by so-called meteorologists. Why would we have extreme weather conditions this winter? What do they consider extreme? And not a peep about why we are facing electricity shortfalls. It’s almost like it’s an act of God and perhaps it is, their climate god.
Hellloooo Nifty Nev!
We will never get anything like Bradfield envisioned and the latest tunnel or train line is usually about 20 – 30 years past it’s time.
Sydney will never be a world class city without a proper underground metro rail system. It’s still easier to use your car, even with the tolls, traffic, time and road rage. It’s not the motorist’s fault.
On Saturdays I used to go from the beaches to Blacktown, out to Moorebank or Burwood, then home.
Lots of time driving. My sister once asked me if I could also go out to the Eastern Suburbs to pick up some craft stuff she didn’t order delivered to her home hundreds of kms away. ): |
Explaining how this doesn’t work to a country townsperson is like speaking another language.
“I looked on a map, it’s only 15 km away from where you drive past”
Uhh…
What we used to call a cold snap.
Oh my god the most important journalist in generations is starting his own company after he got stabbed in the back!
Real country people measure distance in hours, not kms.
In Y’Canna Defy the Laws Of Physics, Captain news:
AEMO warns of gas shortfalls during extreme weather this winter and long-term supply gap from 2027
Roll back to 2015, when the gas industry warned AEMO (and the State and Commonwealth governments) about limitations on how quickly pipelines from Queensland could deliver gas support to the south.
Warnings ignored by the Arts/Law graduates who have since facilitated an energy system dependent on quick start gas turbine generators – which consume frantic quantities of gas when they run for a few expensive hours – located many hundreds of kilometres away from the sources of gas.
Mass balance, flowing resistance, compression limitations, commercial line pack, minimum system operating pressure. It was all just tedious, pettifogging engineering detail, desperately thrown up as a diversion by fossil fuel dinosaurs and denialists who don’t understand the inexorable politics of renewable energy.
Until, oops…
It’s our immediate future now – and the costs will be [ahem] material.
For a while there interest only loans were a bit of a trend, like fixed interest loans 18 months ago. Likewise, just leaving the mortgage and paying it out with a super lump sum. All fine – unless you get divorced in the meantime as the correspondent is finding.
Some have been known to measure distance in stubbies consumed.
There’s a measure also used by country folk just as effective.
Translated: ‘It’s only two stubbies away.’
Snap Zulu!
That is not a reason to increase tax.
What an odious woman.
Dot – or being from Perf and wondering why people don’t seem concerned why the traffic comes to a complete standstill for a couple of minutes for no apparent reason.
But the real biggie is super.
The only way ACOSS can imagine addressing its stated mission of reducing poverty is via the redistribution of wealth.
What’s odd is he (seemingly on his own) could afford a $260,000 deposit back in 2001; even saving for 10 years, that was saving ~20k p.a. for ten years at 6% or 46k for five years at 6%.
18 years alter even with 38k of equity at a bare minimum after the divorce, he got approved for a 750k loan and couldn’t pay out the prior loan in five to seven years or less.
Assume he went to a major bank with no dependents he was likely earning at least 150k in 2019 before tax.
It seems the wife turning up led to a lot more spending – perhaps on herself, jetskis, experience holidays, new cars every three years, elite private school education…?
I truly wonder if it is a GP who married an ambitious nurse.
ACOSS will get busier if they start taxing Coke. There’s your answer? And Woody premixed. Grrrr.
I assume old mate has more equity than suggested and owns an old (heritage?) 3 br home in Richmond or St Kilda etc.
Courier Mail and Herald Sun both running article about triple threat of flu, Covid and RSV.
Unfortunately looks like Nick Coatsworth shilling Vax for Terry White Chemist and there is pic of Coatesworth with head chemist of TW.
Of course TW going to be all in as they are going to be making easy millions jabbing people. The more jabs the more frequent the better for their profits.
You have to wonder how such an article comes about. Who calls who to set it up. Govt Health, Newscorp or does TW call Nick and say lets do a pic and press release?
The Cow.
My government-approved daily six bottles of monkey-blood is going to cost an extra $30. That’s got to come from somewhere – and it’s not going to be from my smokes.
If there is going to be more tax on my booze then I will be selling my none poison vaccine blood (I will never get the Jab) – pure blood – for an amount that compensates me for any extra booze tax. FFS.
Oh ho ho ho no, good sir.
It’s Cremorne to us hoity-toity folk. Put another zero on that house value.
From LinkedIn:
‘CEO and nationally recognised leader with reputation as courageous social change agent.’
Long marcher.
Few people realise the values of dance and electronic music were first codified in
Friedrich Karl Forberg’s landmark treatise Verpiss dich, Wichser.
Credlin this morning in the Oz. A fair overview of what’s wrong, but how to fix it all without sinking into a depressive state – especially given the banking contagion looming in Europe, which isn’t mentioned?
MBA and D Ed, calls herself a Chief Scientist?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicakriegel
Who says there isn’t bloat in the world’s top companies?
The real issue is he has 50% less (give or take) now. My BIL picked up a $3-5m house from a female divorcee. She got the house, the kid (immediately pulled out of private school) and no skills or income. Hubby presumably got a rental and the chance to start over. Nothing destroys wealth like divorce.
True. The distribution of sugary soft drinking probably doesn’t overlap the chortling, rosé-swilling demographic ‘who can afford to pay more’.
Having said that, anything that reduces Woody use can’t be all bad.
A little boy, no older than 8 years old, shows up to a whorehouse with a dead frog and demands to see the madame. An elderly woman comes out and asks what she can do for him. He explains that he wishes to pay for the services of the cheapest girl in the house, but that she absolutely must have herpes. The madame, of course, initially refuses, but the boy cries and cries until she gives in. Out comes Tiffany, the most decrepit **** you’ve ever seen, and the madame says to the boy “It’s £20 for an hour with Tiffany, but you have to leave the dead frog outside.”
The boy agrees.
An hour later the boy comes out from the back, beaming from ear to ear, and collects his frog. As he’s leaving, the madame stops him and says “before you go, I must know– why did you insist on a girl with herpes?”
The boy responds, “well you see ma’am, it’s simple. I’ve got herpes now. When I go home, my babysitter will touch me down there, and she’ll get the herpes. My dad likes the babysitter a lot, so he’ll get the herpes, and then my mum will get it too.”
The madame replies, “go on…”
The boy says, “Well, my mum is really good friends with the postman, so the postman will get herpes, and he likes to touch his son, so HIS son will get herpes too!”
The madame asks, “but why do you want your postman’s son to have herpes?”….
and the boy replies, “That’s the bugger who killed my frog!”
What an odious woman.
Indeed. Friggin wowsers.
When people assess the evidence of a scientific study, they sometimes overlook an extremely important feature–the strength of the evidence. Tons of observational studies with weak evidence are no match for a few well-designed controlled studies with strong evidence. A similar comparison of evidence applies to the strong evidence of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine clinical trials and the much weaker evidence of the vaccine post-marketing studies. The final phase 3 results of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 mRNA vaccine trial were published in the New England Journal of Medicine as early as December 10, 2020, approximately 9 months after the COVID-19 pandemic was declared on March 11, 2020. Within a mere 9 months, it was already firmly established that the absolute risk reduction of Pfizer/BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine to prevent a SARS-CoV-2 infection with a mild or moderate symptom was approximately 0.7%., essentially providing no clinical benefits whatsoever. In other words, the public roll out of the vaccine campaign to contain the spread of the coronavirus was doomed to failure before it barely started!
Nevertheless, the absolute risk reduction of the COVID-19 vaccine was hidden from the public, and in its place the public was told about the glorious relative risk reduction of approximately 95%. So impressed was the public with this media hype that employers started mandating vaccination for all employees, and universities mandated vaccines for students. In the meanwhile reports of harm from the vaccines mounted.
