Open Thread – Mon 31 July 2023


Camille Monet in the Garden, Claude Monet, 1873

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

1K Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Robert Sewell
August 1, 2023 2:30 pm

Calli:

Ahaha! I slipped a few comments in before the Eye of Sauron spied me! Nah, nah! ?

The Eye of Sauron?
I’m getting confused with labels.

Miltonf
Miltonf
August 1, 2023 2:31 pm

Washington wanted a war with Russia.

Alamak!
August 1, 2023 2:31 pm

Regarding AI and automation a better language would be python as it runs in all the please VB doesn’t touch and much simpler for noobs to get up and running.

calli
calli
August 1, 2023 2:31 pm

Mistake – mixed up my Henrys and Richards.

Geoffrey, Henry II’s younger son, died in Paris. Wine might have had something to do with it, but not drowning in it. He did rebel against his father in true Angevin fashion.

The Duke of Clarence and his butt of wine was much later.

JMH
JMH
August 1, 2023 2:31 pm

Watching QT – so you don’t have to. Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Sussan Ley has asked the Minister for the Aboriginal Industry TWICE about funding for the Makarrata and what does it (Makarrata) involve. She has not answered those questions filling her 3 minutes x 2 with irrelevant waffle.. What a disgrace. Vote NO.

Vicki
Vicki
August 1, 2023 2:34 pm

Just had vet in to look at one old cow who is off her food and another with a crook hoof. Both got antibiotics and anti-inflammatories. I wouldn’t have minded the latter for myself, but draw the line at the vet’s arm down my throat for exploration for obstruction!

Mak Siccar
Mak Siccar
August 1, 2023 2:34 pm

For those interested, further to the discussion on Starlink.

https://outbacktravelaustralia.com.au/4wd-mods-comms-nav/starlink-bush-internet-service/

P
P
August 1, 2023 2:34 pm
calli
calli
August 1, 2023 2:35 pm

All a bit of fun, Robert. A “zero” for me whenever it appears. Nothing to do with you or anyone else here. Just a bit of flaccid trolling on the part of a lurker.

JC
JC
August 1, 2023 2:37 pm

Dover

On balance you believe Russia has conducted itself splendidly in a military sense? Would that be a somewhat ballpark of your view?

You’re frequently dismissing western media reports about the war, but somehow you think it credible to listen to the confabulations of mostly anonymous twitter threadsters like Gonzo Ruble or whatever he calls himself that possibly align with your bias. How does that work exactly?

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
August 1, 2023 2:38 pm

Imagine if Putin followed the doctrine from the USA. Water, power and transportation infrastructure would have been levelled already.

Kiev would be a smoldering sh*t hole. War is sh*t, I hate it, but do not make excuses for those warmongering c-bombs in the USA.

calli
calli
August 1, 2023 2:42 pm

Yes, Zulu.

Almost as good a Christmas movie as Die Hard! 😀

Johnny Rotten
August 1, 2023 2:43 pm

Schwab’s Daughter Confirms COVID was a Precursor to Climate Lockdowns

“Nicole Schwab, the offspring of World Economic Forum mastermind Klaus Schwab, admitted that COVID was simply a precursor for coming climate lockdowns. In the leaked video above from a June 2020 panel discussion in Switzerland, Nicole comments that COVID proved the world could strongly shift once people felt an extreme threat to their livelihoods. She notes that policymakers now have more power post-COVID, and changes need not be incremental. In the full video, she states:

“So I see it as a tremendous opportunity to really have this Great Reset and to use this huge flows of money — to use the increased levers that policymakers have today — in a way that was not possible before to create a change that is not incremental but that we can look back and we can say this is the moment where we really started to position nature at the core of the economy. And there are plenty of opportunities and this is again a mindset of actually innovation technology and a business growth can happen with a positive impact of nature and kind of laying out some of these examples. Regenerative agriculture is, of course, a huge part of that as well.”
I will go into regenerative farming in another post, but it ultimately transfers the production of crops to the globalists under the lie of climate change.

Nicole Schwab stated that the youth would be the easiest to brainwash into accepting this new reality. “And one of the key reflection points here is also around engaging youth, and for me, it’s again, I come back to this shift in the mindset of the restoration generation can we conceive of ourselves as humans?” she stated. Hence, they are confusing children in schools about their identity and disrupting their sense of self at the core. They are teaching the youth the “facts” when they have no other point of reference.

Schwab’s daughter knows that lockdowns and power grabs may happen instantaneously. They studied the masses during the extended ‘plandemic’ to see how well everyone would obey. The masses gave into the fear-mongering, permitted their own children to be injected with an experimental drug, covered their faces for years, and placed themselves on house arrest. The “fringe minority,” as Trudeau put it, was small enough to control and punish. The push toward 15-minute cities will enable the globalists to keep us in place at whim.”

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/great-reset/schwabs-daughter-confirms-covid-was-a-precursor-to-climate-lockdowns/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=RSS

Vicki
Vicki
August 1, 2023 2:43 pm

The age of Aboriginal culture keeps getting longer. I noted it jumped to 65,009 amongst Yes campaigners but apparently that was not long enough

Carbon 14 dating? This is what was used when I did anthropology many moons ago.

JC
JC
August 1, 2023 2:45 pm

Note, this is CNN saying Trump could very win. It’s very likely CNN has completely turned against the Hiden crime family and doesn’t want Hiden to run.

The chance of Trump winning another term is very real
Harry Enten

Donald Trump is facing two indictments, with the potential for more. Political wisdom may have once suggested the former president’s bid for a second White House term would be nothing but a pipe dream. But most of us know better by now.

Trump is not only in a historically strong position for a nonincumbent to win the Republican nomination, but he is in a better position to win the general election than at any point during the 2020 cycle and almost at any point during the 2016 cycle.

No one in Trump’s current polling position in the modern era has lost an open presidential primary that didn’t feature an incumbent. He’s pulling in more than 50% of support in the national primary polls, i.e., more than all his competitors combined.

Three prior candidates in open primaries were pulling in more than half the vote in primary surveys in the second half of the calendar year before the election: Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush in 2000 and Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016. Gore remains the only nonincumbent to win every single presidential nominating contest, while Bush and Clinton never lost their national polling advantage in their primaries.
Former President Donald Trump waves to attendees after speaking at the Georgia GOP convention in Columbus on June 10, 2023.

Why Trump’s second indictment may not sink him in 2024

Today, Trump’s closest primary competitor, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has fallen below 20% nationally. No other contender is at or above 10%. This makes the margin between Trump and the rest of the field north of 30 points on average.

A look back at past polls does show candidates coming back from deficits greater than 10 points to win the nomination, but none greater than 30 points at this point. In fact, the biggest comebacks when you average all the polls in the second half of the year before the election top out at about 20 points (Democrats George McGovern in 1972, Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Barack Obama in 2008).

Obama did fall nearly 30 points behind for a brief period in the fall of 2007, though his comeback the following year and that of Republican John McCain (another eventual nominee who trailed by over 10 points nationally) points to another reason why Trump is so strong right now.

Trump is leading not just nationally but in the early-voting states as well. He’s up by double digits in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

More here:

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/30/politics/trump-second-term-president-election-2024/index.html

Indolent
Indolent
August 1, 2023 2:46 pm

dover0beach Avatar
dover0beach
Aug 1, 2023 11:10 AM
Gonzalo Lira
@GonzaloLira1968

Thank you Dover. I see in the replies that it’s been shared far and wide. I do hope he makes it out to safety.

Crossie
Crossie
August 1, 2023 2:46 pm

dover0beach
Aug 1, 2023 10:58 AM
If you’re not willing to defend yourself there’s no other choice.

But don’t imagine that the alliance will actually defend you.

It will if you bribe the president and his son, see Ukraine for example.

JMH
JMH
August 1, 2023 2:48 pm

Here’s what Burney said about the Makarrata commision on 31st July, 2022.

“The Uluru Statement talks about three things: It talks about an enshrined Voice in the Constitution, but it also talks about the establishment of a Makarrata commission that would have two jobs — treaty and agreement-making, and also truth-telling,” she said.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-31/linda-burney-flags-makarrata-commission-for-truth-and-treaty/101286118

Now it seems Burney cannot answer a single question about this Makarrata thing. Vote NO.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
August 1, 2023 2:48 pm

Are you sure that Western intelligence thought that or simply that they wanted the Western public to think that

Dover – Why would they want the US public to think that? We’re talking the earliest days of the war. If they wanted to soften up the public to the idea that Ukraine was going to be rapidly conquered, that suggests they thought it was going to be rapidly conquered. If instead they thought Ukraine was going to fight Russia to a standstill why would they say otherwise? Especially when the Left rapidly took up Ukraine’s side.

I really think you are tying yourself into knots to ignore the obvious, that Putin just called it wrong. I think it was his guys who led him to that mistake – in a government like Russia’s you won’t get many apparatchiks with opinions contrary to whatever the zeitgeist is. Doing that tends to shorten one’s career rather quickly. On the other hand being a yes man can pay off handsomely – like Shoigu vs Serdyukov.

Robert Sewell
August 1, 2023 2:54 pm

johanna
Aug 1, 2023 9:47 AM

It is just like the black rights movement in the US – every time there is a concession, the goalposts shift. Nothing is ever enough.

“The Voice isn’t the end of the negotiations – It’s the starting point of the next round of demands.”
Immortalised on one of my T shirts, and currently getting about 80% of agreeing nods. smiles and comments.
Australians are not being fooled by this Socialist property grab.

JC
JC
August 1, 2023 2:56 pm

While Miranda Devine and the NY Post does the hard work writing important stories and news, the NYTimes, over on 42nd street, is also doing the nine yards reporting on all the news that’s to print. Incredibly tough investigative journalism at the Times.

NY Times shocks readers with story ranking ‘five best clitoral vibrators’ using ‘150 hours of research’

By Shannon Thaler
July 31, 2023 12:54pm Updated
0:09 / 1:32
The Gray Lady turned cheeks red with a story about the best vibrators.

Many New York Times readers were not thrilled after the 171-year-old paper spent “150 hours of research and testing” to find the top five clitoral vibrators.

More here :

https://nypost.com/2023/07/31/ny-times-shocks-with-story-ranking-five-best-clitoral-vibrators/

Indolent
Indolent
August 1, 2023 2:59 pm

Well worth 3 minutes of your time, particularly the part about how Australia is offshoring it’s decision making.

NEW Update on WHO Pandemic Treaty

Diogenes
Diogenes
August 1, 2023 3:01 pm

Regarding AI and automation a better language would be python as it runs in all the please VB doesn’t touch and much simpler for noobs to get up and running.

Programming is the easy and trivial bit. The real art is determining exactly what needs to be done before firing up the IDE.

Boambee John
Boambee John
August 1, 2023 3:05 pm

Cassie of Sydney
Aug 1, 2023 11:52 AM
So, Scumbag Morrison is crying that he’s “a victim of political lynching from the Robodebt report”.

Well, I don’t like to wish bad things on people but….but…..but……I don’t feel sorry for Scumbag, it must be hard for him to be on the receiving end of a lynching, however I remember how he participated in one or two lynchings of his own, I wonder if he remembers these names….

I hold no particular brief for Morrison, nor do I know much about Robodebt. However, IIRC, some families were driven into financial trouble by it, and supposedly there were some suicides resulting from it.

I believe that Morrison would have been far too focused on self-preservation to have implemented Robodebt had he been told that it was illegal. For that reason, I consider that the public servants who, corruptly in my opinion, did not brief him properly were personally responsible for the bad results that flowed from its improper implementation. Their superannuation should be confiscated to help compensate the victims, and they should be sacked, if not jailed.

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
August 1, 2023 3:08 pm

The Gray Lady has long been sinking into her dotage.

I wonder if CNN knows, at some level, that they would do better under Trump with a reinvigorated economy than under Biden, Harris, or Newsom. As distasteful as it may seem to them they need an economy. If things tank further it is weakest who will perish first.

Besides, the last time they did well was when they were day in, day out griping about President Trump.

Johnny Rotten
August 1, 2023 3:08 pm

You’re frequently dismissing western media reports about the war, but somehow you think it credible to listen to the confabulations of mostly anonymous twitter threadsters like Gonzo Ruble or whatever he calls himself that possibly align with your bias. How does that work exactly?

There is plenty of independent stuff on the UKR situation if you are willing to look and learn – And I’m sure that Dover is on the case with lots of stuff. You BTW are where? On the Muddy Yarra swimming with the turds with NFI? You Sictorian short arse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7UEX4qCO0g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7UEX4qCO0g

Delta A
Delta A
August 1, 2023 3:11 pm

P
Aug 1, 2023 2:34 PM
I’m Henry Vlll I Am

No, no, no.
When I clicked on your link some time ago for “Holy, Holy, Holy” I had that as a pleasant earworm for weeks after.

Not sure I could survive ‘enery for any length of time.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
August 1, 2023 3:14 pm

He should send a proposal to Mr Bowen, who never saw a silly climate idea he didn’t want to jump into bed with immediately.

So far the climate loonies have kept away from even loopier schemes about mopping up heat in the high atmosphere, or reflectively whitening the oceans or somesuch. With Bowen, well, he’s dopey enough to consider anything, including major interventions causing irreversible harm to the planet.

Robert Sewell
August 1, 2023 3:15 pm

Shatterzzz:

Damn! .. missed out on the big money jerb again! .. I spent10 years with Berger Paints and knew a lot more about paint than just ‘tints” .. LOL!

We should get together and talk about old paint factory stories.
🙂

Boambee John
Boambee John
August 1, 2023 3:16 pm

The NATO argument worked out really well, with Finland and Sweden joining the team. Will he declare war on those nations? Sweden and Finland are big issues because they can block the Baltic Sea.

