Plasmamortar:

Why is the RPG-7 still in use now after decades?

It does provide a substantial firepower addition at section level, for very little cost. Unlike the alternatives which are generally heavier, cost a lot more, and much more complicated.
Otherwise, spot on.

I’m hoping this freak makes MSM headlines ….

Ask and yee shall receive.

He got famous fast.

It does provide a substantial firepower addition at section level, for very little cost. Unlike the alternatives which are generally heavier, cost a lot more, and much more complicated.
Otherwise, spot on.

It was a rhetorical question, intention doesn’t translate well in text sometimes.
But yes. That’s exactly what I meant.

Makka:

I’m betting they are already here. In the form of US weaponry stationed here and also US subs around about our sea borders. Undeclared of course.

Unless it’s our finger on the launch button, we may not as well have them.
But then, would you have the spivs, liars, and cheats currently in power be the deciders?
Jeez. Talk about tough decisions.

Her name is “Overdyke”. Of course it is.

Makka:

What’s the solution? A recession.

(For a lack of tradies)
Fair enough, a bit harsh on the poor buggers at the bottom of the ladder. But when government won’t do the job they’re paid bloody generously to do, and the people keep voting for them because they’re ‘for the wukkas’, what the Hell else is there to do?
Apart from HoP time that is.
(NADT)

Another glorious day in the Southern Tablelands. That is FOUR this week! They have been so few and far between that I actually count them.
I have been rushing to get my outside work done in the morning. Yesterday afternoon and today have been spent furiously baking for a big family and friends celebration tomorrow. I’m bringing the sweeties. So far I have baked “Apricot, Macadamia and Blood Orange Biscotti”, 3 Banana Cakes, the kids favourite Lady Bug Bikkies. I have Ginger Zacs in the oven and I still have to bake my Crunchy Breakfast Bikkies filled with five different flavours of choc chips.

I miss my commercial oven. I was able to bake five large trays at a time in it. Now I have to make do with two trays in a tiny oven. sigh…. Who cares! I get to see the little ones tomorrow! 😀

Most trades have long apprenticeships because it takes that long to become a skilled tradesman. It’s much harder to become a sparky than to complete an arts degree. Anyone who thinks that people who can actually do things are not smart is a fool. Most apprenticeships have a high dropout rate because of the difficulty. The reason 1st year pay is low is because the best they can do is watch, cleanup and put away the tools.

Most trades have long apprenticeships because it takes that long to become a skilled tradesman. It’s much harder to become a sparky than to complete an arts degree.

ChatGPT can complete an arts degree.

An AI that could become a tradie would really impress me. It’s not going to happen soon.

Tom:

This low IQ, brainwashed moron has cost the brewer billions in sales and market share and the company is still too gutless to fire her.
In a just world, she would have been ritually humiliated and frog-marched out of the joint to discourage anyone else thinking of importing the same suicidal company-wrecking ideology.

What a hoot! Perhaps she’s protecting someone further up the ladder and is holding out for more loot. In which case, they haven’t learnt their lesson. Which means they’re going to have to relearn it again.
Their fingers are caught in the sausage mincing machine, and no matter which way they turn the handle, it’s going to hurt.

Calli:

She lied about that too. While trumpeting about how the court required her to tell the truth.

Winston:

What initially was a low level “gotcha” against a Liberal Senator is now rebounding back into the upper levels of the Labor Party with disastrous effects.

I need to know if there is a safe upper limit for “Schadenfreude”.
I’m becoming concerned at mine from the amount I’m experiencing today as I watch the smartest people in the room stumble from one self inflicted catastrophe to the next.

Many…many apprenticeships require hard physical work. Boys come out of YR10-12 soft as, and need to harden up. The best ones are the guys who’ve played a lot of contact sports, but I was surprised at some weeds who flourished mixing mud and wheeling barrows and placing stone. Wiry – they toughened up in no time.

As for girls doing this type of work…nup. They’d flake at the first mix. You’d have to set them on planting or even irrigation, which would be frowned upon by the fellows who are working much harder. Fortunately no takers after the first glance at the Porta-Loo.