It wasn’t long before numerous observational post-marketing studies started reporting “waning effectiveness” of the vaccines. Lacking strict controls to eliminate biases, the evidence in these negative reports was weak, but the sheer number of negative findings eventually forced public health authorities to concede that the vaccines were failing to prevent transmission of the coronavirus.
However, this is simply NOT the whole truth, which is much worse. The public to this day largely remains unaware that the COVID-19 vaccines were proven ineffective (non-efficacious) to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infections BEFORE the vaccine roll out. The much stronger evidence of the clinical trials proved that the vaccines were never effective to begin with, and the chance that they could contain the coronavirus was nil. It was just a matter of time before the clinically-proven results showed up within the population. The entire launch of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign during the pandemic was based on biased information and misleading half-truths!
Even the FDA that authorized the vaccines for emergency use ignored their own advice to include absolute risk reductions when communicating risks to the public: Communicating Risks and Benefits: An Evidence-Based User’s Guide | FDA. Consequently, the public was denied their right to full discloscure of risks and benefits when deciding to consent to a medical treatment or procedure.
The media had full access to studies like mine published in February 2021, Outcome Reporting Bias in COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Clinical Trials. But the media continued to ignore the truth and even censor discussion about it. And the public, including most scientists, practitioners, and public health administrators, continue to remain ignorant of the misuse of the relative risk reduction in reporting clinical trial results: Relative risk reduction: Misinformative measure in clinical trials and COVID-19 vaccine efficacy.
And the next media-hyped vaccination campaign lies in waiting right around the corner!
https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/covid-19-vaccines-were-proven-ineffective-before-vaccine-campaign-roll-out-e5029da5
ACOSS chief executive Cassandra Goldie insisted many Australians could afford to pay more tax.
If she feels that the government needs more revenue, she should feel free to write a cheque to the ATO.
What would her remuneration package (including car, super, other benefits) be? She is almost certainly in the “could afford to pay more tax” demographic. She should lead by example.
Not all those who wander are lost.
– J. R. R. Tolkien
Odds on it’s structured to minimise her tax.
Great minds, KD.
https://openai.com/research/gpt-4
Richard Cranium
When you prepare your estimate of how long it will take to build the “Full Monty” of renewable electricity in Australia, remember that this is the government’s estimate, which no-one believes is possible.
Then go back and look again at the nuclear option.
The Energy Minister, Chris Bowen, tells us that achieving the government’s now legislated targets requires the installation of 22,000 solar panels a day, 40 large wind turbines a month and the construction of 28,000 kilometres of transmission lines in just seven years time.
Just like Bono’s German supermarket investments.
Perhaps we need a Hypocrisy Tax?
TopEnder at 9:22.
The magic word in the $750k refinance story is “divorce”.
No doubt the house was worth well north of $1 meg, so he had to borrow to buy out the ex’s share.
Lizzie – one for you to keep an eye on:
‘Extremely Rare’ Coffin of Roman Aristocrat Discovered in 1,600-Year-Old British Cemetery (14 Mar)
That time of transition I think fed into the whole mythos that you specialize in, so more discoveries from the cemetery and the lady buried in the coffin may be very interesting. Lead would’ve been fairly common as a byproduct of silver production.
Meanwhile, the Minister for the Environment (Hi, Tanya!) is concerned about the environmental impact of vaping.
Rogersays:
March 16, 2023 at 9:58 am
What would her remuneration package (including car, super, other benefits) be?
Odds on it’s structured to minimise her tax.
When the GST was introduced. there were screeches of protest form the “charity” industry, how they structured their remuneration packages was going to be destroyed etc. The government folded, and they got some kind of exemption.
Chainerr taking over its former colony of Tibet, great. Chainerr demanding its former colony of Taiwan back, fine, Chainerr casting its cloak over its former colony of Korea, goooood. Chainerr treating Australia like it is a future colony, wonderful (but let’s not even consider what the Chinese reaction to the Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance might be at some future date).
Well, based upon what happened around the Palmer River Goldfields in the latter part of the 1800s, the local Aborigines killed quite a few of the Chinese workers and then ate them. They reckoned that the Chinese tasted better than the ‘white’ ones that they also killed. Chinese takeaway anyone?………..lol
No one wants the hassle of getting the mail redirected.
The Energy Minister, Chris Bowen, tells us that achieving the government’s now legislated targets requires the installation of 22,000 solar panels a day, 40 large wind turbines a month and the construction of 28,000 kilometres of transmission lines in just seven years time.
Mission Impossible 101 now showing at a Cinema near you. Adults only. Or in Blackout Bowen’s case – A Dolt (Adult?????).
Boambee John at 10:11 – think you’ll find it’s FBT. Hospital workers enjoy some fiddle too and a few of them ran into trouble over here getting a little creative with the paperwork.
H B Bearsays:
March 16, 2023 at 10:04 am
Perhaps we need a Hypocrisy Tax?
It could eliminate the need for every other tax.
American comments about “grave robbers” are absolutely nuts in that archeology article.
H B Bearsays:
March 16, 2023 at 10:16 am
Boambee John at 10:11 – think you’ll find it’s FBT. Hospital workers enjoy some fiddle too and a few of them ran into trouble over here getting a little creative with the paperwork.
You are quite right, got my three letter taxes mixed up. LOL.
We’re gonna need more central planning.
The QLD government has already flagged that renewables infrastructure will have to be state funded and owned if their absurd renewables targets (70% by 2032) are to be met.
They’ll partner with private interests in some instances but retain ownership.
Coal fired power stations will be refashioned into “renewable energy hubs.”
It’s a brave new world, comrades.
J Rotten
Well, based upon what happened around the Palmer River Goldfields in the latter part of the 1800s, the local Aborigines killed quite a few of the Chinese workers and then ate them. They reckoned that the Chinese tasted better than the ‘white’ ones that they also killed. Chinese takeaway anyone?………..lol
Expect a screeching mob of fauxborigines at your door later today, protesting your waaaaycsisssst claim that the gentle, peace-loving indigenes would ever harm someone, much less kill and eat them.
The blackouts can’t come soon enough.
Boambee Johnsays:
March 16, 2023 at 10:26 am
J Rotten
Well, based upon what happened around the Palmer River Goldfields in the latter part of the 1800s, the local Aborigines killed quite a few of the Chinese workers and then ate them. They reckoned that the Chinese tasted better than the ‘white’ ones that they also killed. Chinese takeaway anyone?………..lol
Expect a screeching mob of fauxborigines at your door later today, protesting your waaaaycsisssst claim that the gentle, peace-loving indigenes would ever harm someone, much less kill and eat them.
LOL. They need to find my front door first.
Rest easy, though…top men are already working on how the eastern grid will function without reliable coal fired electricity humming through those interconnectors on the QLD border.
Paul Keating’s statement condemning the Albanese Government over AUKUS and our China deterrent nuclear submarines
Wednesday, 15 March 2023
Conflict of interest anyone?
The Albanese Government’s complicity in joining with Britain and the United States in a tripartite build of a nuclear submarine for Australia under the AUKUS arrangements represents the worst international decision by an Australian Labor government since the former Labor leader, Billy Hughes, sought to introduce conscription to augment Australian forces in World War One.
AUKUS Statement by PJ Keating, The National Press Club, Wednesday 15 March 2023
The Complete Statement courtesy of – https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2023/03/paul-keatings-statement-condemning-the-albanese-government-over-aukus-and-our-china-deterrent-nuclea.html
I expect Albo to send that Wong chap over to explore ties.
Top men.
Patient of The Year
From
Why are people so unkind?
The Energy Minister, Chris Bowen, tells us that achieving the government’s now legislated targets requires the installation of 22,000 solar panels a day, 40 large wind turbines a month and the construction of 28,000 kilometres of transmission lines in just seven years time.
