This thread dedicated to long walk socks.

Dover- love the art. Shiskin is new to me, but what wonderful composition!

Why was everyone wearing sandals?!

I remember sandals. They were the Crocs of their time.

I remember sandals. They were the Crocs of their time.

So bizarre, little bloke wears black sneakers to school. Was going send him a photo of sandals and tell him that I’d brought them for him to wear to school. Interested to see the reaction!

How’s the Valiant Plasmamortar?

Good comment on Breitbart…

50% of perv Joe Biden’s faux administration need straight jackets…………

and there is probably a 20 to 30% overlapping of the two.

No

Has the world gone mad?
Reparation to blacks with millions of dollars, in a state that never had slaves, not to mention slavery had been abolished 150 years prior.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/san-francisco-decide-black-reparations-plan-5m-person-rcna74873

It is now revealed that, at the stage in Lehrmann’s trial where Higgins was refusing to continue cross-examination, McCallum CJ told Whybrow KC that if Lehrmann pleaded guilty he would get a discount on sentence. It is clear that, in the evidence to that point, the CJ thought that he would be found guilty. And clear too that a reasonable person would apprehend that from this point there was a strong risk that the CJ would, at the many points where she would make rulings, and in particular make her summing up to the jury, bias her behaviour in favour of Higgins.
Lehrmann has had enough and is fighting back. More power to him.

McCallum CJ told Whybrow KC that if Lehrmann pleaded guilty he would get a discount on sentence

Everyone that pleads guilty either before a trial, or in the very early stages of a trial gets a discount. Absolutely everyone. It’s a well-known and accepted practice in the legal (note: not justice) system, and used because – apparently – it both saves the cost of having or extending a trial, and of witnesses being traumatised by reliving their experiences and being cross-examined at length by thousands-a-day silks.

The CJ shouldn’t have had to tell the KC that this was the case, because he would have been well aware of it. It forms part of every criminal pre-trial negotiation between the DPP and defence counsel.

I suspect some journo has breathlessly reported it, believing that it was akin to discovering plutonium.

I’m not saying it’s right. I’m saying it’s how it’s been for decades.

For additional clarity, and as I may have mentioned previously, I hope Lehrmann gets millions and moves into Mr and Mrs Poirate’s Sydney mansion as well.

Tiny whiff of fear coming from the Democrats today:

Trump Family Ran Afoul of Foreign Gift Law: Democrats (17 Mar)

Hunter Biden Files Suit Against Laptop Repair Shop Owner (17 Mar)

These two stories suggest the defensive wall on the Biden business dealings is in danger of being breached, due to a build up of political and public pressure. The strategies seem to be discredit the poor computer repairman and to say “but Trump did it too!” The latter is laughable since if Trump did anything illegal Muller and Letitia James would’ve been all over it before you could say “eureka!” Keep an eye out for more stories like this, it’s squirrel season.

HorseShit.

Give me a ping, Vasily. One ping only, please.

The story hinges around why McCallum would bother or feel the need to say this to Whybrow.
It was obvious that he was guilty.

For additional clarity, and as I may have mentioned previously, I hope Lehrmann gets millions and moves into Mr and Mrs Poirate’s Sydney mansion as well.

Not happening, Joffa.
Lehrmann’s first time ever CrossExamination on Thursday was a trainwreck, he’s not going back for seconds.

If Lisa hadn’t hired her own lawyers at the last minute, yeah, Channel 10 were going to roll over, for sure.

Once again Nut Case was there. Britnee the knickerless said she didn’t know if anything happened in the first instance and BL said nothing happened. You sure are giving mutley a run for the title.

Michael Smith has a post up re aboriginal cannibalism.

https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2023/03/contemporaneous-account-of-aboriginal-savage-tribal-war-and-cannibalism-in-gundagai-.html

Get down and dirty.

Loyola Professor Claims ‘Cleanliness’ Is ‘Racist’ (17 Mar)

Cleanliness has historically been used as a cultural gatekeeping mechanism to reinforce status distinctions based on a vague understanding of “niceness”: nice people, with nice yards, in nice houses, make for nice neighborhoods.

What lies beneath the surface of this anti-messiness, pro-niceness stance is a history of classist, racist and sexist social structures.

Live in filthy slums for Gaia!

Goondiwindi only got to 39.

Gundy isn’t Brizzy, Cletus.

It was obvious that he was guilty.

Which is why Brittany Higgins made an admission, pre indictment of Lehrmann, of what can be construed as perjury?

Interesting story, Bruce. One of the good professor’s “interests” is Identity Development.

As for “cleanliness is next to Godliness” – a quick look at a few Bible passages will confirm just that. Keeping clean, healthy, orderly homes was not only encouraged, it was the law.