So can Denmark. Every Soviet vessel leaving the Baltic for the Atlantic had to pass pretty much within small arms range of the Danish coast, through constricted passages.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
August 1, 2023 3:19 pm

Burney refuses to back Makarrata commission
Rosie Lewis

Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney has refused to say if the Albanese government still supports a Makarrata commission to oversee agreement-making and truth-telling.

Deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley asked twice in question time if the government still backed the commission and what exactly it would do, after the government committed $5.8m in last year’s October budget to commence work on establishing the independent body.

Ms Burney said the 2023 referendum was about constitutional recognition through a voice, prompting Speaker Milton Dick to invite her to return to Ms Ley’s question.

The Minister would not answer the question, instead quoting NRL legend Jonathan Thurston from the Yes pamphlet on the voice.

“Our young people deserve the chance to be their best,” Mr Thurston, a Gunggari man, said.

“I’ve seen the obstacles they face. Nobody understands that better than their local community. Giving them a say will mean more of our kids reach their potential.”

Ms Burney finished her answer with: “I say to Australians, vote Yes for unity, hope and to make a positive difference.”

JC
JC
August 1, 2023 3:27 pm

There is plenty of independent stuff on the UKR situation if you are willing to look and learn –

Wodney, If I’m “interested,” there’s a truckload of “independent stuff” waiting for me, you clown. That wasn’t in dispute. The point I posed, which you obviously did not understand, was this: if the mainstream media is untrustworthy, why is an anonymous Twitter thread or an elderly dude offering his opinion on YouTube more reliable, you zonkhead? Finally, who says it’s “independent” or “dependent”?You? Let us remind everyone, as if they needed it, that you humorously post garbage here by a felon who served 11 years in Leavenworth for stealing people’s money and is now posing as an economist of consequence, according to your calculation. Don’t forget about it.

And I’m sure that Dover is on the case with lots of stuff.

You shouldn’t be posturing around with such certitude about anything, you driveling idiot.

You BTW are where (SIC)? On the Muddy Yarra swimming with the turds with NFI? You Sictorian short arse.

Charming. I bet you speak like that to all the ladyboys.

Johnny Rotten
August 1, 2023 3:29 pm

So can Denmark. Every Soviet vessel leaving the Baltic for the Atlantic had to pass pretty much within small arms range of the Danish coast, through constricted passages.

Try that with a Nuclear powered submarine with nuclear missiles……………………

First the North Sea and THEN the Atlantic or maybe go down the English Channel after the North Sea to the Atlantic.

Boambee John
Boambee John
August 1, 2023 3:32 pm

Robert Sewell
Aug 1, 2023 2:23 PM
Calli:

The most blaring “silencing” in history then.

I just wish he’d shut up about his ‘silencing’.

It’s a bit like militant homosexuality (and now, militant transitioning lobbyists). The “Love that dare not speak its name” has become the luurrrrve that won’t bloody well shut up.

JC
JC
August 1, 2023 3:35 pm

No, I follow a handful of people whose reports on this, and on other matters, align more plausibly with reality and have been dependable.

How have you judged dependability?

If I frequently dismiss Western media reports on this matter it’s because they’ve repeatedly been wrong on this matter these last 15 or so months, as well as on other matters as well before that.

The Western media, for many months, reported on the incompetence of the Russian military. The Russians were pushed right back. Were your sources more dependable? My recollection is that your sources were often belittling the Uke successes and Russian retreat.

I say this as being humble enough not to comment of who is winning or losing some battle here and there because the information is unreliable.
Lately, Russia has already lost this war because psychologically they’ve been beaten. It was never supposed to have ended up like this : where we are now.

bons
bons
August 1, 2023 3:36 pm

Weather on the beach today is of the ‘bottle and export’ variety.
I don’t care what the weather is in the Victorian and Canberra Soviets.

JC
JC
August 1, 2023 3:37 pm

Lastly… Lately

Kneel
Kneel
August 1, 2023 3:38 pm

“Regarding AI and automation a better language would be python…”

Interpreted and late binding languages are for wimps, or places where performance doesn’t matter as much, or you need it NOW.

Write it in C. If you must have objects, use C++.
If you need something interpretive, do it in C and use either FLEX/BISON or a recursive descent parser to “understand” whatever grammar you need to use.
Profile the whole thing and hand optimise the assembler code of the slow bits.
Do that, and you’ll only need about 20% of the CPU you need to run the same thing in python.
That’s the ‘old school’ way, and you’d be more than a little surprised the performance you squeeze out of old and/or cheap hardware. But it’s a lot of work…

Johnny Rotten
August 1, 2023 3:38 pm

JC
Aug 1, 2023 3:27 PM

And as to you, you Sictorian short arse wanting to know who it was that introduced me to this lovely Blog. Well, what makes you think that anyone introduced me here? Are you paranoid?

You T.W.A.T. and you still seem to have that lisp. ‘Sirry Iriot.’

Keep drinking your plonk and taking those anti arrogance pills.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
August 1, 2023 3:38 pm

Now it seems Burney cannot answer a single question about this Makarrata thing. Vote NO.

This whole rock show has demonstrated Linda Burney’s total unfitness to sit in Parliament. I hope her electorate are taking notes.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
August 1, 2023 3:39 pm

learn MS VBA.

Dot, won’t AI plug-ins cover that?
In time?

Not there yet – VBA will be a necessary tool for power users for a while yet – but Copilot is going to do that very soon for the casual user.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
August 1, 2023 3:40 pm

Programmers think they are the smartest on the planet. Very few of them have ideas in the first place. I worked with a guy who had more ideas at lunchtime than most do in a lifetime. He could program but employed a programmer so he wasn’t bogged down with the mundane. Getting programmers to do what you want is the hard part.

JMH
JMH
August 1, 2023 3:43 pm

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Aug 1, 2023 3:38 PM
Now it seems Burney cannot answer a single question about this Makarrata thing. Vote NO.

This whole rock show has demonstrated Linda Burney’s total unfitness to sit in Parliament. I hope her electorate are taking notes.

Hold your horses, Zulu. This woman is one of the best advertisements for the NO vote. She wears a neon sign that screams “I am not to be trusted because I am hiding stuff”!

shatterzzz
August 1, 2023 3:43 pm

We should get together and talk about old paint factory stories.

Just a quickie then .. we had a bloke who ran the lotto tix syndicates (back when a hand written x marked the spot) .. anywayz he did this for about 2 years, never saw him doing anything else around the place .. one day a manager queried where he worked as he hadn’t paid his weekly dues, no one seemed to know …
end result .. the bloke was getting paid every week and had turned the collecting for lotto tix into his full time job ……!

JC
JC
August 1, 2023 3:44 pm

Wodney. what makes me think someone introduced you to this blog is that someone said they did. I thought it was Beer, but thank God it wasn’t him for the sake of his own self esteem . I can’t recall who it was, which is why I asked you. But it’s really no biggie. Stop trying to make a mountain out of a ladyboy.

DavidH
DavidH
August 1, 2023 3:45 pm

I found this Carbon-14 dating calculator. It specifically deals with problems of dating Aboriginal artefacts. Uncertainty beyond 40k years increases and the calculator won’t go past 60k years; warns that 55k is the limit of present accuracy. I’ve read elsewhere that going beyond 40k years requires an exceptionally well preserved item and needs special dating equipment.

earthsci.org calculator

Johnny Rotten
August 1, 2023 3:47 pm

I say this as being humble enough not to comment of who is winning or losing some battle here and there because the information is unreliable.
Lately, Russia has already lost this war because psychologically they’ve been beaten. It was never supposed to have ended up like this : where we are now.

More Jerk Off Cretin Sictorian short arse Bull Shit. Humble? More like crumble in the face of the ongoing facts. The short arse now thinks he is a Napoleon and a Military Eggspurt.

Get back on the ‘turps’ and keep taking the tablets. You need plenty of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7UEX4qCO0g

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
August 1, 2023 3:49 pm

I reckon the bloke who played the piano with his cock ( he didn’t of course ) will be dead soon … before the year is out.

He knows too much.

George Thorogood – You Talk Too Much (W).mpg

PeterM
PeterM
August 1, 2023 3:50 pm

Getting programmers to do what you want is the hard part.

Especially now that you’re not allowed to slap them

Johnny Rotten
August 1, 2023 3:50 pm

JC
Aug 1, 2023 3:44 PM
Wodney. what makes me think someone introduced you to this blog is that someone said they did. I thought it was Beer, but thank God it wasn’t him for the sake of his own self esteem . I can’t recall who it was, which is why I asked you.

So, person with the lisp. None of your farking business you nosy parker. Get a life FFS.

Talk to the someone in yer’ head. I really do ‘fink that you are deluded.

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
August 1, 2023 3:52 pm

“I’ve seen the obstacles they face. Nobody understands that better than their local community. Giving them a say will mean more of our kids reach their potential.”

They should make a point of asking precisely ‘How?’

Boambee John
Boambee John
August 1, 2023 3:52 pm

The Minister would not answer the question, instead quoting NRL legend Jonathan Thurston from the Yes pamphlet on the voice.

“Our young people deserve the chance to be their best,” Mr Thurston, a Gunggari man, said.

“I’ve seen the obstacles they face. Nobody understands that better than their local community. Giving them a say will mean more of our kids reach their potential.”

Perhaps all Aboriginal communities should have elected mayors and councilors? And aboriginals should run for council election in mixed communities? Surely that would be better than some remote mob in Canberra?

Or is giving “local communit[ies]” a Voice not the real intention?

JC
JC
August 1, 2023 3:53 pm

More Jerk Off Cretin Sictorian short arse Bull Shit. Humble? More like crumble in the face of the ongoing facts. The short arse now thinks he is a Napoleon and a Military Eggspurt.

Get back on the ‘turps’ and keep taking the tablets. You need plenty of them.

Wodney seems to be agitated. Makes up bullshit that I’m somehow suggesting I’m a military expert – mocking me as a result of this delusion and completely forgets that he’s posting comments by a unrepentant, lying crook who claims he’s been in control of sentient AI since 1985 called Destiny.

JC
JC
August 1, 2023 3:59 pm

They would say that in order to run the narrative of the plucky Ukrainian underdog fighting the Russian Goliath thus generating massive Western public support for Ukraine.

But what’s untrue about this, Dover?. Ukraine has been “plucky”. Is the underdog fighting a much more powerful enemy. Even Putin has been a little surprised about it’s pluckiness, no?

In turn, justifying, purportedly, support for economic sanctions against Russia even though it would debilitate many European and other economies

Debilitating? No. A recession? Sure. War on your doorstep happens to do that.

, allow huge transfers of military equipment and finance to Ukraine, and so on. It worked splendidly.

In GDP terms for the West, the transfer is small potatoes.

Boambee John
Boambee John
August 1, 2023 4:01 pm

Johnny Rotten
Aug 1, 2023 3:29 PM
So can Denmark. Every Soviet vessel leaving the Baltic for the Atlantic had to pass pretty much within small arms range of the Danish coast, through constricted passages.

Try that with a Nuclear powered submarine with nuclear missiles……………………

The constricted access is almost certainly a prime reason that SSBNs were never based in the Baltic or Black Seas. I am also uncertain whether the Danish “Belts” would be deep enough for an SSBN, or even an SSN, to pass through (putting aside the hazards of heavy surface traffic).

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 1, 2023 4:01 pm

Elon Musk
@elonmusk

They are openly pushing for genocide of white people in South Africa.

@CyrilRamaphosa
, why do you say nothing?

Elon Musk: ‘They Are Openly Pushing for Genocide of White People in South Africa’

Twitter CEO Elon Musk on Monday expressed outrage over a South African black party “openly pushing for genocide of white people” during a giant rally at a sports stadium over the weekend in Johannesburg.

“They are openly pushing for genocide of white people in South Africa,” Musk said. [South African President Cyril Ramaphosa], why do you say nothing?”

Musk, who was born in South Africa, also highlighted the case of a white farmer being murdered in his home country.

From IOL.co.za, “Uproar over EFF leader Julius Malema singing ‘Kill the Boer’. This is what the courts said about the song”:

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 1, 2023 4:03 pm

From IOL.co.za, “Uproar over EFF leader Julius Malema singing ‘Kill the Boer’. This is what the courts said about the song”:

EFF leader Julius Malema has been sharply criticised by prominent white South Africans for singing the Struggle song, “Shoot to kill, kill the Boer, kill the farmer”.

The Equality Court in Johannesburg ruled in August last year that the song was not hate speech or incitement, after AfriForum took the matter to court.

The court held that the song was freedom of speech and had to be left in the political arena.

The court said the lyrics of the song – “Shoot to kill, kill the Boer, kill the farmer” – were not to be taken literally.

This weekend, the EFF leader Malema and nearly 100,000 supporters, who painted the FNB Stadium in a sea of red, were seen and heard singing the song after Malema concluded his speech at the party’s 10th-anniversary celebrations.

In 2016, Malema said he wasn’t “calling for the slaughtering of white people,” then added, “at least for now.”

Alamak!
August 1, 2023 4:04 pm

The real art is determining exactly what needs to be done before firing up the IDE.

Very true, and that’s what experienced coders can provide.

… though here in Oz senior coders don’t get much love from the younger gen acting in the cool roles like agile coach, scrum master, product owner etc

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 1, 2023 4:07 pm

‘Nothing is enough’ for Ukraine – Zelensky

Kiev will need more assistance from its Western backers until the conflict with Russia ends, the Ukrainian president has said

The assistance provided by the US and its allies to Ukraine amid the conflict with Russia is not enough, President Vladimir Zelensky told Brazil’s Globo News broadcaster in an interview last week.

“As long as the war continues, nothing can be enough,” Zelensky told Globo, as reported by RIA Novosti.

