Pedant Winston says “Rout” not “Route” 🙂
Open Thread – Tues 8 May 2023
- Open Thread – Mon 25 Nov 2024
- The more you gets the less you eats
- Open Thread – Weekend 23 Nov 2024
- Open Thread – Thurs 21 Nov 2024
- Open Thread – Mon 18 Nov 2024
Worse than NZ? Yikes. That’s a wake up call if ever there was one.
Good to see the UAE have moved swiftly to make arrests in the murder of Rabbi Zvi Kogan. Rumours abound…
It was only a short while ago when you thought Trump was great, and now look at you, Dover. You’re…
Excellent stuff Crossie. Quadrant is a bloody good cause because it doesn’t get funded like the Lefty causes.
1st place, wow.
congrats, Salv.
if you ain’t first, you’re last …
Podium!
One- convicts sent to Australia were selected for potential, not punishment
Two- the highland clearances in Scotland created a dull homogenous moonscape of grassy mountains where once there was farms and forest
Three- the Irish Potato Famine was not a famine, but rather a credit crunch which happened during a boom season of agricultural production, and because of ill-advised monocultural cropping by some financially precarious tennants.
Four: “The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!” – Dr J.
I was told that the English took a lot of the potatoes and precipitated the famine.
What effect did sheep farming have on the Scottish highlands?
Got me beat why anyone cares about a lack of potatoes 175 years ago in the most backward backwater on earth… Why didn’t they eat cake instead?
Meanwhile multiple millions of claimed-to-be-educated modern wokesters, hipsters and dillsters are clamouring for leftist “policies” which have starved billions in the immediate past 60+ years across the world, and which are still doing so today in leftist shyteholes like Venezuela, Ethiopia, Haiti etc.
Nah. Starvation and similar: be it in Ireland, or in Sth America, or anywhere else…is always caused by a mixture of low IQ and leftist evil. Always!
John Spooner.
Mark Knight.
Peter Broelman.
David Rowe.
Patrick Blower.
Morten Morland.
Steve Bright.
A.F. Branco.
Henry Payne.
Matt Margolis. Brilliant.
Tom Stiglich.
Gary Varvel.
Ben Garrison.
You try feeding your family off the produce from 2 acres of rented farmland and come up with a better crop than the potato.
The famines, and there was a series of them, killed over a million people culminated in the Great Famine.
Read Cecil Woodham Smith’s ‘The Great Hunger’ a very well researched book.
The potato blight is the proximate cause, exacerbated by British government laissez-faire policies.
Thank you dover – such a beautiful painting of St Michael the Archangel, my go-to muscular angel – my morning prayer:
Saint Michael, the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.
Tucker’s paramount sin was to interview Trump, and afterwards to praise him. The schism came soon after.
Hope it was /sarc
True and they are growing in numbers
Agree about the politics of the left or the aristocracy, same thing really, once in power all they want is to stay there. But about the IQ, I’m not so sure there had to be commercial reasons for growing mostly a single crop.
Depending on soil, climate etc. the consensus is that in a favorable climate and good rainfall 2 acres is the minimum for supporting a family of 4 food wise. 5 acres is the optimum as it will give you a saleable surplus.
The problem with a single crop is that if it fails you are done. Sorry I had to say it, it’s self evident.
BUT, there had to be a reason for growing only spuds!!
Why? Surely the Irish ate bread and meat as well?
I’m do not quite know the full history in intricate details, just pondering, apologies.
And speaking of schisms, what will happen next if the DOJ succeeds in putting Trump into pretrial detention without bail?
Jesse Kelly podcast looks at this possibility, via Gateway Pundit.
Link
We will have to revisit all that self-sufficiency lore very soon. We saw how quickly supermarket shelves became deplete during the covid beat up.
Today’s How Deep Is The Rot? Is brought to you by Jerome Corsi, with help from the best man in the “follow the money” investigative business, Peter Schweizer. There has been a lot of cash flowing for years into Democrat pockets, and fortunes accumulate that certainly were not salary savings.
Link
In the private sector I would expect Drumgold to resign but hey as DPP hes in the Public Service hes looking down the barrel of a promotion or Labor Senate ticket.
The potato crop failure (blight) was across all of Europe and was the turbo charged by appalling weather during that period.
German tenant farmers also had a very tough times leading to the big movement of Germans to the US.
200,000 migrated in 1852.
Yep, that was his cardinal sin.
I thought it was odd that Trump would give him the interview as Carlson was not exactly sympathetic to him previously. Trump usually gave interviews to Hannity and Laura Ingraham. I’s starting to think there was a blanket ban at Fox on interviewing Trump and Carlson broke it.
I was told that the English took a lot of the potatoes and precipitated the famine.
Don’t listen to idiots.
Ireland had a system of inheritance where all the sons inherited a part of the farm once they were married.
The result was early marriages, a lotta kids, and tiny farms.
There had been potato failures before, but by the 1840s, the farms were so small that disaster was unavoidable.
Britain did send food across the sea to help feed Ireland, but the problem was distribution.
France had a massive famine in the 1750s, same cause.
They were tenant farmers Ed.
They “inherited” nothing but a lease.
The Highland clearances were a tragedy in that they inflicted a race of morose ginger whingers on the rest of the world.
Googlery predicting supply chain problems from 180 years ago.
And still not getting it right.
We’ve seen this before.
The ones that didn’t move to Durham, sure.
@Mantaray:
NEVER forget that “socialism” is a DEATH CULT; out and proud.
Look at the published “score-sheet” for the last Century or so.
Compared to Stalin and Mao, Hitler, just another sort of “socialist”, but with a better costume designer (Hugo Boss, no less), was a total piker.
McMongs.
What did the Irish eat before the SPANIARDS discovered the potato in South America?
See also Italians and tomatoes.
Tucker Carlson interviewing Elon Musk may have been another nail in his coffin.
Tartan tarts – Sarah Ferguson.
I bet that’s put you off your porridge.
I rather like my ginger whingers. My only sadness is that they eschew a swishy and handsome kilt for daggy old business suits.
The odd thing about the ginger is that it tends to skip generations, often only appearing as five o’clock shadow.
Stealth whinging. You never know when it will strike.
Bruce, that would be turnips and oats and barley. Potatoes supplied carbs plentifully and with little work on fertile soils. Until the dreaded phytopthora struck.
The danger of monocultures.
These two now make up the mainstay of the western diet, you throw in lettuce or parsley as a garnish. My late husband was a rice man and used to joke that he must have been an Asian in a previous life though he didn’t much care for pasta.
Calli, I just had to uptick your zeros. Who is up this early to mess with you?
On the other hand, you naughty girl could be doing it yourself for sympathy upticks. I would do it anyway, your comments are worthy of it.
Yes, I’ve seen many chaps with dark brown hair whose beards, if they grow them, are distinctly reddish. There’s usually some Irish and/or Scottish ancestry involved.
Seems that the beard gene is not the same as the head hair gene. Odd, because other mammals don’t seem to have any distinction like that.
Too cheap to meter.
