Open Thread – Weekend 9 Sept 2023


The road of Versailles, Camille Pissarro, 1870

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Nelson_Kidd-Players
Nelson_Kidd-Players
September 9, 2023 12:02 am
KevinM
KevinM
September 9, 2023 12:19 am

Robert Sewell
Sep 8, 2023 10:58 PM

Cassie of Sydney

Sep 4, 2023 7:50 AM
The Liberals in every state have proved themselves to be cowards and quislings.

Yes they have, Cassie. However wouldn’t it be nice to watch them as a junior partner in a National/PHON/Liberal Coalition?
The reorganisation on the Right may just be happening as we watch.

Sadly, as much as I like Pauline and some of her approach to politics, this unification will never happen as long as she is in control of her party.

Just too much ego, partly justified I may add, she carried on when lesser people would’ve given up.

Rabz
September 9, 2023 12:33 am

I keep running away
but when I leave
you pull in me in again
here we go

We both know

If you want want …

oooooooh oooohooo … 🙂

Rabz
September 9, 2023 12:38 am

Taylor Swift

V

Miss Maggie Dodgers

Not even a contest. The latter is the best.

That’s where Ayaam. 🙂

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 9, 2023 1:13 am

Bald and bankrupt:

8 Sept 2023

Bangladesh is a country of mighty rivers and some dodgy river boats. I decided to jump on one and ride down the river in style in my own VIP cabin. Check out what you can get for the princely sum of $12! And on the way I made some friends. Join me on the world’s cheapest VIP cruise!

The World’s Cheapest VIP Cruise! $12!

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
September 9, 2023 1:33 am

The beginnings of societal decay in the land of the Rising Sun.
1. After a week we see our first graffiti on the wall of a carpark;
2. Man opposite us on the Sashimi (fast train) listening to messages or radio on his phone;
3. Lady behind us on the Sashimi fast train applying stinking nail polish.
End of days.

pete of perth
pete of perth
September 9, 2023 2:49 am

Lots of Russians holidaying in Sri Lanka. The direct flights and no visa restrictions probably help. 3rd last day here. Nor as cheap as Bangladesh though.

Top Ender
Top Ender
September 9, 2023 3:23 am

Yup, we are buggered. Turned around by the Greek coppers, and had to backtrack.

Our next week north is stymied. Much of central Greece is flooded, and we’d be foolish to keep trying to go north and get around the flood zone. We have retreated to a small village called Glifa for a rethink.

Tom
Tom
September 9, 2023 4:00 am
Tom
Tom
September 9, 2023 4:01 am
Tom
Tom
September 9, 2023 4:02 am
Tom
Tom
September 9, 2023 4:05 am

The London Evening Standard‘s Christian Adams is evidently a climate zombie. Sad.

Tom
Tom
September 9, 2023 4:05 am
Tom
Tom
September 9, 2023 4:06 am
Tom
Tom
September 9, 2023 4:10 am
Tom
Tom
September 9, 2023 4:11 am
feelthebern
feelthebern
September 9, 2023 4:41 am

We have retreated to a small village called Glifa for a rethink.

What would Leonidas do ?

feelthebern
feelthebern
September 9, 2023 4:43 am

Another 8/10 in the Oz daily quiz.
But the less said about the weekend quiz, the better.
To nail that one this weekend, you have to be on the spectrum.

Top Ender
Top Ender
September 9, 2023 4:43 am

A look at what’s happening around where we are:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66751510

feelthebern
feelthebern
September 9, 2023 4:49 am

I am so low information.
Today I learned that Bill Clinton was younger than Obama when elected.

feelthebern
feelthebern
September 9, 2023 5:05 am

The Rugby World Cup will go for 51 days.
The 2026 World Cup (soccer/football whatever you want to call it) will go for 39 days.
Ridiculously long.

Top Ender
Top Ender
September 9, 2023 5:39 am

What would Leonidas do?

I expect a lot of serious thinking first.

The Persians IIRR were the ones who never made a decision without reviewing it drink – or vice-versa.

Petros
Petros
September 9, 2023 6:01 am

Another great choice of artwork, Dover. We have similar tastes. Thank you.

Pogria
Pogria
September 9, 2023 6:14 am

Top Ender,
your travelogues have been very welcome. I enjoy reading them. It is too bad your current plans are having to be revised. Although, with the calamities affecting Greece right now, it must almost feel like home. Droughts, fires, floods and Government ineptitude.
All the best TE.

rosie
rosie
September 9, 2023 6:28 am

It will take years for the land to be fertile again. Where the water has receded, a thick layer of mud has been left behind

I’d have thought the oppposite?
Bad news for you TE, hope you find a good alternative.

Pogria
Pogria
September 9, 2023 6:39 am

I’d have thought the oppposite?

My thoughts also Rosie. TE must have a lot on his mind right now.
I have been keeping up with your travelogues also. Japan sounds wonderful.

JC
JC
September 9, 2023 7:15 am

feelthebern
Sep 9, 2023 4:43 AM
Another 8/10 in the Oz daily quiz.
But the less said about the weekend quiz, the better.
To nail that one this weekend, you have to be on the spectrum.

Bern

I scored 6/10

Please tell me you didn’t know the answer to this

Which A-League Women’s team play home games at Industree Group Stadium?

Crossie
Crossie
September 9, 2023 7:32 am

rosie
Sep 9, 2023 6:28 AM
It will take years for the land to be fertile again. Where the water has receded, a thick layer of mud has been left behind

I’d have thought the oppposite?

I was taught that the annual Nile floods, before dams construction, and their fertile mud deposits were vital for agriculture since ancient times.

calli
calli
September 9, 2023 7:40 am

What would Leonidas do ?

Catch a car ferry to a northern port and bypass the floods?

Mak Siccar
Mak Siccar
September 9, 2023 7:45 am

For those wise readers that don’t subscribe, Dr Janet is on fire again in the Oz. (Sorry if this has been posted already.)

On the voice referendum, the Constitution is no place for a lobby group

Janet Albrechtsen

12:00AM SEPTEMBER 9, 2023

Millions of dollars are pouring in from corporate donors, there are campaign buttons galore with people in Yes23 T-shirts plastered all over social media, along with a new emotional advert out this week that, according to Yes activists, is making people cry.

It’s a game changer, the former chief prosecutor of politics at the ABC, Barrie Cassidy, says of the ad. We will see about that claim.

This, however, is beyond question: five weeks out from the vote, the Yes campaign still has far more in common with a slick modern election campaign than a serious nationwide conversation to change our founding document.

Indeed, everything that we would normally agree on as comprising the worst of modern political campaigns has become central to the Yes campaign: movable claims (the voice is not justiciable, they said, until they said it must be justiciable); ditching principles (Malcolm Turnbull was against the voice when he believed “our democracy is built on the foundation of all Australian citizens having equal civic rights”); telling a few fibs here and there (the fibbers are too many to name); politicians not across the detail of their own policy (that is the kindest thing we can say about Anthony Albanese and Linda Burney); and regular abuse dished out to people who disagree (Bret Walker swung the big verbal bat, claiming some entirely respectable arguments were racist, while Phillip Adams this week assured us “every RWNJ is voting No”. RWNJ is Adams-speak for right-wing nut job).

The icing on this disrespectful campaign cake is John Farnham giving his song You’re the Voice to the Yes side.

Many Yes activists are telling us that playing a song from 1986 will win over some boomers. After all, other political campaigns settled on a theme song, from Bill Clinton rallies rocking to Fleetwood Mac’s Don’t Stop in 1992 to John F. Kennedy in 1960 campaigning to the Frank Sinatra song High Hopes.

It’s enough to lead your average voter to think there is a federal election on October 14, rather than a referendum about changing our Constitution. But if one strips away the music, T-shirts and abuse, it could be a campaign for a new hair shampoo.

There is still plenty of time for Yes activists to show respect for voters by providing accurate information, rather than all this vibey nonsense.

Before we turn to that, a quick digression for Peter Dutton. Another referendum if this one fails? Shoot me now. That’s as enticing as Cyndi Lauper promising to release a shorter version of True Colors. It’s still too soon for that.

The Opposition Leader had a better idea when he quoted a line from Farnsy’s famous song: “You’re the voice, try to understand it.”

Farnham’s line is as honest an instruction as you will get from any Yes activist. Most would prefer that we didn’t understand it.

With weeks to go, there is a heightened nonsense being peddled to get people to support this constitutional change. It is the height of disrespect – again, I am settling on a kind word – for the Yes side to engage in woefully shallow attempts to impart details about an entirely new chapter being proposed for our Constitution. Many have overlooked that respect begets respect.

I am sure Peter Hartcher over at The Sydney Morning Herald is a very smart chap. His voice certainly gives him a ring of intelligence. I’ve heard him say very insightful things from time to time.

But last week he was either being daft or pulling his readers’ legs when he claimed the proposal to insert a race-based body into the Constitution is no different to any number of well-known and more obscure advisory bodies. Think of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee, the Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce, the Productivity Commission or the Hip and Knee Expert Clinical Advisory Group, Hartcher said. Nothing to see here, he assured us.

Arguments in favour of the voice ought to be able to sustain even a small dose of intellectual rigour. Allow me to dispense that dose here. None of these advisory bodies is entrenched in, or even mentioned in, the Constitution. Each of them can be restructured, reshaped or even abolished by parliament in its infinite discretion. None of them creates a special class of civic rights for a certain group of people based on their race.

Hartcher’s comparison is lightweight because every one of the advisory bodies he mentions is meant, at least in theory, to devise policy and make recommendations in the best interests of the nation, not for the benefit of any sectional interest.

Moreover, those who sit on these specialist advisory bodies are chosen for their expertise – not because they have rallied votes at an election for a certain class of Australians.

The Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee is a very good example of why Hartcher is wrong. When the specialist board gives advice about what new medicines should be listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, it does so in the national interest.

A better comparison for the voice would be a lobby group such as the Pharmacy Guild or any other lobby group that is unapologetically charged with pursuing sectional interests.

There is nothing wrong with that narrower remit. A democracy should be a noisy place with lots of voices vying for attention. Some do it better than others.