According to Zelensky, Ukraine does not only need weapons. It also needs assistance in what he called an “information war” and more humanitarian aid.

He called on Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to supply Ukraine with demining equipment to clear areas he said had been mined by Russian forces and later re-taken by Ukrainian troops.

He also suggested Lula could help Kiev by organizing a meeting between Zelensky and Latin American leaders in which they could talk.

Zelensky said he would never ask Lula for weapons because he knew the Brazilian president would “not provide it.”

The US and its allies have sent Ukraine over $100 billion worth of weapons, ammunition, and equipment since hostilities with Russia escalated in February 2022, while insisting they are not actually a party to the conflict.

The total amount of Western aid to Kiev added up to €165 billion ($185.6 billion) by early summer 2023, according to data from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW).

Some of Kiev’s Western backers shouldered additional costs due to the need to accommodate refugees coming from Ukraine, the IfW reported.

Poland, which spent 0.6% of its GDP on bilateral aid to Ukraine, had to spend another 2.2% on Ukrainian refugees, according to the data.

The accumulated costs of helping Ukraine exceeded 2% of GDP in Latvia and Estonia as well.

Last week, the Pentagon announced another security assistance package for Ukraine worth $400 million, including air defense and anti-tank missiles.

Kiev’s constant need for more aid from the West has led to tension between Ukraine and its Western backers.

Ahead of the July NATO summit in Vilnius, Zelensky lashed out at the US-led military bloc on social media, blasting its “indecisiveness” on Kiev’s membership bid.

UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told journalists on the sidelines of the summit that the allies “want to see gratitude” from Ukraine for the military assistance that has been provided. He also noted that he told Ukrainian officials during a visit to Kiev last year that Western nations “are not Amazon.”

JC
JC
August 1, 2023 4:08 pm

European GDP approx US$16 trillion

US GDP approx US$23.5 trillion

Total GDP = approx $40 billion

Total Transfer to Ukraine in just over a year has been approx US$160 billion.

It’s about .4% of GDP, which is hardly heart stopping.

JC
JC
August 1, 2023 4:13 pm

No kidding, is there anything, any site funnier than the Bee, which hits the left square in the eyes with mockery?

Sneaky Parents Dress Son Up As A Girl On First Day Of School So Teachers Will Show Him How To Be A Boy

Salvatore, Iron Publican
August 1, 2023 4:14 pm

Old Ozzie: Elon Musk, if he chooses to use it, has the ability to bring quite some focus onto the situation in SA.

Hopefully he does this.
Nobody else will. Not the MSM, not the UN, not the Human Rights organisations, not the bleeding heart charities, not even individual governments.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
August 1, 2023 4:18 pm

The genetic data points to ~50,000 years but that tells us nothing about the culture. Most human societies have a culture that at best spans a few hundred years. How do we know it was a continuous unchanging culture? Why take pride in a moribund culture?

Assuming that Aboriginal culture has remained constant, or recognisable over 50,000 years overlooks the profound effect of the glacial maximum of the last Ice Age.

Around 30,000 years ago large areas of Australia were rendered uninhabitable and the population congregated around surface waters close to the sea – which were ~120m lower than they are now.

And then, around 10,000 – 12,000 years ago, as the global climate warmed, the rise in ocean levels flooded roughly a third of the surface area of Ice Age Australia – including the coastal lands on which the population had survived for 20,000 years.

Hard to see culture remaining static through that lot – but no doubt Truth Telling will help me over that hurdle.

In any event, there’s no denying that the indigenous were here first. So the significance of how long ‘first’ was is moot – unless there’s some sort of claimed sliding scale of moral responsibility loaded on newcomers.

Again, Truth Telling will probably help here, too.

Pogria
Pogria
August 1, 2023 4:21 pm

PJ Media is running an interesting thread on Obama’s dead chef. Seems the anointed one was out playing golf sporting a bandaged hand a black eye.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2023/07/30/photos-show-barack-obama-playing-golf-with-bandaged-hand-black-eye-n1714645

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 1, 2023 4:21 pm

Note That Name again re Russia & Ukraine let alone President Trump – Victoria Nuland

More Warmongers Elevated In The Biden Administration

BY TYLER DURDEN
TUESDAY, AUG 01, 2023 – 01:40 PM
Authored by Caitlin Johnstone,

The Biden administration looks set to become even more warlike than it already was if you can imagine, with virulent Russia hawk Victoria Nuland and virulent China hawk Charles Q Brown now being elevated to lofty positions by the White House.

Nuland, the wife of alpha neocon Robert Kagan, has been named acting deputy secretary of state by President Biden, at least until a new deputy secretary has been named.

This places her at second in command within the State Department, second only to Tony Blinken.

In an article about Nuland’s unique role in souring relations between the US and Russia during her previous tenure in the State Department under Obama, Responsible Statecraft’s Connor Echols writes the following of the latest news:

Nuland’s appointment will be a boon for Russia hawks who want to turn up the heat on the Kremlin.

But, for those who favor a negotiated end to the conflict in Ukraine, a promotion for the notoriously “undiplomatic diplomat” will be a bitter pill.

A few quick reminders are in order. When Nuland was serving in the Obama administration, she had a now-infamous leaked call with the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.

As the Maidan Uprising roiled the country, the pair of American diplomats discussed conversations with opposition leaders, and Nuland expressed support for putting Arseniy Yatseniuk into power. (Yatseniuk would become prime minister later that month, after Russia-friendly former President Viktor Yanukovych fled the country.)

At one memorable point in the call, Nuland said “Fu–k the EU” in response to Europe’s softer stance on the protests.

The controversy surrounding the call — and larger implications of U.S. involvement in the ouster of Yanukovych — kicked up tensions with Russia and contributed to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to seize Crimea and support an insurgency in eastern Ukraine. Her handing out food to demonstrators on the ground in Kyiv probably didn’t help either.

Nuland, along with State Department sanctions czar Daniel Fried, then led the effort to punish Putin through sanctions.

Another official at State reportedly asked Fried if “the Russians realize that the two hardest-line people in the entire U.S. government are now in a position to go after them?”

In a 2015 Consortium News article titled “The Mess That Nuland Made,”

the late Robert Parry singled out Nuland as the primary architect of the 2014 regime change operation in Ukraine, which, as Aaron Maté explained last year, paved the way to the war we’re seeing there today.

Hopefully her position winds up being temporary.

In other news, the Senate Arms Services Committee has voted to confirm Biden’s selection of General Charles Q Brown Jr as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, replacing Mark Milley. A full senate vote will now take place on whether to confirm Brown — currently the Air Force Chief of Staff — for the nation’s highest military office.

Brown is unambiguous about his belief that the US must hasten to militarize against China in the so-called Indo-Pacific to prepare for confrontation between the two powers, calling for more US bases in the region and increased efforts to arm Taiwan during his hearing before the Senate Arms Services Committee earlier this month.

Back in May, Moon of Alabama flagged Brown’s nomination in an article which also noted that several advocates of military restraint had been resigning from their positions within the administration, including Wendy Sherman, the deputy secretary of state who Nuland has taken over for.

It’s too soon to draw any firm conclusions, but to see voices of restraint stepping down and proponents of escalation stepping up could be a bad portent of things to come

Muddy
Muddy
August 1, 2023 4:23 pm

Yes and No.

YES to learning – if we choose – more of the customs of pre and early European contact indigenous Australians, as far as the historical record permits. Cultural customs ebb and flow; adapt with time and circumstances. Reconstructed customs are no less worthy of respect, but an honesty regarding provenance is necessary. To reconstruct and adapt from the old – forgotten or discarded – is a significant achievement.

YES to acknowledging that without early European efforts, there would be little of pre or early-contact indigenous culture to be reconstructed.
NO to the deceit that pre and early European contact indigenous Australians have never been acknowledged. The area in which I live has at least several handsful of towns and landmarks bearing names derived from local indigenous dialects, including the council shire. These names have existed since the earliest Europeans began settling in the mid to late 19th Century. For 150 years, we’ve lived among enduring acknowledgements of the area’s previous inhabitants, and I’m not aware of any demand for these towns, mountains, rivers etc., to be renamed. How frequently do such public legacies occur?

NO to the continued ghosting of indigenous Australians who chose to straddle what must have been a daunting cultural divide, particularly in the early decades of European settlement. European-indigenous interbreeding suggests that many Australian aboriginals lived as much in the European world as they did in the lifestyle they were more accustomed to. We can only speculate what trials and challenges each individual may have faced, however, these indigenous social pioneers appear almost completely absent from the modern historical record. Perhaps this is a childish resentment that these individuals chose not to be confined to the traditional hierarchies and customs, and instead utilized effort and enterprise to improve their circumstances. We might imagine what such non-conformity represented at the time, but now, generations later, this brown-washing is irrational and dysfunctional. Maturity is not something you count aloud.

Anything to add?

Kneel
Kneel
August 1, 2023 4:24 pm

” Nobody understands that better than their local community. “

Like a lot of things, the choice is not between “good” and “bad”, but rather between “bad” and “worse”.
Your mob has consistently chosen worse, because it is easy.
Your choice, you wear the consequences.
Don’t like it, change the culture – if you break your kids in a vain attempt to keep your culture, it’ll die out anyway, or degenerate into something worse than useless.
You must decide. For yourself. Every single one of you.
Work towards it – with like-minded individuals.
Nothing else can or will work, no matter how much money you throw at it, or how much you moan about it, or what “voice” you have.
Sorry – reality is a bitch, but she wins every time, in the end.
Stop complaining and start doing something about it where it matters – at that local level. Help others by telling them what worked and what didn’t.
Nothing worthwhile is ever easy.

Muddy
Muddy
August 1, 2023 4:24 pm

Spacing fail. Sigh.

calli
calli
August 1, 2023 4:26 pm

“As long as the war continues, nothing can be enough,” Zelensky told Globo, as reported by RIA Novosti.

That doesn’t mean what he thinks it means.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
August 1, 2023 4:27 pm

The court said the lyrics of the song – “Shoot to kill, kill the Boer, kill the farmer” – were not to be taken literally.

“Shoot to kill, kill the Bantu, kill the Xhosa?”

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 1, 2023 4:27 pm

Watch: South African Black Party Chants ‘Kill The Boer (White), Kill The Farmer’

BY TYLER DURDEN
TUESDAY, AUG 01, 2023 – 01:20 PM

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, also known as the “Black Party” in South Africa, is a far left Marxist movement with a membership in the millions.

The party has consistently called for the eradication of all white South Africans, though this fact often goes completely ignored by the western media.

At a rally this week packed with members wearing communist red, EFF leader Julius Malema hyped up the mob with a racially charged chant of ‘Kill the Boers! Kill the farmers!’

The word Boer is used in South Africa to describe white farmers of Dutch heritage, or white people in general.

Benny Johnson
@bennyjohnson

Shocking video shows South Africa’s black party singing “kill the Boer (Whites), kill the White farmer”

This is all downstream from the rotten secular religion of wokeness and CRT plaguing America today.

You have been warned.

WATCH.

Note the Military Jammer on the Guys Back – blocking all cell pjones for up to 500m

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 1, 2023 4:31 pm

And the Government says they are not involved in Farm Attacks – So where do they get the MilitaryJammers from?

As many in the US have noted, the rise of Marxist movements in South Africa may be a glimpse into America’s future if something is not done soon to stop the proliferation of woke ideology.

Calls for racial violence against white people have become commonplace, and though any similar public declarations within the US by white supremacist groups are admonished as reprehensible, if minority activists do it, it’s simply called “political speech.”

Not surprisingly, coverage of the EFF rally by the western media has been thoroughly washed, with the majority of news outlets not mentioning the underlying atmosphere of racial hatred.

It’s no different from their treatment of the BLM riots, which were described as “mostly peaceful” and “fiery but peaceful” protests as neighborhoods in multiple American cities burned.

Luckily, there is a growing contingent of moderate and conservative minorities refusing to submit to the far-left plantation.

One can only hope that this will be enough to diffuse racial tensions in the US in the coming years.

Unfortunately, South Africa may be too far gone into the clutches of Marxist fanaticism to turn back.

Muddy
Muddy
August 1, 2023 4:35 pm

DavidH
Aug 1, 2023 3:45 PM

An interesting point. Cheers.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
August 1, 2023 4:37 pm

JC

Aug 1, 2023 2:45 PM

Note, this is CNN saying Trump could very win. It’s very likely CNN has completely turned against the Hiden crime family and doesn’t want Hiden to run.

I was looking at the very garbled and panicked stuff coming out over the last week about Devon Archer.
It looked like there was a Demonrat faction working to enable him to bucket the Hiden Crime Family, and another faction lobbying for the “Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go!” option.
The “send him straight to jail” faction sounded incredibly desperate.

JMH
JMH
August 1, 2023 4:39 pm

Unfortunately, South Africa may be too far gone into the clutches of Marxist fanaticism to turn back.

I think it would be foolish to overlook the ‘China Syndrome’ here.

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
August 1, 2023 4:41 pm

Bolt does not have the balls to get Tony Heller on his show.

P
P
August 1, 2023 4:42 pm

House Oversight Committee Releases Statement Following Devon Archer Testimony
July 31, 2023 | Sundance

Today, Hunter Biden’s friend and business partner Devon Archer testified in a closed session before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

At the conclusion of the testimony, the House committee released the following statement. Hopefully a transcription of the testimony will soon follow.

JC
JC
August 1, 2023 4:43 pm

Dover

This is my recollection, and I’m not heading back through the backpages again for obvious reasons. 🙂

I recall that for much of last year, the sources you were referring to ignored Ukrainian pushback and it wasn’t until there was no other way to square this circle that we had resignation that the Russians were in complete retreat. If I recall properly, one of your links referred to this as a smart (strategic) withdrawal when it was actually a severe thrashing.

