Open Thread – Easter Weekend 8 April 2023


Agnus Dei, Zurbarán, 1635-1640

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Steve trickler
Steve trickler
April 9, 2023 9:56 pm

Excellent video from Peter Santenello and some sage advice from Walter Shirk pertaining to living in fire prone areas. To paraphrase: Make sure you have the skills and resources and know what you are doing. He certainly did.

Him saying to his wife ” It’s time to leave…I’ll follow you” yet remained behind to defend the home…legend.

He gave his wife a scare and the story of the smart rabbit that followed him indoors…a good laugh.

————-

8 Apr 2023 GREATER LOS ANGELES
The greater LA area is one of the most mixed-up places in the world. Today we meet old-school local Walter Shirk who shows us an unknown side of greater LA that few of us are familiar with.

LA’s Unknown Side (with local ex-firefighter) ??

rickw
rickw
April 9, 2023 10:12 pm

Words fail me, they honestly fvcking do!

Definitely a germalist, a pox on society.

Bourne1879
Bourne1879
April 9, 2023 10:15 pm

Have a brilliant idea might discuss with Craig Foster of the Republican Movement.

Marcia Langton for President. You know it makes sense and sure to make it win at next referendum.

Colonel Crispin Berka
Colonel Crispin Berka
April 9, 2023 10:27 pm

Anyone else notice in Ch7 news tonight there was much mention of “worshippers” flocking to churches on Easter Sunday? About three times in a row this vague allusion was made before eventually the on-scene reporter referred to the menagerie as “Christians”.
I know this is so cliché that it is hardly funny any more, but it is still darn strange when you see an Internet meme happening IRL.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
April 9, 2023 10:39 pm

Sounds like you have had a great time in Benders, Lizzie?

Still here, leaving tomorrow, heading over to Wagga Wagga overnight on the way home. Hairy likes to do as much looking-into country towns on the way there and back as possible. It’s been really good to get away from Sydney for a while. Bendigo is trending up these days, offers itself as a foodies paradise, and possibly it is, but at 9.30 last night we couldn’t find anything open near to us for dinner. We had to race back to the hotel before 8.30 to pick up a meal there tonight.

Country folk go to bed early, it seems, even when every street is closed for a major festival and there are a lot of visitors in town. 🙂

Black Ball
Black Ball
April 9, 2023 10:40 pm

Ah Ms Langton will lodge a complaint because I dared ask her about Teh Voice and her tenuous Aboriginal connections, after she asserted I wasn’t Aboriginal.
E Safety Commissioner or some crap.
As some here say, always escalate

Colonel Crispin Berka
Colonel Crispin Berka
April 9, 2023 10:43 pm

cc: DrBeauGan & Rabz

G. K. Chesterton @GKCdaily 8 Apr

In that terrific tale of the Passion there is a distinct emotional suggestion that the author of all things (in some unthinkable way) went not only through agony, but through doubt. It is written, “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” No; but the Lord thy God may tempt Himself; and it seems as if this was what happened in Gethsemane. In a garden Satan tempted man: and in a garden God tempted God. He passed in some superhuman manner through our human horror of pessimism. When the world shook and the sun was wiped out of heaven, it was not at the crucifixion, but at the cry from the cross: the cry which confessed that God was forsaken of God. And now let the revolutionists choose a creed from all the creeds and a god from all the gods of the world, carefully weighing all the gods of inevitable recurrence and of unalterable power. They will not find another god who has himself been in revolt. Nay, (the matter grows too difficult for human speech,) but let the atheists themselves choose a god. They will find only one divinity who ever uttered their isolation; only one religion in which God seemed for an instant to be an atheist.

Nice to know Jesus believes in atheism. Or did for a moment anyhow.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
April 9, 2023 10:54 pm

Tonight we finished the opera at 7.30pm – it started at 2pm – a completely fabulous (in the true sense of that word, as mythos) rendition of Die Walkure (Valkyrie for the non-German speakers like me). Four hours of opera with two intermissions and the music and singing just magic, all fuelled for us by champagne at each intermission. For someone like Hairy, who takes the musical score to read and hum bits out to me during intermissions, it is pure musical motif. For me, who loves the Scando-Germanic myths, and the Tolkien (and Arthurian) flow-ons, as well as the warrior culture of Cornwell’s The Last Kingdom, it is pure emotion. Hard work though for singers, orchestra and the listening audience, for the sturm and drang is heavy and pervasive even though at times it’s highly lyrical. For the theme is always love vs power.

This opera started off with the Ride of the Valkyries and didn’t let up after that with the intensity of the theme of Odin/Wotan the All Father (valvader) given some home truths about himself by his wayward Valkyrie daughter Brunnhilde as she saves the Volsungs, Odin’s bastards, for the eventual arrival of Seigfried, who is to son-to-be of today’s hero, Siegmund and his incestuous love with his twin sister/bride Sieglinde. The screaming Valkyries were literally out of this world. Such sounds. What a treat it was to not have those awful attempts at ‘modernising’ the themes by introducing modern dress, the ruin of many a production trying too hard by half. These Valkyries were breast-plated spear-wielding choosers-of-the-slain, shrieking their call in flowing robes and helmets. Gee, it was great, with Brunnhilde the archetype sleeping beauty, damned to mortality till awakened by love.

Friday nite’s opera was the introductory one Rhinegold, dramatically envisioned in the undersea, the underworld and the cloudland of the gods; the drama unfolding setting the scene for the rise and eventual fall of the gods in Valhalla. Sadly, an excellent production of Rhinegold was (only marginally) marred by the use of modern costumes for one central character, Loke (Loki), the trickster, who looked like a spiv in a red-striped suit, and two other lesser characters (one of them Thor) in shiny white modern suits. It added nothing, and took away mythic focus, imho. All other costumes were as in Valkyrie, in keeping with the floaty sky-dwelling mythological thematics.

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
April 9, 2023 10:59 pm

From the same neck of the woods in the Santenello clip above.

1 Jun 2020 VENTURA
Drive on highway 101, Malibu-Ventura

Ventura Highway – America

JC
JC
April 9, 2023 11:09 pm

Country folk go to bed early, it seems, even when every street is closed for a major festival and there are a lot of visitors in town. ?

Perhaps 50 bucks an hour for a waitress is too expensive on a weekend or public holiday.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
April 9, 2023 11:10 pm

Ah Ms Langton will lodge a complaint because I dared ask her about Teh Voice and her tenuous Aboriginal connections, after she asserted I wasn’t Aboriginal.

Good on you, Black Ball. So many of these urban wannabes have rather tenuous aboriginal links, whereas others, with much stronger connections, can’t be bothered with the hype because they’re Aussies first.

Dot
Dot
April 9, 2023 11:12 pm

According to Turkish sources alleged by al Jazeera, Ukraine marches soldiers in literal columns on roads and Ukraine also don’t have any radar, two bombs take out 1500 Ukrainians, from 60 km away.

To conclude air defence is non existent even if the above is true is fatuous. The Turkish sources quoted on al Jazeera (really, come on) implied that these are STAND OFF weapons.

“Or they scattered” which is a lot more likely because they were probably already scattered.

Funnily enough, they can’t use these in Bakhmut or couldn’t use them at Hostomel where their special forces were slaughtered? The Turkish sources alleged by al Jazeera noted the bombs were on display at Russian mlitary exhibitions since 2021.

Either time, when the VDV were wiped out or the mechanised brigade reported they captured it with no casualties of their own and were driven back towards Belarus.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
April 9, 2023 11:13 pm

Perhaps 50 bucks an hour for a waitress is too expensive on a weekend or public holiday.

Could be contributory, JC. But the custom would have been there to cover those costs for another hour or two – maybe we just didn’t look hard enough for local restaurants which may have been open somewhere. Just wasn’t obvious, that’s all.

Bourne1879
Bourne1879
April 9, 2023 11:31 pm

Bolt clearly not a Langton fan based on his latest article.

Real Deal
Real Deal
April 9, 2023 11:57 pm

Ashfield Aquatic Centre

Within comfortable strolling distance of the cottage.

Wouldn’t be seen there for quids, I tells ya.

Enfield Pool is much older and more charming than nice new Ashfield, Rabz.

mc
mc
April 10, 2023 12:00 am

Glad to hear you enjoyed Bendigo Lizzie. I was sorry not to he able to meet you all at the catch up.

Perfidious Albino
Perfidious Albino
April 10, 2023 12:26 am

Great ‘town’ beach at Wagga Liz – worth a look.

Top Ender
Top Ender
April 10, 2023 1:31 am

Richo going to vote no, according the Michael Smith link above.

When even old stages like the bloke who coined the “whatever it takes” attitude of the ALP doesn’t like your campaign, it’s not gonna win.

Tom
Tom
April 10, 2023 4:28 am
Tom
Tom
April 10, 2023 4:30 am
Tom
Tom
April 10, 2023 4:31 am
Tom
Tom
April 10, 2023 4:33 am
Tom
Tom
April 10, 2023 4:34 am
Tom
Tom
April 10, 2023 4:36 am
Tom
Tom
April 10, 2023 4:37 am
Tom
Tom
April 10, 2023 4:38 am
Tom
Tom
April 10, 2023 4:40 am
Tom
Tom
April 10, 2023 4:42 am
Tom
Tom
April 10, 2023 4:43 am
Tom
Tom
April 10, 2023 4:45 am
Tom
Tom
April 10, 2023 4:46 am
Johnny Rotten
April 10, 2023 4:46 am

Well done Tom. Another sterling effort.

Tom
Tom
April 10, 2023 4:47 am
Tom
Tom
April 10, 2023 4:48 am
Johnny Rotten
April 10, 2023 4:54 am

Why the Rule of Law is Collapsing

QUESTION: Marty, Why did you not file a lawsuit against the government for false imprisonment?

SH

ANSWER: I met with five law firms. The truth is when they say the corruption of the judge even changing transcripts and the court of appeals, NOT one lawyer had the guts to challenge the government and the courts. I think people even wrote to Judicial Watch and they would never answer.

When it comes to actually challenging how corrupt the entire system has become, no lawyer wanted to get involved. They are all afraid of the government. I met with one of the largest firms in Philadelphia. Their response – We don’t sue other lawyers. Good luck in finding someone who will really defend you. I was at a meeting early on and 4 law firms were talking about how corrupt the judge was. When I told Tenzer Greenblatt to make a motion to recuse the judge, they said their firm would never do that for all the other judges in NYC would then prejudice their firm to even making a recusal motion. So much for the rule of law.

Perhaps Trump will bring all of this to the surface.”

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/rule-of-law/why-the-rule-of-law-is-collapsing/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=RSS

Winston Smith
April 10, 2023 5:42 am

Indolent:

The increasingly dangerous transgender movement sweeping America

It’s carrying out the governments plan: “Kick the dog until it bites, then demand the dog be put down because ‘dangerous’.”

Winston Smith
April 10, 2023 5:45 am

Dot:

According to Turkish sources alleged by al Jazeera, Ukraine marches soldiers in literal columns on roads and Ukraine also don’t have any radar, two bombs take out 1500 Ukrainians, from 60 km away.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the Ukr/Rus conflict, it’s that Bullshit is King of the Battlefield. I don’t even bother following the war any more.

Jorge
Jorge
April 10, 2023 5:53 am

For those given to old habits Bendigo has an excellent secondhand bookshop.

