WATCH: Donald Trump Gets Applauded During Visit to Black Barber Shop in the Bronx, NY
Open Thread – Tues 20 June 2023
- Open Thread – Thurs 17 Oct 2024
- Open Thread – Mon 14 Oct 2024
- The Fifth Problem of the Bowen Kind
- Open Thread – Weekend 12 Oct 2024
- Open Thread – Thurs 10 Oct 2024
Also learnt today that my SIL has Jewish “descent”, if that is even a thing. Apparently her maternal great grandmother…
Remembering the TITANIC .. the “iceberg” defends itself .. LOL! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP5bu9hLH9E&t=85s
Al Smith dinner speeches: Donald Trump delivers remarks at the Al Smith dinner (youtube.com) Pretty funny stuff!!!
That is outrageous.
Just read about the H Biden verdict.
I am amazed, there is something basically wrong with a society that allows this blatant dismissal of legal proceedings and appropriate punishment for all.
Or the democrats ie. people in power feel they can be as arrogant as they like because they will stay in power no matter what.
People in jail for demonstrating but doing no damage, others elevated to hero status for doing the opposite.
What do the everyday Americans think about it?
If at all.
Feel free to support those two statements – just so’s we know you’re not a dishonest blowhard.
C’mon, you can do it, back your mouth. Go……………………….!!
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare:
June 23, 2023 at 12:28 am
We booked three weeks ago. Any Cats wanting to chat, please put an asterisk on your name card (if they give them). Otherwise chat around. Say meow.
A mate rang and asked if I was interested and so we are off to the turnout in Brisbane on the 10th Jul.
Gentlepeople please! Where’s the wit, bonhomie and good humour this morning? I went to bed last night and everyone was talking puppy dogs.
Of course I feel free to. You would often blowhard on the old blog how banks wouldn’t lend to you and if you suffered an incurable disease you would load up one of your 28 guns to kill the bank manager and other staff. Very courageous. Suffering an incurable illness would be the cause of this incredible act of courage. You cowardly lunatic.
Citations required.
Only on Google Review! 🙂
Just read about the H Biden verdict.
I am amazed, there is something basically wrong with a society that allows this blatant dismissal of legal proceedings and appropriate punishment for all.
Not posting anything new, but a load of lawyers posted dozens of cases on twitter where the average sentence for what Hunter did was 5 years with most getting out in 2.
Dragon energy on the Cat this morning.
Bits of the imploded home-made sub were apparently found within 500m of the Titanic wreck.
Speaking of inspiration, this may be time for a short musical interlude:
Cats are snarling early this morning.
They’re becoming far more in-your-face too with the way they trounce over legal norms. They don’t care.
Unless Twitter has assets or residual income in Australia , how can this threat be serious?
John Stossel:
I’ve reported for years on studies that rank relative freedom in countries around the world. America’s performance is getting worse.
America is the Least Free We’ve Ever Been in a New Ranking of Economic Freedom
I think we’ve found the culprit:
The submersible’s pressure hull was made of… carbon fibre.
While it was lab tested, an engineer who worked on the project has conceded nobody knew how the material would perform over time:
“…these are the sorts of questions that if you have a long research and development program, you start answering. But if you really are pushing the envelope, there’s no time to — you’re answering those questions in real time.”
I think we have the answer.
JC,
It’s a term used in the pejorative against us straight people by the QWERTY mob.
Musk is throwing their crap back at them.
Skah’s weather chick is dressed in snow attire, and standing in front of a green screen with footage of ski fields behind her. There is a fan off-camera, gently blowing her hair around.
‘It’s cold out here!’, she giggles.
Just stop that. Stop it immediately.
Okay, but what straight person would even care? It’s not as though straights are delicate flowers like Qwertys.
If you want to do something useful.
http://stopausnetstowers.com.au/
Make a donation to the legal fight to stop government forcing renewable onto our countryside.
Speaking as an engineer, I find this hard to believe.
He’s not playing their game.
And neither should we.
If you mean normal, say normal.
Trying to get rid of abuse on his platform, in all it’s guises?
I don’t know.
It will make some people squeal though.
I despise brainwashed climate clowns but this censorship push is troubling.
——
Rukshan Fernando:
NSW Premier Chris Minns is set to meet with META the parent company of Facebook in order to discuss the possibility of banning livestreams of protests the government deems dangerous or illegal.
NSW Premier To Meet With Facebook To Ban Protest Livestreams
You know, part of me doesn’t want this to be true as it’s just so criminally dreadful and beyond any behavior you’d expect from a very senior US government official. It’s truly shocking.
and
https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-joe-biden-was-in-the-room-when-hunter-demanded-cash-from-china?utm_campaign=64483
Here’s my question. It’s not as though the current government is on good terms with China. Why hasn’t the Chinese regime released some of this as it would undoubtedly have to goods on the Hidens if it were true?
Photos from the Mid-Winter Ball here.
Some real fashion atrocities in that lot. You have to wonder if some of them own a full length mirror.
more here:
Gaborsays:
June 23, 2023 at 6:15 am
Just read about the H Biden verdict.
I am amazed, there is something basically wrong with a society that allows this blatant dismissal of legal proceedings and appropriate punishment for all.
Or the democrats ie. people in power feel they can be as arrogant as they like because they will stay in power no matter what.
People in jail for demonstrating but doing no damage, others elevated to hero status for doing the opposite.
What do the everyday Americans think about it?
If at all.
Don’t worry, they have the 2a. It stopped an election from being stolen. No, wait. It saved those people arrested for J6. No, wait. It prevented Trump being charged with ‘trumped’ up charges again. No, wait. It ensured Hunter B got properly punished for the charges he faced. No, wait.
I think a long as they can keep their guns to decorate their homes, they don’t care. Democrats have achieved everything they want without a shot being fired or a single gun being taken from a gun owner. Even if they did, they would do it piece by piece. Any resistance would be met with overwhelming force and we have plenty of evidence of how the FBI etc will act. Ruby Ridge anyone?
By the time they are required to be used, the US will have collapsed into a tribal state. There will be nothing left to rebuild. Anyone there in the future will be starting from scratch. As in subsistence level.
However, if they wake from their slumber, Americans would be about the only people who would have the drive to rebuild.
Parliament House really would benefit from a uniform, a cap and eyes down.
A question that’s been on my mind too.
The only answer I can think of is they don’t want to do anything that would aid Trump 2024.
It means Biden won’t win the nomination at least JC. That’s a win.
30 seconds in and the bloke in blue is a lying c-bomb. Dice has chimed in.
@markdice
1 hour ago
If you’re gonna have this guy on the show, should have made him keep both hands in plain view. Lord knows what he’s doing under the desk.
“You Sound Ridiculous!” – Ex CNN Reporter Calls Tucker Carlson Shameful
I dunno if you realize, but that’s Jeffrey Toobin. Toobin was a commenter and full time employee at CNN. He was seen on Zoom jerking and “relieving” himself, believing the camera was off. He was fired.
Yes.
Sitting in the saloon bar on B Deck of The Titanic enjoying a tequila sunrise.
To ensure they aren’t reinstated?
Gotta love the Nullarbor. No starlings. No Tay Tay.
Dai Le looks great.
She could give most of the others some tips on style & deportment.
I hope she wears the Australian flag dress in parliament again at an appropriate time.
At first glance this looks like a merging of movies with reality.
However, Titanic director James Cameron is himself a submersible designer. He’s made 33 dives onto the Titanic wreck, and been to the bottom of the Marianas Trench in the Pacific – at 11,000 metres, almost three times the depth of the crushed-up Coke can in the North Altantic – in a vessel he designed and built.
So, he’s probably worth listening to when he says (the Courier-Mail):
And:
Still. Inspirational.
Besides some questionable outfits I noticed an interesting correlation. Most of the women who believe vehemently in the climate change boondoggle also wore the flimsiest dresses, straps, no jackets or stoles. Canberra is a cold place in winter and heating is essential so seeing them so scantily dressed makes me think the Parliament House is well heated. Never mind the “carbon”.
I wonder what the people who can’t pay their electricity bill will say. Aren’t these the same people who tell poor pensioners to rug up?
*Atlantic*
That typo was inspirational.
He was a 61 year old white guy.
Clearly colour blind and in denial about his age.
I’m not an engineer. I am not a marine engineer or a shipwright either.
I have a question a layman like myself is bound to ask in light of this unfortunately predictable disaster.
Has anyone ever tried fluid*-filled multiple hulls for submersible vessels? They’re incompressible, right?**
Gotta make sure the hull won’t crack anyway, regardless of what might be reinforcing it.
* **Within limits!