Putin and his minions referred to this military operation as “short” in terms of time. After two years, this is now approaching 2/5s of time scale of World War II and there’s no end. It’s not a military operation of a short term narture, is it?

Russia, I argued, has already lost since it is no longer regarded as a superpower. It’s a regional thug with nuclear weapons.

John H.
John H.
August 1, 2023 4:44 pm

Johnny Rotten
Aug 1, 2023 2:28 PM
But for the remarkable incompetence, poor equipment, and poor training of the Russian military the UKR should have ceased to exist a year ago. Better for Ukraine to remain a rump state dependent on NATO handouts than spending several decades being looted and exploited by Russia.

Yes, and I can see all that poor equipment working every day against the ‘superior’ US/NATO stuff that is fast running out and being destroyed. LOL.

Against NATO Russia would be mauled. The only thing Russia has going for it military wise are SAMs and geography. A big reason Ukraine has survived so long is the provision of NATO weapons and that has occurred despite it being barely a trickle of weapons to Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russia is using tanks that belong in museums, still using MIG 31 interceptors because those have decent radars, still hasn’t knocked out the air defenses, in fact Ukraine is running out of SAMs, and it lost the Black Sea flagship to some very mediocre missiles. The West loves testing its new toys on foreign soil, that’s who they found out about the floating point error in the Patriot systems. The West even has EW aircraft no doubt recording all the radar signatures of various Russian aircraft for future IFF and target Aquisition purposes. That will include painting their so called S 57 stealth fighter. Fat chance, I seen photos where the engine fan blades are visible from the front. That aint no stealth aircraft, it isn’t even a low observable.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 1, 2023 4:46 pm

Are The DOJ And Hunter Biden Attempting To Commit Fraud In Federal Court?

BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND
JULY 31, 2023

There will be no justice if the court allows the government and Hunter Biden to pretend the $1 million payment from Patrick Ho was for legal representation.

When Noreika questioned Hunter Biden about the $1 million Patrick Ho paid Owasco LLC on March 22, 2018, purportedly for legal representation, the president’s son was cornered.

With the government and the defendant both telling the court that money represented fees for legal services, Hunter Biden had to explain how: “I think Owasco PC acted as a law firm entity, yeah.”

That’s how Hunter replied initially, but then immediately equivocated: “I believe that’s the case, but I don’t know that for a fact.”

Hunter’s hedge was a tell that what he had just told the court was not the truth.

But it was imperative that the president’s son caveat his prior statement that his law firm entity was retained to provide legal services for Ho because the judge had made clear that Hunter Biden was under oath and that “any false answers may be used against [him] in a separate prosecution for perjury.”

While Hunter’s backtracking may have saved his backside from a perjury conviction, it may well blow up his plea deal because it highlighted that the “Statement of Facts” the government incorporated into the plea agreement contained a near-certain false representation: that the $1 million Patrick Ho transferred to Hunter Biden was “payment for legal fees.”

Statement of Facts?

While the government did not file the plea agreement or the exhibits incorporated into that deal on the public docket, during last week’s hearing the prosecutor and the court read excerpts on the record. Among other things, in the plea agreement, Hunter Biden “admits to the information contained in the Statement of Facts,” which was attached as Exhibit 1. And the Statement of Facts, as read by the prosecution, declared:

On or about March 22, 2018, Biden received a $1 million payment into his Owasco, LLC bank account as payment for legal fees for Patrick Ho, and $939,000 remained available as of tax day.

Over the next six months Biden would spend almost the entirety of this balance on personal expenses, including large cash withdrawals, transfers to his personal account, travel, and entertainment.

After commenting that having the U.S. attorney’s office read the Statement of Facts “into the record” “is not common in my experience,” Judge Noreika proceeded to question Hunter Biden on the facts to which he was admitting, engaging in this colloquy:

COURT: All right. In the third paragraph, which is actually the second full paragraph, it says on or about March 22, 2018, you received a million-dollar payment into your Owasco bank account as payment for legal fees for Patrick Ho.

DEFENDANT: Yes, Your Honor.

COURT: Who is that payment received from, was that the law firm?

DEFENDANT: Received from Patrick Ho, Your Honor.

COURT: Mr. Ho himself?

DEFENDANT: Yes.

COURT: Were you doing legal work for him separate and apart from the law firm?

DEFENDANT: Yes, Your Honor. Well —

MR. CLARK: That wasn’t through Boies Schiller, Your Honor, Mr. Biden was engaged as an attorney.

COURT: Right. So that’s why I asked. You were doing work for him —

DEFENDANT: My own law firm, not as counsel.

COURT: So you had your own law firm as well?

DEFENDANT: I think Owasco PC acted as a law firm entity, yeah.

COURT: OK.

DEFENDANT: I believe that’s the case, but I don’t know that for a fact.

The court then moved on to the next section of the Statement of Facts, and the hearing continued. It shouldn’t have, however. Rather, Judge Noreika should have questioned Hunter Biden more fully to ensure the representation attested to by both the government and the defendant and incorporated into the plea agreement — that Ho paid Hunter $1 million as payments for legal fees — was true.

For the overwhelming evidence indicates that was a lie and that the money, at best, represented payment for influence peddling and, at worst, was a bribe.

Doesn’t Add Up

Robert Sewell
August 1, 2023 4:46 pm

Megan:

I’m only just catching up on Cat News after a couple of days of dealing with insurance repairs. Thanks so much…I don’t mind you knowing my address but since you prefer it should be OK to mail to it C/- my local PO. It’s a wee one and they know everyone.
I’ll let DB know the requisite post office.

Cool – I’ll send it off as soon as I get the email from DB.

JC
JC
August 1, 2023 4:48 pm

The US was so slow on this. It took Turnbuckle to show them up , what, 15 years of advanced progressive thinking. A man well ahead of his time.

They finally looked to Australia for leadership.

The Biden Administration will implement a ban on incandescent light bulbs starting Tuesday in favor of energy-efficient bulbs, following a yearslong bipartisan effort to phase out the bulbs after earlier regulations and standards were blocked by former President Donald Trump.

Boambee John
Boambee John
August 1, 2023 4:48 pm

calli
Aug 1, 2023 4:26 PM
“As long as the war continues, nothing can be enough,” Zelensky told Globo, as reported by RIA Novosti.

That doesn’t mean what he thinks it means.

A bit like the non-English speaker who thought that “knowing bugger all” means that they are full of knowledge, rather than full of cr@p?

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 1, 2023 4:50 pm

Biden Makes Things Up To 7th Grandchild By Appointing Her Head Of Ukrainian Shell Company

U.S. — After years of denying the existence of his 7th grandchild, a 4-year-old girl named Navy, Biden has now announced he will be making it up to the youngster by making her the head of one of his Ukrainian shell companies.

“It was wrong of me to disown my own grandchild,” said Biden after several political consultants held focus groups that determined it was wrong for him to disown his grandchild. “To make up for the lost years, I will be naming little Navy the CEO of a very important little company called ?????????? ?????????, which is in charge of laundering millions in US foreign aid and sending it back to my family! There is no one more qualified to take care of this for me! Atta girl, sweetie!”

Biden was then lured away from the microphone with an ice cream cone by a handful of desperate aides.

Navy will be assuming control of ?????????? ????????? at the end of this week in exchange for $80,000 and a box of Goldfish crackers per month. As a condition for this arrangement, Navy must agree to never admit she’s related to Hunter Biden.

At publishing time, Navy had been let go from her position after accidentally spending 3 million dollars of foreign aid money on a mobile children’s game on her mom’s iPad.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 1, 2023 4:52 pm

How hedge fund managers are using ChatGPT

Hema Parmar

New York City | Hedge funds and other money managers are increasingly leaning on ChatGPT for marketing, and to summarise vast reports, according to a new survey.

Forty-four per cent of money managers use the artificial intelligence tool in a professional capacity, says the report from BNP Paribas. Most use ChatGPT to generate marketing text, or to recap large documents such as regulatory filings or broker research reports.

Some of the managers surveyed said they would like to use ChatGPT to analyse legal documents.

Generative AI tools such as OpenAI-owned ChatGPT have quickly gained traction among money managers, as the technology can follow instructions and create content after being trained on giant amounts of input.

In March, Citadel’s Ken Griffin said his firm was negotiating an enterprise-wide licence to use ChatGPT, betting that it will automate an “enormous amount of work”. Hedge fund giant Man Group is also using the technology to detect patterns in academic papers, and it is looking into delegating the grunt work of investor relations to the AI tool.

ChatGPT is far from perfect; OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati told Time magazine that it “may make up facts”.

When asked about how AI would affect alternative asset management over the next six to 12 months, the money managers generally predicted huge changes – including shrinking workforces and disrupting the quant and coding market. Striking a more positive note, managers also see AI boosting firms’ efficiency.

Adoption of the technology “lowers the bar for smaller funds to be more competitive with larger organisations”, one respondent told BNP.

The BNP report surveyed 39 individuals whose firms have combined assets under management of $US250.5 billion ($373.1 billion). Almost 70 per cent of respondents were from the US. The majority of respondents were from fundamental firms. Quant firms have long incorporated AI technology into their models.

Robert Sewell
August 1, 2023 4:56 pm

Bruce O’Nuke:

We got that message from day one that Western intelligence didn’t think Ukraine could survive against the mighty Russian Army for many days. I quoted that particular para specifically because the reported arrest of intel guys for screwing up suggests the Russian intel community thought so too.

They’re luckier than their predecessors – after a particularly shoddy piece of Intelligence gathering against German forces that led to a nasty casualty list, Stalin had the entire Intelligence Section of (probably) South West Front shot. Reinstated the next day, he had the new section shot as well to show his displeasure.

Razey
Razey
August 1, 2023 4:57 pm

plucky

I’d be plucky too if given 100’s of billions of dollars and all the cocain I could handle 😉

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 1, 2023 4:59 pm

The AFR View

Will the Yes campaign lock in behind Pearson’s Voice agenda?

According to Noel Pearson, this is the kind of practical agenda that the conservative Indigenous leaders of the No campaign, Senator Jacinta Price and Warren Mundine, could support.

Australians would be more likely to agree to inserting an Indigenous “Voice” into the nation’s Constitution if they felt confident it would focus, as Noel Pearson suggests, on turning the tide of intergenerational Indigenous disadvantage by empowering communities to take more responsibility, in partnership with government, for ending the corrosive cycles of remote area welfare dependency and social dysfunction.

Mr Pearson tells The Australian Financial Review that once the Voice is up and running, Indigenous communities could no longer blame social breakdown in these places on government failure.

This is a timely message after the Productivity Commission last week blamed lack of proper consultation by governments with Indigenous communities on the ground for inadequate progress on closing the gap in social, health and economic outcomes.

Mr Pearson’s practical purpose and case for the Voice underscores the problems the Financial Review identified in January with the high-risk strategy of seeking to enshrine a novel Voice to parliament and executive government in the Constitution without a proper and thorough process such as a constitutional convention.

Since then, support for the Voice has collapsed to the point that there can be no confidence it will succeed at the referendum expected in October.

To counter the No campaign’s warnings about all the issues across all of government that the Voice could cover – from interest rates to changing the date of Australia Day

– Mr Pearson seeks to focus its remit on tackling the entrenched social problems in remote communities, such as low rates of school attendance and high rates of drug and alcohol abuse and child neglect.

According to Mr Pearson, this is the kind of practical agenda that the conservative Indigenous leaders of the No campaign, Senator Jacinta Price and Warren Mundine, could support.

Mr Pearson’s position reveals that the “progressive” and “conservative” position on Indigenous policy is not as clear-cut as typically made out.

Anthony Albanese says the Voice is about listening to Indigenous people. Yet the prime minister was forced to rush to Alice Springs just before Australia Day to reinstate bans on sales of takeaway alcohol to stem a youth crime wave – just the sort of top-down intervention the Voice is supposed to end and which some “progressive” voices damned as racist.

Likewise, Mr Pearson’s insistence that “sit down money” is at the root of the welfare-led downwards behavioural spiral in remote communities inspired the radical approach to rebuilding personal responsibility and social norms around work, family and care of children pioneered by his Cape York Partnership organisation in Far North Queensland.

Identity politics

As Mr Pearson also has admitted, making the Voice focus on getting Indigenous people off the grog, into jobs, and kids into schools would be hard for some “progressive” leaders to stomach.

Many urban-based activists at the forefront of the Yes campaign attribute Indigenous disadvantage to the historical legacies of colonialism, dispossession and racism, and the unfinished political business of truth-telling, treaty and reparations, not to social breakdown caused essentially by “progressive” social policy.

Writing in the Financial Review last month, historian Bain Attwood maintained that the Voice was headed for defeat because of an essential difference with the successful 1967 referendum. In the era of Martin Luther King, the latter was couched at the time as transcending racial differences and establishing equal rights – and was overwhelmingly supported. In contrast, this referendum would insert an extra race-based political right in the nation’s governing charter amid the context of contemporary identity politics.

A well-functioning legislated advisory body focused on tackling the national disgrace of Indigenous disadvantage would be supported by a great majority of Australians of goodwill, if the referendum was pulled to avoid the worst possible outcome – the bitter division and recriminations that would follow a No vote.

If Mr Albanese, along with Mr Pearson and others, remain determined to try to crash through or crash, the best hope of avoiding a serious setback for Indigenous reconciliation might be for the Yes campaign to find some way to firmly lock in behind Mr Pearson’s practical case for the Voice to try to win over a majority of voters, in a majority of states.

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
August 1, 2023 4:59 pm

John H.
Aug 1, 2023 4:44 PM

Against NATO Russia would be mauled.

You are a certifiable f*cking idiot. Explain how that would happen?

None dare mention Scalar.