The older blokes are surprising tolerant of the newbies, but that soon pales if they spot a slacker. I used to put hopefuls on a few week’s probation to see if they enjoyed the work, the ones who survived might be offered an apprenticeship. Even then many are called but few get to the end. A lot of my guys have gone on to run their own businesses, some are sole traders and others run teams. And they have families of their own, so plenty of incentive to do well.

The Circle of Life.

Funny how the expression ‘green finger’, for a gardener became the springboard for ‘green thumb’ to explain those of us with less skill and more clumsiness in the horticultural realm. Now green thumb seems to be the standard term so a new one gets developed…

I’d like to add to the above, a badly trained tradesman can kill if he makes mistakes. The worst an Arts Degree holder can do is break their crayons.

No.

The worst an Arts graduate can do is break our whole social and economic system – which is what they are busily engaged in doing.

Nobody is advocating for badly trained tradies. But I do think that the training system for trades is often archaic, wasteful and unlikely to attract the kind of people who are likely to succeed. I remember in the 1960s a friend of mine was a plumber’s apprentice for a couple of years, before he quit in disgust. All his boss gave him to do was to clean out greasetraps, dig trenches and get the lunches. He learned very little, and he was a smart guy. So he quit and set up his own business as a motor mechanic, entirely self-taught, and very successful.

The point is, the old model of apprentices as lowly paid dogsbodies is not delivering. Why would it?

Question:
For instance, why on earth do four year and even three year apprenticeships still exist?

Wrong answer:
Because they do one day at TAFE and the rest on the job.

Correct answer:
It depends on how quickly the apprentice can pick the Trade up and complete the block training satisfactorily.
Trade School used to be done at night, in the Apprentice’s own time.
It shifted to a day or two a fortnight about 50 years ago.
That’s about the time that employing apprentices became uneconomic.

Nowadays, many Electrical Apprentices are employed by Government funded bodies that move apprentices from where they’re not required to where they are.
It seems to work okay, if an employer finds an apprentice that fits in and is really good, they can take on his Indentures.

Night School was the best system, it weeded out most of the pissheads and no hopers and the employer wasn’t a man short for a coupla weeks every few months.,

Winston my wife suggests Hippieastrums, hope I spelled it right.

Hervey Bay, quite a nice place, very clean, a beautiful long beach strip, about 17km long, amazingly well kept and easy access. Everyone is friendly, the weather at the moment not that good, very windy, around the low 20’s with clouds. Oh well it can’t be perfect all the time I guess.

Sorry, link won’t work. The story about Tradies moving to Queensland is at Nine.com.

rickw:

I reckon American consumers are intent on completely cancelling Anheuser-Busch. It’s rare that they get to send on back the other way, so they’re grabbing this one with both hands.

Perhaps.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s about time these idiots were given a good smacking down. I’m over their “We’ll offer what we could be bothered producing, and you can lump it.”
I don’t see my choices being limited in that way while they make the system so complex that new entrants can’t get in.

JC is engaging in ultracrepadarianism again.

What Joh said, Winston.

Amaryllis. Love them too, and they grow like weeds here. Wait until the strappy leaves die off, then up they come. They can stay out of the ground for a few weeks as you prepare new beds.

They like to be a bit crowded. Tops of the bulbs at ground level or a bit out of ground. Feed them, but beware of overdoing it as you’ll get few flowers and lots of leaves. Maybe something a bit heavier on the phosphorus rather than nitrogen. There are a heap of products on the market – pick a “flower and fruit” one.

Oh, and they like it hot and a bit dry – under the eaves on the north facing wall.

Makka:

If the CCP decides to take the yuuuge call (and existential risk) to let go nukes, I would expect that we would not be their best risk/reward target. So having nukes close by, even in US hands, would offer some kind of deterrent.