Yep, Dai Le looked pretty good, and Jacquie Jacquie scrubbed up surprisingly well.
Note to older women with bingo wings – sleeves are your friend, pale colours against pale, mottled flesh look awful, and thin straps digging into flab – just no.
JCsays:
June 23, 2023 at 7:59 am
Steve trickler says:
June 23, 2023 at 7:53 am
30 seconds in and the bloke in blue is a lying c-bomb. Dice has chimed in.
I dunno if you realize, but that’s Jeffrey Toobin. Toobin was a commenter and full time employee at CNN. He was seen on Zoom jerking and “relieving” himself, believing the camera was off. He was fired.
G’day bloke. I know.
I must say Jacquie Lambie’s outfit looks better than a lot of the others.
I like Dai Le’s dress, I have a silk scarf in those colours that I bought in Vietnam.
Heard just before the crunchy implosion:
‘Is anyone a marine engineer?’
/George Costanza
Snap, Johanna.
Oh, no.
The submarine was just where it was, but the oceans rose around it!
If we don’t stop using fossil fuels yesterday then you can expect submarines to implode and ships to sink as sea levels rise above them all round the world!
At least he wasn’t wobbling about the roads on a $10,000 road bike.
“thing is I’m old enough to remember when men-only spaces were under attack from poli-fem
and how for a good portion of my life, my very being and essence have been in their cross-hairs
just like youse girly-girls are under attack right now
I’m calling this a learning-moment”
Umm, there’s nothing to learn. And what’s with the “youse” MT? Such collectivist claptrap, you’re sounding like Monty. You’re assuming all women think the same and that, collectively, we “lot” support laying siege to “men-only spaces”. Well, this woman doesn’t (and never has), and I’d hazard a good guess here that other woman here don’t. I don’t know any woman who does, in fact the women I know want men to have their own spaces. Sadly, I I do acknowledge that a small number of radical females do and have, almost always nauseatingly narcissistic, university educated, middle and upper middle class females, the same impressionable females who started at university ‘normal’, but whilst at university studied useless gender subjects such as the history of the history of lesbian* poetry in Mongolia, and then they leave university armed with a useless degree, pink hair, faux lesbianism, faux Marxism and go straight into the HR and marketing departments of corporations and government bureaucracies to then inflict their woke neo Marxist damage. It’s these women who are responsible for formulating and propagating gender rubbish, they’re the ones who’ve studied Judith Butler and other Marxist perverts, the same Marxist perverts who’ve bullshitted about how sex is a construct, about how there’s no difference whatsoever between the male and female brain, about how women can do anything a biological male can do, and all the other rubbish that’s emanated from queer gender gunk in universities, in the process all they’ve done is empower mentally disturbed, crazed, sinister, deviant autogynephile males, who get aroused sexually be putting on a frock, lipstick, and stating they’re women, yet still have their cocks dangling between their legs.
But back to men only spaces, if a woman does, mistakenly or purposely, enter a male only space, say a changeroom or toilet, to much mirth and mockery from the bewildered males in that male only space, do you reckon that the males in those spaces will immediately physically feel threatened by this woman? I somehow doubt it. Do you think that those males in the men only spaces will feel inside of them a sudden, rising, trembling, very evolutionary and biological fear antenna that there’s a distinct possibility of a dangerous, sinister, predatory threat in that changeroom from that “lost” woman? Again, I somehow doubt it. In fact, I reckon that the men in that changeroom or toilet will awkwardly and gently say to the woman, “umm love, are you lost? You’re in the wrong changeroom” or “umm love, if you want to urinate here, go ahead but we’ll point you in the right direction to the female only toilet for next time”. Do you think that there’d be a sudden rush of men wanting to leave that space upon seeing a female in there? No. However, if I walk into a female only space and I see or I hear a male voice, there’s no bewilderment, there’s no awkwardness, there’s no way I’d go up to any male, even one wearing a dress, and say “umm, are you lost?”, NO. I’ll tell you what would happen and that is that I’d immediately depart that space..pronto…and I can safely say that every other woman I know, on this site and elsewhere, would do the same. We won’t be hanging around. And I’d be particularly scared if I saw some male frolicking about in a women’s only space in a frock, because here’s the blunt truth, it isn’t normal and that male is 100% a mentally disturbed, sexual deviant and in all likelihood, a sexual predator. We aren’t talking about those few males who’ve undertaken surgery, had their cocks cut off and so on, yes, a man without a cock is less dangerous than a man with a cock but any biological male, cock or cockless, poses a physical threat to women and children in a women’s only space.
So, back to your statement above that “just like youse girly-girls are under attack right now. I’m calling this a learning-moment“…whilst I can understand your anger and frustration MT, there’s nothing to learn. It’s just an inconvenient fact that as an adult human female, my biology, my body, puts me at more risk of sexual assault than any male. It’s just a fact, stating this fact doesn’t make me a misandrist or some radical hairy old lesbian* (I’m neither)…read my lips..
I love men.
* Having spoken to a few old hairy lesbians at the Let Women Speak rally here in Sydney in March of this year, I can attest that they are actually very nice, mostly harmless, and more than a few are taking several red, white and blue pills, because as one said to me, after fifty years of voting left (since Goof), she now votes Liberal.
Finally….
Transwomen aren’t women.
Rant over!
At the Midwinter Ball Jana Stewart wearing an Optus dress. The info blurb states that “she is a proud mutthi mutthi and chumba wumba woman”. Mutti is a pasta sauce. She has scored a trifecta. 😀
Greta Thumbnail has commented. She said that global warming induced sea level rise caused the sub to go deeper than it would thereby causing the implosion. Sounds about right
Very smart and sensible comment (yes, it is what I am talking about: I in the old Y = C + I + G + X – M chestnut). That’s why the infamous Keynesian multiplier k rarely exceeds 1, is usually less than one and can be zero or negative. At best, it will just crowd out private investment.
The irony of telling someone to touch grass when they’re having a fever dream about Keynes’ toy model of the real world is sad and hilarious.
Do you think it is substantially different in our own state of Vic?
sluggate, Lawyer X, red shirts, hotel quarantine debacle, kid on a bicycle, etc.
Someone is going to have to do something pretty, pretty special to knock off the clubhouse leader in this year’s Darwin Awards.
No no.. they’re not after your kids.
https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/06/19/four-kids-found-hidden-in-filthy-south-boston-apartment-where-a-man-died/
We have reached consensus with three commenters now remarking approvingly on Dai Le’s dress.
I believe Musk said it was now recognised as a slur and also that harassment would lead to accounts being suspended.
From that I take it that an account can be suspended for using the expression ‘cis’ if done to harass, but there there are countless other ways to harass – we know because the left has devised them.
If, on the other hand, you were use the word without harassing someone (such as commenting that Twitter now sees it as a slur) then it would be fine.
The left are insisting on saying the word has been banned so they can accuse Musk of hypocrisy.
And also because banning is what they do so it is how they interpret the acts of others.
Britain has seen an extra 100,000 heart attack and stroke deaths since the pandemic, British Heart Foundation claims
NHS Director of End-of-Life “Care” confirms Doctors lied about COVID being Cause of Death to create illusion of a Pandemic
Gosh that El Niño is taking a while to kick in around these parts.
25mm overnight and that takes the monthly total to 75mm.
My deceiving eyes have seen a wet & cold June instead of the very real, dry and warm BoM (climate modelled) forecasting reality.
I must be dreaming.
Whistleblower Reveals Hunter Biden Demanded Payment From His Chinese Business Associate Over Text Message – While Joe Biden Was Sitting Next to Him!
It is not the meaning of the word, per se. But the intent and feeling that accompanies it.
It is not the wire that kills, but the current.
metastasizing bureaucracy: randi goes to DHS
more adventures in safety as tyranny
Yep, the US second amendment means nothing now. They had an opportunity to nip this whole thing in the bud in 2020 by voting for Trump in overwhelming numbers to beat the cheat. The summer of riots was a clear indicator what was in store for all of them. Since they couldn’t be bothered they got what they deserved.
Australia’s Ultimatum: Elon Musk’s Twitter Has 28 Days to Combat ‘Online Hate’ or Face Hefty Fines
Shocking show at the Midwinter ball.
The amount of crappy tailoring which the men seem happy to wear is bewildering. A suit is a suit of armour, it’s a knockout chance to look smashing, why slob around?
And ladies- if you’re looking down at the camera, you’ve been trapped. Keep walking, don’t stop halfway on a staircase.
The Cultural Tide Is Continuing to Turn, Just as Predicted
Inspirational, even.