Many treasures, both old and new, a keeper of the bookshop flame.

Tintarella di Luna
Tintarella di Luna
April 10, 2023 6:30 am

Tomsays:
April 10, 2023 at 4:48 am
Ben Garrison.

Reminds me of the Cross atop Mount Vodno in Skopje, Macedonia.

1

Tintarella di Luna
Tintarella di Luna
April 10, 2023 6:39 am

On our visit to Lake Ohrid I went to the nearby Monastery of Sveti Naum (Saint Naum) built in about 900 AD — walking on the cobbled stones and lighting a candle in the ancient chapel built over 1100 years ago was a deeply moving experience thinking of what the Macedonian Christians had endured in the 700 years under the yoke of Islam.

Miltonf
Miltonf
April 10, 2023 7:02 am

It’s carrying out the governments plan: “Kick the dog until it bites, then demand the dog be put down because ‘dangerous’.”

That’s exactly what they are up too- the latest shock troops of the establishment. One thing’s for sure ‘privatisation’ has done nothing to advance liberty and choice.

Miltonf
Miltonf
April 10, 2023 7:04 am
Miltonf
Miltonf
April 10, 2023 7:12 am

I regard most academics as rather grubby these days. Marxist ideologues and not scholars at all. The Channel Ten harridan is a typical product of these grubby institutions.

m0nty
m0nty
April 10, 2023 7:15 am

Man, this Harlan Crow stuff is crazy. Turns out he is the actual right wing fascist embodiment of every accusation you lot make about Soros. EAIAC, indeed.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
April 10, 2023 7:18 am

Nice to see an Archbishop from enemy territory who tells it like it is.

Archbishop Cordileone to Newsmax: Society Rejecting God Will ‘Fail’ (8 Apr)

A society that rejects the dominion of God is destined to “fail,” San Fransisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone told Newsmax on Saturday.

“We can think about the former Soviet Union’s communism as an explicitly atheistic ideology they rejected God from society and they eventually fell,” Cordileone told “America Right Now.” “If we reject God from our society, we are going to fall. It’s going to go very bad for us.

He seems to get up the noses of lefties pretty nicely from what I read of his wiki. Unfortunately San Francisco hasn’t been listening to his advice and exactly what he is saying is happening to the place. In the last week a tech executive and a fire commissioner were attacked and the former died. For such a beautiful city it’s sad to see decline like this.

Gabor
Gabor
April 10, 2023 7:19 am

Miltonf says:
April 10, 2023 at 7:02 am

It’s carrying out the governments plan: “Kick the dog until it bites, then demand the dog be put down because ‘dangerous’.”

That’s exactly what they are up too- the latest shock troops of the establishment. One thing’s for sure ‘privatisation’ has done nothing to advance liberty and choice.

It was never intended. Privatization enabled the government to wash its hand of the decisions the private companies do, which was exactly what the government always wanted to do but was afraid of doing because of political backlash.
Governments have responsibilities to the voters, not that it makes a lot of difference, but private co. do not.

And people think politicians, or more precisely, their handlers don’t have long term plans.
No, not wearing a tinfoil hat, only need to look around the world and see the same policies applied despite the vastly different economic and social circumstances.

shatterzzz
April 10, 2023 7:21 am

YES/NO poll .. Mail Online this morning .. Luigi needs to do more than pay sports “stars” ..
Methinx Luigi needs the real deal …… “Our” Cate …. LOL!
https://postimg.cc/bZDwnHQg

sfw
sfw
April 10, 2023 7:31 am

Lizzie, if you have time go through Lockhart before Wagga and then Junee and Cootamundra after, worth a look at.

Miltonf
Miltonf
April 10, 2023 7:41 am

only need to look around the world and see the same policies applied despite the vastly different economic and social circumstances

yes it’s remarkable- wee cranky in Edinburgh or the dick-tator in Melb- same play book.

Miltonf
Miltonf
April 10, 2023 7:43 am

The dick-tator- a grub from a grubby insititution. Monash was called the sewer in the 60s for good reason.

calli
calli
April 10, 2023 7:46 am

Junee railway station is magnificent.

We did that same route a few years ago and I was amazed at the public buildings in some of the old country towns. It gave an insight into the wealth once generated by rural Australia.

The children took the grandies to the Show on Saturday. They couldn’t believe the price gouging going on. $35 for a showbag of junk. But they did enjoy the traditional rural stuff – sheepdog trials, woodchop, the produce hall, and the baby animals for the littlies. Something else stood out to them – how “untidy” (that was their word) the vast majority of the crowds looked. Everyone appears to be able to afford tattoos but not decent clothing. And by the prevalence of mullets, only half a haircut.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
April 10, 2023 7:48 am

I hope this initiative gets up.

Polish MP Proposes “Anti-Bug Law” To Require Labels On Insect-Containing Foods (9 Apr)

“Dried mealworm larvae, powdered cricket – these are among the insects that the eurocrats and Rafa? Trzaskowski [the opposition mayor of Warsaw] call new food,” said Janusz Kowalski, a deputy agriculture minister, while unveiling the plans in parliament on Thursday. “That is why we, United Poland [Solidarna Polska], have initiated the preparation of legal regulations, following the examples of Hungary and Italy, that will give Polish consumers clear knowledge about food products containing so-called bug additives,” he continued.

“This is an anti-bug law.”

If food is labeled clearly as containing insect meal it would be very interesting to see what the punters do. Sales would probably collapse, so I suspect the left doesn’t like the idea of such labeling.

Boambee John
Boambee John
April 10, 2023 7:52 am

Black Ballsays:
April 9, 2023 at 10:40 pm
Ah Ms Langton will lodge a complaint because I dared ask her about Teh Voice and her tenuous Aboriginal connections, after she asserted I wasn’t Aboriginal.
E Safety Commissioner or some crap.
As some here say, always escalate

Lodge a complaint against Marcie for her unsupported assertion.

Farmer Gez
Farmer Gez
April 10, 2023 7:53 am

Harlan Crow?
Oh yes the smear campaign orchestrated by MSM to champion the professional teenager Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s attempt to impeach SCOTUS justice Clarence Thomas for holding legal opinions not in line with Maoist philosophy.
Crow had statues of various vile dictators in his garden and those of his heroes, Churchill and Thatcher.
Fascism confirmed in the feeble mind of the professional layabout.

Eyrie
Eyrie
April 10, 2023 7:58 am

Polish MP Proposes “Anti-Bug Law” To Require Labels On Insect-Containing Foods
Australian food labelling laws are nearly useless. They will list some ingredients but in many cases you will have no idea where the food actually comes from.
i.e. “10% Australian ingredients” but no idea if that is the packaging and no idea where most of it originates.
Try buying Australian bacon at Colesworths.

Miltonf
Miltonf
April 10, 2023 8:00 am

10% Australian ingredients

by mass or by value?

Boambee John
Boambee John
April 10, 2023 8:05 am

Bruce of Ncl

“This is an anti-bug law.”

If food is labeled clearly as containing insect meal it would be very interesting to see what the punters do. Sales would probably collapse, so I suspect the left doesn’t like the idea of such labeling.

It will be interesting to watch the response of the many “progressive” campaigns that have in the past demanded that the contents labels show the smallest component in detail, once the “bugs is food” movement really gets underway.

How many of these bugs have been tested for allergenic properties?

Indolent
Indolent
April 10, 2023 8:06 am
Dot
Dot
April 10, 2023 8:06 am

The rest of your comment is cope and seethe.

The coping and seething is peak at the Kremlin.

They cannot beat a smaller country in 14 months despite trying to capture the airport of the capital twice in the first week.

Not coping and seething at all.

If they had PGM stand off weapons (in 2021), why didn’t the Russian air force hit the Ukrainian ground forces that stopped the VDV from securing the airport, which prevented two more companies landing there, and later which prevented mechanised forces coming from the north by land?

Ah, I know why.

“Hostomel was a feint”

You’re still mainlining this nonsense. It is just as dumb and laughable as crap like “The Ghost of Kyyyyiiv”.

Or you would claim the Ukrainian air defence then were solid, they couldn’t get Su-30s through, but they could get transport planes through, but not Helicopters (many were shot down by MANPADS).

The point is Russia is militarily incompetent and has ruined Ukraine and permanently damaged itself.

It’s time to stop.

Boambee John
Boambee John
April 10, 2023 8:10 am

PS, Once I would have been concerned about the cost of additional labeling. However, as Eyrie points out, one of the most important elements, the actual source of the ingredients, is next to useless, so let the food manufacturers wear the cost of adding the “bugs” line. And make them give more details on the actual origin of the ingredients as well.

Miltonf
Miltonf
April 10, 2023 8:11 am

after she asserted I wasn’t Aboriginal

which just shows how stupid/dishonest they are. The closed mind of marxist identity politics. Fascinating too that the ‘statement from the heart’ has material lifted from a 1975 international court case regarding Western Sahara. Shows it’s nothing about aboriginal welfare, it’s all about international marxism. Another give away of what they are up to- trying to destroy Australia as an independent nation. They must spend a lot of time (on the taxpayer dime of course) reading international court of what ever documents.

Cassie of Sydney
April 10, 2023 8:11 am

“It’s time to stop.”

Agree, but tell that to the Sniffer and his cronies. It’s the West that’s been keeping this war raging. It should have been stopped months ago.

Dot
Dot
April 10, 2023 8:11 am

Just get real food. Rolled oats, milk, fish, meat, eggs, fruit, vegetables, nuts…

I like cheese and decent bread but god knows what will be put into anything processed. Cheese colour, protein in beet in low protein barley, protein and colour substitutes in bread.

I’m not eating the bugs.

Asians don’t eat bugs when their income goes up high enough. Similarly, they don’t engage in what we view as barbaric with small furry things when their incomes go up.

This is why whaling is an existential issue for the Japanese. If they cave in on whaling they cave in on tuna as well.

Food (frogs, fish) eat bugs.

Gilas
Gilas
April 10, 2023 8:13 am

Winston Smith says:
April 10, 2023 at 5:42 am

Indolent:

The increasingly dangerous transgender movement sweeping America

It’s carrying out the governments plan: “Kick the dog until it bites, then demand the dog be put down because ‘dangerous’.”

Great quote! 100% true.
Relatable and persuasive. Has everything that conservatives rarely say.
Straight to the pool room.

Indolent
Indolent
April 10, 2023 8:14 am
Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
April 10, 2023 8:15 am

I was thinking of posting this story from another source, but Daniel Greenfield says it best.

Biden Bans Cars (9 Apr)

The Biden administration is effectively moving to ban cars. And they’re not even hiding this. The spin here isn’t even that this is about “air quality”, but that it’s about forcing consumers to buy electric cars (which they can’t afford) in the wake of Ford losing $3 billion on worthless battery vehicles.

The problem is that EVs are far too expensive for the ordinary people, and no one much is going to buy them except Greens, governments and smug virtue seekers. So the Left has to force them down our throats. Good luck with that Joe. Germany has just folded on such things, and the US will be flooded with cheap “used cars” from Mexico with oddly low mileage on their clocks.

Dot
Dot
April 10, 2023 8:15 am

monty America has ~350 million people.

You find a disagreeable Republican every week and a bad one every few of months. So maybe 3-4 bad Republicans a year.

For people in a significant 16% minority who vote consistently anti authoritarian and have rejected the two party system as we have it, why would we be swayed by the smears of the most extreme, authoritarian leftists from another country?

