Socialist. Trade Unionist. Activist. Bellend.

The failure of the Inmarsat satellite which caused an interruption to GPS guided sowing across Australia is a fortuitous warning. The late Jim Molan warned that a first strike by China on the satellites we use would be catastrophic in our communication systems.

Our pollies, of course, will hardly notice this warning.

Rita Panahi:

The ABC is again making a mockery of its charter and legal obligation to be impartial. It’s one thing for the Guardian or The Age or just about any other media outlet to relentlessly push a left-wing agenda – including supporting the race-based referendum – given they are not government funded nor obligated to be neutral.

The ABC does have a legal obligation and yet it fails daily, indeed hourly, to be fair and balanced.

And, just like other media outlets, it continues to blur the lines between opinion and news.

The taxpayer goliath’s overt activism for the Yes vote in the referendum is shameless even by its standards.

And it comes after the bloated broadcaster took the extraordinary step of holding an impartiality training session to remind its journalists of their obligations when reporting on the Voice and the need to “not unduly favour one perspective over another”.

Staff were also reminded that “the ABC takes no editorial stance other than its commitment to fundamental democratic principles including the rule of law, freedom of speech and religion, parliamentary democracy and equality of opportunity”.

Well, what a wasted endeavour that was. In typical ABC style a session supposedly devoted to warning staff about the importance of being unbiased was run in part by an activist with a history of tweeting support for Lidia Thorpe. You can’t get more balanced and mainstream than that!

Despite having 4000 staff, hundreds of shows across a number of TV stations and radio networks plus a massively staffed website, the ABC does not have a single conservative presenter employed in a key position.

And, it shows in everything it does. Just have a look at the “Indigenous Voice to Parliament – Everything you need to know” explainer, which is roughly eight minutes of pro-Voice propaganda that could have been put together by Anthony Albanese’s office.

In the video, political reporter Dana Morse claims that even if the referendum succeeds, the parliament will still write the laws on it.

That seems to be somewhat at odds with various learned legal experts including some who back the Voice. Constitutional law professor and Voice advocate George Williams has explained: “That’s the point of putting things in the Constitution, it puts them beyond the parliament.”

In the video, the activist, err, I mean the journalist, also claims that the Voice, aka the race-based advisory body, would not have the power to stop policies and laws from being implemented, and any advice it gave could be ignored.

Again, that is very much disputed by leading legal minds including former High Court judge Ian Callinan.

And this week we heard from former Supreme Court judge Nicholas Hasluck, KC, who warned: “In many cases the approval of the advisory body will have to be obtained before a Bill can be enacted”.

In his submission to the joint select committee inquiry into the Voice he also wrote the Constitutional change “would be a profound and essentially irreversible change to the structure of government by vesting an influential advisory privilege in a section of the community defined by race” and “as a matter of principle, the Voice should be rejected on the grounds that our democracy is built on the foundation of all Australian citizens having equal civic rights”.

Isn’t it curious that the ABC with its vast resources could not bring itself to adequately cover Senator Lidia Thorpe’s latest unhinged antics outside a suburban strip club?

It wasn’t until days later when the Prime Minister weighed into the issue that we started seeing some coverage on the ABC’s digital platforms. Now that Thorpe has released a formal statement claiming victimhood we may see some coverage.

On Thursday the Australia-hating firebrand claimed she was “provoked and stood up for myself” and that she “can’t go out” without being harassed by racists.

Thorpe also claimed there was “a history of white men in power using the media to attack and demonise Blak people that stand up to racism. They did the same thing to Adam Goodes and Heritier Lumumba.”

To give Thorpe some credit she is at least honest about the desire to strike a treaty. That is precisely what will follow if the Yes vote prevails. After the Voice we will have a so-called “truth telling” then a treaty.

It’s been a tough week for the former Green who even copped criticism from her own father, who labelled the 49-year-old a “racist”.

Roy Illingworth told The Bolt Report on Sky News: “The way I see it, the way she is and the way she’s changed over the years, she’s a very racist person. She doesn’t acknowledge any of her white side.