The Pharmacy Guild, for example, knows how to scare the bejesus out of politicians, usually by threatening some form of political blackmail in the lead-up to an election. It works because the Pharmacy Guild has concocted a mystique that it is all about “community” when in fact it is all about filling the hip pocket of a small cohort of business owners.

When demanding something or other – meaning fleecing the taxpayer or the consumer or, even better, both constituencies – it drones on about protecting this transcendent thing called “community pharmacy”. It’s vibey nonsense. The only community it is protecting is itself. It is a lobby group, no different to a trade union.

But politicians of an intellectually shallow stripe – which is most of them given the Pharmacy Guild’s success rate – fall for their demands.

The point is that the voice would be a political body entrenched in the Constitution that has nothing in common with a statutory expert advisory body such as the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (or any of the other advisory bodies Hartcher mentions)

The voice would be more like the Pharmacy Guild on political steroids if it is entrenched in the Constitution. Who thinks it would be a good idea to put the Pharmacy Guild, or the ACTU, or the Business Council of Australia, or any other similar political lobby group, in the Constitution?

It’s utter nonsense. Recognition is one thing. So is listening to a lobby group. But giving them constitutional rights is absurd.

What has been missing from this debate is not just a serious conversation – and public debates – about the constitutional consequences of altering the Constitution but also a very serious debate about the change of direction needed to secure Indigenous advancement.

Australian governments, and their various departments, are advised by many Indigenous advisory bodies, many very well-funded ones. The answer for Indigenous advancement is not a new constitutional location for a lobby group – it is confronting what has gone wrong in the past. That means rigorously measuring successes and failures, demanding that every action is measured against real metrics, rather than the continual flow of feel-good money with no testing of outcomes.

This truly arduous work could have begun decades ago.

Noel Pearson said this week, that policy must return to a dual focus on rights and responsibilities. He observed correctly that many on the left bristle at any mention of responsibility.

What he failed to explain is how yet another bureaucracy – one entrenched in the Constitution and whose existence will be quarantined from parliamentary oversight – will confront this challenge.

How will the voice challenge, let alone discard, the failed shibboleths of those Indigenous activists who are opposed to focusing on the responsibilities each of us – regardless of race – has towards our children, our family, our friends and our society, responsibilities that secure the best educational, health, social and financial outcomes?

Well-meaning leaders at the forefront of Indigenous affairs for the past 40 years haven’t managed to move the dial enough to significantly improve the lives of the most vulnerable Indigenous people. A very large industry has a track record of very poor outcomes.

Cementing a lobby group into the Constitution won’t alter that direction. It risks entrenching the same “rights” agenda. We know that from the Uluru Statement from the Heart, from the demands of voice activists such as Thomas Mayo and others, further undermining the need for a transformative cultural change towards responsibility.

These difficult issues are being drowned out by a deliberately emotional and disingenuous campaign, and by Farnsy’s 1986 song.

feelthebern
feelthebern
September 9, 2023 7:46 am

I got that right JC but it was half a guess.
But only because I know a guy who worked on one of their acquisitions.
He used to bitch & moan about traffic on the central coast.
I got the below two wrong.

Eua is an island of which country, forming a separate administrative division?

&

Peter McKenna played for the Collingwood Magpies and which other club in his VFL career?

lotocoti
lotocoti
September 9, 2023 7:48 am

I was taught that the annual Nile floods…

That was the old science.
The New Science tells us alluvial plains are mud choked hellscapes.
The bits that aren’t don’t count.

calli
calli
September 9, 2023 7:52 am

Or you could ditch the car and fly out, TE.

But put some pants on first.

Johnny Rotten
Johnny Rotten
September 9, 2023 7:53 am

Thanks once again Tom. Some good toons there.

Roger
Roger
September 9, 2023 7:58 am

Welcome to Country is overdone.

We should keep Australia Day.

Noel Pearson is starting to sound like a red neck racist.

Johnny Rotten
Johnny Rotten
September 9, 2023 8:02 am

Could Pfizer Collapse to $6-7.00 a share?

COMMENT: When will the people start a boycott of Pfizer as they did with Bud Light?

HB

ANSWER: The court in South Africa ordered the government to release the contract with Pfizer that they were preventing the public from having access. Quite honestly, ANY politicians who voted for the vaccines by Pfizer should be voted out of office. This contract states, “Accordingly, Pfizer and its Affiliates shall have no liability for any failure by Pfizer or its Affiliates…” id/2.1(d), Page 8. This is completely outrageous that ANY politicians would waive all liability for a vaccine. Suppose a car manufacturer produces a car that blows up when you start it, but only one in 500. If they have no liability, then why fix it?

Under capitalism, every company is liable for its product that is manufactured. Where does Pfizer get off with this with the appearance of paying bribes and gifts to politicians? People questioned our forecast made back on August 26th, 2021, that that should have been the high and that: “Something is very strange when it comes to Pfizer. The rally should not extend beyond 2022…”

This is why Socrates is so important. The criticism I got for that forecast was that their profits would continue to rise, so why should the stock collapse? The computer forecasts are better than any human. Why? Because humans get all caught up in the fundamental news when the computer is analyzing it dispassionately.

When will the people rise up and boycott Pfizer? Personally, I refuse to accept anything from Pfizer for myself or my dogs. I would never advise Pfizer, nor would I advise any company in bed with Pfizer. I wouldn’t say I like their way of doing business. I believe the company has rigged the game, and the politicians sold our rights, which I believe was unconstitutional. But find a judge who will honestly address this question. Good luck!

A year-end closing below the $33.20 level, and we may see crash mode for 2024. Anyone who has family working at this firm should look for employment elsewhere. I would not rule out that some people may seek revenge against those who worked there during the coming civil unrest. You never know anymore. They have pushed the envelope way too far on all of this. A break of that level points to a test of the $28 range, and a break of that area will warn that Pfizer could be looking at the $6-7.00 level by 2032.”

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/vaccine/could-pfizer-collapse-to-6-7-00-a-share/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=RSS

Damon
Damon
September 9, 2023 8:02 am

I defy anyone to provide an example of a society that gave political power to a minority group, that was subsequently not used (or misused).

Tom
Tom
September 9, 2023 8:03 am

Many thanks, Mak Siccar at 7,45am. Janet Albrechtsen’s column is just opinion, but Janet has become one of Australia’s best writers.

Roger
Roger
September 9, 2023 8:04 am

Xi a no show at G20.

Cassie of Sydney
September 9, 2023 8:08 am

I am still wary of polls BUT, this from the Daily Telegraph….

RedBridge poll: Support for Voice to Parliament dropped 5pc in a month

An exclusive new poll has found that support for the Voice to Parliament is in ‘freefall’, and is now below 40 per cent in every state except one.

Support for the Voice to Parliament is in “freefall”, having dropped 5 per cent in a month, and is now below 40 per cent in every state except Victoria.

The RedBridge poll, taken in the first week of September after Anthony Albanese announced October 14 as the referendum day, found only 39 per cent of people said they planned to vote Yes for the constitutional amendment, while 61 per cent planned to vote No.

RedBridge’s results for the Voice are particularly stark because, unlike other pollsters, it forces respondents to make a choice between Yes and No, rather than saying they are undecided.

But these results are almost identical to a Freshwater Strategy poll taken last week that found the No case ahead 59 per cent to 41 per cent when undecided voters were excluded.

According to this poll, 15 per cent of voters still could not say which way they would vote, or which way they were leaning. But it found 50 per cent of voters declared they planned to vote No, compared to 35 per cent who planned to vote Yes.

Both polls found that while Coalition voters were overwhelmingly likely to follow Peter Dutton’s lead and vote No, Labor voters were much less impressed with the position adopted by the Prime Minister.

RedBridge found only 57 per cent of Labor voters planned to vote Yes, while Freshwater found 53 per cent of them supported a Voice, with 32 per cent against and 15 per cent undecided.

RedBridge director Tony Barry said the Yes23 campaign was “now in freefall”, with time running out to turn it around.

“The Yes23 campaign keep briefing the media that they are taking their campaign to the suburbs and regions, but then they pivot back to media stunts with corporates, celebrities or former senior politicians who previously opposed it,” he said.

“The No campaign is showing greater message discipline by repeatedly referring to the proposal as the ‘Canberra Voice’ because their research is presumably showing it is a persuasive message that moves soft voters into their column.”

He said it was ironic that the Yes23 campaign’s activities were effectively supporting the No campaign’s message.

“Attaching your campaign to a toxic brand like Qantas and one of the most disliked CEOs in the country might work if you are pitching your message to the members of the Chairman’s Lounge, but in suburban and regional Australia it goes down like a cup of sick,” he said.

Freshwater director Mike Turner, who in the past has worked as a pollster for the Coalition, said the low support for the Voice by its voters should be worrying Labor.

“The key thing for the government is a third of Labor voters have now committed to No,” he said. “What started out as a dangerous wedge for the ­opposition is now turning into a nightmare for the ­government.”

As an aside, yesterday morning I nearly fell over from laughing so much whilst walking to the bus. In fact, I had stop walking because I laughed so much. There’s a large house on a street a few streets from where I live, where an elderly woman lives with her elderly husband. This elderly woman speaks with a very plummy accent, probably a former teacher or public servant, or simply someone who’s always relied on her wealthy husband for her comfortable lifestyle. For years, in one window, she’s had a “Save our ABC” placard, and there’s usually a placard in another window at election time. So, for example, over the last few years there’s been a SSM placard, last year there was a Big Spender placard, and earlier this year, before the NSW state election, there was an Alex Greenfilth placard. On election day last year I had a verbal confrontation with her where where very politely told her to F*CK OFF, because you see, my voice is as plummy as hers (Cats here can attest to this). Anyway I digress, I’ve been waiting to see if she’ll put up a YES to the Voice placard, and sure enough, yesterday morning, there it was. You couldn’t make this shit up. But what’s interesting is that, being the electorate of Wentworth, and being full of smug hypocritical scum like this particular woman, she also has a poster up which calls for the proposed Oxford Street cycleway to be stopped. Now normally I’d agree with her on this, it’s a ridiculous proposal which will decimate business, increase traffic, be underused and so on. But given this old female hag supports the Voice, and if the YES vote gets up, then any proposed cycle path should receive the imprimatur voice of an Aboriginal elder of Paddington/Woollahra/Bondi Junction. It isn’t up to this hypocrical old hag. It’s up to our very own Wentworth Aboriginal Voices. You see, whilst I don’t want the Voice to get up, I most certainly do want the likes of his old hypocritical and very privileged hag to be force fed her own shit. Am I mean?

