Or as the Brits say: Slag tags.
Open Thread – Weekend 19 Aug 2023
- Open Thread – Thurs 14 Nov 2024
- Open Thread – Remembrance Day 2024
- The Sweetest Victory
- Open Thread – Weekend 9 November 2024
- Open Thread – Thurs 7 Nov 2024
Ben Garrison.
Gary Varvel.
Hilarious. Ta Matey. 🙂
Tom Stiglich.
Thanks for the well wishes.
Have job starting end of this week and 2 more I very like I might jump too yet.
Big demand for medic/ safety/ training people, I’m even being picky and avoiding fi/fo so I can be home with the family each night.
JC
Aug 20, 2023 11:08 PM
Tickler, stop it with the execution demands as there’s been enough here.
These wankers have gotten away with too much.
It will be 8 years by 2028 at least as far as the two already involved are concerned. If they can get some of the others involved all the better.
Not a bad idea, cutting aid to the Arab states, but I’m not sure why Israel can’t at least be expected to fund its own defense. It’s strong economically, etc. They’re hardly the fledgling nation they were soon after 1948.
..
F*ck you mole, you quitter.
You let them beat you, man.
For some little sociopath who will move on to the next gig once everyone there figures out what they are.
Remember them types average only five years in a job before people realise what a prick they are dealing with and they have to move on to new pastures.
Disappointed in you.
Arky
There is one person left in a supervisory position who had been with the company for more than 5 years.
I’ll sit back and watch them burn.
Best thing- and it was something I said to the new rm, was they keep setting good workers on fire and watch them run away, and wonder why there is no deep institutional knowledge at the place.
Lacking people who can say “ we did that before, it didn’t work” might be a bummer, but it’s fairly essential.
And Arky.
It’s not one it’s a little cabal.
RM, HR, and my supervisor all know each other from previous site.
It’s an invasion of pod people.
Not screwing up my family to fight yhose turds
..
And I guess that person is also sharpening their resume.
Actually he’s one who has 1/2 a chance of digging in till he dies.
A belligerent Saffie with the neatest set of logbooks for his speciality.
Plus he wise enough to keep the secret of just how the lights stay on to himself.
Interesting info coming in about this strike in Chernigov. It involved a drone exhibition exclusively for the military-industrial complex. The location was kept secret from attendees until a few hours before so they knew it was a security/ safety issue, yet they held it east of the Dneiper in a city close to the Russian border anyway, which means that any military strike would receive far less warning than one held in the West, and yet they held it in the middle of the city in a drama theatre.
In my my mind, Israel is kind of special for historical reasons. You want to make sure hostilities are well and truly over.
Incidentally, Peter Zeihan reckons the US in currently very close to cutting a deal with Iran in not developing nuclear weapons, Iran would cease threatening Israel and that they would allow international inspections. Iran, would also cease threatening the Gulf Arabs and that they would also cease providing support to Yemen and Syria. In turn the US would hand them over US$6 Billion of Iran’s money.. Interesting, he reckons Bibi says he could live with it. Don’t know if it’s true
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9VgkpfPhLI
He good to listen to if you like to hear China porn. Chinese economy going down the sewer.
..
Or they could have just been a bunch of RC amateur enthusiasts.
How would you know? Unless you speak the language and have seen the original advertising for the event.
Love Zeihan comment about the Saudi military.
They are the reports coming out directly from Ukraine.
Again, dunno if any of this is true, but it sounds plausible. Due to Western sanctions on Russian oil exports, these days any Russian oil that’s being sold has to abide with the $US60 dollar ceiling. Oil shippers can’t access insurance and if they’re caught shipping Russian oil they’re banned from shipping to Western markets etc. China and a few other nations have managed to put together a rag tag bunch of antique oil freighters but the whole exercise is expensive. The dumping of hugely discounted Russian oil has impacted Iran because they service the Asian markets and Iran is economically in trouble as a result.
..
Yeah, I’ll give you that one.
Looks like a security failure, or a complete balls up.
Here’s a good Zeihan piece about the very real possibility China going into a long term deflationary spiral from which it will be almost impossible to get out of. Economically, it sounds like deadman walking. The whole complexity of problems that China has accumulated are now seeing the chickens coming home to roost.
The really significant indicator that causes the siren to go off is that while every major economy has experienced inflationary problems since coming out of Covid, China has not. China appears to have gone the opposite way.
Listen to the vid for more China porn.
One add on, if Zeihan is right about China’s economy, get ready for some serious problems in Australia that we’re just not even thinking about. Exports to China will drop like a stone and the Australian dollar will fall further than we believe is possible When the Aussie dollar was at 50 cents, we never had the debt levels we have.
Who’s ready for the Aussie at at 40 cents to the US? 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9-wfHgjTB8
Johannes Leak.
Mark Knight.
Peter Broelman.
Andy Davey.
Michael Ramirez.
A.F. Branco.
Al Goodwyn.
Lisa Benson.
Thanks Tom.
Vintage Luigi from Leak jr.
The Age. Paywalled.
Thought we’d done with those years ago but obviously they are back.
Uber drivers!
the rise of the ghost colleges
My favourite kind of threat.
First Nations soccer advisers threaten to quit if the Women’s World Cup doesn’t free more funding
Headline runner on the picture wireless this morning:
Early reports that this was a parallel parking attempt by a lady cosmonaut have yet to be confirmed.
I think lots of young families struggle to find the money to pay for sports.
How about need not race?
$30 billion not enuff for soccer registrations.
Guardian in tears.
Which reminds me, I saw a boy aged 5/6/7 in a long blue princess outfit complete with tiara in Canberra.
He looked so ridiculous. Little girls don’t go out in public with the whole Halloween costume, they might just wear a tutu with regular clothes.
Smug older woman accompanied. I didn’t give them more than a passing glance.
I hope she gets everything she wishes for.
Georgia school board fires teacher who read book on gender fluidity to class
Caught a bit of the wendyball.
Those Spanish chicks had a couple of yards on the Poms.
Who were conspicuously unrepresentative of real Londoners.
Private education ‘eccentric’.
Most private schools I’ve observed in western Europe appear to be Catholic ones.
I suppose to a ‘Tory’ wanting your child to have a Christian education has to be eccentric.
In 2019, Michael Gove, the Tory education secretary from 2010 to 2014 who pushed expansion of Labour’s academies programme, insisted it remained his hope that educating children privately would become unnecessary and viewed as unusual. “I would have hoped we would have been able to make sending your children to a private school, as it is in Europe, an increasingly eccentric choice,” Gove said.
… conspicuously unrepresentative …
Take two.
Hard to play soccer in a burqa.
Parminder Nagra didn’t get an England guernsey?
For shame.
All the applications for traditional cultural activities funding need to be approved first. How else can the Big Men, and in urban settings even Big Women, get their cut, er operating costs met?
blue eyed white girls in sport. It’s those Tories, again.
I’m concerned about all those children having to play soccer, football, rugby and netball.
When will they have time for school?
I can see now why Gove is not the PM. No doubt he is a product of private education which has enabled his rise to such heights yet is so completely self-unaware. On the other hand perhaps he has a point, private education has made him what he is, an idiot.
Those activities will at least tire them out so they would not have the energy to go on car stealing jaunts at night.
Quenthland news (the Courier-Mail):
Three teenage staff under 16. Nice. Real nice.
Kudos to Mr Baker for putting on young staff members during a public holiday. What sort of dish sparked this contretemps?
It is impossible to be overcharged for ordering a nutella waffle and salmon bagel. It’s a public embarrassment surcharge.
The only problem I have with this tale is that the type of person who orders a nutella waffle and salmon bagel usually doesn’t have the constitution to lift it off the plate, let alone throw anything anywhere.
A cloudy windless morning greets on our way to becoming a renewable energy super power.
May the sun power our dreams and the wind drive our ambition.
Double eye surgery on the weekend..
I had no idea what to expect but the thought of someone playing around with your eyes was a touch scary.
It is like a whole new world being revealed, absolutely thrilling.
Close up vision is still lousy. They claim that it will come good but even if it doesn’t, it has been a remarkable result.
Outrageous ‘out of pocket’ charges however..
England’s diversity challenges
One of the challenges is being consistent.
In England, 80% of the population is ‘white’ (some may say ‘pasty’). Given the huge money involved in Big Soccer, presumably the 43% of ‘black’ players in the FA men’s competition are there because they are the better players.
Certainly there doesn’t seem to be an institutional “diversity challenge” in the men’s game; so perhaps it’s sexism, or something…
Crossie
Aug 21, 2023 7:12 AM
caveman
Aug 21, 2023 6:53 AM
$30 billion not enuff for soccer registrations.
If I’m correct they are receiving an extra 6 Billion as a compensation for being disadvantaged against white welfare recipients.
Surely there would be enough left over to pay for the regs? NO?
I love Leak’s toon.
Albo doesn’t like us Cats.
Leftist Aussie PM Would Ban Social Media if Granted Dictatorial Powers (20 Aug)
Could’ve fooled me, since that’s what the Voice effectively is. It does though look like a big reveal about what his misinformation act if for. He doesn’t like people writing inconvenient truths online.
He is admitting that MSM who are almost all on board with him are no match us who comment on blogs over breakfast. You could say he is acknowledging that bloggers eat their lunch.
Correct Crossie but I wish they’d have something different than spam and cheese sandwiches.
So much to unpack.
For a politician currently running a constitutional campaign based entirely on assertion, with an eye on the next election, that’s pretty impressive transference.
More interestingly, he appears to be saying that my assertion of fact that he’s an appalling leader of the Nation is causing him (and possibly the media) to be obsessed with “the short term cycle”.
What an odd little blame world he lives in.
JC 10:56
Thanks for that – what are your thought on that Ed Dowd podcast that was linked on here a few weeks ago.
Meme; I laughed.
https://link.sbstck.com/redirect/7c24aa4f-4335-4046-971c-0508a390b129?j=eyJ1IjoiaG85YmoifQ.bMnuNm5GLk5MFSCvcs0G5r0y-jYhpNwjaZVrL0QBwGM
Not in my case, I will say things to your face that I would never dare to put in print.
Big_Nambas
Aug 21, 2023 8:03 AM
the sort of things they would never say to you face-to-face
Wise man, but make sure there is no recording of the exchange.
These days you never know.
I thought it funny Luigi the Unbelievable said if he were diktata he’d ban free speech. If he were diktata his own Liars party would’ve already stabbed him in the back.
It’s so funny coz Albanese, aka Luigi the Unbelievable thinks himself tough, imagining he’d be diktata when he’s such a pathetic little turd.
It only took 435 years, but the Spanish finally thumped the English.