Sooo, after yesterday’s media performance of filling the front page(s) wiv hope and it ain’t over until the big wave splashes we get this morning the “massive” explosion theory .. why am I a cynic and think they’ve gone with “instant, never felt a thing” death to absolve themselves from the ridiculous ‘there is still hope” mutterings of yesterday ..
Today’s media is an absolute disgrace ever since their wholehearted support of gummint BAT FLU “initiatives” and compliant reporting on what was actually happening to folk via plod “enforcement” tactics the media has prostituted itself for gummint dollars ………
The Victoriastan justice system has been unfit for purpose for years, possibly decades. The Chairman making full use of it. No surprise Pell came out of it.
Mid Winter ball reminds us politics is show business for ugly people.
It’s no theory.
They found itsy-bitsy pieces of the death-can.
This is not a “That’ll buff out” moment.
Bit like the COVID shots then?
BTW, the possibility of a catastrophic implosion has been canvassed since Monday.
What’s the old saying. ‘Politics is Hollywood for ugly people’
The weather chick on Sydney’s Channel 7 keeps reminding viewers that the warm El Niño winter is just around the corner.
INSPIRATION
Maybe the sole purpose of your life was to serve as a warning to others.
…
(With apologies to Despair.com wall posters).
So woke kiddies next time you are building a submersible remember, Physics, its not just a good idea, its the Law!
Non-resilient hard materials’ tiny downside.
Cop this.
Leaked staff training video from the Submersible Company.
And a fourth. In case back up is required.
And Jana Stewart’s dress? (The ‘Optus’ dress mentioned above?) I worry that our political caste have so little imagination that they directly lift ideas from the US (as in AOC’s “Eat the Rich” dress, because her “Don’t Pay the People Who Make Your Gimmick Dresses” dress was at the cleaners) and think would not notice.
Being such a type of politician must be, when entering a crowd, a bit like walking into a the games area of an RSL: people’s eyes all rolling like the reels in the pokies.
FMD, it’s cold at Eighty Mile Beach this morning! I come here to escape the Perth winter but the mornings are very cold at the moment. Thank God for that big heater in the sky, the afternoons are high 20’s or early 30’s.
We have reached consensus with three commenters now remarking approvingly on Dai Le’s dress.
Pity she doesn’t pay that much attention to her day job! .. emailed her office 10 dayz ago over an energy pricing issue .. promised to get back to me within 72 hours .. haven’t heard a word since ………!
Elon needs to simply pull the plug on Australia and Morrisson’s Stalinist freak commissar.
The dent in income would be unnoticeable but the warning to Government fascists who believe themselves untouchable would be seismic.
Midwinter Ball question- where were the old “we exude power” couple, Chloe Bryce-Whatsherfirsthusbandsname and Bill Shorten?
Where was Shorten’s new squeeze, Rabz?
Bespoke-
wanna look at this pup for me? I’ll palm you some e-cash
Emails are well down on the priority list for electorate office staff, but they have to respond to written letters. Always send a letter by registered mail if you want attention.
Note to older women with bingo wings – sleeves are your friend, pale colours against pale, mottled flesh look awful, and thin straps digging into flab – just no.
Cruel, but so correct.
One of the most unpleasant nights spent without a single hours sleep was a fishing trip there in the late 80s. The reason why there are big boxes full of camping sh1t is you need lots of it. A hole on the beach will not suffice.
Hard to do much with flab.
Wally. It is bad form to take your girlfriend to the ball. Unless you’re are an idiot and the taxpayer will pick up the tab. So I guess it’s surprising it doesn’t happen more often.
Advertising space?
As referred to above, Henry Ergas is being a bit convuluted this week, but here’s the best bit of his column on Katy Gallagher’s schemings in the Brittany Higgins affair:
Her initial target was, of course, the Morrison government; to that end, she sought to convert the allegations into a political trial, as Otto Kirchheimer classically defined it in Political Justice (1961): that is, a trial which, while “riding roughshod over the defendant’s rights, squeezes propaganda value from distortions of actual events, in an effort to bring disrepute upon a political foe”.
But this was not simply a political trial; it was to be a show trial. That term can be used advisedly, for it is the essence of a show trial that instead of allowing the normal investigative and adjudicative processes to run their course, it seeks to stage a Manichean morality play pitting good against evil, with the defendant – regardless of individual guilt or innocence – serving as the scapegoat for the vice being demonised: in this instance, the alleged sins #MeToo was assailing.
Harnessing the power and prestige of the state to erase the presumption of innocence and tilt the balance against the defendant, show trials are rituals of vengeance, staged not for the benefit of justice but to fuel the bloodlust of the mob.
It is hard to think of anything more starkly at odds with Hannah Arendt’s precept that the foundation of the rule of law is “the principle of personal culpability: the requirement that no defendant be held responsible for the wrongs of others”.
But Gallagher’s disregard for the norms of parliamentary democracy didn’t stop there. There is every reason to believe she misled parliament, which has been regarded as a serious offence since at least 1806, when the principle of ministerial accountability was cemented. And although the episode remains shrouded by the secrecy in which the government has enveloped it, she seems to have been implicated in an ex gratia payment to Higgins.
There too, the Westminster conventions are unambiguous. Such payments can, in narrow circumstances, be legitimate; but it has long been accepted that favours dispensed for political services rendered raise serious concerns.
Too little is known about the payment to Higgins to assess its legitimacy; for precisely that reason, the principle of publicity, which since Edmund Burke’s great campaign for the Economical Reform Act of 1795, requires that the government, when pressed, comprehensively account for any such payments, should have come fully into play. But despite her responsibility as Finance Minister for propriety in the use of public funds, Gallagher has adamantly refused to provide the transparency taxpayers can expect and demand.
And as if all that were not bad enough, Gallagher has now compounded her errors by branding Bruce Lehrmann a rapist, just as defamation proceedings centred on that charge are under way, as is an official inquiry into the decision to press charges. Perhaps that will work for her: after all, she played a vital role in creating the atmosphere in which there was intense political pressure for Lehrmann to be prosecuted – and her conduct was rewarded by high ministerial office.
But Kirchheimer’s warning, informed by his decades of experience, should echo in her ears. “Justice in political matters,” he wrote, “is the most ephemeral of all divisions of justice; a turn of history may undo its work.” As history turns, Katy Gallagher’s strategy is turning to dust – and her reputation with it.
Oz
Basket of deplorables.
Bud Light: ‘Please Drink Our Beer Again, You Oafish Hicks’ (22 Jun)
Maybe Bud is trying to attract a better class of customers than um, beer drinkers.
Plibbers turned up with her son – a tall gangly fellow who dressed his age rather than the occasion.
Maybe he has seen enough to have become prematurely jaded and did not want to be lumped together with so many poseurs, misanthropes, spivs, parasites, and petty Machiavellian princes.
Oh, and Bob Kat in the Hat.
Bloody hell!
I just finished scrolling through the pictures of attendees at the Mid-Winter Testicle.
There were some horrible sights. And that was just the blokes!
How come Blabbersack didn’t have the dealer on her flabby arm?
I enjoy watching 50 s and 60’s videos about Oz.
Sure, they were often propaganda and production was usually awful but the enthusiasm, pride and belief in the future screamed positive people.
It’s fun also to witness the pride with which new engineering or agricultural projects were showcased. Most have been replaced or erased now, but the sense of wonder at the time is truly stimulating.
Come back Holden generation, we need your passion, belief and contempt for elitists, whingers, bludgers and whimps.
Gluing yourself to the Pacific Highway of the period would not have been a recommended form of protest.
You can’t choose your family.
That’s what Young Liars is for. Look out if Peanut Head turns up at camp.
from the news..
US navy detected an ‘anomaly’ that was likely the Titan’s implosion
The AP reports:
The Navy went back and analyzed its acoustic data after the Titan submersible was reported missing Sunday. That anomaly was ‘consistent with an implosion or explosion in the general vicinity of where the Titan submersible was operating when communications were lost,’ according to the senior Navy official. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive acoustic detection system. The Navy passed on the information to the Coast Guard, which continued its search.
So most of the search for the last couple of days has been theatre.
If I have to go the bottom of the sea, please don’t make me go in something that looks like it was cobbled together with a few trips to Bunnings.
* Quarter of a mil?
” Oh, I PAY you”.