JC
JC
August 1, 2023 5:00 pm

It’s debilitating. The Germans have been knocked for six. If they go off the cliff so will surrounding EU economies.

They’re in recession. It’s not a crisis. We need calm. 🙂

Suddenly, burning 160B$, now an underestimate, overseas is nothing.

It’s about US$80 billion less than Elon’s net worth, even after the hit he’s taken on Twitter. It’s money, but in terms of US$40 trillion in GDP, it’s a rounding error. No one is going to to be living on the streets of San Fran because of this.

Razey
Razey
August 1, 2023 5:02 pm

If Mr Albanese, along with Mr Pearson and others, remain determined to try to crash through or crash, the best hope of avoiding a serious setback for Indigenous reconciliation might be for the Yes campaign to find some way to firmly lock in behind Mr Pearson’s practical case for the Voice to try to win over a majority of voters, in a majority of states.

Browbeating has failed – Fact Check – confirmed.

H B Bear
H B Bear
August 1, 2023 5:05 pm

Whether they retained the Ashes or not – you can’t chase 150 runs with seven wickets in hand, then lose 6/70 while failing to do it and still hold your heads up.

Sums up the Australian Test side perfectly. Collectively the batting group were well short of what was required to be in a comfortable position all series. A bit of ruthlessness required by the selectors now – not sure that it will be forthcoming.

JC
JC
August 1, 2023 5:06 pm

Razey
Aug 1, 2023 4:57 PM

plucky

I’d be plucky too if given 100’s of billions of dollars and all the cocain I could handle

Razey, it’s supposedly US$160 billion a year according to Statistica. I suspect it’s much less than that because most of this sum includes military equipment. The donating nations handing over Kaboom equipment would likely be valuing it at historical cost. Is a 25 fighter jet worth the original cost? Naaaa.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 1, 2023 5:07 pm

Opinion

It’s time to power up from a petrostate to an electrostate

Government investment is a must to seize the once-in-a-century opportunity to leverage our natural advantages and position ourselves as a value-adding clean industry and export superpower.

Tim Buckley – Clean energy advocate

Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ announcement last week of a new chair of the Productivity Commission comes not a moment too soon. The commission’s recently released FY2022 Trade and Assistance Review entirely misses the mark.

In calling for Australia to “maintain the free-trade rage” and decrying “poorly designed industry assistance”, it mischaracterises efforts to deploy capital support and spending programs to rebuild Australian manufacturing and value-add our world-leading renewable resources pre-export as high-cost protectionism.

The report barely mentions the costs of the growing climate crisis.

This is a misreading of the implications for Australia of a profound global geopolitical shift already underway:

unprecedented government intervention by the United States, European Union, Canada, South Korea, Japan and a growing list of other economies to reposition themselves in the accelerating global energy transition, rebuild manufacturing onshore, and secure clean-tech supply chains against China’s decade-long head start.

At this inflection point, Australia can ill-afford an approach to industry policy that will further hollow out our manufacturing sector and consign us to the zero value-add, dig-and-ship mentality of yesterday’s fossil-fuel dominated mining behemoth.

We must seize the once-in-a-century opportunity to leverage our natural advantages and position ourselves as a value-adding clean industry and export superpower. And as other economies have recognised, this requires government investment.

The Productivity Commission’s ideology of free global trade seems oblivious to the significance of the massive stimulus of the $US369 billion-plus ($571 billion-plus) US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the associated $US400 billion Loan Program Office, and the Infrastructure and Jobs Act – key planks of “Bidenomics”.

These all-carrot, no-stick subsidy programs are of unprecedented size, are turbocharging reindustrialisation, decarbonisation and clean-tech in the US – from battery manufacturing to solar and wind – and expose the illusion of a capitalist marketplace thriving free of government assistance.

The Productivity Commission fails to grasp the magnitude of the opportunity to leverage Australia’s massive competitive advantage.

The success of these initiatives as engines of economic growth and prosperity is evidenced in investment bank Morgan Stanley’s assessment that Bidenomics is driving an unexpected US economic surge, a finding that underpins its sizable upward revision to US GDP forecasts.

The bank references “a boom in large-scale infrastructure”, and a domestic business investment “rebound, led by manufacturing”.

The White House confirms that Bidenomics has crowded in more than $US500 billion of new private sector investment in less than a year. In its first six months, the IRA drove the creation of 100,000 new jobs, while embedding fair labour standards in emerging clean industries.

The IRA is of immense importance to the accelerating global investment and technology “race to the top”. It also signals a new era of protectionism and a revitalisation of trading bloc thinking, such as the Quad.

The EU’s Net Zero Industry Act, India’s Production Linked Incentives, Japan’s GX Roadmap and Canada’s landmark clean energy tax credits are all direct responses to China’s dominance and the IRA.

Just this week, India blocked a bid by the world’s No.1 electric vehicle maker, China’s BYD, to build a $US1 billion EV factory in India, despite a partnership with India’s Megha.

South Korea announced a decade of corporate tax concessions to firms onshoring manufacturing, even as they lobby for Australia to just dig-and-ship.

And Germany announced a €2 billion ($3.1 billion) subsidy package to support Thyssenkrupp’s bid to decarbonise its steel production, a key strategic threat to Australia’s world-leading 38 per cent global share of iron ore and 55 per cent share of coking coal exports.

The Productivity Commission fails to grasp the magnitude of the opportunity this picture presents to leverage Australia’s massive competitive advantage.

We have some of the world’s largest reserves of critical minerals, metals and energy transition materials that underpin global decarbonisation. For example, Australia supplies 50 per cent of the world’s total lithium, but in 2022 captured a fraction of 1 per cent of the total EV value chain. And we have unparalleled renewable energy potential.

We should, as a matter of urgency, be deploying our world scale, zero emissions, low-cost renewable energy resources to power value-adding of our critical minerals onshore.

This would position us as a key player in the multi-decade EV-battery supply chain boom, as we help our trade partners transition their economies by exporting “embodied decarbonisation” – materials processed and manufactured using our wind and sun. Think green iron, green aluminium, and refined lithium hydroxide.

We can be a renewable and clean-tech export superpower as the Sunshot 2023 Report, endorsed by the Business Council of Australia, highlights, estimating that renewable export opportunities have the potential to generate more than $100 billion in gross value added, and support more than 400,000 good Australian jobs by 2040.

Public investment is critical to derisk Australian value-adding and catalyse private capital as global policy interventionism gathers pace.

It’s time for us to power up from a petrostate to a leading electrostate, as Alan Finkel has argued; for bold reform and an ambitious domestic response to our trade partners’ and competitors’ massive strategic national interest public subsidy programs, at a scale commensurate with that of Australia’s unique opportunity.

The Climate Capital Forum has been calling for $100 billion of strategic national interest public capital to crowd-in upwards of the $200 billion to $300 billion of private investment needed to re-industrialise Australia’s economy, refocus our mining sector, and massively build out renewables, transmission and storage.

We can play a globally significant role in the accelerating energy transformation and benefit from an investment, employment and trade boom. But leaving this to free markets means Australia will miss the boat, and abdicate its responsibility on climate.

Pretending this isn’t so shows the Productivity Commission is out of touch with geopolitical change, and their knee-jerk austerity a recipe for irrelevance.

We hope now that new leadership at the commission signals, as Treasurer Chalmers says, a revitalisation and renewal in which “the productivity opportunity for Australia is … to invest in human capital and the energy transformation”.

Tim Buckley is a director at Climate Energy Finance think tank.

Johnny Rotten
August 1, 2023 5:10 pm

No one is going to to be living on the streets of San Fran because of this.

Well they are living on the streets of San Fran and LA. So maybe it is because of the Left Wing Nut Jobs in California State Guv’ment then.

Over to you, you Sictorian short arse Glue Nu, I mean, No Gnu. I mean NFI.

JC
JC
August 1, 2023 5:11 pm

DeSaster: Top DeSantis Bundlers Support Ukraine, Lobby for Bud Light, Sit on the Board of Hooters

Indolent, what’s the problem with being a Hooters board member? I don’t see it.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 1, 2023 5:12 pm

Do you wear undies under your workout gear?

A new trend has been called out and it involves Aussies not wearing their undies and not everyone is happy about it.

Do you wear undies underneath your gym pants? It’s a question that is currently taking the internet by storm.

It all started because fitness influencer Laura Henshaw asked her podcast co-host and fellow fitness influencer Steph Claire-Smith that very controversial question.

If you think the answer is an obvious “yes,” well, you are wrong.

Do you wear undies underneath your gym pants? It’s a question that is currently taking the internet by storm.

It all started because fitness influencer Laura Henshaw asked her podcast co-host and fellow fitness influencer Steph Claire-Smith that very controversial question.

If you think the answer is an obvious “yes,” well, you are wrong.

“Do you wear undies with your workout gear?” Laura asked on their podcast KIC.

“Yes! I had to ask you this, too,” Steph confirmed.

I know what you are thinking … if they both said yes, how boring, but don’t worry, the case isn’t entirely closed yet.

“I know people who don’t”, Steph confessed.

“Wait, are you about to tell me you don’t?” She questioned.

Laura quickly confirmed that she does wear undies when she pops on her gym tights.

“I would get thrush!” She joked.

Forget the thrush … what about the sweat? Surely, the only thing worse then panty lines is a sweaty vagina or discharge stains.

JC
JC
August 1, 2023 5:13 pm

Wodney, remain silent.

JMH
JMH
August 1, 2023 5:13 pm

Just one paragraph lifted from OldOzzie’s post above:

– Mr Pearson seeks to focus its remit on tackling the entrenched social problems in remote communities, such as low rates of school attendance and high rates of drug and alcohol abuse and child neglect.

How long do we have to wait, Mr. Pearson. You have had decades to address and fix these issues – with Billions of dollars flowing in each frigging year. Crap or get off the pot. We, the Australian taxpayers have had a bellyful, and quite frankly, are absolutely sick of the wailing. The problems have been there for eons and this voice thing will not fix one thing, particularly being ‘controlled’ by urban pretends! We, the people, are not completely stupid, nor gullible. We can smell bullshit a mile away.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
August 1, 2023 5:14 pm

Sums up the Australian Test side perfectly. Collectively the batting group were well short of what was required to be in a comfortable position all series. A bit of ruthlessness required by the selectors now – not sure that it will be forthcoming.

The trouble is (with the exception of the Midget Cheating Houso Ranga) they all got at least one decent score.
The truth is, the tailenders and weather saved them from it being 4:1.
Or maybe 5:0.

H B Bear
H B Bear
August 1, 2023 5:15 pm

Black Ball at 9:51

You just get the sense Roger that if the poll in support of the referendum keeps going south, it will land at 20% come the hour of reckoning. Then Albo will do an Andrews and cancel it.

Nah. This is Albo standing on the precipice of history. The Liars will try to lump Dutton with the failure like Howard and the Republic. People just don’t trust the Liars with the Constitution and there is no compulsory preferences to save them.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
August 1, 2023 5:15 pm

Do you wear undies under your workout gear?

Brittany Higgins was unavailable for comment.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 1, 2023 5:16 pm

Unfathomable’: Man charged with 1623 child abuse charges

A former childcare worker who allegedly assaulted 91 children across two Australian states and an overseas country has been charged.

A former childcare worker who allegedly assaulted 91 children across two Australian states has been charged.

The 45-year-old Gold Coast man has been charged with 1623 child abuse offences, including 136 charges of raping pre-pubescent girls.

The alleged offences relate to 87 children in Australia and four overseas, and includes 110 counts of sexual intercourse with a child under 10.

Police allege the man carried out the offences at 10 childcare centres in Brisbane between 2007-13 and 2018-22.

The man is further alleged to have carried out offences at a single Sydney centre between 2014-2017, as well as overseas between 2013-14.

Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Justine Gough said the man allegedly recorded the offending on his phone and on camera.

She described the alleged offences which all involved pre-prepubescent girls on Tuesday as “unfathomable” and “chilling news”.

“We are highly confident that all 87 Australian children who were recorded in the alleged child abuse material have been identified,” she said.

“The parents of all the Australian children recorded in the alleged child abuse material have been informed of the investigation.

“Some of the individuals identified in the alleged child abuse material are now aged over 18 years and have been informed.”

“This is one of the most horrific child abuse cases that I‘ve seen in nearly 40 years of policing.

“We are absolutely committed to prosecuting anyone who comes after our most vulnerable.”

Assistant Commissioner Gough said the man had received “qualifications to work at the child care centres” in NSW and QLD.

calli
calli
August 1, 2023 5:20 pm

Laurence Fox commented: ‘Dear Costa Coffee, you are promoting the mutilation of healthy young girls. I hope you are boycotted out of existence.’

Onya Lozza.

In seeking to celebrate the “diversity of their customers”, where is Costa prepared to draw the line? I note they use mastectomy scars but not castration. I wonder why.

A cut too far?

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 1, 2023 5:22 pm

US faces hurdles in ramping up munitions supplies for Ukraine war effort

Counteroffensive highlights growing need for crucial 155mm artillery shells

The Biden administration is seeking to increase stretched supplies of crucial munitions for Ukraine to support the counteroffensive against Russian occupying forces. 

The weapons effort is focused on delivering more 155mm calibre shells used in the howitzers Ukraine is deploying along the front line, officials said, and includes supplies from international allies in the short term and plans to ramp up US production in the next two years. 

“I personally sit in my office every morning and spend 30 minutes on 155[mm] ammunition,” US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said last month at the Aspen Security Forum.

Officials said the Biden administration had been aware for months that Ukraine’s high burn-rate of munitions would begin to stretch supplies and had stepped up efforts to get the shells to the front line as the war entered a crucial phase. European supplies have also become stretched, and the Financial Times reported last week that Ukraine had begun firing rockets made in North Korea.