In todays Oz:
2 comments:
1) Further proof that unbridled immigration is a ponzi scheme to ‘pay for’ existing promises
2) Note the new, fraudulent use of language – the care sector will be ‘worth’ 15% of GDP – no it wont, aged care is a COST not a benefit – it will COST 15% of GDP. No doubt we will see this little trick enter the lexicon in the same way as all govt spending is now labelled ‘Investment’.
Communist manifesto anyone?
Why, yes, that’s a pretty good assumption. Works for me.
Assume That Journalists Are Cannibal Zombies, Coated in Plutonium (19 Aug, via Instapundit)
Read on…
There is a strange surreal irony in a politician – recognised again and again as one of the three least trustworthy professions – warning of the dangers of other people lying.
Naturally we should bear in mind that Albo is a politician and that he is being dishonest about the ‘danger’.
But Labor does love a government monopoly.
duk
No screeches from the ‘vironmentalists about “over-population”?
Of course not, the genuine environmentalists were pushed out of the Slime Party years ago.
aka ‘fighting aged males’….
And not because they hate dictators, but because they all want to be the dictator instead.
Don’t know Louis. Didn’t listen and don’t know who he is.
Are there any figures on real GDP, ie. without including government total cost as they are a cost not a contributor. Does the total tax take include Local government charges?
Thanks, KD. Giggled I did.
I think you meant multi-millionaires struggling against
systemic oppression.
Church holds ‘Day of prayer and reflection’ after tragic deaths of three locals
21 August 2023
A “Day of prayer and reflection” was held at St Joseph’s Church in Korumburra, Victoria, on Saturday following the deaths of three locals in a tragedy that affected the small community and surrounding area. Source: South Gippsland Sentinel-Times.
Demonrat Governor, of course. The FBI is on the scene to ensure the cover up story is well and truly put in place with all key actors.
The scumbag tries deflecting the tragedy on to what else, but climate change. Not the rampant leftist gross incompetence. No doubt the Hawaii bureaucracy is infested with arts degree academic Einstein’s who in practice are unable to tie their shoelaces.
The final results are going to be just horrible.
https://twitter.com/The_Real_Fly/status/1693373238976328142
Fires in Greece, Canada, Hawaii. Brace for fire “opportunities” here in summer as well. Gotta have a Crisis.
I’ve heard the same from several people, including Nigel Farage on Southbank Investment Research yesterday.
It wasn’t working so they’re trying a different approach:
Hawaii State Government Attempts Information Blackout On Maui Fire – Refuses Media Access (21 Aug)
Nothing to see here, comrade.
Cernovich
@Cernovich
100+ dead in Maui.
Many of them children.
1,000 missing.
Hawaii has Democrat governor and two Democrat Senators.
Voted for Joe Biden two-to-one.
Where is Biden?
Quite so, Makka. Mass murder by arson presents an irresistible opportunity for leftwing psychopaths to present themselves as the victims, with their useful idiots in the media conducting the defence.
Welcome to the seeing world, bons. You’re about to see lots of things you don’t want to see.
bons
Aug 21, 2023 7:31 AM
Double eye surgery on the weekend..
I had no idea what to expect but the thought of someone playing around with your eyes was a touch scary.
It is like a whole new world being revealed, absolutely thrilling.
Close up vision is still lousy. They claim that it will come good but even if it doesn’t, it has been a remarkable result.
Outrageous ‘out of pocket’ charges however..
bons,
I had cataract laser surgey on left eye – excellent result allowed me to not use glasses for driving – right eye needed some reconstruction work after previous parotidectomy before cataract laser surgery about a year later than left eye – not as successful as left eye, but overall well pleased – using iMac without glasses, but do need for reading – long distance perfect
Just the type of constituents Albo would adore. Facts simply don’t matter.
TONY™?
@TONYxTWO
ONE OF THE GREATEST VIDEOS I’VE SEEN FROM
@shaneyyricch
DESTROYS Liberals with nothing but facts!!!
Typical Democrat Supporters who believe everything they see on the news, hate Trump, and disregard any facts that have been proven to be true!!
It’s begun:
ABC reports Yes supporters threatening to leave the country if they don’t win.
Chevalier was very good.
I recommend it. By using the Guardian as a reverse indicator, I picked a very good movie.
I very, very, very rarely watch fillum at a cine a ma because my expectations are so low.
Funny and inspirational with some melancholy thrown in.
I don’t care what some spare said about muh historical accuracy. It was a saga told in 110 minutes. Compromises need to be made.
Anyone whinging about woke or fascists really needs to get their heads out of their rear ends and read a history book. Liberties were taken with the biography but there’s a good reason for that you may only find out about at the back end.
spare —> sperg
If that doesn’t get out the No vote, nothing will.
I’m happy to drive them to the airport and pay their fares.
WE should be so lucky!
And tax cuts are a handout.
Andrew Bolt:
Stop spending money. In the Obama stimulus, production was cruelled so harshly that it ended up depressing prices.
Which is the exact opposite of what Keynesian stimulus is meant to do; an increase in prices is meant to reduce and devalue inventories to spur new production.
Something very odd is going on at Twitter. Musk is blocking people who are complaining about the proposal to remove the blocking option, i.e. have a free for stalkers and harassers whose sole objective is to get people banned.
Chaya Raichik
@ChayaRaichik10
Leftists are excited at the possibility of being able to harass people they disagree with. Proved my point exactly. @elonmusk
James Woods
@RealJamesWoods
I have battled the oppressive boot of censorship before, and will continue until the Stasi at X find an excuse to bury me for good. In the meantime I won’t monetize my account, I will continue to shine a light on hypocrisy, and yes, keep the beloved INSTABLOCK cocked and locked.
Catturd ™
@catturd2
My opinion is my opinion and nobody will ever bully me into changing it.
This is from CNN with liberal (pun intended) amounts of projection.
How conservatives use ‘verbal jiu-jitsu’ to turn liberals’ language against them
Who knew the definition of woke was “actively aware of social injustice”?
Did any one else notice how ‘unprecedented’ heat and fires suddenly occurred just months after they rolled out the new ‘klimat boiling’ campaign?
Southern Europe, Canada and now Maui – and at least in the Maui and Canada cases, there were multiple simultaneous ignitions in the absence of lightning?
Its almost like – it was scripted ….
That’s an interesting segue. He’s supposedly responding to various opinions being discussed on line as being in some way problematic.
But then he moves seamlessly to implying that what’s really happening is libellous? racist? sexist? homophobic? statements are the concern –
Then bringing the subject back to
So, he’s claiming that what’s going on in on-line discussions is questionable/disgusting? stuff that is being dressed up as fact.
I suppose he’d know all about that, he is a politician.
Just on general terms it’s probably better to avoid artificial sweeteners. The hint is in the name. Sugar is one of the most demonised of foods but I still prefer it to any substitutes.
This Artificial Sweetener Can Permanently Damage Your DNA, New Study Says
Leaked Docs: Hunter Biden Was Involved in Trump Impeachment Over Ukraine
New Hampshire daycare worker is set to be RELEASED from jail today despite being accused of taking explicit photos of children for transgender former Democrat lawmaker
Dr. McCullough Explains Why the Heart Is the Organ Most Frequently Damaged by COVID-19 Vaccines
Fires have been getting less:
Wildfires in the United States (wiki)
There’s been a slight uptick since 2000, which coincides with climate rubbish: control burns emit ebil CO2 that had been so lovingly sequestered.
What a sweet start to the week!
Wherever they go, I wonder if they will have this unshakeable, nagging feeling of not being accepted because there won’t be welcome to country ceremonies.
And they will be no end sources of bemusement to the locals. Just imagine them at a café in Paris ordering a coffee:
They will renege on that promise like they do on every other.
In The Joke news:
BCA calls for detailed 10-year national net-zero road map
(Unlinkable Oz)
Let that bit sink in. As a sanity check, I very much doubt that any government anywhere has managed a $7-$9 trillion program of any sort.
But we are asked to pretend to believe that’s what Uncle Luigi and Snotbubble Bowen are leading the Nation through.
I’m old enough to remember when Kevin Rudd’s Moral Challenge CPRS was going to cost Australian families $2/day.
Good times; happy times.
Only keyboard warriors that Elbow doesn’t agree with though, right?
Totally unexpected news.
White Ribbon guy, Andrew O’Keefe back in the slot for breaching an AVO.
Apparently he and his “girlfriend” were “getting back together”.
Or not.
The TV report on the matter had quite a montage of Mr O’Keefe’s chequered past, including one clip of him strutting out of court with his fly undone, and another wearing a White Ribbon t-shirt (obviously someone has decided the “nafink to do wiv us” excuse from White Ribbon doesn’t cut it).
His parting shot after the beak decided to pot him highlighted Mr O’Keefe’s complete lack of awareness of the hole he is in.
“Thanks a lot … for nothing” he tells the magistrate.
Pro tip. Don’t diss the guy you have just caused to be dragged in on a weekend. He is none too happy anyway and is a fair chance to be sitting on your next bail hearing.
“Yeah, nah. The earliest time in the schedule I can see to hear Mr O’Keefe’s application is … let’s see … mid November I think.”
Yes, I know the threat/promise to leave Australia is an empty one.
It is like children who get angry and say they are going to hold their breath until they die and then you’ll be sorry.
And it is just another example of them trying to manipulate people with feelings rather than present an argument. They just have trouble grasping the idea that ordinary people really just don’t care for their histrionics and consider their opinions something to be wiped off your shoe on the grass if you inadvertently step in it.
A pity…our loss could have been NZ’s gain.
Bwahahahahaha.
Hang on! Wasn’t it that Labor chick — the blackfellahs minister — who accused the No people of importing Trump politics from America.
Hahaha. You’re right, sweetie, but it’s the Yes crowd doing it to themselves.
The speaker claims Noongar heritage?
Possibly not the Yes supporters in the communities, or suburbs.
Perhaps thwarted careerists; people who see themselves as movers and shakers given the right setting, nice people, people with transferable skills and no criminal records.
People with a deep commitment to others, less fortunate than themselves.
Vale LTCOL Harry SMITH SG MC. Lest We Forget.
Monday, 21 August 2023
Watch in Memory
Battle of Long Tan Documentary – Vietnam War – Narrated by Sam Worthington
You do realise that is just a front for a WHO campaign, right?
Rest in Peace.
You just get the feeling he wasn’t talking about people like PRGuy17 who are employed by ALP pollies on the public purse to fight Torries on Twatter.
Gee, I had heard of Zeihan but wasn’t really familiar with his oeuvre. Wow, he’s said some dumb things.
This green city is trying a tiny nuclear reactor. Why isn’t Australia?