Wot’ Energy experience does Blackout Bowen have and that also applies to his so called advisers? SFA IMHO. Maybe with a Train Set run with a transformer or a Scalextric Car Set. In which case, give him a Dildo (with batteries NOT included) covered in super glue and ram him up where the sun doesn’t shine. Maybe that will wake him up…………………………
A couple of days ago, bons put up a comment about the need for ground defence of Australia, versus the Defence Organisation’s fascination with ships and aircraft.
The point has strength, at the very least because having an army forces any potential invader to bring an army with them. This increases significantly the size of the naval force needed, increasing the cost of the operation, and increasing the number of targets available for our ships (submarines?), aircraft and missiles.
It seems to me that we need all, ships, submarines, aircraft and ground forces, but that the priority should go to forces that can damage or stop a seaborne or airborne attack, but this does not deny the essentiality of Australian ground forces.
That raises the question: a larger regular Army, or a smaller regular force, and a large part-time force optimised for local defence?
Pulls pin, shouts “Grenade”, throws and ducks for cover.
Well said Shannon Deery
Corruption Watch Dog Head set to Bite Back!
I wonder if Tingle’s failure to rein in Keating will damage her chances of becoming the staff elected ABC board member, union endorsement notwithstanding?
Perversely, marriage can put a fair old dint in it too.
HMAS Never Never
Chat GPT is really dumb now. I asked it if there is any propagation of an electric field in a conducted wire with applied EMF by nuclear resonance – it admits this happens but tries to say it is so small it doesn’t matter – which wasn’t the question I was asking. I was asking if it happened at all, which means anything that is non-zero.
Apologies to electrical engineers. Look at the inconsistencies. Yes there is an electric field within the wires, it is correct to say at very high voltages the skin effect gets bigger, especially for uninsulated wires?
Electrical current is caused by electrical fields. Is the field propagation caused partially by nuclear resonance of the metal ions in the conducting material?
“No, the propagation of electrical fields in conducting wires is not directly caused by nuclear resonance of metal ions in the conducting material [NOT WHAT I ASKED, JACKASS!].
Electrical current in a conducting wire is created by the movement of free electrons within the wire, which is driven by an applied voltage. This movement of electrons creates an electrical field that propagates through the wire at nearly the speed of light. The electrical field is not directly affected by nuclear resonance of the metal ions in the wire.
Nuclear resonance is a phenomenon that occurs when the nuclei of atoms within a material absorb and re-emit electromagnetic radiation at a specific frequency. This phenomenon is important in fields such as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), but it is not directly related to the propagation of electrical fields in conducting wires.
However, it is worth noting that the properties of the metal ions in a conducting wire, such as their electrical conductivity and resistance, can affect the behavior of electrical fields within the wire. For example, a wire made from a highly conductive material will allow electrical fields to propagate more easily than a wire made from a less conductive material. Additionally, the resistance of a wire can cause the electrical field to weaken or attenuate as it propagates through the wire.”
The applied voltage creates an electrical field. Most of that travels around the skin of the conductor. Does some of the electric field get propagated by nuclear resonance?
“Nuclear resonance can occur in metal ions within a conducting wire, but it is not directly related to the propagation of the electric field that drives electrical current through the wire.
In a conducting wire, the electric field created by an applied voltage primarily travels through the wire’s metallic lattice structure, rather than around its surface. This electric field induces a current flow in the wire, which in turn generates a magnetic field that is perpendicular to the electric field. This magnetic field can interact with the nuclei of the metal ions in the wire, leading to nuclear resonance.
However, the effects of nuclear resonance on the propagation of the electric field through the wire are generally negligible. The dominant mechanism for the propagation of the electric field in a conducting wire is the movement of free electrons in response to the applied voltage, and not the resonance of the metal ions’ nuclei.”
Okay now, then there is this replying to me again:
How does the voltage (potential difference) travel through the metal lattice over several metres of say 0.5 mm wires? You are also wrong. The electrons do not propagate the field, they move because the field exerts EMF on them.
“You are correct that the movement of electrons in response to an applied voltage is not the same as the propagation of the electric field. I apologize for the confusion in my previous response.
Regarding your question, the potential difference (voltage) does not “travel” through the metal lattice of a wire in the same way that a wave travels through a medium. Rather, the voltage difference is established across the ends of the wire, and the electric field within the wire exerts a force on the free electrons within the metal lattice. This force causes the free electrons to move, creating a current that flows through the wire.
In a conducting wire, the free electrons move relatively freely through the metal lattice, colliding with the metal ions and other electrons as they do so. However, the net movement of electrons in response to the electric field is generally in the direction of the wire, creating a flow of current.
Over long distances or with high currents, the resistance of the wire can cause the voltage to drop along the length of the wire, leading to a decrease in the electric field and a corresponding decrease in the current flow. However, as long as the potential difference is maintained across the ends of the wire, the electric field within the wire will continue to drive the movement of electrons and the flow of current.”
Really weird now:
The potential difference creates an electric field. The field moves the electrons. The electrons exert a perpendicular magnetic field.
“Yes, that’s correct. An applied potential difference between the ends of a conductor creates an electric field within the conductor. This electric field exerts a force on the free electrons within the conductor, causing them to move in the direction of the electric field. The movement of these electrons generates a current that flows through the conductor.
As the electrons move, they create a magnetic field that is perpendicular to their direction of motion. This magnetic field is known as the “magnetic field of current” or “magnetic field of a conductor”. The strength of this magnetic field is proportional to the current flowing through the conductor.
The interaction between the electric and magnetic fields generated by the flow of current in a conductor is the basis for many important applications of electromagnetism, such as motors, generators, and transformers.”
Why do you keep on ignoring the electric field outside of the conductor?
“I apologize if my previous responses were unclear or did not fully address your question.
In an electrical circuit, the electric field created by an applied voltage is not confined solely to the interior of the conductor, but rather extends into the surrounding space. The strength and direction of this electric field depend on the geometry and arrangement of the conductors and any surrounding materials or media, as well as the magnitude and polarity of the applied voltage.
The electric field outside the conductor can also have important effects on the behavior of the circuit, such as inducing voltages in nearby conductors or causing dielectric breakdown in insulating materials. However, the strength of the electric field outside the conductor is generally lower than within the conductor itself, due to the higher conductivity of the metal compared to the surrounding materials.
I hope this clarifies any confusion, and please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns.”
Keating is an unimaginative plonker. Just as narrow minded as those who cannot envisage Australia adopting a defence posture that’s independent of the US. Keating merely thinks we’re wedded to the wrong great power. He says we should go with China. There’s no brilliant insight there whatsoever.
What would be really insightful is a thought leader making the case for Australia to build the capacity to defend itself, by itself.
One of the real problems with tax is you can have “fairness” or simplicity but generally not both. Any difference in tax treatment almost always opens an opportunity for arbitrage. Anyone who has been in the UK for any length of time looks at the prices of used cars and thinks “These are so cheap I must make a profit if I can get one back to Australia.” Anyone who has done so realises you can’t (some vet friends on a 1970s Porsche Turbo for example) yet if you work in local government and get new cars free of stamp duty you nearly always profit by moving on your 12 months old car.
More likely increase it. Call it The Mavis Kneepad Effect.
Yes.
Perhaps we could start with ditching the FBT exemption for “charities”.
Back in the day, in an initiative to control roadside broken glass, Thiess installed goal posts as a target for jettisoned after-shift stubbies along the road from South Blackwater mine back into town.
A modest three in 40km.
Probably unacceptable in current HSE practice.
I know of two books The Flower Hunter and Daisy Bates book where Aboriginal consumption of human flesh is documented. ( How’s that for woke). Previous owners of the books had cut out the relevant pages.
Apologies for not doing as usual and taking out the in-text links in that Oz article by Credlin. I hope that the flow of the article is still fairly readable and people can differentiate Credlin’s words from the links.
It was supposed to be Phew what a Scorcher here today, but so far just an ordinary warm day in Syd.
Only after a certain point. Two incomes, one roof works pretty well when starting out.