“I’m a bit disappointed in the way she’s been carrying on lately. Because, after all, she does have English background as well as Irish – the convict side of the English.”

CBS Evening News
@CBSEveningNews

A lawyer for an IRS supervisor sent a letter to lawmakers asking for whistleblower protection, writing his client has information suggesting an investigation is being influenced by “preferential treatment and politics.” CBS News has learned it’s the Hunter Biden tax investigation

Thread
Paul D. Thacker
@thackerpd

Fauci went on Fox News and said he had “no clue what [Elon] was talking about.”

ANALYSIS: What You’re Not Being Told About the Electric Vehicle Revolution

Meme!

Jesus, Moses and an old man are playing golf one day. The hole is a par 3 with a huge lake in front of the tee. Jesus steps up, takes his swing and *BOOM* the ball flies up and lands on the edge of the opposite side of the lake. Jesus walks across the water, hits his ball to land on the green. Moses steps up, takes his swing and *BOOM* the ball flies up and lands in the middle of the lake. Moses parts the water, walks down to his ball and smacks it out onto the green. The old man steps up, takes his swing *BOOM* straight up into the air and headed for the middle of the lake BUT… before the ball hits the water, a giant bass jumps up, and swallows the ball. Before the bass hits the water, an eagle swoops out of the sky, snatches the bass and starts to fly away! A sudden clap of thunder startles the eagle, the bird drops the bass onto the green, the ball pops out of the bass’ mouth, straight into the cup! Hole In ONE! Jesus turns around to the old man and says: “Nice shot, Dad. Now will you quit frigging’ around and play golf!?”

Cameron has now been permanently banned from Twitter.

Musk Crushes Free Speech appears to be the simple-minded response
from our friends who aren’t all that keen on free speech.

The failure of the Inmarsat satellite which caused an interruption to GPS guided sowing across Australia is a fortuitous warning.

The Inmarsat sat apparently relays accuracy augmentation data to the ground. I have no idea why, if you had a broad acre farm, you wouldn’t have your own GNSS base station at the farmhouse or machinery shed which broadcasts the correction over the farm on VHF or UHF for use by the RTK receiver on the machinery. It just isn’t that expensive to do. You’ll get about 2cm accuracy over your farm.
Any recent receivers also likely use all 4 major constellations, GPS, Glonass, Galileo and Beidou plus the Japanese QZSS system which is GPS compatible. Beidou is especially useful in Australia.
I have some nice dual frequency receivers which, using all 4 constellations give 1 to 2 meter accuracy unaugmented because the dual frequencies mean the ionospheric correction can be applied.

In the video, political reporter Dana Morse claims that even if the referendum succeeds, the parliament will still write the laws on it.

I don’t think there is a single reporter or journalist who has in-depth understanding of anything other than politics. They know the political take on things certainly, but not the things things themselves. Everything is seen through a political lens – and it is a very imperfect one, fractured, distorted, and tinted to only allow red hues through. That is the other point to make – the politics is socialist. Their political expertise does not embrace multiple systems that can be compared. They only get socialism. Their understanding of capitalism is the socialist caricature.

How on earth can they have thought Emma Alberici at all qualified to be an economics ‘correspondent’? Well, managements understanding of economics agreed with hers. In fact, she probably seemed more expert having amassed a greater number of assumptions that are economically wrong, but politically correct. Even on the commercial networks the guy who does the car show will be a hoon, the woman on the gardening show will be a keen gardener, the guy explaining the the stock market will have some background on it – and woe betide should the audience make it clear that they are considered inadequately knowledgeable by the audience. If other hoons don’t watch the hoon, if the woman with the green thumb gets the green middle-finger – they are goooorn.

On the ABC political activists (note that they also think everybody else should be a political activist – judges, actors and singers, CEO’s etc.), anyway political activists posing as journalists find other activists with the same biases to interview – then they broadcast it as if it is real information.

I would note that the ABC creatures are not alone in this. I am sure everyone here has experienced the unedifying humbug of progressives in a discussion holding forth with absolute conviction on topics upon which they have absolutely no knowledge – but by God watch certainty with which they will speak.