Green Bailout: German Govt Looks to Subsidise Up to 80 Per Cent of Energy Costs for Industry (8 May)
German Vice Chancellor and Green Party politician Robert Habeck has proposed a scheme that would see the government subsidise up to 80 per cent of the electricity costs of certain industries amid the ongoing energy crisis induced by decades of failed green agenda policies and over-reliance on Russian gas.
…
Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck has proposed a plan that would guarantee large swaths of German industry electricity prices at a subsidised price of €0.06 per kilowatt hour (kWh) until at least 2030.
…
Meanwhile, a spokesman for Chancellor Scholz said that he believed in “electricity prices that industry and consumers can afford without being permanently subsidised,” adding: “We now have to discuss exactly how to get there.”
Turning their nuclear power plants back on would be a good start. You’d think by now that these pollies would start to realize what the problem is, but no they keep on doubling down. Subsidizing industry to keep it from going bankrupt is classic. It won’t work, but is the purest central planning sort of stuff they just love.
Today I learned that there are still 20,000 stillborn births in the US each year.
What a tragedy.
Not sure what Garrison is on about. Does he have the usual EDS* that pops up in the US from time to time or is he trying to make a point about Biden?
I often wonder why Harry threw his lot in with the Americans (apart from being bedazzled by Markle’s allure). Their relationship with England has always been uneasy, and after the initial interest they’ll discard him as an oddity. They would have been much better off on Vancouver island, but then madame had no chance of reviving her film career such as it is.
Same thing happened to Edward, but with the even more antagonistic French. He cut a sad figure as he aged.
*English Derangement Syndrome
The ones that didn’t move to Durham, sure.
Excellent!.. great start to the morning .. 10/10 ..
I’ze a County Durham lad frae way back ..!
The odd thing about the ginger is that it tends to skip generations, often only appearing as five o’clock shadow.
Out of 8 grandees .. one a full-on carrot top .. LOL!
I feel oddly bereft if I don’t score a Zero now. It puzzled me at first, then annoyed, then amused. Always fascinating to speculate on people’s habits and thought processes and strange biases.
At least, as a Woman of a Certain Age, I’m being noticed. I can always blame my Gravatar for it. She won’t mind. 😀
Haha. Just another disgruntled colonial.
PS: I know where I’d rather live.
I watched a bit of the apology fest to Lance Franklin for his booing and decided that any sports fan who still goes to a footy match is stupid. According to all the talking heads you are not allowed to boo a “champion”. Who made that rule? I don’t remember any such thing in the past. If he’s not up to scratch fans have a right to express their displeasure.
One of the most useful words in the dictionary so far this year is the word “misinformation”.
Anything that goes wrong is due to it. It’s almost as good as climate change.
Anheuser-Busch CEO Blames Bud Light Boycott On Social Media “Misinformation” (8 May)
Instead of taking the blame for the company’s catastrophic attempt to virtue signal, even if it means alienating the vast majority of its clients, Doukeris instead blamed online “misinformation and confusion”, including reports that Mulvaney’s Bud Light can is “a production can and every can would be like the one that was in that post . . . We never intended to make it for general production and sale for the public.”
Hahaha, maybe you should blame your woke fiasco on climate change after all, since nothing else is working.
Japan?
The casual racism and indifference to 18th/19th century monstering by The Crown is strong today.
I feel a strong need for compensation from King Chaz, truth telling – and a Voice, obviously.
I’ve brought my own slogan; Gaelic Lives Matter.
Daughters car parked outside overnight. Had to clear ice off the windscreen this morning.
Calli, another uptick for that.
He’ll have to be very well connected for that to occur I expect. A return to the bar with a steady supply from Liar friendly lawyers (namely everyone in the ACT) seems more likely. It remains to be seen whether he’ll take the remaining Mean Girls with him.
Re Garrison, calli, embrace po-mo & impose your own interpretation on it!
Well of course, the smart people never mess up. It’s all our fault for misunderstanding or, worse still, for listening to a different opinion. Debates are out, the truth is settled and it is whatever they say it is.
So this is what living in the 1984 world is like.
Drumgold has made the classic mistake of enthusiastically implementing a verbal wink and nudge of something “the boss wants to happen”.
He is now finding that “the boss” is looking for a larger barge pole.
I suspect his reward was to be a seat on the bench.
Those hopes are dashed.
The interesting economic history studies about the Irish potato famine — including that by Amartya Sen — is that in the regions of the blight there was a net export of food. This food was at prices beyond the reach of the those who depended on potatoes as their primary source of food. Sen and others studied famine theory as a way of understanding how a market economy does not work. The classic country for famines was Bengal. What is of note, also, is that none of this ever occurs in an economic vacuum; politics always has a hand.
They were tenant farmers Ed.
They “inherited” nothing but a lease.
Wrong.
From Wiki:
Link
After I turned 50 I noticed the fair hairs on my arm took on ginger tinge. Then genealogical investigations revealed I had many more Scots ancestors than previously thought.
It’s still raining in Melbourne.
Funny about red heads, I had one cousin who’s hair colour was described as auburn, dark brown which gleamed dark red when the light caught it. One niece of mine likewise. No-one else, in my parents or my grandparents generation or mine with proper red hair.
I have one red haired offspring, (also no red heads in last couple of generations on the other side) and was immediately told my great grandmother had the same shade of very red hair, also met second cousins from maternal side with the same colour hair.
My grandson had a red tinge in his baby hair but is now distinctly brunette.
It’s clearly a recessive gene.
the genes linked to red hair.
“The potato blight is the proximate cause, exacerbated by British government laissez-faire policies.”
Correct, and the British government at the time can hardly be described as “leftist”.
Does the ACT have a Rob Hulls?
Gez
the “terrible weather” of the years was perfect for high-humidity and misty precipitation- grass, spuds… and spud wogs.
There was a boom in dairy production, and a record set in butter exports from Ireland to the U.S.
Tom on Daytime Sky continues to give Canavan a harder time than he does Chalmers.
LOL.
Must have been crushing news.
The great killing frosts of our area began yesterday, -4.8 at our place, never got above 0 between 10pm and 8.20am, this morning much warmer -1.8 at 7am. All the Dahlias are dead and quite a few other plants, they will come back in spring. Nearly all our deciduous trees dropped their leaves yesterday after that frost. My wife has spent a small fortune on ‘frost hardy’ plants from various places, I should sue them for false advertising as around 90% of them never survive the hard frosts here.
We often get down to -8 in June and July, those beautiful days of clear nights and sunny days.
LOL at Michael, advocate for Israel, being depicted as a pale blonde Nordic warrior. And Satan with male pattern baldness! What a silly painting.
Get a bunch of uberlefties to push something the right is rebelling against? Sure to work.
W.H.O., Chelsea Clinton, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Team Up to Push Child Vaccinations (8 May)
A press release detailing the effort identifies W.H.O., UNICEF, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and “many other global and national health partners” joining together for “The Big Catch-up,” which they describe as “a targeted global effort to boost vaccination among children following declines driven by the COVID-19 pandemic.”
It cites declines in childhood vaccination, largely triggered by the Chinese coronavirus pandemic. The press release also points to “vaccine hesitancy,” as well as the “climate crisis” as contributing factors to the decline.