Unfortunately, MAD Theory has multiple steps between Launch on Warning etc.
I cannot find the original steps but IIRC there upwards of 30 of them.
At the initial stages there are the battlefield usage of 10 20Kt nukes against Russian/Soviet armoured thrusts into Europe. Then single use of larger weapons on peripheral targets of allied nations, then use against peripheral targets of the US.
What this means is that Australia is uniquely vulnerable to early use of a nuke by an enemy armed with nuclear weapons.
Allies such as Germany, Spain etc are too close to France and GB who will retaliate – perhaps. Would France risk Paris for Melbourne? Would the UK risk London for Sydney? Both Melbourne and Sydney are lower on the scale for retaliation than London or Paris.
No countries (of consequence to the major powers) are in the Australian fallout pattern.
Again, it’s about political appearances – if one side wants to ‘show their determination’ then Australia – as I said – is uniquely vulnerable. Our lack of nuclear weapons just exacerbates this weakness.

Diogenes, there was once a time when I could have flashed my Diploma and academic record plus work experience and I could be up in front of a class teaching a dozen different Hort/Building subjects next day.

It’s not only tradies — had an interesting discussion with my SIL who’s specialised in obstetrics nursing for 43 years. Was voted NSW and Australian Mid-wife of the year a few years ago, was at the delivery of my two sons and has delivered thousands of babies. In her 60s now, works part-time – a couple of weeks ago she was on shift — the charge nurse was a 25-year-old with limited experience.

My SIL, who is across her brief big-time noticed a bad trace (monitoring the fetal heart to assess likelihood of hypoxic injury ) on a woman in labour, not her patient – SIL was very concerned and advised the charge nurse to immediately inform the obstetrician of the situation — hours went by and again SIL urged to now call in the obstetrician because the trace was getting worse, meaning the baby was in real trouble (to cover herself my SIL and another senior nurse who’d seen what was going on, documented the whole timeline and exchange, chapter and verse) — that charge nurse did not inform the obstetrician who eventually came in — upshot –the baby was born ‘flat’ meaning on delivery the baby had to be resuscitate and spent time in the neo-natal ICU — it could have been worse — the obstetrician asked my SIL and the other senior nurse why hadn’t the charge nurse advised of the bad trace and the urgency? In no uncertain terms the answer was we did but we were ignored and besides that’s what happens when you put a 25-year-old inexperienced nurse on as charge nurse. It’s a worry, it really is and this happened in a private hospital. Good luck peoples.

I mentioned it a coupla years ago and the Usual Suspects carried on with the Usual Phony Attack.
The suggestion then was that it was a hoax to suck in the anti-abortion campaigners.
Whether it’s legit, I can’t say, but I can say this:

Nothing that Lezzos do could surprise me, and if this is legit, they’re Lezzos for sure.

I hate every ape I see, from chimp in a, to Chimpanzee.

This is pretty good.

Dr. Zaius Was Right

Why the villains in the Planet of the Apes movies are actually right.

…they are!

I LOVE YOU DR ZAIUS!

Interesting choice of words —the court required her to tell the truth — does not mean she told the truth.

Higgins told the truth.
Just keep in mind that Higgins had the option of giving Evidence from another room but chose to give her evidence in person.

Lehrmann wouldn’t even take the stand.
Yeah, I know, the Jury couldn’t take an adverse inference from that choice, but … we’re not The Jury, and the inference I take is that he was as Guilty as Hell.

Hmmm yes.

Which is why she lied to the police about seeking “medical advice” and the DPP dropped the prosecution.

My father’s first job (in the Netherlands just after WWII) was as a telephone technician, after a few months’ training at a trade school. A few years later he joined the Army, and got trained in advanced communications and signalling, then he went to Korea and worked in signalling and later Intelligence. He built his first computer at home in the late 1970s.

My nephew started out learning to be a brickie, then got a builder’s ticket, then went into project management with great success.

The point is that we should be encouraging bright, energetic people who do not want to spend years cooped up in a classroom (at university) to learn skills, after which there are many good options for them. As we know, skills build on skills, however unrelated they may seem to be.

Treating apprentices like serfs and their teachers like professional bureaucrats is definitely not the way forward.