When your vote doesn’t count because of cheating, plod making false claims in court (duk), tax departments making rules to suit the circumstances either way, courts stacked with political appointments, police able to access your computer to add or delete content which may result in a conviction, government putting people in charge with no knowledge of the brief, employing more staff to do nothing, encouraging deviants for access to your children, courts applying the limp lettuce penalty because of political connections, locking up people on trumped up charges, demanding we respect other right to free speech when they demand we shut up, paying people to sit on their collective arses being paid coz not fair, taking more tax because you can’t control your spending, making laws with no understanding of the ramifications, dumbing down education coz little johnnie is a dumb sh*t and will only amount to being a stop go man at road works (someone has to do it and now pays a motza) but instead now qualifies to be a political advisor, having mp’s that are dumb sh* t’s that reqire said stop go man to advise them. Just scratching the surface. The only way anything is going to change is down the barrel of a gun. It won’t come from an unhinged person but from someone with nothing left that loves his family and country and fellow man. I cannot believe what has become of the world.
My God this whole stinks to high heaven.
It’s Victoria, Jake.
Jana Stewart missed an opportunity there.
A writer at the gruinaid has written seeking Dots advice…
Help her Doty one Dotknobi, you are her only hope.
I have been in a loving relationship for three years. When I first met him, I told a close friend that I thought I’d met the love of my life. That initial infatuation gave way to a more realistic affection, but he’s smart, handsome and caring. I enjoy our time together and feel secure and trusting.
Sexually, things were enjoyable at the beginning. That calmed down into a less frantic dynamic but we still have sex once per week.
I am kinky and he is not. We have discussed this and he doesn’t feel comfortable doing the things that I enjoy. Initially I thought this would be OK – relationships always have compromise – but as time has gone on I am not sure it is something I can forgo. He has made clear that an open relationship would not be acceptable to him.
I have an anonymous online profile on a kink dating site. I started talking with someone who shared my interests. We met, and the sexual encounter was satisfying to a level I have never experienced before. We have continued to meet on a weekly basis for six months. Neither party knows about the other.
I do not want to end my relationship, but I cannot live without this aspect of my sexuality. I feel guilt about being unfaithful but exploring in this way has enabled me to stay in the relationship.
Should I leave my partner because of the gap between our sexual tastes? Should I give up my kink desires for what is otherwise a relationship I would have no reason to leave?
Poor chap, death by cucking…
And even the bits which where fit for purpose submarine materials were used, he has played fast and loose with them.
Example. Using an acrylic window certified to 1300 metres, but aiming to go to triple that depth.
Apparently it “would give a warning before it failed” by making a noise.
Pity if the gap between noise and failure is 0.01 of a second.
Apparently that was his monitoring system for the whole thing – wait until you hear cracking noises.
I feel sorry for the 17 year old who trusted his father’s judgement.
The other four basically committed suicide.
Coast Guards and similar organisations have a legal duty to conduct search and rescue missions in such situations. Given the publicity, it’s unlikely they would have called the search off without further evidence that a catastrophic implosion made any rescue effort redundant.
Please Explain latest. A beauty!
Indeed. SA Tourism could have advertised “Come visit Mamungkukumpurangkuntjunya Hill!” and still had room.
By feelz.
Inspirational feelz.
The submersible implosion was probably detected by the sosus bouys laid to detect Russian subs since the 70’s.
The ferret could not resist the bait.
My advice…
NOAH, GET THE BOAT!
She’s not a slut, she’s a cheat and that’s worse. This is why we should not have no-fault divorce.
“OH, MY HUSBAND WAS OPPRESSING ME, HE REFUSED TO HAVE AN OPEN MARRIAGE! GIVE ME A KENNON ADJUSTMENT ON OUR SETTLEMENT! MY RAGIN’ SEXUAL EXPRESSION WAS VIOLENTLY AND HARMLESSLY OPPRESSED BY HIS HURTFUL WORDS!”
Somewhat safe for work, no, probably not.
Tame Impala – The Less I Know The Better
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBzrzS1Ag_g
[Scurries back to wagie cage].
Please Explain:
Oh yes. Yes, indeedy yes. A belter.
A commie reviews Dots favorite movie..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHeQeHstrsc
“Please Explain”.
Hahaha – the skits are getting bigger.
Reminds me of a song.
Areff I loved the Chinatown reference. One of the best movies made.
The depravity of this criminal gang is incredible.
Thanks for the Osaka recommendation ML
K. Gallagher.
Nothing to see.
Well, what a surprise.
Knuckles I note the quality of the bonhomie has improved, is this inline with the quality of the poorly cooked smallgoods (packages tongues)?
It was bad. Now it’s worse.
Luigi the dried cane toad skin smoker has come up with this doozey.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, says a yes vote for the Indigenous voice to parliament will save money by helping to design more cost-effective programs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Get that, introducing a fully funded shadow government at the state/federal/local level will SAVE money!
Indigenous leaders from the Northern Territory came to Canberra on Thursday to urge Australians to listen to their “heart” to support the referendum, saying the voice would help address health, education and housing issues in their communities.
….
Titanic submarine tours level of mongdom.
In a WSFM interview, Albanese painted the voice as a cost-saving measure, saying it would help ensure public funds were “spent better and more efficiently”.
“Everyone knows there’s been billions of dollars expended on [Indigenous] education, health and housing. Governments of all persuasions have, with the best of intentions, expended a lot of taxpayers’ money trying to close that gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia,” the prime minister said. “But the truth is that in so many areas, it’s not going forward, it’s going backwards.”
Have you considered, and I know this is radical, actually stopping whats not working, defining it, and ensuring it is not done again?
..
“It will simply be an advisory body, just like we have a range of other advisory bodies. But this will be a special one, because it will be listening to people who are the original owners of the land that we share with them.”
Because 1000+ various Aboriginal bodies arent enough.
….
Big-spender looks forward to signing the blank cheque.
Allegra Spender, the member for Wentworth and co-convener of the parliamentary friends of the Uluru statement, said she expected the voice would “help me make better decisions” as a politician.
Just a moment with the slut shaming Dot.
Do we know the kink freak is female?
“I enjoy watching 50 s and 60’s videos about Oz.
Sure, they were often propaganda and production was usually awful but the enthusiasm, pride and belief in the future screamed positive people.
It’s fun also to witness the pride with which new engineering or agricultural projects were showcased. Most have been replaced or erased now, but the sense of wonder at the time is truly stimulating.
Come back Holden generation, we need your passion, belief and contempt for elitists, whingers, bludgers and whimps.
Gluing yourself to the Pacific Highway of the period would not have been a recommended form of protest.”
Me too. You watch those videos and you can’t help but notice what an optimistic and very homogenous people Australians were then. As for that “generation” coming back, alas it won’t happen. That generation is gone, for good, they’re now relics in a museum, and for that you can blame chronic welfare, social dysfunction, big government, propaganda in education, collapse of religion and far too many young people going to university, all of which has contributed to an Australia where elitists, whingers, bludgers and wimps run amok, particularly in our political, media, entertainment and academic classes.
Just compare the BHP adverts of only thirty years ago to the adverts now. Chalk and cheese.
PFFFT…HAHAHA!
I would put Titanic tourism in the same box as skydiving. Either your parachute opens – or it doesn’t. “He died doing what he liked best.” I guess people say the same thing about motorcycling. Each to his or her own.
Well said!
I thought it was down to the systemic racism
Do you need one for the other?
“Note to older women with bingo wings – sleeves are your friend, pale colours against pale, mottled flesh look awful, and thin straps digging into flab – just no.”
Yes, well said Johanna.
Holy snapping cow clams batman…
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65971791
Turkey has hiked its main interest rate from 8.5% to 15%, reversing one of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s unorthodox economic policies. The 6.5-point rise was far lower than economists were expecting, but it marked a major shift in policy by his new economic team brought in to tackle rampant inflation.
….
Although the increase almost doubles Turkey’s policy rate to 15%, it is far less than many economists had forecast. US-based investment bank Morgan Stanley had suggested it would go up to 20%, while Goldman Sachs said it could hit 40%.
“I would put Titanic tourism in the same box as skydiving. Either your parachute opens – or it doesn’t. “He died doing what he liked best.” I guess people say the same thing about motorcycling. Each to his or her own”.
Probably thought the odds were better than has been proven.
You probably wouldn’t go skydiving with a bloke who’s just designed his own experimental parachute but…
Innovator or maverick? One man will be blamed for Titan disaster
Stockton Rush saw himself as an oceanic Captain Kirk; willing to risk all to explore the planet’s last frontier, the deepest ocean. But he cast safety aside in his push for innovation. In many ways, his is a chronicle of disaster foretold.
By ANNE BARROWCLOUGH
A difficult week has ended in unspeakable tragedy, with OceanGate Expedition’s Titan submersible confirmed lost in the early hours of Friday morning (AEST), after a catastrophic implosion less than two hours into its voyage to the Titanic.
