Open Thread – Thurs 17 Aug 2023


Night Market, Petrus Van Schendel- mid-1800s

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Crossie
Crossie
August 17, 2023 10:39 am

In the photo, AOC isn’t wearing a face mask, but the woman helping her with her gown is.

What AOC was displaying for the public was hierarchy.

But she doing it for the little, underprivileged people.

Vicki
Vicki
August 17, 2023 10:40 am

Cassie – you are right, Tim James MP for Willoughby is a decent sort of bloke and seems to genuinely hold the right Lib creds and beliefs. Talked with him yesterday.

Hope he can prevail amongst the NSW maverick “Libs” who are rapidly succumbing to the Labor-lite malady. I learned that the only NSW Lib to increase the electoral vote at the last election was Tanya Davies, member for Badgerys Creek. Not totally surprised as this lady has more guts than most pollies. She vehemently opposed the lockdowns and mandates of the pandemic. Her success SHOULD be telling something to the NSW Libs.

Indolent
Indolent
August 17, 2023 10:40 am

The Pfizer mRNA vaccine was indeed scandalous along with the constant lying and gaslighting (masks, made-up social distancing, the danger of a new variant of the common cold), but this is just absolute bullshit.

Have you bothered to read the article? It’s not about mRNA vaccines, it’s about childhood vaccines.

Cassie of Sydney
August 17, 2023 10:42 am

“Vicki
Aug 17, 2023 10:40 AM
Cassie – you are right, Tim James MP for Willoughby is a decent sort of bloke and seems to genuinely hold the right Lib creds and beliefs. Talked with him yesterday.

Hope he can prevail amongst the NSW maverick “Libs” who are rapidly succumbing to the Labor-lite malady. I learned that the only NSW Lib to increase the electoral vote at the last election was Tanya Davies, member for Badgerys Creek. Not totally surprised as this lady has more guts than most pollies. She vehemently opposed the lockdowns and mandates of the pandemic. Her success SHOULD be telling something to the NSW Libs.”

Vicki, did you ask him about Sleazeman’s support for Da Voice?

The Liberals are stone-deaf.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 17, 2023 10:43 am

Opinion

As the leading Yes man, PM barely knows what he is advocating

Anthony Albanese hasn’t even read the Uluru Statement in full, yet is more focused on constitutional change than on rebuilding tourism or reducing costs for Australians.

Amanda Stoker – Columnist and former senator

The lead advocate for the Yes side of the referendum to change Australia’s Constitution to insert a so-called Indigenous Voice hasn’t even read the document in full.

That lead advocate is the prime minister.

He’s read the one-pager on top but hasn’t bothered to read the remaining 25 pages of the Uluru Statement, which Labor seeks to implement through this referendum.

And when challenged about his decision not to read it in full, the PM’s answer was: “Why would I?”

Let’s be clear about what this means.

Our nation’s leader, who seeks to persuade, cajole and manipulate Australians into supporting a proposal for a near-permanent change to our nation’s institutions, doesn’t actually understand it.

He couldn’t tell radio host Neil Mitchell what was in it.

But according to Labor, it will be implemented in full. Whatever it is.

He has the temerity to say that the proposal is “modest”, when it represents a radical departure from our system of representative government, which had been built on the principle that all people are equal before the law and in our democracy.

On the basis of that one-pager, he insists that voting Yes is just “good manners”, as if to suggest those with concerns about the wisdom of establishing two categories of citizens’ rights, permanently and on the basis of race, were rude, impolite or, worse, racist.

And he repeatedly accuses those who raise genuine concerns about the unintended consequences of the change – to throw sand in the gears of government, to slow the approvals process for projects, to open wider the scope for challenge to ministerial decisions, all without evidence that it would make a jot of difference to the approximately 20 per cent of Aboriginal Australians who largely live in remote communities and who experience sub-par life outcomes.

Successes without the Voice

Indeed, the “success stories” he so often refers to as proof of the need for this change, like the Bourke and Moree Justice Reinvestment projects, are all successes achieved without a Voice.

They were the product of traditionally elected governments doing their job properly, and individuals making choices to change their lives for the better.

Neither made the error of indulgence in group grievance, because to do so shifts responsibility for daily actions from the individual to the collective. Yet, that is precisely what the Voice proposal would do.

But the fact is the PM wouldn’t know about any of this – or about the demands for reparations in a treaty that seeks to penalise present generations for the wrongs perceived to have been perpetrated by others in the past.

Because he hasn’t bothered to read the detail.

Yet he has the gall to suggest that those who disagree with him are engaging in “misinformation”.

No wonder this campaign has been marked by confusion, changing goal posts, conflicting statements of likely effect and a lack of detail.

I’ve said in this column before that this lack of transparency means one of two things:

either that the PM is treating Australians with the disrespect of not being frank about the nature of the proposal, or that Labor doesn’t know what the impact of the proposal will be.

I had thought it was the former. Turns out it was the latter.

As if to prove that this government has lost its way by being consumed with constitutional change when it should be tackling inflation, energy prices and rebuilding industry, it has made a bizarre decision to refuse permission for Qatar Airways to increase the number of flights it lands in Australia by 21 a week, which amounts to one additional plane a day to each of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

Australia’s tourism sector – which presents among the biggest opportunities for currently disadvantaged Aboriginal Australians to generate wealth from the real economy – remains depressed to pre-pandemic levels.

Anything that brings more tourists to Australia is the kind of manna struggling businesses operating in this sector seek.

The decision to refuse another 21 planeloads a week is bad news for a tourism sector that depends on bigger-spending international tourists.

In the interests of Qantas

Australian Airports Association chief executive James Goodwin explained that “the Australian government [should] be doing everything it can to attract and retain more airlines and build their confidence that Australia is a reliable place to do business”.

It would be good news for Australians too, who are currently paying high prices for airfares.

A little more competition would go a long way.

But instead of acting in the plain interests of Australian consumers and Australian tourism businesses, their employees and the regions that depend on them, federal Labor has decided to make a protectionist decision, declining the approval in the commercial interests of, and after considerable lobbying from, Qantas.

The same airline that was carried generously by all taxpaying Australians throughout the pandemic.

The same airline that just two days ago announced it would allow people involved in the Yes campaign to travel for free.

The same airline that will redecorate three planes to promote the Yes campaign.

The same airline that will continue to charge Australians more, because this government is more interested in changing the Constitution to implement an Uluru Statement that the PM hasn’t read than it is in reducing costs for Australians or rebuilding the tourism industry.

Dot
Dot
August 17, 2023 10:43 am

If it was a genetic disease then Occam’s razor says it would be present at birth.

Ockham’s Razor says you are talking out of your arse.

1. The genes are present.
2. They are turned on by environmental factors and some autoimmune effects of bacterial and disease infection. (Sure, there could be some vaccines that have the same effect, but there is no evidence thus far and you would have to accept that infectious diseases exist).
3. Not all genetic diseases are present at birth like all gene expression is present at birth (such as menarche & ovulation, some cancers or male pattern baldness).

Stop being an idiot.

Figures
Figures
August 17, 2023 10:45 am

The expanding life expectancy in the West since the Industrial Revolution and Enlightenment speaks to the general success of modern medicine,

Really? I would have thought it must be higher tax rates.

Or women’s suffrage.

Or large scale immigration.

Lots of things have happened in the last 200 years.

I would attribute longer lifespans to wealth and better safety (especially around water) and better emergency medicine. But that is my speculation based on the theory I espouse. I haven’t tried to prove that empirically because my epistemological approach to medicine is the same as my (Austrian) approach to economics.

Logic first and foremost. Empirical arguments are for illustration purposes rather than proof.

Start with premise 1. I can visit a doctor and not get horrendously sick (and die). Doctors can do their jobs and not get horrendously sick (and die). From there I conclude that diseases cannot be spread from one person to another.

That is your starting point. Nothing can change that fact because it’s so obviously correct. Or at least it would be to an alien visiting earth or anybody else who wasn’t brainwashed from the day they were born into contagion theory.

Katzenjammer
Katzenjammer
August 17, 2023 10:49 am

Currency lads and lasses were called Cornstalks and Matildas – the first free born generation of the colonial settlers. Why is the team permitted to call themselves a name that should be just as offensive to Indigenous as a Captain Cook statue or Australia Day.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
August 17, 2023 10:50 am

Figures, I think you are showing signs of having fallen out of the Overton window and hit your head.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
August 17, 2023 10:51 am

As I said, the likes of Indolent and Figures completely undermine rational argument about vaccines.
But the coffee income is good.

Figures
Figures
August 17, 2023 10:53 am

2. They are turned on by environmental factors and some autoimmune effects of bacterial and disease infection. (Sure, there could be some vaccines that have the same effect, but there is no evidence thus far .

Turned on by environmental factors but not being poisoned. No sirree!

and you would have to accept that infectious diseases exist

No I wouldn’t. I don’t need to believe in infectious disease to believe in being poisoned.

3. Not all genetic diseases are present at birth like all gene expression is present at birth (such as menarche & ovulation, some cancers or male pattern baldness).

Why do I have to teach you the basics?

You can’t use a premise that I would dispute in order to reach your conclusion unless you take steps to demonstrate that premise? Do you think I accept that cancers are genetic? I can tell you I don’t. You disagree of course, but you’re arguing with me. You may be doing that for the benefit of others but the point still stands.

Dot
Dot
August 17, 2023 10:53 am

Type I diabetes is a modern disease.

No, both types of diabetes have been known for thousands of years and formally recognised for over 150.

lotocoti
lotocoti
August 17, 2023 10:54 am

two FPV drones wreaking havoc

Man-in-the-loop is speeding towards obsolescence.

Dot
Dot
August 17, 2023 10:55 am

Turned on by environmental factors but not being poisoned. No sirree!

Yes, an acceptably low risk, and by dead viruses. But infections aren’t real!

Dot
Dot
August 17, 2023 10:58 am

Do you think I accept that cancers are genetic? I can tell you I don’t.

Declaring anything in the human body, composed of human cells as entirely alien to genetics is silly and short-sighted.

It is known that cancer is both genetic and metabolic, but also due to aging.

Expected response:

“Medicine is just like Austrian economics”
“Cancer is not genetic”
“Cancer is not metabolic”
“Damaged telomeres have nothing to do with cancer”

It’s like a puppet with Graeme Bird having his hand shoved up its arse.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
August 17, 2023 11:00 am

By the way, if it’s genetic, does that mean that 100% of type I diabetes sufferers have insulin dependency from birth?

This is specious reasoning.

Diabetes is a complex hormonal condition. It seems to have a genetic component but its expression as Type 2 at any stage in life is dependent on many factors of diet and environment as well as of genes providing a predisposition. One indicator is a woman having children of increasing birthweight. There are many other indicators in blood and physiognomy. Type 1 diabetes can be present from birth as a genetic or environmental factor of pancreatic malfunctioning and it can also arise in later life, perhaps due to genetic predisposition but also prompted by viral or other environmental attack-factors. My sister became seriously Type 1 diabetic over the course of two weeks when in her thirties – probably due to a severe viral infection it is thought, with some possible preconditioning factors. She has injected insulin all of her life and is now 83.

Dot
Dot
August 17, 2023 11:05 am

Kirsch tried to use odds ratios as proof of correlation, causation and the coefficient of the explanatory variable.

That is very poor form, quite stupid and not yet intellectually dishonest but it is incompetent, to say the least.

He might look at the ubiquity and frequency of vaccines driving autoimmune diseases which in turn result in complications such as Type 1 diabetes and the like, but that would require effort and it would not create clickbait headlines and bought coffee cups.

Structural equation modelling and latent variables don’t create clickbait because you have to cruel your conclusions and let people who are subject matter experts (usually) to run with your results and follow things up. Failing that, lots and lots of in-depth stats analysis.

Which doesn’t write substack articles.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
August 17, 2023 11:10 am

dover0beach

Aug 17, 2023 10:57 AM

As observed here yesterday, these idiots destroy the efforts of those to run rational arguments against vax downsides.

I don’t believe this at all. 

Well, you may not believe it, but it is real.
These nut-jobs are held up all the time as an example of what ALL people who have concerns about vax side-effects.
FFS, we had Indolent here yesterday touting the “sudden death” of a football player in the US at the age of 28 as “vax related”.
A bit of cursory research revealed he died in a motorbike accident.
Not at all helpful.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
August 17, 2023 11:10 am

Why is the team permitted to call themselves a name that should be just as offensive to Indigenous as a Captain Cook statue or Australia Day.

As I pointed out yesterday, the name Matildas is thoroughly traditionally Australian and I think that’s why such a fuss was made of this slightly-above average female team. Everyone wants something Australian and not aboriginal to glorify and make a fuss over, to jump up and down with patriotic excitement about. Matildas does it.

Lionesses does a similar thing for the Brits, although the excitement level is muted at best over there. In a non-PC world you can have actresses, mistresses, and lionesses.
The esses have it! They are girls, now proven to fight like real women.

Bar Beach Swimmer
August 17, 2023 11:12 am

My sister became seriously Type 1 diabetic over the course of two weeks when in her thirties – probably due to a severe viral infection it is thought, with some possible preconditioning factors. She has injected insulin all of her life and is now 83.

As with my brother – at age 23 – 4 injections per day. He’d previously had glandular fever and not long afterwards, 12 months(?) ended up with Type 1.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
August 17, 2023 11:13 am

If you don’t like potatoes you might try this dish with rice. I hope someone tries making this! It’s seriously good.

Sounds a lot like kedgeree: soul food of Empire.

JC
JC
August 17, 2023 11:13 am

Wow, you go girl.

Javier Milei pledged to close Argentina’s central bank and dollarize the $640 billion economy if elected in October. The leading presidential candidate also told Bloomberg he’d make every effort to avoid a sovereign debt default. His fiscal plan includes slashing spending by at least 13% of GDP before mid-2025 in part by downsizing public works.

It’s a mortal sin this country isn’t in the top league in GDP per capita.