The climate crisis causes people to not vaccinate their children eh? That’s a new one. Especially when there is no climate crisis. Maybe they should blame “misinformation” like that Bud Lite guy.
Jim Chalmers to deliver a surplus!
I expect much wailing and gnashing of teeth from these quarters.
longer barge pole
he stuffed up and didn’t secure a conviction against Lehrman for the crime of toxic masculinity
First of all you had to be able to afford to buy a cow and have somewhere to graze it.
Large landholders could do that. No-one suggested that the entire country was covered in potato plots, only about a third relied on the potato.
One of the bitternesses in the US Irish ex pat population was wealthy landlords buying tenant farmers tickets to the US and shoving them off during the famine, conditions on the ships were appalling with many succumbing to disease on the journey.
Typical Irish tenant farmers supplemented their potato crops with dairy from a cow or kept a pig. That was enough for a ‘balanced’ diet.
The Irish were generally much poorer than their European counterparts, I went to a museum in Dublin which suggested they were around a century behind the rest of Europe in the accumulation of material wealth.
Many Irish Australians resorted to committing minor thefts for the sole purpose of getting shipped out, their prospects at home were so poor.
what do you call someone who enthusiastically believes every lie of their fascist government?
it is beyond stupidity
fans have a right to express their displeasure.
Yep! .. these so called “pundits” and management tend to forget that the rest of us pay to watch games and have the right to express sentiment whether positive or negative … LOUDLY!
Is that a Swan surplus, a tax increase surplus, or a mining royalty surplus?
DiL had a horrendous labour, bub is perfect, son over the moon. Bub cries, son gets him up, sorts him out, then brings him into bed and cuddles him and talks to him. DiL tells son to put him back in his cradle as we’re not having him in our bed to sleep. Son puts him back then sits there looking at him for ages. They’re already talking about the next one. So nice to see. I still cannot get over the joy at the miracle of life.
If Labor were really truly committed to net zero they’d ban mining and export of fossil fuels forthwith, wouldn’t they?
“LOL at Michael, advocate for Israel, being depicted as a pale blonde Nordic warrior. And Satan with male pattern baldness! What a silly painting.”
What a silly comment from the pervert apologist. Does he know what the arcgangel Michael looks like? I doubt it. And where does his “advocate for Israel” come from? The archangel Michael is holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims.
Hmm, perhaps the pervert apologist prefers to see the archangel Michael depicted as an avaricious bloated Jew with a hooked nose, like how his ideological buddies at the UK Guardian did last week, when they published a cartoon that depicted a Jew in a way that would have made Joseph Goebbels smile.
On the subject of red hair ……
Audrey Fleurot .. French actress .. !
https://ibb.co/Ntn3gJ5
m0ntysays:
May 9, 2023 at 8:29 am
Jim Chalmers to deliver a surplus!
I expect much wailing and gnashing of teeth from these quarters.
The fat fascist fool, despite the example of Whine Swine, still believes that Liars Treasurers actually plan deliver on their “forecasts”. What an ignoramus.
Rosie, it is remarkable how Albanese has introduced all these tax increases without so much as a peep from the Libs. I guess Dutton really is completely irrelevant now.
Since when did angels in general, and archangels in particular have to conform to a particular human appearance in art?
Monty now expert on the form of angels and demons.
Irish ex-pats!
Noice!
Yep, those iron ore, coal and gas royalties are firing. mUntynomics 101.
If Labor were really truly committed to net zero they’d ban mining and export of fossil fuels forthwith, wouldn’t they?
Please don’t give them ideas. Plibbers has already banned several coal mine projects on “the ‘vironment and nature” grounds.
Dutton not peeping
He’s more like to give birth to twins
Religious kitsch is hilarious. No one knows what Michael looks like, if he even existed as a man, but it is ridiculous to depict him as an armoured medieval knight. My mother in law loves stuff like that, she hangs it in the inside door of the toilet to give her a laugh every day.
Chuckle.
Not really…I discovered Robert the Bruce is my grandfather 32 generations back.
I never expected to get that far back, but once your ancestors start getting born and dying in castles it becomes quite easy 😀
“Monty now expert on the form of angels and demons.”
Well, let’s cut the pervert apologist some slack, he has problems knowing the form of male and female.
Michael the Archangel is distinctly strawberry blonde, which makes him a ranga. Also the kilt is a dead give-away.
Conclusion – he’s a red Celt
Chalmers is the Liar Peter Costello. Howard was swamped with cash. If only iampeter was here to take this up.
Maybe Dutton has been complaining, rosie, but no one is listening. He is a non event.
More not peeping
So, we handed over to the Albanese Government an economy the envy, frankly, of the world.
The budget deficit for calendar year ‘22 was $9.4 billion – a $200 billion improvement from the pandemic’s peak.
The Coalition delivered the largest budget turnaround in Australian history.
During a time of catastrophe, few nations performed better economically than ours.
Given the painter, where he lived, the date and who he was doing the painting for, Monty, I suspect Satan’s big black beard may suggest a certain undercurrent also.
This is why you can’t underestimate the place. It just oozes creativity and can do spirit.
As police numbers run down up goes the numbers of private security.
More here
https://time.com/6275440/insecure-private-security-replacing-police/
Stay tuned.
The “Not An Expert – Just Posting it For Info” hour coming up after the nine o’clock news.
everyone happy with a reduced standard of living?
Albo’s lot harbour the eternal leftist assumption that increasing taxes only has one consequence – raising more revenue. No matter how many times this has been proved wrong, both in theory and in fact, they just can’t let it go.
By this time next year, there will be stories about how due to unexpected factors, the amount of revenue is lower than projected in the Budget. I fully expect that they will respond by doubling down.
Idiots.
“He is a non event.”
Yeah, much like you.
H B Bearsays:
May 9, 2023 at 8:41 am
Jim Chalmers to deliver a surplus!
Yep, those iron ore, coal and gas royalties are firing. mUntynomics 101.
The Greens won’t like that one bit. They want a surplus derived from batteries, solar, wind, fairy floss and pipe dreams.
Wot’ a load of vegetables they are. ………………………..
It’ll be a typical Labor budget, all smoke and mirrors.
Ooooh!
La-de-dah!
Good grief sfw, you must live in Cabramurra to get these sort of temperatures.
typically in tenancy
LOL
Yeah.
The sons inherited the Tenancy equally.
Sorta puts paid to the “Evil English Landlords” myth, doesn’t it.
My lot were caught unpicking the monograms from stolen linen, ready to sell. All in the records. Off they went to the Antipodes. They were lucky not to receive a worse fate, but they must have been reasonably useful types. They definitely made good farming here.
At least it explains my fascination with textiles.
They blew out the budget deficit to its largest in history then want credit for pulling back, LOL.
And, in furniture retailing news, there appears to have been a falling out between The Great Predictonator and the (allegedly) Luverly Lady.
Definitely don’t want to be controversial and get into an argument, but what kind of a society is that, that needs armed guards to take children to the movies?
I certainly wouldn’t want to live in one like that.
Jim Chalmers to deliver a surplus!