No wonder a modern day Jezebel wants to push against it.

You don’t say Ed.
Known to be a tad warmer than Brissie almost always though.

including text exchanges with a Parliament House security guard on the afternoon of the ­alleged rape

What what what?
This avenue of investigation always needed far more effort both before and after the alleged incident.

Loyola flack Jenna Drenten is a gatekeeper and propagandist:

Here’s 56 seconds of her explaining how to be an LGBTIA+ Ally.
YouTube.

Bourne, it’s still on the website under the ‘Commentary’ section.

Andrews more puppet than puppetmaster
Instead of sound medical reasoning, our lives were devastated on the strength of opinion polling and focus groups, populated largely, I suspect, by public servants on extended tea breaks at home on full pay.

By STEVE WATERSON

From Inquirer
March 18, 2023

Halfway into our three years of pandemic gaiety I took my dog for a stroll up to the Pacific Highway in Artarmon to observe the thin blue line in action.

A dozen police cars blocked side roads and funnelled southbound motorists towards a checkpoint where officers monitored where they had come from and where they were heading, ordering them not to enter central Sydney, where anti-lockdown protests were rumoured to be fermenting.

I must have stared too intrusively at this pseudo-paramilitary operation because a young constable approached me and asked where I was going.

“I’m afraid we haven’t decided yet,” I told her, nodding at the dog. “Well, no more than 5km from home,” she said.

“And why is that?” I asked, with the simple-minded look that is never far from my face.

“To keep everyone safe,” she said. “It’s the medical advice. Just do it.”

But it wasn’t medical advice, was it? Many of us questioned that claim from the start, wondering what part of a medical degree teaches you the maximum range of personal travel in an epidemic, or explains how to control infection when driving alone in your car or playing golf in a howling gale, or defines the epidemiological distinction between standing up and sitting on a barstool as a vector in viral transmission. But the carefully curated invisibility of that “advice” made it impossible to scrutinise or challenge, which was precisely the point.

What the jumped-up mandarins were in fact relying on has recently been exposed, thanks to this newspaper’s Damon Johnston and his relentless efforts to discover what guided Victoria’s world-champion lockdown.

American media magnate William Randolph Hearst (or sometimes George Orwell, sometimes Lord Northcliffe) is reputed to have described news as “something someone doesn’t want printed”, and Johnston’s two-year Freedom of Information battle and subsequent reporting is a glorious example of the kind of work neglected by so many of our jejune, incurious journalists, who turned themselves into shameful megaphones to amplify government propaganda. And to no one’s surprise, they continue to ignore or dismiss these revelations.

So instead of sound medical reasoning – and I will eat my old face mask if anyone who participated in the daily Covid scaremongering cares to produce that compelling “advice” – our lives were devastated on the strength of opinion polling and focus groups, populated largely, I suspect, by public servants on extended tea breaks at home on full pay.

An early enthusiast for China’s Belt and Road servility training, Victoria’s Premier adopted Xi Jinping’s brutal response to the first signs of the pandemic and continued it long after other regimes had abandoned lockdowns as ineffective and fantastically destructive.

Dan Andrews’ taxpayer-funded polling was about his ‘own standing’
The Daniel Andrews government’s taxpayer-funded polling on COVID-19 lockdown measures was about the… Premier’s “own standing”, says Victorian Shadow Finance Minister Jess Wilson. Her comments come after a shock revelation showed polling was used by the Victorian government throughout the pandemic years, which sought to monitor the public’s reaction More
Some commentators and cartoonists painted him as a ruthless dictator, a few grudgingly acknowledging that he was at least resolute in following his path. “Leadership is doing what is right,” he said. “Whether I’m criticised or praised, that is not my concern.” That’s true leadership, all right, and he made no apologies for it.

Those noble sentiments are now revealed to be – oh, what’s the word? – absolute bollocks. The fearsome dictator turns out to have been a puppet, dancing on the strings manipulated by pollsters to protect his livelihood, while forcing thousands into the misery of unemployment, or worse.

But let’s not concentrate on one man, however egregious his performance. For leadership as we once understood it has vanished almost entirely from our polity, all over the land and at all levels. It’s likely fair to conclude that the other premiers, chief ministers and senior federal politicians were equally reliant on focus groups to underwrite and shape their lunacy, sharing the results and patting each other on the back in solidarity as they were locking us up. Perhaps that’s what they were doing in the national cabinet, for it seemed to achieve nothing else.

History is strewn with examples of the irrationality of crowds, which is why we look to men and women of great character and vision for leadership, to guide the masses away from the folly they incline towards in difficult times.

But politics, confirming its modern characterisation as show business for ugly people, is increasingly driven by popularity, not wisdom or integrity.

