Open Thread – Mon 11 Sept 2023
1,553 responses to “Open Thread – Mon 11 Sept 2023”
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You made the claim that Q and CEO acted fraudulently. Provide evidence for the assertion and not some nob ACCC website detailing the flights that were cancelled.
I don’t have to do that because in this liberal democracy we have agencies like ACCC, imperfect as they may be, that are tasked with doing this. Enjoy your evening/morning.
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We retreated to a small village called Glifa for an overnight rethink. All of central Greece was flooded with very bad headlines So we spent several hours working out our options, and decided on bring our flight forward…back to Oz on Monday night.
Travelling back to Athens was weird, like something out of an “end of the world SF movie”. Very few cars on the main A1 super-highway, and police roadblocks for anything going the other direction – eg: outwards from Athens and northwards. Freeways empty. Cars going the other way were lined up, with police advising them and generally turning them around. But there was one constant – Mrs TE guessed we would have six tolls, we were up to 5 with 100kms to go. They varied from 90p through to seven euros.
We gave car #4 of our travels back to Mr Hertz, and found an Air BnB in a seaside area of Athens. Flying the excellent Qatar Air again home.
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Top Ender
Sep 11, 2023 2:08 AMWe retreated to a small village called Glifa for an overnight rethink. All of central Greece was flooded with very bad headlines So we spent several hours working out our options, and decided on bring our flight forward…back to Oz on Monday night.
Flying the excellent Qatar Air again home.
I feel for you for missing parts of your holiday, things happen, better luck next time.
I don’t travel by air, but my children and friends love Qatar, excellent service and even now, reasonable price.
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I see Ramirez’ TDS remains unabated.
Twenty two years ago, everyday people were still sound asleep, some with bags packed for their early morning flights, others with work clothes ready on hangers, perhaps lunches packed. Street sweepers wended their way along the kerbs in their night time cleanup, fire fighters were starting their graveyard shifts.
Meanwhile, others were wakeful. They had a plan to commit an unspeakable crime on innocent civilians. They too laid out their equipment for the task – harmless to anyone but ideological perverts.
Here in Australia, as dawn broke on the 12th, received the horrifying pictures. The night owls like my husband had watched, transfixed, from the early hours. Something is happening in America was all he said, a shocked face half a world away.
We are still experiencing the fall out from this today.
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Further to the old fred, there are clearly a few here on this august blog who would be happy with a censoring media, as long as that media censors according to their tastes, their whims and their desires. My response to this? No, and it’s equally as dangerous as having an MSM fully captured by the left. I don’t want a one sided media. I don’t want a right-wing Nine Media, a right-wing ABC, a right-wing SMH, I want robust media outlets, be it broadcasting or print, that provide platforms for all opinion, and then people can make up their own minds.
There is more diversity on Sky than on their ABC. The best newspaper in this country, The Australian, tries to balance both left and right in its opinion pages. Which is why I buy it. I don’t have a problem with Chris Kenny or Mavis Bramston writing their pro-Voice propaganda, For every hysterical Kenny piece on da Voice, there are more measured pieces from Paul Kelly, Janet A or Dennis Shanahan. However, I draw the line at Dribbler Sheridan. He should be put out to pasture, he’s now just an embarrassment. They should leave foreign affairs to Adam Creighton, who’s much more nuanced.
Back to Peter Costello and Nine. Firstly, Costello is no Kerry Packer or Ruperdink Murdoch, he doesn’t own the company and he can’t directly interfere with opinion, programming and so on. His role is purely commercial, to keep Nine commercially viable. Costello can’t do what lonely old Rupert did back in April and fire Tucker Carlson. Oh and further to this firing of Tucker, that’s a classic example of a proprietor directly, and some might argue catastrophically, interfering in a media organisation’s operations. How did that go? Well, I say, not well, not well at all. Secondly, my understanding was that when Nine purchased the old Fairfax staples, that there was an agreement for the “Fairfax” staples, be it The Age and SMH mastheads, to remain editorially autonomous. The Nine media group includes such radio stations as Radio 2GB, and I’d hardly describe 2GB as “left”.