Dot
Dot
August 17, 2023 11:16 am

A certified banger, re dollarisation:

https://mises.org/library/panama-has-no-central-bank

The absence of a central bank in Panama has created a completely market-driven money supply. Panama’s market has also chosen the US dollar as its de facto currency. The country must buy or obtain their dollars by producing or exporting real goods or services; it cannot create money out of thin air. In this way, at least, the system is similar to the old gold standard. Annual inflation in the past 20 years has averaged 1% and there have been years with price deflation, as well: 1986, 1989, and 2003.

Panamanian inflation is usually between 1 and 3 points lower than US inflation; it is caused mostly by the Federal Reserve’s effect on world prices. This market-driven system has created an extremely stable macroeconomic environment. Panama is the only country in Latin America that has not experienced a financial collapse or a currency crisis since its independence.

Which is better than any central bank has ever done.

Good luck to Senor Milei and his crusade for sanity and adults being in charge for once.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 17, 2023 11:17 am

“One Dwarf and Six Painfully Diverse Magical Creatures Dressed in Garb Cast-Off from the Greater Des Moines Renaissance Faire.”

This week — and far from the first time — Zegler trashed the beloved 1937 original animated Snow White.

“I mean, you know, the original cartoon came out in 1937 and very evidently so. Um… there’s a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her! [Laughs] Weird, weird, so we didn’t do that this time.” Instead, the “modernized” character has little use for anything aside from herself, apparently.

The poor girl got trashed for her remarks and posted a video whining about how she’d been taken out of context.

#RachelZeigler the new #SnowWhite is the most unlikable actress I have ever heard…She hates her Snow White character, and after she came out against the original movie, she is now crying over the backlash #Narcissist pic.twitter.com/o3nHtvlTs9

— John Ford (@PDXFato) August 15, 2023

JC
JC
August 17, 2023 11:17 am

All you’re contending with there is relentless statements from elite institutions that COVD was transmitted from a wet market.

And who eggsactly believes that these days? Meaning the more likely possibility came out over time in a very confused situation.

Rabz
August 17, 2023 11:17 am

It’s an exclusive club, and if you are not a leftard, you will never be allowed to join it

Relevant Marx quote: “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.”

132andBush
132andBush
August 17, 2023 11:20 am

Figures, I think you are showing signs of having fallen out of the Overton window and hit your head.

The moral of this story being “When looking for chemtrails, don’t lean too far out the Overton window”

Bar Beach Swimmer
August 17, 2023 11:21 am

DB @ 10:57am

+1000

Figures
Figures
August 17, 2023 11:21 am

Well, you may not believe it, but it is real.
These nut-jobs are held up all the time as an example of what ALL people who have concerns about vax side-effects.

Why don’t you explain why people listen to leftists even though they claim men can have babies?

JC
JC
August 17, 2023 11:21 am

Dot

If “Harve” isn’t hindered by the Argentinian version of the swamp, this country could be a marvel over the 20 years. If ….. 🙂

He’s very libertarian.

As His leadership frequently contends, a stupid libertarian.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 17, 2023 11:22 am

Montreal

Quebecers no longer seeing doctor-assisted deaths as exceptional, says oversight body

‘Medical aid in dying is not there to replace natural death,’ says committee president

As the frequency of medical aid in dying continues to rise in Quebec, the head of the independent body that monitors the practice in the province says he worries doctor-assisted deaths are no longer being seen as a last resort.

Quebecers have stopped appreciating MAID as an exceptional procedure for people with incurable illnesses whose suffering is unbearable, Dr. Michel Bureau said in a recent interview.

“We’re now no longer dealing with an exceptional treatment, but a treatment that is very frequent,” said Bureau, head of Commission sur les soins de fin de vie, which reports to the legislature.

Quebec is on track to finish the year with seven per cent of all deaths recorded as doctor-assisted, Bureau said.

“That’s more than anywhere else in the world: 4.5 times more than Switzerland, three times more than Belgium, more than the Netherlands.

It’s two times more than Ontario.”

Earlier this month, Bureau’s commission sent a memo to doctors reminding them that only patients who have a serious and incurable disease, who are suffering and who have experienced irreversible decline in their condition can receive MAID.

The memo reminded doctors that the procedure must be independently approved by two physicians, and that doctors shouldn’t “shop” for a favourable second opinion.

“We see, more and more, that the cases receiving medical aid in dying are approaching the limits of the law,” Bureau said.

“It’s no longer just terminal cancer, there are all kinds of illnesses — and that’s very good, but it requires a lot of rigour from doctors to ensure they stay within the limits of the law.”

Dot
Dot
August 17, 2023 11:22 am

These nut-jobs are held up all the time as an example of what ALL people who have concerns about vax side-effects.

Of course, everyone should be concerned about the side effects of every medical and surgical intervention. Do you want to take the maximum dose of aspirin, ibuprofen and paracetamol every day? Good luck with your kidneys and liver!

I was looking at stuff regarding BP, now apparently even as low as 120/xx is now considered “prehypertensive”! 120-139/xx is…”unhealthy”!

50 years ago, up to 160/100 was considered normal (I’ve never been there and nor would I want to…).

I was “prehypertensive” once as a young elite athlete (no joke) and a specialist doctor told me it was a function of cardiovascular strength.

Do your own research. The drugs for mild “hypertension” are IMO not good for you, the benefits are non-existent and high doses are bad.

Figures
Figures
August 17, 2023 11:23 am

This is specious reasoning.

No. It’s obvious. The obvious answer doesn’t have to be correct. But, as per Occam’s razor, it’s the one you assume in the absence of good reasons not to.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
August 17, 2023 11:23 am

These nut-jobs are held up all the time as an example of what ALL people who have concerns about vax side-effects.

That is so. I have many concerns about Covid genetic ‘vaxxes’ and the absolutely unacceptable rate of serious side effects they cause, including what happened to one of my sons. But saying so can put off people who then load you into the Figures side of unscientific idiocy unless you are careful to note a lunatic fringe exists but that questions definitely arise. Figures talks through his hat most of the time, as Dot very ably shows. I too always try to make it plain why argumentation such as Figures uses is wrong, and why. Engaging in him with detail is like dealing with a greenie on climatic matters. Not worth your time.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 17, 2023 11:25 am

How Constantinople Saved Western Civilization

This week in history, on August 15, 718, Constantinople defeated the forces of Islam — and in so doing, saved Western civilization. The story is worth recounting:

After several failed sieges, in the year 715, the Umayyad caliphate had concluded that enough was enough: it would vomit forth all it had in one final, all-out effort to conquer the ancient Christian capital. Caliph Suleiman summoned his younger brother, Maslama, and commanded him to lead Islam’s combined forces to Constantinople and “stay there until you conquer it or I recall you.” The young emir embraced the honor: soon “I [will] enter this city knowing that it is the capital of Christianity and its glory; my only purpose in entering it is to uphold Islam and humiliate unbelief.”

At the head of 120,000 jihadists, Maslama crossed into Christian territory and, with “both sword and fire, he put an end to Asia Minor,” wrote a near-contemporary chronicler. On August 15, 717, he began bombarding the city, which was defended by Leo III, formerly a general. Just weeks earlier, and because he was deemed the ablest man, Leo had been consecrated in the Hagia Sophia Cathedral as new emperor.

Unable to breach the cyclopean walls of Constantinople, Maslama waited for 1,800 vessels containing an additional 80,000 fighting men to approach through the Bosporus and completely blockade — and thus starve — the city.

Suddenly Leo ordered the ponderous chain that normally guarded the harbor cast aside. Then, “while they [Muslim fleets] hesitated whether they should seize the opportunity . . . the ministers of destruction were at hand.” Leo had sent forth the “fire-bearing ships” against the Islamic fleet, which was quickly set “on fire,” writes Theophanes the chronicler: “some of them were cast up burning by the sea walls, others sank to the bottom with their crews, and others were swept down flaming.”

Matters worsened when Maslama received word that the caliph, his brother Suleiman, had died of “indigestion” (by reportedly devouring two baskets of eggs and figs, followed by marrow and sugar for dessert). The new caliph, Omar II, was initially inattentive to the Muslim army’s needs. Maslama stayed and wintered in.

Unfortunately for him, “one of the cruelest winters that anyone could remember” arrived, and, “for one hundred days, snow covered the earth.” All Maslama could do was assure his emaciated, half-frozen men that “Soon — soon supplies will be here!” But they did not come. Worse, warlike nomadic tribesmen known as Bulgars — whence the nation of Bulgaria — accustomed to the terrain and climate began to harry any Muslim detachment that left the starving camp in search of food.

By spring, Muslim reinforcements and provisions finally arrived by land and sea. But the damage was done; frost and famine had taken their toll on the Muslims encamped outside the walls of Constantinople. “Since the Arabs were extremely hungry,” writes Theophanes, “they ate all their dead animals: horses, asses, and camels. Some even say they put dead men and their own dung in pans, kneaded this, and ate it. A plague-like disease descended on them, and destroyed a countless throng.”

Even so, knowing that such a massive force — which had taken years to assemble and had severely taxed the caliphate’s resources — was already at the walls of Islam’s archrival was too much of a temptation for Omar to order a withdrawal. The new caliph also knew that nothing could bolster his credentials as the conquest of that one infidel kingdom that remained a thorn in Islam’s side. Thus, while the Muslim land force recuperated, a new navy, composed of eight hundred ships, was outfitted in the ports of Alexandria and Libya. The fleet arrived under the cover of night and managed to blockade the Bosporus. Having learned the lesson of Greek Fire, the prudent ships kept their distance.

Just as the beginning of the end seemed to have arrived for Constantinople, sudden delivery — and from the least expected source — came: the crews manning the caliphate’s new ships were not Arab Muslims but Egyptian Christians (Copts). Because the caliphate’s fighting men had been spread thin, with many dying during the current siege, the caliph had no choice but to rely on forced infidel conscripts. Much to Omar’s chagrin, the Egyptian sailors “of these two fleets took counsel among themselves, and, after seizing at night the skiffs of the transports, sought refuge in the City and acclaimed the emperor; as they did so, the sea,” writes Theophanes, “appeared to be covered with timber.”

Not only did the Muslim war galleys lose a significant amount of manpower, but the Copts provided Leo with useful information concerning Muslim formations and plans. With this new intelligence, Leo lifted the boom and unleashed the fire ships. Considering the loss of manpower and general chaos that ensued after the Egyptians jumped ship, the confrontation — or rather conflagration, for the waves were again aflame — was more a rout than a battle.

Seeking to seal his victory, Leo had the retreating Muslim fleets pursued by sea. The neighboring Bulgar tribes were persuaded by Leo’s “gifts and promises” to attack and massacre as many as 22,000 of the battle-weary and starved Muslims.

By now, Caliph Omar realized all was lost. Maslama, who could only have welcomed the summons, was recalled. On August 15, 718 — exactly one year since it began — the siege of Constantinople was lifted. But the Muslims’ troubles were far from over: a terrible storm swallowed up many ships in the Sea of Marmara, and the ashes from a volcanic eruption on the island of Santorini set others aflame.

Of the 2,560 ships retreating back to Damascus and Alexandria, only ten reportedly survived — and of these, half were captured by the Romans, leaving only five to reach and tell the tale to the caliph. In all, of the 200,000 Muslims who set out to conquer the Christian capital (including the additional spring reinforcements), only some 30,000 eventually made it back by land. Constantinople’s unexpected salvation — particularly in the context of winter storms, nemesis-like sea storms, and volcanoes that pursued and swallowed up the fleeing infidels — led to the popular belief that divine providence had intervened on behalf of Christendom, saving it from “the insatiable and utterly perverse Arabs,” in the words of a contemporary.

By way of collective punishment, a vindictive Omar, failing to subdue the infidel dogs across the way, was quick to project his wrath on the infidels under his authority. In the words of the chronicler Bar Hebraeus: “And because of the disgrace which came upon the Arabs through their withdrawal from Constantinople, great hatred against the Christians sprang in the heart of Omar and he afflicted them severely.” Theophanes gives specifics: “Omar … set about forcing the Christians to become converted; those that converted he exempted from tax [jizya], while those that refused to do so he killed and so produced many martyrs.

That Constantinople was able to repulse the hitherto unstoppable forces of Islam is one of Western history’s most decisive moments. The last time a large expanse of land was left open to the scimitar of Islam (following Christian defeat at Yarmuk, 636), thousands of square miles were permanently conquered. Had Constantinople — the bulwark of Europe’s eastern flank—fallen, large parts or even the whole of Europe could have become the northwestern appendage of the caliphate as early as the eighth century.

As historian John Julius Norwich puts it, “Had the Saracens captured Constantinople in the seventh century rather than the fifteenth, all Europe — and America — might be Muslim today.” The earliest chroniclers knew this and referred to August 15, the day the siege was lifted, as an “ecumenical date” — that is, a day for all of Christendom to rejoice.

Colonel Crispin Berka
Colonel Crispin Berka
August 17, 2023 11:25 am

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has $3 billion on the table to get the states to build 1.2 million homes by the end of the decade.

Australia’s housing crisis will “get worse not better” despite National Cabinet’s new target of building 1.2 million new homes over five years, if the Labor Government is intent on bringing in almost as many migrants in that time, claims Michael Sukkar.

What an amazing co-incidence.
Just exactly who are these homes being built for?

Figures
Figures
August 17, 2023 11:26 am

Declaring anything in the human body, composed of human cells as entirely alien to genetics is silly and short-sighted.

On the contrary. If every fatal/dangerous disease was genetic, then how did these genes survive through the ages?

“It is known that cancer is both genetic and metabolic, but also due to aging.”

Such good arguments:

“2+2=5”

“??? How?”

“It is known”

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
August 17, 2023 11:26 am

Gina Rinehart inked ‘death warrant’ deals for children’s trust fund, court told
Jesinta Burton
August 16, 2023 — 3.32pm

Gina Rinehart inked “death warrant” deals for the lucrative trust fund her pioneer father left her four children, stripping it of its mining assets, wrestling back its stake in her company and leaving it “frozen in time”, a court has been told.