Those few houses and the one or two businesses where I’ve seen YES placards up also had Teal Spender placards up. The Uniting Church (unsurprisingly) also have a YES placard up.

The Voice is a feel good cult.

Black Ball
Black Ball
September 9, 2023 8:12 am

Vikki Campion on the biggest issue facing our primary producers:

The only winners in renewables so far are the greasers with “community engagement” on their business card, who go to the creaky timber town halls, tell a good yarn to what they believe are the bucolic imbeciles in front of them, and then high-five each other in the Qantas lounge and laugh at us over pinot back in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.

The winners are the propaganda merchants, coming fresh out of political offices, such as ex-Liberal minister Matt Kean who, thanks to his frighteningly ideological policies, practically gifted NSW to Labor Premier Chris Minns, who is now subsidising coal-fired power stations to keep the lights on.

Former staffers are flitting around NSW, convincing cockies that $10,000 a kilometre for a high-voltage transmission line over their homes and airstrip is the future, while their neighbours in Mosman wouldn’t let you pay $10,000 for a strip of their front lawn.

Kean, like federal Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen, wanted a hard, renewable reset using ideology, not strategy, to plan for an electric-only future with less effective power systems.

Once the greasers are gone, the promises are broken.

“Cows don’t sweat,” one softly-spoken farmer, who didn’t want her cattle dying in trucks, spent years explaining.

Polite and proper, she never spoke against the Clarke Creek Wind Farm that divided her central north Queensland community.

Instead, she and her husband spent years educating animal welfare to wind proponents, who played dress up in unscuffed RMs and still-crisp Akubras, that a truck with live animals on board cannot be still for more than 15 minutes.

Without airflow, they stress, on hot and humid days, the animals can die.

After years of proactively engaging, her hard work was rewarded with a kick in the face.

On Thursday, staff loaded 66 bullocks — only for them to be forced off the road for 47 minutes as oversized Squadron Energy equipment came down the range under police escort with no notice to farmers.

Numbers to contact the fly-in fly-out “engagement” people did not exist. The greasers were gone.

Two days prior, Bowen appointed Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner Andrew Dyer to lead a review into community engagement around the industrial installation of wind, solar and transmission lines.

Many viewed it with suspicion.

Amber Pedersen, a young mum fighting with Burrendong SOS and the new Central West Orana REZIST Inc, is already forced to engage simultaneously with Ark Energy’s Burrendong Wind Farm, Phoenix Pumped Hydro Station, Vestas’ Piambong Wind Farm, Uungula Wind Farm, Tilt Renewables’ prospecting hosts, EnergyCo’s current consultation to double the gigawatt power for the renewable energy zone, the NSW Department of Planning’s review of the NSW Wind Energy Guidelines, as well as investigations already lodged to Commissioner Dyer.

She wants her life back, to make a living and raise her kids, instead of being buried in project details, meetings and submissions fighting for basic rights.

Pedersen is bogged down in “engagement” with people who have no skin in the game, who will fly out as they flew in, tackling dirt roads with a hired new SUV.

There is nothing renewable about a wind factory that will provide power a third of the time, or a solar industrial installation that will provide power 11 per cent of the time, or buzzing transmission lines being built over homes without projects connecting them even approved.

These lines are to link an unaffordable, unreliable generation of power to impossible storage of power — and Australia has been sucked in because, like termites, an entire industry is working hard under the floorboards.

They haven’t accounted for winter sun being less intense than the summer sun, and all attempts to point this out are met with disdain.

They haven’t accounted for wind droughts or that Australian storms can be too fast for turbines. They ignore that wind turbines in Denmark are balanced with fossil fuels and nuclear from Sweden and Germany.

They have yet to measure how much freshwater their proposed pumped hydro plants from Borumba to Mudgee will need, and that we will be drawing water out of the environment at an unprecedented level.

And when experts on minerals and metals required for the global transition, such as Associate Professor Simon Michaux come to Canberra armed with spreadsheets to educate politicians, very few show up to listen.

Such is the spread of the grease.

The biggest losers in the short run are regional people losing their property rights in compulsory acquisition and the industrialisation of pristine bush and prime agricultural land, and the biggest losers in the long run will be the pensioners in Penrith trying to pay power bills.

Meanwhile, this weekend is the federal Nationals conference, with motions to be made for policies to push for nuclear or abolish NetZero by 2050.

And the greasers have found us here too, giving suave guarantees, this time to senators and MPs, slicking oil over troubled waters for their billionaire bosses and foreign-owned companies using feel-good, box-ticking exercises, trying to force out the pesky pro-nuclear mob who dare to seek reliable power which threaten their grift.

For many recklessly renewable ravaged communities, Commissioner Dyer could be their last sentry at the gate.

If you could Ms Campion a report on the Nationals conference would be nice. Maybe give Anne Webster a bit of a grilling, for she is a useless moron.
These people who go around trying to sell the benefits of these renewables and the transmission lines must be confronted like we did here and basically told to go forth and fornicate.

Cassie of Sydney
September 9, 2023 8:16 am

As an elderly man said to me a few months ago…..

The Voice is iniquitous.

There is no better word to describe it.

feelthebern
feelthebern
September 9, 2023 8:16 am

Looking around the non-paywalled part of the Hersh column on Prigozhin.
He basically said that Putin assassinated him because Wagner was causing grief on the Belarus border with their neighbours.
I would have thought that if Wagner forces were causing grief that would have been widely reported over the past couple of months since the “banishment”.
Maybe it was, but I don’t remember seeing much about it.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 9, 2023 8:16 am

Two interesting articles at WUWT. First is that wind turbine operators are now bribing pollies. And the second is that the World Bank head of Energy Storage is actually clueless about energy storage. I think the two stories say quite a lot about the renewable energy sector.

Davey Boy
September 9, 2023 8:23 am

Out here in the West of Sydney, there are precious few Yes signs to be seen.

There are, in fact, far more signs protesting the state govts plan to put a large smelly tip in the suburb of Lidcombe, right next to brand new multi-storey units.

Priorities in the real world.

H B Bear
H B Bear
September 9, 2023 8:23 am

Mashed pumpkin makes an appearance in today’s Knight. Nothing new to regular Cat readers (no pun intended).

feelthebern
feelthebern
September 9, 2023 8:27 am

If you want to waste two hours, Chris Christie was on the All In podcast.
It’s time stamped so you can jump to the subject’s discussed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odWe7qsrrGk

He did raise a point that got me thinking.
Christie said if he was the prosecutor in any of the Trump cases, he would not be requesting any jail time due to Trump’s age.

My thoughts are, if you are deemed too old to be sent to jail, what business do you have running for president?
And that applies to any candidate.

calli
calli
September 9, 2023 8:34 am

The Uniting Church (unsurprisingly) also have a YES placard up.

Now that is interesting. The churches are grappling with the issue in various ways, including the Presbyterians.

Last week they met to nut out both sides of the argument and present something worthwhile to the flock. The resulting document is so annotated, so circuitously worded that I had trouble reading and understanding it. Which is probably a neat metaphor for the entire progressive concoction.

Their purpose was to submit a discussion paper to members of the church outlining each case without the emotive, political bias (curious, as I thought that was what the AEC did in their booklet, but it may be that even the Presbyterians don’t trust them!)

In the preamble, they cited the Westminster Confession and the objection to the church involving itself in matters outside the ecclesiastical, unless there was a clear sin involved in the proposal.

In this paper the Committee aims to engage in a balanced discussion of the key arguments both for and against the Voice, without seeking to dictate to any person how they should vote or purporting to represent the official position of the Presbyterian Church.

At least some denominations are treating their members like adults.

Muddy
Muddy
September 9, 2023 8:41 am

KevinM @ 12:19 a.m.

NO. The Lieborals do NOT deserve our sympathy vote & a prize of ‘junior partner’ simply for participation. Mediocre, disingenuous, incompetent participation (It’s exhausting finding polite words).

Running the country is no place for ‘At least he put his clothes on & did up his fly this time.’

We deserve better, but nothing will change if we don’t DEMAND better: Stop ‘settling’ (‘At least I’m not politically lonely’), and VALUE your vote.

Those noxious, arrogant, walking dead have been spitting in our mouths for how many decades now?

Eff them & the dessicated llama carcass they came riding in on.

Napalm that side of the playground so we came make room for a new kid.

Roger
Roger
September 9, 2023 8:42 am

I am still wary of polls BUT, this from the Daily Telegraph….

RedBridge poll: Support for Voice to Parliament dropped 5pc in a month

One of the partners at RedBridge is the former campaign director of VIC ALP.

He thinks the referendum would get up “at a different stage in the political cycle.”

If it does go down in flames, Albanese is going to have a lot of disappointed and angry people to explain himself to.

Muddy
Muddy
September 9, 2023 8:45 am

Nostalgia is not a party drug.

Real Deal
Real Deal
September 9, 2023 8:46 am

Calli, that same paper was offered to members of our church to read and digest as well. The woman who announced the availability of this paper to our church last Sunday did that offer in a careful and unbiased way. Sadly, in the prayers that followed, the service leader talked in terms of “first nations people” walking this land that the church is built on for thousands of years. His bias (he is voting yes) as a lefty was quite obvious compared to the earlier person who was trying hard to be impartial.

H B Bear
H B Bear
September 9, 2023 8:46 am

He thinks the referendum would get up “at a different stage in the political cycle.”

He might be right. People are often more open to Liar ideas when they are not exposed to them in government.

P
P
September 9, 2023 8:47 am
flyingduk
flyingduk
September 9, 2023 8:49 am

Under capitalism, every company is liable for its product that is manufactured.