From my memory of studying anthropology way back, there are numerous accounts of aboriginals eating human flesh – it was done however mostly for ritual purposes (or so it was claimed) to maintain contact with ancestral spirits etc. Unlike the Maori, who had a definite culinary approach to human flesh, simply throwing in a bit of ritual (eg. getting this warrior’s spirit) to increase its palatability for European enquirers.
“Charities” are already in the firing line. And not before time.
Did someone say “flat rate with limited deductions”?
gpt3.5 was in bottom 10% of Bar exam, GPT4 is now in the top 10%
GPT-5 is currently training
Tucker: This was a disaster for America
Tom Ronan’s biography of his father, a station manger in the North West for may years, mentions a police party, in pursuit of the Aboriginal murderer “Pigeon” discovering the ashes of a campfire, with the corpse of a baby girl, trussed and roasted.
Energy flows around the wires as electric and magnetic wires, through the Poynting vector.
The misconception is that electrons carry potential energy around a complete conducting loop, transferring their energy to the load. Veritasium Nov 20, 2021.
The Big Misconception About Electricity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHIhgxav9LY
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Bearesays:
March 16, 2023 at 11:01 am
From my memory of studying anthropology way back, there are numerous accounts of aboriginals eating human flesh – it was done however mostly for ritual purposes (or so it was claimed) to maintain contact with ancestral spirits etc. Unlike the Maori, who had a definite culinary approach to human flesh, simply throwing in a bit of ritual (eg. getting this warrior’s spirit) to increase its palatability for European enquirers.
One Ion Idriess book (IIRC, Outlaws of the Leopolds) referred several times to a custom of cutting the kidneys out of a beaten foe, then eating the fat off them in front of the by then dying foe. Raw kidney fat – yummmm!
Something about absorbing the beaten foe’s spirit or courage, a long time since I read it.
Let’s face it, the first sub built in SA will not leave dry dock.
It’ll be plugged straight into the grid and named HMAS Base Load.
I think some people have missed the gag.
H B Bearsays:
March 16, 2023 at 11:01 am
“Charities” are already in the firing line. And not before time.
A good start would be to legislate that no employee of a tax-recognised “charity” may have a total remuneration greater than AWOTE. Why should employment by a supposed “charity” provide a very high income, detracting from the funds available for the cause for which they were collected?
PS, that might end the “Doing well by doing good” syndrome.
Zulu Kilo Two Alphasays:
March 16, 2023 at 11:09 am
I know of two books The Flower Hunter and Daisy Bates book where Aboriginal consumption of human flesh is documented.
Tom Ronan’s biography of his father, a station manger in the North West for may years, mentions a police party, in pursuit of the Aboriginal murderer “Pigeon” discovering the ashes of a campfire, with the corpse of a baby girl, trussed and roasted.
Jandamara, aka “Pigeon” was a major character in the Idriess book.
Banker warns super tax may force ‘a hell of a lot’ of farmers to sell
Gus McCubbing and Hannah Wootton
The federal government’s controversial plan to tax unrealised gains in big superannuation accounts could financially decimate farmers who “eke out a living”, according to business leader Mike Hirst.
Mr Hirst, a non-executive director at AMP and former chief executive of Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, said he had no qualms about Labor’s move to double the tax rate from 15 to 30 per cent for earnings on $3 million-plus super funds. But he said there’s a difference between assets and earnings.
“The bottom line is – you can’t pay tax with money you haven’t got because it’s just a paper gain,” Mr Hirst told The Australian Financial Review.
“I’m raising the issue because I know there’s a hell of lot of farmers who just eke out a living, but they’ve got their land in their super funds … and as well you know, farm values increase steadily over time, with a lot of up and downs.
“Taxing unrealised gains is going to provide cashflows problems for people who might not be earning a lot of income but have assets.”
Mr Hirst, who owns a farm near Geelong where he has cattle and thoroughbreds, says if a farmer’s property value increased by $1 million over the space of a few years, then the owner would have to pay $300,000 in taxes.
“If you don’t have the $300,000 in your super to pay the taxman, then you’d have to sell the farm,” he said.
“There isn’t anywhere else in the tax system where unrealised capital gains get taxed, and you can see the reason why – it’s hard to tax people on money they haven’t made or actually got in hand. I just don’t understand how they think it’s equitable.”
Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones said in question time last week that the government planned to consult on issues such as taxing unrealised increases in farm values, but did not rule it out.
But National Farmers Federation CEO Tony Mahar said that farmers were “investing and making decisions now” even though the law may not come into effect until 2025.
“I’m not aware of another tax like this. It’s like charging capital gains tax annually on the family home. That has a lot of people worried,” he said.
“In a worse case scenario it might mean family farms are sold off to meet a tax bill purely because the value of an asset has increased on paper.”
The price of farmland throughout much of Australia is in the midst of a boom period. The median price for Victorian acreage increased by 30.4 per cent in 2021, according to Rural Bank, taking the average annual growth for the past 10 years to 10.7 per cent.
Loss of trust
William Laird, an agribusiness specialist and partner at national accounting firm RSM. said clients had “absolutely” already started worrying about the unrealised gains tax.
“It’s pretty much been in every conversation that I’ve had with a farming client in the last couple of weeks.
“The biggest thing they’ve said is they lost trust in the system, they say we don’t trust it, we played by the rules, and they think their kids pretty much shouldn’t touch super.”
The Toowoomba-based accountant said it was “the norm” for clients who had bought farmland in the last 20 years to have put it in an SMSF, and that this number had increased since the pandemic as more city dwellers moved to regional areas.
As well as the liquidity issues flagged by Mr Hirst, Mr Laird said farmers faced “a significant risk of double taxation” from the rules.
“The way the [proposed] system is designed, is that you can drop in and out of these rules based on whether your balance is more than $3 million.
“You could go in and out of the system many times paying for the same growth, but never get unrealised losses covered because you’re dropping out of the system.”
If that man on $130k having mortgage problems is serious, he could easily still keep his house and ‘informally’ let out a part of it. Most houses can be altered so that a fairly separate bed-sitting room is available, a room which could easily have a small cabinet with a ‘kitchen’ on it – equipment in the cupboards, and on the top an electric kettle and toaster, air fryer, microwave, plug in stovetop, and a plastic bowl for washing up, plus a table that could also serve as a desk. If it’s a large house there is probably a master bedroom with ensuite that would serve as an almost self-contained area, maybe even knock through a separate entrance. The owner could sleep in a sleep out if necessary. Creative thinking could solve his immediate problems. He seems to have numerous friends who could probably help him with the set-up. Selling up may not be a good solution right now as repurchasing and resettlement incurs costs
Excess deaths continue
Dr. John Campbell
Wow ChatGPT 4.0 keeps on failing.
Would the small effect of nuclear resonance be subject to both the electric and magnetic fields?
“Yes, the nuclear resonance effect in a conducting wire can be subject to both electric and magnetic fields. In the presence of an applied electric field, the metal ions within the wire will experience a force that depends on the charge and magnitude of the electric field and the charge and mass of the metal ions.
Similarly, in the presence of a magnetic field, the metal ions will experience a force that depends on the strength and direction of the magnetic field and the magnetic moment of the metal ions. These forces can lead to the phenomenon of nuclear resonance, in which the energy levels of the metal ions’ nuclei are affected by the interaction with the applied electric and magnetic fields.
However, it’s important to note that the effects of nuclear resonance on the propagation of the electric field and current flow in a conducting wire are generally small and typically only significant under specific conditions, such as in the presence of strong magnetic fields or at very low temperatures.”
How does the electrical field move through a conductor?
“In a conductor, an electric field is generated by an applied voltage difference across the ends of the conductor. The electric field exerts a force on the free electrons within the metal lattice of the conductor, causing them to move in the direction of the electric field. These moving electrons create a flow of electric charge, which we call an electric current.
The electric field within a conductor can be visualized as a series of equipotential surfaces, which are planes of constant electric potential. The equipotential surfaces are perpendicular to the direction of the electric field, and the magnitude of the electric field is proportional to the rate of change of electric potential along the direction of the electric field.