LOL! Let’s see what happens in 12 months.
Anyone want to run a Cat poll on the actual result?
A Young Biden Said His Opponent Was Too Old for Office
“Neither Biden nor his words have aged well. In 1972, over 50 years ago, Biden was on his way to becoming the youngest US Senator. Biden’s main argument against his 63-year-old opponent Cale Boggs was that he was simply too old to run for office. Biden’s team back then reiterated that Joe “understands what’s happening today.”
“Cale Boggs’ generation dreamed of conquering polio, Joe Biden’s generation dreams of conquering heroin,” read one newspaper ad ironically since Joe Biden could not conquer the problem of heroin within his own household. “To Cale Boggs an unfair tax was the 1948 poll tax. To Joe Biden an unfair tax is the 1972 income tax,” read another, which is also ironic since Biden has continued to raise taxes on all Americans to support his frivolous spending. His political attack also included mentions of the then-Soviet Union. “One of the biggest differences between Cale Boggs and Joe Biden is the things they worry about,” said the radio ad. “In Cale Boggs’ day when Stalin ruled, Americans had visions of the Russian soldiers in our streets. In Joe Biden’s day, Americans have visions of American criminals in our streets. Joe Biden, he understands what’s happening today.” Now Biden promotes criminal activity as violence runs rampant in blue cities across America.
There are those fortunate enough to retain their mental capacity as they age. I have relatives who were close to 100 who showed no signs of mental aging, albeit the physical is impossible to avoid. However, Biden began showing signs of mental deterioration in his 70s if not earlier. He will be 81 during the next election and 86 by the time his second term ends.
Politicians should undergo a mental fitness test prior to requesting to lead the nation. Trump was older during his term but sharp as a tack and underwent a mental health assessment. Trump, despite age, is sharp and an excellent debater because he exudes confident and is quick on his feet. If Joe were put through the media bombardment that Trump experienced, he would be in a catatonic state in his basement in Delaware.
Other countries see our weakness as the man holding the reins of power is mentally incapacitated. Joe cannot even hold a press conference to address the people and only speaks in pre-recorded interviews with his wife propping him up so he doesn’t fall over or wander away from the camera. Does the left hate the right enough to push a man with dementia into power after a disastrous first term? If so, is the left prepared for the repercussions?”
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/politics/a-young-biden-said-his-opponent-was-too-old-for-office/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=RSS
Fear not, they will eventually try to do it.
It is not news but nevertheless is worth stating that the devotion to socialism seems to flourish where there has been least real world experience and where there is the most ego.
School kids have been protected by their parents and been primed by their teachers so that, those that go to university to study the sciences very readily fall for its allure – it gives them an explanation for everything without having to ever endure time consuming, and grimy, experience. And it is especially useful for kids who have lived very much in a parental provided cocoon to begin posing as finally knowing more than their parents.
The current crop of talking heads on the Teev. They no longer even sully their immaculate manicured hands with investigation and research. They have teams for that. And the researchers and the heads all believe that they are smarter than anyone they talk to. If they don’t like what someone says they label it a lie – which they were able to catch because they are so gosh-darned smart. Someone tells them that AGW is a crock? LIAR! They know it is true because someone else said so. Lots of them. Don’t you know science?
Look at how they acquitted themselves in the Covid scare.
Socialism used to thrive on the factory floor, but while workers may gripe about wanting more money, they don’t do it by complaining about the capitalist system. They want more of what capitalism has to offer.
And each socialist envisions a world where they would be in charge. They don’t see themselves has being an unobtrusive drone on a building site or checking store rooms for stocks of toilet paper. They are way to important for that. Unlike all those socialist leaders before, they would get it right, they would be at the forefront, they would usher in the utopia, and everyone would know it was them, and everyone would be grateful them.
I did mention ego, didn’t I?
I’m not getting the reference. Who are they?
Religious kitsch is hilarious. No one knows what Michael looks like, if he even existed as a man, but it is ridiculous to depict him as an armoured medieval knight. My mother in law loves stuff like that, she hangs it in the inside door of the toilet to give her a laugh every day.
Sure.
As a thoroughly modern Australian soy boy, I want Michael portrayed as looking like a cross between Joel Creasy and Josh Thomas. With guyliner and foundation cream.
Sheesh!
And for Mrs Stencho Pantyhose…………………..Not the 9 O’clock News…………………………………
https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJzj4tVP1zc0zEgzMDLMKk4xYPSSzMsvUSjJSFXIy8xLVchXT87JT85WyEstLwYAD2cNkA&q=not+the+nine+o%27clock+news&rlz=1C1CHBF_en-GBAU906AU906&oq=not+the+nine+&aqs=chrome.1.0i355i512j46i340i512l2j69i57j0i512l6.8521j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:553d1541,vid:m5ZE0GYf0Jw
During a time of catastrophe
Pretty much self inflicted as a result of poor research and extremely bad advice, coupled with the utter stupidity of our political Class. By the middle of March 2020, the Diamond Princess experiment had been run and the results known. That should have been the end of the stupidity.
Johanna – I suspect this is a green wheeze to further destroy the naughty oil and gas sector. The Laffer curve suggests it won’t actually raise much extra tax. It’ll also help their maaates who will have better economics for importing LNG.
Since when did angels in general, and archangels in particular have to conform to a particular human appearance in art?
Monty now expert on the form of angels and demons.
The Ashkenazi have a greater tendency towards Male Pattern Baldness than any other group.
All M0nty is pointing out is the artist’s antisemitic dog whistling.
Jesus and the disciples would have looked far less like Jim Caviziel and far more like Ali Suliman.
Thoughts and prayers.
OTD
History’s Unparalleled Alliance: the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of Windsor, 9th May 1386
Winston Churchill in a speech in the House of Commons in October 1943 famously described the unique and ancient friendship between England and Portugal as an alliance “without parallel in world history”
I’m on a laptop that won’t cut and paste…re Labor & fossil fuel exports, the crunch will come when they have to rely on the Greens to keep government.
They both look pretty similar to me, m0nty. Dark, vaguely aquiline. If it’s eye colour that worries you, blue eyes pop up in all sorts of places in the ME. It isn’t that uncommon.
Also blonde hair can sometimes appear. Some theories suggest it’s from Grik lineage.
The pervert apologist contradicting himself, yet again. Earlier he claimed that no one knows what archangel Michael looks like, yet now he claims to know what Jesus looks like.
blue eyes pop up in all sorts of places in the ME. It isn’t that uncommon.
Correct, both Jews and Arabs can have blue eyes. And they can have red hair too.
Let them eat cake, with green cordial to wash it down.
1 in 4 Canadians Agree With Euthanizing the Poor (8 May)
Leftists just love killing irksome people. And since actual history no longer gets taught soon few will remember the leftist carnage of the 20thC.
Amazing! Surplus achieved according to Chalmers. Hun:
A while back my pharmacist was a Middle Easterner with fair hair and blue eyes. I ran into him at the supermarket recently with his sons and they’re even blonder than he is. They were speaking Arabic.
According to Joyce Appelby….”Irish famine of 1846-1848. While hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children were starving, the Irish sent food to prosperous England because the laws prevented their feeding themselves from the product of acres owned by absentee landlords.”