The extraordinary claims were levelled by Gina Rinehart’s two eldest children, John Hancock and Bianca Rinehart, on Wednesday, as part of a multibillion-dollar civil dispute over her company Hancock Prospecting’s Hope Downs iron ore mine royalties.

Bianca and John’s lawyer Christopher Withers, SC, said their grandfather Lang Hancock left them a family trust housing more than $61 million in mining assets, including Hope Downs, when he died in 1992.

The division of his estate was to be executed as per a 1988 agreement, with Gina to inherit a 51 per cent shareholding in Hancock Prospecting and her children to be handed control of the trust.

But within two years the trust was in a “precarious” financial position, one Withers said Gina manufactured through a series of top-secret manoeuvres that left it beholden to her.

In the months after Lang’s death, Withers claimed the trust Gina temporarily helmed for her young children entered deeds taking on the debts of its subsidiary Hancock Resources to her company Hancock Prospecting and providing security over its mining assets.

According to Withers, it was also agreed that the trust’s tenements, a major source of its income, would be held for Hancock Prospecting, without any formal board approval, legal advice or commercial rationale.

Withers said the series of transactions were effectively a death warrant to the trust, strangling its access to funding, stopping its exploration quests and preventing it from repaying its debts.

In turn, they allowed Gina’s Hancock Prospecting to recoup the trust’s most valuable asset – a one-third shareholding in her company that would see her stake balloon to 76 per cent.

Bianca watched on from the public gallery as Withers told the court Gina’s conduct was a breach of her duties to safeguard the trust for her young children, part of a “special project” to make the trust financially dependent on Hancock Prospecting.

And he produced confidential memorandums exchanged in the 1990s he claimed supported that theory, which showed Gina seeking advice on ways to take back the shares at a deflated price.

“As the controlling mind of Hancock Prospecting, she [Gina] would have been in conflict if she demanded the debt as it would have harmed the assets of the trust, which she had a duty to safeguard and protect as trustee, including the economic value of the assets to be generated within it,” Withers told the court.

“She had a conflict of interest, she was trustee [of the trust], but her interests aligned with Hancock Prospecting.

“Hancock Resources was a company that was in full-blown development, but in 1992 it became a company effectively frozen in time with no mining assets, no money for exploration and no prospects.

“These deeds were effectively a death warrant to these companies… and left the trust an empty shell.

“It’s hard to imagine a more egregious breach of duty.”

The version of events is at odds with that put by Hancock Prospecting’s lawyer Noel Hutley, SC, who told the court last week Lang confessed to unlawfully taking the company’s assets before his death and reinstated Gina as a director.

Hutley insisted the Hope Downs tenements were only placed in the trust as part of Lang’s scheme to siphon cash out of the empire, which he executed in a way that kept Hancock Prospecting shareholders, including Gina, in the dark.

Gina, Hutley said, only took them back to fulfil her father’s dying wish, later putting in the work to recover and invest in creating the four operational Hope Downs iron ore mines it now co-owns with Rio Tinto.

But Withers said the moves were part of a “deliberate” and “calculated scheme” designed to defraud her children.

The stoush began in 2010 when Gina was sued by the descendants of her pioneer father’s business partner, Peter Wright, her eldest children and the company left behind by Pilbara engineer Don Rhodes.

Wright Prospecting claims it is entitled to a portion of the royalties from Hope Downs under a 1980s partnership deed, while Rhodes’ family company, DFD Rhodes, wants a 1.25 per cent stake in its proceeds.

The submissions made by the children are also at odds with Wright and Rhodes, which claim the assets were held on trust for the partnership and argued holding a trust interest in the shares of a company did not automatically give one a proprietary interest in its assets.

Hancock Prospecting and its executive chair Rinehart maintain the Hope Downs assets and royalties belong to them.

John Hancock and Bianca Rinehart joined the lawsuit in 2016, claiming their grandfather intended to leave Hope Downs to them.

Dot
Dot
August 17, 2023 11:27 am

On the contrary. If every fatal/dangerous disease was genetic, then how did these genes survive through the ages?

Sex and mitochondria started off as threats to other organisms.

Colonel Crispin Berka
Colonel Crispin Berka
August 17, 2023 11:28 am

“When looking for chemtrails, don’t lean too far out the Overton window”
– 123andBush.

Liberty Quote?

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
August 17, 2023 11:28 am

No. It’s obvious.

Nothing in science is ‘obvious’ unless tested by a null hypothesis against evidence.
You have hypotheses that don’t make cellular or genetic biological sense.
I’m not interested in pursuing your suggestions. Do so yourself, by all means.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 17, 2023 11:28 am

Emails Show Hunter Biden Hired Specialists To Quietly Airbrush Wikipedia: Fang

BY TYLER DURDEN

Authored by Lee Fang via leefang.com (highly recommend subscribing),

Powerful individuals and corporations routinely tap specialized consultants to edit Wikipedia for more favorable entries, often through anonymous accounts designed to appear organic.

Emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop show that he made continuous efforts to airbrush his image and the Wikipedia articles associated with his Ukrainian benefactors.

The outreach by high-priced consultants making stealth edits to Wikipedia, for a period, paid off.

In 2014, working at the time with FTI Consulting, a major public relations and lobbying firm, Hunter sought changes to his personal Wikipedia entry.

“Ryan- below is a start. Eric is my partner and cc’d- he’s going to make additional edits,” wrote Hunter to FTI’s Ryan Toohey in May 2014, referring him to Eric Schwerin, the president of Hunter’s firm Rosemont Seneca. Hunter forwarded along edits seeking the deletion of unflattering lines in his Wikipedia biography, such as his ties to disgraced Ponzi scheme financier Allen Stanford.

Robert Sewell
August 17, 2023 11:28 am

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/entire-minnesota-towns-police-department-quits/
Only a small town, but that will be an interesting experiment.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
August 17, 2023 11:30 am

Some here could do well to read Mat Ridley’s ‘The Red Queen’.
A little evolutionary biology might assist comprehension of genetic complexity.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
August 17, 2023 11:31 am

BoN can always be counted on providing an ExpressUK article if anything about the Russians is mentioned.

It propaganda all the way down Dover. I’m amazed you believe the Russian version.

I don’t actually read Express stories on the Ukraine mess until I get involuntarily dosed with ridiculous Russian propaganda on the Cat, which I find irritating. I’ll desist if you guys do. Nothing much is happening on the ground except the poor bloody infantry bleeding.

On the other hand I’m always interested in what Girkin has to say since he’s a Russian nationalist with very relevant experience of the battlefield, since he led the original little green men in 2014. As mentioned he was arrested for being critical of the big guy once too often, so it was notable he is allowed to continue to commentate. What that means regarding current the politics of Russia I don’t know.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 17, 2023 11:31 am

The Long Reach Of COVID-19: Unraveling The Cognitive Puzzle Of Recovery

BY TYLER DURDEN

Brain fog, the struggle to recall words, and forgetting why you entered a room may be more than mere annoyances. They could be lingering symptoms of COVID-19.

Researchers in the UK found that individuals reporting long-lasting COVID-19 symptoms—persisting for at least three months post-infection—exhibited diminished capabilities in areas such as memory, reasoning, and motor control. The findings were recently published in The Lancet’s eClinicalMedicine journal.

“The fact remains that two years on from their first infection, some people don’t feel fully recovered, and their lives continue to be impacted by the long-term effects of the coronavirus,” Claire Steves, co-author of the study and a professor at King’s College London, wrote.

The study engaged 3,335 individuals from the United Kingdom COVID Symptom Study Biobank for a two-round evaluation spanning July 2021 to June 2022.

The participants, including both those who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 and and those who tested negative, were assessed across 12 different tasks. These tasks were designed to test cognitive functions such as working memory, attention, reasoning, processing speed, and motor control.

The analysis specifically examined the effects of COVID-19 exposure on cognitive accuracy and reaction time. It also looked into the role of ongoing symptoms after infection with the aim to provide valuable insights into the impact of the virus on mental functions.

Researchers found notable cognitive deficits in individuals who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 and experienced symptoms for 12 weeks or more. These deficits—detected in areas such as visual memory and attention—were comparable in scale to the effect of aging by 10 years or being hospitalized during the illness. Notably, the deficits persisted almost two years after the infection in some cases, which raised concerns about the lasting impact of COVID-19 on cognitive function.

When asked about the daily implications of cognitive deficits as compared with approximately 10 years of aging, Ms. Steves offered a sobering perspective to The Epoch Times.

“The effects are tangible, and although they are relatively small, they are probably noticeable in everyday life,” she explained.

Ms. Steves said that the data represent an average across varying cases. “The changes we report are average changes across groups of people, and some people will experience more or less,” she said.

. Self-Perception of Illness and Recovery
. Cognitive Decline Following COVID-19
. Cognitive Decline: Virus or Vaccine?

JC
JC
August 17, 2023 11:31 am

Let’s be clear, the Harve isn’t completely getting rid of the central bank, he’s replacing it with the Fed.

We saw a much watered down version of dollarisation back in the 90 when Argentina went with what they then called an irrevocable fixed exchange rate to the Greenback. Irrevocable then became revocable and they are where they are now with a collapsed economy and 120% inflation.

They need, must, ensure that the innards of the economy are as liberal at least as the US or they will end up with spiralling deflation that will end up with the Peronists again.

Dollarisation is great but he has to liberalise the crap out of that economic disaster.

Dot
Dot
August 17, 2023 11:31 am

Medicine is up in the air. Speaking of BP and arthosclerosis

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep42553

Choline ameliorates cardiovascular damage by improving vagal activity and inhibiting the inflammatory response in spontaneously hypertensive rats

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9032511/

Choline Supplementation Does Not Promote Atherosclerosis in CETP-Expressing Male Apolipoprotein E Knockout Mice

Fasting still does good via autophagy.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2021.719750/full

Intermittent Fasting Inhibits High-Fat Diet–Induced Atherosclerosis by Ameliorating Hypercholesterolemia and Reducing Monocyte Chemoattraction

Now, remember that if you don’t eat eggs, you don’t get much choline. Butter is loaded with vitamin K2 which stops dangerous clotting.

—-> DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH!

Figures
Figures
August 17, 2023 11:35 am

No one that lifted their head above the parapet was treated fairly or civilly.

Yes but that is just merely an objectively true statement that is supported by what actually happened in the real world Dover.

Sancho et al *feel* that they want to make peace with people who want to imprison them. So that’s what matters to them.

Andrew Wakefield said that kids should get the measles, mumps and rubella vaccines *separately*. He never mentioned other vaccines and he didn’t suggest kids avoid vaccinations for the above. Hard to imagine a more genuine attempt to compromise.

And yet, look at what happened to him (he is more coherently anti-vax now but his crucifixion happened when he *still* supported kids getting literally every vaccine on the schedule).

The likes of Jenny McCarthy etc all said “Green our Vaccines”. They never said “ban all vaccines”. And yet, they were smashed. Their attempts at compromise weakened the impact of their arguments but it in no way insulated them from being attacked.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 17, 2023 11:35 am

Serious & Dangerous: Welcome To The Jackson Pollock School Of (Political) Prosecution

Welcome to the Jackson Pollock school of prosecution. The 98-page indictment from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is the legal version of Pollock’s style of throwing paint splatters on canvas as artistic expression. It basically makes every telephone call, tweet, and meeting a separate conspiratorial act.

There are 161 separate acts. Not surprisingly, everyone then becomes part of the conspiracy. The indictment covers 19 people, including Trevian Kutti (the former publicist for R. Kelly and Kanye West). Willis wants them all thrown into a single trial and let the jury figure it out.

But for all the disparate acts that Willis says constitute a criminal conspiracy, part of this emerging picture should worry Trump.

Pollock once advised confused observers that they needed to stop looking for objective meaning. The same may be true with the fourth Trump indictment. Willis simply treats every statement as a knowing falsehood and conspiratorial effort.

The indictment, to many, reads like the type of unabashedly biased spin that’s typically seen on cable television shows.

For example, the indictment relies on calls like the controversial one Trump had with Georgia officials—a call long cited as indisputable evidence of an effort at voting fraud. In the call, Trump pushed his demand for a statewide recount. Trump had lost the state by less than 12,000 votes. When officials insisted that there was little likelihood that such a recount would make a difference, he stated, “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state.”

The call is still cited as one of those 161 individual steps toward the criminal conspiracy. Even though the indictment effectively repackages the same claims as the federal prosecution, Willis insists that Trump should be effectively tried twice under these allegations.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
August 17, 2023 11:38 am

I thought Gina Reinhart looked particularly stressed on TV when making statements re Australia’s nuclear future. She has obviously had some difficult times with family over the will. I think she acted for what she thought was the best, producing a better outcome from the Hancock resources overall, but on the absolute legality of it in her position as trustee, well, opinions may differ. I’d give her the benefit of the doubt.

However, where there’s a will there’s always a disgruntled relative. Sad when it is your own children.

Bar Beach Swimmer
August 17, 2023 11:39 am

Meaning the more likely possibility came out over time in a very confused situation.

JC, from what we’ve learnt in the emails, to ensure that the media only bought the lie that it was naturally occurring, at the beginning (Jan 2020) Fauci deliberately manipulated the scientists investigating where the thing originated. There was no confusion at that level, those virologists knew; any confusion lay with the general public, but because of Fauci et al., the public were brainwashed into accepting the onerous of personal and social, anti-human controls.

From there, anyone who said the opposite was maligned as a nut job and was de-platformed. This led further to the deliberate muddying of the waters. When the jabs entered use, anyone refusing was also branded a nut job. Since then, no government, business, organisation – no one – has ever recanted what they did. But the one trying to speak out are still branded as “nut jobs”.

Figures
Figures
August 17, 2023 11:40 am

Nothing in science is ‘obvious’ unless tested by a null hypothesis against evidence.

Rubbish. You are talking about statistics.

Statistics, by definition, is unfalsifiable (because of p values (ie exceptions are just shrugged off)). Science, by definition, is falsifiable (ie, there are no unexplained exceptions).

Therefore, any statistically based field of study is not science.

Disease based medicine is in thrall to statistics. That doesn’t make it wrong (although it is). But it is not science.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
August 17, 2023 11:40 am

No. Now go away, racist.

