Open Thread – Mon 7 Aug 2023
- Open Thread – Mon 25 Nov 2024
- The more you gets the less you eats
- Open Thread – Weekend 23 Nov 2024
- Open Thread – Thurs 21 Nov 2024
- Open Thread – Mon 18 Nov 2024
Cash 2.0 Great Dane at the Canoga Park Block Party 2024
His name is Cash. Cash 2.0 Great Dane at the Canoga Park Block Party 2024
Gotta start somewhere, even if it is second…
Am I lucky this morning?
Is it too much to ask that they all mind their own bloody business and just get on and enjoy life?
Whoops. That was supposed to skulk on the bottom of the last page.
But, earlier, in 1526, Smolensk is Russian and Ruthenian lands are Lithuanian. And, anyway, the map you link was to a proposal, before that the Ruthenians begged the Tsar to get them out of a spot of bother with the Poles. And what of the Swedes at this time cutting swathes from the Commonwealth? And before that, particularly, during the 1300s the Lithuanians and the Russians are fighting over Rus territory under threat by Mongols or already overrun.
Not just the Pony Club (although that looks to be heading into Chairman Dan and WA Inc territory). A few guys working their way through the WA court system for a $100+ fraud only picked up by the Auditor General. They were lifting half a million a month and no one noticed!
A certain person in media I’d like to smash his head in. A big nose bloke sucking Stokes cock.
The point I was trying to make was that the original claim that the lands were Russian is akin to ‘first nation’ claims. Highly dependent upon time frame in question and willingness to ignore inconvenient facts.
Russian TYPICAL Shopping Mall After 500 Days of Sanctions: AviaPark Moscow
Travelling with Russell
1,412,841 views 19 Jul 2023
A Texan farmer goes to Australia for a vacation. There he meets an Aussie farmer and gets talking.
The Aussie shows off his big wheat field and the Texan says: “Oh! We have wheat fields that are at least twice as large.”
Then they walk around the ranch a little and the Aussie shows off his herd of cattle.
The Texan immediately says: “We have longhorns that are at least twice as large as your cows.”
The conversation has, meanwhile, almost died when the Texan sees a herd of kangaroos hopping through the field. He asks: “And what are those?”
The Aussie, fed up with the bragging, asks with an incredulous look: “Don’t you have any grasshoppers in Texas?”
Good luck arguing over Ukrainian historical sovereignty claims. That was the first place you set off for for world domination literally since the year zero.
Haha Albo deciding to have the referendum in October or November due to the wet season. Needs as many votes as possible lol. What a cretin
Dover, American communists have been using the moral equivalence argument prior to WW2.
It doesn’t wash.
It’s about power politics when you’re outside looking in.
The grievance argument. It’s all Russia has.
No, not bullshit at all:
The completion of the chronology and the article by Sachs can be found here, incl. the links to each of the statements in the chronology. This Duran video, Security guarantees w/ Jeffrey Sachs (Live) is also excellent.
What grievance argument? I’m directly replying to Zatara’s claim that Smolensk, Minsk, etc. aren’t actually Russian cities. Moreover, both sides make grievance arguments. You want to complain about your sovereignty being violated? That’s a grievance argument. And so on.
I just skimmed it but, yes.
Max Beck I think it was, from Becton.
Been around the track a few times.
And, unlike Harry, I don’t think he is sitting on 1000 unsold shitboxes which might influence what he tells j’isms.
Reasonable points. But was any serious discussion about allowing Ukraine into NATO before the war? I only read suggestions Ukraine would be entertained for entry into the EU. The EU is an economic pact.
Also we are having conniptions about the Solies making nice with China, but we’re not going to bash the shot out of them.
Then what’s the point of bringing up stuff from 1500s. Only the Russians care.
I’m not particularly interested in the Ukraine/Russia brawl, and haven’t been following it any further than reading a couple of lines here and moving on to the next post, but surely the NATO big heads must have realised that a German tank on their borders would have triggered Russia into reacting violently and quickly?
Or was that the intention?
No Johnny, the fizzerati, scummo and co, and every other polli and employer who forced aussies into lockdown and the stab, have to be herded into the showground.
Then, every aussie who was forced into the stab, and the ones who weren’t, can bring trailer and truckloads of building materials and have at them.
Revenge, Justice and fun for all the Family.
Most excellent Pogria, a worthy interwebs winner for today
Taking a coffee break! .. painting a bedroom for no better reason than I felt like it and I had some unused/half empty paint cans around .. plus at 75 I still can ……! .. The joys of OAP-dom .. LOL!
Megan
Aug 9, 2023 11:27 AM
offendapottimi = overweight wokesters? Another addition to the Catictionary?
Please contact me on [email protected]
Jeffrey D. Sachs is your source? This Jeffery D.Sachs?
Forgive me if I suspect a bit of bias, and observe a bunch of unsupported and irrelevant claims.
“January 31, 1990. German Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich-Genscher…
”
..
So you are relying on the “guarantee” supposedly given by some foreign minister of a state that no longer exists to the leader of another state that no longer exists, while ignoring the actual words of the then US president at that time as quoted above?
..
Gorbachev himself doesn’t agree with your analysis:
“
I didn’t know railways were part of traditional culture?
I made no such claim. I observed that territory changes hands and one side claiming they “owned” ground that another state currently occupies on the basis of some centuries old history is an extraordinarily weak claim.
There would be a lot of people wishing to be so humble.
humble home.
I’m not ignoring anything. Russian forces are so ‘badly equipped’ they’ve destroyed two Ukrainian armies and what remains of the third using only special branches of the armed forces, mercs, and militia. Further, missile strikes wouldn’t have got Zelensky to the table so where do they go following the unsuccessful use of missile strikes?
Yes, yes, the forces the US can muster via NATO in Easter Europe look good on paper.
How is that going right now?
Zatara brought up the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, JC.
Unsupported and yet with links to primary sources.
Re: the debate over Ukraine:
Professor John Mearsheimer on the Ukraine War
Why didn’t the West negotiate an Austrian-style neutrality deal with Russia?
The Canadian writer and journalist, Aaron Maté, just published what strikes me as the most intelligent and illuminating conversation about the war in Ukraine I’ve heard thus far.
I have studied European history for forty years and lived in Austria for a total of 15. For the last 18 months I have tried in vain to answer the question: Why didn’t the United States at least try to negotiate with Russia for an Austrian-style neutrality deal for Ukraine?
Consider that if a neutrality deal was struck and the Russians subsequently violated it, THAT would be clear grounds for war. Instead, the United States government has simply and and steadfastly dismissed Russia’s view of the matter—a view that Russia has plainly and repeatedly stated since at least 2008.
Note that the arrogant and dismissive attitude of the U.S. government towards Russia since 2008 was in spite of the fact that Cold War eminences such as George Kennan urged the United States government to abandon its harebrained NATO expansion plan in 1997. As Kennan put it in a February 5, 1997 New York Times essay titled “A Fateful Error:”
Why, with all the hopeful possibilities engendered by the end of the Cold War, should East-West relations become centered on the question of who would be allied with whom and, by implication, against whom in some fanciful, totally unforeseeable and most improbable future military conflict?
[B]luntly stated…expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era. Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking …
Several of Kennan’s fellow Cold Warriors, including Robert McNamara and Paul Nitze, agreed wholeheartedly with him, as is evidenced by their June 26, 1997 letter to President Bill Clinton.
Back to the central question of this essay: for those unfamiliar with the 1955 State Treaty and Austrian Neutrality:
The treaty forbade unification with Germany or restoration of the Habsburgs and provided safeguards for Austria’s Croat and Slovene minorities. Austrian neutrality and a ban on foreign military bases in Austria were later incorporated into the Austrian constitution by the Law of October 26, 1955. The 40,000 Soviet troops in Austria were withdrawn by late September. The small number of Western troops that remained were withdrawn by late October.