Recriminations have already begun, amid calls for tighter regulation of this commercial field of oceanic exploration; with just one person at the centre of blame for the calamity that took place in one of the darkest, coldest, most inhospitable regions of the North Atlantic.
In many ways, his is the chronicle of a disaster foretold.
Stockton Rush, 61, the founder and chief executive of OceanGate Expeditions and one of the victims of the Titan disaster, was a passionate entrepreneur who saw himself as a modern-day Jacques Cousteau or even a kind of oceanic Captain Kirk; one of the few men in this world willing to risk all to explore the planet’s last frontier – the deepest reaches of the ocean.
In an ironic twist, he has familial connections to the Titanic; his wife Wendy’s great great grand parents, Isidor Straus – the owner of Macy’s department store, and his wife Ida were two of the Titanic’s 1500 victims.
But his enthusiasm for breaking boundaries turned him from an inspirational entrepreneur to a maverick, willing to forgo safety standards in his drive to reach farther than anyone before him dared to go.
Killed along with Rush was experienced French oceanographer Paul-Henri Nargeolet – one of the OceanGate team – and British billionaire Hamish Harding, UK-based businessman Shahzada Dawood and his teenage son, Suleman, who paid up to $US250,000 ($369,660) each for the thrill of the ride.
Titan, in which Rush was the pilot on its current expedition, almost certainly imploded on Sunday evening (AEST) either at the time of or shortly after losing contact with its mothership, the Polar Prince, one hour and 45 minutes into its dive to the wreck of the Titanic. The crew, mercifully, would have died instantly.
Oceanographic and submarine experts, while devastated, aren’t surprised the tragedy happened.
“It makes me angry,” retired navy commander Frank Owen tells Inquirer. Owen, a former director of the Australian submarine escape and rescue project, says it is almost certain that the material used for the hull – carbon fibre – caused the implosion.
“This is a failure of the hull,” he says. “Nothing else. They used strain gauging sensors to measure the strains on the hull and give them warning of failure. But when carbon fibre is failing at 3,800 metres that system gives them no notice; it would show 20 milliseconds before failure.
“Carbon fibre doesn’t give any indication it’s going to fail until it does,” he says, adding: “I’m a risk taker but I would have been very cautious about going on board this vessel.”
Owen, along with most other experts, is scathing of Rush’s cavalier habit of sacrificing safety for, as the OceanGate CEO described it, “pushing innovation” – an attitude they believe probably contributed to Titan’s failure.
“He deliberately decided not to use the conventional way of licensing the vehicle because it ‘gets in the way’,” Owen says, referencing the 2018 decision by OceanGate to reject an industry standard safety certification for the Titan, on the basis it would slow down the innovation process.
While the first three submersibles that OceanGate developed have gone on dozens of dives without incident, Titan, their fourth and most sophisticated sub, has been mired in controversy and litigation almost from the start.
In 2018, Rush sacked his marine director, David Lochridge, after the experienced oceanographer raised warnings about serious flaws in the Titan.
In a chilling prediction of what was to come, Lochridge’s concerns outlined in a devastating report included fears that “visible flaws” in the carbon fibre hull raised the risk of small flaws expanding into larger tears; that hazardous flammable material was being used in the craft; and that – as Owen has said – the acoustic systems installed to detect serious flaws in the submersible would show only at point of failure.
Court papers filed in 2018 state that the system “would only show when a component is about to fail – often milliseconds before an implosion – and would not detect any existing flaws prior to putting pressure onto the hull”.
That same year, the Marine Technology Society wrote to Rush outlining the risks the company was taking over safety, warning the company’s “current experimental approach” could result in “catastrophic outcomes”. MTS president Will Kohnen told CNN that if the company had certified the Titan, “some of this may have been avoided”.
“There are 10 submarines in the world that can go 12,000 feet and deeper,” Kohnen said. “All of them are certified except the Oceangate submersible.”
In a 2019 blog post defending his decision not to certify the sub, Rush wrote that classifying innovative designs often requires multiyear approval process “which gets in the way of rapid innovation” – an argument Owen refutes. The submarine expert, who worked on the development of Australia’s Remora rescue sub, says the process takes weeks at most.
Alfred Scott McLaren, a retired US Navy submariner who has twice dived on submersibles to view the Titanic, also believes the Titan’s design raised “structural concerns”, because as well as carbon fibre, the hull was made with titanium. “They have different coefficients of expansion and compression, and that works against keeping a watertight bond,” he told the New York Times.
“I’ve had three people ask me about making a dive on (Titan). And I said, ‘Don’t do it.’ I wouldn’t do it in a million years,” he said.
Bart Kemper, principal engineer with Kemper Engineering Services in Louisiana, describes the development of Titan as “experimental with no oversight”, which is not typical of industry practice.
“These are literally the things that keep us up at night because we don’t want to be responsible for one of these stories,” Kemper told the Toronto Sun.
Rush, 61, graduated from Princeton in 1984 with a degree in aerospace engineering, before working as a flight test engineer of the F-15 program. His poor eyesight meant the end of his dream to become an astronaut, and after Richard Branson launched the first commercial aircraft into space he had an “epiphany.”
“I had this epiphany that this was not at all what I wanted to do,” Rush told the Smithsonian magazine. “I didn’t want to go up into space as a tourist. I wanted to be Captain Kirk on the Enterprise. I wanted to explore.”
He founded OceanGate in 2009, in part to bring rich thrillseekers to historic wreck sites but also to help scientists and researchers unravel the mysteries of the ocean by offering better access to the sea floor.
He frequently boasted of “breaking rules” in the construction of the Titan. In an interview with a Mexican blogger last year, he boasted: “I’d like to be remembered as an innovator. I think it was General MacArthur who said, ‘You’re remembered for the rules you break’ and you know I’ve broken some rules to make this.”
He told journalist David Pogue in an interview last year: “At some point, safety just is pure waste.
“I mean, if you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed. Don’t get in your car. Don’t do anything.” Pogue joined an expedition to the Titanic but it ended after just 35 minutes after mechanical failure.
In another interview Rush derided the industry’s “obscenely safe” regulatory process, insisting, again, it stood in the way of innovation.
A German thrill seeker who travelled on a Titan expedition in 2021 described it as a “suicide mission.” Arthur Loibl told Bild newspaper: “The first submarine didn’t work, then a dive at 1,600 meters had to be abandoned. “My mission was the fifth, but we also went into the water five hours late due to electrical problems.”
Rush’s ‘innovation over caution’ attitude was tellingly revealed in a conversation with a representative at Teledyne Marine, a marine technology company, in 2020. Rush told the rep he didn’t want to hire “ex-military submariners … 50-year-old white guys,” preferring “younger, more inspirational” staff.
“The older white guys are the ones who would have seen the bumps in the road,” Owen, an ex-military submariner points out. “Otherwise it’s all bright ideas, no substance.”
Owen says Rush’s egoism and carelessness with safety was demonstrated by his decision to pilot Titan himself on this last dive, although he was by no means the best or most qualified person on the team for that job. “He probably wanted to impress the rich guests,” he says disparagingly. “Hoped they’d put money into his venture. But controlling a submersible is much harder than just pushing the controls of an X-box.”
The passengers on board the last, fatal descent, were required to sign a waiver that might have suggested to them the danger in which they were placing themselves. They were asked to accept that the sub “has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body, and could result in physical injury, disability, emotional trauma or death”.
In a haunting reminder of history, James Cameron, the filmmaker of the blockbuster movie Titanic, and a builder of deep sea submersibles, says he’s struck by the similarity of the disaster with the Titanic sinking in 1912, when the captain ignored repeated warnings about ice only to steam full speed into an ice field on a moonless night.
“This is a similar tragedy at the same exact site,” he told ABC America. “It is astonishing, quite surreal.’’
Will this be the end of commercial deep sea exploration? Owen believes not. “Tighter regulation will happen but there will always be people who want to explore the deepest ocean, to understand the seabed, an area less explored than space,” he says. “There will be more journeys.”
Oz
Given the un-upholstered shit pipe’s internal volume, it probably wouldn’t have been much louder than a sperm whale’s bottom burp.
Melting snowflakes news.
Iowa weatherman quits, citing PTSD from threats over ‘liberal’ climate coverage (22 Jun)
The 18-year TV veteran, who joined the CBS affiliate in 2021, told the newspaper he was inundated with “harassing” emails calling him an “idiot” for his “liberal conspiracy theory on the weather” which had him “pushing nothing but a Biden hoax.”
“I was not sleeping,” Gloninger said. “I had bags under my eyes.”