The Relentless Revolution. A History of Capitalism.
Also blonde hair can sometimes appear.
The dirty buggers were always nipping over to Europe in their curly-toed slippers to snatch apple-cheeked lads for service as janissaries and marmelukes and wotnots. And don’t forget the Byzantine emperors’ Varangian bodyguards — Viking sorts and other northern Europeans — who no doubt left a genetic trail.
they are one of sancho’s ventriloquist dolls that he uses everyday in his Catallaxy comic review.
impervious to the deafening sound of no hands clapping, sancho powers on with his daily routine
if only we could tell which dummy was actually doing the talking then we’d all know when to laugh
Red is associated with the development and expression of the brown/blonde spectrum found across north western Europe and introduced early on into Scotland, which supports some of my theories concerning early shared religious influences also permeating genetic British settlement from Europe prior to the collapse of the Dogger Bank, as well as trade by sea after it.
Interesting that texture and curl are also factors in the genetic mix. It’s not simply colour.
Six gigawatts of total wind generation collapsed in 16 hours last week, and nobody cared
By Jo Nova
Just another day of Wind turbine failure — 6GW in 16 hours
There was no cyclone, no storm, no national disaster, but our national infrastructure collapsed just the same. Blame a high pressure cell.
Last week TonyFromOz noticed that the output from all 79 industrial wind plants in Australia disappeared overnight from 6GW to just 0.4GW. Imagine if an entire state of coal plants failed in the space of 16 hours and nobody cared?
Wind plants fail all the time and wreak havoc on the grid. It’s just “business as usual” or rather “subsidies as usual”. The rainbow list of acronyms below the graph shows every single wind plant in five states of Australia was accounted for in this dismal tally.
Billions of dollars rests on whether we can stop high pressure cells forming near Adelaide…
As Tony points out, the more wind towers we build, the worse this mayhem will be. Weather comes and weather goes but when the doldrums hit, it wipes out all 79 industrial plants together. Only wind plants built outside the high pressure cell could smooth out this failure. Offshore wind farms would have failed at the same time as onshore ones too unless they were built halfway to New Zealand. To put that task in perspective, most offshore windfarms in the UK are built within 40km of the coast, but New Zealand is 4,000 kilometers away. Even floating windplants are built in 120m of water, but the Tasman Sea is 5,000 m deep.
The whole grid in the Australian NEM (National Energy Market) is roughly a 22GW enterprise, so more than a quarter of the total generation came and went — another quarter had to sit by and twiddle its thumbs waiting to quietly take over.
No wonder Australian electricity is so expensive now.
We pay unreliable generators to produce sacred green electrons and then pay another set of reliable generators to sit around and wait for when they will be needed.
Who thought this would be cheaper — communists, maybe.
Indeed, if we include solar power variation, it’s even worse.
Australian Unreliable Renewables fell from 62% to 4% of national energy generation in 18 hours
Nope. In the Canberra region, we get at least one -7 every year, and plenty of -4s and -5s. That said, as sfw mentioned, it usually means bright blue sunny skies and no wind during the day. Slow moving high pressure systems, in other words.
And Indians. One of the most handsome men I have ever met was a Kashmiri who had dark brown hair, brilliant blue eyes and golden brown skin. He was gorgeous. 🙂
There was an old man with a beard, who said: ‘It is just as I feared! Two owls and a hen, four larks and a wren have all built their nests in my beard.
– Edward Lear
According to Joyce Appelby….”, a Marxist propagandist.
NewsFlash!
All Landlords are absentee landlords by definition.
The cause of said blowout was cheered on and thoroughly endorsed by you at the time.
STFU.
Bruce, I am worried that they mean to repeat the carnage for this century.
“And Indians. One of the most handsome men I have ever met was a Kashmiri who had dark brown hair, brilliant blue eyes and golden brown skin. He was gorgeous. ?”
Yes, and Pakistanis, Afghanis, and Berbers of North Africa, all can have red hair, dark blond hair and blue eyes. My beautician is a Hazari from Afghanistan and she has blue eyes.
The dirty buggers were always nipping over to Europe in their curly-toed slippers to snatch apple-cheeked lads for service as janissaries …
Janissaries didn’t leave any descendants, dickhead.
Linguistics faux pax?
Jo Nova
PS: For those who don’t know Anton Lang (TonyfromOz) lost his wife of 42 years just a few weeks ago.
You can read his accolades to Barbara Lang and share your commiserations. A remarkable marriage.
There’s already a carnage of the unborn.
Struth, or Harvey Norman?
Show your solar some love – solar safety
Your rooftop solar system sits outside in all kinds of weather, giving you cheaper electricity to keep your home warm in winter and cool in summer. So, to ensure that it’s running safely get your system serviced every two years by a licensed electrician.
Why service your rooftop solar
Your rooftop solar system sits outside in all kinds of weather, giving you the benefit of cheaper electricity to keep your home warm in winter and cool in summer, while helping you do your bit for the planet. So, to ensure that it’s running safely we’re encouraging people to get their home solar system serviced every two years by a licensed electrician.
One of the more tragic results from poorly maintained systems is the potential of fires from the roof caused by faulty DC isolators. This is the most common cause of fire from a solar installation.
Improvements have been made in their design reducing the safety risk since 2018. The best way to identify faults and avoid house fires is regular servicing, especially for those systems installed before 2018.
– Find out more about keeping your home solar safe.
– How to choose a licensed electrician
Look out for rogue operators
There are a number of companies operating in Victoria that claim to service solar panels, but they are nothing more than a panel cleaning service.
A service must be conducted by a licensed electrician to ensure that you are getting the service you are paying for, and to ensure the ongoing safety of your home solar system.
What is involved in a service?
Maintaining your rooftop solar involves much more than simply cleaning your solar panels. Regular maintenance of your solar panel system should ensure:
no parts have deteriorated or corroded
vents are free of debris
switches do not have any defects
wiring has not been damaged and has not deteriorated
electrical checks to ensure all components are operating as intended
confirming fittings and cables are securely attached
reviewing the inverter display panel for recorded faults
checking that access to the isolator switches has not been impeded, and/or
making sure the emergency procedures for shutdown and isolation are clearly displayed.
This is why a service must be carried out by a licensed electrician, at least once every two years.
“Rogersays:
May 9, 2023 at 8:08 am
Daughters car parked outside overnight. Had to clear ice off the windscreen this morning.”
Roger, I woke yesterday to find my car covered in three inches of snow. My whole property, up to the hilly treeline was blanketed. There is still a bit of snow on my car as it is in a shady part of the drive.
Good news though, I built my first ever snow man yesterday! Frosty lost his face and an arm by 3pm though.
But Pogria…I’m in Queensland! 😀
And it’s not even winter.
Sad Case, you shouldn’t base your view of others’ reproductive success on your own lack of it, Bacteria thriving on the hard-centre tissues by your bed don’t count as offspring.
Rogue operators in a government subsidised greenwash fiddle? Nooo!
Janissaries didn’t leave descendants, dickhead.