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Odd how you get times wrong. In NYC, it’s only 5:30pm. It’s the “see you tomorrow”, “drinks after work” and pick up the kids time of day. Subways full, clattering home, a bit of shopping, working out what’s for dinner.
All those everyday things you do, heedless of tomorrow’s realities.
The great weight of evil and malice behind the attacks still has the power to shock me. Make today count, don’t ever waste it.
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I don’t have to do that because in this liberal democracy we have agencies like ACCC, imperfect as they may be, that are tasked with doing this. Enjoy your evening/morning.
Almanac, you called Q and Joyce frauds. In this liberal democracy you need to provide evidence for these accusations. This isn’t your China, old pal.
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Here in Australia, as dawn broke on the 12th, received the horrifying pictures. The night owls like my husband had watched, transfixed, from the early hours. Something is happening in America was all he said, a shocked face half a world away.
We were still up when the first reports and images came through, watched it all unfold in the next few hours. At the time we had a visitor from Canada who was alarmed at the cessation of global flights though by the time she was due to go home normal flights had returned.
During the 2003 visit to New York ground zero was still just a ruined pit. On the 2014 visit the new building was up as well as the memorial reflecting pool. I said a prayer for all the victims of that day.
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However, I draw the line at Dribbler Sheridan. He should be put out to pasture, he’s now just an embarrassment. They should leave foreign affairs to Adam Creighton, who’s much more nuanced.
Adam Creighton is good value and is very measured when interviewed on Sky, not simply repeating CNN garbage like the vacuous Annelise Nielsen.
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JC
Sep 11, 2023 7:40 AM
I don’t have to do that because in this liberal democracy we have agencies like ACCC, imperfect as they may be, that are tasked with doing this. Enjoy your evening/morning.Almanac, you called Q and Joyce frauds. In this liberal democracy you need to provide evidence for these accusations. This isn’t your China, old pal.
Oh, you are a card. Tell that to all the people who have been called racists by our betters simply for opposing a constitutional change.
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Sophie Elsworth such good value: in the OZ
Sky News Australia takes legal action against RMIT FactLab
THEAUSTRALIAN.COM.AU05:59
‘Blatantly false’: RMIT FactLab exposed after silently deleting ‘egregious’ fact check
Sky News Digital Editor Jack Houghton reveals RMIT FactLab has silently deleted a fact check, which claimed it… was false to question a statistic that alleged 83 per cent of Indigenous Australians supported the Voice. RMIT FactLab fact-checked an Indigenous woman who claimed the YouGov poll, which polled 738 More
By SOPHIE ELSWORTH
MEDIA WRITER
8:20PM SEPTEMBER 10, 2023
Sky News Australia has begun legal action against RMIT FactLab, demanding the retraction of false fact-checking verdicts on the TV channel’s online content, and reimbursement for lost revenue.The broadcaster’s lawyers, Ashurst, have written to RMIT University and listed at least five fact checks published since December last year – four relating to voice referendum content – that claim Sky’s content is false.
RMIT FactLab, led by director Russell Skelton, published the five fact checks despite its International Fact-Checking Network certification expiring on December 2 last year. To issue fact-checking verdicts, RMIT FactLab must hold a valid IFCN certification as part of its agreement with social media giant and Facebook owner, Meta.
A legal letter to RMIT by Sky News Australia’s lawyers on August 28, said the lack of IFCN certification was problematic.
“Despite FactLab acknowledging it is not certified and its clear acceptance of that fact, demonstrated by the removal of some of the misleading material, the ‘verdicts’ will appear on the FactLab website and therefore are still being used on Facebook,” it said.
“As you are aware, Meta only works with IFCN certified organisations as fact checkers.
“Continuing to publish the verdicts, and provide them to Facebook, is clearly misleading when FactLab concedes it does not have the relevant certification required to do so.”
The letter has also accused RMIT FactLab of stating it has certification it no longer holds on fact check verdicts. Sky’s lawyers said this is “false and misleading” under Australian Consumer Law.
FactLab came under fire last month after it fact checked reports by Sky News host Peta Credlin that the Uluru Statement from the Heart was 26 pages long.