Some of the commenters asked for his address while others vowed to give him “an Iowan welcome you will never forget,” according to the Washington Post.
Another troll angrily urged Gloninger to “go east and drown from the ice cap melting.”
The messages took a toll on Gloninger, who started seeing a therapist and sought treatment for PTSD.
When one of the angry messages appeared in his inbox, he rushed home from the hair salon where his wife was waiting alone and suggested to her that they call the police, according to the Washington Post.
Police in Iowa located a man in the town of Lenox, 63-year-old Danny H. Hancock, who was found to have been the one who sent the threatening messages.
Hancock was slapped with a $150 fine, according to the Iowa Capital Dispatch.
Guys like Mr Gloninger have been scaring the pants off kids for the whole of this century so far, leading to rising depression, self harm and misery. All for no reason at all. But when they’re called out they go waahhh! and run to mummy. Maybe he should learn to code or something.
From the link to the ball:
Hahahahahahahahaha! You couldn’t make that shit up!
Skydiving – why the fark would you want to jump out of an airplane that is going to get you on the ground?
Scuba diving – why the fark would you bait sharks?
As the wind and sleet combine to form a dismal view outside my kitchen window, a man’s mind turns to proper butcher savs – not those donkey dick, shit sticks sold in Colesworth.
Our local blokes put pepper in the mix and I put a bit of tomato sauce with lots of mustard into the sav split. Butter your bun as well – no dry rasping with savs.
Both skydiving and scuba diving are exhilarating sports. Scuba especially shows you beautiful aspects of the oceans that are difficult to see otherwise – snorkelling is harder work and you see about 20% of what you can on scuba.
But the emphasis in both sports, if they’re taught correctly, is to understand how the equipment works, and there is much stress on making sure you ensure your own safety.
When was the last time a government or its agency been held to account for cost or efficacy of its programs.
Even now there will be genius initiatives just summoned into being that are required to deal with the mess created by earlier initiatives which are still funded and running and thus still making a mess that the new initiative will continue addressing. The nett sum of these two will be a new mess that will demand a new initiative a little down the road which will be announced with great fanfare as a way to have a bit of a dig at ‘the other guys’.
A top secret military acoustic detection system designed to spot enemy submarines first heard what the US Navy suspected was the Titan submersible implosion hours after the vehicle began its mission, officials involved in the search have revealed.
The Navy began listening for the Titan almost as soon as the sub lost communications, a US defence official told the Wall St Journal. Shortly after the submersible’s disappearance on Sunday, the US system detected what it suspected was the sound of an implosion near the debris site and reported its findings to the commander on site, defence officials told the newspaper
“The US Navy conducted an analysis of acoustic data and detected an anomaly consistent with an implosion or explosion in the general vicinity of where the Titan submersible was operating when communications were lost,” a senior US Navy official said in a statement. “While not definitive, this information was immediately shared with the Incident Commander to assist with the ongoing search and rescue mission.”
and
However it appears that the catastrophic loss of the sub may have happened around the time that the craft lost contact with the mother ship around an hour and 45 minutes after beginning their descent on Sunday.
If this is the case it may give comfort to grieving families that their loved ones died instantly, rather than perishing over a period of days due to lack of oxygen or through carbon monoxide poisoning.
Oz
Young Mr Biden keeps on showing depths of character that I didn’t know could exist on this planet.
Hunter Biden was member of an elite LA sex club SNCTM – but was kicked out for being a ‘scumbag’, says founder, who’s now been banned from party he founded for breaking confidentiality rules to ID president’s son (Daily Mail, 23 Jun, via Lucianne)
Getting kicked out of an elite sex club for scumbaggery is a real achievement. Some of the stuff on his laptop is pretty out there too. It’s a wonder he had any time at all to panhandle foreign countries for bribes and to sit on company boards.
Lotocoti, sonar can hear whales fart.
Yes. And the USN wouldn’t have been able to say what the “anomaly” was precisely.
I am guessing they don’t have an extensive audio library of imploding home-built death traps.
Captain Cook was the oceanic Captain Kirk and the inspiration for the latter.
Stockton Rush was no Captain Cook.
…and I knew Captain Cook!
Yep. A real problem when you get the wrong sort of chap in the club. Doesn’t pay to be stingy with the black balls.
Looks like the dijk fingerers are going to get what they voted for, good and hard.
😀
Opinion
How transmission woes are frustrating the building of renewable energy
Australia’s transition to renewables is running out of time – and transmission lines – to meet the government’s 2030 target.
Jennifer Hewett – Columnist
Irrepressible green evangeliser Andrew Forrest may still be confident Australia can meet its target for 82 per cent renewable energy by 2030. In politics, federal Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen certainly can’t afford to be other than a believer, along with enthusiastic state government supporters.
But plenty of other key figures in the energy transition are sounding increasingly nervous if not downright incredulous about the ambition coinciding with the timetable.
This week’s warning by Daniel Westerman, chief executive of the Australian Energy Market Operator, about the lack of new renewable projects reaching final investment decision in the March quarter reflects some of the concerns spreading across the industry.
The ability to build more than 10,000 kilometres of transmission lines over the next seven years to start carrying all this additional renewable power looks more optimistic every day.
The CEOs of Australia’s biggest energy companies – Origin Energy, AGL and EnergyAustralia – all warn that extensive delays in building new transmission are threatening the expansion of renewable energy.
From disgruntled local communities opposing high voltage lines running near or through their properties, to shortages of materials and manpower, to other inevitable delays in approvals and construction, the rollout is firmly stuck in neutral rather than fast-forward.
Yet the closure of the traditional energy supply from coal-fired power stations is only accelerating while “firming” or dispatchable power options – such as gas, batteries and pumped hydro – needed to supplement more renewable energy are also not being built quickly enough at scale to compensate.
Westerman pointed to a strong pipeline of potential renewable generation projects proposed for the National Electricity Market, totalling more than 200 GW.
“But the crucial word here is ‘proposed’,” he told the Australian Energy Week conference. “Bringing these new projects to market and connecting them into the grid urgently is critical to ensure consumers continue to have reliable power when they need it.”
The need for new transmission lines to accommodate all these proposed sources of solar and wind power is certainly becoming increasingly obvious. Limiting the access of existing renewable generation to a heavily congested grid is up 40 per cent on a year ago and the major transmission links between states are “maxing out”, according to AEMO data.
The CEOs of Australia’s biggest energy companies – Origin Energy, AGL and EnergyAustralia – all warn that extensive delays in building new transmission are threatening the expansion of renewable energy.
It’s also another reason why Origin is facing increasing calls to defer its planned 2025 closure of its giant Eraring coal-fired power station that accounts for about 25 per cent of NSW’s energy requirements.
According to Origin chief executive Frank Calabria, it’s necessary to focus on getting approvals for the transmission infrastructure and sharing the benefits with local communities.
Compensation to landowners for putting the poles and wires on their properties has now increased to about $400,000 per kilometre but there’s still considerable community resistance to the whole concept of high voltage lines, including from property owners in the general neighbourhood.
Nationals leader David Littleproud held a predictable press conference this month with a delegation of farmers from north-western Victoria complaining transmission lines were destroying prime agricultural land and losing the social licence for renewables.
Then there’s the politically delicate question of who ends up paying for the cost of transmitting all that “free” renewable energy.
Energy Australia chief executive Mark Collette told The Australian Financial Review’s Energy Summit this month that the massive investment required should be front-loaded as much as possible this decade. He also acknowledged that investment needed a return.
“I think that is the phase we are entering into,” he said. “While individual renewable projects, particularly solar ones, may be much cheaper than the historic delivered cost of power, transmission is expensive with the potential for cost overruns. Firming, particularly pumped hydro, is expensive with the potential for cost overruns.”
Transgrid CEO Brett Redman is well-placed to understand that equation – and not only because the transmission network operator is responsible for linking the much delayed, technically challenged and dramatically over budget Snowy Hydro 2.0 pumped hydro scheme to the NSW grid.
Redman took up his role at Transgrid in late 2021 some months after abruptly quitting his chief executive role at AGL immediately after the board approved his much criticised – and now abandoned – plan to split the company.
Despite the massive changes in the energy market over the past two years, Redman maintains he’s still optimistic about the government’s 2030 timetable for 82 per cent renewable energy.
But he appreciates rebuilding the network is an expensive process as well as an incredibly complicated one. On Wednesday, Transgrid committed itself to spending $14 billion on 2500 kilometres of new transmission lines in NSW with connections to Queensland and Victoria over the next decade. Another $2.2 billion will go to ensuring grid stability given the greater volatility of renewables.