‘Let’s get this done together’: Anthony Albanese committed to the Voice (Sky, 17 Aug)

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says the Labor Party is committed to “listen” to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people so that Australia reaps better results in health, housing and education. “Our commitment to a Voice enshrined in Australia’s constitution; let’s get this done together,” Mr Albanese said during a speech at the ALP National Conference.

How about listening to ordinary Australians, who are hurting from your insane policies? Just a thought.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 17, 2023 11:41 am

Mark Levin argues that Trump can pardon himself if convicted in Georgia

Now, though, Mark Levin argues that “President Trump can, in fact, pardon himself from the GA charges if he is elected president.” That’s good. And of course, being Mark Levin, he provides chapter and verse explaining why this is so:

In case you cannot get the tweet to open, here’s what Levin wrote:

President Trump can, in fact, pardon himself from the GA charges if he is elected president.

1. The Constitution’s silent about whether a president can be indicted.

2. The DOJ has taken the position under both parties that you cannot indict a sitting president because it would cripple the executive branch and make his ability to defend himself effectively impossible.

3. Given the DOJ’s position, and the Supremacy Clause in the Constitution, I would argue strongly that the idea that a president cannot be indicted at the federal level because it would cripple the executive branch, but can be indicted by local DAs, would have exactly the same effect as a federal indictment, except there are thousands of local and state prosecutors making the crippling of a president even more likely.

4. FURTHERMORE, if indicted and even convicted, the idea that a president cannot pardon himself from state charges is absurd, again, not only because of the Supremacy Clause, but the same considerations that apply to a federal conviction would obviously apply to a state conviction.

Therefore, I disagree with Jonathan Turley’s view and others who keep repeating it.

No less a constitutional expert than Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) has endorsed this view:

Mark Levin makes a credible argument here—one I had not previously considered.https://t.co/rLvzCXu9Yf

— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) August 16, 2023

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
August 17, 2023 11:42 am

Hairy will inherit very little of his father’s estate. He’s fairly philosophical about that, saying that your own efforts are what count in life, and that inheritance shouldn’t be relied upon, it’s a nice bonus if you get it, but don’t expect it.

Challenging a will is always an invitation to a lawyers’ festival in hundreds of six-minute acts, where the funds are simply frittered away in argumentation. In my lifetime I’ve seen it happen to quite a few friends, who always come out of it battered and angry.

Figures
Figures
August 17, 2023 11:43 am

Some here could do well to read Mat Ridley’s ‘The Red Queen’.
A little evolutionary biology might assist comprehension of genetic complexity.

Oh yes. The “A=/=A because it’s complicated” excuse.

FMD.

Alamak!
August 17, 2023 11:43 am

as per Occam’s razor, it’s the one you assume in the absence of good reasons not to.

Not correct. Occam’s razor requires us to select the explanation which requires the least amount of assumptions. Which may not be the simplest explanation or most well known or longest established etc etc.

Cassie of Sydney
August 17, 2023 11:46 am

“It propaganda all the way down Dover. I’m amazed you believe the Russian version.”

As opposed to you believing the Ukrainian version.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
August 17, 2023 11:46 am

As observed here yesterday, these idiots destroy the efforts of those to run rational arguments against vax downsides.

I don’t believe this at all.

Chief culprit in damaging rational argument: Professor Norman Fenton.

Fenton leveraged his position as a statistical Top Man to force the UK PHE to use the wildly incorrect NIMS population estimate to report on vaccine effectiveness. As a result, the hugely overstated ‘unvaccinated’ cohort used in the UK Health Surveillance Reports gave the impression that the jab produced significantly worse Covid outcomes. Despite detailed notes explaining the position.

Now, Fenton was technically correct to point out that PHE was using NIMS data for one purpose and using the (accurate but inconsistent) ONS population estimate for another. It was indeed a scruffy use of compromised NIMS data, but offered PHE tempting demographic information.

But the end effect of Norman’s quest for statistical purity was to give official life to ‘GOVERNMENT REPORTS CONCLUSIVELY PROVE that 89.387% of the population has AIDS and Will Be Dead in 5 Years’ bollix from Trusted Bloggers, ranging from The Expose, through Steve Kirsch, via a multitude of chatterboxes and medical-specialists-who-say-hmmm?

That, right there, tainted any reasoned opposition to Public Health pronouncements.

Boambee John
Boambee John
August 17, 2023 11:46 am

OldOzzie
Aug 17, 2023 11:23 AM
Joe Biden Has Spent More Time on Vacation Than Any President in History

But, but, but … Trump played golf!

JC
JC
August 17, 2023 11:47 am

And, again, we can’t actually police what other people say in a public discussion so complaining about it is moot.

Stop making excuses for bullshit. If it’s bullshit on our side or the the left, it’s bullshit. Just because it’s your side, it doesn’t excuse propaganda of the type Sanchez cited.

In any event, it gets found that a sports personality didn’t die from a vax related issue and it was a biking accident. That’s of course predicated on the assumption that neither you nor Indol believe the bike accident was vax related? 🙂

Cassie of Sydney
August 17, 2023 11:47 am

“I thought Gina Reinhart looked particularly stressed on TV when making statements re Australia’s nuclear future. “

Lizzie, her family issues have been going on for years. I think the bottom line is that Gina should probably lose some weight.

Cassie of Sydney
August 17, 2023 11:48 am

“If it’s bullshit on our side or the the left, it’s bullshit.”

Quite so.

Razey
Razey
August 17, 2023 11:49 am

The expanding life expectancy in the West since the Industrial Revolution and Enlightenment speaks to the general success of modern medicine,

Complete tosh!

Modern water treatment is absolutely – by far – the main reason for expanded life expectancy.

Alamak!
August 17, 2023 11:50 am

Statistics, by definition, is unfalsifiable (because of p values (ie exceptions are just shrugged off)). Science, by definition, is falsifiable (ie, there are no unexplained exceptions).

Therefore, any statistically based field of study is not science.

How about when people re-run experiments and attempt to generate results measured in data that are statistically close to the original reported ones?

You seem to have missed a smidgen on how science and rational, evidence-based approaches work in the last few hundred years.

JC
JC
August 17, 2023 11:50 am

Bar Beach Swimmer
Aug 17, 2023 11:39 AM

I don’t disagree. My point related to the first few months of the pandemic. We had no real idea what was going on.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
August 17, 2023 11:51 am

Disease based medicine is in thrall to statistics. That doesn’t make it wrong (although it is). But it is not science.

Your sort of claims are perfectly amenable to statistical evidence. You provide none.

Disease-based medicine seeks biological pathways, which are based on biochemical sciences and well-studied genetic processes. I suspect you have no biochemical science or genetic coding processes in your CV.

Only at the level of higher theory is science removed from statistics, although not necessarily from mathematics. You are one of the ‘science is art’ crowd, but until you provide replicable evidence you have no science.

Alamak!
August 17, 2023 11:52 am

Modern water treatment is absolutely – by far – the main reason for expanded life expectancy.

linked to good plumbing.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
August 17, 2023 11:53 am

If it’s bullshit on our side or the the left, it’s bullshit

I am the only conservative on this blog.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
August 17, 2023 11:57 am

Haha, more snow causes global warming. And they want us to believe their non-science not our lying eyes? You just can’t make this stupid stuff up.

Scientists say deepening Arctic snowpack drives greenhouse gas emissions (Phys.org, 16 Aug)

Human-caused climate change is shortening the snow cover period in the Arctic. But according to new research led by Earth system scientists at the University of California, Irvine, some parts of the Arctic are getting deeper snowpack than normal, and that deep snow is driving the thawing of long-frozen permafrost carbon reserves and leading to increased emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane.

What rot. If more snow caused global warming then the Little Ice Age would never have happened. Nor the seventies ice age scare, when snowcover was at a high. And if global warming comes from more snow, what does less snow do, cause global cooling? This is ludicrous. Mind you the first statement is also wrong, Arctic snow and sea ice cover has been flat for well over a decade.

Colonel Crispin Berka
Colonel Crispin Berka
August 17, 2023 11:57 am

lotocoti
Aug 17, 2023 10:54 AM

Man-in-the-loop is speeding towards obsolescence.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=“Lethal+Autonomy+is+the+new+reality”+Tutty%2C+Devitt%2C+Tattersall&ia=web

They aren’t exactly subtle about it.

One of the people who promotes AI skills in schools also promotes lethal AI for the military. Looks like a supply line for “sovereign capability” in autonomous lethal systems is being set up.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
August 17, 2023 12:00 pm

exceptions are just shrugged off

Study the underlying statistical theory of mathematical probabilities in a defined universe of samples, the sample of the sample mean. Exceptions, ‘statistical outliers’, can occasionally provide a new hypothesis for further evidential testing. That is all. Science, and life itself, is probabilistic. Get used to it is my advice.

Some turn to religion for help. There’s nowhere else.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
August 17, 2023 12:00 pm

Figures

Aug 17, 2023 11:21 AM

Well, you may not believe it, but it is real.
These nut-jobs are held up all the time as an example of what ALL people who have concerns about vax side-effects.

Why don’t you explain why people listen to leftists even though they claim men can have babies?

Relevance to the vax argument?

JC
JC
August 17, 2023 12:01 pm

I never said that it wasn’t bullshit. Rather, I said there is nothing you can do about it in a public discussion.

You can highlight it, just as Sanchez did and not excuse it because it’s happening on the left by the buckload.

And if it’s highlighted don’t excuse the offending bullshit.

Frankly, I’m offended more by bullshit on the Right as I expect it from the Left.

Black Ball
Black Ball
August 17, 2023 12:01 pm

These nut-jobs are held up all the time as an example of what ALL people who have concerns about vax side-effects.
FFS, we had Indolent here yesterday touting the “sudden death” of a football player in the US at the age of 28 as “vax related”.
A bit of cursory research revealed he died in a motorbike accident.
Not at all helpful.

That’s entirely correct Mr Panzer.
I think however that questions need to be asked about excess deaths from 2020 onwards need asking and answered. And asking those questions doesn’t make anyone a conspiracy theorist.

Bar Beach Swimmer
August 17, 2023 12:01 pm

I don’t disagree. My point related to the first few months of the pandemic. We had no real idea what was going on.

Yes, we (the public) didn’t know in Jan-Mar 2020; all we got was that we should be scared sh1tless. But they (Fauci and others) knew exactly what had happened.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
August 17, 2023 12:01 pm

Rather, I said there is nothing you can do about it in a public discussion.

You can justifiably ridicule it and distance yourself from it.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 17, 2023 12:03 pm

Fulton County Clerk Breaks Silence on Leaked Trump Indictment and Hoo, Boy

Well, it’s another day and we’re getting yet another explanation from Fulton Country officials when it comes to the posted-then-deleted document that appeared to be the indictment against former President Donald Trump — and it might be the wildest one yet.

As Townhall reported previously, a document that showed a number of charges under Trump’s name appeared on the Fulton County clerk’s website on Monday around noon, but was quickly removed. Later that night, when the grand jury voted on the indictment, it turned out that Trump was charged with exactly the same counts as had appeared on the clerk’s website hours before the grand jury had completed its work. County officials called the deleted document “fictitious” initially on Monday, then changed tact on Tuesday to say it was the result of a “trial run” used to “test” the system of posting indictments in anticipation of the grand jury’s vote.

At no time, however, amid the changing stories, have Fulton County officials explained why the document posted initially was an exact match for the charges the grand jury actually handed up hours later.

On Wednesday, we got another story — this time directly from Fulton County Clerk Ché Alexander — that added more information but did little to clear up the situation.

Yep, the latest version of events is that the clerk “hit send instead of save.”

Notably, there’s still no explanation for how the test run which went awry happened to include the exact counts on which Trump was later indicted by the grand jury, but with any luck there will be yet another explanation or statement from the clerk’s office yet to be released in the days ahead.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
August 17, 2023 12:03 pm

And they want us to believe their non-science not our lying eyes?

There’s an awful lot of non-science around, Bruce, in the field of climatic variability.

I think non-science is the aetiology of nonsense. 🙂

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
August 17, 2023 12:04 pm

You can justifiably ridicule it and distance yourself from it

Oh my wordy lordy yes one may, and should.

Ghost of Kiev!

Four-foot nanowriggler replicating cables in corpses!

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
August 17, 2023 12:05 pm

Girkin hasn’t had any relevant military experience since 2014/5.

That’s a lie. He served for two months at least in late 2022 in the Donesk front iirc.

Johnny Rotten
August 17, 2023 12:09 pm

I’ll take Petey Evan’s groovy chakra healing kale over that absolute dogshit.

Of course you would as you talk the dogshite.

Bar Beach Swimmer
August 17, 2023 12:10 pm

Frankly, I’m offended more by bullshit on the Right as I expect it from the Left.

And that’s how the Left get away with it. Whereas the Right must be 100% on top of everything to the nth degree all of the time, or they will be torn down.

So, the Left dealing in “facts” – which is whatever they want it to be – has become the narrative and from there all the Right can do is to “back fill” all the way.

And we’re right in to that old saying…

A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on.

So, the “fact” – whatever that may be – becomes part of the narrative and from there it’s trying to “back fill” all the way.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
August 17, 2023 12:12 pm

That’s entirely correct Mr Panzer.
I think however that questions need to be asked about excess deaths from 2020 onwards need asking and answered. And asking those questions doesn’t make anyone a conspiracy theorist.

No.
But latching onto every clickbait headline from the Daily Exposé does.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
August 17, 2023 12:15 pm

Correct BB. In light of everything that’s been going on for the last quite a few years the conspiracy theorist is most likely right. Not long ago conspiracy theorists were regular nut jobs. I know, I’ve worked with some. These days some of them are almost sage like. Not the ones I knew, they were just nut jobs. I don’t believe anything I hear from MSM or government, the same thing I suppose, now.

JC
JC
August 17, 2023 12:17 pm

Knuckle Dragger
Aug 17, 2023 11:53 AM
If it’s bullshit on our side or the the left, it’s bullshit

I am the only conservative on this blog.