In the US, *all* vaxx manufacturers have been exempt from liability since the 80s

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 9, 2023 8:50 am

From the Hun.

Some Victorian MPs charging thousands for city hotels instead of catching an Uber home

calli
calli
September 9, 2023 8:53 am

Yes, Real Deal, the infantile politicised partisans never let an opportunity go to waste, even during prayer and worship.

They’ll be earning their reward. Matthew 21:13 comes to mind.

Fortunately our minister is a godly, sensible man. In the end it comes down to maturity.

feelthebern
feelthebern
September 9, 2023 8:54 am

Good reporting via the Oz on Dan Andrews decommissioning the office that oversaw the Gobbo investigation.

Roger
Roger
September 9, 2023 8:56 am

He might be right. People are often more open to Liar ideas when they are not exposed to them in government.

Or when they’re not under cost of living stress.

His advice to Albanese was to ride out the present “per capita recession” and offer it in a second term when things are looking up.

I suppose you have to be an optimist to be a political campaign director, but Albanese’s policies will do nothing to change the economic outlook and are in fact making it worse.

Tom
Tom
September 9, 2023 9:01 am

“Attaching your campaign to a toxic brand like Qantas and one of the most disliked CEOs in the country might work if you are pitching your message to the members of the Chairman’s Lounge, but in suburban and regional Australia it goes down like a cup of sick,” he said.

The problem with the Yes campaign is that it’s being run by amateurs with no track record in retail politics making poisonous elementary mistakes like aligning themselves with Qantas.

In their world, the loony left and the Greenfilth are centrists.

Blind Freddy (and ALP strategists like Graham Richardson) could have predicted the shyte the Yes campaign now faces. Item 1: don’t use trickery and white lies to ram toxic crap down people’s throats.

The Yes crowd think the punters out in the suburbs are Green activists like them.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
September 9, 2023 9:01 am

The RedBridge poll, taken in the first week of September after Anthony Albanese announced October 14 as the referendum day, found only 39 per cent of people said they planned to vote Yes for the constitutional amendment, while 61 per cent planned to vote No.

RedBridge’s results for the Voice are particularly stark because, unlike other pollsters, it forces respondents to make a choice between Yes and No, rather than saying they are undecided.

I’ve thought this for a while.
That, when forced to choose, the “undecideds” would break heavily to “No”.
The numbers in the Tele article are not totally clear about undecideds, but suggest they are 60% – 75% leaning to “No”.
I suspected there was a “shy No vote” which would only be revealed on polling day. I now think people are seeing that “No” has overwhelming support and are less reticent to show their hand.

duncanm
duncanm
September 9, 2023 9:03 am

There’s not a bad Leak this morning, either

Cassie of Sydney
September 9, 2023 9:04 am

Ezra Levant on the EDL, and Musk suing the ADL…..

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

Once upon a time, like so many decent institutions of the past, the ADL did good work, just like the Southern Poverty Law Centre and the ACLU. These organisations stood for decent principles, and were largely non-partisan. But that’s all changed now, the left wreck everything, and these fully captured, far-left organisations now operate as cudgels to shout down and silence people who hold right of centre views, or who hold views the left don’t like.

Under Jonathan Greensplatt, the ADL is now a far-left organisation that doesn’t even try and hide its far-left bigotry towards anyone who dares to dissent from its far-left narrative.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
September 9, 2023 9:04 am

Black Ball

Sep 9, 2023 8:12 AM

Vikki Campion on the biggest issue facing our primary producers

Blah, blah, blah.
Piss off and lecture your fat hubby about it.
He f-ckin’ voted for it.

Cassie of Sydney
September 9, 2023 9:05 am

“Ezra Levant on the EDL”

That should be the ADL.

flyingduk
flyingduk
September 9, 2023 9:06 am

As expected, the Dems will first try to nobble RFKJ in the primaries…. failing that, will assassinate him: from Gateway Pundit:

I Need to Look at Other Alternatives” – DNC is Cheating Robert Kennedy, Jr. in Primaries to Favor Biden – Kennedy Needs to “Win Almost 80% of All the States” Under Undemocratic System

Crossie
Crossie
September 9, 2023 9:07 am

Before we turn to that, a quick digression for Peter Dutton. Another referendum if this one fails? Shoot me now.

Janet Albrechtsen, like many here, has noted that Dutton faux pas was not a help but a hindrance. I kept thinking Dutton should say something in favour of No and then he comes out with a second referendum. I find it is like Tony Abbott promising in an interview not to touch NDIS and the ABC ahead of the 2013 election. How about just shut up?

Real Deal
Real Deal
September 9, 2023 9:11 am

Would be interested in your opinion, KD. From the Oz.

FORCE BLUEPRINT: TOP COP VOWS TO REBUILD FROM THE GROUND UP
KRISTIN SHORTEN

The Northern Territory’s new top cop is pleading with almost 250 former police officers to rejoin the force in a bid to heal rifts in the organisation following a ­“tumultuous” few years sparked by a fatal police shooting and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Michael Murphy said rebuilding trust with his troops and stemming record attrition rates were his most urgent priorities following his appointment as the NT’s 14th police commissioner.

Mr Murphy, who was also ­appointed Fire and Emergency Services chief executive, conceded the fatal police shooting of 19-year-old Kumanjayi Walker by former constable Zachary Rolfe at Yuendumu in November 2019 had sparked a protracted period of turmoil for the Territory’s cops.

Mr Rolfe was acquitted of murder, manslaughter and engaging in a violent act causing death after a five-week Supreme Court trial in 2022. A coronial inquest into Walker’s death is due to resume next month.

“Yuendumu was very disruptive to the workforce and was very divisive – that’s a fact,” Mr Murphy said. “It has impacted the stability, even the recent departure of the commissioner.

“It’s about offering stability and I think my appointment now will offer that back to the workforce.”

During the past three years, an unprecedented 450 officers have left the force. About a third of them retired, but most resigned.

“We saw a lot of resignations, through and post-Covid,” Mr Murphy said. “It’s been a tumultuous three years and our crime types have been demanding. To be honest, we need to work on trust as well. There’s been a lack of trust so we need to heal that with the workforce and make them feel that they can trust us.”

Mr Murphy said the organisation had to change how it treated its people so they felt “respected and valued” in order to provide a “better service to the community as well”.

The force is now recruiting aggressively to bolster its ranks while trying to address the cause of its high attrition rate.

“Some people don’t really want to be honest with us (when leaving) because they don’t want to burn bridges, but it comes down to not being happy in the workplace and issues with leadership, at the executive level as well,” he said.

“That’s really one of my priorities, understanding what all that looks like so we can change it and make people feel connected and want to stay … to retain knowledgeable police officers.

“We’ve just gone through an enterprise bargaining agreement … we’re really well remunerated, but how do we keep people here? It’s about understanding why they are leaving.”

Of the 450 who have left, NT Police has written to 232 inviting them back.

The new commissioner is ­concerned about losing more members to lateral recruitment programs currently advertising in other jurisdictions. “As NT cops, we’re really good at our job, we’re good police and that’s why people love recruiting us,” he said.

While all sections of the police force are screaming out for resources, he said the “frontline is the one that’s really under the pump”.

“And we’re looking at the harmful effects of policing. Dealing with homicides, suicides or road crashes where children die,” he said. “Responding to jobs where there’s an absolute crisis and people are being assaulted violently.

“You see the worst, most of the time … the dark side of humanity.”

The trauma his members face at work has taken a toll, with about 120 officers currently on long-term leave with either physical or psychological injuries.

“And that’s a fair chunk of officers who can’t be deployed out of 1670,” he said.

“One of our priorities now is the wellbeing of our officers, because work goes home with you.

“There is a psychological ­impact of providing the service we do and it has an impact on officers’ family life.”

Reforming the organisation’s “outdated” disciplinary system is also on his agenda.

“Humans are fallible. You don’t come to work to make mistakes but that happens and you have to learn from it and correct your ­behaviour or make sure that you’re better informed next time,” he said.

“We do have a junior workforce and the current arrangement says when we open a disciplinary process, you get served notices and the language is reflective of the legislation with words like ‘disgraceful’ and ‘improper’.

“Then a process is undertaken which impacts upon the employee, with them often taking a few days sick leave.

“I think we can actually change all that by just having mature, courageous conversations to fix things. If behaviours don’t change … then firmer intervention can be taken.”

Mr Murphy had been acting in the top job since April, when Chief Minister Natasha Fyles asked former commissioner Jamie Chalker to resign. Mr Chalker swiftly launched legal action, which ­resulted in a confidential settlement and his “retirement”.

Mr Murphy dismissed the suggestion his predecessor’s departure had overshadowed his promotion.

“I don’t think so. Obviously, we are pretty good at dealing with ­crises. I’m fairly calm,” he said.

“You know, we’ve been here before. We’ve had a couple of commissioners leave quite suddenly. When (former commissioner) Reece Kershaw was appointed the Australian Federal Police Commissioner, we found out by watching the news. We still have a laugh about that because he was ­obviously sworn to secrecy.”

The 51-year-old said he planned to reshape the force’s leadership now that positions in the executive are opening up with ­Assistant Commissioner Bruce Porter and Deputy Commissioner Murray Smallage retiring.

When asked if his appointment was the beginning of a new era for NT Police, without missing a beat, Mr Murphy replied: “It has to be.”

Roger
Roger
September 9, 2023 9:11 am

Stephen Koukoulas on the ABC this morning, ‘Phil Lowe was a great economist who failed at every crucial moment’ (paraphrasing).

Sort of like a batsman with impeccable technique in the nets whose shot selection at the crease means he never gets in.

The Kook also poured cold water on Lowe’s parting claim that if not for covid things would have been different.

Johnny Rotten
Johnny Rotten
September 9, 2023 9:13 am

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Sep 9, 2023 8:50 AM
From the Hun.