“We are actively working as rapidly as possible to build out the production lines for 155,” Sullivan said. “We do not want to lose a day and there is not a tool, authority or dollar that we’re going to set on the sidelines to not being able to do that.”

The US has already struck deals with Bulgaria and South Korea to supply the shells to Ukraine and is in talks with Japan to do the same, officials said.

But a US Army effort to increase monthly output of the crucial munitions to 90,000 will take until 2025, highlighting the challenge of ramping up such production quickly, particularly when the US had not previously been focused on it.

“Prior to the Ukraine spin-up, most of the army’s focus was on building out new tank munitions,” said Retired Brig. Gen. Guy Walsh, executive vice-president at the National Defense Industrial Association.

The Pentagon has asked to buy only about 790,000 155mm rounds over the past 10 years, mostly for use in training exercises. That suggests the US has already given Ukraine more than the quantity it procured in 155mm purchases over the past decade, according to a report by the Center for a New American Security think-tank in Washington.

Compounding the effort to ramp up production was a US decision to downsize its defence industrial base after the cold war.

“We did not anticipate or prepare for a long war and the industrial base was constrained for efficiency,” said Mark Cancian, senior adviser at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies

The munitions effort by the US and its allies comes as Ukraine intensifies its weeks-old counteroffensive in the south and east of the country. On Thursday and Friday, Kyiv said it had recaptured Staromaiorske, a village in south-eastern Donetsk region that had been under Russian occupation since early in the full-scale invasion.

Artillery warfare has dominated much of the fighting on the front line, with both sides firing thousands of shells each day. 

The dearth of US supplies of 155mn shells to support the current push was an important driver behind President Joe Biden’s controversial decision last month to authorise shipments of cluster munitions to Ukraine.

The decision “helped ensure that Ukraine has the ammunition it needs and that they would not run out”, one US official said. 

“We’re at the point where they’re supplying Ukraine at the level they can, and they’ve given them as much as they can, while keeping the reserves that they think are important to have in case there were an unforeseen crisis,” said Stacie Pettyjohn, director of the Defence Program at CNAS.

Ukrainian leaders have continually called on western allies to increase weapons supply, from air defence systems to fighter jets, as the country comes under pressure from international partners to speed up the counteroffensive. 

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, said last week that the effort got off to a slower start than hoped because “we had not enough munitions and armaments and not enough brigades properly trained in these weapons”. 

The US and its international allies have so far trained 66,000 Ukrainian forces, according to Col. Martin O’Donnell, spokesman for US Army Europe and Africa. The US has committed more than $43bn in lethal assistance, including 198 155mm Howitzers as well as more than 2mn rounds for them.

“Ukraine is well prepared and well trained to be successful,” US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said last week.

But that has not diminished the need for the 155mn shells — the large steel bullets filled with explosives that weigh approximately 100 pounds and are fired from howitzer artillery systems, including American-made M777 and M109 weapons provided to Kyiv.

Ukraine is currently firing up to 8,000 rounds of artillery a day, a much larger quantity than the US would fire, according to American officials. 

“As the front lines stabilise, the importance of artillery increases,” Cancian said. “The surprise has been how important just regular artillery shells are.”

The US is now also working to ramp up supply of the shells, with a target of producing up to 90,000 a month by fiscal year 2025, according to the US Army, compared with 24,000 now and 14,000 per month before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

However, production takes place mainly at four government-owned, contractor-operated sites in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and Iowa. A report by CNAS described the effort as “a lean production process with multiple bottlenecks”.

The US Army is building more production lines, including retooling a facility in Ontario, Canada, and erecting a new assembly line in Texas. Army officials have said they may also establish new facilities to load, assemble and pack 155mm shells in Arkansas, Iowa and Kansas.

“President Biden has said he is committed to supporting Ukraine as long as it takes, (And as long as the 10% Roles in for “The Big Guy” via Navy) ” the US National Security Council said.

JC
JC
August 1, 2023 5:22 pm

It’s still a superpower, which is why Africa was in St Petersburg last week.

It has about the equivalent soft power as China, which is why both are competing to be noticed by North Korea. 🙂

Morsie
Morsie
August 1, 2023 5:22 pm

Any batting candidates to replace the incumbents,preferably under 30?

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
August 1, 2023 5:27 pm

Penny Wong accuses Liberals of cultural heritage ‘scare campaign’ as WA debate erupts in Federal Parliament
Dan Jervis-BardyThe West Australian
Tue, 1 August 2023 2:15PM
Comments

Labor has accused the Coalition of running a “scare campaign” over Aboriginal cultural heritage protection to fuel opposition to an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

Government frontbencher Penny Wong levelled the claim as the debate which has dominated WA politics erupted in the Federal Parliament on Tuesday.

The opposition used question time in both the Senate and House to press Labor about its plans to beef up federal cultural protections in the wake of the Juukan Gorge disaster.

The Coalition is pointing to the chaos surrounding the rollout of WA’s new cultural heritage laws – in particular the confusion it has created for farmers – to demand Labor rule out enacting similar legislation for the rest of the country.

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek this week confirmed the Government wasn’t planning to adopt, duplicate or override State-based heritage protections, effectively binning the most drastic proposals put forward in an “options paper” presented to the Government.

cohenite
August 1, 2023 5:29 pm

OldOzzie
Aug 1, 2023 5:07 PM
Opinion

It’s time to power up from a petrostate to an electrostate

Government investment is a must to seize the once-in-a-century opportunity to leverage our natural advantages and position ourselves as a value-adding clean industry and export superpower.

Tim Buckley – Clean energy advocate

Buckley is a lunatic who advocates the closure of Eraring will have no negative effects.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 1, 2023 5:29 pm

Germany’s boiler ban will have ‘unintended consequences’ warns industry

US and European companies say clause to end use of refrigerant gas violates EU single market

US and European engineering companies have warned that a German bill to replace gas boilers with heat pumps contains provisions that violate the principles of the EU single market.

Manufacturers are concerned about a clause in the draft law allowing the government to prohibit the use of a refrigerating gas — hydrofluoroolefins — in heat pump systems.

This provision in what is being billed as one of Germany’s most ambitious pieces of climate legislation was “counterproductive”, said Julien Soulet, a senior executive at Honeywell Advanced Materials, and it “violates the principles of the EU internal market”.

“The unintended consequences of removing HFOs from the market in Germany would be far-reaching in terms of adverse impacts on energy efficiency, energy security and financial cost to citizens.”

A spokesperson for Germany’s economy ministry, which is responsible for the unpopular boiler ban, said it was “important” to switch from HFOs to “natural refrigerants” such as propane or carbon dioxide in heat pumps that have a “lower greenhouse gas potential”.

But she added that “what matters much more in climate policy terms is to stop using fossil fuels in heating”. 

The boiler ban has become one of the most hotly contested German laws of recent years, badly denting the popularity of Olaf Scholz’s coalition government.

The planned Buildings Energy Act, which is expected to be passed by the Bundestag in the autumn, stipulates that from next year all heating systems installed in new buildings in Germany must be at least 65 per cent powered by renewables.

But the bill contains a provision granting the government the authority to stipulate that only natural refrigerants can be used in heat pumps.

That would exclude HFOs, which are compounds of hydrogen, fluorine and carbon developed to enable heat transfer in appliances.

The government said heat pumps currently used fluorinated gases, so-called f-gases, which do not occur naturally and contribute to climate change. It said they have a “strong greenhouse gas effect that can be significantly greater than CO?“. It added that it was “envisaging” a requirement that only less-polluting natural refrigerants such as propane or CO? should be allowed in heat pumps.

The government said a new EU directive, which is being negotiated in Brussels, will probably ban newly installed heat pumps that use f-gases such as HFOs.

Yet industry groups say the provision could have a chilling effect on the sector, since many of the pumps sold in Germany use HFOs.

According to the VDKF, a German refrigeration and air conditioning trade group, propane-based heat pumps make up less than 5 per cent of the market.

The German Heat Pump Association (BWP) said it supported moves to update the European f-gas directive, which would establish uniform rules for the whole of the EU single market.

News in-depthGermany
‘Outraged and furious’: Germans rebel against gas boiler ban

But the provision in Berlin’s heating bill had stoked fears that Germany was pursuing a “national solution”, with deadlines and restrictions on which gases can be used that might diverge from EU rules.

“Uncertainty about what refrigerants are allowed could lead to a situation where the owners of buildings decide to install a gas or biomass heating system — which would lead to much greater emissions,” it said.

Kai Schiefelbein, chief executive of Stiebel Eltron, one of Germany’s leading heat pump manufacturers, said a more liberal approach was needed to address the issue of which refrigerants can be used.

“Politicians, companies and tradesmen all agree that we have to really ramp up the installation of heat pumps,” he said. “But to do that we need to take all heat pump segments into consideration.” 

He said up to 40 per cent of heat pump products in the European market still had “no safe and scalable solutions based on natural refrigerants”.

JC
JC
August 1, 2023 5:29 pm

I don’t know how anyone can run the above argument and complain about government spending again.

Sure you can. No country should be devoting more than 10% of GDP and no debt. And you obviously prioritize. That’s how you make a perfectly reasonable argument.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 1, 2023 5:30 pm

cohenite
Aug 1, 2023 5:29 PM

OldOzzie
Aug 1, 2023 5:07 PM
Opinion

It’s time to power up from a petrostate to an electrostate

Government investment is a must to seize the once-in-a-century opportunity to leverage our natural advantages and position ourselves as a value-adding clean industry and export superpower.

Tim Buckley – Clean energy advocate

Buckley is a lunatic who advocates the closure of Eraring will have no negative effects.

cohenite.

totally agree with you – I put the article up so Cats can see what the other side is pushing

JC
JC
August 1, 2023 5:32 pm

JC, this is cope.

It sure is, when you’re battling for North Korea’s attention. That’s coping.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 1, 2023 5:36 pm

Opinion EU enlargement

Ukraine’s EU road is littered with obstacles

Enlargement into eastern and south-eastern Europe will be impossible without far-reaching reform of the bloc

TONY BARBER

A year ago, Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, told Ukraine’s parliament: “There is a long road ahead but Europe will be at your side every step of the way, for as long as it takes, from these dark days of war until the moment you cross the door that leads into our European Union.”

She was right that Ukraine’s road to the EU will be long.

Just how long became apparent when Ukraine’s push to join Nato, the western world’s other premier institution, received the delicately worded response in July that the alliance would issue an invitation when “allies agree and conditions are met”.

If anything, EU membership may turn out to be even harder for Ukraine to secure than Nato entry.

In both cases, unanimous agreement among alliance states is a prerequisite for expanding the membership.

As Sweden has discovered since applying to join Nato, this process is not necessarily smooth.

But Ukraine’s EU bid raises an additional set of formidable challenges. In the first place, it is entangled with the process, to which the EU is formally committed, of admitting at least five other countries: Albania, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia.

Like Ukraine, none comes close for the moment to meeting the EU’s exacting requirements on democracy, the rule of law, a functioning market economy and an ability to fulfil the obligations of bloc membership.

Turkey is the sixth official EU entry candidate, but its membership prospects — never strong even when Brussels and Ankara enjoyed a more constructive relationship than now — are remote in the extreme.

The queue at the EU’s door also includes Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia and Kosovo.

This long line of potential entrants, which would expand the EU club from 27 to 33 or even 37 countries, throws light on a second obstacle to the bloc’s expansion.

No matter how desirable as a way of stabilising Europe’s eastern and south-eastern neighbourhood, enlargement will require far-reaching changes to the EU’s institutions, policies and financial arrangements for which neither national governments nor electorates in most of the 27 member states appear prepared.

With respect to institutions, it would be difficult but not impossible to accommodate new members by reallocating seats in the European parliament, reweighting votes in the European Council (in which national governments meet) and redesigning the commission.

Much more vexed is the question of whether, or how, to replace unanimity in fields such as taxation and foreign policy with a system of majority voting.

This is precisely what German chancellor Olaf Scholz proposed in a speech last year at Charles University in Prague.

He correctly pointed out that, as enlargement proceeded, the risk would grow that one country could use its veto to block a common policy.

If, however, the EU decided to stick with majority voting, various groups of countries might choose to move ahead on their own in different policy areas. “It would be a confusing tangle — and an invitation to all those who want to bet against a united geopolitical Europe and play us off against each other,” Scholz observed.

It is a strong argument but not everyone likes it.

Mateusz Morawiecki, Poland’s prime minister, told an audience at Germany’s University of Heidelberg in March that the EU’s responses to the debt crisis and pandemic each exposed “the limits of supranational governance in Europe”.

Expanding on his implicit criticism of Scholz’s proposals, Morawiecki added:

“In Europe, nothing will safeguard the freedom of nations, their culture, their social, economic, political and military security better than nation states. Other systems are illusory or utopian.”

It is ironic that Poland, a fervent supporter of Ukraine’s EU entry, objects to the kind of institutional reforms that might make enlargement workable.

But the irony does not end there. Like Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, Poland wants the EU to extend curbs on Ukrainian grain imports in order to protect domestic farmers.

This dispute suggests how hard it will be for the EU to incorporate Ukraine, one of the world’s largest agricultural producers but also one of Europe’s poorest countries even before the war.

Without extensive reform of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy and regional aid schemes, Ukraine would have an enormous claim on the EU budget — some 65 per cent of which goes to these two spending programmes.

Other candidate countries, admittedly smaller than Ukraine, would also expect access to the EU’s largesse.

Yet budgetary reform on the scale needed to pay for enlargement would mean less for many states in central and eastern Europe that have received tens of billions of euros since joining the EU from 2004 onwards.

Are political parties and voters ready for such concessions in the name of a safer Europe?