Within a conductor, the electric field is generally distributed uniformly throughout the cross-sectional area of the conductor, assuming the conductor is of uniform shape and composition. The electric field strength can be calculated using the applied voltage difference and the dimensions of the conductor.
As the electric field drives the motion of the free electrons within the conductor, the electrons experience collisions with the metal ions and other electrons within the metal lattice. These collisions cause a transfer of energy between the electrons and the lattice, which results in the generation of heat and the dissipation of electrical energy within the conductor.”
Please refer to The Big Misconception About Electricity , by Veritasium
“Yes, the video “The Big Misconception About Electricity” by Veritasium addresses some common misconceptions about the nature of electric current and how it flows through conductors.
In the video, the host explains that electric current is not a flow of electric charge from one end of a conductor to the other, as is often mistakenly believed. Instead, electric current is a flow of energy carried by moving charged particles, such as electrons, within the conductor.
The movement of electrons within the conductor is driven by an electric field, which is created by an applied voltage difference across the conductor. The electric field exerts a force on the free electrons within the conductor, causing them to move in the direction of the electric field. The electrons transfer energy to the metal lattice of the conductor through collisions, resulting in the generation of heat and the dissipation of electrical energy.
Overall, the video provides a clear and informative explanation of the physics of electric current and how it flows through conductors, and is a useful resource for anyone interested in learning more about electricity and electromagnetism.”
The Veritasium video would call out “The electrons transfer energy to the metal lattice of the conductor through collisions” as false.
“You are correct. The Veritasium video “The Big Misconception About Electricity” actually disputes the claim that electrons transfer energy to the metal lattice of the conductor through collisions. Instead, the video explains that the energy transfer occurs through the electric field interactions between the electrons and the positively charged ions that make up the metal lattice.
According to the video, when an electric field is applied to a conductor, the free electrons within the metal lattice are accelerated by the field and collide with the positively charged metal ions. These collisions transfer energy from the electrons to the ions, causing the ions to vibrate and generate heat. The energy transfer occurs primarily through the interaction of the electrons with the positively charged ions, rather than through collisions between the electrons themselves.
I apologize for any confusion I may have caused earlier with my previous response. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.”
That video asserts and proves the electric and magnetic current flows mostly outside the wires.
“Yes, that’s correct. The Veritasium video “The Big Misconception About Electricity” explains that the flow of electric current within a conductor is not limited to the interior of the wire, but instead is distributed across the entire cross-sectional area of the wire and its surrounding space.
The video presents a visualization of the flow of electric current using magnetic field lines, which are created by the motion of charged particles, such as electrons. The magnetic field lines are oriented perpendicular to the direction of the electric current, and they extend outwards from the wire into the surrounding space.
This means that even though the majority of the current-carrying electrons are located within the wire, the electric and magnetic fields associated with the current extend outwards from the wire and interact with the environment around it. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as the “skin effect,” where the electric current is concentrated on the surface or “skin” of the conductor rather than being uniformly distributed throughout its cross-sectional area.
Overall, the video provides an insightful explanation of the nature of electric current and how it flows through conductors, and is a great resource for understanding the intricacies of electromagnetism.”
It will come as no surprise to Cats, technical or otherwise, that planning an efficient electrical system is a fairly complex process.
It’s also very iterative process, in that your ‘top down’ objectives and assumptions are constantly modified by ‘bottom up’ physical and commercial realities – which are obscure, themselves interacting, and very hard to anticipate.
AEMO’s now almost continuous gasps and shrieks about the awful effects of spreading renewables onto an existing economy is clear, unambiguous evidence of no effective planning, actually near zero.
Not wholly AEMO’s fault, mind you. Government has gone hands off for most of the past 20 years – and private enterprise has cherry picked opportunities as they have been squeezed out of the political intestines.
The wholly predictable result is the energy chaos we now live in.
Sadly we have the worst of a bad bunch in charge (State and Commonwealth) of managing the train wreck from a government perspective. But luckily, there will always be someone standing by
with solutionsto feast on the wreckage when the political pain gets too much and cost no longer matters.Top men – and robber barons.
Australia’s favourite combination.
An extra dot on my name perhaps?
Ok, that seems to be it. Here’s my original comment. I’ll add that if you own property hanging onto it over a difficult financial period is probably your best best, so be creative.
If that man on $130k having mortgage problems is serious, he could easily still keep his house and ‘informally’ let out a part of it. Most houses can be altered so that a fairly separate bed-sitting room is available, a room which could easily have a small cabinet with a ‘kitchen’ on it – equipment in the cupboards, and on the top an electric kettle and toaster, air fryer, microwave, plug in stovetop, and a plastic bowl for washing up, plus a table that could also serve as a desk. If it’s a large house there is probably a master bedroom with ensuite that would serve as an almost self-contained area, maybe even knock through a separate entrance. The owner could sleep in a sleep out if necessary. Creative thinking could solve his immediate problems. He seems to have numerous friends who could probably help him with the set-up. Selling up may not be a good solution right now as repurchasing and resettlement incurs costs
When renovating a tight space to purpose, people also tend to forget the utility of wall shelves.
Those walls can be made to work for you as storage.
You have discovered that ChatGPT’s current highest use is replacing lawyers and contract essay writers.
Chanticleer
Pure panic at Credit Suisse is now everyone’s problem
The collision of Credit Suisse’s profit problem and fears about rising global fragility created panic on markets on Wednesday night. How long can regulators keep playing whack-a-mole?
It’s one of those great unwritten rules of life: when someone tells you everything’s fine and there’s no need to worry, you can be pretty sure the opposite is true.
The statement from the Swiss National Bank and the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority on the staggering sell-off in Credit Suisse stock and credit default swaps on Wednesday night is a classic example.
The very fact the regulators needed to reassure markets that “Credit Suisse meets the higher capital and liquidity requirements applicable to systemically important banks” and then make clear it will “provide liquidity to the globally active bank if necessary” you know you’ve got a serious issue on your hands.
Still, there’s no denying this statement was a vital circuit breaker, given the way the sell-off in Credit Suisse shares that started before European markets opened spread across Europe banking stocks and then through global markets.
This was a truly scary night.
Credit Suisse shares were already falling in pre-market trade after it revealed on Tuesday night that it had found “material weaknesses” in its financial reporting processes for 2022 and 2021.
But the sell-off went to another level after Credit Suisse’s biggest shareholder, the Saudi National Bank, explicitly ruled out providing the group with further support, ostensibly because it did not want to breach shareholding caps.
But the Saudi retreat sparked panic, with Credit Suisse’s shares down more than 30 per cent at one stage; the stock was eventually halted down 24.2 per cent.
Credit default swaps shock
That’s clearly a shocking move, but the really shocking price action was in the credit default swaps that insure investors against Credit Suisse defaulting on its bonds.
Quoted prices (it seems there were few actual trades given poor liquidity) for a one-year credit default swap jumped from 836 basis point on Tuesday night (Wednesday AEDT), indicating a probability of default of 10 per cent, to above 3000 basis points.
Credit Suisse’s additional tier 1 bonds traded below 80 per cent of face value, a level typically seen as signalling distress. Even bonds due next month traded well below face value.
We’ve been constantly told that the risks of GFC-style contagion are much reduced in today’s banking system, but fear still moves through markets as well as it ever did.
European banks were smashed, with BNP Paribas and Societe Generale down more than 11 per cent, UBS off 7 per cent and Germany’s Commerzbank down nearly 10 per cent. And already battered US banks were whacked too, with Morgan Stanley down more than 5 per cent and Goldman Sachs down 3 per cent.
Expect selling in Australian banks on Thursday, too.
Those moves in financials are not surprising. As economist Nouriel Roubini points out, SVB was a relatively small US bank with a relatively small clientele; Credit Suisse is a global giant, with tentacles throughout the global banking sector and indeed the global economy.