The energy minister of the populous Canadian province says new-generation reactors are less intimidating than their large-scale predecessors – and this is enough for a rethink in some parts of the world.
Less than an hour’s drive east of Toronto, the provincial power company covering Canada’s most populous city is embarking on the kind of multi-decade energy experiment the Labor government says makes no sense in Australia.
Preparatory work began late last year to build a small modular nuclear reactor on the shores of Lake Ontario with a $C970 million ($1.1 billion) loan from Canada Infrastructure Bank. The government corporation Ontario Power Generation announced last month that another three units would be added to the project.
By the end of the decade it expects to begin generating up to 1.2 gigawatts of electricity, enough to supply 1.2 million homes with carbon-free energy.
All this new investment comes as the province also invests an additional $C12.8 billion in refurbishing its four existing reactors from the 1990s.
And Todd Smith, energy minister for the Ontario government, says Australia, too, should consider nuclear energy, especially small modular reactors (SMRs).
SMRs use the same nuclear fission technology to heat water and drive turbines as the large reactors dotted around countries such as France, Russia, Canada and China. As the name suggests, they are modular, with factory-produced components shipped and assembled on-site.
Their small scale means lower costs and perhaps less anxiety than that produced by the large reactors, with which people around the world associate with disasters such as the Chernobyl meltdown in Ukraine, the tsunami-hit Fukushima reactor in Japan, or the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in the US.
The World Nuclear Association says SMRs are placed below ground, with high levels of auto-safety and “high resistance to terrorist threats”.
Smith, a member of the centre-right Progressive Conservative Party, wants to visit Australia to convince Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of the importance of nuclear energy to meeting net-zero emissions targets by 2050.
“I would start by saying that nuclear is reliable power,” he says in an interview with The Australian Financial Review.
“You can count on it to be there 24/7, 365 days a year, and it’s also affordable.
“Its non-emitting technology has allowed Ontario in large part to be one of the greenest jurisdictions in the entire world. And it’s safe.
“What this small modular reactor is going to enable countries around the world to do, including potentially Australia, is replace coal-fired power plants.
“You know, the uranium is abundant in Australia as it is here in Canada.”
Political deadlock
Smith’s ardour stands in stark contrast to the stance of successive Australian governments.
Australia has the world’s biggest reserves of uranium, but none of the infrastructure associated with nuclear power generation, be it technical knowhow, or a workforce capable of building such capacity, even as the navy tools up to begin hosting US nuclear submarines under the AUKUS deal.
Energy Minister Chris Bowen regularly derides the technology as too expensive, and points out that it wouldn’t be available in time to meet the needs of Australia’s grid as coal generation exits and renewables take over, buttressed by gas power for baseload.
Although opposition to the nuclear energy option is now entrenched in the Australian political and social psyche, the technology was once seen in the country as progressive.
In the 1950s and ’60s there were high hopes that Australia would follow the UK in developing a nuclear energy industry, especially after uranium was discovered at what became known as Mary Kathleen, north-west Queensland, in 1954.
Notwithstanding the horrors of the nuclear bombs, nuclear power was seen by many as representing scientific progress. Australia developed its own world-renowned nuclear scientists such as the University of Adelaide’s Mark Oliphant and University of Sydney physics professor Harvey Messel.
Gough Whitlam became prime minister in 1972 on a Labor platform to develop a uranium enrichment industry and nuclear power.
That didn’t happen, largely because Australia had such plentiful supplies of coal that could be burned to generate cheaper electricity.
Then, the political left and the environmental movement turned against nuclear energy and even uranium mining in some states.
Today, nuclear power is mostly a political football, albeit one that is getting played more fiercely because the Coalition seized on the technology after last year’s election loss as a potential solution for decarbonising the electricity system.
Ontario’s Smith appears to recognise the state of Australia’s political deadlock on nuclear generation, but says the controversial technology, which provides up to 60 per cent of the province’s daily electricity, is becoming an increasingly attractive proposition for global leaders committed to ambitious net-zero emissions targets.
Even the centre-left federal government of Justin Trudeau has come around to the idea of including more nuclear reactors in the generation platform. In April this year he told German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier that Canada was “very serious” about reviving nuclear power.
“As we look at what baseload energy requirements are going to be needed by Canada over the coming decades, especially as we continue to draw in global giants like Volkswagen, who choose Canada partially because we have a clean energy mix to offer . . . . we’re going to need a lot more energy,” he said.
“We’re going to have to be doing much more nuclear.”
His comments came just a month after he and US President Joe Biden pledged to coordinate efforts to guarantee reliable nuclear fuel supply chains to North America.
“I think our own federal government has had a real change of heart when it comes to nuclear power. They set targets like net zero by 2035 and net zero by 2050, but there’s been a realisation over the last couple of years that there was no way for them to hit those targets without nuclear power,” Smith says.
“So there’s really been a change in attitude from our own parliament, but I think even in other jurisdictions, particularly over in Europe.”
While countries such as Germany and Belgium are shutting down their nuclear power plants, others such as Britain and France have been planning expansion.
With offshore wind and solar unlikely to ensure Britain has uninterrupted baseload power, the official goal is to get 24 gigawatts of nuclear energy onstream by 2050 – up to a quarter of British power demand, up from 15 per cent now.
But hefty new gigawatt-scale nuclear power stations are struggling to get off the ground, so the government’s hopes are increasingly pinned on an early lift-off for SMRs.
In Japan, which has a fraught relationship with nuclear power 12 years after one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is nonetheless pushing to build new-generation reactors to combat a global energy shortage and climate change.
In a policy change announced in February, the government said it would “develop and build” upgraded nuclear reactors. The next-generation reactors would replace ageing generators, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper said at the time.
In the United States, still the world’s largest producer of nuclear power, the first new reactor to be built from scratch in a generation entered commercial operation last month.
After financial problems that at one point bankrupted the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Unit Three of Southern Company’s Alvin W. Vogtle generating plant finally began full-scale electricity production near Georgia’s border with South Carolina.
US playing catch-up
At the same time, however, the US Energy Information Administration calculates that planned nuclear power plant retirements across the US fleet will leave the country’s nuclear electricity generation capacity lower in 2050 than in 2020. The US has 92 commercial reactors across 28 US states.
The EIA also modelled the uptake of nuclear energy under different scenarios of the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act – which includes incentives for green energy similar to Canada’s – and under each of these modelled scenarios nuclear power’s relative share of US electricity generation declines.
The IRA provides a zero-emission nuclear power production credit of up to $US15 per megawatt-hour, as long as labour and wage requirements are met. In Canada, there is a 15 per cent tax credit for similar nuclear power generation.
But it’s not the incentives or lack thereof holding back the expansion of nuclear energy in North America and across the world; rather it’s low natural-gas prices, other clean-energy initiatives, and increased competition from renewable energy such as wind and solar generation.
This, however, has not stopped all investors.
Silicon Valley nuclear innovation company Oklo, backed by ChatGPT’s Sam Altman, is looking to build smaller nuclear power facilities in the US. Oklo wants to build and operate an advanced micro reactor called Aurora in Idaho.
Not too far away, billionaires Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, through the company TerraPower, have chosen the remote town of Kemmerer in Wyoming to build a $US4 billion ($6.15 billion), 345-megawatt SMR.
Changing Labor minds
Australian Andrew Liveris, former chief executive and chairman of The Dow Chemical Company, was also behind a decision for the company to use SMRs in Texas to replace coal-fired energy sources.
Liveris says the Labor Party can be “slowly” convinced to abandon its formal position on nuclear energy.
Speaking at the Australian embassy in Washington, he told the Financial Review he’d noted “the beginnings of a conversation” in Australia.
“There is a conversation that is beginning to happen. It’s not just the Opposition,” he told the Financial Review in Washington recently.
”I saw Bill Gates come into Australia and have a conversation with the prime minister.
I still think the labour, union movement is the big negative, but I think what we have to do is crawl, walk, run and use the small modular reactor experience and bring more Labor politicians over here and show how it’s safe.”
Former Australian Workers Union national secretary Dan Walton recently threw the organisation’s support behind nuclear energy.
But most other Australian unions remain opposed.
In Canada, meanwhile, union support for nuclear energy is growing.
Power Workers’ Union president Jeff Parnell says Smith’s ambitions for greater nuclear energy investment, which already underpins 76,000 jobs in Ontario, are crucial to cutting net emissions to zero.
“The Ontario government has recognised the value of nuclear energy and is taking a leadership role in the development of new nuclear generation in Ontario, which will help Canada achieve its commitments to global net-zero emissions targets,” Parnell says.
”The addition of three more [SMRs] at the Darlington site is another step towards providing affordable, reliable, zero-emissions electricity to meet Ontario’s rising demand for secure, baseload power.”
US congressmen on both sides of the political aisle have been pushing for more nuclear energy, while Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy has vowed to slice approval times for nuclear reactor development in the US if he makes office.
“It now takes 32 steps for a development process that is 25 to 40 years. And that is why there has not been a single new nuclear plant built in this country in the last 30 years, and that’s in the name of protecting our safety interests,” Ramaswamy said at a recent rally in New Hampshire.
“Nuclear energy is the best-known form of carbon-free energy production known to mankind, but while other countries are leading the way on generation-three technology, we haven’t been able to get one through our own process.
“And then after generation three comes generation four, and there’s only one country in the world that has a generation-four nuclear reactor. Anybody want to guess which one it is? It’s China. ”
Ramaswamy says he will reform the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to speed up approval times for reactor development.
Even opposition to nuclear energy among young people is starting to break down.
Andy Feng, 19, who lived near Ontario Power Generation’s Pickering Nuclear Generating Station before moving to Washington to work on political mobilisation at American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organisations, says he never had a problem with nuclear energy being so close to his home.
“I actually think there is a little bit more resistance from the older generation,” Feng says.
Even climate change activist Greta Thunberg, who once decried nuclear energy as “extremely dangerous, expensive and time-consuming”, has changed her tune somewhat, arguing recently that Germany shutting down its nuclear plants was a “mistake”.
Only path to net zero
For Ontario’s Smith, the future depends on how much people really want to get to net-zero.
“A lot of the opposition that we do have here has been quietened a bit because there is no way to net-zero without nuclear,” he says.
“I think once people are educated on the safe, reliable nuclear advantage that Ontario has had for 60 years, they learn about the fact that there is a plan to deal with the spent fuel and the waste that comes from nuclear plants and just how tiny really that amount of waste is in comparison to the gigawatts of power that these facilities have safely produced.”
He says the cost issues come with experience.
“The fact that both of our major companies, Bruce Power and Ontario Power Generation, have been successful in this refurbishment, keeping them on time and on budget, has resulted in a quieter opposition too.”
He says he would love to see these companies such as OPG investing in Australia, but respects the decisions Australians ultimately take.