Austrian neutrality has been honored ever since and has served the Austrian people very well. The Austrian capital, Vienna, is routinely ranked as having the highest quality of life on earth. To be sure, there is a handful of incredibly stupid and venal people in Austria who claim they wish to abandon Austrian neutrality, but they merit so little attention that I almost didn’t write this sentence.
So, why didn’t the United States government negotiate with Russia for an Austrian-style neutrality for Ukraine? Professor Mearsheimer suspects that only sheer stupidity can explain it. Aaron Maté suspects cynicism.
I suspect it’s a combination of stupidity, ignorance, cynicism, greed, bloody-mindedness, narcissism, sadism, contempt, misanthropy, and recklessness—in a word, depravity. Holders of high political office who prefer to send hundreds of thousands of young men to their deaths without at least trying diplomacy are simply terrible people in every respect.
What slights has DeSantis committed?
I think we need real examples here, not out of context quotes from Trump fanboy sources.
Gorbachev: “ The topic of “NATO expansion” was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years.
Err … she didn’t.
She apologised (with ScoMo twisting her arm) for that and that alone, but no payment.
The payout was done by Gallagher and Dreyfus who specifically excluded Reynolds and other Liberals from the 45 second “mediation”.
America is now a zombie state
Demonic nihilism has infected the nation
BY Jacob Howland
“Every nation gets the government it deserves,” wrote the philosopher Joseph de Maistre, and some are getting it good and hard right now.
De Maistre’s moral interpretation of politics admits of exceptions, but the United States in 2023 is not one of them. A wasting tide of bad education and corruption is rotting the cultural and constitutional piers that, since the Civil War, have kept the US above the waters of chaos.
The American regime has become a tawdry theatrocracy in which political actors, hypokritai in Greek, play stock characters in a loathsome farce. In the run-up to the 2024 elections, Donald Trump stars as the persecuted saviour, and Joe Biden the righteous defender, of the American republic. Never mind that Trump is self-absorbed and impulsive to the point of criminal stupidity, that Biden is senile and evidently corrupt, and that both of these braying, boorish old men are fraudsters and fabulists. These vices do not matter to their furious followers, who love their man precisely because he is not the hated other. Trump and Biden cannot, and will not, be separated; each needs his opponent as the hammer needs the nail. And above the wretched spectacle sit a click-hungry media, feeding on riot and picking favourites like vulturous pagan gods.
This drama of political decadence defies easy categorisation. Aristotle wrote that tragedy depicts people who are better, and comedy worse, than us spectators. Biden and Trump are certainly worse than those who voted them into office, but they are not remotely funny. Their antics are repellent and their goofiness unlovable. Observing them and the choral leaders that follow in their train — jerky puppets like Rudy Giuliani sweating hair-dye, or Anthony Fauci claiming to be science itself — Americans feel only shame and dread, without the cathartic release of laughter or tears.
These trapped emotions spring from the same source. They are visceral responses to the approaching death by senescence of the American experiment in ordered liberty.
Zat’s point was this.
Labor and the PS never understand reasonable limits.
They got away with imposing blackfella idiocy on the bush because no city folk noticed.
But running around arbitrarily imposing nonsense names on city places and facilities is Rudd Gillard standard stupid.
End four year terms without recall pprovisions.
America is now a zombie state
Demonic nihilism has infected the nation
BY Jacob Howland
Old Ozzie delivers again. This is a great and depressing article. I came across it in my digital mailbox this morning.
Just back from talk on Israel and Palestine at U3A . Listening to expert speaker it was incredible how the historical issues on how it all started are very similar to what is happening here now. Eg PM Meier suggested that a region of different tribes with no king over all could not be a nation, paraphrased so I might not have related it correctly, so difficulty in allocating whose borders , land that was being put into countries Jordan for instance . Still a mess there and we we will end the same.
Vicki
Aug 9, 2023 3:57 PM
America is now a zombie state
Demonic nihilism has infected the nation
BY Jacob Howland
Old Ozzie delivers again. This is a great and depressing article. I came across it in my digital mailbox this morning.
Don’t be so despondent. The US Guv’ment may be useless but the US economy is still doing very well, all things considered. Chin Up and all that.
I think that feeling of wanting to destroy goes deeper than that. Institutions and systems not just in America, but throughout the Western world are fundamentally broken.
You name it, dishonest media organizations, fracturing political parties, government bureaucracies considering themselves above the law, massive monopolized corporations etc. they all deserve the hate they get. The reason that so many rational people are at the point where they would not mind watching it burn is simply every single one of these systems or institutions have flat out refused to make the most basic of reforms. When large media conglomerates get caught telling lies on national television, do they change their behavior or blame all the people who noticed? When the working or middle class complain about losing their livelihoods to globalization while the wealthiest get richer, does economic policy change? Do Western governments ever keep their promises to learn from foreign policy failures or stop illegal surveillance programs? Given that most of you have come to places like UnHerd for a reason, I bet you can already guess the answers to those questions. I don’t think it is nihilism. I think it is the realization that those who run things see these broken systems as running just like they are supposed to.
Reply
Very good. Is not our problem the fact that we now inhabit a political universe in which politicians are unmoored from us and democratic consent (see 2nd Referendum; lockdown tyranny, small boats) and they in turn are unmoored from genuine rational thinking and in the grip of derwnged groupthink?
Why do they not know what a woman is?
Who voted for the myriad bans and arbitrary untested controls of the Net Zero Regime?
When was it aired and debated with the public? This is religion – not politics.
It has more in common ideolgically with the irrational utopianism of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. Who voted for the convulsive revolution of non stop 1m p.a incoming population growth? With globalism tech and AI all spinning heads with revolutionary change from above, people expected the State and our political class to respond with cool pragmatic reason. But it is impossible to avoid the feeling that they have deserted the trenches. Irrational credos and some form of nihilistic hysteria is gripping the political legal and media elite here.
Reply
Direct democracy or the Swiss system of binding citizens initiated referenda is what is needed to break the impasse over all the problems the West faces. The people need to be able to ring the changes through an organic system of real democracy.
Because Ukraine was a sovereign nation which, unlike Austria at the time, wasn’t under occupation and thus didn’t have to submit to two foreign powers making decisions for her.
Further, Austria didn’t have nukes to buttress its desire for its sovereignty to be respected. Ukraine did.
Concern about those nukes led to the negotiation of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum in which the UK, US, and Russia guaranteed Ukrainian sovereignty and security in exchange for her giving up her nukes. In retrospect she should have kept the nukes and retained the wary respect of her neighbors.
“End four year terms without recall provisions.”
Personally, I’d like to see fixed four year terms abolished. four year terms are disastrous under the Westminster system, and I would argue that all they do is enable left-wing parties. It becomes very hard to get rid of sitting governments. Just look at the history of four year terms in this country, apart from NSW with the Liberal government from 2011 through to 2023, all we’ve seen in QLD, NSW (before 2011), and Victoria are decades of Labor governments.
Prior to winning the NSW election in a landslide in 2011, after sixteen years of corrupt Labor governments, the NSW Liberals intended to introduce a “recall provision”. Did they? LOL, of course not, because, as with ICAC reform, which then went on to scalp two Liberal premiers, they did nothing. The Liberals = all talk, no action.
So, why didn’t the United States government negotiate with Russia for an Austrian-style neutrality for Ukraine? Professor Mearsheimer suspects that only sheer stupidity can explain it. Aaron Maté suspects cynicism.
I suspect it’s a combination of stupidity, ignorance, cynicism, greed, bloody-mindedness, narcissism, sadism, contempt, misanthropy, and recklessness—in a word, depravity. Holders of high political office who prefer to send hundreds of thousands of young men to their deaths without at least trying diplomacy are simply terrible people in every respect.
And all those in Guv’ment knew that they would not be the ones that would have to go and fight and die. R soles, every one of them.
The U.S. Embassy Bonn Confidential Cable to Secretary of State, as well as the other documents in the link say otherwise.
Essay
The West and China share the same fate
Our destiny is a total techno-state
BY N.S. Lyons
A simple and easy narrative is often provided to explain our present moment: a new Cold War, we’re told, is dawning between the United States and China, complete with a global ideological “battle between democracy and autocracy”.