Sky News uploaded a video of Credlin’s comments about the statement’s length on its Facebook page but FactLab declared it was “false information” and a tag was placed on the video. It was subsequently unable to be viewed.
Sky News, owned by News Corporation, publisher of The Australian, published a lengthy report on the saga and conduct by RMIT FactLab in the “Fact Check Files”, by digital editor Jack Houghton.
Meta subsequently suspended its partnership with RMIT Fact-Lab, due to the lapsed IFCN certification status and concerns of bias in relation to fact checks done on voice debate content.
RMIT University’s lawyers responded to Sky’s legal demands on Thursday and said the broadcaster’s actions had resulted in the RMIT FactLab’s suspension. The lawyers also said when Sky established a Facebook page, “it agreed to Meta’s terms of use” and that Sky should instead take legal action against Meta.
“These terms include that your client’s content may be subject to whatever programs Meta utilises or applies, such as third party fact checking programs, or algorithms which either promote or reduce your client’s contents appearance in user’s feeds,” RMIT’s lawyer said. “If, as your client claims, it has suffered quantifiable financial loss, because of Meta’s application of its own terms of use, then your client’s claim is against Meta.”
However, Sky’s lawyers sent a legal letter to RMIT University on Friday disputing these claims.
“Our client may have agreed to Meta’s terms of use, but its agreement to those terms do not extend to actions that breach the law and thus enable FactLab to conduct its ‘fact-checking’ for Meta whilst in breach of the consumer law,” the letter from Sky’s lawyers said.
“In any event, it is RMIT who has breached its agreement with Meta by failing to adhere to the requirements of its third party fact checking program.”
Liberal Senator James Paterson wrote to Meta on August 30 and asked the tech giant to review all previous fact checks done by the RMIT’s FactLab and release the findings publicly.
On Saturday, Meta’s regional director of policy, Mia Garlick, in a response to Senator Paterson, said complaints about fact checks should be sent to the IFCN.
“With respect to any concerns about the nature of a fact check, to ensure the independence of the fact-checking process and to allow them to be promptly addressed, these must be addressed directly with the individual fact-checker within seven days of the fact check,” she said.
“At present, given the length of time that has occurred since the fact checks you reference, complaints about any concerns that a fact-checker has not met the IFCN requirements should be directed to the International Fact Checking Network.”
An RMIT spokeswoman said FactLab’s accreditation with IFCN is in the process of being renewed. “RMIT FactLab stands by the accuracy of its work to date and remains dedicated to slowing the spread of viral misinformation and disinformation through its fact checks,” she said.
SOPHIE ELSWORTH MEDIA WRITER
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Last there in summer, 2019. The site is sombre, but busy. Nothing stands still, and neither should it. It’s a living city, not a museum.
The pools, marking the buildings’ footprint, have a waist-high coping. It’s sloped and carved with the names of those who perished. Not in alphabetical order…the placement is far more poignant and thoughtful. They are grouped with their workmates, remembered in death as they last stood in life, with the people they spent their days with.
The coping is punctuated with the occasional flower. A birthday, an anniversary, something significant. It’s powerful and emotive, and that’s not a bad thing.
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The History Channel had a doco on this morning which consisted of home videos of New Yorkers on that terrible day 22 years ago. It was raw and gut wrenching. Never forget.
Six years ago I was in New York and had a flight that day to Toronto. The TV had the service where the name of every person who died was read out one by one. Driving across Manhattan to Newark Airport the solemn atmosphere was evident. I just hope that time does not diminish the memories too much.
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Sophie again — updated from yesterday’s article
ABC presenter Leigh Sales said she has concerns about activism journalism in the media industry
By SOPHIE ELSWORTH
MEDIA WRITER
@sophieelsworth
UPDATED 3:25PM SEPTEMBER 10, 2023, FIRST PUBLISHED AT 2:11PM SEPTEMBER 9, 2023
ABC presenter Leigh Sales has serious concerns about activist journalism and the increasing “blurring of lines” in the media industry.Speaking at the Women in Media conference in Sydney on Saturday, Sales said while the surge in artificial intelligence and its effects on the media was of serious concern, activism by journalists was a bigger worry after becoming more prevalent in recent years.