“Australia embarked on a different road some time ago and, quite honestly, many other jurisdictions go down a different road, but nuclear was the right one for Ontario and continues to be the right one for Ontario.”
This private jet may beat first class on price
Aaron Patrick
Senior correspondent
Very wealthy travellers face a perennial choice: first class or private?
Qatar Executive, the private-jet business of Qatar Airways, is proposing a combination deal: take the family first class to Doha, then slip into a Gulfstream jet for the second leg to anywhere in Europe.
On Friday, when a Qatar Gulfstream 650ER was opened for inspection by potential renters at Sydney Airport, first class Doha-to-London flights on a Qatar passenger jet were selling for just under $9000 on Google.
That equates to a similar per-head price of nine passengers on the Gulfstream – the world’s second-fastest private jet – which rents out for about $US10,000 ($15,600) an hour and can carry 13.
“The economics for a family is comparable to first class,” said Justin Kestel, Qatar’s manager for Australia and New Zealand.
Officials from FIFA, the international soccer federation, rented the jet, and one other, to attend the Women’s World Cup in Sydney.
Most private jets in Australia are owned by individuals and chartered out on an ad hoc basis. Qatar Executive doesn’t base any in Australia but has 20 around the world, and specialises in the G650ER (the ER stands for extra range).
The aircraft regularly sets speed and distance records in its class, according to the Business Jet News website. One recently flew from Sydney to Los Angeles in 12 hours and 40 minutes, an average speed of mach 0.86.
The plane is known within the industry for being spacious. There are two convertible double beds on board, and two bathrooms. The interior design is simple, and almost spartan. There is little more than cream leather, cup holders and a few television screens.
“Everyone is very boring,” said one of the flight attendants. “Everyone just wants really good food and rest.”
And some discretion from the staff too, probably.
We are so despised that we do not have our own special additional body enshrined in the constitution beside the Parliament and the courts, that no one else will have access to.
I wonder if she noticed after she said that, that she was arguing that being treated like everyone else was a sign of being despised. So where does that leave the rest of us?
I really hate to have to be this blunt, but the stone age really has nothing to teach us about how the nation should be run, and even more the case the people who never lived as their stone age ancestors currently play-acting at what they think it was all about (waving smouldering sticks, wearing possum-skin ponchos – then buying some food from Colesworths or Uber, going home to a house with heating and aircon and water that comes to them, and watching MAFS in their slippers on their TV before brushing their teeth and sliding themselves between laundered cotton sheets on a bed).
Yes.
Can you imagine the pain?
You’ve been promised a sweet little role in da Voice bureaucracy. $400k plus very juicy expenses.
You and a fellow traveller have already got your eyes on a pair of townhouses in Canberra you can buy and Pay da Rent to each other – negatively geared, of course.
Polling is at 60% and you are smoking the cherry-wood.
Now it is all evaporating before your eyes.
Hell, it’s not really even the $400k.
That’s loose change.
It’s the fact that all those lobbyists who know how to “express gratitude” have stopped calling.
In order to begin to pay for the subsidies required to attract this “investment”, I propose a hefty “greening tax” on Australia’s 100 largest companies.
You know…the ones who make up the BCA.
What’s that you say, BCA? How to explain it to the shareholders?
Social license!
Very well said, indeed. Eleventy gazillion up ticks!
What did Thomas Sowell say?
When you’ve benefited from affirmative action, being treated equally feels like discrimination.
Something along that line.
Earlier:
Less death rays from space, controlled by Klaus to burn the people out so elites can get the land cheap and dig tunnels on it for the plebs.
More cheap little eco-arsonists, burning the joint to save it.
Pull the other leg, Mark Dreyfus. It plays “Land of Hope and Glory.”
Liberty quote (Mother Lode at 10.11am).
Another little zinger in the BCA submission was a “ raise the gst to pay for everything”.
Big government catamites.
I wouldn’t mind Luigi the Unbelievable knowing who I was when I tell him to his face my dog’s turds are more valuable than he is. I have to buy dog food which is a plus for the economy. Compared to him who has not contributed at all and is a blight on society.
Mmm….what if the goal is not to advise us how to run our nation but to establish their own nation within a nation?
Even the Uluru Statement one page summary is quite clear that it’s about sovereignty.
Almost half would not vote, consider D or a third party, or write-in their preferred candidate if Trump isn’t the nominee.
Huge.
The Australian has that Wong chap and turtlehead Bowen creeping around “ faith groups” to promote the in-voice.
The unflushable turd of Costello the lesser obligingly cow-toes to get his name in the media again.
Logan Paul getting trolled pretty hard on Nina Adgal’s pre-fiancee party gal ways pre-fight.
It’s like Markle’s Saudi diamonds – as Snoop said to MBS – “there ain’t no party like a boat cake party…”.
He needs a run-in with the Candyman to make him wake up.
“I am going to stalk him and become obsessed with him, and wear his makeup, and his dresses, and use his skin as a coat like the ancient Irish did.”
They’re not respecting the Irish, it’s driving me crazy, the lack of respect for the Irish in this room right now, the pure hostility against the Irish, I aim to put an end to it. The man, he smells like a blowpop, he’s got the taste of candy about him and I’m going to eat. I didn’t actually get to look at his footage yet, but I will – I’m going to make it as quick as possible, believe you me. It will be like breaking open a Cadbury egg. If I don’t shit my pants, I guarantee the first round, but we’ll see.
Never in question.
From The Oz..
Littleproud ‘no comment’ on PM’s son
Tricia Rivera
Nationals leader David Littleproud has described Anthony Albanese’s son Nathan as a “fine young man”.
When asked what he thought of the Prime Minister’s son securing a PwC internship and gaining access to Qantas’ Chairman’s Lounge, Mr Littleproud said he was not going to comment.
“In fact, I know Anthony Albanese’s son. He is well educated and well qualified. And as far as I’m concerned, a very good young man,” he told Sky News on Monday morning.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate for politicians to be talking over other people’s family members.
“He’ll make a great contribution to wherever he goes. And I don’t think we need to get into the personal attacks of family members from my perspective anyway.”
The Liberals and Nationals never ever learn, the days of being and playing nice are OVER. Do you think if one of Abbott or Morrison’s daughters had secured a PwC internship*, or had been given access to Qantas’ Chairman’s Lounge, that Labor/Greens, their friends in the MSM, would not be howling?
* Oh, and I remember when one of Abbott’s daughter had her personal scholarship details hacked. I don’t recall much, if any, condemnation from Labor and the Greens.
Vote harvesting comes to Australia.
‘Grave concerns’: Hadley lashes Sydney care facility’s Voice stance (DT, 21 Aug)
But they’re sure she’d vote Yes if her brain still worked. I wonder how many dead people will be voting Yes?
The selling of Yes by Albanese and Co. is a variation of the bait and switch fraud.
“Look, it’s just an advisory committee. And imagine how good you’ll feel by supporting the most disadvantaged people in Australia. (Subtext: You’re not one of those racists, are you?).”
Then, once passed, the switch is made and we’re on the path to indigenous sovereignty.
Too late then to complain, “Hey, I didn’t vote for this!”
For context, Logan Paul is being trolled by Conor McGregor’s jujutsu coach, whom he is scheduled to fight in a boxing match.
Well, they’re not welcome in our social club anymore.
Preach it.
Get in the cake suit, peasant.
That’s ‘bien pensant’ to you.
No barb about me owning cake suits? You miss every shot you don’t take.
So much for cheap electric cars, average price $86,000
Electric-car lobbyists have for years been promising cheaper alternatives. And while there are at least three priced below $50,000, new data shows battery-powered vehicles remain the domain of the wealthy.
The growth in sales of electric vehicles in Australia is being driven by wealthy buyers – not the motoring masses – new analysis has found.
While there are now at least three electric cars priced between $40,000 and $50,000 – all from Chinese brands such as GWM (formerly Great Wall Motors), MG, and BYD – exclusive data obtained by Drive for the first half of this year shows the average transaction price for electric vehicles is $86,000.
This puts the average transaction price of electric vehicles sold in Australia in excess of last financial year’s Luxury Car Tax threshold for zero emissions vehicles ($84,916) and just shy of the new threshold for this financial year ($89,332).
In comparison, the average transaction price for petrol and diesel cars, SUVs and utes sold in Australia over the same period is $54,600.
A looming recession will talk sense into some people.
No more noble savages or billion-dollar consultative panels.
No more 200W solar panels powering a home and a car.
Uranium and thorium are no longer viewed as inherently evil.
People will care about government spending and intentionally high inflation monetary policy.
DEI will be laughed at.
Younger women will be disabused of their indoctrination about ordinary working men as middling “losers”.
The Barbie Movie will look like a mistake.
Utter shit like the Blue Beetle will be killed off forever.
July Elbow : “Itsh jusht a one pager. Da Voishe will not be able to exershise any shignificant influenshe over shubmariness or anyfink. Treaty and reparashunsh? Thatsh not shomesink we are even conshidering”.
December Elbow : “Of courshe we should be dishcushing a treaty and reparashunsh. Itsh what the people of Shtraya voted for. Have you read the full twenty-shix pagesh? Itsh all in there. Treaty, Macarena, reparashunsh, the lot. I am shurprished that you could be shugeshting that we wouldn’t be implementing the shtatement from da Heart in full. We’ve alwaysh shaid we would.”
Toyota unveils baby ute concept
Toyota has unveiled its second small ute concept in 12 months – and previews a heavy-duty hybrid reportedly due in Asian showrooms next year.
Japanese car giant Toyota has unveiled its latest vision of what a heavy-duty ute smaller than the HiLux could look like – and it is reportedly coming to South-East Asian showrooms in the next few years.
Unlike car-based, so-called ‘lifestyle’ ute concepts, this design is based on a heavy-duty (or “ladder frame” chassis) for added capability.
The Rangga concept unveiled in Indonesia this month is an evolution of the IMV 0 show car revealed in Thailand last year, and previews a smaller and more affordable – but still heavy-duty – Toyota ute to be positioned beneath the HiLux in developing South-East Asian markets.
Overseas reports claim Toyota has confirmed plans for a production version of the Rangga concept.
Couple of old ladies gushing along with the receptionist at my health care providers re Matildas.
Did you watch the game?
Nup says I handing over credit card, had my fill of watching soccer in my youth and why would I watch a team that can be beaten by under 15 boys?
Softened with ‘I did enjoy Bend it Like Beckham’.
I think I’m now confined as one of those aliens people go on about.
You’re not an alien.
They are NPCs.
Keith Windschuttle laid out the agenda in his book “The Breakup of Australia.”
Artificial sweeteners.