Indolent
Indolent
April 10, 2023 8:15 am
Miltonf
Miltonf
April 10, 2023 8:16 am

It’s the West that’s been keeping this war raging. It should have been stopped months ago.

While wrecking their own societies and economies.

Indolent
Indolent
April 10, 2023 8:17 am
Cassie of Sydney
April 10, 2023 8:17 am

You can trust kosher labelling. There is no way that kosher food will ever have “bugs” in it.

Makka
Makka
April 10, 2023 8:17 am

It’s time to stop.

It’s about time you started calling out the villain in the piece- the US. The carnage won’t stop because the Biden family has far too much to lose. The US is happy to see every Ukrainian dead to further it’s agenda. And stupid Euros follow suit. But cracks are appearing – I see Macron is talking about a divorce from US Uber Alles.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
April 10, 2023 8:21 am

If the Japanese cave on whaling they cave on tuna as well? What utter tosh. Last time i was in Japan I saw no whale for sale at all. Go back to telling us how well the Ukes are doing. Don’t hold your breath.

Indolent
Indolent
April 10, 2023 8:23 am

Something a bit esoteric for the mathematically minded.

British Retiree May Have Solved Decades-Old Geometry Problem: ‘A Really New Idea’

Black Ball
Black Ball
April 10, 2023 8:25 am

Andrew Bolt:

How odd, I thought on Saturday, as I read another halo-polishing piece on Marcia Langton, the abusive woman who co-wrote the blueprint for Labor’s Voice.

There was so much in this cover story in The Australian Magazine about Langton’s past – her schooling in Queensland, her university days, her black activism and the racists she’s met.

But there was not a hint that Professor Marcia Langton, now a senior member of the Albanese government’s Indigenous Voice to Parliament Working Group, had been a communist.

Not just some teen communist, either, but a member of the national committee of the Communist League, crusading to destroy capitalism, before joining the equally Marxist Socialist Workers Party in 1977.

Oh, yes, I know! Communists are so yesterday. Why hunt for reds under the bed now? It’s laughable.

Besides, old communists can be forgiven, can’t they? Sure, their heads may have been empty, but their hearts were full, just like global warming hysterics today, and Langton is now 71 and must have wised up since.

Yet there’s a clue here, a warning that this Voice – a kind of Aboriginal-only advisory parliament of unelected activists like Langton, but in our Constitution – might be driven by hate, not love, and will divide, not unite.

You see, Marxists don’t treat people as individuals. They divide us into faceless members of a class – workers or bosses.

That lets them demonise enemies and crush them like insects, which is why Marxist countries are so bloody. It’s also why bullies love this kind of doctrine.

And now here’s Langton – “revered and feared” says this admiring profile by Helen Trinca – playing that same game with the Voice, which Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, himself from Labor’s Socialist Left, sobs will “change the country” and “make us feel better about ourselves”.

Trinca flatters Langton as “intellectually intimidating”, but there’s nothing intellectual about her intimidation. Defy Langton and she’ll scream “racist” at high volume, as does fellow Voice guru Noel Pearson.

She’s at it again in Trinca’s article. Her school books were racist, people in the shops were racist, her university lecturer was racist, her green and leftist critics are guilty of “arrogant racism”, and “apartheid” Queensland when she was young was so racist that “no civil or HUMAN rights were accorded to my people” – a complete falsehood, but which white journalists dares contradict glowering Langton?

It’s so typical of her. Langton has previously claimed schools in her youth were “horrible, racist hellholes” whose “teachers were the kind of people who still advocated killing Aboriginal people”.

Yet she was made house captain at Brisbane’s Aspley High, so go figure.

She’s also shouted “racist” at a huge number of perceived enemies from former Liberal prime minister John Howard and me to global warming guru Tim Flannery and Labor lawyer Josh Bornstein.

Sure, she admitted on radio I wasn’t actually racist, but that doesn’t stop her.

She even accused Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, herself Aboriginal, of “legitimising racism” by opposing Langton’s Voice, which sure is chutzpah given the Voice will give Australians different voting rights depending on their race.

Oh, and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is “deceitful” and “lying”.

Be warned. Langton’s Voice will encourage more such hate-speech because it must forever see racism everywhere, or why else would it exist?

Aborigines must always be seen as victims – even Langton – and whites as oppressors, even if facts must be tortured to fit the story.

Langton’s history of activism shows how this works. She promoted the “stolen generations” story that racist white officials stole tens of thousands of children just because they were Aboriginal, when our courts haven’t found even one.

She worked on the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and accuses police of “killing or assaulting Aboriginal people” in jail, even though Aboriginal prisoners are in fact less likely than non-Aboriginal ones to die there.

Langton also hailed Professor Bruce Pascoe as an Aborigine and called his Dark Emu “the most important book on Australia”, even though Pascoe is a fake and his book claiming Aborigines were actually farmers has been debunked.

But what do facts matter?

Langton’s race-mongering and abuse has helped her to the height of influence, with an Order of Australia and her face in the National Portrait Gallery.

Now Australians will soon vote on her Voice, so her politics of division can live for centuries to come, a cancer on our liberal democracy, our egalitarianism and our colour-blind justice.

The old Marxist wins.

Indolent
Indolent
April 10, 2023 8:25 am
Min
Min
April 10, 2023 8:25 am

Interesting I have just seen an interview with man trying to buy Porter Davis . Apparently got caught 2 years ago diddling a trust fund , a black period in my life he told us . However his backers trust him . Think this has as much at succeeding as the voice ‘

Zipster
Zipster
April 10, 2023 8:28 am
Cassie of Sydney
April 10, 2023 8:28 am

“It’s about time you started calling out the villain in the piece- the US. The carnage won’t stop because the Biden family has far too much to lose. The US is happy to see every Ukrainian dead to further it’s agenda. And stupid Euros follow suit. But cracks are appearing – I see Macron is talking about a divorce from US Uber Alles.”

Yep.

Indolent
Indolent
April 10, 2023 8:29 am
Dot
Dot
April 10, 2023 8:30 am

The point isn’t if Japan still has whale for sale, why did they dig their heels in for several decades?

(Something does not need to be tangible to be existential).

Someone who doesn’t want to eat the bugs but isn’t politically engaged might wonder why other people are so whipped up about the bugs. It’s not just the bugs. What comes next after the bugs? Banning (actual) livestock, which is being attempted by proxy in northern Europe (ammonia regulation).

Processed vegan food for everyone is what some technocrats see as a good idea. Thank god the fake burger meat flopped pretty hard.

lotocoti
lotocoti
April 10, 2023 8:31 am

The background art explains it all.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
April 10, 2023 8:31 am

Mann bites Cat.

Michael Mann Calls the Defeat of Climate Denialism in Australia (WUWT, 9 Apr)

It’s a tell that his oped full of lurid lunacy is in the Grauniad.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
April 10, 2023 8:32 am

Diplomat, humanist Bruce Haigh who assisted anti-apartheid activists dead at 77

By RHIANNON DOWN
Reporter
@rhi_down
7:24PM April 9, 2023
1 Comment

Former Australian diplomat Bruce Haigh, famous for helping to smuggle an anti-apartheid activist out of South Africa disguised as a priest, has died aged 77 after a battle with cancer.

Mr Haigh completed postings in South Africa, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Indonesia during his decades of service to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and was remembered on Sunday by family and friends as a man who acted with the courage of his convictions and stood up for the underdog.

He offered a lifeline to journalist Donald Woods, a friend of anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, by helping him to escape South Africa following Biko’s death in custody after he had been severely beaten by police.
Read Next

Woods went on to become a vocal opponent to the apartheid regime and the saga was dramatised in the 1987 film Cry Freedom, with Mr Haigh being portrayed as Australian “journalist” Bruce to protect his identity.

His sister Christina Henderson said she would remember Mr Haigh, who died on Good Friday after his health deteriorated while on a trip to Laos, as a “fantastic brother” who always did what he felt was right in his professional life.

“He had courage of his convictions, he was an activist in South Africa and after Steve Biko was killed, he got Donald Woods out of South Africa,” she told The Australian.

“He was involved in Timor and then went back to Australia where he has been involved with refugees.

“He lived by his convictions.”

Mr Haigh grew up in Perth and worked on oil rigs and as a jackaroo in the Kimberley before being called up to fight in the Vietnam War.

After the war, he attended the University of WA before starting his career as a diplomat, where friends said he embraced the life of adventure but struggled against the stuffy culture of what was then the Department of Foreign Affairs.

After he retired from DFAT, he worked at the Refugee Review Tribunal, tried his hand at farming and was frequently called upon as a political commentator on TV and radio.

Friend Allan Behm said Mr Haigh had at times been counselled to “improve his diplomatic behaviour” and “keep away from the opposition” on his postings, but he always stuck by his principles.

Mr Haigh became a close friend of Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who was later assassinated, and was the first diplomat to make contact with her after her return from exile.

“He was a shrewd analyst in the politics of Pakistan and Sri Lanka and had a very deep understanding of the political and social forces at play in both countries, and the tensions that existed between civilian government and military governments,” Mr Behm said. “Bruce was always in favour of civilian governments.”

MatrixTransform
April 10, 2023 8:33 am

But what do facts matter?

Orwell answered that question already

Indolent
Indolent
April 10, 2023 8:35 am
Dot
Dot
April 10, 2023 8:37 am

The carnage won’t stop because the Biden family has far too much to lose.

In non-clown world the Hunter Biden laptop/crack whore etc + Chinese Communist links and funding for millions would sink them – and the Burisma stuff is already public knowledge.

No amount of evidence will shift the incredibly corrupt and biased MSM.

Also VP during the Fast n Furious and targeted IRS raids.

Compare this to “the national archivist said you committed a crime, also your shit lawyer committed a crime paying off a hooker who was blackmailing your tenants and who constantly lies and defames you on TV, so I will indict you…”

The Democrats have something to gain from the Ukraine conflict by calling Republicans unpatriotic and puppets of Putin. We all know that there is audio of Obama and Medvedev colluding and ACTUAL election interference aided Hillary. What difference does it make?

Keeping the war going until Putin stops caring or Biden pops his clogs is a bonus.

Eyrie
Eyrie
April 10, 2023 8:40 am

10% Australian ingredients

by mass or by value?

Who knows? I figure it is the packaging.

Dot
Dot
April 10, 2023 8:40 am
Dot
Dot
April 10, 2023 8:42 am

If Russia wins the war, Trump would be indicted for supporting Zelensky in the first place whilst he was still President.

Indolent
Indolent
April 10, 2023 8:44 am
Dot
Dot
April 10, 2023 8:44 am

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/02/13/as-economic-concerns-recede-environmental-protection-rises-on-the-publics-policy-agenda/

This was in 2020. I thought climate change was dead because reality killed it.

Democrats and Republicans have long been far apart in their views of the importance of climate change. But the differences are now wider than ever: 78% of Democrats say addressing this issue is a top priority, up from 67% who said this last year. By contrast, the relatively small share of Republicans who say addressing climate change is a top priority (21%) is unchanged from a year ago.

But nuclear is verboten.

Black Ball
Black Ball
April 10, 2023 8:47 am

Led by morons. Daily Telegraph:

A perfect storm of delayed energy projects and the closure of the country’s oldest power plant in just 18 days has presented a “massive” future supply problem which even the state’s new Energy Minister says she is concerned about. (oh really?)