“Delay creates cost,” he told the energy conference. “It doesn’t save cost, it’s costing money. And delay means a delay in getting to the benefits as well.”
But although Transgrid likes to emphasise its modelling supposedly showing every single dollar spent on transmission will result in $2 of benefit for consumers, this doesn’t mean those extra costs won’t be passed on to customers. There’s certainly no prospect of any imminent bill relief with power prices for households and small businesses increasing by a further 20 to 25 per cent on average from July 1.
In a process requiring such massive investment over many years, it also seems likely retail energy bills will reflect the costs over at least that timeframe. According to KPMG modelling being cited by AEMO, there’s also a prospect of transmission projects costing up to 40 per cent more than currently estimated.
Chris Bowen won’t be the only politician hoping for better news from the energy market ASAP.
One of the sad things about the OceanGate disaster is it occurred only three days after this:
Richard Branson: Virgin Galactic commercial space flights to start this month (18 Jun)
Could not have happened at a worse time for Branson. Still at least he’s tested his vehicle much more rigorously, so maybe the adventure tourism types will look past the risks.
Like…nobody saw that coming.
Excluding the politics, the logistics are already “challenging”.
Broken Promises, Blame Games and Balconies
Interim report commissioned by the Office of the Building Commissioner
Foreword
This is an interim report about the defects experienced at the Otto 2 development in Rosebery, NSW.
The owners’ corporation recently accepted a substantial monetary settlement from the developer to enable it to attend to defects described in this report. We will conduct further enquiry over the coming year to observe the progress of the Otto 2 owners corporation in remediating the building’s defects and to record the ongoing proceedings that may have occurred since. Otto 2 provides some insights into the lived experience that many other apartment owners suffer in buildings with defects.
This report is our first case study. We have seen many comparable situations. There will be more case studies.
These will be used to help inform future reforms and to shine a light onto the roles that the many players involved have played. We will use these case studies to raise awareness and industry capability.
We will also look to hold developers accountable for their defects.
This report comes three years into the building reforms being implemented in NSW to lift the compliance of and public confidence in residential apartment buildings. At the start of this journey, the focus was on new builds.
That focus was expanded to legacy buildings with serious defects during 2022.
In response, Project Intervene was launched in November 2022. Using the 2021 NSW Residential Apartments (Compliance and Enforcement Powers) Act (NSW), Project Intervene specifically targets developers of buildings with legacy defects.
In 2021, research was conducted by the Office of the Building Commissioner (OBC) in collaboration with Strata
Community Association (NSW) into the incidence of serious defects in recently completed strata buildings across NSW.
We found that only 15 per cent of apartment building owners lodge a complaint with NSW Fair Trading
seeking assistance with defects.
It is acknowledged that the performance of NSW Fair Trading as regulator may not have been as effective in getting defects resolved in the past as may have been desirable. This is changing as new powers and capabilities are implemented.
Broken Promises, Blame Games and Balconies
Yes TE about the diving. I was being a bit fecal as Dorrie Evans would say.
Have snorkelled on the reef 30km off Port Douglas.
Old mate driving the boat said snorkel in the inner reef otherwise the current will take your body to Fiji. I got back on the boat toot sweet.
Opinion
The apartment project that turned into a $2.5m horror show
A case study of the Otto 2 building details the horrendous financial and emotional cost of skimping on building inspections and certification.
Jimmy Thomson – Contributor
It’s not often you can say an apartment project started with God on its side, encountered years of disputes, despair and dismay, but was then resolved by a higher power.
However, as related in an extensive case study ordered by NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler, that’s what happened at the Otto 2 apartment block in Rosebery, Sydney.
As Broken Promises, Blame Games and Balconies relates in granular detail, the development started as a plan by the Sydney Christian Life Centre to build a new church.
When that was blocked by community opposition, it was resurrected as a project to build two apartment blocks. The ensuing battles between owners and developers would be typical of the development mess that saw Chandler appointed in the first place.
The 33-page case study, published last week by the Office of the Building Commissioner (OBC), was written by Bronwyn Weir, a lawyer highly regarded for her expertise in building regulation and co-author of the influential Shergold Weir Report on the apartment development industry.
The resulting narrative is biblical in its scope. The project was ultimately passed on to Icon, a developer that would soon be in the public spotlight due to serious flaws in its Opal Tower building resulting in an emergency evacuation of residents.
There was soon also trouble at one of its two Otto towers, including accusations of delays in identifying multiple building defects, sacked strata managers and denial of responsibility and liabilities.
Against that there was the apartment purchasers’ determination to have defects rectified, vociferous and expensive legal battles and the developer going bust, it said, due to the resulting legal bills.
Although there had been issues with defects from when the building was completed in 2015, this David and Goliath battle really kicked off in 2018 when the owners in Otto 2 discovered the balcony balustrades were unsafe.
The following year engineers advised that residents above the first floor should be banned from going on to their balconies.
And so the saga rumbled on, resulting ultimately in a compromise payout for the owners, although the balconies were, according to the case study, still inaccessible as recently as February this year.
In the midst of this saga, the Residential Apartment Buildings (Compliance and Enforcement Powers) Act was brought in, allowing the OBC to step into defects disputes.
Meanwhile, the standards expected of certifiers were radically overhauled, making them more authoritative but, to investors’ possible concern, also considerably more expensive.
However, as he says in his foreword, Chandler believes the case study illustrates how an enhanced inspection and certification process pays for itself many times over.
He explains that the Otto 2 certifier who charged $41,000 for the work would now charge $340,000 under the current, more exacting standards. This would have increased the cost of certification from $300 per unit to $2377 per unit.
In comparison, by the time the dispute was settled the owners had spent more than $750,000 in legal and expert fees which, when added to the builders’ and developers’ fees in defending the case, brings the total ancillary cost to about $2.5 million, or $17,500 per unit, all up.
In other words, get it right at the start and you may save yourselves a lot of money and years of grief down the track.
The case study is essential reading for anyone involved in the apartment industry. It’s both a cautionary tale – a parable, if you like – and a blueprint for a better way of building apartments in the future.
Yet another example of lefties diluting genuine problems, thereby detracting from genuine cases.
PTSD? I don’t think so.
Real PTSD is what veterans of the World Wars, especially the first, came home with. It was then called ‘shell shock.’
These guys lived in filthy, muddy, cold trenches for months or longer, and watched their comrades get blown to pieces in front of them or get horribly maimed or die of very unpleasant diseases. There was no escape for them.
For an affluent, neurotic and entitled weather reporter whose feelings have been hurt to claim PTSD is a gross and offensive insult to those who actually experience/d it.
It was/is a living hell.
Ah, yes. A man after my own heart.
Mother Lodesays:
June 23, 2023 at 9:22 am
Plibbers turned up with her son – a tall gangly fellow who dressed his age rather than the occasion.
Is that the copper son currently facing charges, or another son?
Yes indeed Johanna.
It reminds me of the ‘reverse Cognitive Behavioral Therapy’ model – they are actually taught to be less sane, and damage their own minds.
Beat me to it, Wally. I was going to note that Teats wasn’t at the Tax Hoovers’ Sleaze Ball. Probably on the other side of the planet with the new squeeze, all at taxpayers’ expense, of course.
More of a Kransky sort of a snag connoisseur myself. The local deli had a line of “Ziggy’s Polish Wedding Sausage” which always seemed fascinating.
Now this is something you don’t see every day. A very large wheeled vehicle with a train on its back crossing a river where the bridge has washed away.
https://ok.ru/video/5386433923824
Tucker Carlson on Twitter: Episode 6 — Bobby Kennedy junior.
Top Ender thanks for those articles. Good engineering is indeed ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’!
But it is necessary to have people whose only service is to become a lesson to others. Failure investigation is a rich source of possible improvements; both in the physical engineering and the organisational issues.
I think the Australian version of ‘safetyism’ is a clown show wasting cost and opportunities on an epic scale. Hours catching up daily inspections and hazard reports into computer systems are a huge hidden cost. When you add in the damage and waste from government over-regulation we are doing collossal harm and calling it good. Why are those apartment balconies dangerous? Maybe because the wrong work was ticking boxes from design to occupation, and people were too busy to check the right things.
Speedbox, I reckon that’s a fake video.
Just read a story about Indian PM Modi hosting a Guiness Book of Records breaking yoga session outside the UN HQ in New York, with celebrities like Richard Gere by his side.
Readers may recall that when he was here, 20,000 people paid (including interstate airfares) to see and hear him.
He’s a master of PR, or at least the people he hired are. He says that the composition of the permanent members of UN Security Council (UK, France, USA, China, Russia) reflects a different era, and of course he is right.