The future of global governance will be determined by the winner — that is, unless a hot war settles the question early with a cataclysmic fight to the death, much as liberal democracy once fought off fascism.
In some ways, this picture is accurate: a geopolitical competition really is in the process of boiling over into open confrontation. But it’s also fundamentally shallow and misleading. When it comes to the most fundamental political questions, China and the United States are not diverging but becoming more alike, with both superpowers converging on the same not-yet-fully-realised system of technocratic-managerial governance.
This system, described by James Burnham and George Orwell as “managerialism”, is the product of a new class of professional managers bound together by a shared self-interest in the expansion of technical and mass organisations, the further proliferation of managers, and the drawing of society into the meddling embrace of managerial expertise. At its heart is a conviction that all things — even the complexity of society and Man himself — can be understood, managed and controlled like a machine with sufficient scientific technique.
It was managerialism that emerged as the true winner of the 20th century’s ideological battles.
As Orwell prophesied in 1945: “Capitalism is disappearing, but Socialism is not replacing it.
What is now arising is a new kind of planned, centralised society which will be neither capitalist nor, in any accepted sense of the word, democratic.” China is just a bit further down the path towards this same totalitarian future. The West is following.
Ukraine may pay a price for its Black Sea warfare
Strikes on oil tankers risk a response from non-Western powers
A new arena of conflict is opening up in Ukraine’s struggle against Russian aggression.
Attacks on Russian vessels by unmanned sea drones threaten to disrupt Moscow’s commercial operations in the Black Sea.
Following Russia’s withdrawal from a UN-brokered grain deal, the attacks also risk causing irreparable damage to perceptions of Kyiv’s cause among non-Western powers.
This may seem like a justified tit-for-tat move following Russia’s withdrawal from the grain deal and its blockade on Ukrainian Black Sea exports. The Kremlin shows no compunction about destroying Ukraine’s economic infrastructure, so why should Kyiv hesitate to respond in kind?
Firstly, Ukrainian strikes on commercial vessels and threats to Russian ports – especially following recent drone strikes on Russian cities for which there is now “tacit recognition” of responsibility from Kyiv – complicate the moral narrative around the war. They may be necessary but, by putting civilian lives at risk, such steps raise questions about the good versus evil narrative which has been the precondition for Western support to date.
Further, by highlighting Ukraine’s eagerness to bring the war “to the territory of Russia“, such attacks will entrench opposition to supplies of longer-range weapons that could be used to strike deep inside Russian territory, as Germany faces strong international pressure to send Taurus cruise missiles to Kyiv.
Then there is the problem of perceptions in non-Western countries. Novorossiysk is a key departure point for Russian oil shipments to Asia and Africa — which skyrocketed following the imposition of Western sanctions on Russian goods, with China, India, Singapore and Turkey all significantly ramping up imports from Russian Black Sea ports. Between 15-20% of Russian oil exports are transported through the Black Sea, and Novorossiysk accounts for 17% of the country’s total maritime trade. Exports of Russian oil to the EU from the port have collapsed, but Novorossiysk remains a hub for vital shipments of Kazakh crude to European refineries.
Oil markets have so far remained stable, but further strikes on tankers “could pose meaningful risk to global supplies”, according to energy market analysts. Already, insurance for the foreign-owned tankers on which Russia depends for getting its oil to market is either “nonexistent” or prohibitively expensive in the Black Sea, potentially making such shipments no longer viable.
This would achieve Kyiv’s goal of damaging the Russian economy — but Ukraine might pay its own price in the form of reduced support, especially among non-Western powers.
The Brics country leaders and other Global South powerbrokers which discussed peace plans with Zelenskyy in Jeddah this weekend would not look kindly on Ukraine if its efforts to disrupt Russian Black Sea trade lead to economic pain for developing countries — something the Ukrainian leader will have to bear in mind going forward.
The cables and primary sources indicate clearly he was lying.
For Jerk Off Cretin, Mrs Stencho Pantyhose, Dotty Dot of Dottiness and all the other Armstrong ‘Luvvers’ – LOL
Poland & Niger
QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, We met when you came to lecture here in Poland. Everything you warned about has unfolded right down to a dollar high in 2022, followed by a low in 2023. The majority now are against the government. We, too, fear that the election may be rigged later this year. Putting all these troops on the border with Ukraine, which includes 40,000 Americans, has raised grave concerns that our government will cross the border in hopes of getting Russia to attack our troops to justify NATO invoking Article V. Some are starting to wonder if our government needs to get Russia to attack us to suspend elections as Zelensky has done in Ukraine.
What do you see for Poland ahead?
Aleksy
ANSWER: Yes, it has been quite a while. Thank you for recommending Krakow. It was beautiful. Loved the architecture and vast square. I know the concerns there about the upcoming elections. We have a Panic Cycle in November. I am also aware of the idea of Polish troops crossing the border and taking the Western portion of Ukraine, which used to be their territory. Putin has warned about this, but the Western press calls it misinformation and Russian propaganda. Then you have Yevgeny Prigozhin in Belarus with his eyes on Poland. Your government is indeed pushing the envelope.
The risk remains that the greenback will rise into 2027, which seems to be more on the threat of war. You have Poland, Lithuania, and Estonia with severe concerns about Russia retaking the region. The Russian people are not really interested in that. Much of that propaganda has been spread by the ISW and NATO spread, which are desperate to remain relevant.
I think Zelensky’s days are numbered. If he is assassinated, it will be for what he has done to Ukraine. The social media in Ukraine shows funerals and images of the dead. The kill ratio is 5 Ukrainian soldiers to even one Russia and that comes from Ukraine – not Russia.
Ukraine is losing badly. That is my concern that the Polish/American Troops will cross the border begging for Russia to attack them so they can indeed invoke Article V. The share market is going to roll over. Closing below last week’s low should spark a correction, and the volatility should start next week.
Insofar as this election being rigged, I appreciate the concern. Poland reached a critical turning point on October 26th, 2023, which is now 34 years from the overthrow of communism on June 4th, 1989. There should be a shift in politics; ideally, the present government should lose. That remains to be seen.
We seem to be begging to start another proxy war against Russia in the middle of Africa. There was a coup overthrowing the government, and you have people chanting chanting “Wagner” and raising Russian flags. The whole problem has been the Neocons and their private propaganda machine, the ISW, keep projecting that Russia is weak and they can take it down. Russia can manufacture all the weapons it needs, and it is one of the wealthiest countries on the planet regarding natural resources. These people are putting out fake news to encourage war, telling everyone the West can win.
This is more akin to the US Civil War, where the North had all the capacity to manufacture weapons, and the South had been primarily an agrarian society. The South needed money and supplies from Europe.
Secretary of State William Henry Seward (1801–1872) for the North was deeply concerned that no foreign nation would intervene in the conflict on behalf of the Confederacy. Russia came to Seward’s aid to protect the US from a European invasion. Russia sent its warships to protect New York City and San Francisco in 1863 against the British and French, who perhaps considered the American Civil War an opportunity to conquer the United States.
In contrast, the Confederate diplomats desperately attempted to convince the stronger European countries to come to their aid and intercede on their behalf. These diplomats were successful in helping to convince Great Britain and France, two European countries that had much at stake in the outcome of the American conflict, to legally confer belligerent status upon the Confederacy, which recognized it as a nation engaged in war. In other words, they recognized the South as independent. In contrast, today, the West refuses to grant that to the Donbas in Ukraine despite the Minsk Agreement and the fact that the people there are Russian, while Ukraine outlaws their language and their religion.
In fact, Abraham Lincoln drew his Emancipation Proclamation taking the actions of Tsar Alexander II (b: 1818; 1855–1881), who issued his own Emancipation Manifesto on March 3rd, 1861, emancipating 23 million Russian serfs. American abolitionists cheered his action and pushed for Lincoln to do the same, which he finally did on January 1st, 1863. Russians were actually shocked when the American states descended into armed conflict over the issue. In Russia, the serf owned nothing, and they were not happy. They embraced Marxism, and the first Russian Revolution followed in 1905, 43 years later (8.6/2).”