KD,

Me, conservative! I rather have a limb removed.
The whole idea of conservatism
is just to slow down the Left’s insanities – not reverse them.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
August 17, 2023 12:18 pm

You can justifiably ridicule it and distance yourself from it.

Yes. It is important to do this. But kindly I hope, because so many people are searching for things beyond science, as I’ve alluded to above. This is what annoys me about the utter capitulation of genuine well-trained scientists to political interests and the consequent ruin of scientific objectivity and evidential methodologies that we see in the race for funding and publication, and also for profit. It happens a lot in pharmacology and in matters climatic but also elsewhere. Poor old Hairy, PhD Science, tears his hair out about it regularly, especially the complete failure of peer-review in so many cases. I saw it myself during Covid with epidemiology, where the best epidemiological assessment of lockdowns, the long-planned existing WHO and Australian pandemic protocol (followed by Sweden), was dumped in favour of politically motivated crap mouthed by second-rate practitioners, not trained with rigour but imbued with self-importance during a panic where the WHO was under China’s control.

Crossie
Crossie
August 17, 2023 12:23 pm

I learned that the only NSW Lib to increase the electoral vote at the last election was Tanya Davies, member for Badgerys Creek. Not totally surprised as this lady has more guts than most pollies. She vehemently opposed the lockdowns and mandates of the pandemic. Her success SHOULD be telling something to the NSW Libs.

Vicki, Tanya also opposed the abortion bill.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
August 17, 2023 12:23 pm

Back in mid-2022, when the Russians were putting up protection for their T-72s from drones the NAFO squad were calling them ‘cope cages’.

No Dover the original ‘cope cages’ were from the early part of the war, when there were very few drones. They were a welded grid of bars above the tops of armoured vehicles to try to set off top-attack NATO missiles. They didn’t work, the Javelins appeared to’ve gone right through them. I thought they were a logical attempt to address a very dangerous threat. Unfortunately the US and British weapons systems were extremely hard to stop, which makes sense since NATO always expected to be massively outnumbered by Soviet tanks in a Fulda Gap scenario. (Javelins in the hands of infantry did a lot of damage to dug in Iraqi T-72s in the first Gulf War, which is over 30 years ago, and no serious counter seems to’ve been developed since.)

The ‘cope cages’ you are referring to now though are mainly chicken wire, since that is sufficient to keep out a light drone or a grenade/mortar munition dropped from one. Both sides use them, and they seem effective against the semi-civilian style bootleg drones. The professional kamikazi drones not so much I suspect, since they tend to fly in from behind the AFV. Drone tech is advancing at an incredible rate.

Shoigu is this week crowing how unawesome NATO weapons are, which blackly amused me. I don’t think his tank and support heli guys would agree with him. The Russian Army is currently using T-55s in combat, that’s quite a lot of inventory that the NATO weapons have knocked out.

Roger
Roger
August 17, 2023 12:25 pm

The whole idea of conservatism is just to slow down the Left’s insanities – not reverse them.

Don’t confuse conservatism with the Liberal Party.

John H.
John H.
August 17, 2023 12:27 pm

Sancho Panzer
Aug 17, 2023 12:12 PM
That’s entirely correct Mr Panzer.
I think however that questions need to be asked about excess deaths from 2020 onwards need asking and answered. And asking those questions doesn’t make anyone a conspiracy theorist.

No.
But latching onto every clickbait headline from the Daily Exposé does.

We need to look at the excess deaths question. The longstanding problem I have is why I haven’t seen anyone in the public debate compare the excess deaths occurring now with historical examples of periods of excess deaths. It occurred to me months ago that recessions are an obvious choice and upon investigation I found many studies demonstrating that even several years after a pronounced recession excess deaths occur. I haven’t done the comparison because I have no barrow to push in the debate, that being because I’m not confident I can do the comparative analysis and without a historical benchmark it seems pointless. I often think people pushing the excess deaths barrow without such a comparison are either less capable than me or just BS artists.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
August 17, 2023 12:27 pm

Frankly, I’m offended more by bullshit on the Right as I expect it from the Left.

I wouldn’t go that far.
I am an equal opportunity offendee wherever the baseless bullshit is coming from.
When people started posting ridiculous “died suddenly” links* here and were called out on it, the defence was “Well, they did it too, quoting ‘died with Covid’ in the Covid toll”.
If lowering yourself to the standard of Brett Sutton is all you’ve got to support your argument …

* including long diagnosed terminal cancers, suicides, motor vehicle accidents and drug overdoses.

Johnny Rotten
August 17, 2023 12:30 pm

OldOzzie
Aug 17, 2023 11:23 AM
Joe Biden Has Spent More Time on Vacation Than Any President in History

Tennis Elbow has spent more time flying around the world than any other Australian Prime Minister. And this is only early in year 2 of a 3 year term. FFS.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
August 17, 2023 12:31 pm

dover0beach

Aug 17, 2023 12:23 PM

You can highlight it, just as Sanchez did and not excuse it because it’s happening on the left by the buckload.

Why? Why am I supposed to highlight errors in debates I hardly, if at all, engage in now?

But you just did engage by disputing that obviously discredited “sudden death” examples damage a sensible debate about vax side-effects.
Tell you what.
If I worked for Big Pharma in PR, and I wanted to muddy the waters in the vax harm debate, I’d put Indolent and Figures on a retainer.

Robert Sewell
August 17, 2023 12:34 pm

Here’s an interesting mindgame to play:
Of all the Western style governments on the planet, which one would you like to govern Australia?

Crossie
Crossie
August 17, 2023 12:39 pm

Rabz
Aug 17, 2023 11:17 AM
It’s an exclusive club, and if you are not a leftard, you will never be allowed to join it

Relevant Marx quote: “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.”

That would be Groucho, not Karl.

Vicki
Vicki
August 17, 2023 12:39 pm

Vicki, did you ask him about Sleazeman’s support for Da Voice?

Nah Cassie – only had half an hour – and there was SO MUCH to talk about!

Vicki
Vicki
August 17, 2023 12:43 pm

If I worked for Big Pharma in PR, and I wanted to muddy the waters in the vax harm debate, I’d put Indolent and Figures on a retainer.

Maybe. But Indolent in particular has supplied all of us with plenty of material to consider – & we had F— all from the Australian media over the past three years.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
August 17, 2023 12:43 pm

Of all the Western style governments on the planet, which one would you like to govern Australia?

Hungary maybe. They did apply a super tax on banks this year, which isn’t terribly helpful. But that only increased the corporate tax rate on smaller banks from 8 to 13%. Very big banks are being hit at 30%. But even that only what our banks currently pay.

Hungary is serious about trying to increase the birth rate, and Poland is about to hold a referendum on country shoppers. Neither are much interested in climate rubbish.

JC
JC
August 17, 2023 12:45 pm

Why? Why am I supposed to highlight errors in debates I hardly, if at all, engage in now? And how does not saying anything about it in a public forum ‘excuse’ it?

Oh please just stop with the curve balls. You told sanchez you can’t “police it”. He never asked you to police and neither did I or anyone else. Don’t excuse it though.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
August 17, 2023 12:48 pm

Robert Sewell

Aug 17, 2023 12:34 PM

Here’s an interesting mindgame to play:
Of all the Western style governments on the planet, which one would you like to govern Australia?

Hmmm.
That is a conundrum.
I would probably go for Italy, because it is in a permanent state of chaos, which gives them no time to really fck things up.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 17, 2023 12:50 pm

Honda Australia Motorcycle and Power Equipment Pty. Ltd. — HRN216 and HRX217 lawn mowers (all models)

PRA number2023/19885

Published date 16 Aug 2023

Originally from

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12415001/Bunnings-recall-Honda-Australia-lawnmowers-pulled-shelves-injury-fears.html

Interesting

Identifying number list – 16 August 2023 from product recall site

My MANA Number is not on list seems to skip eg MANA-2215227
MANA-2215230

So MANA-2215228 & MANA-2215229 not on list as was my MANA not on list

So maybe all Bunnings sold?

Though my trader from whom I collected puchased off Honda Website Online is on Trader List

Vicki
Vicki
August 17, 2023 12:52 pm

No one that lifted their head above the parapet was treated fairly or civilly.

That is my point entirely, DB. I am grateful to all those who did during that hateful period.

BTW re “hateful” stuff – the ABC are intent upon doing a job on Gina Rhinhart over her family/company disputes. Couldn’t have anything to do with her mighty effort in convening the bloody fantastic “Bush Summit” would it????

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
August 17, 2023 12:58 pm

Oh please just stop with the curve balls. You told sanchez you can’t “police it”. He never asked you to police and neither did I or anyone else. Don’t excuse it though.

Yes.
No-one suggested policing, which implies banning.
I can only re-iterate my … ahem … “lived experience” of raising vax side-effects, only to find the “debate” is side-tracked into linkages to Indolent-grade nuffery and sensible discussion is derailed.
The most damaging is the opportunism of the long-term anti-vax movement (pre Covid opponents of childhood vaccines) trying to hijack genuine concern about Covid vaxes, or those who dismiss advances in childhood cancer treatments as “Big Pharma profiteering”.
I refuse to have anything to do with dickheads like that, so the end result is an ally lost.
Truth is, most of these fckwits actually enjoy their Pure-Blood martyr status and don’t really want to enlist the support of moderates (those whose concerns are restricted to Covid vaxes and control measures) anyway.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
August 17, 2023 1:02 pm

drones were in considerable use from the outset and certainly by mid-2022.

As reconnaissance not attack weapons. Especially in support of artillery. The bootleg attack drones were initially very crude. Then we started to see the Orlan-10s in fair numbers particularly with work-arounds for parts they could no longer get. And then the Shaheeds. Lately the kamikazi drones seem to’ve gotten much more deadly from both sides, but that’s only been this year.

On the cope cages, they are similar to “skirts” the Germans used in Russia late in WW2. Similar idea – stop light AT weapons from blowing off a tread and immobilizing the tank, which would’ve been bad for the Germans during the retreat. I don’t know how effective they were.

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
August 17, 2023 1:03 pm

The amount of information in this clip will horrify people. 9 out of 10 would be clueless about it … not their fault. Most are busy watching MSM whores.

Stick your Big-Pharma jabs up your bum!

—-

The HighWire with Del Bigtree:

DEL BIGTREE Presents The Vaccine Safety Project

Louis Litt
Louis Litt
August 17, 2023 1:03 pm

With all of this weaponary being used up, with so many reports of victories on each side, I am totally lost on the Ukraine Russian war.
How much of NATOs weaponry is still on hand and what is the estiamte for Russian weaponary.
How much longer is this war going to continue for. I cant understand this as all I heard about before the war was how poorly the Ukraine armed forces were armed.

Louis Litt
Louis Litt
August 17, 2023 1:06 pm

Re the Womens soccer, it dawned upon me last night that soccer is played on a regular pitch and played for the full 90 minutes. Other sports have concessions for women ie shorter quarters, shorter ovals , fewer sets.
The games were nt bad – the penalties were some of the ebst I have seen – great placement.

Muddy
Muddy
August 17, 2023 1:10 pm

I just found my copy of Keith Windschuttle’s ‘The Break-up of Australia: The real agenda behind Aboriginal recognition,’ and am wondering how long it will be before I have to hide it in a different dust jacket, lest I be denounced or arrested? Five years? Sooner?

Vicki
Vicki
August 17, 2023 1:13 pm

I just found my copy of Keith Windschuttle’s ‘The Break-up of Australia: The real agenda behind Aboriginal recognition,’

Muddy, I recommended on our valley’s Facebook site that the “Yes” brigade who defaced our new bridges should read Windshuttle’s book – but did not get any response.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
August 17, 2023 1:14 pm

Old Ozzie, what the hell is a “MANA” number?
My model is prefixed HRR216, not HRN216.
Trouble is, model numbers can be all over the shop.
I know Hardly Normal get their own unique model numbers on appliances to confuse cross-comparison of prices.
Wouldn’t be surprised if Bunnings do that too.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
August 17, 2023 1:14 pm

Dr. Faustus, I did notice you’re statement yesterday re Fenton and was wondering what you based this on. Are you criticizing Fenton for something he said, or what his criticism has wrongly been used to argue for?

Both.

In early 2021 the UKHSE reports were based on NIMS data (NIMS being the NHS patient database, incorporating GP data) for Covid Jabbing and Office of National Statistics for population. The ONS population estimate was based on the 2011 Census, adjusted by Births, Deaths and migration data – a sort of dead reckoning approach.

The NIMS data provided a population estimate of sorts, done by totaling up the number of patients registered at various health centers and GP clinics.

The problem with this is that there was no individual patient identification in NIMS; as a result, due to people attending multiple clinics, filthy foreigners using GP services (members of the Faustus family were on at least 3 different GP clinic registers, despite not living in the UK), and the Government £100/pa per patient payment incentive for GP’s to not take patients off their registers – the NIMS ‘population’ was some 5.5 million more than the ONS estimate.

(This error of estimate was the subject of considerable debate by demographers and population statisticians and was subsequently evidenced by the 2022 Census results, which showed the ONS running population estimate to be accurate to within 10,000’s.)

Fenton quite correctly pointed out the statistical discrepancy between using NIMS data for demographic purposes and another inconsistent data set for population.
However, he then took that argument a step further by stating (evidence free):
“...it is not at all clear why the NIMS population estimate is any more ‘biased’ than the ONS estimate...”

Which was bullshit that he knew (or should have known) to be bullshit – for the reasons outlined above.

The rest is mathematical history, with the UKHSE grumpily adopting the Fenton population methodology (with an extensive cautionary note in its reports) so it could continue to use the demographic data. Which, as the vaccinated proportion of the population increased, dramatically increased the denominator in the calculation of events per 100,000 unvaccinated Poms, thereby giving the false appearance of far worse and more sinister outcomes for the vaccinated.

Given that the UK data set was uniquely complete and comprehensive it was used as a guide around the world. Complete with Norman’s introduced error – which was happily feasted on by the scummy end of Trusted Bloggery, despite the UKHSA caveats otherwise – which were happily ignored or presented as ‘evidence’ that ‘Government is desperately lying…’.