The closure of the Hunter Valley’s Liddell coal-fired power station on April 28 will remove 1200MW of electricity from the grid, with Energy Minister Penny Sharpe declaring: “NSW is facing serious energy challenges in coming years.”

Ms Sharpe said that “trying to keep prices as low as possible” was a priority for the new Minns government, and she would “keep all options on the table when it comes to keeping the lights on, including keeping baseload operating to meet demand”.

That could mean intervening to keep the Eraring power station at Lake Macquarie open beyond its scheduled 2025 shutdown date, something flagged by Premier Chris Minns ahead of the election.

Last winter high demand and baseload power shortages plunged the state into a power crisis and forced the electricity market operator to tap into special reserve supplies, even with Liddell’s contribution.

The Australian Energy Market Operator also warned in February that energy shortfalls could hit as soon as 2025, with the closure of Liddell the first domino to fall in the scheduled shutdown of five power stations across Australia which currently contribute 13 per cent of the market’s total capacity.

Ms Sharpe said while she had received advice the impending Liddell shutdown would not impact electricity prices, NSW was still facing a shortfall if renewable energy projects “are slow to roll out or face delays”. (moar turbines! Moar solar panels!)

“My incoming advice is that (Liddell’s closure) will not have an immediate impact but any closure like this makes the energy challenge more difficult and the need to press the pedal to the metal on renewables obvious,” she said.

Ms Sharpe flagged Labor’s election promise to pump $1 billion into a state-owned Energy Security Corporation, tasked with accelerating renewable energy projects, as its answer to the shortfall.

“As the cheapest form of energy, getting as much renewable energy built and operating as soon as possible is essential to this task,” she said.

The Liddell shutdown comes as new projects such as the Snowy Hydro 2.0 and the Kurri Kurri gas project face delays.

Stephen Galilee, the NSW Minerals Council chief executive, said: “Despite repeated warnings over many years, the closure of the Liddell Power Station is now set to create an electricity supply challenge for NSW. With Liddell due to shut in 18 days, and Eraring scheduled to follow in 2025, NSW faces a massive challenge to ensure the lights stay on during the next few years and beyond.”

Grattan Institute energy program director Tony Wood said the state’s power grid was well-placed to cover the 1200MW which will be lost from the closure of Liddell, but Eraring could be required to operate longer to cover predicted shortfalls.

Johnny Rotten
April 10, 2023 8:49 am

Johnny Rottensays:
April 10, 2023 at 4:46 am
Well done Tom. Another sterling effort.

Whoops and apologies for interrupting the flow.

calli
calli
April 10, 2023 8:50 am

lotocoti says:
April 10, 2023 at 8:31 am
The background art explains it all.

It makes perfect sense.

The campaign – a beverage pretending to be beer marketed by a man pretending to be a woman.

And now we see that the campaign manager is a gormless idiot pretending to be a businesswoman.

Anchor What
Anchor What
April 10, 2023 8:52 am

Sky News and Joe Siracusa still cataloguing all the things Trump has done wrong, while nary a word about the awful things the Biden/Dem regime has implemented.
Nothing to see there.
Just the destruction of the USA.

Indolent
Indolent
April 10, 2023 8:52 am

Leaving aside the obvious points about enabling mental illness and using it like a weapon to cause chaos and division, the net effect of this is to sterilize a large part of the population.

Gonzalo Lira
@GonzaloLira1968

lol, this is why the insanity is spreading so quickly in the US—people keep their mouths shut, instead of standing up and saying this is insane and wrong.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
April 10, 2023 8:53 am

Battery fun.

Elon’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Battery Math (7 Apr, via Climate Depot)

“In 2007, I interviewed Vaclav Smil by email. I asked the Canadian polymath and prolific author a simple question: why are so many people so easily duped when it comes to discussions about energy and power?

He replied: “There has never been such a depth of scientific illiteracy and basic innumeracy as we see today. Without any physical, chemical, and biological fundamentals, and with equally poor understanding of basic economic forces, it is no wonder that people will believe anything.”

I am reusing that quote from Smil (who is one of my favorite writers on energy and power) because it’s germane to a report published on Wednesday by Tesla Inc. called “Master Plan Part 3: Sustainable Energy for All of Earth.”

Tesla’s top people are claiming that over the next 20 years or so, the countries of the world can install 30.5 terawatts of weather-dependent generation capacity. … But the number that jumped off the screen when I read the Master Plan was this one: 240. That’s the number of terawatt-hours (TWh) of battery storage the authors of the report say will be needed to make the jump to weather-dependent renewables.

Nevertheless, it only takes a minute to understand why that 240 TWh of storage is so gobsmackingly silly. … Tesla currently has 5 Gigafactories. Thus, Tesla’s current battery storage output is, in rough terms, 250 GWh per year. Now recall that the Master Plan requires 240 TWh, which is 240,000 GWh. Therefore, as can be seen in the graphic directly above, producing 240,000 GWh of battery capacity would require the output of all of Tesla’s existing Gigafactories for the next 960 years.”

Someone at Tesla might think about investing in a calculator.

He doesn’t get around to mention that all those batteries need to be replaced within about 10 years. Nor that world electricity consumption was 22848 TWh in 2019, so that 240 TWh of batteries can provide electricity for 3.8 days in even of renewable energy droughts.

Zipster
Zipster
April 10, 2023 8:53 am

We are racing towards the singularity with unprecedented speed…

Can GPT 4 Prompt Itself? MemoryGPT, AutoGPT, Jarvis, Claude-Next [10x GPT 4!] and more…

baby AGI is here

Real Deal
Real Deal
April 10, 2023 8:54 am

Bolt:
You see, Marxists don’t treat people as individuals. They divide us into faceless members of a class – workers or bosses.

Or “you lot”.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
April 10, 2023 8:55 am

Whoops and apologies for interrupting the flow.

Idiot.

duncanm
duncanm
April 10, 2023 8:55 am

Albansleazy is a bastard.

He’s backing every sports personality into a corner… when the question comes for them (as it will), what can they honestly say without being hounded by the usual suspects? Even a ‘no thanks, I think its up to individuals’ will have them persecuted.

I’m sure 90% of them want to keep well away from any public stance on the debate.

calli
calli
April 10, 2023 8:55 am

Good morning Struth.

Johnny Rotten
April 10, 2023 8:56 am

Grattan Institute energy program director Tony Wood said the state’s power grid was well-placed to cover the 1200MW which will be lost from the closure of Liddell, but Eraring could be required to operate longer to cover predicted shortfalls.

And how well placed? Please explain how NSW will cover this loss of 1200 MW from a Coal Fired Power Station. A Very, Very, Very Big Battery? LOL.

duncanm
duncanm
April 10, 2023 8:58 am

And now we see that the campaign manager is a gormless idiot pretending to be a businesswoman.

its like having a vegan VP of marketing at Don.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
April 10, 2023 8:59 am

callisays:

April 10, 2023 at 8:55 am

Good morning Struth.

St Ruth is back?
He’s decided to stop sulking?

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
April 10, 2023 9:02 am

Speaking of Marxists this story comes as no surprise.

Transgender School Shooter Plotting Church Attack Read Marx (9 Apr)

“After Audrey Hale’s shooting spree killed 9-year-olds at a Christian school, another transgender shooter was allegedly caught planning an attack.

William Whitworth, who identifies as “Lilly Whitworth,” while being questioned, Whitworth told the deputy he had been planning a school shooting for “a month or two,” and was “about a third of the way from doing it.”

Whitworth was arrested for probable cause later that evening and transported to the Elbert County Jail. A search warrant on Whitworth’s home recovered the following pieces of evidence:

The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrick Engels
Whitworth’s manifesto
A notebook with suicidal ideations”

It’s noteworthy that the FBI is sitting on the Nashville tranny terrorist’s manifesto and it’s seems increasingly unlikely they’re going to release it. I wonder what it says?

Where’s The Manifesto? (10 Apr)

Johnny Rotten
April 10, 2023 9:05 am

dover0beachsays:
April 10, 2023 at 8:55 am

And yet it is competent enough, it seems, to destroy the enemy and all the war materiel of NATO countries in Europe and much of the US.

Dotty Dot of Dottiness needs to watch a few of those You Tube videos where Colonel Douglas MacGregor has been interviewed. It’s called ‘watch and learn’. The US and British BS just does not stack up with the reality on the ground. Russia is just waiting to pounce once that black earth dries out by May 2023, during the UKR Spring.

Makka
Makka
April 10, 2023 9:05 am

Tesla’s top people are claiming that over the next 20 years or so, the TAXPAYERS of the world can AFFORD TO install 30.5 terawatts of weather-dependent generation capacity.

Elon hopes it reads thus.

bons
bons
April 10, 2023 9:09 am

“I have always been a swinging voter”, she said.
I am fond of that concept.
Unfortunately, there are no light poles where I live.

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
April 10, 2023 9:12 am

Guess the “powerbroker”…

Federal Liberals ‘dumb and dumber’ to keep moving right: NSW powerbroker

NSW Liberal powerbroker Michael Photios says the party can return to government at the next state election if it keeps to the political centre and avoids the “dumber and dumber” rightward trajectory of its federal counterparts.

Photios, a former MP turned lobbyist who wields significant influence in the Liberals’ dominant moderate faction, also said the party would need to restore some of the “special powers” formerly enjoyed by officials to install candidates after widespread delays and issues with preselections.
……

Lets check his track record..
The Coalition will hold 36 out of 93 seats in the new parliament after the Liberals won Ryde at the weekend by just 50 votes, although Labor may seek a recount. The result represents a clear defeat for the Liberals while leaving Labor governing in minority.

Photios said the NSW Liberal Party needed to remain “centrist and modern while underpinned in Liberal values of inclusion, freedom, enterprise and social justice with opportunity”, and should distance itself from the federal Liberals under Opposition Leader Peter Dutton.

“If we continue to differentiate our state Coalition from our federal colleagues, while respecting their more hardline approach, it will test what Australia wants,” he told the Herald.

Indolent
Indolent
April 10, 2023 9:12 am
calli
calli
April 10, 2023 9:13 am

Spied in Mount Colah yesterday…a woman walking her dog in the blazing sunshine and wearing a mask.

Fortunately the derg was unmuzzled.

Indolent
Indolent
April 10, 2023 9:14 am
Zipster
Zipster
April 10, 2023 9:15 am
Zipster
Zipster
April 10, 2023 9:17 am

And how well placed? Please explain how NSW will cover this loss of 1200 MW from a Coal Fired Power Station

candles

H B Bear
H B Bear
April 10, 2023 9:20 am

Black Ball at 8:25 – Blot’s written stuff is typically his better stuff. His TV is usually awful, his interviews worse.

Indolent
Indolent
April 10, 2023 9:21 am

The US Attorney in Utah has given the anti-vax movement in America the greatest gift ever

They charged Kirk Moore with a crime. Dr. Moore is allowed discovery to prove his innocence. This means he gets access to VSD, Medicare, NDI, and state death and vaccination records. Whoops!

He gave placebos to children.