What happened to the red food colouring scare campaign?
I remember (now deceased) adults crapping on about artificial sweeteners in the 1970s, yet here we are.
Okay some kids have a third eye in the middle of their foreheads but altered DNA is a small price to pay.
I’m not sure exactly who is the catamite in this relationship (although there’s no doubt where the Leafy Big Pineapple is intended to end up).
Nobody serious expects Australia to lay out 3 or 4 times the National GDP over the next 26 years to achieve Net Zero by 2050 and keep in nice with our trading partners.
Quite aside from the minor issue of where would the capital come from in a world where everyone else is committing the same flavour of seppuku, it’s deeply unlikely that anyone could spend anything like an additional 12% to 15% of GDP in the Australian economy, year on year, on vaguely defined abatement delivery programs. It would add an entirely new dimension to ‘crowded out’.
I read this as a short-term threat to Albanese and the Labor premiers to bring forward some of that yummy government OPM – enough to keep the low risk investment pipelines full. (Or else receive the full Emperor’s New Clothes treatment in time for the next election.)
I suspect the BCA rather fancies itself as the sodomite here.
They should encourage their remote brothers and sisters to engage with the laundering.
Would do far more to end the scabies problem than any ‘Voice’
And insult to injury, I too have a (modest) tax bill to pay this year.
Where’s my refund Elbow!
You’re not the only one with a cake suit, y’know.
The BCA cited the Net Zero Australia study that estimates a cumulative capital investment of $7 trillion to $9 trillion could be required to move the economy to net zero.
Which is exactly why ‘Zero’ (no need for the ‘Net’) will not be happening the way that Tennis Elbow has stated. Those smaller issues, like the lack of workers to do the work, the cost of the equipment, the cost of the infrastructure and a growing pushback from farmers and concerned voters will make the so called ‘Plan’ unachievable.
This Feral Guv’ment will be a one term Guv’ment and will be out on its ear in 2025.
Then hopefully some people with basic common sense get voted in.
7 Weeks and the Faustian Deal Hits the Table
August 20, 2023 – Sundance
I’m not always right. Sometimes events change and intersections take place on the path toward the predicted outcome. However, when ancillary events -mostly driven by human intervention in an effort to avoid what’s coming- do not cross the directional path, we arrive at the predicted destination.
At the end of May CTH shared the motive behind a series of events we should see unfold on the Twitter platform.
By the time we arrived in June, there was enough actual data to solidify a timeline {GO DEEP}. Shortly after, the New York Times published leaked revenue side documents allowing us to calculate an accurate burn rate {Go Deep} for the situation around Elon Musk. Through this accurate financial prism, everything that Elon Musk has done lines up in sequence {Go Deep}.
Cliff Notes Version:
Musk has a deficit burn rate of around $250 to $300 million per month. Musk runs out of working capital in Sept/Oct, depending on how quickly Yaccarino was/is able to enhance revenue.
Regardless of revenue, and because she just can’t generate it fast enough, approximately, seven weeks from now Musk has to secure another roughly $5 billion, to give himself enough breathing room to continue operations.
Musk has lost the $30 billion he put in. The current estimates are that Twitter is now worth between $12 to $15 billion. There is debt of $12.5 billion from the initial purchase structure still in place. The asset is worth its debt, nor much more.
With a current debt service of $100+ million per month, adding another $50 million/month ($5 billion loan) is tenuous at best. And that’s IF he can secure that investment loan. Musk has admitted he is personally limited in leverage using Tesla. He is approaching an inflexion point. 1 million subscribers paying $8/month is pittance ($8 million).
Recently X-Corp: (1) Linda Yaccarino introduced the novel concept of speech that was “lawful but awful” and must be suppressed. (2) Their desire to remove the block function. (3) Restrictions on visibility, “freedom of speech, not freedom of reach.” (4) and hired back a platform censorship team. All of these measures are designed to make “safe spaces” for advertisers to return. In essence, they are all revenue decisions.
People inside tech, and even people inside the X-Corp organization, who initially did not think my analysis was accurate, are now starting to admit it is the most likely scenario.
This arc of directional travel is not going to change, especially with Musk needing to go back into the capital markets for more working cash. Everything we are seeing is a result of this financial dynamic and the desperation is starting to show.
Yes.
This has been running for a while now.
They attacked Big Sugar, now they are after Big Substitute. I noted here a few weeks ago a news report about aspartame being a carcinogen.
Well, not really.
According to the WHO, it is a “possible but unproven” carcinogen, along with everything except distilled water.
Aspartame is used in scores, even hundreds, of foods. Which ones did the report depict?
Yep.
Coca Cola products. At least one of which was artificially sweetened, but not with aspartame.
Modified DNA.
Not a heap of evidence in the fine print about that.
I must admit I was surprised that Insolent outed himself as a shill for the WHO.
Or could it be unintentional?
Did he just read the headline and not the content, where it became apparent it was a WHO sponsored campaign?
Being compelled, by the missionaries, to boil the bedding to prevent scabies, was seen as “”demeaning.”
Put a dodgy input tax credit claim on your next BAS.
‘Stay out of it’: Rinehart CEO blasts companies backing Yes campaign
The chief executive of Gina Rinehart’s agricultural empire has slammed Australian corporations for backing the Yes campaign.
The chief executive of Gina Rinehart’s agricultural empire has slammed Australian corporations for backing the Yes campaign, saying business should “stay out of it”.
Adam Giles, former Chief Minister of the Northern Territory and now CEO of the mining magnate’s farming assets, Hancock Agriculture and S. Kidman & Co, has spoken out in several recent interviews to decry large companies including Qantas, Woolworths, Wesfarmers, Rio Tinto and BHP taking a side in the Voice debate — and contributing millions in donations and marketing.
“I think [corporates] should stay out of it,” Mr Giles, who is Indigenous, told podcaster Jody Rowe earlier this month.
“I don’t get involved in it, and as I say in this company, let’s stay in our lane. We grow cattle. We grow beef. We talk to the consumer. None of our business happens in the political world, and I don’t think we should.”
Mr Giles told the Tough Talk host he didn’t think corporate contributions to the Yes campaign were the “best use of shareholder funds”.
“I see a little bit of commentary about whether shareholders might have some sort of class action against companies, and I think they have every right to,” he said.
“It’d be interesting to see that tested. But if you’re spending two or three million dollars of shareholders’ money and profits on a political campaign which is only one side of a story, I don’t think that’s the best use of shareholders’ funds.”
In a separate interview with Sky News host Andrew Bolt, Mr Giles suggested companies would be better off spending that money directly to help Indigenous communities.
“Rather than spend all of this money on the Voice and have all of these corporations donating money to a government campaign, it would be far better to divide that money up and give it to every prescribed [Indigenous] body corporate and getting them involved in economics, supporting business development and job creation,” he said.
Has anyone got a link to CL’s blog? All of my favourites seem to have vanished!!!!
https://thecurrencylad.com/
dover0beach,
what is being shown in the US/NATO/Ukraine/Russia fight is that total sophisticted does not beat reliable agricultural approach
Note Kamaz Trucks have won 19 Dakar Rallies in Truck Division
When you look at
The international military-technical forum Army-2023 wrapped up in Kubinka outside Moscow on Sunday, after the seven-day event was attended by tens of thousands of visitors and saw the signing of hefty defense contracts.
What are the main results of the forum? Check out the event’s official media partner Sputnik to find out.
The Army-2023 forum, which was held in the Moscow region on August 14-20, saw several major events that took place under its aegis.
– Scientific and Business Program
– Moscow Security Conference
– Russian MoD’s Hefty Contracts
The military equipment includes the brand-new Malva 152mm wheeled howitzers, the upgraded version of the 2S12A 120-mm mortar systems, the Tor-M2 anti-aircraft missile systems, the Uran-6 demining robots and the Mi-8AMTSh-B “Terminator” attack helicopters, among other weaponry.
– Captured Ukrainian Weaponry
More than 850 pieces of trophy Ukrainian weapons being showcased at the Army-2023 Expo certainly became one of the must-sees of the forum.
Army-2023’s press service said ahead of the event that participants and guests would see Ukrainian military equipment, including Western-supplied hardware captured by Russian forces in the special military operation zone.
– Russia’s Army Expo Gathers Strength
Summarizing the results of the Army-2023 expo, Andrei Koshkin, a veteran Russian academic specializing in military and international affairs, told Sputnik that he was pleased with “the expansion of the platform.”
The Army expo “meets modern requirements and its area already exceeds 2,400 square meters, which made it possible to put over 350 types of military equipment from 30 states on display [this year],” Koshkin said.
When asked about modern-day challenges the Russian army faces, Koshkin mentioned the Ukraine armed conflict and Kiev’s botched counteroffensive, which he said came as surprise to the West.
“Did anyone assume the failure of the counteroffensive? They all shouted that everything unfolds in line with a plan. There was a lack of understanding of the level of a present-day conflict, and no one suggested we would destroy Western military equipment in the foreground,” he said, stressing the necessity of understanding the strategy for the development of Russian weapons.
The expert called for further developing “high-tech and high-precision weapon systems”, including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) such as the Lancets, which have showed “the effectiveness of destroying targets without losing human pilots.”
Another field is “creating remotely controlled weapons, when a soldier sits at a computer and machines fight on the battlefield. And the outcome of this battle is the basis for resolving many geopolitical problems,” Koshkin pointed out.
He separately touched upon the new Malva wheeled howitzer, saying that this military hardware will soon be mass produced for the Russian armed forces and will have “a significant impact on hostilities and increasing efficiency of our combat missions.”
Asked about prospects pertaining to the Russian military-industrial complex, the expert underscored the necessity of Moscow developing cooperation with Iran, North Korea and China, which Koshkin said would add to “creating more modern weapons systems” in Russia.
Thanks SB, much appreciated!!!
dover0beach
Aug 21, 2023 12:04 PM
Ranger regiment with air support on the Ukrainian side would end Russia’s invasion in a week. It wouldn’t even be close.
Wow. Somebody’s totally drunk on the macho “USA, USA, USA, WE ARE THE GREATEST” cool aid.
Liked the reply. A dose of reality.
Well said, Mother Lode, at 10.11
The Stone Age has nothing to teach us about running Australia.
Pedro the Loafer
The method you described should have been detected by ultrasound scanning, should it not?
Uniparty’s Plan to Save ‘Our Democracy™’ Unfolds
Trump is an existential threat to their continued existence
By Roger Kimball
August 20, 2023
The fish are plentiful today.
There’s Hunter Biden and his various lies: about the sources of his prodigious income, his payment (that is, non-payment) of taxes, drugs, guns, child support, laptops and prostitutes.