They weren’t snatched from the British Isles, either.
Ed Casesays:
May 9, 2023 at 9:35 am
According to Joyce Appelby….”, a Marxist propagandist.
NewsFlash!
All Landlords are absentee landlords by definition.
Head Case. You really are out of touch. ‘NewsFlash’ is so yesterday. Now it is ‘Breaking News’ and quite often just the word ‘Breaking’. Wot’ is broken? I have no idea and nor do they.
Good to see my Confirmation name patron heading the Open. 🙂
They say you don’t really choose your patron saint at Confirmation but he or she chooses you.
One of the main traded goods were beautiful blonde European girls known as ‘slavs’: the origin of the term slaves. British and Irish girls of similar good looks, sometimes blonde too, were also heavily traded. The Irish actually used the nominal price of a slave girls as a means of accounting their wealth. A cow equals x many slave girls, etc. Then never forget the Barbary Pirates who are believed to have distributed 25 million European women into middle eastern slavery. (When I was young my Welsh grandmother still used a cultural memory of this to instil fear against wandering in young girls like me – the Barbary Pirates will come and get you).
Here’s the story from the British side re the Barbary Slavers. And here’s the US version.
Never forget the price of women, from earliest times. A valued commodity – as we see too in aboriginal culture, for women are what men often fought over and then blamed as the cause of the fighting delivering to the weaker sex the blows to the head noted by Watkin Tench and others. An old cultural trait which they still carry on with.
BUT, there had to be a reason for growing only spuds!!
Why? Surely the Irish ate bread and meat as well?
I’m do not quite know the full history in intricate details, just pondering, apologies.
A few things.
1: very small plots, held as leases. Landowners often not giving a crap as log as their tenants obligations were met.
2:The requirement to supply a certain amount of cereal crop as “rent’ on the leases.
3: The godsend of the spud which enabled those small plots to just scrape by and still supply the landlords rent.
Its awful to consider, but the spud enabled the leases to be divided down to tiny sizes, whereas without it emigration would have started much sooner and probably with less suffering than what was caused by the potato blight.
Evergreen.
Evergreen 2
Evergreen 3
A little less name calling Groogs. Idiot.
That’s 2.5 million, not 25 million.
“Rogersays:
May 9, 2023 at 9:48 am
But Pogria…I’m in Queensland! ?
And it’s not even winter.”
Wow! No wonder you were surprised. 😀
They weren’t allowed to marry while in service, but were free to do so after that.
And do you imagine there was no horizontalism with the fellow slaves.
You really are a putz.
I do believe that the current state of reporting on AGW is analogous to that game The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon:
Decline in childhood vaccination? Well, maybe it is because parents are afraid of their children being stampeded by cattle at the doctors office, and the cattle stampede because they are being chased by aliens, and the aliens are chasing them because they need somewhere to land, and they need somewhere to land because the additional heat has expanded the size of the earth and thrown their navigation systems out, and the additional heat behind all this is…you guessed it: Global Warming.
To recognise areff’s well-made point above about marmelukes and the like – beautiful young blonde boys were also traded, of course. Potentates and their acolytes everywhere seem always to have had that penchant.
Rita Panahi doesn’t do Liberal loving.
Her anger at Michael Kroger’s support for 1) John Pesutto + expelling Moira Deeming from the Victorian branch; and 2) banning booing at AFL matches was wonderful to see.
She wasn’t playing.
Kroger’s zombie support for Maoist woman hater Pesutto was embarrassing.
Leave the Princess in Bolt’s spot permanently.
Re the Irish potato farmers, iirc they couldn’t get poor relief while they retained their plot of land. They really were in a terrible bind.
New weapon ‘changing course’ of Ukraine conflict – Telegraph
Russian glide bombs are complicating Kiev’s plans for a grand offensive, the UK outlet said
Russia is using bombs fitted with wings to bypass Ukraine’s air defenses and pummel forces assembling for the much-heralded spring offensive, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. Kiev is citing this new development to once again demand F-16 fighters from the West.
“Russia’s newest weapon is changing the course of Ukraine war,” the Telegraph headline proclaimed, referring to glide bombs such as the FAB-500. Kiev officials have estimated that the Russian Air Force is using at least 20 such bombs per day.
Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yury Ignat said the weapon has been used “intensely” for the past month, and described it as a “serious threat.”
According to Ignat, the use of glide bombs means Moscow is “running low” on cruise missiles after “failing to take control of the skies over Ukraine.” The Telegraph explained that the bombs outrange Ukrainian tactical air defenses, which have been moved to the frontline to support the much-anticipated offensive.
Ignat told reporters last week that Kiev was powerless to stop the bombs and pleaded for the US and its allies to send F-16 fighters. He repeated that plea to The Telegraph on Sunday.
“Just one or two would be enough to deter them, because the Russians would see that a couple of these things are in the air and they would avoid approaching,” he said.
For several days in a row now, Russia has used cruise missiles and drones in waves of strikes on Ukrainian railheads, fuel and ammunition depots, and troop concentration areas for several days.
Tactical drones have also been reported picking off Ukrainian air defenses along the frontline. Several US military experts have also noted the increased use of glide bombs recently, predicting increased Russian aerial superiority as Ukraine’s air defenses continue to deteriorate.
This poses a challenge to Kiev’s plans for a spring offensive, according to Justin Crump of the British intelligence consultancy company Sibylline. The troops and tanks brought up to the front line for the anticipated attack need to be scattered to avoid damage from the airstrikes, but would have to assemble very quickly once it is time to advance.
“Dispersion and rapid concentration of force is vital in this environment,” Crump told the Telegraph.
According to Western officials, Ukraine has put together at least nine NATO-trained brigades and several hundred armored vehicles provided by the US, UK, Germany and France, in preparation for a massive attack, speculated to be aimed at Crimea.
Kiev has repeatedly postponed the offensive, however, citing weather concerns and equipment shortages, while Western governments have sought to manage expectations in case of its failure.
Seems as though some of the larger brands are wising up a little after the Bud Light debacle.
A few weeks back, the customer and the person filming would have been cautioned by Police.
This time, Justice prevailed.
The Liberal Party has gone gay…literally.
‘Liberal Pride’ is setting their social policy agenda.
Since blue eyes are a dominant gene, it does seem likely that blue eyed people in Asia and the Middle East have either a traded/stolen woman, or a randy seafaring man, somewhere in the family tree.
Crossie at 8:59.
Faulty and ChEllie.
From the good old days.
China won’t forget NATO’s ‘barbaric’ acts in Yugoslavia – Foreign Ministry
The remarks came on the anniversary of the 1999 embassy bombing that killed three Chinese journalists
Beijing has neither forgotten nor forgiven the May 1999 bombing of its embassy in Belgrade, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters on Monday. Wang condemned the US-led bloc for creating conflict while posing as a defensive alliance, urging it to “seriously reflect” on its crimes.
Wang noted that May 7 was the anniversary of the embassy attack, in which three Chinese journalists were killed and 20 diplomatic staff were injured. “The Chinese people will never forget what they sacrificed to uphold the truth, fairness and justice. Nor will we ever forget this barbaric atrocity committed by US-led NATO,” he told reporters.