Ed Casesays:
April 22, 2023 at 4:45 pm
Interesting choice of words —the court required her to tell the truth — does not mean she told the truth.

Lehrmann wouldn’t even take the stand.
Yeah, I know, the Jury couldn’t take an adverse inference from that choice, but … we’re not The Jury, and the inference I take is that he was as Guilty as Hell.

Grandpa Ed Simpson “knows” that Mizzzz Knickerless “told the truth”, but he rejects the presumption of innocence for Lehrmann.

Have you yet viewed the CCTV of the “incident”, yet Grandpa ED? Or are you again making things up to suit your overt prejudices?

Treating apprentices like serfs and their teachers like professional bureaucrats is definitely not the way forward.

Yes, Johanna, but if we dismantled credentialism the Left might become unhappy.
That would be sad.

(Corporations are a microcosm of this stuff. They do a round of redundancies and the paperwork rubbish is ditched. Suddenly we’re incredibly productive and get lots done! Then over the next few years the paperwork and the “systems” build back up again and we’d get tied up in knots. Whereupon the next CEO would notice how unproductive we were and would do a round of redundancies…

Can’t recall how many cycles I went through, three or four of them. It was Kafkaesque.)

Snap, Tom!

It is criminal what they have done with nursing training.

Sure.
Midwife Training hasn’t included any delivery room experience
for >30 years.
State Labor Governments introduced that “reform”.

The Chief Justice of the ACT Supreme Court.

Elbow and co. are joining the worldwide belief that legislating changes reality.

On April 12, 2023, the Wall Street Journal editorial board blasted the EPA for allowing its ideological fervor to exceed its regulatory authority. “The U.S. auto industry is nominally still privately owned, but it is slowly becoming a state-directed utility,” the editorial began. “The EPA is using its authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate tailpipe pollutants. But make no mistake this isn’t about clean air. This is about forcing auto makers to produce more EVs that consumers will have no choice but to buy since there will be few gas-powered vehicles left.”

The editorial noted that an EIA study released on March 16, 2023, projected that, even with Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) subsidies, EVs will make up only 15 percent of vehicle sales in 2030 and 19 percent by 2050. Journalist Daniel Greenfield estimated that the EPA’s new tailpipe emission regulations would bar most Americans (53 percent) from buying cars. He wrote:

Even the cheapest electric cars, which are still far more expensive than their real car counterparts and are just one battery problem away from turning into mostly unusable junk, are out of the price range of the majority of Americans who need an income of $80,000 to make an EV auto loan work. That’s fine in Washington, D.C., where the median income of $83,567 is the highest in the nation, but will entirely price much of the country out of the new car market.

Greenfield pointed out that approximately 53 percent of Americans earn less than $75,000. “Some of the 16 percent who earn from $50,000 to $75,000 may be able to make an electric vehicle purchase work if they squeeze, cut back on food and clothes for the kids, but the remaining 37 percent will be completely locked out,” he wrote.

Waving the magic wand to mandate nurses in aged care by legislation, in the face of reality, has taught them nothing. Nursing homes closing down – meh.

Here they go again.

Judging from the popularity of events like Summernats, and the small trucks and SUVs I see in the carpark of the motel every day (some lovingly customised) I suspect that he is pissing into a hurricane.

Shocking story in the Oz today about a couple of well-meaning professionals working in aboriginal teaching and welfare foster cared for four children, seen by welfare authorities as a last resort because the children were difficult (foetal alcohol syndrome and general early trauma) and no aboriginal family was available. The carers had the kids, who were siblings, for ten years with little support, they were closely in touch with the aboriginal mother of them, but in asking for more help including respite time they were regarded as deficient parents (they were obviously not). Eventually tensions between authorities and these carers overflowed and the children were sent to a revolving door of other carers. One boy died, one boy has still not been returned although he wants to be, one girl stayed and has grown into a capable working adult, and one girl ran away from the revolving door constantly, insisting on wanting to return to ‘mum and dad and her siblings’. Welfare made appalling mistakes. The carers are distraught. The boy had suicided aged 15 because he felt abandonned away from his loved ones, loved by this family in spite of his difficult behaviours (due to welfare intervention he’d become a druggie in a welfare shelter). And still, they are explaining the situation of the original mother, who was made welcome for visits and approved of the carers, as due to ‘colonial oppression and disadvantage’. The aboriginal mother made no efforts to rehabilitate herself for her children.
Yet still, ‘the culture’ was all in the eyes of these welfare bureaucrats. The truth is that the kids are far better off away from its damaging influences and returning to it in their adult years if they wish to explore it more. The needs of the child have become totally lost in the colonialist narrative that predominates.