There’s Joe Biden and his lies, the sources of his prodigious income, and—the latest—his use of pseudonymous email accounts when writing to Hunter and Hunter’s business partners to discuss the weather—or was it the whether and how to siphon 20 million of the crispest into virtually untraceable bank accounts?
There’s the seemingly endless series of indictments directed at Donald Trump.
The latest new there, if I am up to date, is that he told people to watch election returns on One America News Network.
Clearly part of a RICO conspiracy.
Someone whose math is sharper than mine calculated that President Trump is potentially on the hook for 450 years in the slammer for . . . well, his torts are mostly in the eye of the beholder.
This coming week, Fox News, whose leaders have made no secret of their contempt for Trump, are holding the first Republican debate.
Problem:
as of this writing, it looks as though Trump will not be participating. How rude! And to Fox News, which hates him, and to the RNC, which doesn’t like him very much. How could he do this?
The really delicious thing is that even if Trump doesn’t show up for the debate, he will upstage everyone.
The word at the moment is that he’ll do an interview with Tucker Carlson on Twitter at the same time as the debate.
My bookies report that viewership of that interview, should it take place, would be far higher than the viewership for watching Chris Christie throw his, er, weight around.
Quick: who is Doug Bergum and does anyone care?
Yes, the event will be an opportunity for Tim Scott and Vivek Ramaswamy to shine.
It will also be a sort of last bite at the apple for Ron DeSantis and his sputtering campaign.
But let’s face it, whether Trump shows up or not, he is the star of the show.
If he doesn’t show, his performance will be like that of Tallulah Bankhead who, late in her career, was dissed by some pushy ingenue. “I could upstage you dahling,” Tallulah said, “without even being on stage.”
She did, too, by the simple expedient of precariously balancing a champagne glass half-on-half-off a table when she made her exit.
The ingenue came on for her big scene, but all eyes were glued to the glass: would it or would it not fall off the table? (No one knew that she had put sticket tape on the bottom of the glass).
I don’t know what is going to happen in this election anymore than you do, Dear Reader.
But I have been amused by the absolute certitude of the chattering class, which assures us with hands wringing that 1) Trump is a very bad man 2) That he cannot win the general election but that 3) The clever but insidious Dems will assure that he wins the nomination, thus assuring a Republican defeat come November 2024.
Maybe.
But maybe the Dems keep indicting Trump because they are terrified that he could win, and then what?
Wouldn’t it be better to put him in jail, issue a gag order, say that anything he says is an effort to overturn the 2020, or the 2024, election and thereby undermine Our Democracy™?
I think that is the more likely explanation, but I admit that these are deep waters.
There are plenty of scenarios by which someone other than Trump becomes the Republican nominee, beginning with various acts of God.
One big problem for the Republican aspirants, though, is that if Trump is prevented by chicanery from being the nominee, a critical portion of his millions of voters will stay home, thus depriving any other candidate of victory.
If Trump fails to become the nominee because he is suddenly incapacitated or dies, that is a different story. But so far, he seems surprisingly robust.
What many of these Trump-can’t-win prognostications overlook, I believe, is that he will not be running in a vacuum.
What matters is not just the “37%” of voters (or whatever the real number is) who say they like or agree with him.
There also is the candidate from the other party: Joe Biden, probably, but possibly Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, or even (some say) Michelle Obama.
The real question was posed by Michael Anton in “They Can’t Let Him Back In,” a black-pilled essay he published in Compact last summer.
“The people who really run the United States of America,” Anton wrote, “have made it clear that they can’t, and won’t, if they can help it, allow Donald Trump to be president again.”
It is curious, as Anton also points out, that for all the fury directed at Trump the individual, the real target of deep state animus is not Trump himself but his supporters, his “base.”
Trump was right when he said “they’re not after me. They’re after you. I’m just standing in the way.”
Anton got to the nub of the issue when he observed that “Anti-Trump hysteria is in the final analysis not about Trump.
The regime can’t allow Trump to be president not because of who he is (although that grates), but because of who his followers are.”
Biden’s Email Aliases Reveal More Lies, Schemes
Joe Biden’s email aliases reveal truth behind aw-shucks facade
By Glenn H. Reynolds
Writing in National Review, Charles C.W. Cooke observes: “If this allegation is proven to be accurate, what could the defense possibly be?
As with the claims that the Biden family created a network of more than 20 shell companies; that Vice President Biden joined phone calls with Hunter and his foreign business partners upwards of twenty times; and that Joe flew Hunter to China on Air Force Two to meet with one of Hunter’s CCP-connected Chinese business partners, I honestly can’t think of one.”
I can’t think of a defense either.
But I can think of an explanation, and that explanation is that Joe was all in on a vast criminal enterprise in which bribes from sources as diverse as China and Ukraine were solicited, received and laundered.
I suppose there may be other, more innocent, explanations, but like Cooke I’m having trouble thinking of anything that makes this pattern of behavior look innocent.
Which is why I’m wondering if when Joe Biden is acting senile, he’s actually acting senile.
Some New Yorkers may remember Vincent “The Chin” Gigante, the mob boss who pretended to be crazy for 30 years to throw off law enforcement.
The press called him “The Oddfather” for his habit of wandering around Greenwich Village in a bathrobe and slippers, mumbling incoherently. He was trying to look as if he were too crazy to be running the mob.
So is Biden putting on the same act, this time in the White House?
Gigante was part of the Genovese family crime mob, and the feds eventually nailed him.
The Biden family syndicate, meanwhile, has been raking in tens, possibly hundreds, of millions from shady foreign sources, something that begs for the kind of law enforcement attention that the Genovese family got.
The difference is, the feds seem more interested in covering for the Bidens than in investigating these connections, which have so far only faced investigation from congressional committees.
If Albanese was a retailer he’d be under investigation by the ACCC.
New Emails Provide Stunning Evidence of DOJ and Hunter Biden Corruption
As RedState reported, a new report from Politico blew up the lengths to which Hunter Biden’s legal team went to secure the sweetheart plea deal that would eventually fall apart under questioning from Judge Maryellen Noreika.
In a shocking revelation, a threat was lodged to call President Joe Biden as a witness if the now-infamous gun crime Hunter Biden committed was prosecuted. That would have presumably left the DOJ facing the wrath of the White House, and sure enough, pre-trial diversion with broad immunity was eventually offered.
The New York Times was also shown the emails that Politico based its story on, and together, the two outlets offer a stunning look at various events that appear to show clear collusion between Hunter Biden and the DOJ. Tristen Leavitt, who works for Empower Oversight, a whistleblower advocacy group that represents Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, put together a thread of the highlights.
Hunter’s attorneys were meeting with prosecutors from both Weiss’s office *and* DOJ’s Tax Division, because the Tax Division held the keys to whether Weiss’s office would have freedom to pursue the charges or not. DOJ Tax could deny Weiss’s ability to bring charges. /5
— Tristan Leavitt (@tristanleavitt) August 20, 2023
AUSA Lesley Wolf had already pulled punches in the 2018-2021 investigation, and now in 2022 she was more than sympathetic to the arguments from Hunter’s legal team, who she met with regularly without investigators. Clark told her charging Hunter would be “career suicide.” /9 pic.twitter.com/QHItoXmkP8
— Tristan Leavitt (@tristanleavitt) August 20, 2023
Hunter Biden’s legal strategy was to pressure and coerce the DOJ into not prosecuting. That was accomplished through the aforementioned threat of calling Joe Biden to testify, but also through a series of moves to politicize the probe, including inserting Donald Trump into the discussion.
You may recognize the name Lesley Wolf, as that’s the same Assitant U.S. Attorney who essentially scuttled the IRS’ investigation into Hunter Biden.
I can only assume she took the threat of “career suicide” from Hunter Biden’s lawyers very seriously given her actions regarding the case.
Pressure also appears to have been applied to the U.S. Attorneys in other districts, including in the districts that would ultimately not file charges and rebuff Weiss’ request for cooperation.
LEGAL
In talks with prosecutors, Hunter Biden’s lawyers vowed to put the president on the stand
A behind-the-scenes look at how a plea deal for the president’s son nearly came together before it fell apart.
It was Halloween of 2022, and Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Chris Clark, didn’t sound happy. Just three weeks earlier, news had leaked that federal agents believed they had enough evidence to charge his client with illegally buying a gun as a drug user.
The leak was “illegal,” the lawyer wrote to the U.S. attorney overseeing the probe. The prosecution, he argued, would be seen as purely political, and it might even violate the Second Amendment.
Then he issued a warning: If the Justice Department charged the president’s son, his lawyers would put the president on the witness stand.
“President Biden now unquestionably would be a fact witness for the defense in any criminal trial,” Clark wrote in a 32-page letter reviewed by POLITICO.
That letter, along with more than 300 pages of previously unreported emails and documents exchanged between Hunter Biden’s legal team and prosecutors, sheds new light on the fraught negotiations that nearly produced a broad plea deal.
That deal would have resolved Biden’s most pressing legal issues — the gun purchase and his failure to pay taxes for several years — and it also could have helped insulate Biden from future prosecution by a Republican-led Justice Department.
The documents show how the deal collapsed — a sudden turnabout that occurred after Republicans bashed it and a judge raised questions about it.
The collapse renewed the prospect that Biden will head to trial as his father ramps up his 2024 reelection bid.
The Georgia charade: More charges against Trump imperil democratic process
By Editorial Board – The Washington Times
Elected Democrats are giddy that another left-wing prosecutor has lodged criminal charges against former President Donald Trump. They may come to regret what this will do to our system of government.
As much as Mr. Trump relished chants of “lock her up” at his campaign rallies in 2016, it was bluster. He had no desire to prosecute former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton once in power — a point that he and his campaign surrogates made clear well before Inauguration Day.
Lacking such scruples, Democrats are blinded by the prospect of easy victory over a jailed opponent and confident that few will ever read the rambling, 98-page indictment setting their strategy in motion.
Fulton County District Attorney Fanni T. Willis, a Democrat, charges Mr. Trump and his staff with engaging in “criminal activities including, but not limited to, false statements and writings” with which he attempted to “persuade Georgia legislators to reject lawful electoral votes cast by the duly elected and qualified presidential electors from Georgia.”
The indictment asserts that Mr. Trump’s first conspiratorial act was that he “falsely declared victory and falsely claimed voter fraud.”
Falsely declaring victory and claiming election fraud is an American political tradition. Just ask Georgia’s Stacey Abrams, who denied losing the 2018 gubernatorial election while alleging numerous irregularities in the voting process.
All of a sudden, allegations of irregularity have become criminal acts, with Mr. Trump standing accused of sending several felonious tweets about a state legislative hearing.
“Wow!” he tweeted. “Blockbuster testimony taking place right now in Georgia. Ballot stuffing by Dems when Republicans were forced to leave the large counting room.”