And we in Australia are yet to digest the full harvest of all this online nuttery with the coming Misinformation Legislation.
Thanks, Norman.

Rabz
August 17, 2023 1:16 pm

An hysterical nuffy obsessing about Australian excess deaths, for which there is clearly no evidence. All the extra deaths are no doubt due to the likes of motorcycle crashes, falling off ladders, being incinerated in an e-vehicle conflagration, massive fatal coronaries caused by an inadvertent encounter with Mike Carlton at Whale Beach, boredom induced by listening to Albansleazey, etc.

Dot
Dot
August 17, 2023 1:18 pm

I explicitly mentioned “plumbing” as a reason for extended life expectancy and my words get cut down to “medicine” being “tosh” and it’s really “modern water treatment”?

WTF did I mean by plumbing, genius? Did London have “modern water treatment”: when the first modern sewer was built by Bazalgette? Yes or no?

Then we have the guy who thinks water treatment vis a vis microbes not being real is a mass hysteria only he can see through also declaring that statistics is not falsifiable.

Complete nonsense. Statistics is grounded in calculus (PDFs, different parametric distributions) and linear algebra (data processing for regression models). Many statements can be made as logical truth statements. P = 1. P = 0. P > 0. P P(x) = EX. There are proofs for combinations & permutations that are taught in high school.

Rejecting hypothesis testing without regard to repeated experiments and precision is simply dopey ignorance.

Vicki
Vicki
August 17, 2023 1:23 pm

And we in Australia are yet to digest the full harvest of all this online nuttery with the coming Misinformation Legislation.
Thanks, Norman.

Dr. Faustus I don’t think you can entirely blame Prof. Fenton for the excess death data controversy. Other statisticians – such as Jessica Rose – came to similar overall conclusions + other “numbers” guys such as ex WallSt Ed Dowd, and – of course – Dr. John Ionniddes, just to cite the first that came to mind.

Vicki
Vicki
August 17, 2023 1:29 pm

A timely reminder by Jo Nova of the absolute necessity of anyone who values freedom of speech to respond to the dreaded ACMA agenda:

(PS Jo is a treasure!)

The Government is not afraid of misinformation, they are afraid you will speak the Truth
Add your submission by August 20th

Misinformation is easy to correct when you own a billion dollar news agency, most academics, institutions, expert committees and 25% of the economy. The really hard thing, even with all that power and money is to defend an absurd lie and stop people pointing it out. Like for example if you want to spend a trillion dollars of taxpayer money using power stations, cars and steak sandwiches to change the global weather. For that, you need the Ministry of Truth to force the falsity on the serfs.

The best way to deal with misinformation is to speak better information.

Let the court of public opinion decide. There is something profoundly arrogant about the assumption that 26 million brains are too stupid to figure out the truth when left to their collective free debate.

The proposed Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) misinformation bill is truly the draft that Mao or the Politburo would have admired. Effectively if you are government “approved” (institutional, academic or official news) you are free to say whatever you like, but if you are the untermenschen, you are not — even if you ultimately speak the truth.

Digital media platforms will need to self-censor the vague and unknowable comments that may be misleading and may cause harm or they face monster fines like $6m or 5% of revenue (which for Twitter is something like $150m). The mushy, ill-defined and open nature of this is exactly the point. Which publisher will be able to afford to hire the QC lawyers and run test-trials to figure out in advance if a comment breaches the code? It’s so much easier just to take the safer option and shhh, skip those provocative thoughts.

Why bureaucrats can’t be left to censor free speech under Labor’s ACMA bill proposal
By David Coleman, Opposition communications spokesman. The Australian

Misinformation is defined very broadly. It is information that is “false, misleading or deceptive” and is “reasonably likely” to “cause or contribute to serious harm”. The bill then uses an extremely wide definition of harm, which includes things such as harm to the environment, harm to the economy or a section of the economy, or “disruption of public order or society in Australia”.

The Government IS “the truth”:

The bill is very poorly constructed and includes many obvious red flags. Under Labor’s bill, if the government says something, then it is not misinformation. Authorised content from any level of government cannot be misinformation. That same protection does not apply to non-government parties or ordinary Australians commenting on political matters. This is indefensible.

Academics are exempt because there’s no need to control them with ACMA, they can be sacked, intimidated, or defunded already anyhow (see Peter Ridd):

Statements made by academics are exempt, but not statements made by non-academics on exact­ly the same topics. So an outsider with an unfashionable view could find their contribution has been deleted as misinformation. Given the seismic contributions of unfashionable outsiders throughout history, this shows an extraordinary lack of wisdom.

Statements made as part of “professional news content” are exempt, but those statements are not exempt in other contexts. So if a journalist made a comment on their personal Facebook page, or appeared on an independent podcast, their statements could be misinformation. And if a statement made in “professional news content” is repeated outside of that environment, it would not be exempt from the law.

So if you thought you could quote Professor Peter Ridd on the replication crisis in science, or fabricated photos in reef research, think again. You may be harming the Spotted Left Wing Parrot fish.

If a Prime Minister were to say they were “the single source of truth”, say, it could be published once in a newspaper but if the punters were to repeat it ad nauseum mockingly on social media, in strictly accurate quotes, that might become misinformation? I mean, the repetition might harm the children’s sense of civic duty, after all? I don’t know, but that’s the point of the spaghetti mess in legalese. Try reading it. You are not supposed to know.

the Big Boot

You can say anything you want from under the boot…

These apply to all Australians, not just publishers!
ACMA’S coercive powers under the bill are very concerning. Those powers apply not only to digital platforms but to all Australians. ACMA may pursue any person if it believes they have information about “misinformation or disinformation on a digital service” and that it requires the information to perform its functions. ACMA can force the person to appear before it to answer questions about misinformation or disinformation.

Journalists in professional news organizations are exempt, but not citizen journalists
Hypothetically, if any systematic corruption or intimidation (or delusional fashion) were to sweep through our main media outlets (like the idea of chopping healthy body parts off teenagers), an outsider media platform would be the one to point that out, yet they would be subject to “misinformation” codes and draconian fines.

Satire is excluded, but what if the government doesn’t find it funny?
Who decides what satire is? Whoever they are, they be the King of Conversations online in Australia:

The bill excludes statements made in good faith for the purposes of entertainment, parody or satire. But it does not exclude statements made in good faith for the purpose of political debate. So a comedian commenting on politics would be protected from having their content removed, but a non-satirical citizen offering their honest views on political matters would not be protected.

Blog Comments not allowed?
If these laws came into being, would this blog have to close all comments? Would this blog even exist?

The Ministry of Truth
James Hol on The Liberty Itch

… many are under the mistaken assumption that this will only apply to social media giants. In fact, it will apply to every single website that provides “news content” and has an “interactive feature”.

If you think you can avoid the Ministry of Truth by simply starting your own social media platform or providing content on your own website, you’d be advised to have no interest in a comments section or posting video content, otherwise that website will also be captured by these draconian laws. Indeed, this Liberty Itch masthead will be at threat of fines in the millions of dollars should this Bill become law.

Harm means any of the following:

While the Bill gives lip service to our constitutionally implied freedom of political communication, it attempts to circumvent it by creating a fascistic partnership between ACMA and private entities. Instead of ACMA enforcing speech, it makes digital service providers do its dirty work – at threat of significant fines.

However, ACMA can impose industry-wide standards and codes if digital service providers go rogue and dishonour their fascistic agreements. Hoping for a safe haven at Elon Musk’s Twitter (now called X), might be more pipe dream than reality.

Would I have to register as a news outlet, set up my own university, or revert to permanent satire or salad-coded language (did you take your booster carrot today?).

It appears this bill is designed to capture all the online free speech that is not already controlled by Big Government or Big Money. The new Printing Press arrived to give a voice to the People, and it must be stopped.

Please send in those submissions!
As David Maddison, Penguinite, MP, Andrew McRae, Konrad and others suggest:

Don’t forget to put your submissions in opposing the latest proposed Australian Government censorship legislation.

“New ACMA powers to combat misinformation and disinformation”.

They don’t have to be long. But it closes on August 20th.

Read Konrad’s submission here.

The bill, the Communications Legislation Amendment (Combating Misinformation and Disinformation) Act 2023.

Lysander
Lysander
August 17, 2023 1:35 pm

“New ACMA powers to combat misinformation and disinformation”.

What will happen to The Cat (where the truth is rife)?

JC
JC
August 17, 2023 1:38 pm

Trust you be frightened of ant shadow at midday, Mud.

cohenite
August 17, 2023 1:41 pm

“Stephan Molyneux liked the idea of alienating people. “For their own good”.”

A nasty individual, he fashioned himself as some guru / cult leader.

I went to Molyneux and Lauren Southern’s talk when they were in Sydney in 2018. Their talks were great. Molyneux especially made a convincing comparison between the patriarchy of Islam with that in aboriginal culture.

I don’t get the animosity but as Molyneux said when I spoke to him after their talk the left are vicious enough but the worst is when ‘conservatives’ come on board. I must say Lauren Southern is a stunning young woman.

Muddy
Muddy
August 17, 2023 1:41 pm

Reading the prologue of Mr. Windschuttle’s book, I was unaware that one Tony Abbott was responsible for reviving the idea (in the political & media mainstream) for indigenous constitutional ‘recognition’ circa 2014.

This looks like a cracker of a book (which I only grazed when first purchased). It’s a darn shame there are no significant political entities to transcribe the contents to a much wider audience.

cohenite
August 17, 2023 1:42 pm

I forgot; here is a 11 minute video of Molyneux and Southern chatting in Sydney from 2018:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9MgCE933w8

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 17, 2023 1:44 pm

Sancho Panzer
Aug 17, 2023 1:14 PM

Old Ozzie, what the hell is a “MANA” number?

My model is prefixed HRR216, not HRN216.

Your model is not on the list

The MANA number was listed on my Invoice from Honda Australia

https://www.productsafety.gov.au/recalls/honda-australia-motorcycle-and-power-equipment-pty-ltd-%E2%80%94-hrn216-and-hrx217-lawn-mowers-all-models

Muddy
Muddy
August 17, 2023 1:46 pm

Re cohenite’s comment above: Conservatives sometimes embrace a version of Stockholm Syndrome.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
August 17, 2023 1:48 pm

As an Unvaccinated, have to do a RAT Test before Surgery tomorrow – They have them in boxes at all exits as you leave RNSH – was going to cheat and use previous OK RAT Test, but wife keeps me honest and has RAT Test she took to Japan and did not use to use tomorrow

cohenite
August 17, 2023 1:48 pm

Ed Berry on how ‘conservatives’ simply do not fight; in this instance in Montana where another alarmists won another law case because the bullshit climate ‘science’ was not disputed:

https://edberry.com/held-v-montana/

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
August 17, 2023 1:51 pm

OldOzzie
Aug 17, 2023 1:48 PM
As an Unvaccinated, have to do a RAT Test before Surgery tomorrow – They have them in boxes at all exits as you leave RNSH – was going to cheat and use previous OK RAT Test, but wife keeps me honest and has RAT Test she took to Japan and did not use to use tomorrow

Use water from the tap.

Robert Sewell
August 17, 2023 1:53 pm

Bruce O’Nuke:

On the cope cages, they are similar to “skirts” the Germans used in Russia late in WW2. Similar idea – stop light AT weapons from blowing off a tread and immobilizing the tank, which would’ve been bad for the Germans during the retreat. I don’t know how effective they were.

The Pz Mk4(H) had side armour of 30mm/vertical and this was still vulnerable to the 12.7 Anti Tank rifle the Russians used. While the (schurzen) side skirts were an effective counter to the use by the Red Army of captured/copied Panzerfaust, the skirts were originally put on to fragment the Russian 12.7mm A/T round.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
August 17, 2023 1:55 pm

This looks like a cracker of a book (which I only grazed when first purchased).

Quite so!

Vicki
Vicki
August 17, 2023 1:57 pm

As an Unvaccinated, have to do a RAT Test before Surgery tomorrow –

Gosh – another procedure! Good luck Old Ozzie. I am sure you have the good wishes of everyone here.

Robert Sewell
August 17, 2023 1:58 pm

Dot

Aug 17, 2023 1:18 PM
I explicitly mentioned “plumbing” as a reason for extended life expectancy and my words get cut down to “medicine” being “tosh” and it’s really “modern water treatment”?

Congratulations dot – it’s called ‘reframing’ and is a favourite tactic of people who want to misrepresent your argument.

JMH
JMH
August 17, 2023 1:58 pm

Lysander
Aug 17, 2023 1:35 PM
“New ACMA powers to combat misinformation and disinformation”.

What will happen to The Cat (where the truth is rife)?

It will probably cease to exist. This is why it’s so important to get a submission in before the 20th of this month.

Figures
Figures
August 17, 2023 2:01 pm

Tell you what.
If I worked for Big Pharma in PR, and I wanted to muddy the waters in the vax harm debate, I’d put Indolent and Figures on a retainer.

Yes. That’s why people like Sherri Tenpenny (genuinely anti-vax) have so much support from Big Medicine and Big Pharma. Oh no wait. They have their licences revoked and are fined.

FMD. Why don’t you try making an argument that actually bears some resemblance to reality? People who question any of it are attacked and, if possible, punished.

But you’re sure that the lion’s share of it is true. That such behaviour is perfectly normal for a field as wonderful as vaccination.

Vicki
Vicki
August 17, 2023 2:04 pm

This is why it’s so important to get a submission in before the 20th of this month.

I am not looking forward to this important task – simply because it is SO important. I have put it off…and off. Will write it up & submit tomorrow and send.

It is quite surreal (for me) that this is actually happening. It is straight out of the scenarios envisaged by Huxley and Orwell. We discussed it all those years ago in secondary school….and here it is….it has arrived in our lives and (possibly) only our generation perceives the evil in it.

Dot
Dot
August 17, 2023 2:09 pm

I don’t get the animosity but as Molyneux said when I spoke to him after their talk the left are vicious enough but the worst is when ‘conservatives’ come on board. I must say Lauren Southern is a stunning young woman.