Yet still, ‘the culture’ was all in the eyes of these welfare bureaucrats.

Yes Johanna but the bureaucrats are highly qualified experts with postgraduate qualifications in psychology and social work. They know what’s best. They’ll tell you that if you ask them. And even if you don’t ask them.

I wish I knew what the answer was. We need a Mr Hercules and a nearby river. Or possibly a nice bloodthirsty barbarian horde.

Ed Casesays:
April 22, 2023 at 5:07 pm
I don’t think there are “stupid” tradies, not for long anyway. All tradies are smart, some smarter than others.

Have you ever met any?
I’ve known carpenters who couldn’t use a Laser Level, let alone do a
Set Out, Butchers who couldn’t keep a sharp knife and Plumbers whose ability didn’t go past knowing the order to put the blue glue and the red glue on.

You don’t know many successful tradies, do you Grandpa Ed Simpson?

Although given your tendency to make things up, there must be some doubt as to whether you have ever met a tradie. Perhaps they send you out of the sheltered workshop while they are present, so that you don’t muck things up by “trying” (very trying) to “help”?

TAFE is the problem. Accreditation of degrees is the problem.

TAFE is very bureaucratic and not responsive to what industry wants.

The Australian Mathematics Assn. should be able to give out maths degrees by distance learning and open testing.

JC

It’s been a looooong time since home builders assembled frames on site from raw timber.

Makka

All forms of vectoring, guidance, defense would be largely compromised at that point

People involved in nuclear weapons and ballistics missiles tend to be paranoids who believe in belts, braces and bits of string. I suspect that the old inertial and stellar navigation systems are still in place. They will be more than adequate to turn a few cities into glazed parking lots.

All forms of vectoring, guidance, defense would be largely compromised at that point.

Before geolocation, the US fired its test missiles at Kwajalwien Atoll and only at Kwajalwien Atoll.

Despite target familiarity the CEP was in the order of 50 miles.

If the Middle Kingdom launches a space war, the US will retaliate and, fingers crossed, both sides will holster their weaponry before it gets any more serious (I’m an optimist by nature).

Alas, earth orbits will be so full of debris by then,the sudden deaths of satellites will be commonplace. Back to the old days, when the first Tomahawks navigated by comparing the land below to onboard topographic software, regularly lost their way and had to be destroyed.

Thanks, Delta.
I’ve needed some time to increase my bitterness and lust for vengeance.

The Montevideo Maru: Off-the-top-of-my-head numbers: 980-odd soldiers of Lark Force (Rabaul) and about half of No. 1 Australian Independent Company (150-ish at Kavieng), plus 60-70 odd Rabaul and New Britain civilians. I’ve not watched much dinosaur media, but I gather that some have included only the Rabaul garrison, that being 800-odd, and some the full AIF complement, but not the civilians.

We’re doomed.

AI Will Eventually Be ‘As Good A Tutor As Any Human’: Bill Gates (22 Apr)

Hugh- if your grapevines are carking it, then there’s something seriously wrong. Virus or fungus.
If it’s the fruit itself failing- then that’s treatable.
…did you study “the man who mistook his wife for his hat” stuff?

Diogenessays:
April 22, 2023 at 5:57 pm
It’s been a looooong time since home builders assembled frames on site from raw timber.

Yep as looooong ago as 3 weeks.