Miltonf
Miltonf
April 10, 2023 9:28 am

Ha ha Penny Sharpe come from Canbra- like I say nothing good comes out of Canbra.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
April 10, 2023 9:32 am

ElboSleezy/Albooverseasy pushes Voice which won’t answer or solve this

Aussie town is under siege from youth crime gangs who roam the streets breaking into houses and terrorising locals – now there are fears fed-up vigilantes will start ‘dishing out their own justice’

. Townsville gripped by youth crime
. There are fears for vigilantism

Fed-up local fear it’s only a matter of time before vigilantes start taking the law into their own hands, as a terrifying crime wave grips their town.

Roaming youth gangs have become increasingly brazen in Townsville, with a surging number of violent crimes, thefts, break-ins and acts of vandalism.

Restaurant owner Allan Pike revealed his business had been targeted multiple times, including a large rock thrown through a window.

Last year, Townsville saw its highest crime rates in two decades, with more than 43,000 offences recorded.

A year-long police operation saw 1322 offenders charged, with close to 1000 being minors.

Sonia, who works at a Townsville convenience store, said she had been held at knifepoint by a young man who came into the shop.

‘A person approached me with a large boning knife,’ she said

‘I thought: I can’t believe I’m going to die at the back of this shop.

‘I ran for my life, I left my car keys, handbag and phone and just abandoned the shop.’

Sonia, who is still off work recovering from the attack, said youth weren’t being held accountable for their actions.

‘They know they’re untouchable so they just keep doing what they’re doing,’ she said.

Ed Case
Ed Case
April 10, 2023 9:34 am

Yet she was made house captain at Brisbane’s Aspley High, so go figure.
So what?
You’re scraping the bottom of the barrel there, digger.
Aspley was cow paddocks in 1968, House Captains are good at Sport, there were perhaps a dozen girls at most in Grade 12 then, Marcia was one of them, that’s all there is to it.
Is she a Lezzo?
I’m guessing Yeah, but you’re too prissy to go there, right?

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
April 10, 2023 9:34 am

Speaking of Bolta, today Blair has one on Marsha Marsha Marsha’s unfortunate confession.

Let’s welcome a country with fewer welcomes (Blair blog paywalled)

Roger
Roger
April 10, 2023 9:35 am

NATO has invited Elbow to their upcoming summit.

I hope they don’t expect a reply within the week.

Zipster
Zipster
April 10, 2023 9:35 am
Roger
Roger
April 10, 2023 9:37 am

Good to see Bob Moran striking an optimistic note.

JC
JC
April 10, 2023 9:41 am

Is she a Lezzo?
I’m guessing Yeah, but you’re too prissy to go there, right?

Eddles, a lezzo spook?

lotocoti
lotocoti
April 10, 2023 9:42 am

Good morning Struth.

Presumably not the light in the loafers Struth
who appears unaware Dame Edna is a role, not a lifestyle.

Miltonf
Miltonf
April 10, 2023 9:43 am

Marsha Marsha Marsha’s unfortunate confession.

don’t keep us in suspense Bruce

Roger
Roger
April 10, 2023 9:44 am

Speaking of optimistic notes, in the wake of Marcia Langton’s bitter and divisive contribution to the public disacussion, the chief of the Yes campaign, a Mr. Parkin, has ventured to suggest that the Voice will save the tax payer money by preventing resources from being misdirected.

Mmm…yes; because cutting costs will be at the top of their agenda.

Ed Case
Ed Case
April 10, 2023 9:45 am

Well spotted, JC.
Yeah, a Spooky Lezzo.
She was pretty sensible up until a coupla days ago, though.

Ed Case
Ed Case
April 10, 2023 9:47 am

Harlan Crow, eh?

Harlan Sanders and Jim Crow?

It’s a hoax, you’ve been had.

Anchor What
Anchor What
April 10, 2023 9:50 am

Liddell will close on 28th April. No government has done anything about it.
Lots of blather about ruinables, but no admission that there’s no fuel like an old fuel.

Miltonf
Miltonf
April 10, 2023 9:54 am

Liddell will close on 28th April. No government has done anything about it.
Lots of blather about ruinables, but no admission that there’s no fuel like an old fuel.

which shows that our pollimuppetts are treacherous morons. It shows what haapn when you put BAs and LLBs in charge.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
April 10, 2023 9:57 am

…a Mr. Parkin, has ventured to suggest that the Voice will save the tax payer money by preventing resources from being misdirected.

Well, Professor Langton will reserve a special frown for him.

The Langton Calma model (potentially, maybe possibly the Uncle Luigi Official Voice Model) insists that the Voice will not replace any of the myriad existing advisory groups, nor take responsibility for program expenditure.

So Mr Parkin presumably sees an efficiency dividend out of Marxist struggle.

Or just possibly it’s humbuggery aimed at back-pocket conservatives…

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
April 10, 2023 9:59 am

Opinion

How green energy taxpayer subsidies help the rich first

It may not be fair or efficient for bill-paying battlers to underwrite green initiatives that only the better-off can afford.

John Kehoe Economics editor

The transition to cleaner energy is becoming a tax break and subsidy gravy train for higher income earners and the wealthy.

Hard-working taxpayers are funding all sorts of federal and state concessions for electric vehicles, solar panels and electrification of homes, while the less fortunate struggle to afford their energy bills.

The handouts are an extremely expensive way to reduce carbon emissions, as the Productivity Commission highlights.

It marks a failure of the political system to sustainably impose a relatively low-cost, economy-wide and efficient carbon price, tax or levy.

Instead, resorting to tax breaks and subsidies is very inequitable.

People with above-average incomes and wealth who can afford electric vehicles, solar panels, batteries, new heating and cooling systems benefit disproportionately.

People who can’t afford these clean-energy technologies will miss out.

I recently replaced our family home’s old, ducted, gas-heating system after it blew up.

The Australian Capital Territory offered me an extremely generous 10-year, interest free loan of $15,000 to replace the gas heater with an electric system. In today’s dollars the subsidy is worth at least $3300, assuming an average inflation rate of 2.5 per cent.

In a high-inflation and rising-interest rate environment, the subsidy is likely worth a lot more than that, compared with a commercial interest rate.

Naturally, I took the taxpayer-backed deal to buy a new reverse cycle heater and air conditioner, even though I felt it was dudding other ACT ratepayers.

But it seems I’m not the only person financially benefiting from the scheme.

The ACT government has hired clean energy financier Brighte to administer the sustainable household scheme.

Brighte is part-owned by billionaire software entrepreneur and clean energy advocate Mike Cannon-Brookes through his Grok Ventures.

The ACT government in partnership with Brighte is offering similar generous deals for rooftop solar panels, household batteries and storage, air conditioners, hot water heat pumps, electric stove tops, electric vehicles, electric vehicle charging and ceiling insulation.

It’s not surprising that the forecast loans under the scheme have swelled by 33 per cent to $200 million.

The ACT, which easily has the nation’s highest median household income because of ubiquitous, well-paid public servants, has about double the number of electric vehicle sales per capita, the Australian Automobile Association says.

Tax breaks for the wealthy

Nationally, EVs have become one of the biggest tax breaks for the well-heeled.

They benefit from the Commonwealth’s exemption from fringe benefits tax (FBT), cash subsidies from state governments and discounts on stamp duty and registration fees.

Exempting low and zero-emission cars from FBT potentially saves buyers as much as $30,000, excluding other state government handouts.

It’s a boon for the sales of Tesla founder Elon Musk, the world’s second-richest billionaire on the Forbes rich list.

Yet, tax breaks for EVs are an extremely expensive and ineffective way to reduce carbon emissions.

The Productivity Commission estimates the cost of carbon dioxide abatement for EVs from the FBT exemption at between $987 and $20,084 a tonne.

The cost to taxpayers dwarfs the carbon price paid by heavy emitters of less than $40 a tonne via Australian carbon credit units (ACCUs) and the $75 carbon price cap the government has imposed for the carbon safeguard mechanism.

The commission notes that supply constraints and delivery delays are already leading to extended wait times for EVs in Australia.

“With supply the principal constraint for EV uptake in Australia, policy efforts to increase the demand for EVs, such as tax concessions and rebates for EV purchases, run the risk of simply adding more people to the proverbial queue, subsidising people who are already in the queue, or in the case of tax concessions that are selectively available to some groups, simply pushing those selected groups to the front of the queue – all for no appreciable gain to the overall number of EVs on Australian roads, relative to what would have otherwise been the case,” the commission says.

“Using the FBT [fringe benefits tax] system for alternative policy goals like attempting to drive EV uptake risks compromising the degree to which the FBT system protects the integrity of the personal income tax system, potentially reinforcing equity concerns in the process.”

Meanwhile, the South Australian Labor government has scrapped a planned road-user charge for EVs, fulfilling a populist election commitment.

Again, another tax break for well-heeled EV drivers, while battlers driving petrol-guzzlers pay fuel excise.

Good Victorian policy

Tax economists such as Ken Henry (a strong environmentalist) have for more than a decade advocated road-user charges for all vehicles, embedding the cost of road surface damage, noise, congestion and carbon emissions into the price.

Much more sensibly in Victoria, electric vehicle drivers already pay 2.6¢ per kilometre and plug-in hybrid car drivers 2.1¢ per kilometre.

But with the $12 billion federal fuel excise revenue in decline, the Commonwealth is inexplicably joining a High Court challenge against Victoria’s EV charge.

Victoria is enacting good tax policy (a rare compliment from this writer for Dan Andrews’ government).

Road user charges are a more economically growth friendly form of taxation than damaging state taxes such as stamp duties on property sales, insurance taxes and narrow payroll taxes.

User charges on drivers could also reduce vertical fiscal imbalance between the federal and state governments.

States currently account for about 22 per cent of the nation’s tax revenue but are responsible for about 40 per cent of spending and are highly dependent on financial transfers from the Commonwealth.

Nevertheless, the Commonwealth is interfering by backing Victorian EV driver plaintiffs who argue the charge is an excise, which only the Commonwealth can levy.

In theory, the Commonwealth wants to retain the right to impose a federal EV road user charge in the future.

But Victoria, with other states such as NSW due to follow, is getting on with the job.

It is better to implement the charge now because it will be much more politically difficult in future years.

As French statesman Jean-Baptiste Colbert famously said in the 1600s, “The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing”.

The danger in deferring to the Commonwealth to implement a national road-user charge scheme, is that it will take too long – if it ever develops the political courage – and there will be too many EV drivers resisting by the time it gets its act together.

Miltonf
Miltonf
April 10, 2023 10:00 am

Who is Mr Parkin? Another canbra apparatchik?

Dot
Dot
April 10, 2023 10:03 am

And yet it is competent enough, it seems, to destroy the enemy and all the war materiel of NATO countries in Euorpe and much of the US.

Yes, they’re blocking those bullets, missiles and shells with infantryman, bridges, tanks and IFVs.

It’s like how Bob Sapp ate those punches of those pro fighters. He collapsed as they ran out of punches.

Europe and the US have 30 times the industrial capacity of Russia, which has not produced a single Armarta tank beyond a prototype.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
April 10, 2023 10:04 am

Macron Says Europe Must Reduce Dependency on United States and Avoid Being Pulled into Pending Taiwan Crisis

April 9, 2023 – Sundance

If you overlay the U.S. intelligence leaks as a potential excuse for the U.S. not getting deeper into the never-ending Ukraine conflict we support, then the comments by Emmanuel Macron about the EU not wanting to get involved with U.S. interests in Taiwan make more sense.