A once honourable calling, a gift of service to your community, has mutated into an unedifying dash to board the gravy train. Politicians’ salaries here are now among the highest in the world, as are those of the bureaucrats who pander to them. Generous expenses, living away from home allowances, chauffeurs, secretarial staff, and a fawning coterie of aides lining up, snouts twitching, for their turn at the trough; yes, it’s a wonderful life indeed.

No wonder the mediocrities will say or do anything to secure, cement and prolong their tenure. And given they lack an adequate moral compass, we shouldn’t be amazed to find them navigating by public opinion. They dissemble their way into office and reward the lobbyists and assorted vested interests who help install them, while betraying the voters who fall for their promises. Out of office, ex-politicians are parachuted into lucrative sinecures, prestigious positions filled before anyone else learns they’re vacant. ­­­­­­

None of this, while disappointing, is news to anyone who has tracked the decline in quality and corresponding rise in malfeasance of our representatives.

More alarming is what the secret polling reveals about the respondents. If it’s accurate, then despair is the appropriate response, for it suggests a citizenry malleable and terrified, ready to hand over their childlike trust to the charlatans who offer the illusion of safety.

Fear paralyses rational thought processes; it’s why so few cool heads appear during a crisis. (Masks seem to have the same effect, judging by the sorry souls who still scuttle around our shopping centres glaring at the barefaced cheek of the unmasked.) Couple that to decades of damage to our education system, from kindy to university, and duping the ignorant becomes a worryingly simple task.

There’s no reason to believe Victorians are more gullible than the rest of their compatriots (although the standard of brainwashing they were subjected to was undoubtedly best on ground); so if similar research was conducted on the populations of other states, similar results must have been generated, which explains (and almost justifies) the condescension of our leaders.

Perhaps arrogantly, certainly foolishly, when the Covid panic began I imagined my objections to the sustained, unprecedented assault on our civil liberties reflected a sizeable proportion of mainstream opinion, bolstered by the Australian Human Rights Commission bravely speaking out in defence of our freedoms (sorry, needed a little joke there to lighten the mood).

But the Victorian polling has slapped the scales from my eyes.

Amid all the previously unimaginable outrages I can’t forget the people sleeping in their cars at state borders, banned from returning to their homes; others (I was one of them) were forbidden to visit dying parents or children; this newspaper published pitiful photographs of elderly couples, separated for their own good, pressing their hands together each side of a care-home window. Does any of that still sound reasonable to anyone? Should we just forget about it all until next time?

The truly frightening, and profoundly depressing, thing is that even as the evidence accumulates to show the futility of lockdowns, curfews, social distancing, QR codes, contact tracing and other contrived mechanisms to “keep us safe”; even as the cost of shutting so many businesses, paying people to hide at home, building unnecessary quarantine facilities and ramping up brutal police tactics nears half a trillion dollars; even after enforced isolation shattered mental health, particularly among children who lost vital years of schooling and socialisation; yes, even after all this suffering, you know the politicians would do it again in a heartbeat, confident that many of us would vote them back in just as eagerly.

It’s heartening to hear the growing number of voices demanding a royal commission, but so long as those complicit in this authoritarian, self-aggrandising deception remain in power, the chance of any worthwhile investigation into the horrors of our pandemic response remains remote, for they know full well what even the most cursory examination would uncover.

The establishment of a thorough, impartial inquiry would require those craven politicians to be honest, or as shortsighted as the Christmas-loving turkeys who continue to elect them. My own tiny focus group says they’re far too cunning to let that happen.

STEVE WATERSON SENIOR WRITER

This avenue of investigation always needed far more effort both before and after the alleged incident.

Correct.
But the AFP were the ones doing the investigation, and they weren’t keen on pursuing any Evidence that might contradict their decision that there was no case for Lehrmann to answer.

The security detail on duty the night of the alleged rape should have termination letters given to them on the Monday.
Why not?

Can a cat who knows something of US banking explain to me why the Dodd Frank act didn’t prevent Biden bailing out SVB ?

The security detail on duty the night of the alleged rape should have termination letters given to them on the Monday.
Why not?

What for, if nothing happened?

Farmer Gezsays:
March 18, 2023 at 8:44 am
including text exchanges with a Parliament House security guard on the afternoon of the ­alleged rape

what what what?

indeed! This is new news to me.. and reeks of planning and scullduggery.

Cassie of Sydney says:
March 18, 2023 at 8:36 am
From the Oz….

when laid out like this, its no wonder Higgins bailed — her statements were more holes than actual cheese.

I do so hope McCallum gets dragged into the inquiry… sounds like she has some items to address.

Sancho Panzersays:
March 18, 2023 at 9:03 am

thanks Sancho – good point.

Are deleted messages recoverable?