The indictment’s central complaint is that these tweets were part of a crackpot design to send votes from alternate Georgia electors to the Electoral College. While more will likely come to light about this in the months ahead, such an effort posed no threat to the republic.
In 2016, Mr. Trump’s opponents concocted a faithless elector scheme of their own, creating a campaign to pressure electors in several states into going rogue and casting their electoral vote for anyone but Mr. Trump. Contrivances of this sort are as old as the country itself.
In the 1960 election, John F. Kennedy secured a popular majority over Richard Nixon, but Georgia’s Democratic electors were inundated with correspondence urging them to cast their electoral votes for a Democrat more sympathetic to the South. Newspapers across Georgia became a part of the arm-twisting campaign that ultimately failed to alter the election’s outcome.
Our system of checks and balances ensures that the Electoral College can resist these misguided undertakings.
America has survived more than two centuries of post-election grousing and tumult. It remains to be seen whether it can survive one side’s attempt to imprison its leading opponent in advance of an election.
From the Gateway pundit:
AOC and Other ‘Squad’ Members Have Spent $1.2 Million in Campaign Cash on Private Security After Calling for Defunding the Police
Paywallian:
Victoria will pay AGL Energy to keep the state’s largest electricity generator open until 2035 if Australia has not yet developed enough renewables, but the power station is enduring financial losses.
Victoria has legislated Australia’s most aggressive energy transition policy that sees the state commit to cutting emissions by between 75 and 80 per cent by 2035, and bring forward its net-zero target by five years to 2045. To achieve this, Victoria will prohibit coal power generation in the state by 2035.
While Victoria has taken a hardline, there is widespread scepticism about the capacity of the state to deal with loss of coal generation, especially if one of the dominant electricity generators were to retire earlier than scheduled.
In a move that will temper market concern but evaluate the political discomfort for the state government that was one of the key opponents to coal being included in a so-called capacity mechanism, AGL said it has entered a deal that will manage the retirement of its Loy Yang A coal power station.
Victoria in 2022 opposed efforts by the former federal Coalition government to develop a capacity mechanism, which would have paid generators – irrespective of the energy source – to ensure sufficient capacity. Victoria and other opponents dubbed the policy coal-keeper.
AGL last year said it would shutter its Loy Yang coal power station in 2035, a decade earlier than previously planned, after sustained pressure from investors — including the company’s largest shareholder billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes.
Australian energy market authorities believe Loy Yang is vital for Australia’s energy security until 2035, but coal power stations are under mounting economic pressure.
Typical coal power stations are inflexible and generate electricity throughout the day with little variance in output. But a rise of solar and wind generation has sent the wholesale price of electricity to zero or even in negative territory, meaning many coal generators are often making losses during daylight hours.
Losses are pared later in the day when the sun sets, but a rise of batteries threatens to exacerbate the financial losses of coal generators
AGL chief executive Damien Nicks earlier this month said the company had invested significant sums to ensure its coal fleet has flexibility and therefore less susceptible to the economic pressures,
Still, the rise of renewables threatens the economics of even the most flexible of fossil fuel generators.
In a deal that ensures AGL does not close Loy Yang prematurely when the broader National Electricity Market requires the generation capacity, Victoria has agreed to share any future financial pain with the retailer until 2035 – effectively safeguarding the future of a generator that produces about 30 per cent of the state’s electricity.
AGL did not disclose the financial terms of the arrangement.
If Australia has developed enough renewable energy generation capacity before 2035 and Loy Yang is enduring financial losses, AGL and Victoria could jointly agree for the early exit of the generator, but it will require endorsement from Australia’s energy market operator that there is sufficient capacity to compensate, The Australian understands.
However, Australia is struggling to build enough renewable energy generation sources to replace the fossil fuel capacity leaving the system already, so an early exit on the current trajectory remains unlikely.
Such is the pace of building renewables, there is also heightened alarm at the capacity to adequately replace Loy Yang in 2035. If Australia does not build enough renewables to replace coal, power prices will increase.
Victoria has used these so-called closure contracts before, striking a deal with EnergyAustralia to manage the closure of its Yallourn coal power station in 2028.
Ensuring Loy Yang stays open until 2035 will give the state sufficient time to progress offshore wind, the cornerstone of its plan to wean from coal.
The Victorian government last year set a target of generating the equivalent of about 20 per cent of its energy needs from offshore wind within a decade.
The target then doubles to 4GW by 2035 and 9GW by 2040. In all, Victoria sees potential for 13GW of offshore wind capacity by 2050, five times the state’s current renewable generation.
The target has drawn a plethora of some of the world’s largest offshore wind developers, but even the most advance project – Star of the South – is unlikely to generate the first electricity before 2030 and other jurisdictions are pushing the generation source, so Australia may struggle to secure much needed supplies in time to guarantee it meets ambitious targets.
Link
Rear Window
Anthony Albanese’s son in PwC internship
Joe Aston and Myriam Robin
It’s coming up on three weeks since this column published the revelation that Anthony Albanese had procured a membership of the Qantas Chairman’s Lounge for his adult son Nathan and never declared it on the parliamentary register of interests.
This cannot be brushed aside as normal. Yes, all federal MPs and their spouses are given Chairman’s Lounge membership.
But in the 15 years Alan Joyce has been chief executive of Qantas, no other serving prime minister – and no other politician, full stop – has prevailed upon the airline to also provide Chairman’s Lounge membership to their progeny.
To this day, Albanese still has not been required to answer a single question about this.
Not in multiple television and radio interviews. Not in question time by the Liberal and National parties, nor by the teal independents – all elected on a platform of restoring integrity to the parliament and all of whom, upon their election, accepted membership of the Chairman’s Lounge.
Albanese refused to take questions at a major Qantas media event he headlined with Joyce last week.
At this point, we have another revelation.
In the first half of 2021, while he was still opposition leader, Albanese had a conversation with PwC’s then government relations boss Sean Gregory, who was pushed out of the firm in June in the scattergun purge over the tax leaks scandal.
According to multiple sources within PwC, Albanese and Gregory discussed an internship at PwC for Albanese’s son Nathan.
Gregory then passed on Nathan’s information to the firm’s HR department and in June 2021, Nathan completed a two-week, unpaid placement in PwC’s Economics & Policy Unit in Sydney under PwC’s chief economist Jeremy Thorpe.
At a function months later, the Labor leader thanked PwC chief executive Tom Seymour for organising the internship, which was the first Seymour even knew about it.
PwC declined to comment. In an email, a spokesman for the prime minister said, “What you have suggested is incorrect” but then declined to clarify what was incorrect.
The Prime Minister’s Office also declined to return multiple phone calls.
Bear in mind, there is no unpaid two-week internship program at PwC.
There is no application process open to the public.
There is no twice-yearly intake. This is an opportunity provided on an individual, ad hoc basis almost exclusively to the relatives of influential people.
It’s an opportunity provided reluctantly. No undergraduate student is qualified to do any productive client work, so menial tasks must be invented to occupy them.
What’s more, their access to information at PwC is highly restricted because of – wait for it – rules around confidentiality! Major LOLs.
So, then, why would PwC do it? For one reason.
The same reason you make a political donation – it’s a variation of the same theme: to earn the firm a place in the trust and good favour of that influential parent.
This is how corporate Australia operates, of course. It is how the world works.
Any parent would – and does – use their connections to gain an advantage for their children. More broadly, gratuities, winks, nods and fast-tracks are all part of the game of mates in the private sector.
The game of mates, however, must end where public officialdom begins. You can’t have the family of government ministers receiving undisclosed patronage from companies the government regulates or that do business with the government.
Does that make it harder for the sons and daughters of elected leaders to get ahead without their parents playing the role of advancer?
Harder than the offspring of CEOs, maybe, but certainly not harder than the offspring of truck drivers or aged care nurses.
Having the surname Albanese (or Howard or Keating) and the forwarding address “Kirribilli House” on your CV is a decent professional head start without Dad needing to pick up the phone.
Serious issue
Nathan, who graduated from university in October last year, now works full-time at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
It’s safe to say he’s the only junior burger in the institutional bank with Chairman’s Lounge privileges.
Imagine the next trip to Melbourne.
“Sorry lads, I’ll see you all on the plane – unless you’d care to join me for a grass-fed eye fillet and a half-bottle of Ruinart blanc de blancs before take-off?”
His father’s first job out of uni was also at CommBank, his first and only job in the “real world” – a bloated public service organisation – before sliding irreparably into the Canberra bubble where reaching into your own wallet is almost never the done thing.
Albo said last week he would never have privatised the CBA.
If only. Nathan would’ve been CEO by now – or at least a member of the executive leadership team.
The staff directory of every investment bank and advisory firm in South-East Asia is loaded with the extended family of the region’s despots. Even poor princeling Alex Turnbull – an established liar under oath – toiled at Goldman Sachs in Singapore while his father was communications minister.
This is a serious issue because we should expect that our politicians aren’t influenced in any way by favours given to them or to members of their family.
And how do we ever verify these favours if they are not declared on the parliamentary register of interests?
Perhaps emboldened by the lack of any scrutiny on the matter outside of this column, Albanese shows zero interest in coming clean on Nathan’s Chairman’s Lounge membership.
This only leaves the public to wonder what else we don’t know about.
Take, in contrast, Penny Wong’s most recent updates to her register of interests. “Qatar Airways upgrade to First Class on flight QR908 from Doha to Sydney on September 25, 2022 … Hotel upgrade in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from a standard room to a Park Suite… Hotel upgrade in Paris, France from a standard room to a junior suite.” That is a woman with nothing to hide.
We are not suggesting this is the crime of the century.
Nathan Albanese received no financial benefit here (although his Chairman’s Lounge membership has a monetary value).
This is nevertheless a matter of legitimate public interest.
The Australian media has long reported on the perquisites of the dependent adult children of prime ministers – most notably the scholarship Tony Abbott’s daughter Frances received to attend a college whose chairman, a Liberal donor, had even bought clothes for the Liberal leader.
None of this should be construed as an attack on the Prime Minister’s son, who has done nothing wrong. We would be very happy to leave Nathan Albanese out of our coverage.
However, that would require his father to exercise better judgment, and proper disclosure.
Dover Beach:
The odds they are having to defend against are so overwhelming as to require a war time economy, and no nation can expect to prevail against them.
Just wait until Cannon-Brookes hears about this.
Chuckle.
Robert @ 12.36pm.
There are many “simple” ways to check if purported gold is fake or been polluted with other metals. Your local pawnshop will have a device that can assess purity etc. but my Chinese Tael ingot took a $3000 precious metal analyser to finally determine that it was not what it seemed.