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/uncategorized/poland-niger/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=RSS
Mmm I see Teh Project is asking a big question. Did covid come from a lab or bats? Anthony Mengele, er Fauci will be on to discuss this. I’m sure Wahleed will be all over his run ins with Rand Paul. Might actually be worth tuning in.
Given that I wasn’t referencing historical claims at the time I don’t see the point?
Jeez.
George.
Only took the one Bond movie deal because “typecasting”.
(At least that was his story).
He ended up being typecast as “the guy who never worked after 1975”.
Direct fuel injection Chev LS muscle truck powered by hydrogen:
..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAEhhYqMEBE
500HP.
“Genscher Outlines His Vision of a New European Architecture.”
That is an information cable which says that Germany’s Foreign Minister had an opinion and made a speech.
It does not say that any agreement was signed by NATO, or Germany for that matter (other than the one regarding demilitarization of the GDR).
Because there never was such an agreement.
Are you serious?
Is
and so on, but sure, no serious discussion of NATO membership for Ukraine before the war.
“Among other evils which being unarmed brings you, it causes you to be despised.”
? Niccolò Machiavelli
The Ukraine should have kept the nukes.
Australia should build them.
..
The less said about your “primary sources” the better mate.
1. Russia’s entire argument is historical grievances. Putin’s been a griever for the 20 years in office.
2. You’ve argued historical claims regarding the border cities on the Ukraine side.
3. Zat’s comments about historical claims was to dismiss these silly notions and if you didn’t think it was warranted, you could have said so instead of talking about 1526.
123andbush demanded:
Do you know which blog you are commenting on right now?
😀
Then you had this:
“But, oh, you didn’t get that assurance or guarantee on paper, nah, nah.”
Your argument is that Russia with the GDP of Canada, and even after price parity adjustment(h\t Hollings), has huge economic gaps compared to NATO yet it can replenish stocks more quickly than the most powerful military alliance in the world.
LOL. Well, maybe the most powerful military alliance in the world isn’t.
The US has an amazing nautical and airborne fighting capability. But not a land army on Russia’s doorstep. Roman over-reach comes to mind. And Europe is p*ss weak militarily and economically right now. Russian Oil and Gas anyone? It was going cheap, but not anymore.
What could be more primary then declassified cables, reports, etc? You don’t like them because they contradict your claims at the root.
This is one of the best demolitions of an alarmist I have seen. The demolition is by GOP Scott Perry, the alarmist is that piece of shit John Kerry:
https://www.facebook.com/ConservativeNewsToday/videos/1035887557579674
It really isn’t.
Sure, but I wasn’t arguing that today.
LOL.
Am I serious? Read it exactly as I stated, that I was unsure there were any discussions about NATO membership. That’s why I asked the question.
In any event, NATO is a collective and one member can scupper entry of any country wanting to join. Turkey recently did against Sweden and then relented.
What you’re showing me is the US position on Ukraine’s entry. The US is not NATO. And please don’t reply that the US is NATO, when any member state can refuse entry, Many countries were against the idea.
..
You have not linked directly to any such thing.
The problem for DeSantis is that his campaign and surrogates have been a disaster. If people like Cernovich are back supporting Trump you know something is seriously wrong with the latter’s campaign. And this doesn’t even address how bad the polling is for DeSantis vs Trump and how poorly the former is doing with key demographics.
The flip-side is Whitlam and Hawke type politicians who love the sound of their own voice and would call an election at the drop of a hat (or at least threaten to).
I get that sometimes a deadlock needs to be broken by pulling a double dissolution.
But here is a slight modification.
The newly elected Parliament only gets to serve out the remaining part of the original term.
Kind of takes political opportunism out of play.
..
Moreover, I don’t believe you have read any such thing.
You are getting your information reheated and truncated from as I said, sources the less said about the better.
Even if the emphasis is on the ‘You’ I did at least once above, re the Bonn Confidential cable, the other primary sources are in the link.
Only took the one Bond movie deal because “typecasting”.
(At least that was his story).
He ended up being typecast as “the guy who never worked after 1975”.
Lazenby is very handsome. Apparently head prefect is a distant relo and has inherited the looks.
You asked if there was any serious discussion and I showed you there was, at least since the late 90s and that this was widely discussed.
Triguboff not averse to feeding the chooks. Should be taken with a big grain of salt. Who knocks back a free lunch?
Fake noos.
Lazenby was tall.
Possibly the single most important “agreement” in the NATO/Soviet relationship since 1946 and they just forgot to write it down and sign it?
NATO forgot to announce it?
No head of a NATO government announced it?
NATO’s publications specifically deny it?
I’m enjoying reading the “Two 911 Terrorists Were CIA” and “Imperial Conquest: America’s “Long War” against Humanity” stories on the website your last cut and paste came from. Kind of says it all about the source.
..
Yes the emphasis is on “You” it’s your blog, your assertions. Provide reliable, verifiable links to your claims.
Nothing wrong with getting someone to pump up your tyres for the price of a steak and a bottle of Coonawarra.
If they are a bit tired after lunch you can get one of the girls to email through the copy before deadline.
Unlike lunch with lawyers, at least Triggy doesn’t bill you for the steak under “photocopying”.
Fake noos.
It’s as bent as a DC cop. Very realistic. Apparently he did a lot of motor sports, came off a bike and skidded on it for 50 meters. As a say head prefect did something similar; only it was his arse which ended up crooked. But hey it adds character.
The more elections the better. I suspect the Great Man’s views on elections changed over time.
Please! Photocopying goes through the service trust, the family trust, the kids to pay for the winery loses.
At the same time? Sounds kind of gay, as Norm MacDonald might have said.
Re KD’s perennial question earlier in relation to the mushroom woman.
As people are fond of saying here … embrace the power of “and” as a conjunction.
I got to thinking the same about Dumgeld and why he pushed for an inquiry in contravention of the Sir Humphrey Principle.
OK, he’s dimmer than a senior law officer should be, but is he that stupid?
After seeing a couple of left leaning lawyers jump to his defence, it starts to make sense.
This whole thing has been carefully orchestrated from go to whoa (not that we have reached “whoa” yet).
I think Dumgeld has been “mentored” from the minute he took the DPP job which was way beyond his capabilities.
Part of that “wise counsel” was a contingency plan that, if the trial fell over, Dumgeld would go in hard for an inquiry.
The inquiry would then cleanse the AFP, bag the Libs and recommend a watering down of the presumption of innocence.
The trouble is, his mentors who were orchestrating the whole thing, didn’t realise what a fck up on wheels Dumgeld had made of this trial.
Dumgeld, even though he should have known he was exposed, was supremely confident that the club would fix it.
Then, into this carefully orchestrated string symphony strolled Sofronoff, playing the bagpipes.
I will leave it to you to comment on JC’s bottom.
I am not in a position to form a view on this matter.
To be met by the massed vuvuzelas of the tame Press.
Although Hoggins is doing a bit of vuvuzela-ing all on her own. Keep going ‘cheeks…we might just get that 3meg back.
Slightly shopsoiled.
Drumgold was clearly used to getting a rails run after pretty generous treatment by the handicappers. Probably not Robinson Crusoe in the ACT if you go to the right dinner parties.
Bwah ha ha ha.
Many years ago we got into a contractual punch up with the Commonwealth (which is not hard).
Took it to arbitration as per contract and totally cleaned up (lotsa $$$$).
Our lawyer (a mere commercial partner in a large firm) was up against a couple of tin-eared QCs, who weren’t well briefed and refused to listen to the Arbitrator.
Anyways, he was over the moon that we had won, and took myself and my offsider out for a swish lunch.
As we left I said to my offsider, “So, how did that feel?”
“How did what feel?”
“Having someone buy you a $50 steak and charge you $2,000 to watch you eat it.”
I didn’t give a fat rat’s clacker.
He earned it.
Few hurdles still. Better not spend it just yet though.
Pilbara now rich in both iron ore and litigation.