Telstra had everything. Failing that, the Halls of Fascism in Utah has everything.

1. Didn’t want the favourite white dress crumpled, so took it off?
2. No idea what the two of them were doing in that same office – for 75 minutes.

Farmer Gezsays:
March 18, 2023 at 8:44 am
including text exchanges with a Parliament House security guard on the afternoon of the ­alleged rape

what what what?

To clarify, was this on the afternoon prior to the alleged rape or was it the afternoon after?

#1. How did Higgins come to be naked on the office couch?

PINNNNG.

#2. What was Lehrmann doing in that same office for 75 minutes?

PINNNNG.

On the subject of an organised militia versus the individual free enterprise model proposed by rickw.

Outside the major centres is the place for the organised militia, where organised groups can operate together against groups of enemy soldiers. In the large towns and cities is the place for the individual entrepreneurs, taking out selected lone individuals, secret police and administrators.

Embrace the healing power of “and”. It is not an “either-or” situation. Both systems have their place, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.

The walk socks, shorts, short sleeved GloWeave shirt and tie was Company Attire for the budding executive in Goroka circa 1985.

Not sandals though. The very idea!

Nut Case I’ll send you a matchbox and a sharp pencil to write down all the things you’ve got right. On second thoughts make that a crayon so you don’t injure yourself. I know where you live so I’ll leave it in your letterbox.

2 questions:

#2. What was Lehrmann doing in that same office for 75 minutes

Ooooh, you could hear a pin drop

slam DUNK, Ed KC AO, my learned friend

thank the umpire and Hawkeye before you sign a book deal, got to be humble in your triumph

Albrechtsen points out that McCallum’s conduct won’t be investigated by the inquiry. It might be a Judicial Council (or something like that), of which McCallum is the Chair. Maybe that body could commission an out-of-ACT judge or ex-judge to do the work.
I doubt it will come to this. Judges are very averse to findings other Judges have misbehaved; such findings undermine the respect and standing of all judges.
I hope that someone has been compiling a dossier of this travesty. It requires a thorough exposure.

That message to PH security. Why was it “disappeared”? It must have been detrimental to the case.

I shall put on my Clousseau hat and mac and…mais non! I must employ ze leetle grey cells instead. If it had anything to do with “see you later this evening”, or “I’ll be back for a short while”, then she already knew she’d be going back to PH, not innocently sharing an Über home and being sidetracked on the way.

Zis derg may not hunt, but it’s not barking in ze night either.

1. Didn’t want the favourite white dress crumpled, so took it off?
She was too drunk to put her shoes on.
No way could she have removed that dress by herself.

2. No idea what the two of them were doing in that same office – for 75 minutes.
Higgins was too drunk to scratch herself.
The question remains:
What was Lehrmann doing for 75 minutes, apart from ignoring 6 calls from his [then] girlfriend?

BTW, that girlfriend might have an interesting story to tell, if the AFP had bothered talking to her.

A disorganised militia has it’s role in that it is unpredictable and you cannot break a non existent chain of command.

You could have a full spectrum of responses. What can add to what we have now is nukes, mines, drones and militias.

Nuclear arms
Conventional military platforms
Special forces, rapid deployment & task forces
SF/CT in conjunction with civilian forces
Drones
Large scale mining
Defensive fighting by conventional forces
Organised militia
Disorganised & independent militias broken off defeated conventional forces and organised militias

Like I said the other day, there is a large component of reserve and former military and police personnel as well as competent civilian shooters.

The full spectrum of responses finishing with 200k organised militia and 100-200k disorganised militia would make invasion a headache for any party that can still invade after they’ve been nuked.

The idea is to deter anyone of thinking twice about doing such a thing.

The judge hearing Lehrmann’s aplicatio to exte d time to sue has a very wide discretion to choose the result. The relevant law cannot dictate the result, so that, consciously or not, the judge will consider the merits of whether Lehrmann should have a forum in which he can test Higgins’ allegations.
The revelations about McCallum might tip the scales Lehrmann’s way.

That sounds like a threat, old boy?

Under your old pseudonym (Grigory) you bragged about your career to the point where you were virtually begging people to work out your real identity, as a form of argument from authority.

Not that we’d break the blog rules mentioning your real name, but since you did that, you can’t cry victim over this.

McCallum should quit and never hold public office again.

.. the judge will consider the merits of whether Lehrmann should have a forum in which he can test Higgins’ allegations.

Lehrman confessed to lying to his [then] girlfriend about conversations with his lawyer that never happened.
That’s a White Flag.

The game changer was Lisa Wilkinson dropping Ten’s legal team and hiring her own gunnies.

Someone obviously gave her a heads up that Ten [and NewsCorp] were going to roll over and pay Lehrmann.