If the ABC was closed down, the damage to the progressive cause – not just the loss of its electronic infrastructure that allows them to creep into people’s lives, but also what can be created when large numbers of progressives are brought together and breed stupid ideas that would not be generated if they were all separate. They would not just be prevented from broadcasting their nonsense, but they would not even have as much nonsense in the first place.

We’ve all heard the term ‘shuffling deckchairs on the Titanic’. It an expression to show how futile a particular activity can be.

Reading about the government’s plans to change the board of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) brought it to mind.

While the reforms have met with general acclaim, the political cynic that resides within sees the reforms as a smokescreen for government.

Let me explain.

Successive governments have always asserted the independence of the RBA in respect to setting official interest rates as a means of managing inflation.

That way they can wash their hands of the political pain caused by rising (or falling) rates.

In most instances they spin rate rises away as being because the economy is doing so well that the RBA needs to apply the brakes. The implication is that the government is taking credit for the buoyant economy.

Government also like to take credit for the RBAs decision to lower rates, claiming it’s a vote of confidence in the sustainability of their economic management.

It’s called having their cake and eating it too.

The most recent interest rate changes have been altogether different. The RBA did make mistakes and misled the Australian people with their ‘rates to stay low for years’ mantra.

Again, government took advantage of that to encourage people to borrow and now, as the pain starts to bite, they can sheet home the blame to the RBA.

It’s a time honoured political dance but now there’s an additional beat being added to the party.

As well as managing an inflation target, the RBA will be contemplating ‘full employment’ in their deliberations.

In effect, this means the government of the day will be able to blame the RBA for those bothersome rises in unemployment numbers.

In future, a rise in unemployment will be due to the policy settings of the RBA.

There’s also a fair bit of devil in the detail.

What exactly is full employment? That will depend on how you define employed and what expectation you have of those deemed unemployable.

Right now, an hour a week of work counts as employed in the stats and if you aren’t looking for work, you don’t count either.

That helps to explain the massive numbers in this country on welfare and the extremely low jobless rate.

There’s also an inherent conflict between fighting inflation and fighting unemployment.

Monetary policy is usually tightened (higher interest rates) for the former and loosened for the latter.

Which policy setting will prevail given that inherent conflict will be interesting to see.

The Albanese government know exactly what they are doing. This is an exercise in doing the Pontius Pilate and washing their hands of accountability.

While reform of the RBA was necessary, peering through the veil of political planning, this is a masterstroke in government longevity.

Have a great weekend.

Cory

KD at 6:50

GASTON CO., N.C. — A North Carolina man allegedly shot a 6-year-old girl, her parents and an additional neighbor after a basketball rolled into his yard.

Well, we all know what sort of people play basketball, don’t we, eh?
Totally justifiable.
Wait for the real story*.
…
* Who provides the “real story” now since it got too expensive for Alex Jones?

I just saw this at TWIP (yes, I am very late getting to it).

San Francisco Police Department will stop releasing most mug shots to combat racial bias

We have all had a laugh at how this will straight away alert people it was a black guy. But even better, the only thing people will know about the miscreant’s appearance will be that he (usually he) is black. Could be any black guy they see. If they released the mugshot and the guy was bald, for example, people would not look suspiciously are a guy with hair. This guarantees racial profiling.

Anyway, the point I was originally going to make: Does anyone else remember the glasses Zaphod Beeblebrox had in Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? As soon as the glasses sensed any danger they would go completely opaque black so the wearer would be spared the sight of danger and therefore not be alarmed. Of course the joke was that as soon as the glasses went black you knew you were in danger, but with the glasses on there was no way to prepare for or avoid the danger.

Funny stuff.

exclusive
Megan Krakouer: One of WA’s most prominent Aboriginal activists speaks out against Indigenous Voice
Sarah CrawfordThe West Australian
Fri, 21 April 2023 2:00AM

One of the State’s most prominent Aboriginal activists has spoken out against the Voice to Parliament, saying it offers “no guarantee of change”.

Megan Krakouer is the director of the National Suicide Prevention and Trauma Recovery Project and the City of Perth’s 2023 Citizen of the Year.