As I have said many times, leaders of countries like Indonesia and India are so far above the hicks that run this place, it is embarrassing. Modi could run Australia after lunch on Wednesdays, and take the rest of the week off.
When I was growing up, Italians and Grik men argued loud and long about politics in cafes. Nowadays, I suspect that the growing Indian diaspora are doing the same. Indeed, there have been confrontations in Harris Park (Sydney) which is close to 100% Indian.
I know there has been some negative comment here about Indians coming from a low trust society, and a lot of that is true. But, I have met many Indians who are relieved not to be living in a low trust society, and want that for themselves and their children.
All of the Indians I have ever met like to travel a lot. They go ‘home’ regularly to visit friends and family, but they also like to travel within Australia. At the motel, we regularly get family groups of three generations stopping in on their way to wherever. And, can I say, the children are delightful, unlike the brats accompanying some of our lighter-skinned guests.
Speedy – Fascinating equipment and methods. The Trans-Siberian Railway must have a lot of that sort of thing! An amazing engineering feat. We have it lucky with the Indian Pacific, which goes though terrain not quite so challenged by weather like the Russians have.
Barking Toadsays: Old mate driving the boat said snorkel in the inner reef otherwise the current will take your body to Fiji. I got back on the boat toot sweet.
Your real name isn’t Lonergan is it?
For recent readers, here are the pictures from the Mid-Winter Ball.
Enjoy! 🙂
BoN it’s fake.
Getting kicked out of an elite sex club for scumbaggery is a real achievement
If the joint was anything like Plato’s Retreat, where the owner made an ill-advised decision to upholster everything in white velour, resulting in shotgun splatters of skid marks and the showcasing of various other secretions, that is indeed quite an achievement.
My word, Labor has changed. Arthur Calwell refused to wear a dinner jacket, play attire of the upper classes, and yet there were in at the Midwinter Ball, all gussied up as proud members of the ruling class (which of course they are)
I just encountered yet another commentator intoning “Morrisson made mistakes”, a cover up excuse nonsense of “Harry is damaged” proportions.
Morrisson did not make mistakes. His treasons were planned and calculated.
The question to be resolved is who was pulling his strings. My vote goes to the Turd. Morrisson’s behaviour was certainly Turdish.
He is far too dangerous to be permitted to remain in the party room.
Sfw – My comment stands. I’ve read occasional stories about maintenance on the TSR and the TSH. It isn’t simple. Yet the strategic importance of those transport links are topmost priority for Russia, and have been for more than a century.
FIFY
Re the outfits at the MWB, may I echo Wally’s comments about the men.
Considering how vain and self-centred most politicians are, why they would not go to a decent tailor and get something which is flattering and which actually fits is a mystery.
I have this mental image of Sean Connery, an ex-boxer with lots of bumps on the body, wearing a perfectly fitted dinner jacket in the early Bond movies. He looked like a million bucks in old money.
Our new aristocrat class, and we all know that is what they are, look like they only get the suit out for weddings and funerals.
As for Tanya with her son, he didn’t even look cool to his contemporaries. He just looked daggy .
And good on him for doing just that. ‘Cis’ suggests that normal people who believe in only two sexes are wrong, and that they are therefore in a separate category to those who believe in a multitude of genders. Never, ever, accept someone telling you that you are a ‘cis’ man or woman.
You are very simply either a man or a woman. It’s binary.
Good to see Kerrilee’s site called this. Tell the ‘cis’ users they have no regard for the truth.
“The question to be resolved is who was pulling his strings. My vote goes to the Turd. Morrisson’s behaviour was certainly Turdish.
He is far too dangerous to be permitted to remain in the party room.”
Well, if they’re going to yank out Morrison from the party room, at the same time they can yank out Archer, Bragg, Bummingham and others. This is why I don’t think it was the Turd pulling the strings. The Turd’s outright animus towards Morrison was very clear, from August 2018. I think the Liberal Party has been infiltrated by very elite, and very smug green left apparatchiks, men and women such as Bragg, Bummingham, Sharma, Allen, Martin, Kean, Zimmerman, Archer, Falinsky and others, who feign being “Liberal” but aren’t, who don’t give a toss about Menzian values, who wouldn’t know anything from Menzies 1942 speech, they don’t care about fiscal responsibility, free speech, religious liberty and so on. They’ve used the Liberal Party to climb a greasy political pole, and you see, when it comes to preselection and political machinations, the Liberal Party is so much dumber than Labor, hence the Turd’s rise to power.
It’s true that the Liberal Party has been a broad church, but never this broad. The old broad church had men like Gorton, McMahon, Casey and others who, whilst they disagreed on some things, they most certainly agreed on the basics, like free speech, individual responsibility and liberty and so on. This can’t be said about today’s Liberal Party, I don’t see anything liberal, libertarian, right of centre and so on in Bragg, or Archer, or Bummingham or Kean.
I don’t know what motivated Morrison, I suspect he was just a crowd pleaser, a showman from a circus, and he was easily manipulated by the likes of Sharma, Zimmerboy and co. And worse, much worse, he was always eager to please his ideological enemies, and what’s funny is that I suspect he really believed that his enemies liked him and preferred him over Albanese. But the tragedy is that in the process he happily knifed his own. Morrison was a clown.
But, at the end of the day, the Liberal Party, whether it’s the faux Liberals like the names mentioned above, or the real Liberals, are simply gutless cowards. And I put Morrison in the “gutless coward” category.
So Hairy was right trying to make me feel better by saying the 3 miles down crew probably suffered a catastrophic event. At least it would have been quick, after a heart stopping second or two of realising something was wrong. May they rest now in peace, in spirit, with so many others from 1912.
Was it three miles down, or three kilometres, and one and a half miles?
Have to get this right before it settles into folklore.
Lizzie, yes, Hairy was right! At least they were spared the worst outcome of being marooned on the ocean floor, counting the hours until the oxygen ran out.
sfw says:
June 23, 2023 at 11:40 am
Speedbox, I reckon that’s a fake video.
Presented ‘as is’ from the site. Why do you think it’s fake?
Have you let him know that you put it in writing, Lizzie?
C’mon Lizzie, what about the MWB ‘fashions.’
As a former bikini model, no doubt you have views. 🙂 🙂
Just in case this hasn’t been posted earlier.
Pauline Hansen and ‘Please Explain’ latest –
https://youtu.be/hE63PjSnGWE
Anyone else noticed that more and more service stations have stopped the option of getting cash out when you pay for fuel?
Staff stunned as 19th-century Sydney hospital closes
AAP – Luke Costin – June 22, 2023
A century-old public hospital caring for palliative patients in the heart of Sydney is closing.
Staff and patients at St Joseph’s Hospital in Auburn were told on Tuesday and Wednesday the ageing facility needed substantial renovations but funding requests had been rejected over the past decade.
It came after the board of operators for St Vincent’s Health Sydney in recent weeks decided to shutter the hospital in September. The health department was notified last week.
The operator’s interim chief executive told staff in an email the decision was extremely difficult.
“While St Joseph’s Hospital has a proud history of public service provision to our community, the viability and sustainability of the campus has been under threat for many years due to its ageing infrastructure,” Anna McFadgen said in the email.
“Despite our best efforts over the past 10 years, we have not been able to secure the necessary investment to address the deteriorating infrastructure.”
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Bearesays:
June 23, 2023 at 12:40 pm
Was it three miles down, or three kilometres, and one and a half miles?
Have to get this right before it settles into folklore.
I had to laugh when one of the female presenters on the ABC News Breakfast ‘Show’ (NOT News at all) said that the Titanic was 4,000 kms below sea level instead of 4,000 metres below sea level. And how much Taxpayer money are these people being paid?
On the submersible.
Some gifted amateur here yesterday took a guess:-
And today (see TE’s post at 10:20) we have a real expert:-
Work is the curse of the drinking classes.
– Oscar Wilde
Son of KKK.
An overlooked part of that article is that state and federal governments have played their hand. They’ve shown that they will steal capital investment using price controls and royalties on gas and coal.
Even under the extremely unlikely event that we could use renewables to power a large part of Australia, it would take some kind of a fool to think that governments won’t just come in and quasi-nationalise those too the moment some idiot journalist complains about high power prices.
He may or may not have been right, but the stream of consciousness about your marital relations (suitably edited to make it look good) is tedious, self indulgent and indicates a lack of connection to the real world. As I have said before, go to Instagram or similar and see if anyone really cares about your personal minutiae.
Really, should everyone here relate every time someone ‘tried to make me feel better’ about something that was trending in the media? Which had nothing to do with the person getting all feely?
Get over yourself. It’s pathetic.