“The AI (artificial intelligence) stuff is worrying but what worries me more is the blurring of activism and journalism and the loss of what I would call ‘independent journalism’,” she said at the conference.
“I’ve been worried about that for a long time. I wrote a book about this called On Doubt in about 2007 and now I look back and go, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe I was writing about this in 2007, that was the Golden Age of independent journalism’.”
The comments come just two weeks after Sales instructed staff at the public broadcaster that the Uluru Statement from the Heart was a “one-page document” and that those arguing it was longer were wrong.
She gave staff exact instructions on how to beats arguments that the statement was many pages long, including scripts for employees to read during interviews if someone argued it was not a single-page document.
Sales, who hosts ABC’s Australian Story program, told the audience there had been worrying signs since 2007 that “organisations have picked out their ideological bent and they’re reporting from that”.
“I’m so big on things like setting aside your own opinion and trying to go into things with an open minded mindset.
“Fake news, misinformation … the bullying that occurs on social media, reporters are doing reporting that doesn’t fit with the zeitgeist or world view, that all really concerns me.”
ABC presenter Leigh Sales speaks of her concerns about activism journalism at the 2023 Women in Media…
The email instructing stuff about the length of the Uluru Statement was sent by the ABC’s editorial policy chief Mark Maley on August 24. In it Sales, the former 7.30 host, said an example of misinformation was “the claim that the Uluru Statement is a 26-page document”.“That is inaccurate,” she wrote.
“The Uluru Statement from the Heart is a one-page document.”
The document’s length provoked much debate between the Yes and No camps and some pro-voice advocates, including Uluru Statement co-architect Professor Megan Davis, who in her newly-released book said it was “18 pages long”.
Earlier this month Sales did a sit-down interview with Ten’s The Project’s co-host Waleed Aly, and said she didn’t take positions on anything. If you “want to be a journalist, you have to leave your opinions at the door”, she told Aly.
She also told the Women in Media conference that diversity of perspectives in journalism remained vital to ensure stories were covered by people with lived experience.
“In any newsroom you want as much diversity as possible and I don’t just mean cultural diversity, I mean economic diversity … you want people who have come from working class backgrounds, you want people who have grown up in the country and not just inner-city Sydney,” she said.
“You want people that didn’t go to university as well those who went to university and you want people from all sorts of different cultural backgrounds. If you don’t have, for example, someone in your newsroom who grew up and their mother was on a single-mother pension … they’re not going understand really what stories about cost of living are like.”
SOPHIE ELSWORTH MEDIA WRITER
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Crossie
I don’t get the logic. Extend your thought a little further. We should call Q and Joyce frauds because the left are using unfounded slurs against NO voters. Is that where you want to be. Moreover our old China thinks one of the most useless politicised entities in the country (ACCC) is a reliable entity. Really?
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Dot
Q came out of mothballs with all sorts of teething problems such as serious staff shortages etc
The only way to measure their performance is to put them beside other airlines and see how they went. Try the US airlines. It was the equivalent of a late term abortion. Q has done well in comparison.
Joyce made a few mistakes, but he’s not a fraudster which was what almanac was suggesting.
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Also on this day in history, though not as profoundly shocking:
1914 – An Australian naval & military task force occupies the colonial German capital of their New Guinea territory, leading eventually to a mandate from the League of Nations for Australia to govern the same. (Japan scored German territories further north).
1943 – Australian troops begin the reoccupation of Salamaua, on the Huon Gulf of New Guinea, dislodging the Japanese after 18 months. Lae & Finschhafen followed, eventually leading to the clearance of the Huon Peninsula. When the Americans occupied the opposite shores (Western New Britain), the way was clear to initiate a north-western momentum. -
Tinta beat me to it (above):
Headkicker Sophie Elsworth has taken over The Australian’s Monday Media Diary – a much needed credibility boost for a news source that had become little more than a gossip column for journos.
Today, Elsworth takes issue with 3AW’s new Drive host Jacqui Felgate, who’s little more than a walking social media billboard for a range of products over which she has not yet declared any conflict of interest:
(To save you scrolling up)
AWOL sponsorships
Journalists are increasingly blurring the lines by using their social media accounts to shamelessly plug products and tag businesses in return for freebies.