Some Victorian MPs charging thousands for city hotels instead of catching an Uber home

I’m amazed that they don’t have chauffer driven taxpayer funded cars to get them home after a hard days work at the Office………/sarc

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 9, 2023 9:13 am

NT’s new police commissioner Michael Murphy vows to restore his troops’ trust and stability to his workforce

EXCLUSIVE
By kristin shorten
Investigative Journalist
6:19PM September 8, 2023
9 Comments

The Northern Territory’s new top cop is pleading with almost 250 former police officers to rejoin the force in a bid to heal rifts in the organisation following a ­“tumultuous” few years sparked by a fatal police shooting and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Michael Murphy said rebuilding trust with his troops and stemming record attrition rates were his most urgent priorities following his appointment as the NT’s 14th police commissioner.

Mr Murphy, who was also ­appointed Fire and Emergency Services chief executive, conceded the fatal police shooting of 19-year-old Kumanjayi Walker by former constable Zachary Rolfe at Yuendumu in November 2019 had sparked a protracted period of turmoil for the Territory’s cops.

Mr Rolfe was acquitted of murder, manslaughter and engaging in a violent act causing death after a five-week Supreme Court trial in 2022. A coronial inquest into Walker’s death is due to resume next month.

“Yuendumu was very disruptive to the workforce and was very divisive – that’s a fact,” Mr Murphy said. “It has impacted the stability, even the recent departure of the commissioner.

“It’s about offering stability and I think my appointment now will offer that back to the workforce.”

During the past three years, an unprecedented 450 officers have left the force. About a third of them retired, but most resigned.

“We saw a lot of resignations, through and post-Covid,” Mr Murphy said. “It’s been a tumultuous three years and our crime types have been demanding. To be honest, we need to work on trust as well. There’s been a lack of trust so we need to heal that with the workforce and make them feel that they can trust us.”

Mr Murphy said the organisation had to change how it treated its people so they felt “respected and valued” in order to provide a “better service to the community as well”.

The force is now recruiting aggressively to bolster its ranks while trying to address the cause of its high attrition rate.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 9, 2023 9:14 am

Snap, Real Deal!

calli
calli
September 9, 2023 9:15 am

The Kook also poured cold water on Lowe’s parting claim that if not for covid things would have been different.

I think it’s a fair claim. Covid, or more precisely, government response to covid, distorted the market (and many other areas) in ways that will continue to become apparent.

It’s nonsense to suggest that shutting down and locking up has no effect.

flyingduk
flyingduk
September 9, 2023 9:17 am

Of the 450 who have left, NT Police has written to 232 inviting them back.

I’m guessing that, like health employees, the ones that left with the ‘seroius misconduct’ label (aka refused to participate in a medical experiment), will not be invited back.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 9, 2023 9:19 am

Tom
4 hours ago
Recently Char, a leading restaurant in the Darwin CBD, closed its doors because it could not protect its staff from aggressive itinerants. What hope is there anywhere else in the NT if that is the state of affairs in the capital?

Roger
Roger
September 9, 2023 9:20 am

It’s nonsense to suggest that shutting down and locking up has no effect.

Nobody is suggesting it had no effect; under discussion was Lowe’s response to it.

Koukoulas also pointed out that Lowe’s performance in the three years prior to covid was sub-par.

Roger
Roger
September 9, 2023 9:21 am

Recently Char, a leading restaurant in the Darwin CBD, closed its doors because it could not protect its staff from aggressive itinerants.

Shades of San Francisco.

Roger
Roger
September 9, 2023 9:23 am

I’m amazed that they don’t have chauffer driven taxpayer funded cars to get them home after a hard days work at the Office…

With dedicated lanes for official vehicles.

Real Deal
Real Deal
September 9, 2023 9:24 am

Great minds, Zulu…!

Roger
Roger
September 9, 2023 9:26 am

Anyway, things are apparently looking up at the RBA because Michelle Bullock will be held more accountable due to Chalmers’s restructure and newly imposed obligations to be more transparent about decisions.

We shall see.

Salvatore, Iron Publican
September 9, 2023 9:27 am

Mr Murphy … conceded the [response by the govt & police commissioner/hierarchy’s to] fatal police shooting of 19-year-old Kumanjayi Walker by former constable Zachary Rolfe at Yuendumu in November 2019 had sparked a protracted period of turmoil for the Territory’s cops.

Fixed it for Mr. Murphy.

Cassie of Sydney
September 9, 2023 9:27 am

As I wrote the other day on Tim Blair’s blog, on Saturday 14 October 2023 Australians have a clear choice. We will be at a crossroads, and we can can either choose the Marxist Langton road, a road of division, bitterness, bile, nastiness, rancour and endless hostility, OR we can choose the Senator Jacinta Price road, a road of true reconciliation, integrity, decency, and unity.

I choose the Jacinta Price road.

It isn’t a hard choice.

shatterzzz
September 9, 2023 9:28 am

If your Saturday morning laff out loud quota isn’t filled yet then enjoy this additional glee from ……… “Tales My Nanna Told Me” …
https://ibb.co/DRKD6n9 LOL!

Indolent
Indolent
September 9, 2023 9:29 am
Muddy
Muddy
September 9, 2023 9:29 am

Powerline has a piece about a Minneapolis politician, previously anti-police, now changing her mind after allegedly being assaulted. Some commenters suggesting that the supplied photo, including facial blood, looks a tad off.

Any thoughts?
(Unable to link, sorry).

Indolent
Indolent
September 9, 2023 9:32 am

Five years for killing someone. Three times that for a political crime.

Catturd ™
@catturd2

You tired of this communist two-tiered justice system yet?

Indolent
Indolent
September 9, 2023 9:34 am
shatterzzz
September 9, 2023 9:38 am

There are, in fact, far more signs protesting the state govts plan to put a large smelly tip in the suburb of Lidcombe, right next to brand new multi-storey units.

From the vid that site looks like Carter Street which up until a coupla years ago had been completely industrial (Dairy Farmers occupied most of the street) so I’d say if they’ve put up unit blocks in an area, predominantly, zoned industrial the residents ain’t gonna win this one ……….!

Indolent
Indolent
September 9, 2023 9:39 am

The more of this the better. It might make them think twice – there and here – about trying it on again, which they’d do in a heartbeat if they thought they could get away with it.

Leading Report
@LeadingReport

BREAKING: Teachers in New York City, who were fired for refusing to comply with COVID vaccine mandates, must be given their jobs back and awarded full backpay, a State Supreme Court Judge has ruled.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
September 9, 2023 9:39 am

Flat white, thanks. Two sugars.

Johnny Rotten
Johnny Rotten
September 9, 2023 9:40 am

shatterzzz
Sep 9, 2023 9:28 AM
If your Saturday morning laff out loud quota isn’t filled yet then enjoy this additional glee from ……… “Tales My Nanna Told Me” …
https://ibb.co/DRKD6n9 LOL!

LOL. So how come the sail on a sailing ship was developed before anyone else knew about the boomerang and the tribes of this Continent.

The sailing ships got them here FFS.

The aerodynamics of the sail led to the aerofoil and flight –

aerofoil
/???r?(?)f??l/
nounBRITISH
a structure with curved surfaces designed to give the most favourable ratio of lift to drag in flight, used as the basic form of the wings, fins, and tailplanes of most aircraft.

My goodness and whatever next from the First Inventors (of BS galore).

Crossie
Crossie
September 9, 2023 9:47 am

calli
Sep 9, 2023 9:15 AM
The Kook also poured cold water on Lowe’s parting claim that if not for covid things would have been different.
I think it’s a fair claim. Covid, or more precisely, government response to covid, distorted the market (and many other areas) in ways that will continue to become apparent.
It’s nonsense to suggest that shutting down and locking up has no effect.

Even the original “two weeks to flatten the curve” would have had economic consequences. The protracted lockdowns were catastrophic wherever they were implemented. The naysayers can insist that it wasn’t that bad because almost the whole world was affected so differences from country to country were not as noticeable. The ones making these assessments were not personally affected so they can’t sympathise or even acknowledge those who lost the most due to the lockdowns.

The other observation that things weren’t that great even before Covid forget the American economy that was going gangbusters with Trump’s policies, particularly the working class and minorities who had raised earnings for the first time in a generation. Lockdowns were very effective in impoverishing those sections of the population while advantaging the laptop class.

Roger
Roger
September 9, 2023 9:48 am

If your Saturday morning laff out loud quota isn’t filled yet then enjoy this additional glee from ……… “Tales My Nanna Told Me” …

Evidently nobody in the room knew of Archimedes’ screw.

Please tell me it wasn’t a speech to science teachers.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
September 9, 2023 9:52 am

Roger earlier.

If it does go down in flames, Albanese is going to have a lot of disappointed and angry people to explain himself to.

The irony of this is beautiful.
The polling has roughly flipped from 60:40 to 40:60 in six months.
The fact is, the initial polling was based upon large numbers of people believing they were simply voting for a symbolic recognition (due to Luigi’s sleight of hand), and the polls have moved as people realised the full extent of da Voice.
The trouble for Luigi is, the rabid left will view this as him burning massive amounts of goodwill.
Imagine if it gets smashed 60:40 on the national vote and 6-0 state-by-state.

Crossie
Crossie
September 9, 2023 9:53 am

Indolent
Sep 9, 2023 9:35 AM
Russia will sell natural gas to China at almost a 50% discount compared to European buyers

I have no sympathy for the Europeans, they would do the same were they in Russia’s position. They also know how to fix their own power problems, they have used that technology until yesterday, I’m sure they have some people left who know how to do it.

Crossie
Crossie
September 9, 2023 9:56 am

The irony of this is beautiful.
The polling has roughly flipped from 60:40 to 40:60 in six months.
The fact is, the initial polling was based upon large numbers of people believing they were simply voting for a symbolic recognition (due to Luigi’s sleight of hand), and the polls have moved as people realised the full extent of da Voice.

John Farnham’s “You’re the voice, try to understand it” came a bit late, most people already understood it. The song is now just an irritant.

Crossie
Crossie
September 9, 2023 9:57 am

Wow, two comments at the top of the page, let’s go for three.

Johnny Rotten
Johnny Rotten
September 9, 2023 9:58 am

Please tell me it wasn’t a speech to science teachers.