Moly is now openly anti semitic and (single mother traditional conservative) Lauren Sourthern is nothing but a grifter, wrapped up in e thot drama with Brittany Venti, trying to “take down” “misogynists” with a fraudulent cheese pizza and a criminal complaint has been made against Venti, cuck boy Destiny, etc.

Lysander
Lysander
August 17, 2023 2:09 pm

It will probably cease to exist. This is why it’s so important to get a submission in before the 20th of this month.

Is it “consultation” or consultation? Liebor already seem to have made up their minds on this?

And, will this legislation fine me for saying something online like “Jesus is risen” or “Mohammed is the only true prophet?”

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
August 17, 2023 2:12 pm

THE BREAK-UP OF AUSTRALIA: The Real Agenda Behind Aboriginal Recognition

the breakup of australia

by Keith Windschuttle

Quadrant Boooks, Sydney
Hardcover: 470 pages
Price: AUD$44.95

Reviewed by Dr Augusto Zimmermann

Keith Windschuttle is a leading Australian conservative writer. He is also an accomplished historian and the editor of Quadrant, a prestigious conservative current affairs magazine.

Windschuttle is a prolific writer and the author of numerous articles and books. His most famous contribution, The Fabrication of Aboriginal History: Volume One (2002), was positively reviewed by Geoffrey Blainey, arguably the country’s greatest ever historian. Blainey called it “one of the most important and devastating books written on Australian history”.

In his latest book, The Break-Up of Australia: The Real Agenda Behind Aboriginal Recognition, Windschuttle explains why, in his opinion, Australian voters have not been told the truth about the proposal for constitutional recognition of Aboriginal people.

Aboriginal activists often contend that the Australian Constitution is a racist document that discriminates against Aborigines. They express a desire to remove “racist” provisions of the constitution, and to add a new preamble that recognises the “first inhabitants” of Australia and potentially their special rights as the traditional custodians of the land.

Contrary to these claims, the Australian Constitution is positively not a racist document. On the contrary, as Windschuttle points out, most Aborigines had full citizenship in 1901. Even before Federation, “the great majority of Aborigines had the same political rights as other Australians, including the right to vote, which the Constitution guaranteed in Section 41” (p2).

Nonetheless, section 25 of the Constitution is often interpreted as contemplating a denial of the franchise on the grounds of race. This section says: “For the purposes of the last section, if by the law of any state all persons of any race are disqualified from voting at elections for the more numerous House of the Parliament of the state, then, in reckoning the number of the people of the state or of the Commonwealth, persons of that race resident in that state shall not be counted”.

As noted by Windschuttle, the reason the section was included in the Constitution is because in the 1890s Queensland and Western Australia did not allow full-blood Aborigines to vote in state elections. That being so, the constitutional framers wanted to bring those states into line with all the others, where Aborigines did have the franchise.

This provision was therefore designed to penalise the states that discriminated against Aborigines by reducing their representation in Federal Parliament. Rather than denying Aboriginal people the franchise, the framers of the Constitution actually supported giving all Aborigines voting rights from the very outset.

Another passage in the Constitution that Aboriginal activists identify as racially offensive is section 51 (xxvi). This reads in full: “The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to: (xxvi) The people of any race, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws.”

However, as Windschuttle notes, not once since Federation has section 51 (xxvi) lent support to unfair discrimination on grounds of race. On the contrary, in Kruger and Bray v Commonwealth (1997), Justice Dawson stated that the powers given under this provision “were required to be exercised in the best interests of the Aboriginals concerned or of the Aboriginal population generally”.

Aboriginal activists often complain that Aborigines are not acknowledged in the Australian Constitution. Yet, as Windschuttle correctly reminds us, the Australian Constitution is primarily a federal charter. It is a practical compact to establish a federal system, not a synopsis of Australian history: it was never intended to be a document reporting on the history of the Australian people.

The Australian Constitution does not mention the history of any ethnic group at all. Instead, the Constitution is a federal compact between the people of the six former colonies to form a Federation. Its primary function is to distribute various powers between the Commonwealth and the States.

In order to gather popular support, the advocates of recognition appeal to highly emotional language. Apparently Australians have no other option but to support recognition. This was the message conveyed in the Final Report of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Act of Recognition Review Panel, in September 2014.

This excerpt on page 11 confirms the information: “The recognition of our first peoples in the Constitution carries with it a moral imperative. The continued journey towards reconciliation relies on the restorative power of this referendum. A failed referendum cannot be contemplated. Indeed, the risk of anything but a resounding national ‘yes’ vote is difficult to comprehend.”

The opening chapter of the Report lays down its case explicitly: “In a country that takes pride in its liberal and democratic traditions, it is surprising for many to learn that the birth of the nation was attended by racially discriminatory sentiment, and continues to contain racially discriminatory provisions in its Constitution.”

Australians deserve to hear opposing views before any decision is made to proceed with a referendum. This is why this book, The Break-Up of Australia, is so important. It helps us to assess any risk derived from recognising Aboriginal peoples in the Constitution, and why a national “no” vote to recognition might not be entirely a negative thing after all; quite to the contrary.

Far from being a racist document, our Constitution treats all Australians equally, no matter when they or their ancestors arrived here. By contrast, a successful referendum could further divide the nation, not unite us. It might be discriminatory to give some Australians status and privileges that are not available to others simply because of their ancestry.

So, why is it necessary to amend the Constitution when it is clearly not a racist document? Why is it necessary to amend the Constitution when every jurisdiction in Australia has long ago legislated for racial non-discrimination?

According to Windschuttle, the real intention behind recognition is to gain “sovereignty” for a future “black state” equivalent in status and funding to the existing Australian states. “Black activists and their white supporters are talking about this recognition being a ‘launching pad’ or the ‘next step’ in the process towards their real objective of self-government and sovereignty,” he writes.

Windschuttle argues that these activists want us to recognise the “distinct rights” that purportedly flow to Aborigines because of the fact they are descendants of the first peoples. Following a successful referendum, “Aboriginal rights would become a matter of constitutional interpretation by the High Court. As they demonstrated in the Mabo case in 1992, judges of the High Court are far more likely to give aboriginal activists what they want than are politicians.” (p15)

In sum, Australians would be asked to recognise “distinct rights” that purportedly flow to Aborigines on the grounds that “we got here first”. For Windschuttle, “we got here first” is a much poorer constitutional principle than “we are all created equal”.

Break-Up of Australia is well written and well argued. It is an important contribution to a significant debate, so every fair-minded person would gain by reading it. As for myself, I have really gained by it and so I wholeheartedly recommend it.
Dr Augusto Zimmermann is a Law Reform Commissioner with the Law Reform Commission of Western Australia and Professor of Law (adjunct) at The University of Notre Dame Australia, Sydney. He is also Director of Post-Graduate Research and Former Associate Dean (Research) at Murdoch Law School, and a Fellow at the International Academy for the Study of the Jurisprudence of the Family.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
August 17, 2023 2:13 pm

Dr. Faustus I don’t think you can entirely blame Prof. Fenton for the excess death data controversy. Other statisticians – such as Jessica Rose – came to similar overall conclusions + other “numbers” guys such as ex WallSt Ed Dowd, and – of course – Dr. John Ionniddes, just to cite the first that came to mind.

Vicki: I don’t blame Norman Fenton for anything other than I laid out above; the effective corruption on the face of what is arguably the most representative Covid public health data set – and everything that flows from the misuse of that data. (And even then, the UKHSA wears some blame for its data presentation strategy.)

But certainly not the ‘excess deaths due to vaccines’ controversy (although he does have form in that, too) – which (for me, anyway) is one of the legitimate and necessary discussions now kicked into the long grass as ‘yet another conspiracy theory’.

Dot
Dot
August 17, 2023 2:14 pm

“New ACMA powers to combat misinformation and disinformation”.

Relevant:

MC900 ft Jesus

Truth Is Out Of Style

JC
JC
August 17, 2023 2:16 pm

So, given that I never said Pz was asking me to police anything whose the one throwing curve balls?

Who said this? Dot, Cassie, Liz, muddy?

And, again, we can’t actually police what other people say in a public discussion so complaining about it is moot.

You could’ve easily said, I agree it’s bullshit but I can’t look for every link or comment . But no, we had to endure an excruciating monologue losing sight of the original problem, which I’ll repeat.

Indol posted a link about a sports guy who died suddenly. He didn’t die suddenly because of the vax, he died from a bike accident. Yet you seem unconcerned in the least someone is pulling the wool over your eyes.

Lastly what in hell’s name do you mean we can’t complain and it’s moot about being bullshitted to? This is bordering on censorship and would be expected from an NPC- like creature, like Fatboy.

Cassie of Sydney
August 17, 2023 2:18 pm

“I don’t get the animosity but as Molyneux said when I spoke to him after their talk the left are vicious enough but the worst is when ‘conservatives’ come on board. I must say Lauren Southern is a stunning young woman.”

He’s now openly anti-Semitic, having crossed the Rubicom. As for Southern, yes she’s good looking which is why you like her. I’m reminded of that Seinfeld episode when Jerry and George hitched a ride from JFK airport to Manhattan, only to end up sharing a car with two Illinois Nazis, one of them a very attractive Nordic blond who George takes a shine to, only for Jerry to say to George…

“she’s a Nazi”

One of my favourite episodes, still has me on the floor laughing!

JC
JC
August 17, 2023 2:20 pm

In extremis, sure, but generally, policing means managing public affairs to some end.

To what extent? He’s not talking about demanding the contents of the link be completely expunged from the internet. He’s directly referring to Indol posting bullshit, complete tripe about the death of the cyclist here on your blog.

Rosie
Rosie
August 17, 2023 2:22 pm

My reading of ‘excess deaths’ in Australia in March and April is that those for men aged under 80 and women aged under 74 is, there are none.
In both those months deaths for people in those categories are now below the baseline, and only the elderly are now dying excessively.
Suggests to me that one might look at causes other than vaccines.
Covid itself is still one of them.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
August 17, 2023 2:22 pm

Thancho the slightly different model numbers are so they can appear to offer a 10% discount on the same item knowing full well when you show up demanding the discount they say “oh well, our one is different, piss off. Pure advertising. No substance.

Rosie
Rosie
August 17, 2023 2:23 pm

Oh and in the discussion about diabetes no-one mentioned gestational diabetes, which ends at birth.
How to link that to childhood vaccination?

JC
JC
August 17, 2023 2:23 pm

cohenite
Aug 17, 2023 1:48 PM
Ed Berry on how ‘conservatives’ simply do not fight; in this instance in Montana where another alarmists won another law case because the bullshit climate ‘science’ was not disputed:

Is it going to appeal? If it is, and I’m pretty sure it will, the appeals court will bat it out of the park.

Dot
Dot
August 17, 2023 2:24 pm

Suggests to me that one might look at causes other than vaccines.

Correct, very few people are taking the COVID vaccines anymore.

JC
JC
August 17, 2023 2:28 pm

Suggests to me that one might look at causes other than vaccines.
Covid itself is still one of them.

Or perhaps another reason that I read about recently. Because of the heroic actions of the frontline medical troops slowing down all sorts to treatment in order to protect us (themselves) folks are presenting with lots more late stage cancers for which there is little to be done. But let’s blame that on the vax too.

Lysander
Lysander
August 17, 2023 2:29 pm

This is why it’s so important to get a submission in before the 20th of this month.

I’ve completed my submission to FUCTMA. I told them: Imagine Churchill had access to twitter in the early 1930’s when he was laughing stock of Westminster by carrying on about this German fella. Under their proposal, Winston would be deplatformed or elements of key access would be disabled.

Not to mention that I also called it a Maoist proposal, amongst other things…

Arky
August 17, 2023 2:30 pm

Dot
Aug 17, 2023 2:09 PM

Moly is now openly anti semitic

..
I’m curious. Does anyone have a link to back this up? I haven’t followed Molyneux these last few years, although Mater and I ran the gauntlet of feral protestors and Vicpol mini- thugs to break into the Melbourne talk with him and Southern. (In what now seems the long distant pre- covid past)

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
August 17, 2023 2:30 pm

He’s directly referring to Indol posting bullshit, complete tripe about the death of the cyclist here on your blog

I for one welcome this industrial solvent-grade nuffery.

It amuses me, and it also provides a window into how some people, desperate to validate their previously uneventful and unfulfilling existences at any cost, manage to get pi from 2+2.

In the process, they become convinced that Only They Can See The Real Danger, and respond to gentle questioning with saliva-punctuated missives worthy of an Old Testament prophet.

Jorge
Jorge
August 17, 2023 2:34 pm

A glimpse of modern Australia: this morning I take to the local bank an 83 yo Sri Lankan lady who I got to know a little from church.
We enter and the queue is stretched before us, 100% elderly Chinese in puffer jackets, cheap runners and baseball caps. The mood might be described as combative and the Chinese staff (all female) in black pant suits do their best in the face of simmering impatience.
Off to one side, waiting at the front, are three Africans, all spindly tall but with Sonny Liston heads, avoiding eye contact., uncomfortable and feeling out of place. One is elderly with close gray curls, another younger, seated on his walker with splayed gangly legs but blind with what could be cataracts though hard to say. The third, younger still, also has eye issues and can’t see well. One of his eyes points off to the side while the other seems more functional. A little closer and you see they’ve all suffered terrible beatings at some point. Their heads and faces are marked and pocked as if shrapnelled. Ill fitting clothes hang in folds, drab and colourless and shapeless, obvious hand me downs from some agency.

Comedy (of sorts) ensues when they get to the teller. She speaks with a heavy Cantonese colouring to her pronunciation. They use thick African English. Neither can understand the other. It takes an intervention from another of the black suited assistants to sort it all out but eventually they get what they want. When they leave it’s like watching some kind of medieval procession.

JC
JC
August 17, 2023 2:36 pm

KD

I never go to his links or take any link summary he posts seriously , so in a way Dover has a reasonable point if indirectly . If you can’t trust someone’s comments/links don’t waste time.