Let us not forget that another obstacle in Ukraine’s path is Hungary’s allegation that western Ukraine’s ethnic Hungarian minority suffers mistreatment.

The EU, anxious to reward Ukraine for its courageous resistance to Russian aggression, can and must press on with enlargement.

Ukraine and others should be given benefits, such as some access to EU funds and a voice in policymaking, even before gaining full membership.

Even so, enlargement promises to be the most difficult task in the EU’s almost 70-year history.

cohenite
August 1, 2023 5:36 pm

>20000MW of installed W&S in NSW is right now basically producing NO fu.king electricity:

https://www.aemo.com.au/energy-systems/electricity/national-electricity-market-nem/data-nem/data-dashboard-nem#price-demand

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
August 1, 2023 5:37 pm

Energy Minister Bill Johnston wants ABC to explain camera crew at Woodside boss Meg O’Neill’s home
Shannon Hampton
The West Australian
Tue, 1 August 2023 2:57PM

Energy Minister Bill Johnston has called on the ABC to explain how its camera crew came to be at the home of Woodside Energy boss Meg O’Neill as climate activists descended on the property.

Three people — two men and a woman — who are connected to the Disrupt Burrup Hub campaign have been taken into custody after the incident at Ms O’Neill’s City Beach home about 6.45am on Tuesday.

A Woodside spokeswoman said “camera crews accompanied the activists in what was an organised and deliberate act designed to intimidate Ms O’Neill and her family”.

The spokeswoman alleged that the group of “extremist protesters” trespassed on the family home, which was an “unacceptable escalation in activity designed to threaten and intimidate”.

An ABC spokeswoman confirmed that the organisation did have a television crew at the home.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 1, 2023 5:43 pm

MPs are stuck as UK parliament crumbles around them

The decaying state of the Palace of Westminster has become a symbol of the wider inertia in Whitehall

LUCY FISHER

Big Ben’s clock tower is the unrivalled showpiece of Britain’s parliament. Enveloped by ugly scaffolding in recent years while it underwent an external restoration project, Elizabeth Tower (renamed after the late queen) has just reopened following internal renovation.

But its gleaming condition — with regilded panels and a new coat of Prussian blue paint on the clock dial numerals — belies the sorry state of the old Palace of Westminster.

Even newer parts of the estate are crumbling: just this month, rainwater deluged the covered courtyard of Portcullis House, when a pane of glass?broke in the atrium’s roof.

Six incidents of falling stonework, 10 fires, and one incident of potential asbestos exposure have been recorded since 2020, while leaking pipes regularly flood politicians’ offices.

The prospect of a blaze tearing through the estate remains a serious threat: parliament’s archive, containing acts handwritten on 500-year-old vellum, is being rehoused in Kew.

MPs, however, appear paralysed over how to manage the problem — as they are over so many policies requiring system overhaul or spending commitments that will outlast the current government.

Breaking political impasses over the NHS or university funding models, or fundamentally rethinking the pensions system, seem impossible.

Much of the parliamentary estate is over half a century old and its water, electric, sewage and gas infrastructure needs urgent replacement. Proposals range from multibillion-pound options that involve moving MPs and peers off-site, to slower and even more expensive plans to do the work in stages so they can remain in the building. Meg Hillier, Labour chair of the public accounts committee, which scrutinises government spending, laments that the full upgrade has been repeatedly deferred. “It’s what I call ‘slow politics’ — nobody thinks in the long term.”

A board of cross-party MPs and peers, clerks and lay members is now in charge of devising a new shortlist of restoration options and parliament will vote on the final proposal this December. But the issue provokes conflicting and impassioned views. A 2018 vote to move parliamentarians off the estate and get on with the job was scotched last year when the Commons and Lords commissions swooped in to scrap the independent body overseeing the project, accusing it of having acted “in haste”.

In the meantime, doing nothing is not cost neutral. The ad hoc patch-ups already cost the taxpayer £2mn a week.

Politicians of all parties fear making a multi-decade, multibillion pound spending commitment at a time when public finances are tight.

Even if the Palace of Westminster is a Unesco world heritage site, releasing funds for their own workplace risks looking self-serving.

There is similar timidity elsewhere: England’s social care model and planning system need wholesale reform, yet neither the government nor opposition dare pursue it.

Ministers admit privately that local government finance is convoluted and unfair, but memories of Margaret Thatcher’s poll tax disaster discourage reform.

Theresa May’s equally doomed plans to transform social care will also cast a long shadow. Such issues tend to be shunted into what former Labour home secretary Charles Clarke called the “too difficult box” and shelved.

The political system is beset by an inertia-crisis paradox.

Alice Lilly of the Institute for Government points to net zero ambitions — now being scaled back by the government in the hope of electoral gains — as another victim of this trend. “You get moments where there’s a bit of political will and momentum, but that can quickly slip away because stasis is always easier than major reform,”

she says. When crises erupt, the response is “a knee-jerk reaction, rather than longer term, more strategic thinking”, Lilly adds.

A sticking plaster approach to complicated policies and floundering organisations, such as the newly revamped Elizabeth Tower, may appear to mitigate economic and political costs but are in fact a false economy.

In the long term, the UK’s most difficult policy challenges face the same prognosis as parliament’s renovation:

the bigger the delay, the more tricky and expensive reform becomes.

Even physical decay cannot shake politicians out of their inertia.

JMH
JMH
August 1, 2023 5:44 pm

The spokeswoman alleged that the group of “extremist protesters” trespassed on the family home, which was an “unacceptable escalation in activity designed to threaten and intimidate”.

An ABC spokeswoman confirmed that the organisation did have a television crew at the home.

Of course, they did. The ABC is afterall, an “extremest” news outlet. It will never be reined in. It will continue to pollute and propagandise until all farting cows are killed. There is nothing we can do but sit back and watch rating hit the floor.

Indolent
Indolent
August 1, 2023 5:46 pm

Malcolm Roberts

Net Zero Leadership

JMH
JMH
August 1, 2023 5:46 pm

I think that should be “extremist”.

Kingsley
Kingsley
August 1, 2023 5:51 pm

How many car transport ships will need to sink before shipping companies refuses to transport EVs at all?
One would have to think only 1 or 2 more and the risk/insurance premiums will make it prohibitive?

JC
JC
August 1, 2023 5:52 pm

Then why are you comparing the US spending on Ukraine with US GDP and not with the US Budget?

Because spending is commonly measured as a percentage of GDP. Incidentally, I “measured” it against European and US GDP – not just for the US.

It’s a way to get a feel for the significance. Be my guest if you want to hunt around for total budget+plus deficit spending for both Europe and the US.

Where’s this talking point originate, JC?

Driller came up with it last night during heated discussions on Chinese and Russian global ambitions, alien visits, quasars as well as which is method is more efficient in splitting the atom.

Just kidding.

The talking point came from me. Moi.

JC
JC
August 1, 2023 5:53 pm

Then why are you comparing the US spending on Ukraine with US GDP and not with the US Budget?

Because spending is commonly measured as a percentage of GDP. Incidentally, I “measured” it against European and US GDP – not just for the US.

It’s a way to get a feel for the significance. Be my guest if you want to hunt around for total budget+plus deficit spending for both Europe and the US.

Where’s this talking point originate, JC?

Driller came up with it last night during heated discussions on Chinese and Russian global ambitions, alien visits, quasars as well as which is method is more efficient in splitting the atom.

Just kidding.

The talking point came from me. Moi.

You’re a fan, obviously?

calli
calli
August 1, 2023 5:54 pm

Even newer parts of the estate are crumbling: just this month, rainwater deluged the covered courtyard of Portcullis House, when a pane of glass?broke in the atrium’s roof.

That building is just on 20 years old! Crumbling?

Who built it? Eric Sykes and Arthur Lowe?

Rosie
Rosie
August 1, 2023 5:55 pm

Boambee.
I specifically mentioned high rent locations.
In regional Queensland even humble privates can get a four bedroom house with a double garage under the roof line.
In say, Canberra, young families might get a tiny townhouse with no bath and no garden.
And being built for DVA rentals, appliances, blinds and fittings are the cheapest ones the owners can find.
I’m well aware that rents are subsidised ( and so they should be or Army families in some locations would be lining up for food assistance at Salvos) but that doesn’t make up for crappy pay, 12 hour shifts (no penalty rates) and dislocation of family.

bons
bons
August 1, 2023 5:55 pm

Farage really is something.
It is obvious from his many recent broadcasts and his ‘debanked’ website that he will not back off until the regulator is humbled.
If only he would stand for office.

Johnny Rotten
August 1, 2023 5:55 pm

The EU, anxious to reward Ukraine for its courageous resistance to Russian aggression, can and must press on with enlargement.

Ukraine and others should be given benefits, such as some access to EU funds and a voice in policymaking, even before gaining full membership.

Even so, enlargement promises to be the most difficult task in the EU’s almost 70-year history.

So why not go all the way to Australia? And bring NATO as well. It can’t fail. LOL.

Robert Sewell
August 1, 2023 5:59 pm

Salvatore:
Old Ozzie:

Elon Musk, if he chooses to use it, has the ability to bring quite some focus onto the situation in SA.

Hopefully he does this.
Nobody else will. Not the MSM, not the UN, not the Human Rights organisations, not the bleeding heart charities, not even individual governments.

Elon is very vulnerable to being pressured by the US administration. Remember the difficulties he had with getting permission from them for letting off one of his rockets?
All they have to do is tighten the launch weather parameters to scrub missions and cost him millions.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
August 1, 2023 5:59 pm

Morsie

Aug 1, 2023 5:22 PM

Any batting candidates to replace the incumbents,preferably under 30?

Unfortunately, it is the constant asking of that question which is the problem.
The incumbents sense it and play accordingly.
Once you are in, the Australian crickit team is harder to get out of than Long Bay.
As for alternatives.
Openers (replace both within 12 months) … Renshaw, Harris, Bancroft and Pucovski if he can stop getting hit on the noggin.
Middle order (replace Smiff) … Renshaw and Bancroft again, and go to someone like Matt Short.
Leave Head and Labushagnee.
The point is, they are on the downward slide and need to fix it now.

JC
JC
August 1, 2023 6:02 pm

So you just made it up. OK.

That’s nice. if Harry Cruddle from the US Department had “made it up”, it would have more credibility with you?

But me? No, of course not. I’m chopped liver? 🙂

JC
JC
August 1, 2023 6:05 pm

So what’s the total spending as a percentage of GDP just for the US. Just so we can compare its total spend with its spending on Ukraine.

Dover, I gave you the numbers and the link to the statistica page. You’re smart enough to figure it out.

Johnny Rotten
August 1, 2023 6:05 pm

The talking point came from me. Moi.

You’re a fan, obviously?

Wot’ a plonker you are Jerk Off Cretin. Just go back to the Bar and chomp on another pizza, drink more piss and fart. You T.W.A.T.

miltonf
miltonf
August 1, 2023 6:08 pm

Everyday the ABC proves no low act is too low for that despicable organization.

Salvatore, Iron Publican
August 1, 2023 6:09 pm

Elon is very vulnerable to being pressured by the US administration. Remember the difficulties he had with getting permission from them for letting off one of his rockets?
All they have to do is tighten the launch weather parameters to scrub missions and cost him millions.

USA isn’t the only spot on the planet from which rockets can be launched.
Good point though – nothing is beyond the Biden handlers.

TwitterX is possibly more easily moved offshore.

On that, good to see the vibrant & diverse city of Sanfranshitscape has solved their biggest problem, a great big “X” on his roof, or rather, no longer on his roof.

JC
JC
August 1, 2023 6:12 pm

Wodney,

The very definition of an worthless plonker is you thinking that anyone would pay attention to those excerpts from a crook. Go see what the ladyboy is doing and stop posting drivel.

Johnny Rotten
August 1, 2023 6:14 pm

Who built it? Eric Sykes and Arthur Lowe?

Nearly right. Tommy Cooper as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCRANWIHYPY

JC
JC
August 1, 2023 6:17 pm

TwitterX is possibly more easily moved offshore.

LOL. No it’s not.

Razey
Razey
August 1, 2023 6:17 pm

Unfathomable’: Man charged with 1623 child abuse charges

Castration followed by feet first wood chipper.

Salvatore, Iron Publican
August 1, 2023 6:19 pm

Johnny Rotten is this site’s leading critical thinker – he must have an IQ of 195!

Johnny Rotten
August 1, 2023 6:19 pm

JC
Aug 1, 2023 6:12 PM

No one gives a fark wot’ you fink’ you short arse Sictorian. Stay in that sand pit with Ken and Barbie. You know it makes sense.

Salvatore, Iron Publican
August 1, 2023 6:22 pm

LOL. No it’s not.

Okay, it seems SpaceX is more easily moved offshore than is Twitter.

Handy to know.

calli
calli
August 1, 2023 6:25 pm

Johnny, this is the version I remember.

I love Lowe’s deadpan.

On Portcullis House, first time I saw it I thought…that’s an ugly bugger.

Razey
Razey
August 1, 2023 6:25 pm

Johnny Rotten is this site’s leading critical thinker – he must have an IQ of 195!

No, that belongs to Armstrong’s 1986 DOS supercomputer.

Johnny Rotten
August 1, 2023 6:28 pm

Salvatore, Iron Publican
Aug 1, 2023 6:19 PM
Johnny Rotten is this site’s leading critical thinker – he must have an IQ of 195!

You are far too kind. My IQ is 126 which should be good enough for this site. If I had an IQ of 95 then I would be like Jerk Off Cretin. Oh, did I not see that right. Maybe I should go to SpecSavers…………LOL.

Lee
Lee
August 1, 2023 6:28 pm

“A national study from Cedars Sinai hospital shows the deaths related to heart attacks increased across every age group since the spring of 2020 but the group that saw the biggest increase isn’t who you might think…The relative increase in heart attack associated deaths among 25-44 year olds was a staggering 30%…Experts are still working to figure out why young people are so impacted.”