Just as daft as the speech that Twiggy Forrest gave recently as to – ‘Climate Change’ -‘lethal humidity’ will kill us all.

LOL. We all die when our heart stops. FFS.

https://www.skynews.com.au/opinion/outsiders/sky-news-host-hits-out-at-andrew-twiggy-forrest-over-lethal-humidity-speech/video/13b6596c18e72472e84585859b5bebdc

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
September 9, 2023 9:58 am

They haven’t accounted for winter sun being less intense than the summer sun, and all attempts to point this out are met with disdain.

Another triumph of AEMO system planning under Audrey Ziebelman.

In 2017 I was part of an industry working group advising AEMO planners on gas issues.

We were taken through a presentation of the AEMO planning assumptions, one of which was the steady state of solar generation (IIRC the presenter proudly announced that there would be clouds, but the modelling took that into account).

Someone pointed out that solar panels are much less effective with low angle light and that the sun is seasonally lower in the sky – with the suggestion that this be taken into account.

The response? ‘Well duhh, solar panels automatically track the Sun donchaknow? Do try to keep up and be useful – we’re trying to be constructive here, not argue corners’.

The reality. Most Australian solar farms (ones that look like this) are fixed frame and don’t track the Sun – high capex and opex, land requirements, plus a myriad of maintenance operational issues appear to have made tracking units too expensive to meter.

So, a 30% over investment is required to achieve steady system output capacity – with the attendant oversupply issues in Summer.

Top Men.

Roger
Roger
September 9, 2023 10:00 am

John Farnham’s “You’re the voice, try to understand it” came a bit late, most people already understood it.

“We can write what we want to write
We gotta make ends meet, before we get much older”

Very apt in the present per capita recession.

Did they not bother to read the lyrics or was it all about “the vibe”?

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
September 9, 2023 10:00 am

Both polls found that while Coalition voters were overwhelmingly likely to follow Peter Dutton’s lead and vote No…

It is often being framed this way but it is not the way I recall it.

My recollection is that it took a couple of weeks while the ‘No’ demographic began to take root and only then did Dutton commit to support the No case.

And this was a good thing – he listened to what people were saying rather than expecting them to side with him because he was leader of the Liberals.

Albo is doing the opposite and for perhaps the first time in living memory Labor people are not being uniformly tribal.

H B Bear
H B Bear
September 9, 2023 10:01 am

Imagine if it gets smashed 60:40 on the national vote and 6-0 state-by-state.

Expect a firm rebuke from the UN and the ALPBC. I wouldn’t watch The Drum for say … Eternity.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
September 9, 2023 10:04 am

In End of Times News:

The jacarandas in New Farm Park are simultaneously shedding leaves and flowering.

Is this a sign that Our Lady Palacechook is about to be called to a higher place?

I await news of two-headed snakes and politicians suddenly speaking in tongues.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 9, 2023 10:04 am

Imagine if it gets smashed 60:40 on the national vote and 6-0 state-by-state.

For shame, don’t you realize Aboriginal souls will be crushed, if the Voice is defeated?

Go to Bunnings

Buy some timber

Build a bridge

Get over it!

Roger
Roger
September 9, 2023 10:07 am

Jacinta Price declines to back Dutton’s referendum.

I’d suggest Dutton should follow her lead and get out and talk to voters at town hall style meetings, but then he’d likely fail to draw the crowds she does.

Dot
Dot
September 9, 2023 10:10 am

Go to Bunnings

Buy some timber

It’s actually hard to get decent lumber these days.

You boomers and your 12′ x 8′ x 4″ slabs of Douglas Fir….

Rockdoctor
Rockdoctor
September 9, 2023 10:11 am

Miles, shudder. Qld ALP clearing the decks for the election next Oct… Just in time for them to kiss & make up with the Courier Mail, noice.

The 3 blind mice in the north, in the seats of Thuringowa, Mundingburra & Townsville are already squealing they have been thrown to the wolves. Internal polling must be horrible in the regions…

Dot
Dot
September 9, 2023 10:12 am

An exclusive new poll has found that support for the Voice to Parliament is in ‘freefall’, and is now below 40 per cent in every state except one.

Support for the Voice to Parliament is in “freefall”, having dropped 5 per cent in a month, and is now below 40 per cent in every state except Victoria.

I feel better.

Great news, now for a fun mid-morning at my local “waste transfer comrade indoctrination used to be called a tip” site.

Dot
Dot
September 9, 2023 10:13 am

Thanks Cass!

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
September 9, 2023 10:15 am

The Voice is a feel good cult.

Well said, Cassie. Also, Vicki Campion’s usage of Wind Factory and Solar Industrial Installation is nomenclature that we should always employ. It is correct naming. There is nothing pleasant, peaceful and rural about these blights being inflicted on our countryside and farmers.

Johnny Rotten
Johnny Rotten
September 9, 2023 10:16 am

Great news, now for a fun mid-morning at my local “waste transfer comrade indoctrination used to be called a tip” site.

And a Rat Catcher is now called – A Freelance Rodent Operative…………lol

The World moves on. Could be going backwards though.

Salvatore, Iron Publican
September 9, 2023 10:17 am

Imagine if it gets smashed 60:40 on the national vote and 6-0 state-by-state

This is on the cards.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
September 9, 2023 10:20 am

The jacarandas in New Farm Park are simultaneously shedding leaves and flowering.

Ours is doing that here in Sydney too.

Could it portend the doom of the Voice as Yes dies and No blooms?

Let’s hope so.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
September 9, 2023 10:21 am

My recollection is that it took a couple of weeks while the ‘No’ demographic began to take root and only then did Dutton commit to support the No case.

And this was a good thing – he listened to what people were saying rather than expecting them to side with him because he was leader of the Liberals.

Rather grudgingly, I think Dutton has played his cards well.

It looks like he has correctly anticipated that all the internal inconsistencies of the Uluru Statement as Constitutional Ornament simply cannot be explained – and that confusion and uncertainty would reign (helped strongly by Uncle Luigi’s performance as First Used Car Dealer).

Even the weird Second Referendum float seems to have had the benefit of drawing out ‘Recognition? Recognition! I don’t want no steenking recognition’ from the usual players.

Sticking consistently to the If You Don’t Know Vote No line against the Yes clown circus is simple, and avoids the need to be seen to stir up the nastier passions.

If No gets up, the inevitable ‘you dogwhistled racism’ accusation falls down against ‘you should have read the Statement and explained what you had in mind, just ask Noel Pearson’ .

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
September 9, 2023 10:23 am

The jacarandas in New Farm Park are simultaneously shedding leaves and flowering

Ed October could have provided invaluable advice and guidance here.

Rufus T Firefly
Rufus T Firefly
September 9, 2023 10:26 am

Hug those close to you, there will not be much time to do so, very soon.

News from Ukraine:
“The US and Romania will conduct Naval Exercises with Ukraine in the Black Sea.”
Operation Seabreeze. (Does this sound like a good idea to you?)

Not an escalation, or provocation of course.
I’m sure the Russians, will regard this, for what it is, simply friendly nations, having a bit of fun, ……, right?
The Russians will simply let this occur and observe. I seriously doubt that outcome.
They will sink the ships!
What happens after that? Romania enters the war, accompanied by a very reluctant NATO, that has expended almost all of its equipment and ammunition.

When will this debacle occur? It starts on Monday 11th September.

Hug those close to you, the lunatics running the show, (Nuland, Bolton, Von der Crazy, Borrell et al), are now out of ideas, so it is now WWIII.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
September 9, 2023 10:27 am

The jacarandas in New Farm Park are simultaneously shedding leaves and flowering

Ed October could have provided invaluable advice and guidance here.

I walk the dogs, glancing at movements in the bushes.

feelthebern
feelthebern
September 9, 2023 10:27 am

but DNC will not allow anyone they don’t want have a clear run

Not sure Dover.
Keep in mind that Biden was a disaster in the debates & wasn’t setting primaries on fire.
Then everyone pulled out & he was effectively the only one left.
Meaning, what ever things look like now, the donor class would have mapped out the who & when the real nominee will be revealed.

Roger
Roger
September 9, 2023 10:27 am

If I’m not mistaken that’s typical of Jacarandas.

feelthebern
feelthebern
September 9, 2023 10:28 am

Wow. Let the Thumbening begin.

Nelson_Kidd-Players
Nelson_Kidd-Players
September 9, 2023 10:28 am

The Constitution is no place for a lobby group

Says it all. Thanks Mak and Janet.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
September 9, 2023 10:30 am

Upticks! Downticks!

feelthebern
feelthebern
September 9, 2023 10:36 am

KD I’ve been testing out the Thumbening on your 10:30am post.
You can not give both a thumbs up & thumbs down on the same post.

Johnny Rotten
Johnny Rotten
September 9, 2023 10:38 am

News from Ukraine:
“The US and Romania will conduct Naval Exercises with Ukraine in the Black Sea.”
Operation Seabreeze. (Does this sound like a good idea to you?)

No problems as Russia and China will now conduct Naval Exercises in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California in International Waters. Which will set off the San Andreas fault with California sinking into the Pacific.

Sounds like a Plan.

Maybe have Mt St Helens go off again for good measure. Yellowstone will go up later on.

KevinM
KevinM
September 9, 2023 10:40 am

feelthebern
Sep 9, 2023 10:27 AM

but DNC will not allow anyone they don’t want have a clear run

Not sure Dover.
Keep in mind that Biden was a disaster in the debates & wasn’t setting primaries on fire.
Then everyone pulled out & he was effectively the only one left.
Meaning, what ever things look like now, the donor class would have mapped out the who & when the real nominee will be revealed.

Precisely, he drew a crowd of journos at his public rallies, hardly anyone else, that’s why it was such a surprise when he won.

Johnny Rotten
Johnny Rotten
September 9, 2023 10:40 am

Knuckle Dragger
Sep 9, 2023 10:30 AM
Upticks! Downticks!

And Dipsticks galore.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
September 9, 2023 10:41 am

Aha. The arrival of the black hand.

I don’t mind at all. You have a choice.