“Anything that happens to Credit Suisse will be of systemic effect for not just the European financial system, but also for the global financial system,” he told Bloomberg.
“If SVB created a ripple effect in global markets, something happening to Credit Suisse would be an order of magnitude more severe. It would be more like a Lehman [Brothers] moment.”
The Swiss regulators’ statement might have helped calm those apocalyptic fears – the Nasdaq Composite even finished green for the day on Wall Street – but Roubini is right to emphasise the potential for broader pain from problems at Credit Suisse.
Even the world’s biggest and most liquid markets are gyrating wildly. The yield on US two-year Treasuries, which plunged wildly on Monday night and then recovered on Tuesday night, saw another session of historic trade, with the yield falling 70 basis points at one stage. That’s simply unheard of.
Copper and oil, the two commodities that are seen as leading indicators of global economic health, also plunged.
And that’s perhaps the central point here.
As this column has been arguing since Credit Suisse struck trouble last year, the bank has a decidedly old-school problem: its revenue is too low and its expenses are too high, forcing it into a long and complex restructure at exactly the wrong time, in exactly the wrong environment.
But when that profit problem merged with growing fears that the global financial system is suddenly showing cracks from the fastest increase in interest rates in history, the result is panic that can spread very quickly – and was only really stopped on Tuesday night by a promise of regulatory intervention.
Former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers is right when he says that even if contagion fears can be doused, what we have here is a growing string of events – the British pension crisis last year, the collapse of FTX, the collapse of SVB, the panic at Credit Suisse – that keep coming on top of each other, with regulators seemingly playing a game of whack-a-mole to keep calming markets.
“I think that as more and more companies are caught up in this, the complexity and extent of the solutions that are required goes up,” Summers says.
Can the financial world keep putting out these spot fires? Or do they explode into something bigger?
How to land a fixed wing on a 27 meter helipad
https://interestingengineering.com/culture/red-bull-pilot-lands-on-helipad
Finally, after torturing the suspect for many hours:
I am not asking about NMR inducing current, however that is interesting. I am asking if some of the total voltage or energy can be transferred as a resonant electrical or radio frequency between nuclei. In fact, I suppose this would create a degree of resistance as the field emitted would be omnidirectional.
“In theory, it is possible for some of the total voltage or energy to be transferred as a resonant electrical or radio frequency between nuclei via induced nuclear resonance. However, the amount of energy transferred in this way would likely be very small compared to the energy carried by the flow of free electrons in response to the applied voltage. Additionally, as you mentioned, the energy transfer via nuclear resonance would likely create a degree of resistance in the conductor as the emitted field would be omnidirectional and would dissipate energy throughout the material rather than transmitting it efficiently in a single direction. Overall, while nuclear resonance can occur in a conductor, it is not likely to significantly affect the overall propagation of the EMF of the voltage or the flow of electrical current in the conductor.”
A human would have twigged what I was asking about 30 minutes ago.
Yeah Dr Faustus. I remain sceptical as to the mega bucks valuation of GPT.
Until they start getting sued for failing to obtain informed cobsent. As Eluzabeth Hart has shown, the govt admits informed consent *must* be obtainedbefore giving a Covid shot, and there is NO blanket govt indemnity scheme covering vax injuries.
Yes it is, in their own words
https://aemo.com.au/about/who-we-are
Hmm
ChatGPT didn’t lose my old chats, it lost them on the “upgrade”.
Top men – and robber barons.
Australia’s favourite combination.
Yes, but Blackout Bowen blames, The Russian invasion of the UKR, the previous Guv’ment, the Weather, his MIL and Uncle Tom Cobley and All……………………
https://youtu.be/fx4AQnMBksY
Dr Faustus at 11:26 – in a past life whenever you asked an engineer about the Grid the first answer was always, “Well, I wouldn’t design it like this.” and go on to explain why whatever he was proposing was required.
That’s a keeper!
I saw an interesting clip from a speech Mearsheimer gave at CIS in Sydney in 2019 on our relationship with China and the US. In it he basically argues that we are between a rock and a hard place. He says that US security interests in East Asia require us to side with the US over China, even if our economic interests lie with China. If we side with the US we may guarantee our security but we will suffer economically. However, if we side with China or even seek a third way independent of either power the US will punish us because their are only two options, either be a friend of the US or an enemy, there is no third, independent, road available, or it is the proverbial goat track that require the diplomatic skills of a Metternich.
How to turn a SA 330 Puma into a caravan.
Full marks for creativity! (10 Mar)
Diogenes: I’m certainly not White Knighting AEMO, but that there is just PR masturbation.
Exhibit A: the Eraring/Kean debacle;
Exhibit B: Super Hub to super-charge green hydrogen in North Queensland.
This is all 100% Clown Car – but it’s still happening.
Top Clowns.
Any complex system be it an electrical grid or an economy evolves like a coral reef. Opportunities are taken as they seem to appear. Some succeed (=profit), some fail and die (= losses). I am yet to be convinced government or experts can consistently do things better than the free market. That is probably why I am here.
Dover
However, if we side with China or even seek a third way independent of either power the US will punish us because their are only two options, either be a friend of the US or an enemy, there is no third, independent, road available, or it is the proverbial goat track that require the diplomatic skills of a Metternich.
See also Hungary, Israel, Georgia (not the US state, unless they keep voting Republican).
“I think that as more and more companies are caught up in this, the complexity and extent of the solutions that are required goes up,” Summers says.
Can the financial world keep putting out these spot fires? Or do they explode into something bigger?
Down, down goes the Australian Share Market this morning. More inflation and higher interest rate rises on the way. And the Financial System is in rude health. LOL. Very rude…………………
Which is why they nuked the post rollout RCT as fast as they could by unblinding the participants and vaccination the control group. Then they worked hard to eliminate even an informal control group (the vaccine ‘hesitant’) with mandates etc.
Incidentally, vaccines in general are almost *never* compared to inert placebos …. they usually use an ‘active’ (ie side effect ridden) control grp eg another vax, or the adjuvant only, sans the vax protein. This avoids producing evidence of better outcomes in rhe un vaxxed… they rely on similar side effect profiles in what are actually 2 ‘active’ groups to declare the new vax safe. Its a bit like comparing Winny reds to winny blues and concluding smoking does not cause cancer because the rates the same in each group.
Pedro the Loofah:
Not happy at all, Pedro.
Expecting a minor windfall at the end of the month – not much – just enough to fill a wallet. I was going to buy a bit of gold but it looks like it will only be river gravel by the time it’s cleared.
Nothing destroys wealth like divorce
Have a chap here on suicide watch because hes living on 2 minute noodles despite working a well paying job.
2 ex wives and 5 kids (combined total)
Think he has about 4 years before the first kid hits 18.
Long time to mainline sui-minh.
Im a huge advocate of making a persons normal salary/paypacket the baseline for child support but quarantining overtime, just to give blokes a light at the end of the tunnel rather than the “every cent will be taxed/garnished and disposed of at the whims of your ex-wife”…
(and yes, that could be abused by people organizing most of their wages be paid “overtime” by a rorting boss – but this can be done by being on the dole and working cash now.)
New submarines may be dreams achieved but also nightmares
At The Australian Naval Institute, and in the next print edition of The Spectator:
New submarine program – good only in parts
By Top Ender
The announcement of the route we will take to acquire nuclear submarines is good only in parts. Down the road a decade or so it will be the stuff of nightmares
It starts off with a pleasant vision – three of the best subs in the world, the USA’s Virginia class, partly crewed by the US Navy. We will then start acquiring a new-design submarine as well, building them in South Australia. All of this will take years to happen, with most of the submarine fleet not arriving until the mid-2030s.
This visionary dream will become a nightmarish situation.