These “experts” seem like Albert Einsteins.

LOL.

Even I, a layman, could tell them why it’s happening.

Robert Sewell
August 1, 2023 6:29 pm

Sancho:
[Save it for very late evening or not at all. This is for all those concerned in this fracas.]
I take it you think 4.43 is late evening?
Or do the new rules not apply to you?
Yap yap yappity yap woof growl bark Yikes!

Boambee John
Boambee John
August 1, 2023 6:35 pm

Rosie

In say, Canberra, young families might get a tiny townhouse with no bath and no garden.

What rank? Anyone over corporal was, more than 20 years ago, entitled to a house with en-suite. There also used to be an element of choice, allowing acceptance of a smaller house closer to work or shops, rather than the full entitlement (with the rental contribution reduced accordingly).

DHA used to have a (commercially advantageous for them) habit of providing only new houses in the higher gradings, and junior ranks allocated to those houses (for the lack of available houses at their proper entitlement) paid only their lower contribution.

Perhaps DHA needs a close review, if they are not providing at least the standard they are contracted to provide?

Boambee John
Boambee John
August 1, 2023 6:38 pm

PS, and unless the system has collapsed, the pay, while not millionaire level, used to be quite good. How many other jobs put someone six months out of high school on the median national full-time income?

cohenite
August 1, 2023 6:42 pm

According to our Pauline that pencil necked POS, birmingham, is leading the charge against our Pauline’s efforts to get legislation passed to reduce the number of young kids undergoing genital mutilation. As usual the real problem in the West and Australia are not the lunatic left but gutless and venal faux conservatives who have basically destroyed parties like the LNP.

Rosie
Rosie
August 1, 2023 6:45 pm

Only one property was even offered.
Apparently providing a property with a bath to families with babies and toddlers is no longer required.
Garage at rear to back door is one flight of stairs, then of course another flight of stairs internally.
It’s just bad luck if you have small children.
Not prepared to disclose rank, though I’d think family circumstances should matter more than rank.
If the army wants to retain soldiers then these are the sort of things they should be considering.

JC
JC
August 1, 2023 6:47 pm

Okay, it seems SpaceX is more easily moved offshore than is Twitter.

Handy to know.

Neither would be for different reasons, Driller. I was going to suggest you think about it, but other than witnessing the usual blowharding, bignoting, generalized lying and then covering it up with irredeemable codswallop, I quickly retreated realizing it’s beyond you.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
August 1, 2023 6:47 pm

PS, and unless the system has collapsed, the pay, while not millionaire level, used to be quite good.

Malcolm Fraser, of all people, did much to bring service pay and allowances, into step with civvie street.

I was assured by a most earnest public servant that “If you guys get a pay rise, all the other branches of the public service should get one, as well!”

Dot
Dot
August 1, 2023 6:48 pm

I love Pauline but she sounds like she’s been in a bank holdup/hostage situation since 1996.

Her BP must be 2300/1800 and her voice fries like a kid who has been beaten daily and nightly.

Johnny Rotten
August 1, 2023 6:48 pm

calli
Aug 1, 2023 6:25 PM
Johnny, this is the version I remember.

You are so right and I think that this is the original one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUbcaE44cSw

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
August 1, 2023 6:51 pm

Do I detect a tiny, slight, sign of…balls?

Coalition to fight Labor’s ‘Orwellian’ misinformation crackdown (Sky, 1 Aug)

The Coalition will fight against Labor’s “Orwellian” misinformation laws which will fine social media platforms millions of dollars for failing to censor “so-called false information”.

Sky News Australia host Sharri Markson revealed on Tuesday the Coalition would formally contest the legislation, which she said would “empower censorship of all individuals on social media”.

I dare to believe. UFOs are more likely however.

Rosie
Rosie
August 1, 2023 6:53 pm

The pay is rubbish.
It might be great for a young bloke straight out of school living on base but for someone supporting a family, no.
I don’t know any other organisation that would switch someone to shift work, including night shifts with increased hours but no increase in pay.

Pogria
Pogria
August 1, 2023 6:57 pm

Cohenite,
I was watching Pauline also. Filth such as Bummingham should be forced to take a course of the drugs that are being inflicted on these children. If the puberty blockers are benign and reversible as we are led to believe, then each politician who is in favour of mutilating our children, should have no problem proving to parents that these drugs are safe by ingesting a full course themselves.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
August 1, 2023 7:12 pm

Sounds like an excellent place to put some wind turbines.

Gunnedah farmers oppose reactivation of coal seam gas wells (Ncl local news, 1 Aug)

bons
bons
August 1, 2023 7:14 pm

Unfathomable’: Man charged with 1623 child abuse charges
The ABC is reported to be seeking to identify links to the Catholic Church.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
August 1, 2023 7:20 pm

Haha, Putin has just worked out that giving nukes to his next victim was a really bad idea.

Russia Offers To Negotiate Pulling Nukes From Belarus – Names Key Condition (1 Aug)

I’ll tell you this for free kiddo, they ain’t going to give them back. No sirree. The Belarussians are entirely aware of who their real enemy is.

Boambee John
Boambee John
August 1, 2023 7:51 pm

Rosie

A point of clarification.

Is the townhouse a DHA property, or is it occupied under Temporary Rental Assistance?

TRA is provided when a suitable scale DHA property is not available, to enable the member to rent a suitable place and receive funding to cover the gap between the member contribution and the cost of the commercial rental.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
August 1, 2023 8:38 pm

Someone here yesterday critical of BazBall, calling it “five days of T20”.
It isn’t really, if you examine it closely.
It is based on a slight elevation of aggression and risk.
They are on the lookout for “dot balls” and “leaves” to be converted to 1’s and 2’s.
Something which might be pushed for 2-3, they really hop into and look for 4, maybe 6.
Playing the ball along the ground is no longer a cast-iron rule. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. How many players do we see caught in the ring field because they tried to play it along the ground, but the ball stops or pops a bit and the shell a waist high catch to cover? Hitting it 20 feet over the ring field solves that problem. It also increases the range of lengths of deliveries which can be hit for a boundary (not without risk, it is true).
So it isn’t random bashing.
It is a tweak up in risk-reward.
The other aspect is what Steve Waugh used to call “mental disintegration” of the opposition.
Take the Lord’s test as an example.
Stokes was on 82 just after lunch.
Cummins brings on Cameron Green.
Stokes goes 6-6-6 and goes to 100.
The panic among Captain Carbon and the Carbonettes was palpable.
BazBall couldn’t be implemented in the Australian team.
It requires an acceptance that there are 20 individual innings in a test match, and fifteen of those might be burnt for medium-low totals. But 2-3 might come off with big, fast 100’s.
Why couldn’t that work for Australia?
Because most of their top six are too selfish to sacrifice their wicket for a team strategy.

rosie
rosie
August 1, 2023 9:25 pm

I’ve no idea John. I saw the offer on the DHA site, it was presented as a fait accompli.

Dot
Dot
August 1, 2023 9:32 pm

PAGING JOHN H

https://news.flinders.edu.au/blog/2023/06/09/key-clue-to-what-causes-cancer/

A new Flinders University-led study published in Cancer Cell, one of the world’s top cancer journals, finds that specific circular RNAs within many of us can stick to the DNA in our cells and cause DNA mutations which result in cancer.

“While environmental and genetic factors have long been believed the major contributors to cancer, this revolutionary finding – which we call ‘ER3D’ (from ‘endogenous RNA directed DNA damage’) – ushers in an entirely new area of medical and molecular biology research,” says Flinders University Professor Simon Conn, who leads the Circular RNAs in Cancer Laboratory at the Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute.

The research compared the neonatal blood tests or Guthrie cards of babies who went on to develop acute leukemia as infants with children without any blood disorders. This found that one specific circular RNA was present at much higher levels at birth, prior to onset of the symptoms of leukemia. “

I have a question, but I’ll see what you say first.

JC
JC
August 1, 2023 9:35 pm

dover0beach
Aug 1, 2023 6:51 PM

Dover, I gave you the numbers and the link to the statistica page. You’re smart enough to figure it out.

Sorry, I meant as a percentage of the US budget, not GDP. Just did it, it’s just over 1% of the US budget.

It’s less than that, I think. Total government spending in the US as a % of US GDP is about 35%. 35% of US GDP (US$23.5 trillion) is US$8.2 trillion. US$70 billion/US$8.2 is about .4%. I took it over total government intake as I think it’s more accurate how much US production is being consumed by the war compared to total outlays.

Also, as I said earlier, the real cost is less than that because of the way government assets are shown. Government accounts at cost, and so old equipment etc is valued at original cost. An old tank or plane would be valued at its original cost price. The actual value of the transfer would be inflated.

Dover, there’s also this to consider. You’d agree that the real measure of the transfer is how much it costs American citizens in terms of annual production to satisfy the war effort. It’s therefore more reasonable to match it against GDP rather than total outlays.

Boambee John
Boambee John
August 1, 2023 9:42 pm

Rosie
Aug 1, 2023 6:53 PM
The pay is rubbish.
It might be great for a young bloke straight out of school living on base but for someone supporting a family, no.
I don’t know any other organisation that would switch someone to shift work, including night shifts with increased hours but no increase in pay.

Service Allowance is paid as part of Military Salary to cover such exigencies. You might not regard it as suitable or adequate, take it up with the DFRT, which sets it.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
August 1, 2023 9:44 pm

Labor’s national platform reveals treaty to be pursued this term of government

Exclusive
By sarah ison
Political Reporter
@@sarsison
and rosie lewis
Political Correspondent
@rosieslewis
9:03PM August 1, 2023
5 Comments

Labor has vowed to take steps ­towards a treaty with Indigenous Australians in this term of parliament in the latest draft of its ­national platform, as Anthony ­Albanese refuses to link a Makarrata commission and agreement-making with the referendum.

The Prime Minister and Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney are facing increased pressure from the Coalition to ­explain if they still support a treaty and the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full – after Mr Albanese declared on 2GB last month the voice was not about treaty – with senior Liberals questioning Ms Burney’s ability to remain minister.

The Australian can reveal Labor’s latest national platform draft, which will be taken to the party’s conference later this month, states: “Labor supports all elements of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, including a constitutionally enshrined voice to parliament, a Makarrata commission for agreement-making and a national process of truth-telling.

“Labor will take steps to ­implement all three elements of the Uluru Statement from the Heart in this term of ­government.”

The Australian understands the government is not planning to pursue the commission before the referendum to be held between October and December.

A Makarrata commission was envisaged by the Uluru Statement as an independent body to “oversee agreement-making and truth-telling”, with Ms Burney in February declaring further details on such processes and on the commission itself were imminent.

JC
JC
August 1, 2023 9:50 pm

I’m not exaggerating when I say this. These freaking morons are causing large numbers of people to very serious suffer mental illness and major anxiety. It’s brainwashing of the worst kind because it’s constant. It has to stop.

Zali Steggall MP
@zalisteggall
Scientists are deeply worried global warming is accelerating much faster than previously predicted.

The government’s current climate policy does not keep us safe.

The threat has escalated.

The government must now escalate its response.

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
August 1, 2023 9:53 pm

Do I detect a tiny, slight, sign of…balls?

Coalition to fight Labor’s ‘Orwellian’ misinformation crackdown (Sky, 1 Aug)

Well they have had, thanks to The Voice, the long unaccustomed experience of the being vindicated by the voters. They said they would oppose it and ever poll shows more and more people siding with them.

The Misinformation bill would be a perfect chance to show a little humility. If Dutton and the Libs made the point that politicians and bureaucrats are fallible and should not pretend to be the final arbiters of truth. The bill is to give politicians and bureaucracies exemptions – what could that possibly be about?

There is this stupid mummery we all join in where politicians speak as if they are infallible and unswervingly honest. The voters know that is not true, but they go on doing it anyway.

The politician who says out loud that they and their party are not perfect. That they can make mistakes and the best they can promise is to correct course. But that they will not presume to something as superhuman as always being right.

And the great thing is trying to see how their opponents could hope to cash in on this admission – what can they say? That they are always right?

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
August 1, 2023 9:54 pm

It’s a repeat. Faarkin brilliant.

Hans Zimmer Man Of Steel DVD Prague

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
August 1, 2023 9:55 pm

Service Allowance is paid as part of Military Salary to cover such exigencies.

I’m going back to the early 1980’s – after Fraser’s pay rise – base rate was $16,000 a year, which was pretty ho hum by civilian standards, but service allowance was $4,000 a year.

rosie
rosie
August 1, 2023 10:02 pm

I don’t know why you feel the need to defend the Army /DHA or attack me for my opinion about the treatment of soldiers and their families John.
Some paltry ‘service allowance’ is of cold comfort to young mothers who are left to look after small children in new postings where they have zero family support for thirteen hours straight, none of which was communicated by the army prior to transfer.
It should surprise no-one that Army attrition rates continue to be atrocious.

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
August 1, 2023 10:28 pm

Is this place under a DOS attack?

Timeout attacks x infinity!

What the F is going on?

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
August 1, 2023 10:34 pm

dover0beach
Aug 1, 2023 10:31 PM
Steve, servers are under maintainance.

Cheers bloke.

Gabor
Gabor
August 1, 2023 10:37 pm

dover0beach
Aug 1, 2023 10:29 PM

I’ll tell you this for free kiddo, they ain’t going to give them back. No sirree. The Belarussians are entirely aware of who their real enemy is.

They sure do and it’s not Russia, about the nuke I haven’t read about it yet, but it could be a goodwill gesture towards the west.

1K
0
Oh, you think that, do you? Care to put it on record?x
()
x