H B Bear
H B Bear
September 9, 2023 10:41 am

The best jacarandas are still in Peshawar.

Roger
Roger
September 9, 2023 10:41 am

Not an escalation, or provocation of course.

Freedom of navigation in the Black Sea is crucial to world grain supplies.

The Russians have been harassing (disruption of GPS, for e.g.) and threatening shipping for some time now.

Tom
Tom
September 9, 2023 10:43 am

You can not give both a thumbs up & thumbs down on the same post.

Wut? That means that, unlike an American presidential election, you can’t rig it.

Monty will be furious.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
September 9, 2023 10:44 am

Also, everyone note, the ticks up or down are not obligatory.

You don’t have to vote at all. And it is no sin to be without upticks.

I’m restricting my usage. No point in devaluing the currency.

calli
calli
September 9, 2023 10:46 am

I see we have become gladiatorial again.

Hail, Dover. We, who are about to receive downticks, salute you.

Jorge
Jorge
September 9, 2023 10:47 am

My thoughts are, if you are deemed too old to be sent to jail, what business do you have running for president?
And that applies to any candidate.

September 9, 2023
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday that she will seek reelection to Congress in 2024 as Democrats try to win back the majority.

Pelosi, 83, made the announcement before volunteers and labor allies in the San Francisco area district she has represented for more than 35 years.

“Now more than ever our City needs us to advance San Francisco values and further our recovery,” Pelosi said in a tweet.

Well, she thought, if the Rolling Stones can do it…..

calli
calli
September 9, 2023 10:47 am

Are you not entertained?

Roger
Roger
September 9, 2023 10:52 am

To simplify things and assuage concerns of AEC meddling, perhaps the referendum should be conducted online, with the option of a thumbs up or thumbs down.

What could possibly go wrong?

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
September 9, 2023 10:52 am

Their ABC, perhaps smelling the zeitgeist, gives us a straight piece on the polling – complete with a very clear plot of the polling results across time.

The latest poll for the Voice to Parliament shows Yes trailing No by greatest margin yet

Agony for Uncle Luigi.
He’s already strapped himself to the issue.
Does he come back from his O/S jaunts, and:

a) Double down on the result of failure and campaign his little heart out for his Signature Policy?

b) Flitter around the fringes, using the it’s not a Party Political Issue meme as arsecover for minimising the personal political damage of failure – and risk being criticised for starting the cart rolling and then jumping off at the bumpy bit?

Tough decisions when you’re Mr 32% and it looks like you’ve lost a third of your voteherd on arguably the biggest political issue in a generation.

Pillock.

Muddy
Muddy
September 9, 2023 10:55 am

Mak Siccar
Sep 9, 2023 9:46 AM

Thanks, Mak.

Here’s the link to the Powerline piece, with the photo of her bloodied face about half way down the page.

I hadn’t thought about it until reading some of the comments, and I’m not experienced enough with blood spatters, but …

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
September 9, 2023 10:56 am

Because he showed interest in the 50’s quiz I sent this quiz on Geography to Hairy, as he is a geography freak. If you do youtube quizzes then the sidebar contains many more.

I said that I have no intention of ever trying it. My geography ends with Australia. He’s emailed back that he got 93 out of 100. He stayed up late last nite doing it and is still sleeping it off.

I know some Cats enjoy various geography games, so I’m sharing this, but no more. The sidebar is there. That said, I enjoy getting links here to enjoyable stuff – the Bald and Bankrupt travelogue Steve T linked was worth a watch for Bangladesh and probably other places too, in a quiet moment.

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
September 9, 2023 10:57 am

I just found out thag the old Jacaranda in the Main Quad in Sydney Uni died. It is supposedly being replaced with a clone or something.

Given the old Sydney Uni tradition that when the Jacaranda bloomed it was too late to start studying, I wonder how many students have contested year end results on the basis that they could not benefit from the Jacaranda’s mute but vivid prompting.

Muddy
Muddy
September 9, 2023 10:58 am

Upticks are for yes voters.
Pffft.

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
September 9, 2023 10:58 am

I just noticed UPTICKS!

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 9, 2023 10:58 am

Wut? That means that, unlike an American presidential election, you can’t rig it.

Um…

I did stop at ten though. Dover – If you reinstate your donations button I’ll help pay for the bandwidth I’ve just used!

Roger
Roger
September 9, 2023 11:00 am

AFR:

‘Xi fears business elites yearn for solutions not rhetoric’

Seems Mr. Xi has a lot on his plate at home atm.

Interesting times.

Johnny Rotten
Johnny Rotten
September 9, 2023 11:00 am

b) Flitter around the fringes, using the it’s not a Party Political Issue meme as arsecover for minimising the personal political damage of failure – and risk being criticised for starting the cart rolling and then jumping off at the bumpy bit?

Tough decisions when you’re Mr 32% and it looks like you’ve lost a third of your voteherd on arguably the biggest political issue in a generation.

Pillock.

As the song goes – ‘It’s My Party And I’ll Cry If I Want to’ –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIsnIt1p978

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
September 9, 2023 11:00 am

To outdoor pursuits – although we’re tracking to 36 degrees today, with substantial wind.

Real Deal – I will have some thoughts on your earlier post when – or if – I return.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
September 9, 2023 11:01 am

“Now more than ever our City needs us to advance San Francisco values and further our recovery,” Pelosi said in a tweet.

She made the mess that is the San Fran streets and economy.

Why let her back in to make it worse?

And she’s far too old. lol. I say this from ‘lived experience’ commenter Kevni. 🙂

Tom
Tom
September 9, 2023 11:03 am

I’m thinking Uncle Luigi, currently on his nth world tour, will weigh up his options and, in anticipation of the first ALP caucus meeting after October 14, will decide to take up residence in China as Australia’s first prime minister in exile — in the safe hands of the Chinese Communist Party.

calli
calli
September 9, 2023 11:04 am

This morning I mentioned the Presbyterian discussion paper on the referendum in response to Yes signs being put up in other denominations.

I was probably a bit harsh about its “readability”. At 11 pages, it was a bit of a stretch to read last night when I got it.

Here it is

JMH
JMH
September 9, 2023 11:08 am

Re. ticking. Thank you Dover.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 9, 2023 11:08 am

I should ask nice Mr Zuckerberg for a job.

(via Instapundit)

Johnny Rotten
Johnny Rotten
September 9, 2023 11:08 am

Tom
Sep 9, 2023 10:43 AM
You can not give both a thumbs up & thumbs down on the same post.

A poster can using a VPN.

flyingduk
flyingduk
September 9, 2023 11:09 am

Also, everyone note, the ticks up or down are not obligatory.

Will a cross count as a downtick, or be tossed out, (in)Voice style?

calli
calli
September 9, 2023 11:11 am

The return of upticks (and the dwedfully non validating downticks) is a little bit like this.

Swings and roundabouts.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
September 9, 2023 11:12 am

Given the old Sydney Uni tradition that when the Jacaranda bloomed it was too late to start studying

No, no, Mother Lode. That’s when you left the Forest Lodge beer garden and started cramming for the exams, which apart from a single essay per year per subject was all you ever had to worry about. Sitting in the Lodge was like being on the Cat. A widespread education, at any time of day or nite, with convivial company.

If was different in Medicine and Engineering and other sciences, although even these raucous companions were not unknown at The Lodge. There was also May’s Family Hotel in that area until it closed and sent the Push down to the back room at the Royal George pub in the CBD (now the fancy Ship Inn where Mary met her Prince).

Boambee John
Boambee John
September 9, 2023 11:13 am

ML he

Albo is doing the opposite and for perhaps the first time in living memory Labor people are not being uniformly tribal.

Not quite, remember “Howard’s battlers” in 1996 and the degeneration of Whitless in 1975, confirmed in 1977. Pity the Liberals fluffed it both times.

Roger
Roger
September 9, 2023 11:13 am

Here it is

I found it online and read it earlier.

I question the wisdom of putting it out, although as I’m, not a Presbyterian that’s moot.

This is a better analysis.

KevinM
KevinM
September 9, 2023 11:14 am

Johnny Rotten
Sep 9, 2023 11:08 AM

Tom
Sep 9, 2023 10:43 AM
You can not give both a thumbs up & thumbs down on the same post.

A poster can using a VPN.

True, and it was proven, but as I mentioned it before, you would have to be an imbecilic totally deranged moron to do it often enough to make a meaningful difference.
You’d have no life outside of the blog.

Despite not being overly fond of some posters, I don’t think there would be any answering to that description.

Roger
Roger
September 9, 2023 11:16 am

Not quite, remember “Howard’s battlers” in 1996 and the degeneration of Whitless in 1975, confirmed in 1977.

I dare say a few on this forum are old enough to remember the split of 1955 and/or its electoral repercussions for quite a while afterwards.

calli
calli
September 9, 2023 11:17 am

Roger, that’s an argument for rejection, which something different to the discussion paper.

I’m not a pressbutton either, just growing where I’m planted. Not quite ready to formally join up.

caveman
caveman
September 9, 2023 11:20 am

Too much choice with the ticks

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
September 9, 2023 11:22 am

A poster can using a VPN.

Ergo, they are as untrammelled as an American election?

Or does that VPN only apply to those who wish to give a ‘balanced’ opinion? 🙂

Roger
Roger
September 9, 2023 11:24 am

Roger, that’s an argument for rejection, which something different to the discussion paper.

Yes, I don’t think there’s a Christain argument for the Voice, calli.

Which is why I don’t think church bodies can approach it impartially, as the Pressies have attempted, let alone be in favour of it.

Johnny Rotten
Johnny Rotten
September 9, 2023 11:25 am

True, and it was proven, but as I mentioned it before, you would have to be an imbecilic totally deranged moron to do it often enough to make a meaningful difference.
You’d have no life outside of the blog.

How did you know that it was MontyPox Virus that knew this also.

200 Upticks. 1,000 Dipsticks for Munty.

Roger
Roger
September 9, 2023 11:27 am

That so many are reveals just how much Marxism under the guise of the social justice gospel (that is no gospel at all) has infiltrated the Australian churches.