Nuclear submarines are a great idea. They can stay underwater for months, denying any potential enemy the ability to know where they are, thus forcing him to stop moving their troop-carrying invaders, or escort them extensively with anti-submarine warships. (A diesel-electric boat like the Collins has to almost surface regularly, to acquire air to run the diesels to recharge the batteries.)
Getting the Virginias are another good idea. They are the best hunter-killer submarines around, a proven design which works well. Acquiring them gradually with a lease/dual-manning idea is sensible.
One of the bad aspects of the program though is its pace, or rather its lack of it. Apparently, the production lines are full in the USA, so an Australian financial contribution will be made to speed it up or enlarge it. But even this won’t see new vessels for us until several years have passed.
So part one of the vision has around three Virginia-class vessels operating in Australian waters with a dual crew of Americans and our own navy people. This makes sense, as the Virginia’s are larger and more difficult to operate in every way than our present Collins boats – almost double the tonnage, half again as long, and with a crew of 135 as opposed to the 58 of the Collins.
Rotating US nuclear-powered submarines on patrol through the shore base HMAS Stirling in Perth also makes sense. It sends a message to would-be aggressors that the Pacific is dominated by the West.
The worst part of the program though is the plan to build a new-design submarine here. Given some of the Collins class might still be operating when this starts, we could conceivably be operating three types of boat – a recipe for duplicity and difficulties in training, administration, and crewing.
But could we build these vessels anyway? Nuclear submarines are amongst the most complex machines built. Unlike surface warships, they are operating in an environment more akin to working in outer space, where they are surrounded by a hostile environment – seawater under pressure. This pressure increases on the hull as they go deeper, and therefore routinely they have tons of stress upon the hull. A leak of any sort can be disastrous.
Added to that is the submarine’s need to remain quiet. Noise transmitted through the water can be heard by potential enemies, and so submarines have engineering and routines to minimise noise: engines mounted to separate them from the hull; pumps turned off, even crew movements restricted.
A third part of the complexity comes from the need to operate in a hostile environment, yet simultaneously operate all of the submarine’s weapon systems covertly – until that moment comes when its missiles or torpedoes are unleashed. And then the submarine has to escape. A nuclear boat has tremendous speed – faster than many surface warships – to utilise as part of its defence, but it does start from a compromised base once it fires its weapons.
All up a nuclear attack submarine is a tremendously complicated weapons system. I can’t see how we can go in one giant leap from the remainders of an old Collins-class production line, to building the most sophisticated machines on the planet. Some reports say that we will need 20,000 workers to build them.
Britain once went down this road in the 1960s. They wanted to acquire nuclear subs, and they asked the Americans for help. The first, HMS Dreadnought, was powered by a US reactor, made available as part of the 1958 US-UK Mutual Defence Agreement. The keel was laid down on 12 June 1959; the boat was launched on 21 October 1960, and Dreadnought was accepted into service in April 1963. This remarkable speed was partly obtained though because the Royal Navy was in the business of building submarines. The Royal Australian Navy, by contrast, last saw a Collins-class boat, HMAS Rankin, accepted into service in March 2003 – twenty years ago. This is doubtless part of the reason for the general advice that we will not see an Australian-built submarine until the mid-2030s at the earliest.
The Collins-class build though, was a disaster. The vessels had problems with the combat system, excessive noise – at one stage described by the US Navy to the Australian government as “louder than an underwater rock concert” – engine breakdowns, hull welding, propeller noise, fin noise, salt water in the engine feeds, and problems with the periscopes and various other “masts” that use the fin to house them.
It would be nice to be proved wrong, but building a nuclear-powered sub series of our own looks extremely difficult. At the end of the day this project is all about providing – not jobs – but an excellent weapons system to protect Australia. It makes far more sense to keep the first stages of this project and cut away the rest. That would therefore be to simply keep acquiring Virginia-class boats from the USA as fast as possible, and in whatever format they come: secondhand; half crewed by Americans, or whatever.
And the faster the better.
-o-o-O-o-o-
A former naval officer, Top Ender is a military historian and the author of 20 books. His latest – Attack on Sydney Harbour – analyses the failure of leadership in the midget submarine raid of 1942, and asks why none of the small-ship commanders who actually sank two of the raiders were decorated.
This is all 100% Clown Car – but it’s still happening.
Top Clowns.
Roll up, roll up. The Biggest Circus in Town with the Best Clowns. Tickets to Doom are selling fast.
Thanks for the link to the syncretic material in a Roman grave in Britain, Bruce O’Newc. As one might expect, quite a bit of cultural interplay between two groups there.
Re lead. The Romans mined it extensively in Britain for itself, not just for silver. It was used throughout the Empire in roofing and other construction, including water pipes. Lead poisoning is one of the thousands of reasons offered for the decline of the Empire.
We are currently watching a Netflix series I, Caesar, the story of selected Roman Emperors, illustrated mainly with bas relief carvings and computer pics of old ruins brought to new life. Especially good was seeing Hadrian’s Villa, where we spent a glorious day not so long ago, in full splendour again. It is still extremely impressive as a ruin, over 7 acres of old Roman buildings. Apparently it duplicated areas of Hadrian’s extensive travels so he could revisit them in his older age. Hadrian was the Emperor who consolidated the Empire with boundaries, thus halting expansion and improving internal economic growth under a legionary-enforced Pax Romana, but annoying aristos in Rome who prospered by conquests. Good stuff, a show well done and not talking down to its audience.
The show, I should mention, had informed commentary by a range of very senior scholars, who offered, as historians do, different perspectives.
Bear: That there is an example of what the ‘bottom up’ part of an iterative design process looks like. Old mate engineer may not be right because he doesn’t fully understand the ‘top down’ objective – but his contribution may illuminate holes in the theory.
Good thread.
Top…men…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-16/delays-live-export-ban-intentional-farmers-accuse/102098314
In June 2020, Justice Steven Rares found that former agriculture minister Joe Ludwig acted with misfeasance when the then-Gillard government introduced a ban on live cattle exports.
Justice Rares found Mr Ludwig had committed misfeasance because he acted unlawfully in his position of public office and that the blanket ban had been “invalid and capricious”.
….
“What we’re frustrated about now is three years post that decision, we still can’t get the government to make any payments to the affected farmers.”
Mr Nivison said only the lead claimants, the Brett Cattle Company, had received compensation and he expected “a couple of hundred” businesses, including cattlemen, trucking companies, livestock agents and shippers would be entitled to financial compensation of increasing value.
“It’s getting bigger and bigger. That’s the problem. We’ve got compounding interest for the last 12 years, so I think taxpayers would probably be reasonably happy with that result.”
3 years after being caught acting illegally – and no result.
Contrast and compare with the blanket robodebt coverage from their ABCcess.
No, Keating is in good standing with their ABC, it may even enhance her appeal.
You can land a plane anywhere….. once.
Great summary for lay personages such as myself.
From the get go, the obvious compromise between buying an effective military platform and buying Jobson Grothe screamed.
Particularly those of us old enough to remember how the Collins transformed Australia into a submarine superpowerhouse.
Miseable ghost is miserable…
All those long weekends in Provence, RUINED by that mR RABBIT, THIS IS WHY CHRISTMAS IS CANCELLED KIDS – ITS ALL MR RABBITS FAULT….
Malcolm Turnbull has joined fellow former prime minister Paul Keating in criticising the AUKUS pact, insisting it would have been better to acquire nuclear-powered submarines under the deal he struck with France rather than the United States and United Kingdom.
Some noble savages were too noble to resort to cannibalism
Faustus, the electrical stuff is interesting because the generation configuration affects the transmission stuff and vice versa. Genuinely dispersed generation might work eventually but we are a long way off that yet. Attaching aluminium smelters to the grid is no longer the benefit it was once thought to be.
We should trade with China but we should never have become dependent on that trade. That was very shortsighted.
If only ChatGPT could make itself useful designing a grid. Seems to me it fails by not distinguishing facts from opinion. We are living in a world of generalisations, where hard facts and data are dismissed, yet ChatGPT babbles on for paragraphs, saying nothing conclusive. Just like politicians.