The only reason I’m aware of it is because, unfortunately Sanchez had to bring it up.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
August 17, 2023 2:37 pm

The Age asking interesting questions about Mrs Mushroom:

Twelve key questions in the deadly mushroom mystery

1. You don’t remember the name of the Asian grocer, but can you take us to the location?

2. If it was a commercially available product, why have there been no other cases of death cap poisoning?

3. Why use dried mushrooms?
Gordon Ramsay’s beef Wellington recipe calls for a wild mushroom paste to be used. This usually requires cooking all moisture out of the mushrooms, but dehydrated ones could be used. It would mean the actual fillet of beef may not have been compromised by poisoned juice.

4. How did you recover?
Patterson says she was given a liver protecting drug. There is no known cure for death cap mushroom poisoning and the fungi is one of the most toxic poisons on Earth.

5. Why did Patterson get a mild dose of illness?
Patterson is more than 20 years younger than her guests, which may make her more resilient.

6. The lunch was on July 29. The guests presented at hospital the following day with severe symptoms. You presented, but the medical staff chose not to admit you. Why?

7. When did you learn of the food poisoning and why were you confident your children would not become ill?
All of Patterson’s guests went to hospital with suspected food poisoning on July 30, with each couple presenting separately with symptoms so severe they were quickly transferred to Melbourne. On that evening, although the four guests who ate the beef Wellington were severely ill, Patterson says she gave her children leftovers from the same suspected poisoned meal.

8. Why were you well enough to go home and dispose of the dehydrator at a local tip before returning to hospital two days after the lunch, with symptoms sufficiently bad to require you to be transferred to Melbourne?

9. Did you make a sauce, or gravy with any of the mushrooms?

10. Why did you dispose of the dehydrator but keep the remains of the beef Wellington to be tested by the Health Department?

11. Were tests conducted on Erin Patterson in hospital that could shed light on the mystery?

12. When can we get forensic results?
The Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine has about 200 different types of poisons on file. In this case, they will have to get a clinical sample to compare to pathology from the victims, which may take several weeks.

All sensible questions; particularly the one about “liver protecting drugs”.

Laid out like this, it appears that Mrs Mushroom had a busy few days while her guests were dying: rocking up to the hospital for a row with the ex-hubby, being lightly poisoned herself and receiving treatment, scraping mushroom paste off the leftovers, being transported to Melbourne, allowed back home to discard unwanted kitchen appliances.

Technical Note: Questions 3 and 9 are fair enough, but sound like the author has gone off on a bit of a MasterChef tangent.

Robert Sewell
August 17, 2023 2:41 pm

JMH:

It will probably cease to exist. This is why it’s so important to get a submission in before the 20th of this month.

Dun.

Lysander
Lysander
August 17, 2023 2:41 pm

She speaks with a heavy Cantonese colouring to her pronunciation.

Reminds me of the story of the Chinese lady who exchanged 100 yuan for Aussie dollars and got $40 back, next day goes in and exchanges the same amount but only gets 35. She asks why? Teller says “fluctuations.”

Chinese lady responds “FluckyouAussies!” 😛

Dot
Dot
August 17, 2023 2:42 pm

Stefan Molyneux in his video Migratory Patterns of Predatory immigrants at 04:44 states that

‘The Germans were in danger of being taken over by what they perceived as Jewish-led communism. And Jewish led communism had wiped tens of millions of white christians in Russia, and they (Germans) were afraid of the same thing, and there was the wild overreaction (holocaust) and all this kind of stuff.’

He’s not on You Tube anymore so you probably can’t find it.

Lenin was 1/4 Jewish and that grandparent had converted to the Orthodox Church.

Make up your own mind.

Lysander
Lysander
August 17, 2023 2:47 pm

Test, testies..

Crossie
Crossie
August 17, 2023 2:47 pm

Robert Sewell
Aug 17, 2023 12:34 PM
Here’s an interesting mindgame to play:
Of all the Western style governments on the planet, which one would you like to govern Australia?

I still prefer what we have to anything out there. We still have a reasonably untainted electoral system that is uniform across the federation. Contrast the US system where each state has their own rules and practices that seem to be easy to game. Instead of our preferential system I could be persuaded to go with the first past the post method.

Dot
Dot
August 17, 2023 2:47 pm

I read “Rational” Wiki so you don’t have to.

# 1 –

The Jewish role in the origins and spread of communism is a fascinating and disturbing topic.

Two famous men – Churchill and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – both wrote that Jews were very involved, and have not been criticized for rank antisemitism.
What do you think?

# 2 –

It’s quite simple

If Jews are white, then “white privilege” is rank anti-Semitism, and MUST be rejected
If Jews are NOT white, then we need affirmative action for whites in many industries and universities, since I was taught that ethnic overrepresentation always means bigotry.

# 3 –

Additionally, he retweeted a now-deleted tweet demonstrating a conspiracy-theory regarding Jewish control of CNN.

Lysander
Lysander
August 17, 2023 2:48 pm

Western Australia is facing a huge shortfall in electricity supply over the next 10 years.

https://www.watoday.com.au/politics/western-australia/wa-facing-huge-electricity-shortfall-in-three-years-20230817-p5dx9i.html

No, really?

Arky
August 17, 2023 2:50 pm

The Germans were in danger of being taken over by what they perceived as Jewish-led communism. And Jewish led communism had wiped tens of millions of white christians in Russia

..
Rather than assume “anti semite” I would prefer to give the benefit of the doubt that Molyneux simply failed to repeat the “perceived” qualifier in the second half of the para, having believed that using it in the first part gave enough of a hint that those were the opinions of the Germans, not his own.

Vicki
Vicki
August 17, 2023 2:56 pm

I never read the link. It’s an open forum. People reading comments and links are supposed to exercise their judgement, etc. If people find egregious errors, or they think that what is said is actually contentious they can post their arguments in replies.

Absolutely. Just trawl through, people. Select what is relevant to your interests and don’t lose sleep about the rest.

Lysander
Lysander
August 17, 2023 2:58 pm

Lol! US Newsroom f-cks up as reporter reads teleprompter saying “police are looking for a 74 year old man who inappropriately touched up a little girl” – they put up Biden’s picture lol!!!

https://twitter.com/stclairashley/status/1691837096921817249?s=20

Crossie
Crossie
August 17, 2023 3:01 pm

How much of NATOs weaponry is still on hand and what is the estiamte for Russian weaponary.
How much longer is this war going to continue for.

For ever, the current mob in Washington DC have no interest in ending it. If Trump wins next year then we can look forward to peace negotiations.

Vicki
Vicki
August 17, 2023 3:02 pm

Vicki: I don’t blame Norman Fenton for anything other than I laid out above; the effective corruption on the face of what is arguably the most representative Covid public health data set ……….
But certainly not the ‘excess deaths due to vaccines’ controversy (although he does have form in that, too) – which (for me, anyway) is one of the legitimate and necessary discussions now kicked into the long grass as ‘yet another conspiracy theory’.

Got it!

Crossie
Crossie
August 17, 2023 3:03 pm

OldOzzie
Aug 17, 2023 1:48 PM
As an Unvaccinated, have to do a RAT Test before Surgery tomorrow –

I have been vaccinated and I still had to show a negative test result before my colonoscopy. I think the test requirement is now routine.

John H.
John H.
August 17, 2023 3:03 pm

It’s quite simple

If Jews are white, then “white privilege” is rank anti-Semitism, and MUST be rejected
If Jews are NOT white, then we need affirmative action for whites in many industries and universities, since I was taught that ethnic overrepresentation always means bigotry.

That’s a huge number of Nobel Prizes that will have to be revoked.

John H.
John H.
August 17, 2023 3:05 pm
Dot
Dot
August 17, 2023 3:13 pm

A lot of the online “calling out antisemitism” is BS, the same people who get a whiff of it and “call it out” also believe, that Israel should be pounded into dust; they then say nothing of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

It’s like the lefties pushing degeneracy; see the reaction to the meme yesterday:

“Men prefer debt-free virgins without tattoos”

(Dumb responses like “Thank goodness I’m a completely inked-up slut buried under a mountain of debt”, sucks to be you, but….)

So you get people who think pedophiles should be called MAPs asking “clever” questions like “Oh wow does the incel want to sleep with children?

The same people think young teenagers should be allowed to have sex and abortions but also seemingly want to raise the age of consent to 25 and police age gaps in relationships, are against invasive theocracy.

I’m spending too much time on Reddit. I should stick to ASX_Bets.

It is just a repeat of The (((Dixie))) Chicks, Code Pink, Dear Mr President and Obama then getting the Nobel Peace Prize for killing families with drone-launched AGM-114s.

feelthebern
feelthebern
August 17, 2023 3:13 pm

I wish The Age would show the same level of skepticism with Dan Andrews that it has with mushroom lady.

Dot
Dot
August 17, 2023 3:16 pm

Some random news article whilst looking if Molyneux really is potty for the Protocols:

“How white nationalists evade the law”

That’s all well and good, but what about Bill Ayers?

feelthebern
feelthebern
August 17, 2023 3:17 pm

He’s directly referring to Indol posting bullshit, complete tripe about the death of the cyclist here on your blog.

Maybe the crazy needs to be dialled down to 10 from 11 (h/t Spinal Tap).
Ideally lower.
The good news is this place isn’t an echo chamber.
Meaning that when the crazy goes off the chart, many here call it out.

H B Bear
H B Bear
August 17, 2023 3:20 pm

#istandwithmushroomlady but I’ll have the chicken thanks.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
August 17, 2023 3:21 pm

I am not looking forward to this important task – simply because it is SO important. I have put it off…and off. Will write it up & submit tomorrow and send.

I put mine up here after I’d sent it in. It was quite short and to the point. It doesn’t have to be long, but is needed just add to the general tone of disapproval and horror at the censorship involved in this coming Act of Parliament. Everyone who comments or lurks on Catallaxy should submit a comment. Otherwise it may be bye bye Catallaxy. As Jo Nova knows for her site too.

Alamak!
August 17, 2023 3:21 pm

Comedy (of sorts) ensues when they get to the teller. She speaks with a heavy Cantonese colouring to her pronunciation. They use thick African English. Neither can understand the other. It takes an intervention from another of the black suited assistants to sort it all out but eventually they get what they want.

Thanks for posting, Jorge.

I wonder how these customers could get things done on app/webb/phone support? A large part of the problem with online/digital banking and CDBC move away from cash is that it cuts out the non-digital folks.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
August 17, 2023 3:23 pm

Mushrooms should be plentiful and cheap in the shops right now. Must be so, because the growers have put out a statement saying no, never anything like that, not on our watch. I wouldn’t like to be a seller of exotic dried mushrooms right now though.

Alamak!
August 17, 2023 3:24 pm

The good news is this place isn’t an echo chamber.
Meaning that when the crazy goes off the chart, many here call it out

Exactly – distressing as it may be to some, this is a place of mixed views.

Which is a good thing IMHO

JC
JC
August 17, 2023 3:27 pm

You don’t know Pz?

Who’s on first is perhaps more approp.

The first person to mention “police” was you. See below.

dover0beach
Aug 17, 2023 11:25 AM
And, again, we can’t actually police what other people say in a public discussion so complaining about it is moot.

And no, I have no idea who or what this PZ is.

Again, why? It’s a forurm and people are free to do that.

And no one’s said they aren’t free to do that. What I said was that you could at least acknowledge it was crap when Sanchex brought it up. The cyclist didn’t die from the vax and nor did he die from a vax induced bike accident.

I never read the link. It’s an open forum. People reading comments and links are supposed to exercise their judgement, etc. If people find egregious errors, or they think that what is said is actually contentious they can post their arguments in replies.

And that’s what Sanchez did to illustrate a point, but it appears you’re curballing for Indol.

How many coffees have you had today?

Trust me, it’s not the coffee. It’s a range of things like having to fork over $2.45 per liter to fill up on petrol. Just opening a gas bill which is double, having to deal with a silly cousin, forking over a load of money to a kid for a new car, having to arrange repairs on a machine at the family business. So yeah, I could be in a better mood.
But look, at least I’m not in Harms Way and confusing it with Loonie Cres.

It’s pretty clear I’m saying that public discussions will involve a range of claims that are more or less contestable, so complaining about things out of your control are moot.

A claim is a claim, but lying is a whole other level and Indol’s link is blatantly lying. It’s meant to mislead and it just wrong to post such turgid crap.

How you got a regime of censorship out of this is anyone’s guess.

I’m trying to guess too.

Did I insinuate the he was demanding “the contents of the link be completely expunged from the internet”? No, I didn’t. I said simply that policing can involve a whole host of other measures beyond banning.

Okay, was Indol’s link misleading bullshit or not?

cohenite
August 17, 2023 3:27 pm

Moly is now openly anti semitic and (single mother traditional conservative) Lauren Sourthern is nothing but a grifter, wrapped up in e thot drama with Brittany Venti, trying to “take down” “misogynists” with a fraudulent cheese pizza and a criminal complaint has been made against Venti, cuck boy Destiny, etc.

If I didn’t know better I’d say you were on drugs.

Molyneux has an online debate with David Pakman, who is a smartarse Jew. Molyneux comes off as a smartarse too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i9bnwZ7WO8

Molyneux handles this very clumsily. The point I think he is making is that any statement about white superiority in any respect is automatically tainted with racism. It is this which stops conservatives from defending Western democratic values; and that includes black and ethnic conservatives. Molyneux in using the Jewish supremacist example shoots himself in both feet. But I’m not sure what Pakman’s point is. Maybe you can tell me dottie; when the drugs wear off.

Dot
Dot
August 17, 2023 3:27 pm

I am anti-skub.

Dot
Dot
August 17, 2023 3:32 pm

(single mother traditional conservative) Lauren Sourthern is nothing but a grifter, wrapped up in e thot drama with Brittany Venti, trying to “take down” “misogynists” with a fraudulent cheese pizza and a criminal complaint has been made against Venti, cuck boy Destiny, etc.

This is all true.

cohenite
August 17, 2023 3:40 pm

Okey dokey.

  1. Yes, thank you for confirming that in the UN scenario the ratio of global industrial production is 4:1 in China’s…

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