These can include anything from driving around in the latest SUV, to powdering their noses with the hottest make-up lines and even showing off their newly whitened teeth.
High-profile presenters and broadcasters are usually the ones who score lucrative deals with brands that deliver them nice perks in return for spruiking the goods.
While Diary isn’t saying the journalists or broadcasters are breaking any rules, it’s important that those who are receiving help to boost their bank balances with sponsorship deals make sure they declare them.
In fact, for radio broadcasters the strict disclosure rules are laid out in the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s disclosure standards.
Then it’s up to viewers to decide whether they think it’s a problem or not.
Anyone familiar with 3AW broadcaster Jacqui Felgate, who was recently appointed the station’s new drive host to replace Tom Elliott (who will replace veteran host Neil Mitchell when he departs at the end of the year), knows product plugs are commonplace.
Her Instagram account is filled with sponsorship deals and the hashtagging of freebies received, with her partnerships disclosed in her posts.
Felgate has been filling in across various 3AW programs for more than a year but these lucrative arrangements need to be disclosed by someone who is on air for more than three hours a week over a four-week period. There is a recent ad promoting Coles Supermarkets, her role as a BMW ambassador for the German brand’s luxury electric cars, her amazing experiences with Smile Solutions, and her sharing of how she improved her skin courtesy of a paid ad with Maybelline – the list goes on.
There’s even a paid partnership with Virgin Australia, one worth knowing about if the troubled Qantas pops up in on-air conversation.
Felgate joined the station in 2022 in various roles including food reviews, football commentary and as a fill in host for weekday programs, however on 3AW’s commercial agreements web page there was no mention of any of her sponsorship deals online as yet.
When Diary contacted Nine to find out when Felgate’s long list of deals would be declared, the ¬response was “no comment”.
Watch this space as to whether 3AW updates its commercial agreements page to ensure it abides by ACMA’s rules.
ACMA was asked about the matter on Friday but was unable to respond in time.In my opinion, Felgate can’t ethically run the Drive show without strict observance of the professional ethics that apply to journalists. Felgate has been a journalist for years if not decades as she previously worked for the Seven Network, where she was the weekend sports presenter.
But she’s now behaving as if the rules don’t apply to her.
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The renewables industry is cracking apart. Local suppliers are floundering. And here we go, the only answer is more taxpayers money to prop up uncompetitive businesses?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-11/wind-tower-companies-and-unions-want-local-procurement-guarantee/102837748 -
JC
Sep 11, 2023 8:43 AM
Crossie
You’re arguing we should punish innocent people in order to payback the left.
No, we shouldn’t do that as it’s wrong.
Joyce behaved like a woke idiot at the end but I’d be very careful to call him a fraudster. Over the years he did an incredible job running the airline.Are you claiming that Joyce didn’t know about the bookings for non-existent flights? And if he didn’t then how was he such a brilliant CEO? Joyce may be lots of things but innocent he is not.
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I think there might be different ramifications between claiming a particular major corporation and its CEO behaved fraudulently and labelling everyone who might anonymously vote no racists.
Neither is acceptable but I suspect only one potentially ‘actionable’, as one great former cat sage might have suggested. -
From the Beaby-Sea
Voice Referendum: Lies Fuel Racism Ahead of Australia’s Indigineous Vote.
It is as expected. -
Joyce behaved like a woke idiot at the end but I’d be very careful to call him a fraudster. Over the years he did an incredible job running the airline.
Correct, JC.
Joyce transformed Qantas into the mega-successful airline it has become — a task that was too hard for his predecessor Geoff Dixon.
He didn’t need Uncle Luigi’s help, but he got it anyway because Qantas worked out that the prime minister would respond less than ethnically to certain inducements.
Elbow can’t suddenly start complaining about the Australian political playing field where leading companies are forced to take political positions to curry favour with the government. Elbow and his predecessor Scott Morrison authored Australia’s new fascist economy.