“Charities” are already in the firing line. And not before time.
I don’t know how the system on charities , actually, worx but when I was doing “forced labour” (work for the dole) in my early 60s .. I was at Foodbank NSW .. 90% of the folk were CentreLink “volunteers” with only 6, actual, Foodbank employees .. one of the storemen told me that Foodbank only paid 20% of his wage from their coffers and the other 80% came from gummint grants and tax breaks ……. at the time Foodbank owned the land and warehouse plus all their trucks & equipment outright .. all the surrounding neighbours (private enterprise) were leasing/paying off their premises & sundries ….
Couple of years ago they sold the Wetherill Park site and bought land and built a bigger operation out at Glendenning ….
Lotza money in being charitable .. if you know the ins & outs ..!
Journalists don’t like their intelligence being insulted.
Bruce Lehrmann takes the stand in opening stages of defamation case…
In Giving The Middle Finger news, Hun:
Premier Daniel Andrews is refusing to read an explosive letter from the former boss of Victoria’s corruption watchdog.
As revealed by the Herald Sun last week, former IBAC head Robert Redlich wrote to the parliament’s presiding officers in December raising serious concerns about potential misconduct by government MPs.
It included claims that government MPs involved in the powerful Integrity and Oversight Committee had instructed an independent consultant to “dig up dirt” on IBAC and that this had come after coverage of multiple government probes by the watchdog.
Despite rejecting the allegations outlined by Mr Redlich’s in his letter, the Premier is still refusing offers to read the correspondence.
“I’m not in the business of reading correspondence that’s not addressed to me and I’m not in the business of accepting allegations that have no basis in fact,” he said on Thursday, one week after the Herald Sun first published the letter.
“I’m not here to have a debate with the former head of an agency who has made claims – and so serious are these matters (yet) it wasn’t addressed to me. It wasn’t sent to me. It wasn’t raised with me.
“Some of the stuff that was put to me, and to us, is simply wrong. It’s simply and utterly wrong. I reject it.”
Asked whether he was curious about what the letter detailed, Mr Andrews fired back: “I’m curious to get on and work hard for the people of Victoria”.
“That’s what I’m curious, committed and passionate about. Not to be playing these games, and that’s what they are – games,” he added.
“You’ve got to ask the question – if it was such a massive matter for government, why was it not sent to anyone in government?
“I would have thought if anyone in the whole state knew how to access the integrity architecture in our state, it would be the former head of one of those integrity agencies.
“If he’s got a complaint to make, if he’s got more than a third hand story, then he knows – I’m sure he does – all of his options and how he can do that.”
Mr Andrews said he wouldn’t proactively reach out to Mr Redlich to discuss the matter in private.
There was an attempt made to re- invent Pigeon as some sort of resistance hero – the old timers in the North West claimed Pigeon shot his boss dead, and “went bush” over the scale of payment for intimate services, provided by Mrs Pigeon.
Given its size, trading with China is always going to be substantial and, therefore, unless you capped it and took the hit economically, unavoidable.
We made ourselves vulnerable to “the hit.”
There were always other markets we should have been courting.
Something about eggs and baskets.
Is it compulsory for ACOSS members to be fat, very unpleasant and coiffed with blue whipper snipper haircuts?
Or does selection by avoir du pois pull them all down into the same patch of pond slush?
I can actually recall when ACOSS was a reasonable outfit with a genuine and responsible focus on disadvantaged folks.
That all changed about the same time that the BCA changed its role from supporting enterprise to stamping out SME’s in support of big corporates.
Of course, the SFL boosted funding to both of these egregious commie outfits.
Insulting the intelligence of journalists isn’t a terribly taxing or onerous task.
He struck a deal to buy nuclear submarines from France?
That’s interesting. First I’ve heard of it.
Incidentally lots of fun with a Mr Keating today. Leis at 10 paces.
Former Labor senator Stephen Conroy says Paul Keating is a ‘terrible hypocrite’ as images of ex-prime minister wearing lei resurfaces following Penny Wong attack (Sky News, 16 Mar)
Milkman vs clockman, and me without popcorn. He also doesn’t seem to agree that Bad Penny is the best Foreign Minister evah.
Richard Marles hails Penny Wong as one of Labor’s ‘great foreign ministers’ (Sky News, 16 Mar)
Maybe she’s so good because one glance from her is enough to terrify any diplomatic opponent.
Yesterday went to a Seniors exhibition in canbra. Gold coin entry. That’s $2 bucks I’ve wasted. The place was more than half full of govt. agencies. Quite a few charity and volunteer groups. A few political stands. Didn’t want to talk to a discenting voter about the voice and I don’t mean John Farnham. I only went, wondering what would be there. It occurred to me heres all these agencies doing virtually the same thing. Wouldn’t it be easier to have the interface with people be trained across all the facets required. The time spent for each and every person to identify themselves, travel between each service, or should I say lack of service. The duplication of services, not knowing which actually does what is a problem. There was nothing there for me. ChatGPT could replace thousands of pubic servants. All that real estate empty. Never going to get a look in of course. I found it quite sad.
Liberals have completely abandoned any idea of stewardship when it comes to raising children.
Our dependence on China in trade is the flip side of our dependence on the US in defence.
We, or rather our leaders, were too lazy and incurious to imagine alternatives.
“journalists don’t like their intelligence being insulted”. Intelligence meet munty.
Can’t Penny speak for herself?
Time for a bad joke…………………….
Knock knock. Who’s there? William Shatner. William Shatner who? William Shatner toilet and forgot to flush.
You have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have.
– J. R. R. Tolkien
That raises the question: a larger regular Army, or a smaller regular force, and a large part-time force optimised for local defence?
Distributed defence. You can buy anything with preference towards approved calibres. No licenses and no registration as both are a means of tracking down who owns what. Drone licensing and registration should also be scrapped.
Every street and road instantly becomes an ambush point, and everything in between.
Boambee John:
A large Regular Army – 10 Brigades with 4 on 24 hour deployment,
A Ready Reserve built around Company/Battalion size depending on area concerned with recon and intelligence gathering in each area.
Journalists don’t like their intelligence being insulted.
What intelligence and do we have any journalists?
We should trade with China but we should never have become dependent on that trade. That was very shortsighted.
When the Morrison government upset the Xi and the CCP by calling for an investigation into the origins of Covid, the feature writers of The Land newspaper ran editorial comment berating the the government for the offence it was causing to China.
“We’ll all be rooned…” was the refrain. Yet within the news columns of the same newspaper there were stories of alternative markets being successfully developed with other countries for the products China was refusing to buy.
The wild card in this stoush with China is their dependence on both our agricultural products to feed their millions, and our mineral products to keep their manufacturing sector going. But if they need these products so badly – will they be tempted to use the cases belli as an excuse to take them by force?
All right, which of the Kittehs puts their hand up for this one?
Sorry – casis belli.
Elon Musk calls for ‘QAnon Shaman’ to be released from prison after additional video revelations
Sorry Elon, that wish is predicated on there being a justice system instead of a commie run favours and privileges program.
Malcolm Turnbull has joined fellow former prime minister Paul Keating in criticising the AUKUS pact, insisting it would have been better to acquire nuclear-powered submarines under the deal he struck with France rather than the United States and United Kingdom.
No shame, no embarrassment – in these pathetic displays of narcissism.
At the present point in time, Vicki, it is debatable as to whether China could successfully stage an amphibious landing of the masses of troops necessary to occupy Taiwan.
With Australia, multiply the difficulty many, many times over.
Not that that’s an excuse for us to be complacent about our defence. A blockade of our sea lanes is a more likely scenario, which is why, pace others here, I think there’s a crucial role for subs (and aircraft) in our defence.
Monty was surplus to requirements as the Ukraine military has just accepted a shipment of fat American lesbians.
casus belli
/?ke?s?s ?b?l??/
Including Chinese students living here?