On his flight back from Beijing, French President Macron told traveling media, Europe needs to reduce dependency on the United States. Remarkably, this is what President Donald Trump has been saying for years as part of his overall EU and NATO policy. However, this could also be an indication of a strategic Taiwan pivot by the U.S. as shared from the Foggy Bottom diplomats who love their French connections.

(Via Politico) Europe must reduce its dependency on the United States and avoid getting dragged into a confrontation between China and the U.S. over Taiwan, French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview on his plane back from a three-day state visit to China.

Speaking with POLITICO and two French journalists after spending around six hours with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his trip, Macron emphasized his pet theory of “strategic autonomy” for Europe, presumably led by France, to become a “third superpower.”

He said “the great risk” Europe faces is that it “gets caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy,” while flying from Beijing to Guangzhou, in southern China, aboard COTAM Unité, France’s Air Force One.

Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party have enthusiastically endorsed Macron’s concept of strategic autonomy and Chinese officials constantly refer to it in their dealings with European countries. Party leaders and theorists in Beijing are convinced the West is in decline and China is on the ascendant and that weakening the transatlantic relationship will help accelerate this trend.

“The paradox would be that, overcome with panic, we believe we are just America’s followers,” Macron said in the interview. “The question Europeans need to answer … is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the U.S. agenda and a Chinese overreaction,” he said.

Just hours after his flight left Guangzhou headed back to Paris, China launched large military exercises around the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which China claims as its territory but the U.S. has promised to arm and defend. (read more)

A traditional Nikki Haley Republican would view these words by Macron as sacrilegious.

However, finally cutting the cord between the EU dependency on the U.S. would be in our best economic interests as well. Wouldn’t it be great to finally see the end to the Marshal plan tariffs?…

Oh wait, did Macron factor in that aspect?…. lolol

Face it folks, there’s only one man in America who can navigate through the geopolitical times we are living in and succeed in putting America in the winning position against a multitude of oppositional interests. That man’s name is Donald John Trump.

duncanm
duncanm
April 10, 2023 10:04 am

The easiest way to diffuse the Voice would be to exclude any current government employed or funded person from being involved in it in future.

Watching the activists squirm would be worth the popcorn.

Miltonf
Miltonf
April 10, 2023 10:05 am

Europe and the US have 30 times the industrial capacity of Russia

how do you know that?

Miltonf
Miltonf
April 10, 2023 10:06 am

Europe and the US have 30 times the industrial capacity of Russia

and how is it measured? steel output? automobiles? locomotives?

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
April 10, 2023 10:08 am

Macron Blunders on Taiwan—and Ukraine

He weakens deterrence against Chinese aggression and undermines U.S. support for Europe.

By The WSJ Editorial Board

Emmanuel Macron fancies himself a Charles de Gaulle for the 21st century, which includes distancing Europe from the U.S. But the French President picked a terrible moment this weekend for a Gaullist afflatus following his meeting with Chinese Communist Party chief Xi Jinping.

“The paradox would be that, overcome with panic, we believe we are just America’s followers,” Mr. Macron said in an interview with a reporter from Politico and two French journalists.

“The question Europeans need to answer . . . is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the U.S. agenda and a Chinese overreaction.”

No one wants a crisis over Taiwan, much less to accelerate one, but preventing one requires a credible deterrent. Mr. Macron seemed to rule out European help with that when he told the journalists that “Europeans cannot resolve the crisis in Ukraine; how can we credibly say on Taiwan, ‘watch out, if you do something wrong we will be there’? If you really want to increase tensions that’s the way to do it.”

If Mr. Macron wants to reduce American public support for the war against Russia, he couldn’t have said it better.

Without U.S. weapons and intelligence, Russia would long ago have rolled over Ukraine and perhaps one or more NATO border countries. Mr. Macron says he wants to make Europe less dependent on U.S. weapons and energy, which is fine. But then how about spending the money and making the policy changes to do it?

Mr. Macron wants the U.S. to ride to Europe’s rescue against Russian aggression but apparently take a vow of neutrality against Chinese aggression in the Pacific. Thanks a lot, mate.

His unhelpful comments will undermine U.S. and Japanese deterrence against China in the Western Pacific while encouraging U.S. politicians who want to reduce U.S. commitments in Europe to better resist China.

If President Biden is awake, he ought to call Mr. Macron and ask if he’s trying to re-elect Donald Trump.

Thanks a lot, mate – Is the WSJ Editor an Aussie?

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
April 10, 2023 10:09 am

don’t keep us in suspense Bruce

MF – I have to…I don’t subscribe.

Dot
Dot
April 10, 2023 10:10 am

Dotty Dot of Dottiness needs to watch a few of those You Tube videos where Colonel Douglas MacGregor has been interviewed. It’s called ‘watch and learn’. The US and British BS just does not stack up with the reality on the ground. Russia is just waiting to pounce once that black earth dries out by May 2023, during the UKR Spring.

This is peak cope.

“Let’s start a war against a numerically inferior enemy, retreat after failed combined arms operations, then “wait to pounce” 15 months later after they’ve hit infrastructure on our soil, we’ve lost thousands of tanks and are using prisoner conscripts as cannon fodder”

Genius. Sure they’re waiting to pounce. Don’t pretend this was “just as planned” though.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
April 10, 2023 10:11 am

How will NSW cover the loss of 1200Mwh? With a big blanket. Simples.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
April 10, 2023 10:12 am

The US PGA is breathing a sigh of relief this morning.

Spaniard Jon Rahm came from the clouds and won the US Masters by four shots from Phil Mickelson. Until last night, it looked like rebel outfit Liv Golf adherent Brooks Koepka was going to smash it in, but he choked all the way around Atlanta on the last day.

The ‘establishment’ has been smacking up Liv since it started because it’s based in the ME and pays even stupider money than the PGA as it’s funded by the Saudi monarchy, who are of course all Hitlers because human rights, treatment of women etc etc.

Had one of the Liv people won the Masters, a true marquee event, the PGA would have had to eat a gigantic pile of shit, topped with onion rings coated with shit, and with a bowl of diarrhoea dipping sauce.

It’s a World Series Cricket state of affairs, but happening to golf.

Dot
Dot
April 10, 2023 10:12 am

and how is it measured? steel output? automobiles? locomotives?

Not as non existent T-14 Armartas.

Roger
Roger
April 10, 2023 10:14 am

The Langton Calma model (potentially, maybe possibly the Uncle Luigi Official Voice Model) insists that the Voice will not replace any of the myriad existing advisory groups, nor take responsibility for program expenditure.

Don’t expect a PR type person to be across the detail.

It’s all about the vibe.

Miltonf
Miltonf
April 10, 2023 10:14 am

and how is it measured? steel output? automobiles? locomotives?

Not as non existent T-14 Armartas.

so you don’t really know?

H B Bear
H B Bear
April 10, 2023 10:14 am

The ACT government has hired clean energy financier Brighte to administer the sustainable household scheme.

Like most interference with markets and the price mechanism look at who profits. The mafia were using this model long before the Greens.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
April 10, 2023 10:16 am

From the Oz.

In an opinion piece for The Australian, FSC chief executive Blake Briggs said the reluctance of Australians to draw down enough money in super during their retirement – which was resulting in money left over as inheritances – was leaving the sector exposed to pressure for new taxes.

He said the issue of super fund money “being left for future generations as bequests” had “become a lightning rod” for critics of the system.

“Without reform to ensure that superannuation operates as efficiently as possible to raise retirees’ living standards, the system will continue to be targeted by vested interests arguing for higher taxes on retirement savings,” he said.

Use it or lose it, Boomers.

Dot
Dot
April 10, 2023 10:16 am

I have quoted it before. You can look it up to. It is total industrial production measured in currency.

Don’t be rude, there’s no need for it.

Miltonf
Miltonf
April 10, 2023 10:18 am

How will NSW cover the loss of 1200Mwh?

It’s 1200MW- a measure of power.

1200MWh is a measure of energy. 1200W for one hour. E=P*t.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
April 10, 2023 10:18 am

Great ‘town’ beach at Wagga Liz – worth a look.

Thanks for the heads up, Perf Alb. We are leaving beautiful Bendigo now, having seen the goldenest opera in the town built on gold. An excellent stay here and sorry not to stay longer and enjoy more of this historic town and its pleasures, but Attapuss is pining, so my son has just said in a call to us. He’s getting old, says my son. Well, son, so are well all, I say back. Be home late tomorrow.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
April 10, 2023 10:18 am

Europe and the US have 30 times the industrial capacity of Russia, which has not produced a single Armarta tank beyond a prototype.

That’d be a great argument, Dot, except for Pumas and Ajaxes.

Dot
Dot
April 10, 2023 10:18 am

He said the issue of super fund money “being left for future generations as bequests” had “become a lightning rod” for critics of the system.

Stupid thieving communists are probably not actually critics of forced savings.

H B Bear
H B Bear
April 10, 2023 10:20 am

US PGA are struggling around trying to find a replacement for golfing whore monger Tiger Woods. PGA Instagram sent out a post when he made the cut. If it takes the Saudis to break their monopoly-so what.

Miltonf
Miltonf
April 10, 2023 10:20 am

You can look it up to. It is total industrial production measured in currency.

sounds like meaningless econobabble

Roger
Roger
April 10, 2023 10:21 am

Don’t pretend this was “just as planned” though.

Of course it is.

According to Plan…let me see, Plan C.

Wait, no…that was to take the Donbas by the end of March.

We’re now on to Plan D.

duncanm
duncanm
April 10, 2023 10:21 am

Have we reached peak hair-splitting stupid yet?
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/apr/09/bbc-protests-after-twitter-labels-it-government-funded-media

BBC protests after Twitter labels it ‘government-funded media’

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
April 10, 2023 10:25 am

Entitlement news (the Tele):

Shocking footage shows the moment an outraged cyclist smashed the front window of a crowded bus as it was stopped on a Sydney street.

The incident took place in Sydney on Sunday, showing the cyclist throwing an object at the window multiple times until it shatters.

If you choose to ride bicycles on roads frequented by tonnes of metal and glass moving at speed, and you don’t ride with the mindset that everything else is trying to kill you, you’re doing it wrong.

The cyclist strikes the window multiple times, before picking up his bag and bike, and walking off the road.

Walked off the road. Good. Learned his lesson then.

H B Bear
H B Bear
April 10, 2023 10:26 am

Use it or lose it, Boomers.

That’s fine but there needs to be better mechanisms to deal with the longevity risk. Without that, the safest course of action is to leave some in the tank. Which is just what most people do. Not helped by most Super industry participants running a defacto scare campaign on the amount most people need to retire on.

Dot
Dot
April 10, 2023 10:28 am

sounds like meaningless econobabble

???

Sure, like your income and Adam Tooze’s deconstruction of the myth of the Nazi war economy being prosperous.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
April 10, 2023 10:29 am

New Details on Intelligence Leak Show It Circulated for Weeks Before Raising Alarm

The FBI and Justice Department are searching for the source of what is shaping up to be one of the most damaging intelligence breaches in decades. The documents were first posted in January to a small group online on a messaging channel that trafficked in memes, jokes and racist talk.

One of the most significant leaks of highly classified U.S. documents in recent history began among a small group of posters on a messaging channel that trafficked in memes, jokes and racist talk.