Sorry, my phrasing was a bit loose. I was referring to the old practice of delivering stacks of timber to a site. Carpenters would then cut the timber, and build the frames there. Pre-fabricated frames have been common for decades, delivered on trucks and put together like meccano sets.

Having read the article in the Oz this morning outlining Moses’ concerns, I suspect that the DPP is a dead man walking.

As Moses pointed out, Higgins repeatedly compromised the right to a fair trial, but there is no evidence that DPP Drumhold did anything about it. Not a thing. He didn’t warn, counsel, comment. Nope. He just let her go about spraying comments, giving press conferences, appearing on TV, appearing with the ‘Victims of Crime’ person and all the rest.

Not a peep from him.

I’d love to know what the process was that appointed this incompetent, who would not have passed Contracts II when I was at the ANU.

Thanks, Tom. I appreciate the acknowledgement. It has been a challenging 18 or so months. I found my cognition deteriorating, so rather than embracing reactive vitriol, I decided to take a break from The Cat. I’m still feeling bitter, but I might pop in now and then. I’m pleased to see that yourself and the regular furballs are still being coughed up.

There was a definite relationship between hospital-trained nurses and cadet journalists.

The nurses would call the papers, which used to print the test results, to learn if they had passed before the next day’s edition actually came out. It was very pleasant duty for male cadets listening to their squeals of delight when they heard the good news, with invitations to parties apt to follow.

I know two Melbourne cadets who met their future partners that way. Jeroboams of hospital alcohol with fruit and wotnot served in a plastic rubbish bin encouraged those dalliances.

I can only imagine that congratulating a university-trained nurse might well these days result in a lecture about the predatory sexuality of young males. Not that university-trained journos would ever do that, having been immersed in soy-boy beta-ism for four counter-producticte years of absorbing Margaret Simmons, Jenna Price and Wendy Bacon. They’re most likely gay by that stage anyway.

G’day, Roger. Much health, happiness and humility to you, sir.

Agree calli- there are a lot of good people out there. I suppose you’re referring to Lot’s daughters?

And Lot himself, offering them to the men of the city. And even his grossly disobedient wife who decided in the horror that happened to have a little peek.

They escaped by grace, not because of anything intrinsically good in their characters.

Thanks, Zulu. Cheers, mate.

Hi, Calli. Yeaaah… the Catictionary. Over it. If someone wants to resurrect it, I have no problems with that. For me, the novelty has long worn off, and I don’t see it serving any useful purpose.

The director of Netflix’s Queen Cleopatra docudrama series is defending the casting of a black actress as the Egyptian queen, who was not black, calling her decision a “political act.”

“Why shouldn’t Cleopatra be a melanated sister? And why do some people need Cleopatra to be white?” director Tina Gharavi wrote in an essay published Friday in Variety.
Queen Cleopatra, which begins streaming May 10, is drawing mounting criticism over its casting, especially in Egypt where the show is being denounced as revisionist history. As Breitbart News reported, the criticism has become so intense that the streamer turned off comments on social media posts showing the trailer for the series.

They just don’t get it, do they?

the criticism has become so intense that the streamer turned off comments on social media posts showing the trailer for the series.

They just don’t get it, do they?

No they don’t. The idea that fiction based on fact should have some element of truth in the representation is something they’ll never get. Truth isn’t an idea they can get their heads around.

Enjoying the kerfuffle about a production where Cleopatra is black (which she undeniably wasn’t.).

My favourite moment was when the (woke) director said ‘why is it so important to some people that Cleopatra is black?’

To which the answer is – why is it so important to make a non black woman black?

Elizabeth Taylor is Cleopatra.

As I said at Wolfman’s, I’m not a fan of the sword and sandal genre. Nothing to do with history, awful costumes and sets.

Anyway, in contrast to the usual music clips, here is

Go Tell it on a Mountain’

by Peter, Paul and Mary, based on an old folk song and released in 1963.

Here it is.

They sound like they are rehearsing in a garage here, but were very influential in the folk and rock scenes for a time. Here is their other great hit.

Mary Travers was a great singer, and the two Ps were very fine musicians.