What’s the old song? “Hypocrite” used to be such a big word?”
Gotta love the M-F moderators at Teh Paywallian. This one got through (for now):
Well, he certainly exhibited all of the hallmarks of someone who thought he was wearing a kevlar vest.
In any adverserial activity, it always pays to war-game the possible outcomes. This includes international invasions, footy games, commercial bids and tenders, new product launches and, of course, calling inquiries which have the potential to crush your career like a carbon fibre submersible.
Medieval punishment is necessary for the bidens and the rest of the swamp:
Jill Biden Courts Drag Queens: ‘This Photo Says It All’
The photo depicts the decay and the rot in which the Democrats have immersed this crippled country.
This is as sick as it gets.
The ABC has selflessly decided not to inflict its lies upon Twitter users.
ABC abandons Twitter: Australia’s public broadcaster axes almost all accounts on X to focus resources on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok (Sky, 9 Aug)
How nice of them to reduce their toxic interactions with us normies! They will now lie exclusively through Chinese-controlled social media, Goolag and Facechook instead.
“if Fortescue had reached an agreement with them in line with standard Pilbara practice.”
LOL. And what is ‘standard Pilbara practice’? The one in 1788 or the one now which is extortion?
Give them back the top soil that was there in 1788.
FFS
Yes, yes.
But Trump said “bullshit”.
* sounds of a gazillion nighties tearing*
LOL. These clowns use to get jobs at 1800’s freak shows.
Knickerless complaining about those meanie, beastly, horrid ACT police officers. Just priceless.
By the way, Sharri Markson’s interview last night of former Labor staffer Alex Matters made very good and disturbing television. Matters’ story, in more ways than one, is a replica of what has happened and what continues to happen to Bruce Lehrmann.
As for police officers being ‘awful’, well shucks, last year I spent over three hours at a police station here in Sydney providing a statement on a historical rape allegation (from 2008), made by a female I know against a man I know. It isn’t a pleasant experience spending time at a police station however I found the detective professional and courteous, at all times. I gave the statement, and we went through everything very very carefully, I also provided texts and emails. Lucky I have a memory like an elephant, something which helps, because I remember what happened in 2008, I remember it very well, and here’s the thing, I never heard her utter, from 2008 all the way through until 2021 the word rape or assault, however oddly in 2021 (after the Higgins and Porter claims) she emailed me to claim she’d been raped back in 2008.
1920s Weimar Germany redux
No.
‘F***ing fund our sport’: Former Matilda lashes Albanese (Sky mainpage headline)
Also in soccer news.
Nation Relieved To No Longer Have To Pretend To Like Soccer (Bee, Dec 2022)
Well, ok, we probably have to wait until after their match against France on Saturday.
Hahaha!
It’s f*** or walk, ladies. Hit the bricks, pal, because. you. are. going. out!
Seems slightly at odds with recently announced major “digital” broadcasting initiative which involved connecting to the “youth” market via social medias.
I am guessing that consistency and competency are not required traits for ABC staff nowadays.
While cruising the Med, comforting to know that it was once the event of the world’s biggest flood event, as the Atlantic Wall gave way at Gibraltar and the sea poured in:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-megaflood-powered-mile-high-waterfall-refilled-the-mediterranean-video/
Was several million years ago, but given the stories of the Flood are common around this area, one wonders if it was that event that was passed down to become the story of Noah and the lads.
She’s demanding I pay more in taxes so that a bunch of ugly lezzos can run around kicking a ball. Do I get a voice on the subject?
Soccer is quite popular with boys until they’re old enough to tell Mum to f**k off on Saturday mornings.
Cronkite
Not quite, but close. It’s pretty depraved but just not quite as ill as someone repeatedly posting pictures of trannies while then trying to convince the readership, no they’re not men, but pretty gals.
TE – That would more likely be connected to the flooding of the Black Sea basin.
Black Sea deluge hypothesis (wiki)
Given global sea level rose 100 m or more after the end of the last ice age about 15,000 years ago it seems a reasonable hypothesis. The event would’ve been amazing!
The other one is the Black Sea Hypothesis, TE.
Glad you’re enjoying your cruise. So much to see, so little time.
Good. traffic on Twitter is s high as ever, which means they won’t be able to communicate their crap effectively.
Australia is fortunate to have Cassie of Sydney and Sharri Markson of Sky News, whose common experience of ethnic hatred has made them excellent arbiters of injustice and mob rule because they are Jewish.
Thank you both.
Missed it by “that” much! 😀
I see Elbow, not content with local shit-stirring, as extending his puny little Trot-stick towards Israel.
Keep going, Elbow. Seal your fate.
Absolutely brilliant!
—
Mike Olbinski:
This series started off back in 2016 and it’s hard to believe it’s now the fifth film. Time sure flies when you are on the road chasing! Each film seems to have its own character, own style or just a vibe that resonates throughout. Not sure how to explain that or if it makes sense, but it’s the feeling I get when I go back to watch them on occasion.
Vorticity 5 took two years to film. Tens of thousands of miles across the central United States, from Montana to the Texas/Mexico border. A few hundred thousand shutter clicks. Loads of McDonalds, Subway and Allsups. The most epic, cheap motels. And countless, stunning storms.
This is the first time for any movie of mine where I have tornadoes AND haboobs make appearances. The haboob (dust storm) happened in May of 2022 in southwest Kansas. It was amazing and unexpected. Of all the clips that make up this film, I’m the most proud of that one. It was like my world of chasing in Arizona finally collided with the universe of supercells and tornadoes on the plains.
I hope you enjoy this film. The colors, the storms, the lightning, the twisters and the dust. It’s everything I love, everything I am continually awestruck by no matter how long I do this.
Thank you to my workshop guests, commercial clients and friends for helping make this possible. To my Patreon supporters for loving my work and being a part of making it happen.
Thanks to Nat Geo, Canon and Keith Ladzinski for trusting me with the project we filmed together this past spring. I was honored and stoked at everything we saw.
Thanks to one of my best friends Brett Wright on his support and help as always.
It’s been a tough year in our family, but we’re coming through. I know being away this spring at one point for three and a half weeks because of tours and a Nat Geo/Canon project…it was hard. Incredibly challenging. To not be home, to not be there to help, was brutal. Thank you to Jina for being my partner and the best mom on the planet. We’re always better together than apart.
As always, I strive for the best when I make these films. I’m incredibly proud of this one. My confidence in my own forecasting has continued to grow the last two years and I’m thoroughly thrilled with the storms I was able to photograph. I work relentlessly at positioning, timing and capturing. Knowing when to bail on a storm, when to jump on another, and when to take risks. A few chases in this movie were days I took a chance on secondary targets and ended up seeing tornadoes. There were also days I chose the wrong storm. It’s part of chasing. And I’m learning to better weather those ups and downs (pun intended).
I hope you enjoy this film! The soundtrack is fantastic, the work of David A. Molina and his Dream Man soundtrack over on The Musicbed. I used portions of three songs to create one long track and I’m thrilled with the outcome.
The footage was photographed entirely on Canon 5DSRs and various Canon lenses. Edited in Lightroom/LR Timelapse, rendered in After Effects and finished in Premiere Pro.
Vorticity 5 // A Storm Time-lapse Film (4K)
Thanks Bruce and Calli – a fascinating story. Makes one want to be a geologist/archeologist!
Not quite, but close. It’s pretty depraved but just not quite as ill as someone repeatedly posting pictures of trannies while then trying to convince the readership, no they’re not men, but pretty gals.
Challenge made, and accepted: cute owls; as womanly as you can get. Take your pick; you won’t be disappointed. My favourite. If that’s a bloke then Michelle is a neanderthal. Oh wait.
So nothing of note then?
A lot of style trumping substance going on.
Which is fine when things are going swimmingly…
…which they are not.
BREAKING: Over 25% of elderly residents of a SNF died within a 20-day period after getting the COVID jab in December 2020
Given global sea level rose 100 m or more after the end of the last ice age about 15,000 years ago it seems a reasonable hypothesis. The event would’ve been amazing!