Disappointing to see Michael Jensen err on this question. I used to enjoy his “Blogging Parson” blog when he was active on it.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 9, 2023 11:27 am

The best jacarandas are still in Peshawar.

On the streets of Pretoria.

Boambee John
Boambee John
September 9, 2023 11:32 am

Just read mine at 1113. Spellwreck converted “defenestration” to “degeneration”.

Quite appropriate, actually.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
September 9, 2023 11:33 am

For the most part, I’m ignoring the black hand, having been retrained by Dover to read happily here without it. I will, however, be pleased to see it and use it to give warranted applause to some of the excellent bursts of enthusiasm we get here. M0nty should cop a good wrongology spanking; that’s a given.

Reading the Oz Saturday paper in this beautiful sunshine now calls.
Australia is still the world’s best place to live.

calli
calli
September 9, 2023 11:37 am

What becomes perfectly obvious with the Up and Down once it gets going…

Make an inoffensive, bland or helpful comment. Receive downticks.

It isn’t about the content of the comment at all, just crude, mindless animus towards the commenter.

Be careful what you wish for.

Cassie of Sydney
September 9, 2023 11:45 am

Wentworth hypocrisy update and alert, I have just returned from Pilates and I walked back with a friend from Pilates who happens to be from NZ and is Maori, not a quarter Maori, not half Maori, but a full blood (a most attractive, intelligent and bubbling woman).

We left our Pilates class and we were immediately accosted by a older male, in his sixties, in a Teal coloured t-shirt emblazoned with “Wentworth votes YES”. He approached me and I said NO. He got the message. No mucking around from me.

However, at the traffic lights, whilst my Maori friend and I were waiting for the lights to change, I listened to another very white older male YES spruiker speaking with a toffee nosed very white female. I didn’t say anything but this is what I heard them say….God’s truth….the woman to the man….

“best of luck”
“let’s just get it done”
“it’s just a few words”

This is the mentality. But then the female said something worse….

“it’s that ugly Dutton and the racists behind him”

The very white privileged older male laughed and said “yes”.

Let me state this, and everyone here knows this to be true, but this Voice has nothing to do with helping indigenous men, women and children. NOTHING. It is only about ideology and virtue signalling for very well off, very white, scum.

Walking down the hill, two other women wearing “Wentworth votes YES” were walking towards us, one woman went to hand a poster to me and then backtracked. She recognised me from a few weeks ago, and she said…”oh no, not you”. I laughed at her. Good, she can F*CK off.

I don’t discuss politics with my friend, the full blooded Maori. She doesn’t vote here anyway, she said she’s travelling back to NZ to see family and that she’ll vote in the NZ general election. I didn’t ask who or what party she supports because it’s none of my business. I just said to her this morning that I have strong opinions and that this “Voice” will do nothing to help remote indigenous communities. But she then said to me….

“I find it funny how all these people wearing these “YES” t-shirts are all very white. Where are the Aboriginal men and women out there campaigning for this?”

Quite so my Maori friend. This referendum is a white man’s nauseating rort of puke inducing virtue signalling and da feel good. It’s a coup, designed by elites to destroy this country.

Some final observations, I can assure you all that these YES spruikers are the same very well off, very white people who campaigned for Spender last year….100%.

Also, I’ve thought about this for days, I don’t even think it will get up in Wentworth. I might be wrong, but referendum votes are not preferential. It’s either yes or no, no second preference, no third preference.

Now I’m off to a family lunch.

Beware Cassie of Sydney!

Pogria
Pogria
September 9, 2023 11:47 am

Calli,
I down ticked KD because he has two sugars in his coffee. Has to hand in his Manly License. 😀

Downticks can be treated as a Teacher would cross our mistakes, then add an explanation, or not! 😉

Johnny Rotten
Johnny Rotten
September 9, 2023 11:48 am

It isn’t about the content of the comment at all, just crude, mindless animus towards the commenter.

Be careful what you wish for.

Please be more positive. And it’s only a Blog and not your Life. Unless you are related to MontyPox Virus that is.

Pogria
Pogria
September 9, 2023 11:52 am

wooohoo! I have a down tickle on my last comment. Yay me. 😀

Actually, I WILL call them down “tickles” from now on because everyone I recieve makes me giggle.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 9, 2023 11:52 am

Nigel Biggar’s book “Colonialism – A Moral Reckoning” makes interesting reading.

“No culture has a moral right to be immune to change or even to survive. Feudal culture in Europe had no just claim to be preserved against agricultural improvement, industrialization, and urbanization in themselves – as distinct from the sometimes brutal manner of their development.” Page 135.

Anyone want to tell Marcia Langton?

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
September 9, 2023 11:54 am

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare

Sep 9, 2023 10:44 AM

Also, everyone note, the ticks up or down are not obligatory.

And neither is looking at them if it bovvers you.

Roger
Roger
September 9, 2023 11:56 am

Anyone want to tell Marcia Langton?

Marcia is a Buddhist who lives in a very nice house in well to do suburbia (I assume).

John H.
John H.
September 9, 2023 12:00 pm
Muddy
Muddy
September 9, 2023 12:01 pm

Ticks or a laser pointer. Hmmm, tough choice.

Cassie of Sydney
September 9, 2023 12:01 pm

Crikey, upticks and downticks!

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
September 9, 2023 12:01 pm

It’s an interesting experiment, Calli.

Fact is, there is quite a bit of mindless animus around.

Comes with the territory, I guess.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 9, 2023 12:02 pm

Walking down the hill, two other women wearing “Wentworth votes YES” were walking towards us

I was out walking earlier and people were going two by two along my street. I feared they were Yes spruikers, but it was more likely they were Jehovah’s Witnesses. I avoided them even though I prefer the latter.

If a Yes acolyte confronts me I will ask them if they have read Animal Farm? If they say yes I will say it’s a warning not a manual. If they say no I will say they should do so, then I’ll walk away.

Johnny Rotten
Johnny Rotten
September 9, 2023 12:05 pm

John H.
Sep 9, 2023 12:00 PM
New Study Uncovers Unexpected Side Effect of Daily Aspirin Usage in Older Adults

Increases the risk of anemia. Surprising.

And taking Baby Aspirin (100 mg) is recommended as a blood thinner as and when directed by your Cardiologist.

Pogria
Pogria
September 9, 2023 12:07 pm

Does anyone here know if Old Ozzie is okay? I haven’t seen any comments by him for quite some time.

John H.
John H.
September 9, 2023 12:10 pm

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Sep 9, 2023 12:01 PM
It’s an interesting experiment, Calli.

Fact is, there is quite a bit of mindless animus around.

Comes with the territory, I guess.

Lizzie from a Jungian perspective the use of “animus” is an interesting commentary on blog behavior. It suggests a certain kind of aggression displayed by women that is unconsciously driven.

Johnny Rotten
Johnny Rotten
September 9, 2023 12:12 pm

If a Yes acolyte confronts me I will ask them if they have read Animal Farm? If they say yes I will say it’s a warning not a manual. If they say no I will say they should do so, then I’ll walk away.

I always wear sunglasses when out walking during the day. If I bump into anyone asking me anything or trying to get my attention, I just tell them to ‘get a watch’. And keep walking onwards.

Of course, if it is someone in real need then I will help them if I can or just direct them on accordingly to the appropriate place. Usually Centrelink or the Police Station. They seem to get the message quick smart.

JMH
JMH
September 9, 2023 12:14 pm

Pogria
Sep 9, 2023 12:07 PM

Does anyone here know if Old Ozzie is okay? I haven’t seen any comments by him for quite some time.

I was thinking the same last night. I also hope he’s OK and just taking a bit of a break.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
September 9, 2023 12:15 pm

And neither is looking at them if it bovvers you.

I made that point at 11.33 Sancho. Mostly I intend to ignore them.

It’s bad enough having the Voice constantly in our ears, without trying to work out the meaning of the yes and no ticks here, so variably are they being used.

Words are better than ticks any day. Downtick away. I won’t peep. Promise. 🙂

Cassie of Sydney
September 9, 2023 12:17 pm

I would rather speak to a JW than a YES person. I dare say they are a lot nicer than a YES spruiking, smug, well-heeled, Wentworth hypocrite.

Farmer Gez
Farmer Gez
September 9, 2023 12:29 pm

Non binary opinion curious thumbs are going to ruin this place.

Johnny Rotten
Johnny Rotten
September 9, 2023 12:32 pm

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Sep 9, 2023 10:41 AM
Aha. The arrival of the black hand.

I don’t mind at all. You have a choice.

It all depends how you look at it. Uptick, Downtick or a Dipstick. Or, thumbs up or thumbs down. Black doesn’t matter.

Good job that we don’t live in Roman times. Those down thumbs were a real bummer’ then.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 9, 2023 12:33 pm

For those who like audio books they’re about to get a lot cheaper:

AI-narrated audiobooks are here – and they raise some serious ethical questions (8 Sep, via Phys.org)

Meet Madison and Jackson, the AI narrators or “digital voices” soon to be reading some of the audiobooks on Apple Books. They sound nothing like Siri or Alexa or the voice telling you about the unexpected item in the bagging area of your supermarket checkout. They sound warm, natural, animated. They sound real.

The lefty person who raises these “serious ethical questions” is an ANU kolkhoznik who is worried that AI narrated audio books are furthering dastardly capitalism and will put worthy lefty voice actors out of work. I cry salty tears.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
September 9, 2023 12:33 pm

Lizzie from a Jungian perspective the use of “animus” is an interesting commentary on blog behavior. It suggests a certain kind of aggression displayed by women that is unconsciously driven.

In Jungian epistemology, yes, it may seem as the female expressing her elemental maleness, demonstrating aggression towards men. That’s Jung for you though, as unhelpful beyond his own mindset as Freud or Reich, those other ‘masters’ of early psychology. In general parlance these days, as I think Calli used it, ‘animus’ just refers to a psychological mindset of dislike. An unreason that lacks thought, rather like a conditioned response.

Why am I suddenly reminded of this.

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  1. Terribly sad that my church, the Lutheran Church of Australia, is about to be split (again) due to women’s ordination.

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