Sometime in January, seemingly unnoticed by the outside world, an anonymous member of a group numbering just over a dozen began to post files—many labeled as top secret—providing details about the war in Ukraine, intercepted communications about U.S. allies, such as Israel and South Korea, and details of American penetration of Russian military plans, among other topics.

The documents, which appear to have numbered in the hundreds, stayed among the members of the tiny group on the Discord messaging platform until early March, when another user reposted several dozen of them to another group with a larger audience. From there, at least 10 files migrated to a much bigger community focused on the Minecraft computer game.

On Wednesday, with the U.S. government apparently still unaware, a Russian propaganda account on Telegram posted a crudely doctored version of one of the documents, alongside a few unedited ones.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Justice Department are now on a sprawling hunt for answers on how the dozens of images that purport to show secret documents surfaced online. A government probe, launched Friday at the request of the Defense Department, is searching for the source of the leak.

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment Sunday on the status of the investigation.

The leak is shaping up to be one of the most damaging intelligence breaches in decades, officials said. The disclosure complicates Ukraine’s spring offensive.

It will likely inhibit the readiness of foreign allies to share sensitive information with the U.S. government. And it potentially exposes America’s intelligence sources within Russia and other hostile nations.

A decade after National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked a giant cache of top-secret documents about surveillance and other intelligence activities, the U.S. government is still unable to protect against such breaches.

“How the heck are we back here again?” said Brett Bruen, president of Global Situation Room, a national security consulting firm, and a former White House official in the Obama administration. “These kinds of large scale security breaches were supposed to be a thing of the past. New controls and checks were put in place. Yet, clearly it wasn’t enough and we need a major rethink [and] revision to the classified protection process.”

Who had access

The Wall Street Journal wasn’t able to independently authenticate the documents, but they contain enough detail to give them credibility. Defense officials have said they believe some of the documents could be authentic.

In total, just over 50 documents with Secret and Top Secret classification markings have surfaced so far, and have been viewed by the Journal and a variety of independent intelligence analysts. A critical question is who had access, and when, to the hundreds of others that were posted in the original group between January and March, and how significant are the secrets that these files contain.

The U.S. intelligence community is expected to take measures to protect the sources and methods used in the collection of data in that material. “You have to assume it is compromised,” said Thomas Rid, professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University. “But assuming that the adversary has it is one thing, knowing it is another.”

The probe into the leak will be among the FBI’s top priorities as investigators search for who had access to the information, and who would have motive to make it public, said Joshua Skule, a former FBI senior executive who is now the president of the government contracting firm Bow Wave.

“They are going to be looking to get to the bottom of who did it as expeditiously as possible, they are going to be sparing no resource,” Mr. Skule said. “The FBI is approaching this as if someone has committed a treasonous act.”

The leaked documents are photographs of presentations and files that had been printed out on A4 paper. They appear to have been folded twice, perhaps to be smuggled out of a secure facility.

A variety of items can be seen in the margins of the photos, including Gorilla glue, shoes and instructions for a GlassHawk HD spotting scope, details that could facilitate the search for the leaker.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said in a Telegram post that it was unlikely that Russia was behind the original intelligence breach.

“If you have an operating channel to obtain intelligence from the Pentagon, you don’t burn it for a one-day publicity drive,” he wrote. By publicizing the leak, he added, Russia aimed to distract attention from Ukraine’s preparations for the offensive, and to “sow certain doubts and mutual suspicions” between Kyiv and its partners.

Mr. Zelensky reacted to the leak by ordering new measures to clamp down on unauthorized disclosures of military information. The U.S. has also changed how military personnel access such documents, defense officials said last week.

The most damaging files, security analysts say, are the roundups of vetted intelligence material compiled in the Central Intelligence Agency’s operations center intelligence update.

They include information on conversations that the U.S. had intercepted within allied governments, such as communications of the leaders of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service and discussions among members of South Korea’s national security council on whether to sell ammunition that could end up in Ukraine.

Even more sensitive is the information that appears derived from the U.S. penetration of the Russian government, such as details on how a Russian hacker shared screenshots with the FSB security service on accessing Canada’s natural-gas infrastructure, internal Russian ministry of defense deliberations on supplying ammunition to the Wagner paramilitary group, and plans by Russian military intelligence to foment an anti-Western and anti-Ukrainian campaign in Africa.

Aric Toler, head of research and training at the Bellingcat investigative consortium, which has carried out several probes of Russian intelligence operations, said that he has been in touch with three original members of the Discord group.

The group’s members saw hundreds of classified files before the channel was wiped clean, he said. Most members are based in the U.S. The identity of the original poster remains unknown.

Baffling pattern

Document leaks have emerged as a common tactic during the war in Ukraine, but the posting of the apparent U.S. intelligence files on Discord, an online chat service favored by videogame players, follows a different, somewhat baffling pattern, according to analysts.

Once global attention was drawn to the leak, members of the Discord groups scurried to delete their accounts and to purge their servers, fearing retribution by the U.S. government and unwelcome attention from foreign intelligence agencies.

“I left that server and I really hope that I am safe,” one of the users, who had uploaded some of the leaked files to the Minecraft community, posted on Friday, adding a crying emoji.

Founded eight years ago in San Francisco, Discord first gained popularity as software that gamers could use to talk to each other in a group. The majority of these chat servers are private—shared by friends—but they can be public, too. Discord also hosts communities supporting Ukraine’s cause.

On Sunday, Discord’s website listed more than 20,000 public servers, the majority of them concern gaming. “It’s a very reliable service when the games are acting glitchy,” said Levi Gundert, chief security officer with the intelligence firm Recorded Future.

Researchers at Mr. Gundert’s firm have also found unsavory content on the platform, such as terrorist propaganda and tools for hackers. “It really looks more like a kind of free-for-all in terms of the content that’s available,” he said.

Discord would likely have information about the users of the original group’s server that would be of use to law enforcement investigators, Mr. Gundert said.

A Discord spokeswoman declined to comment.

The latest leak isn’t the first time sensitive documents have shown up on a gaming-related server. Last year, a player of the WarThunder military vehicle combat game posted real classified information on the British Challenger 2 tanks, while a year earlier another user posted a classified manual for the French Leclerc tanks.

The new disclosures are far more significant. They include information about the types of heavy weapons and equipment of the nine Ukrainian brigades that the U.S. and allies are preparing for the coming spring offensive; precise details on the quickly dwindling ammunition of the Ukrainian air defense systems; the level of protection of critical infrastructure sites; and details on how many tanks, artillery pieces and military aircraft Ukraine operates.

The slide initially publicized on Wednesday and Thursday by Russian propaganda Telegram accounts had been doctored to inflate Ukrainian battlefield casualties and to minimize Russian ones. The crude nature of the alteration suggests this wasn’t a high-level intelligence operation, security analysts said.

Another purported Pentagon document that emerged on Friday contained the same estimate of Ukrainian and Russian battlefield fatalities as the unaltered slide: up to 43,000 Russian troops and up to 17,500 Ukrainian troops, in addition to as many as 41,000 Ukrainian civilians.

Separately from the war, one of the items in the CIA update said that Mossad leaders “advocated for Mossad officials and Israeli citizens to protest against the new Israeli government’s proposed judicial reform, including several explicit calls to action that decried the Israeli government.” The update cited signals intelligence, an indication that conversations among the Mossad leadership have been intercepted by the U.S. government.

Mossad Sunday took the rare step of publicly denying the report, calling these allegations “mendacious and without any foundation whatsoever.”

bons
bons
April 10, 2023 10:29 am

Photios must be panicking.
He has emerged from his putrid den and is giving interviews.
Hopefully, he has reason to panic.

m0nty
m0nty
April 10, 2023 10:31 am

Crow had statues of various vile dictators in his garden and those of his heroes, Churchill and Thatcher.
Fascism confirmed in the feeble mind of the professional layabout.

Not to mention Hitler paintings and signed copies of Mein Kampf. Real dodgy areas.

Everything you lot accuse George Soros of being is embodied by Harlan Crow.

mem
mem
April 10, 2023 10:33 am

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-lawmakers-un-report-climate-change
Interestingly the report above provides a more balanced approach to the Climate Change debate than is usual for main stream news. Also, what I noted that at the time I read comments (scroll down) there had be 12.2K comments. As far as I could read they were nearly all sceptical of the Climate Change mantra and opposed to the rushed move to renewables. I find this both remarkable and heartening.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
April 10, 2023 10:35 am

Tiger Woods. PGA Instagram sent out a post when he made the cut.

Sounds like his various bits have broken again, unfortunately.

Tiger Woods withdraws from The Masters as brutal clip of golf legend sparks fresh concerns (9 Apr)

…Augusta was having a bad effect on his body with the golfing icon seen limping and wincing on several occasions. That noticeable pain appeared to only get worse once he got his third round underway and it showed on his scorecard.

He obviously loves his golf, and especially the Masters, so much that he played through what looks like agony for a couple days before he hit the limit his body would allow. I have a lot of time for a guy who fights like that.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
April 10, 2023 10:38 am

Lizzie, if you have time go through Lockhart before Wagga and then Junee and Cootamundra after, worth a look at.

Thanks, will talk to Hairy re the timings. If not this time, then as we have become rather attracted to rural Australia and the Australians living there, we will make time later for another trip and bear this advice in mind.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
April 10, 2023 10:38 am

KD at 10:12.

Spaniard Jon Rahm came from the clouds and won the US Masters by four shots from Phil Mickelson. Until last night, it looked like rebel outfit Liv Golf adherent Brooks Koepka was going to smash it in, but he choked all the way around Atlanta on the last day.

Golf etiquette dictates that we do not use the word “choke” any more.
Examples of acceptable phrases are:-
“I was going well, but had a full-on Norman on the back nine.”
“Was three under but totally gregged the 17th and 18th.”

Ed Case
Ed Case
April 10, 2023 10:39 am

… we’ve lost thousands of tanks and are using prisoner conscripts as cannon fodder”

The “prisoner conscripts” are servicemen who’ve been jailed for Crimes.
The deal is they get sent to where the fighting is most intense, and if they survive 60 days, they’re Pardoned with all Rights restored.
Only about 60% survive.
It’s voluntary.
The Ukes are sending Ethnic Russian boys to the front line, Barrier Police shoot them when they run or run out of ammunition.
About 9 million Ukrainian males fled to the EU, where they’re now making complete arseholes of themselves.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
April 10, 2023 10:39 am

EDITORIALS

Biden disgracefully tries to memory-hole his Afghanistan debacle

by Washington Examiner

Biden had gone on television earlier, on July 8, 2021, to boast that he had finally achieved the right conditions for withdrawal. He reassured the public that it would go smoothly. The Taliban would not rapidly overwhelm Afghan army forces and cause trouble for the retreating Americans.

“The drawdown is proceeding in a secure and orderly way, prioritizing the safety of our troops as they depart,” Biden said. “I trust the capacity of the Afghan military, who is better trained, better equipped, and more competent in terms of conducting war. … The Taliban is not the North Vietnamese army. They’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy. It is not at all comparable.”

Weeks later, everything Biden had said was abruptly disproven as images of a chaotic, deadly, and disorderly retreat reached viewers in the U.S. In contrast to Biden’s reassurances that servicemembers were safe, 13 were killed in a terrorist attack that occurred only because of poor planning. The scenes were far worse than those of the rooftop in Vietnam — Afghans desperately grabbed onto fixed-wing aircraft and fell to their deaths as they tried to escape Taliban retribution.