135 m along the East coast of Australia. The GBR did not exist until then.
https://users.monash.edu.au/~mcoller/SahulTime/explore.html
TE, if I could re-run the tape, it would be rocks, not the things that grow in them (although rocks, and their pulverised progeny are the stuff of horticulture).
A couple of months ago I was walking along the famous beach at Lyme Regis, saw an overturned, half-rock, turned it over with my toe and thought…I’ll take you back to the B&B. Rock meet pocket.
Given a good rinse and dried on the bathroom sink…it turned out to be a glittering geode! Rocks rock.
I read that lazenby comment as where he had his hair.
Lair makes a lot more sense even though actors can be very sensitive about hair loss.
Did see Oppenheimer this afternoon, all the cinema seats are now recliners.
Very nice.
Now I want to see Napoleon and that Equalizer 3.
Oppenheimer last word was a bit trite but all in all was entertaining.
This POS claims to be a proud wonga wonga ( or something) 3rd nations.
The grift is well and truly on.
Victoria? I’ve done my time, warden
GREG CRAVEN
Like the late, great Barry Humphries, I have always been a Victorian nationalist. I was born in Victoria, like my father, grandfather and great-grandfather before me.
My great-great-grandfather had the civilised good taste to get off the boat from Galway into Victoria. I was brought up in Glen Waverley, finished school in Toorak and went to university in Parkville. Look upon my pedigree, O ye mighty, and despair.
I was inducted into the faith early. My father took us children to the Separation Tree in the Royal Botanical Gardens, where the proclamation sundering Victoria from NSW was read. He told us this was the golden moment in the whole of human history, when we Victorians were freed from the slithering yoke of Sydney.
I was an early, eccentric opponent of Australia Day being marked on January 26 because, as marking the foundation of NSW, it should be a universal day of mourning.
My patriotism has survived 12 years in sun-stroked Perth and 14 years in thong-shod Sydney. I have never been tempted to abandon Victoria, and especially Melbourne: the Athens of the Australian Federation. Until now.
Watching from the ancient fastness of the Rum Corps in Sydney, I am not as sure of Victoria as I once was. It seems to have developed a nasty soul.
I first put my finger on it during Covid, when Victoria became a semi-voluntary virus gulag. It was not the incarceration of the entire population that got to me. It was the condescending, self-righteous oratory of the political and bureaucratic prison guards. Anyone even questioning universal incarceration was vilified into silence.
Don’t get me wrong. Argument has always been the best thing about Victoria. Acquiescence is not our zeitgeist. The old joke was that if two people saw a cloud in Melbourne they would argue whether it was smoke or weather. In Sydney, they would both agree it was time to go to the beach early.
Argument made Victoria great. We were the well-manured hotbed of ideas in Australia precisely because we disagreed over culture, politics, sport and gardening. Debate was in our higher nature, or so we thought.
But Covid was unnerving. There was to be only one side to this argument. We should all be locked up for our own mortification. Any dissent would be punished with an awful viral death or, better still, social annihilation.
The most bizarre instance of this suicide of diversity was the “I stand with Dan movement”. As the leftist chief warden of Victoria, Premier Daniel Andrews was beyond criticism.
It got to the stage when the ABC’s Virginia Trioli could seriously ask then opposition leader Michael O’Brien why he would not congratulate the Premier. Disgrace. Shame. Resign.
Admittedly, this idealistic conformity has been emerging from the mere mirk of democracy for some time. Victoria has flaunted a certain self-satisfied, disdainful progressivism for decades.
At 65, I still marvel that Victoria was ever referred to as “the jewel in the Liberal crown”. During the Kennett government, in 1992, I asked one of his chief advisers. “Mate”, he said, “this place went left years ago.”
So Covid adulation for an authoritarian progressive government was merely a super-spreader event in an established disease. Victoria has long been attracted to politically correct mass suicide. Like soft-socialist lemmings. An outstanding instance was the Cain-Kirner Labor government, from 1983 to 1992. That government bankrupted Victoria and made mincemeat of its labour market.
The collapse of the Victorian Economic Development Corporation and the Pyramid Building Society gutted industry confidence and citizens savings.
But even as the government sank with all hands, Victorians watched with a pale wistfulness. They tolerated Jeff Kennett while he resuscitated the economy, but voted him out as soon as his mission was accomplished. All sins of Labor were forgiven, and normal progressive transmission resumed. Conservatism was just non-U.
It was all so prophetic of the Andrews government. Despite a crazed Covid response that included curfews, Victorians are happy. Constant allegations of corruption and mismanagement do not faze them. Even the cancellation of cynically promised Commonwealth Games draws only a polite yawn. Andrews is re-elected with the certainty of a Romanian communist government.
Now, the ultimate economic collapse of Victoria into a wallow of debt and business collapse is as predictable as a boring broadcast by Phillip Adams. Victorians presumably know this, but apparently do not care. The wages of self-conscious progressivism are eternal self-righteousness.
There are other, deeply troubling examples. One is the persecution of Cardinal George Pell. He was a friend of mine, but I write this as a constitutional, legal and government observer.
On the way to, and after, a ludicrously unjust conviction, Pell was constantly undermined by a hostile Victorian government and a partisan Victorian Police, then crushed by an inept Victorian judiciary. It took the Canberra-based High Court to unanimously crush the manifestly unjust conviction.
The remarkable thing is that a large number of Victorians continue to regard him as guilty, more or less overtly on the basis that he was a “polarising” or “reactionary” figure. His real crime was his clash with Victorian sociopolitical wallpaper.
Frighteningly, many in the Victorian legal profession – long a bastion of the state’s papier mâché progressivism – agree. The common argument is that the Catholic Church did terrible things, Pell was at the top of the church, so it is better that one man should suffer for the people. You can only hope none of these legal quislings becomes a judge, either in a court or at a poultry show.
I hate admitting these things about my state, but this confession was prompted by an appalling realisation. I admitted to myself that, at least during Covid, I was much happier to be in NSW than Victoria.
There are many things I still love about my home state. I actually like cold weather. I rejoice in a culture that places gardening above merchant banking. I adore the Carlton Football Club, Daylesford and Flinders Street station. But its political psychology frightens me. I can recognise malignant narcissism when I see it.
Emeritus Professor Greg Craven is a constitutional lawyer.
Oz
That could be a bloke.
I’ve seen softer features on a Komatsu 375 dozer.
In order to balance nature here’s Claudia
Clearly downtrodden by systemic racism, cohenite.
I don’t get the “fitness model” attraction. Don’t pick on cohenite. He’s a bit defenceless.
Some actresses who I think are objectively beautiful (now they have aged, like all of us) are Chelan Simmons and Virginia Madsen. See Final Destination 3 or Dune (1984).
I got called a “child abuser” once on the old Cat for saying (the very voluptuous) Kate Upton was womanly.
At that point I stopped taking criticism personally because I assumed everyone else on the net had a screw loose.
Closing arguments/submissions in the Heston Russell defamation action 29th/30th of August.
PS. I love the way they’re always photographed with their stethoscopes.
I should make sure I’m always photographed with my handy secateurs.
One interesting rock event I read up on a little recently was the tsunami that hit the east coast of Oz about 500 years ago.
It deposited rocks – rounded from being under the sea – to the base of the inland hill range that is near the Shoalhaven south of Sydney. They are the size of cars.
Presumably it destroyed any humans and their habitations at the same time.
Scum.
Greg Craven discovers it doesn’t pay to be the last rat off a sinking ship.
Cohen, if they actually are really women, why do they all need boozie implants hmmmmm?
“I see Elbow, not content with local shit-stirring, as extending his puny little Trot-stick towards Israel.
Keep going, Elbow. Seal your fate.”