The Menang Noongar woman is also one of the chief organisers of the class action against the Banksia Hill Juvenile Detention Centre and the WA Government.

She said she was “leaning towards No” on the Voice because it did not have enough “teeth”.

“It will be the highest consultative body of Indigenous First Nations people across the country . . . with no power whatsoever. Sure, it may be able to influence, but we are still unclear on how that will play out across the country,” Ms Krakouer said.

“I walk with thousands of our most impoverished brothers and sisters. I have seen premature and avoidable death haunt every one of these families.

“I know that I will speak for many of them, and they will agree with what I am calling for … is it wrong to ask for the Voice to be more with ‘teeth’ so that fewer of my people fall over early and unfairly?

“If the Voice gets up in its current form and somehow delivers more positive change than ever before, I will be the first one to say that I was wrong, and I will be happy to say that I am wrong in this instance. But I have never known a government I can trust for all my working life, and I must consider what is promised here.”

In her work advocating for prisoners and families who have had children removed by the State, Ms Krakouer has asked many of the most marginalised Aboriginal people what they think of the Voice.

“They will say, what voice? John Farnham, the voice? Or The Voice, the TV show,” she said.

“I say, ‘No, the Voice to Parliament,’ they say, ‘Oh, we don’t know anything about that’.”

She fears that if the Voice succeeds in the upcoming referendum, it will remain irrelevant and meaningless to these people because it will have no power to improve their lives.

Instead of a Voice to Parliament, Ms Krakouer wants mass investment in suicide, incarceration and removal of Aboriginal children.

“I want to see something with teeth, I want to see legislative change, and I want to see policy which protects the interests of all Australians, particularly First Nations peoples,” she said.

“For decades, we’ve been failed as a people right across the country, regardless of the political will in so many respects. We have seen the Native Title Act … the Black Deaths in Custody report . . . the Bringing Them Home report.

“Nothing’s happened in that respect, and if anything, it has got worse.

What happens when there is no effective opposition and no consequences for being sprung.

And the avergae voter doesn’t care.

You increase your majority at the next election.

Pat Anderson ffs

6. The Voice will speak for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples

The design principles released by the government are very clear – the Voice will be representative of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, members would be chosen by local people, according to local wishes, and will have specific remote representatives as well as representation for the mainland Torres Strait Islander population.

It will be empowering, community-led, inclusive, respectful and culturally informed.

7. The Voice would have prevented problems like Alice Springs (FMD what a crock)

The issues faced by communities in Alice Springs are not new and require long-term coordinated actions. They are fuelled by poor housing, inadequate administration of the NDIS, amalgamations of rural and remote councils and failure to diagnose FASD and cognitive impairment. They are a result of policy neglect over many years including the eight years of the Coalition government.

The Voice will have a critical role to play giving policy makers a better understanding of the underlying issues and what is needed to improve outcomes, outside the political cycle.

There is no quick or easy fix but the Voice will ensure sustained attention and long-term investment is provided to the issues our people face here and in other communities across Australia – not just when its politically expedient to do so or when they reach crisis point.

8. A no vote will damage Australia’s reputation

It’s very likely that this will be the case, however it’s the not reason Australians should consider voting yes. They should consider a yes vote because recognising the first peoples of the country in our founding document is an important step on the road to reconciliation. The Voice will also improve the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples by including them directly in the decisions that are made about them. (remains unexplained)

9. Opponents of the Voice are not racist (oh really? Someone give Dodson that memo?)

The ‘no’ campaign accuses the ‘yes’ case of labelling anyone who disagrees with the Voice as racist. This is a technique to whip up more negative sentiment against us.

In reality, we see our role as educating Australians about the benefits of the Voice and ensuring they are armed with the information they need to make an informed choice come referendum day. It’s important people have an opportunity to ask the uncomfortable questions and make up their own minds.

We will, however, call out racism when we see it. (chortle)

10. The Voice will close the gap (like every other program of the last 3 decades)

Through the Regional Dialogues, we heard many examples of policy and laws that negatively impact on the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. Those communities also know how they could be improved to make a difference – but they are not heard.