Lo and behold, Biden’s earlier boasts about his good planning and smart decision-making suddenly gave way to bitter whining about how this was really the fault of the long-gone Trump administration.

As this happened, the White House was spinning furiously, making excuses, casting all the blame it could upon the former president, doing anything possible to avoid accountability for what was very clearly Biden’s own fault. When journalists brought up the administration’s disastrous failure to evacuate Americans and Afghans who would face Taliban retribution, Biden’s staff awkwardly changed the subject to talk about how incredible it was that they had moved a very large number of people (not checking who they were) out of the country in such a short space of time.

National security council spokesman John Kirby summed it up unwittingly when he said, “This effort isn’t about accountability today.” No kidding.

His performance in Thursday’s press briefing was something to behold. Pressed about billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment that the disorderly American retreat left behind for the Taliban’s use, he offered an utterly ridiculous account.

“It’s just like what we’re doing in Ukraine,” he said. “We give the Ukraine artillery ammunition, Stinger anti-air missiles, Javelin anti-tank. It’s their stuff at that point, not the Americans’. It’s their stuff. That stuff belonged to the Afghans. And so this idea, this argument is just ludicrous that we left millions of dollars of stuff in Afghanistan. We didn’t.”

He is saying the military didn’t really abandon tens of billions (not millions) of dollars worth of equipment to the Taliban, just left it with someone else, where the Taliban would immediately get it.

(Kirby’s comments do not bode well for the military aid the U.S. is giving Ukraine.)

The one consistent thread in Biden’s leadership has been his refusal to accept responsibility for anything that has gone wrong during his presidency. Unless he is boasting of some success — as he did on July 8, 2021 —Biden likes to portray himself as a spectator of his administration rather than its leader.

This belated attempt to rewrite history and erase Biden’s culpability is a disgrace. It insults the Afghan allies whom Biden left behind to suffer or die at the hands of the Taliban. It disregards the dozens of Americans who are still stuck in Afghanistan because of his incompetence.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
April 10, 2023 10:41 am

…Augusta was having a bad effect on his body with the golfing icon seen limping and wincing on several occasions. That noticeable pain appeared to only get worse once he got his third round underway and it showed on his scorecard.

Headline predicted for 2025.
“Tiger Opens Up About His Battle With Oxycontin and Fentanyl Addiction.”

lotocoti
lotocoti
April 10, 2023 10:42 am

which has not produced a single Armarta tank beyond a prototype.

So what?
The US hasn’t developed a new MBT since the M1 Abrams.

Black Ball
Black Ball
April 10, 2023 10:44 am

By popular demand, Tim Blair:

Our national Voice debate sure has taken a strange turn or two.

In a stunning weekend move, one leading Yes campaigner reversed course to give Australians their best reason yet to vote against Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Voice to Parliament initiative.

“I imagine that most Australians who are non-Indigenous, if we lose the referendum, will not be able to look me in the eye,” Marcia Langton told The Weekend Australian.

Moving quickly past the fact that academic Langton — being not completely Indigenous herself — would in the case of a referendum defeat have difficulty meeting her own gaze, the veteran Aboriginal activist then presented a uniquely powerful anti-Yes argument.

“How are they going to ever ask an Indigenous person, a Traditional Owner, for a welcome to country?” Langton asked.

“How are they ever going to be able to ask me to come and speak at their conference?

“If they have the temerity to do it, of course the answer is going to be no.”

People, this changes everything. As The Weekend Australian’s headline put it: “Vote ‘No’ and you won’t get a welcome to country again.”

Fine by me. Fine by many of us, judging by massive responses online. Let’s lock that No vote in good and proper right now.

This, of course, is not to diminish the need to enhance Australia’s racial harmony.

The good news is that we continue on that noble course, largely without compulsion and free of government insistence.

Australians, almost every single one of us, are all for practical and meaningful measures to improve Aboriginal wellbeing. Nor do we turn away from the desperation that demands those measures.

For recent evidence of this, consider the intense and appalled attention paid by so many Australians to heartbreaking circumstances in Alice Springs.

Tokenistic, mock-solemn and essentially pointless welcome to country ceremonies, however, do nothing to boost wellbeing.

At most, they’re a politely endured formality prior to the real action (or inaction — welcome ceremonies are now sometimes scheduled prior to even routine workplace events, especially in the public service).

They’re also a way for pretentious urban white folk to publicly celebrate their Indigenous-ally status by carefully deleting any pre-country “the” or “our”.

Something nobody will ever say: “It wasn’t much of a grand final, but the welcome to country was a ripper.”

Anyway, that unexpected promotion for the No vote aside, the Voice campaign is proceeding much as many had anticipated.

Which is to say that, in the name of national unity, we’ve been coldly and expertly divided.

Albanese cranked things up again last week after Liberal leader Peter Dutton announced his party would campaign against the Voice.

This was even before that impressive welcome-to-country-removal bonus was thrown in.

“It is so disappointing,” Albanese wailed, complaining that Liberal Opposition was “all about politics”.

That is one hell of a pot-kettle claim from Albo, who’s been all about politics himself ever since he learned how to talk.

(Unfair example, obviously. But you get what I mean.)

“This is not about me and Peter Dutton or any other politician,” Albanese continued.

“It is about Australia. How we see ourselves. Whether we give respect and recognise we share this great island continent of ours with the oldest continuous culture on earth.”

In a national first, we apparently elected last year as Prime Minister a late-1980s Qantas ad with extra cringe on top. Way to go, us.

A number of our weaker, Teal-stalked Liberals are no doubt presently worried they’ll be judged as historically wicked if they stick with the No team.

This is due to another unity strategy that paints all No voters as evil.

Yet there’s always a way out — at least if you’re inclined to the Left.

Gay Labor icon Penny Wong voted against gay marriage for years, only switching support when her party permitted it.

“I decided to fight this discrimination from within the political system,” Wong said in 2017, when voting for gay marriage finally meant she’d no longer lose senior ALP authority.

“I chose to stay,” Wong added, “and accept the solidarity to which I had signed up as a member of a collective political party.”

There you go, Yes-inclined Liberal wimps. Simply play the each-way Wong card and, somewhere down the line, insist your No vote was a tactical ruse requiring that you fight “from within the political system” and accept “the solidarity”.

It’s worked a treat for Wong. As this topsy-turvy Voice to parliament debate continues, perhaps Penny will provide the next twist.

Let’s welcome her defence of Liberals who vote against the trend.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
April 10, 2023 10:44 am

I was going well, but had a full-on Norman on the back nine.

Or the lesser-known but equally descriptive:

‘I was three shots ahead on the 18th tee, but completely Baker-Finched it and lost by one.’

Dot
Dot
April 10, 2023 10:45 am

Not to mention Hitler paintings and signed copies of Mein Kampf. Real dodgy areas.

Don’t be a twit.* I like Hitler’s paintings. He could have been something positive for the world if his talent was nurtured.

Hitler was literally one of the worst humans to ever lived but as a valuable a signed copy of Mein Kampf is a big deal. Everyone should read it too (any regular unabridged copy) to understand the outlandish claims of Nazism. They never hid what their true intentions were; lebensraum and genocide.

I’d also collect Japanese WWII stuff too if I had the money along with good heirloom katana (as the blacksmithing trade is becoming quite rare).

That doesn’t mean I literally worship the Japanese Emperor and I want to chop people up.

* You can’t.

“By Jove, I got it! Paul Keating collected clocks because he thought he was Tom Baker and wanted to be a time lord!”

As for Crow, cool story monty. It needed more dragons. Maybe a Tardis too.

[Looks like a quiet news week for Muellerween enthusiasts. These guys are nearly as bad as the Q-tards.]

Tom
Tom
April 10, 2023 10:45 am

Photios must be panicking.

Of course he’s panicking. His business plan is in tatters.

He’s had 15 years as the NSW government puppet master with his chief puppet Matt Kean becoming Treasurer and underwriting Photios’s politically unpopular, but very profitable renewables investments.

Blind Freddie could have told you any government that multiplies consumer electricity bills to fulfil an ideological agenda is doomed.

So of course Photios is hunting for a new group of useful idiots to further enrich himself.

Dot
Dot
April 10, 2023 10:47 am

About 9 million Ukrainian males fled to the EU, where they’re now making complete arseholes of themselves.

Yes sure Ed. The Ukrainian army is ethnic Russian “boys” but the border guards and punishment battalions.

So why don’t they just go over the top, surrender and come back the next day and shoot the remaining Ukrainians?

Dot
Dot
April 10, 2023 10:49 am

The US hasn’t developed a new MBT since the M1 Abrams.

They’re not being blown up in large numbers.

What happened to the Russian “factory cities” that would produce divisions of T-14s?

Pogria
Pogria
April 10, 2023 10:49 am

GreyRangasays:
April 10, 2023 at 10:11 am
How will NSW cover the loss of 1200Mwh? With a big blanket. Simples.

Potatoes, lots and lots of Potatoes.

Sarc/

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
April 10, 2023 10:50 am

Wow. That ride of the Valkyries is still swooping and flowing in my head. The optics were spot on, high on hidden elastic poles held fast on a strong base two horsewomen swung backwards and forwards in the darkening skies as a furious Odin chases Brunnhilde back to her sisters’ sky home as they wail and lament what she has done to anger sky father. Heart in mouth, and doesn’t stop till the end when Odin kisses his daughter goodbye forever and sends her to sleep for ever in the mortal world as a mortal woman. We know though that Seigfried will be born to Seiglinde and the son of Odin, Seigmund, and that he will defy the ring of fire that Odin has place around Brunnhilde, and he will enter and save her.

They didn’t mind a bit of incest back in those mythologies, something we find world-wide in old tales.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
April 10, 2023 10:50 am

I like Hitler’s paintings

His best, far and away, was ‘Pie-Oh-My.’

I’d also collect Japanese WWII stuff too if I had the money along with good heirloom katana (as the blacksmithing trade is becoming quite rare)

Hattori Hanzo steel is hard to find.

Zipster
Zipster
April 10, 2023 10:56 am

Everything you lot accuse George Soros of being is embodied by Harlan Crow.

A woke anti-capitalist, globalist neo-marxist? you are seriously confused

Ed Case
Ed Case
April 10, 2023 10:59 am

So why don’t they just go over the top, surrender and come back the next day and shoot the remaining Ukrainians?

Barrier Police.
You understand what they are, right?

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
April 10, 2023 11:00 am

Monty’s squirrel doesn’t seem to be sprouting wings. Not altogether surprising since the point person is our friend AOC. You do pick ’em son, given she’s a part of the very antisemitic Squad.

Maybe he’s the designated replacement for the Koch Bros, who were the Dems’ antichrist(s) back before they came out as Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferers, whereupon suddenly they were on the side of the Dems and were rehabilitated overnight. It was amusing.

The Left have a new Soros btw, to go with the old Soros…whose son is very chummy with Slow Joe.

Meet the Left’s New Soros: Swiss Billionaire Hansjörg Wyss Becomes Democrat Mega-Donor with Millions Funneled to Left-Wing Groups (7 Apr)

He sounds quite fruity, not unlike Tom Steyer and Bill Gates. I don’t know what it is about money, but it seems to send men mad.

  1. When all the CA votes are counted, the total vote count will be roughly similar to 2020.Kamal-toe sits on about…

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