Yep. By the way, when formerly friendly governments turn against Israel, physical and verbal attacks on Jews increase considerably in those countries. Attacks on Jews, particularly Haredi Jews, are at an all time high in the USA, UK, France and so on. Just remember, according to one verminous commentator here, he thinks the people attacking Jews have legitimate grievances. Oddly, one of the safest countries for Jews nowadays, apart from Israel, is Hungary, it’s PM and governments is very pro-Jew and pro-Israel. I don’t know if anyone notices the massive security required outside
Nobody should be surprised by this Jew hatred from Sleazy (and Jew hatred it is), it’s just another far-left policy from a far-left government led by far-left gruesome far-left adolescent who’s never really grown up.
Alex Bruesewitz
@alexbruesewitz
Team DeSantis is now calling Trump supporters “white trash.” Absolutely disgusting behavior.
And they the only people who make private purchases online and always include their titles.
In order to balance nature here’s Claudia
Nice but no muscle tone. If you’re out on a Saturday night and get bothered by a few louts she’s not going to be able to hold her end up.
if they actually are really women, why do they all need boozie implants hmmmmm?
Fair point. Muscle tone and tits don’t go together. So it’s one or the other: muscle tone and no titties or no tone, titties and a big arse. It’s a matter of taste: a firm arse, good dead lift capacity and implants is a reasonable trade off.
It did, it did! As a giant castle with walls 100 m high.
The atolls of the South Pacific would’ve been a sight to see, emerging from the ocean like Iron Age fortresses. Maybe that’s why we are having so many UFOs lately – late and disappointed tourists.
Realistically Liar Right or Lieborals makes arguably no difference at State level and outside of the usual paybacks to da bruvvas not much at a Federal level, at least over the last couple of decades.
A 375 Komatsu
I would suggest it is also cheaper to service and maintain than an “owl” and depreciate less in real $ terms over the long haul.
I hate admitting these things about my state, but this confession was prompted by an appalling realisation. I admitted to myself that, at least during Covid, I was much happier to be in NSW than Victoria.
BTW, it is not your State. And Sictoria is not that much worse than NSW IMHO. The whole of Australia has a Big problem. This Nation has been hijacked by Affluence and the Left/Woke disease which is really effluent. It no longer has that inner strength that it used to have, just like the other Anglo Nations.
I would not have taken Claudia to any loutish places.
One must be discerning.
Sen. Malcolm Roberts. Outstanding.
Voice – Treaty – Lies
No humans then. More likely the Black Sea creation or Burckle Crater because tghe timeframes are better. The Black Sea one fascinates me because there were many human settlements around that area and very large migrations @8,000 and 5,000 years ago from there would have allowed the stories to be widely transmitted. Naturally people argue about the size, timing and extent of these events. My bias is that having read the Keil and Delitzsch interpretations of the Old Testament I’m inclined to think some religious stories have their origins in natural events.
https://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/noahs-not-so-big-flood/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burckle_Crater
Department of Defence
Did the Medical Countermeasures Consortium run COVID?
Agree completely. In Britain, archaeological sites are examined, stratified, recorded, artifacts taken, and then building work or road work proceeds again. This is sensible. Only the most significant sites are kept for all time as so many historical periods are covered in Britain. Often some attempt is made to incorporate the archaeology under glass etc.
John – I suspect there may be a lot of archaeology beneath the ooze at the bottom of the Black Sea, which we haven’t accessed yet. Could be an excellent prospect for a budding archaeologist (who likes scuba diving) since the anoxic layer of the Black Sea preserves ancient shipwrecks in near perfect condition. The hypothesized deluge is roughly coincident with the beginnings of agriculture, and if the Black Sea basin had been a fresh water lake it could well have been a hotspot for early sedentary living.
Rosie, I saw it on Sunday and was a bit disappointed. For its epic length I thought the movie would concentrate more on the actual science and technology. I wasn’t that interested in Oppenheimer’s love life though it did explain his politics.
And like you, I now want to see Napoleon.
I read a very good book decades ago about the Black Sea, written by Neal Ascherson. Highly recommended. It’s a history of the sea and the lands that surround it. It’s the kind of book I love to read.
Someone mentioned earlier DeSantis as a replacement for Trump. DeSantis is a most uninspiring, boring and bad candidate. He had already lost it for me, but he lost me again recently, when he mentioned Trump “legitimately” lost the 20 race . He’s not presidential material and just needs to run Florida.
The only replacement for Trump, should it happen, is Vivek. There’s no other choice at this stage.
DeSantis would be good for Sec of Commerce
Cruz for AG
Vivek for Treasury Sec
Chris Christie, I have as food taster to ensure Trump isn’t poisoned, but there’s a risk he’d eat all the food delivered.
I’d actually stick the Indian chick back as UN rep. It’s a useless job and she did well in that role.
I’ll continue adding names as we move along.
“Now I want to see Napoleon and that Equalizer 3.”
Me too, I thought Oppenheimer was superb.
And on this extended thread it is probably time to say I had a great dance class this morning. In terms of looking good, my dear friend Betts in her 80th year has turned her hair a stunning shade of Royal purple red. It sticks up quite a bit naturally and she looks amazing. You can’t miss her now that’s for sure. Exactly how things should be, imho.
We are a mix of women from 55 to 80 who enjoy each other’s company and who have the agility of some half our age. And a load of experience. Who wants to argue with that? It was another girl’s birthday, only 75. We had little cakes with icing to celebrate. Here we are, said my friend, handing me the box. You have a choice of Indigenous or Barbie. Chocolate or Pink. lol. We are old enough to say it out loud.
“Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Welcome to Country and Acknowledge of Country ceremonies that are now held around the country have “gone to far”.”
Yeah yeah. Abbott is all talk, if he was suddenly returned as PM tomorrow, he’d do nothing.
Oh, and The Stalker 8/8 at 11.39 must be really missing those upticks.
I’m off to cook up a storm with some Wagyu beef strips and mashed potato.
With onions of course. And peas.
For Cat lady, Tinta.
Mina – Tintarella di luna (1959)
At least Abbott is talking some sense now, Cassie, even though he’s had his day and stuffed it. He still has a certain authority and it’s good he’s saying what people think.
I don’t know that I would have understood the quantum physics.
It did amuse that it was mostly a film about men, white men, and without the love life the only women would have been a token scientist and secretaries.
A friend’s old dad died suddenly and the family is waiting for the body to be released so they can set a funeral date. There’s absolutely nothing suspicious about his death.
The funeral director said the delay is caused by the fact that only one coroner is operating in Victoria and there’s a four thousand body backlog.
There were three or four working across Vic but Dan the Fwit has managed this back to one.
Vivek,
And more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FrlMrm74Ys
I told my son we would see Equaliser three so I could elbow him to point out the Sicilian locations I’d visit personally.
He’ll love that.
With the earlier comments about George Lazenby, he is in his eighties now and still hot.
Also, home grown hair, not shop bought.
What I really like most about him though, all those years in the US, and his accent is still broad Oz. Yummy. 😀
So style and showmanship over substance, JC?
Great if he wins.
Oppenheimer reminded me a bit of Amadeus, probably because Iron Man guy put so much time and effort into destroying Oppenheimer behind his back.
Hitting the mark Bruce. Consistent with agriculture and the Yamnaya pastoralists north of the Black Sea. Migrations from Anatolia at 8,000, Yamnaya at 5,000. There is a Black Sea archeology group.
https://arhicup.net/en/
https://www.ancientpages.com/2020/11/30/6000-year-old-submerged-settlement-shows-black-sea-level-was-lower-5000-years-ago-black-sea-deluge-theory/
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Aug 9, 2023 7:49 PM
I’m off to cook up a storm with some Wagyu beef strips and mashed potato.
With onions of course. And peas.
—
Really? I love my juicy flesh. Strips are for a sandwich on the go.
Speaking of Dumgeld – the Sunbather looked into things apparently since appointed DPP in 2019 Dumgeld ran about 19 or 20 matters all but 3 of which were appeals — i.e. transcripts at 10 paces — only three cases were run by Dumgeld as proper Judge/Jury/witnesses etc… so there didn’t appear to be much – would be much more interested in the matters which he did not prosecute. Would the blowing up of the ACL office have been one of them I wonder?