While claiming to be a regional defense bloc, NATO has “repeatedly lit the fuse and brought conflicts to places all over the world,” Wang noted, “from Bosnia and Herzegovina to Kosovo, from Iraq to Afghanistan, and from Libya to Syria.”
Having participated in wars that have killed hundreds of thousands and displaced tens of millions, NATO is now “making forays eastward into the Asia-Pacific, instigating bloc confrontation and undermining peace and stability in the region,” the spokesman added.
The US-led NATO needs to seriously reflect on the crimes they’ve committed, abandon the outdated Cold War mentality, stop inciting tensions in the region, and stop sowing division and instability.
The embassy strike happened six weeks into the NATO air war against Yugoslavia, waged on behalf of ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo. Five bombs struck the compound, killing Shao Yunhuan, Xu Xinghu and his wife Zhu Ying. Beijing condemned the bombing as a “barbaric act.”
The US claimed it had struck the embassy by accident, using an “old map” of the Serbian capital.
The real target, Washington said, had been the Yugoslav government agency for military procurement, which was almost 500 meters (1640 feet) away. The strike was carried out by a B-2 stealth bomber, using JDAM bombs that are accurate to within 14 meters (46 feet) of the target.
It was the first and only mission during the 78-day campaign that had been planned by the CIA, the agency’s director George Tenet later testified before the US Congress. One CIA agent was reportedly fired and six were reprimanded over the incident.
US President Bill Clinton offered a public apology. Washington later paid a compensation of $28 million to the Chinese government and $4.5 million to the families of the victims.
The NATO-backed war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia cited this, as well as the CIA disciplinary measures, among the reasons for not opening an investigation into the bombing, much less pressing charges.
Just watching Episode 5 of Rogue Heroes on SBS On Demand. ‘Brillo’ stuff. Beats the ALPBC hands down. Hey Chalmers you donkey. Give more money to the SBS and take it away from the ALPBC.
Of course you will never do that will you. A hole.
Can anyone find a link of Rita correcting and getting angry with Kroger?
The AFR View
How to reframe Chalmers’ second budget around repair and productivity
The treasurer needs a productivity agenda to grow a bigger economic pie to help shrink the structural deficit, pay for social spending and to deliver sustainable real wage increases.
The temporary $4 billion surplus that Jim Chalmers will announce on Tuesday night will feed the politically popular narrative that there is plenty of scope to spend more on social services and cost-of-living handouts.
But the treasurer needs to reframe his economic narrative around a genuine fiscal repair strategy that doesn’t rely on higher taxes and doesn’t push up inflation, but does tackle the alarming productivity stagnation that makes Labor’s social spending agenda unsustainable.
Australia’s biggest inflation breakout in 30 years already confirms what happens when domestic demand – in this case fuelled by pandemic budget handouts – spills over the economy’s capacity to supply goods and services. Driven by a structural increase in government spending stretching back to the Rudd-Gillard Labor government, this will show up in an ongoing underlying deficit of up to 2 per cent of GDP.
While welcome, the first surplus since the last year of the Howard-Costello era reflects near record-high terms of trade that is yielding a flood of iron ore, coal and gas tax receipts, a 3.5 per cent jobless rate, below the level that generates inflationary wage gains, and stealthy income tax increases generated, Whitlam-style, by inflationary bracket creep.
Any short-term fiscal stimulus from increased spending decisions not offset elsewhere will merely add to the inflationary pressure that the Reserve Bank will need to counter through higher interest rates.
To put some discipline around medium-term budget repair, Dr Chalmers needs to commit to the Coalition’s 23.9 per cent tax-to-GDP cap and to restore the medium-term fiscal framework of balanced budgets over the economic cycle that Josh Frydenberg unwisely ditched amid the lockdowns of 2021.
Labor should launch a formal public review into the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
To credibly break the culture of never-ending spending, Labor should match its robo-debt royal commission with a similar public review into why the National Disability Insurance Scheme – predicted to pay for itself under the previous Labor government – is set to hit close to $100 billion within a decade on its current trajectory.
Disciplined budget policy and a productivity-based growth agenda provided much of the foundation of Australia’s close to 30 years of unbroken economic growth from the early 1990s to the pandemic. Along with a return to fiscal discipline, Dr Chalmers needs a productivity agenda to grow a bigger economic pie to help shrink the structural deficit, pay for Labor’s social spending and to deliver sustainable real wage increases.
The productivity challenge
The Reserve Bank warned last week that the “very weak” productivity growth in 2022 was even lower than before the pandemic.
The fact that labour productivity – GDP per hours worked – has fallen back to the level of 2019 should be ringing alarm bells.
Tuesday night’s budget should frame the productivity challenge around promoting business confidence and investment in globally competitive enterprises. This should entail greater labour market flexibility, incentive-sharpening tax reform, and relying on market mechanisms to drive Australia’s necessary but costly net zero energy transition.
Unfortunately, Labor’s retro pattern bargaining re-regulation has moved the industrial relations system further away from encouraging employees and employers to directly bargain and reach win-win higher pay and productivity agreements.
Rather than funding bigger government, Labor’s announced changes to taxes on big gas and large super accounts should be part of a structural tax reform plan to reduce reliance on incentive-blunting taxes on personal and company income. The aspiration, as Labor true believing reformers Paul Keating and Bill Kelty have said, should be a top marginal personal income tax rate no higher than 40 per cent.
One other productivity area should be central to Labor’s social agenda, but seemingly isn’t.
Two decades ago, Australian school students performed well above the OECD average in areas such as mathematical literacy. Today, Australian students perform below the average of developed nations.
Julia Gillard understood the importance of education to equality of opportunity. But her “education revolution” poured tens of billions of extra taxpayer dollars into some schools, only for student test results to decline.
Reversing the erosion of Australia’s human capital base ought to be a compelling theme of Labor’s 2023 budget.
The people of Tibet say Mr Wenbin doth protest too much.
You are a Warrior Pachyderm C.L.
And a dab trunk on the Corona.
I haven’t seen a lot of cunning linguist to-and-fro of late, so probably not that.
Complaints of (gasp) censorship at the last bastion of free speech.
Ed-Mong feculates.
Janissaries didn’t leave descendants, dickhead.
They weren’t snatched from the British Isles, either.
Its super ineffective.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Koulougli
The Koulouglis are descended from the Janissaries (elite Turkish soldiers who ruled Libya following the Ottoman conquest) and the Amazigh and Christian slave women with whom they intermarried.
Business sector becomes pessimistic as economy loses momentum
Michael Read – Reporter
Soaring inflation and 11 interest rate rises have pushed business conditions to their lowest level since early 2022, with a decline in forward orders and below-average confidence painting a gloomy outlook for the business sector.
Surveyed business conditions fell two index points to 14 in April, according to NAB’s monthly business survey.
While conditions remain above their decade average, the data suggest the economic environment is becoming more challenging as higher interest rates cause the economy to cool.
The decline in the headline figure was driven by a 4-point drop in the trading conditions sub-index, while firm profitability dipped by 2 points.