Our people are armed with the solutions for how to close the gap. They just need to be heard. And the status quo that has been operating under the coalition government for eight years is not going to get us there.

Seems Ms Anderson has had many years to better the lives of black fellas in varying roles.
But let’s blame 8 years of Coalition parliament.

Pat Anderson ffs

Pat Anderson? Wasn’t she fairly high up in the food chain of the old Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporation? A by word for inefficiency and, putting it bluntly, corruption?

The fear and hatred of trannies is deliberately manufactured
by certain groups.
Nobody should be concerned about cocks in frocks using the Ladies Loos,
because Kirstie has hit the Men’s Heads when the Ladies’ queue has been too long.

Re the Empire State building vs B-25 discussed yesterday.
Someone posted a calc saying the differential in energy released at impact between a B-25 and 767 was a factor of 23.
I would argue with this calc on three grounds:-
1. For weight of the B-25 it used the MTOW of over 15,000 kgs. This was a mere ferry flight without bomb load or ballast and not even a full complement of crew. Also, some fuel burn in transit would reduce weight. The weight at impact would have been closer to 10,000 kg than 15,000 kg.
2. The calc used the max speed for the B-25 of 230 kts. This speed was only achievable at 13,000 ft, and cruise speed was 200 kts. However, think it would have been even slower. The landing gear was catapulted to the centre of the building which suggests it might have been down, and the aircraft was configured for landing just across the river. A speed of 150 kts was more likely.
3. The weight of the 767s looked very low (75,000 kgs??). I think both WTC aircraft were 767-200s, which have a MTOW of 143,000 kgs. These aircraft obviously weren’t at MTOW but they were heavy. A weight of 120 tonnes wouldn’t be unreasonable.
Use more reasonable figures and you will get a number way higher than 23.
In any case, it demonstrates that Googlery was a idiot trying to draw a parallel between the two incidents beyond “aircraft – building- New York”.

Sydney Morning Herald.
‘Would it be appropriate to only allow Aboriginal people to vote on the constitutional change ? Indigenous citizens could speak for themselves and the rest of us could accept their decision.’
Heather Johnson, West Pennant Hills

FMD the stupidity is strong today

‘Would it be appropriate to only allow Aboriginal people to vote on the constitutional change ? Indigenous citizens could speak for themselves and the rest of us could accept their decision.’
Heather Johnson, West Pennant Hills

Where to begin?

I often learn things on the Cat.
This is one I wish I hadn’t.

A serious society would be considering whether to reopen the mental asylums.

mem – I expect the AEMO annual report is your best bet. I would think it is some system availability measure for a typical customer (eg x interruptions not exceeding y hours per annum).

‘Daniel Radcliffe made waves this past week by declaring that, when it comes to supposedly transgender children, adults should “trust kids to tell us who they are”…

According to Abigail Shrier’s excellent book Irreversible Damage, over 65 per cent of young people identifying as transgender now are known to have spent increased time on social media before coming out. The rest, presumably, were on it all the time anyway. When they’re on TikTok or YouTube, what do they find? Adults, convincing them that they are transgender — adults like Jeffrey Marsh, who uses his trans-affirming TikTok videos to encourage children to message him privately, without their parents knowing. Recently, when Shumirun Nessa, a British Muslim woman and comedy TikTokker, called Marsh out on this, she had pictures of her without her hijab leaked and received threatening messages with details of her children’s schools.’

‘You’re a fella, Harry’: In praise of responsible adults.

Where do you keep your tomato paste?

Groogs not having a good day, even by his standards.

The new logic:
If Target didn’t exploit the local community,
there’d be no reason for Target to abandon the local community.

I don’t get what Hitchens expected from the US.

I think his complaint is more that Brits shouldn’t think they have a “special relationship” with the US.

Where to begin?

In the middle!

I think his complaint is more that Brits shouldn’t think they have a “special relationship” with the US.

Certainly one that requires signing up for foreign wars with, at best, a questionable relationship to Australian national interests. Plenty of room for debate here.