Any candidate that doesn’t acknowledge 2020 wasn’t a cheating shit show has no business running as a GDP candidate.
And sure, style most certainly matters because it matters to human beings and who they vote for.
If you’re looking for substance as well as the ability to articulate what he believes and why Vivek is the guy.
Mediocre sports entertainment at best.
Judith Curry: How Climate “Science” Got Hijacked by Alarmists
No, three years before he became dpp.
And besides the guy died and it never went to trial did it?
“I don’t know that I would have understood the quantum physics.
It did amuse that it was mostly a film about men, white men, and without the love life the only women would have been a token scientist and secretaries.”
Yep. I saw the film Tuesday last week, with my Mum. She loved it.
The following day, at work, I was telling everyone what a great film it is and one of my work colleagues said that he’d heard there were some steamy sex scenes. I looked at him bewildered because, well yes there were some sex scenes, but nothing “steamy”…so I said “that there was a scene where Oppenheimer sits naked in a chair and his mistress of the time sits naked in the chair, you could see her breasts however the Oppenheimer actor had his legs crossed and you couldn’t see his penis which was just as well because the actor playing Oppenheimer, Cillian Murphy, is an Irish actor who is no doubt uncircumcised, and I can guarantee you all that Oppenheimer, his brother, Edward Teller, Albert Einstein, Max Born (Olivia Newton’s John’s granddaddy) and almost all of the scientists are Los Alamos were Jews and were circumcised! Everyone laughed out loud!
One of the saddest accounts is that Feynman’s wife died while he was there. In one his books he mentions how at the time it didn’t affect him that much but then one day he was walking by a shop, looked at a dress, and broke down in tears.
Grief can be weird like that. When my oldest friend died last year, grew up 3 houses apart, it didn’t impact me that much then but now, occasionally, it hits me like a hammer.
The idea is that men should protect women, cohenite, not the other way around.
Craven by name …
The one constant thing with Victorians is their mewkish excuse-making for what is and has been a rotten state for decades. No amount of screw-ups and poor governance seems to penetrate their delusional mindset.
One more thing about DeSantis, there’s no fire in his belly. A GOP candidate has to have smoke coming from every orifice to legitimately display anger at what has happened to Trump and the Demonrats disgusting behavior in general. DeSantis doesn’t have it.
Dunno – I thought Abbott’s problem was that he suddenly realized that the Left in this country saw his election as somehow illegitimate. Personally I’d have had Malcolm Turnbull displayed in the pillory, while the mob hooted, jeered and threw things.
Of course I was also interested as I’m visiting Hiroshima and Nagasaki next month.
One of the things I remember from the book The Song of Nagasaki was the description of all the women training with sticks in preparation for a land invasion.
The Communist female in the movie trying to claim Japan was already defeated.
I think they would have fought on, indefinitely.
I think they would have fought on, indefinitely.”
Yep.
Good get, Tinta.
I was only thinking about that (in another context) this morning.
Was Fermi Jewish?
Thanks, just bought the song from iTunes.
Oh , his wife was, and therefore his kids were, which is is why he fled to the US.
John – There’s similar material about Nabta Playa, which was a bit of a way station for the migration from what is now the Sahara into the Nile valley. The Sahara then being a nice grassland, although it was progressively drying out. At that time the Nile Valley was the Nile Gorge, 100 m deep and stretching for a thousand miles, because of the lower sea level. Irrigation would not be possible. But as sea level rose the gorge became the river, and predynastic Egyptian civilization was established in the Chalcolithic.
There used to be an excellent blog I liked which went into all this stuff, with lots of interesting data, but sadly it’s gone. These days of the internet remembering forever seem to be a lot less enduring than potsherds in the sand.
Cats, I’ve become a fan of Kendall Jenner. Absolutely exquisite.
“Was Fermi Jewish?”
No he wasn’t, nor was Neils Bohr. I did say “almost all”. LOL.
However, they were ALL geniuses.
Rosie, maybe the reason I found the movie jarring is that the actor playing Oppenheimer reminds me very much of my late father, particularly the facial features. Dad was very anti-communist yet there I was watching someone who looks like him being naive about the dangerous doctrine.
Fair enough.
Hopefully Trump makes it about the Dems sooner or later and not all about him.
The cheating of the last election has gone, what’s the plan to minimise it this time round?
Can he drag enough swing voters to the GOP to so it doesn’t matter anyway?
Hope so, or the show has all been for zip.
I guess in the 1930s people might have a little bit of an excuse to be naive about communism.
From memory, Top Ender made the claim in his book that the Japanese may well have fought on until the middle of 1947, by which time thirty million of them may well have died from starvation or disease.
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I recall reading he fled Italy fearful of Jewish persecution and assumed he was. I just checked and it was because of his Jewish wife.
HBBear:
The Nazis were burning a lot of this crap, something the middle and lower classes thought were really good ideas.
They’d had a gutful of the decadence of the upper classes.
Everyone assumes it was just religious texts, or forbidden story books that were burnt. There’s probably a very good reason for that.
Clashing with modern day mores (when available) is one…
2025 Boiler ban: ‘We will never achieve anything by making ourselves cold & poor’ | Jacob Rees Mogg
Yes, it is very odd. On my last visit to Melbourne in May to my Victorian relatives I asked how they were coping with Dan the tyrant and was flabbergasted when uncle tried to make excuses for him. These are people who voted Lib all their lives so I let it go rather than argue but it was odd nonetheless.
I know a very woke young lady who visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and came back appalled that you could use such a weapon against women and children.
Those members of her family, who had suffered heavily at the hands of the Japanese, regarded it as a pity the Americans had only dropped two bombs…
I saw a program that argued the Sahara goes through a 20,000 year wet and dry cycle. There are some very old sites in the middle of the Sahara, late Pleistocene IIRC.
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20200607-sabu-jaddi-the-site-revealing-the-saharas-verdant-past
Hidden amongst rock outcrops between the third and fourth cataracts of the Nile River, the archaeological site of Sabu-Jaddi (or simply “Sabu”) contains more than 1,500 rock drawings spanning 10,000 years of human history in the region. Archaeologists have yet to determine when, exactly, the ancient Nubians who lived here first chiselled these images, but one thing is for sure: the remarkably well-preserved etchings of hippos, crocodiles and papyrus boats depict a vastly different world than the parched desert landscape that now covers much of northern Africa, and offer a glimpse into the Sahara’s verdant past.
You might be interested in this study:
Lakeside Cemeteries in the Sahara: 5000 Years of Holocene Population and Environmental Change
https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/archaeology/shedding-new-light-on-the-lost-civilisations-of-the-sahara/news-story/ea5d2380d4eedeeef61dfdee1bf2325d
Mysterious stone structures abandoned in the Sahara desert could contain clues to an event that rocks the Earth every 20,000 years.
Wind is free but the electricity generated costs more than coal, gas, nuclear and hydro generated electricity. Same with solar as although the sun is free the electricity costs more. The reasons why are varied but revolve around the cost of the equipment required to harness the wind and solar and their generating lifetimes. Along with the need for extensive transmission infrastructure and batteries for storage.
This madness of wind and solar and batteries being able to replace a very reliable existing Electricity Grid where coal and gas fired electricity generating plants can provide electricity at low cost, when not having to support the ‘Unreliables’ (wind and solar), must stop before it crashes the Grid.
The idea is that men should protect women, cohenite, not the other way around.
And a damn fine idea it is too.
“I recall reading he fled Italy fearful of Jewish persecution and assumed he was. I just checked and it was because of his Jewish wife.”
I often why Mussolini went down the route of anti-Jewish race laws, when it’s known he never believed in them, he thought they were (rightly) absurd, yet he bowed to German pressure i 1938 and instituted them. From his early Communist days, Mussolini had Jewish friends, and many of the early fascists were Italian Jews, plus his long term mistress, Margherita Sarfatti, was Jewish (she remained his biggest fan until her death in the early 1960s). If there was prejudice against Jews in Italy, it was theological, it was never racial, and I strongly suspect most Italians rightly found race laws ridiculous.