It is the best fake I have ever seen, and I have seen a LOT of gold specimens in my time.
The worst fake I have ever seen was a nugget made from aluminium beer cans melted in a campfire, spray painted gold and sold to an unsuspecting patsy in a Pilbara caravan park. Much hilarity from the locals who profited from the sale.
Tom
Aug 21, 2023 1:08 PM
Paywallian:
Victoria will pay AGL Energy to keep the state’s largest electricity generator open until 2035 if Australia has not yet developed enough renewables, but the power station is enduring financial losses.
Victoria has legislated Australia’s most aggressive energy transition policy that sees the state commit to cutting emissions by between 75 and 80 per cent by 2035, and bring forward its net-zero target by five years to 2045. To achieve this, Victoria will prohibit coal power generation in the state by 2035.
Thanks Tom,
Australia “The Land of The Stupid – led by BlackOut Bowen and the Labor/Greens Parties”
OldOzzie, it brings to mind this:
It looks like the price, given what we can make out from their deal with Morrocco, has dropped since the Indian deal. Could be as low as $1M now, but still a massive difference irrespective of the lower capability of the Lancet.
Always the bridesmaid, never the bride .. LOL!
Luigi tried to fix up a “don’t ya knoze who I am jerb” fer the boy but
Burisma said, “Sorry, no vacancies”
so he had to settle fer an “unpaid” internship with PwC ..
The Chairman’s Lounge tix wuz compensation .. LOL!
https://ibb.co/JsvH4X6
The T-34 of drones.
All you need is a bath tub, scales, and a hairy old Greek, and…EUREKA!
bons
What sort of surgery, bons?
Further to…
Leftist Aussie PM Would Ban Social Media if Granted Dictatorial Powers”
Well at least Sleazy is being honest with us, one of the few times he is being honest and transparent. Geez, it’s quite refreshing to hear him speak truth but it isn’t just that he would love to ban social media and censor sites like this, I believe he would like to shut down free speech in this country. He’s a Trot, once a Trot, always a Trot. And you wanna know what? Sleazy’s government and his ideological comrades on the left are well on their way to shutting down free speech in this country.
Which brings me to something I’ve been thinking about over the weekend. As you all know on the weekend I attended CPAC, along with hundreds of other ordinary Australian men and women. It was a great weekend, interesting speeches, chatting with other like-minded people, I found it inspiring, it’s akin to drinking a good tonic, and in these dark times we need a lot of tonics. I attended the first CPAC back in August 2019, and I’ve attended every year since (except 2021 when there wasn’t one do to the China virus). I acknowledge CPAC isn’t for everyone. I don’t judge people’s reasons as to why they can’t or won’t attend CPAC, the full weekend ticket is costly (although I think it’s worth every cent) however you can also get day passes which are affordable. I understand that such events are not everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s perfectly okay because, for the time being, we still live in a free country although I do wonder how long this will be the case.
However, given the censorious times we live in, I have no time for those churlish naysayers on the right who sneer and denigrate CPAC, and the work of Andrew Cooper and others. Please leave the churlish smearing and ridiculing of CPAC to the left, because they excel at it, that’s their job, and every year they make a habit of ridiculing, sneering, smearing and attempting to shut down CPAC, along with intimidating those of us who choose to attend. The Australian left have made it clear, for over four years now, that they don’t want CPAC Australia to exist, and that people on the right, such as myself, whether we be conservatives or libertarians, have no right to convene, no right to gather and no right to assemble to discuss issues that are important to this country. We’re invariably smeared as far-right”….”far-right”…..”far-right”. And they were at it again last week, smearing various speakers as “Nazis”. Whenever CPAC is about to happen, the dog whistling and the gaslighting is ignited. From its inception in 2019, CPAC has been targeted by the left, and here is a little list of various attempts by the left to shut down CPAC.
1. In 2019, that highly noxious unlamented failed candidate for Fowler, Kristina Keneally, described CPAC as “far-right”, she smeared Raheem Kassam, a man who’d grown up in a Muslim family, as an ‘Islamophobe’. She and others in Labor led a pile on of the event, with the result that it emboldened far-left scum to protest outside the Sydney hotel whilst the conference was happening. I know this because I witnessed it.
2. Just a few months after the 2019 inaugural CPAC conference, in a much more sinister and infamous move, CPAC organisers and some speakers, including former PM Tony Abbott, were targeted by the Attorney General’s department (and the Liberal government of the time). I’ll just refresh people’s memories….
“Tony Abbott has been asked to register as an agent of foreign ¬influence under controversial ¬national security laws, for addressing the Conservative Political -Action Conference in August.
In the first action of its kind under the foreign-influence laws, the event’s Australian organiser, Andrew Cooper, whose small not-for-profit organisation LibertyWorks co-hosted CPAC in Sydney with the American Conservative Union (ACU), was ordered to hand over documents and threatened with jail time.
The Weekend Australian can reveal that Mr Abbott was asked to register as an agent of foreign ¬influence one day before he ¬addressed CPAC. The conference was held in Australia for the first time in August and included prominent international speakers including Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage and British political activist Raheem Kassam.
Mr Cooper received an ¬October 21 letter from the ¬Attorney-General’s Department demanding the production of ¬documents under the government’s Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme.
Like Mr Abbott, he has refused to comply and challenged the ¬department about why it was not ¬focused on more pressing “stories of Chinese Communist Party agents influencing university campuses or bankrolling political candidates”.
The decision by the department to target Mr Abbott and Mr Cooper comes amid a national ¬debate over Chinese influence at Australian universities and -research ¬organisations. It coincided with a damning ICAC inquiry that has heard allegations the NSW ALP received a $100,000 donation in an Aldi shopping bag from a banned donor, billionaire property developer Huang Xiangmo.
The government’s crackdown on foreign influence has been ¬attacked by legal experts including Sydney University’s Anne Twomey, who warned it could force thousands of people, including authors, academics and publishers, to register as agents of other countries.
The letter to Mr Cooper, sent by Sarah Chidgey, the deputy secretary of the Integrity and International Group, advised him to provide all documents “detailing any understanding or arrangement between LibertyWorks and the ACU”. She asked for invitations to the event, correspondence with speakers as well as the transcripts and recordings of the ¬addresses. It noted that failure to comply with the order within 14 days carried a maximum penalty of six months’ jail.
In his reply, Mr Cooper said the department “appears less like the defender of freedom and more like that of the old East German Stasi”.
“You hold a gun to our head and demand information that we do not have,” he wrote.
3. Last year, CPAC was supposed to be held at the Luna Park conference centre here in Sydney, however thanks to leftist activists harassing Luna Park management, the management of the venue pulled out only a month before CPAC was due to be held. Andrew Cooper had to find a venue quickly (which they did, thankfully).
I could go on, the above is a small taste of what conservative groups regularly endure at the hands of the left. CPAC events require a heavy police presence, I bet a similar conference held by the left doesn’t require police to protect it from non-existent right-wing protesters.
Forgive the rant. I repeat, I don’t care if people choose to attend conservative conferences or not, but I do care that there is not more solidarity on the right. The left have never had this problem because they know how to stick together regardless, and most importantly, they don’t diss on their own. As I wrote a few days ago, we on the right could do with a little more “solidarity”, and a little less “dissing”, because if we don’t we will just continue to dance to the music of the left. I don’t know about others, but I refuse to dance to their music.
“Eureka!”
Oh dammit, my ingot is 90% tungsten. 🙁
Now that Victoria has set the precedent, hopefully Minns can summon up the imagination and testosterone to ask AGL if they would be everso amenable to, perhaps, if it is not too much to ask, and surely they will be greatly remunerated for the inconvenience, and you look so lovely tonight, maybe they could keep some of their assets functioning.
Sweetness?
Can you imagine the pain?
You’ve been promised a sweet little role in da Voice bureaucracy. $400k plus very juicy expenses.
Reminds me of the Teal entourages.
All expecting staffing roles, but then Albo only gives them one more than a back bencher.
All their watching of House of Cards was for nothing.
CPAC was a gathering of either the Ku Klux Klan or the Nazi Party. Twitter is undecided on this.
However the choice is binary – there is no third option.
Suggested responses (for the government to implement by tonight) range from complete “Faraging” & total cancellation (including firing) of all speakers, through to complete & total revoking of the civil rights of not just speakers, but all attendees.
For Emperor Xi’s most useful Australian idiot Dan Andrews, he knows Net Zero will never work, so he must keep shifting the goalposts.
In the meantime, it performs the essential target (for Xi) of crippling the Chinese Communist Party’s mortal enemy, the capitalist free market.
So Chairman Dan is able to maintain faithful obedience to the Marxist texts he studied at Monash University while operating in the hollowed-out Australian shell of the free market.
Having harvested strong electoral success for his mad China-style Kung Flu lockdowns – with lots of help from the Stupid Frigging Liberals – Andrews knows he’s on safe ground in Victoria, where communism has the status of an exciting forbidden fruit with none of the murder and mayhem that would follow a CCP takeover.
Where’s calli? I hope she’s okay.
flyingduk Avatar
flyingduk
Aug 21, 2023 9:19 AM
Better add Australia to that list, flyingduk – you can bet this summer will realise devastating bushfires of no apparent cause.
I find that bit hard to believe. Jonova recently put up costs of electricity production by sector and the brown coal power plants are producing at 3c/kWh.
Smells like a bit of very creative AGL accounting.
Cerno’s not bad, but yes, people need to get a hold of reality. If the US could be fought to a stalemate in Korea, the idea that it could overwhelm a near-peer/ peer enemy in Ukraine in a week is reckless fantasy.
Yes!
Reason #459356 why the Australian media is despicable.
Re Elbow Minor.
No and no.
No # 1. These opportunities are not provided reluctantly. They are provided enthusiastically by CEOs and HRs. The reluctance comes from already overworked management types who have to do the babysitting.
No # 2. Providing menial tasks for them is soooo 1998. I used to do it, not as any form of hazing or punishment but to give the kids a taste of what their first 1-3 years in the job would be like. But it ended up with having to provide a “work plan” (with no drudgery) and ensure “they had a well-rounded experience and were involved in key business processes”. HRs lived in fear of being dissed on Facebook by 18 year olds.
It just meant I had to invent creative euphemisms for “filing” and “copying”.
There was a great episode of “Utopia” where the intern comes in, refuses to do any real work and keeps banging on about ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance).
Drives everyone nuts but ends up in the Minister’s office pushing the ESG barrow.
A right little Britnah or Bruce.
So is Qantarse the new Burisma???
Hmm that’s “funny” cos Maurice Newman gave a talk about how Australia currently paralleled Germany 1933….(and he had some good evidence for it too!!!)