Forward orders, which is a leading indicator of the economic outlook, fell to 1 index point.
Business confidence increased one point to 0, meaning the number of pessimists equals the number of optimists.
While the survey provides evidence the economy is gradually cooling in response to higher interest rates, capacity utilisation remains steady at a near historic high of 85.1 per cent.
Westpac senior economist Andrew Hanlan said the business mood was particularly pessimistic in consumer-facing sectors, with household spending growth easing in response to cost-of-living pressures.
“The flow of forward orders has dried up as the economy slows and lacks momentum – that is in stark contrast to the sustained strength in new orders through October 2021 to October 2022 during the reopening phase,” Mr Hanlan said.
JP Morgan economist Tom Kennedy said the figures were broadly consistent with an economy that was losing momentum.
JP Morgan expects real GDP to increase by 0.6 per cent in the March quarter, but economists say there is a possibility the economy contracted in the first three months of the year.
Retail trade was unchanged in the March quarter, according to figures released last week, while net trade is expected to subtract up to 1 percentage point from growth due to higher import volumes. The national accounts will be released on June 7.
Inflation has peaked
Survey measures of inflation have also eased in recent months, with growth in labour costs and purchase costs both well below the elevated levels reached in mid-to-late 2022.
Labour costs increased by 1.9 per cent in the three months to April, down from 2.6 per cent in February, while purchase cost growth slowed from 2.9 per cent to 2.3 per cent.
Inflation in retail prices fell to 1.4 per cent in the three months to April, according to NAB, down from 2 per cent in the quarter to February.
NAB chief economist Alan Oster said cost pressures remained high, but the data suggested further gradual easing of inflation in the early stages of the June quarter.
Mr Kennedy agreed the NAB survey supported the idea that inflation has peaked.
“These metrics have only a loose correlation with the consumer price index and the producer price index as reported by the ABS, but at face value this mix is negative for profit margins and a likely headwind for labour demand in the second half of the year,” he said.
The RBA expects unemployment to increase this year, as households cut back on spending in response to higher interest rates and cost-of-living pressures.
In its latest set of forecasts, released on Friday, the central bank said it expects inflation to fall to 4.5 per cent from 7 per cent by the end of the year, while the jobless rate is expected to increase to 4 per cent from 3.5 per cent.
Thanks, ML. That made it worth scrolling through the troll shyte.
Speaking of pachyderms, I smell a rat the size of a woolly mammoth coming out of the Britnah enquiry.
A very good question for Drumgold and the ACT Victims of Imagined Crime Commish …
“When did you first have contact with each other – formally or informally – and what was the context of that contact?”
I’ll bet it was well before interviews were held and charges were laid.
They’ve got long memories in the Orient. And grudges that are fossilized and kept in cupboards, ready for them to be ceremonially wheeled out at suitable times.
Japan, South Korea Struggle to Overcome WWII Disputes to Jointly Confront China (8 May)
I’ve never read about the politics of Taiwan with reference to WW2. Wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a bit of resentment there too.
Excess deaths in UK rise
Dr. John Campbell
Ah, the criminal thread.
Do I need to add a ‘you naughty girl’ ? ?
Blue eyes are recessive. Mendelian genetics.
All my children have blue eyes, but in a variety of shades. Mid blue, grey blue and almost navy blue in that order. The rangas are the first two, the blonde the last. Her colouring was the most interesting in that she had very dark eyelashes, while the other two were typical reddish-brown.
My own eyes were also navy, but have faded with the years along with eyesight. 😀
Kroger is never one to let success stand in his way.
I always tell my hosts to hide the silver spoons Jorge, especially if I have an umbrella handy. A touch of the Lobelia Sackville-Bagginses might come upon me.
She redeemed herself in the end, though, by standing up to the ruffians.
Since blue eyes are a dominant gene, it does seem likely that blue eyed people in Asia and the Middle East have either a traded/stolen woman, or a randy seafaring man, somewhere in the family tree.
European descended people dominated in Xingiang until the 6th century AD and in Afghanistan until the Afghan Wars of the 19th century.
The Golden Horde were so named for their Golden hair and green eyes.
Pulling on those threads are exactly what these inquiries do best (when they go rogue). Also assorted j’ismists and the Mean Girls.
Vikings were trading in the ME late 8thC. Not surprised red hair and blue eyes. Alexander went to India in the 4thC. BC. Obviously not himself for blue eyes and red hair as he was a flamer.
Groogs, you getting called in the Brittany inquiry this time little buddy. Hate to see all your hard “work” over those tapes go to …um …. waste.
You’re obviously not familiar with any northern Italians.
Tell me you don’t understand religious kitsch…
U.S. Air Force Safety and Qualifications vs. DEI – What Happens When Leftists Run the Military
It became pretty clear as far back as the Clinton administration that the left views the military as a giant social experiment. It is where we got the phrase “Don’t ask, don’t tell” regarding gays in the military.
But the advent of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) requirements takes that leftist social experiment to a whole other level, one that is dangerous and could have serious effects on military readiness and ultimately national security.
In 2021, during a push to promote diversity in all branches of the military, the U.S. Air Force decided to do a little “experiment” with some female and minority students in pilot training classes.
While anyone’s initial thought at experimenting with potential pilot trainees might be to think about selecting the most qualified candidates, not in today’s woke military, home of the Navy drag queen.
The idea was to see if such a class would improve graduation rates among those demographics. It did not produce the equitable results the Air Force was looking for — and may have resulted in breaking discrimination laws.
When a large backlog of pilot training candidates began to pile up at the 19th Air Force Command at Laughlin Air Force Base near San Antonio Texas, officials at Air Education and Training Command decided that they would compose a class from “clustered” and “underrepresented” groups of people for the Special Undergraduate Pilot Training class (SUPT).
The class was designed to reflect the gender and racial makeup of America. Class 21-15 became known as “America’s class,” their class motto which was stitched onto the class patch, “hand-picked for excellence.” Only they weren’t.
Officers became concerned when a memo began to circulate, saying, “We have been verbally ordered through the chain of command by the 19AF/CC [19th Air Force commander] to purposefully restructure the students assigned to [SUPT] class 21-15 to meet specific racial and gender demographics.”
Signatures of officers on the memo were redacted. Again, the idea was to have a class that “looked like” America. But the racial and gender makeup of the incoming contingent would not have provided the necessary numbers.
At that point, the Air Force resorted to outright exclusion, and the memo was changed to include the sentence: “The order was changed by verbal order of the 47 OG/CC to restructure the class with ‘anybody non-white.’”
The memo essentially canceled out the previous procedure of forming classes based on a first-come, first-served basis based on time served in a student’s unit.
A complaint was made regarding the memo to the base’s equal opportunity office in August 2020 but met with a response that restructuring the class was not illegal.
But even the officers who signed the memo stated they believed that base commanders had violated the Air Force’s non-discrimination policy by issuing the memo, but they would obey the order given in the memo unless further scrutiny showed it to be illegal.
The officers also correctly stated:
None of the parties signed below agree with the order from an ethical standpoint. SUPT class structures have never been based on a minimum quota for a student’s race or gender, and the message this sends to students and future students is harmful.