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The Problem with Smart Meters -Worldwide Testimonies
They are not compulsory here but you wouldn’t know it from the correspondence from providers. I think I already mentioned that I received a letter of from Origin last year stating that my meter would “updated” on such and such a date and please be available. I rang and said that I did not want a smart meter and only then did they admit that it wasn’t compulsory.
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It would be helpful to know the timeline between sales and cancellations. If it’s only a matter of days, that’s conceivable. If it’s weeks or even months, then the issue becomes one of incompetence and perhaps malfeasance.
Ticketing systems are pretty sophisticated. It’s not is if physical vouchers are still widely used – it’s all automated. And those programs would have already been in place well before Covid. A flight cancellation would result in a “hold” on sales, a simple computer function.
Qantas isn’t the only airline to be grounded for so long. I know BA had endless problems with cancellations, and still do. Did they also sell many…many tickets for flights cancelled well prior to the sale?
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Are you claiming that Joyce didn’t know about the bookings for non-existent flights?
I’m claiming that you look first before crossing a busy road.
And if he didn’t then how was he such a brilliant CEO?
I’m claiming that if an extremely complex operation comes out of mothballs after a two year lockdown it’s not going operate as a well oiled machine.
Joyce may be lots of things but innocent he is not.
That’s what we were told about Pell.
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The Guardian is all over it, 8000 instances of selling tickets after a flight had been cancelled, when the transport industry was nuts.
The ACCC are out to punish a company that lost billions due to covid chaos.
Yet it sounds like an overloaded system problem to me.
Can they point to this happening pre covid, then they might have an argument it was deliberate. -
Tim Blair:
One of life’s great delights is watching smug lefties run headfirst into reality.
We see a great deal of this in Australia.
Labor was forced to abandon its “welcome to boaties” policy a decade ago after thousands turned up without passports or other identification, then claimed additional asylum seeker benefits for being underage.
Poor kids. Some of them were so short of cash that they couldn’t afford hip replacements.
More recently, the Albanese Labor government has come under attack from its own leftist allies after approving a number of new coal mining projects.
The government signed those lucrative approvals because it’s really hard to run for re-election when recharging a mobile phone costs more than buying one and voters are harvesting animal shelters for meat.
Judging by recent polls our Labor rulers can expect another reality hit on October 14. As Andrew Bolt writes today: “Nothing will now save Labor’s Voice from a massive defeat, and the Albanese government must now save itself from dying with it.”
Seems about right. But the Prime Minister and his government are at least travelling better at present than leftist New York mayor Eric Adams.
Adams has enjoyed quite the emotional and philosophical journey in recent years.
In 2021, when campaigning for mayoral office, Adams luxuriated in New York’s precious “sanctuary city” status and declared: “We should protect our immigrants. Period.”
Of course it’s very easy to hold that view when illegal immigrants are pouring across the southern border into Texas rather than into New York, some 3200km away.
Mindful of the words on his city’s Statue of Liberty – “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore” – Adams even greeted border-crossing refugees when they turned up on buses last year.
They’d been sent to Democrat New York by the Republican government of Texas, a state largely left to fend for itself against a flood of illegal immigrants.
So Texas delivered a load of illegals to caring, humanitarian New York. Adams, at first, was glad to meet them.
“As the mayor of New York I have to provide services to families that are here, and that’s what we’re going to do,” Adams said at the time.
“I’m proud that this is a ‘right to shelter’ state and we’re going to continue to do that.”
But Texas called his bluff. The Lone Star State kept sending busload after busload of “huddled masses yearning to breathe free”.
Pretty soon, despite the numbers arriving in New York being a mere fraction of those who were overwhelming small Texan border towns, Adams began to reconsider his city’s generosity.
He even aimed criticism at his own party’s confused and gravity-challenged Democratic President Joe Biden, whose staff repeatedly insist that there is no particular issue at the southern border (they also insist that there is no particular issue with Joe Biden. The blind devotion of these people to their demented leader and his shambles of an administration borders on the religious).
Finally, last week, Adams cracked. In full view of his city, his country, the world and the almighty, Adams became the living embodiment of an age-old truism: a conservative is a leftist who’s just been mugged.
“I’m gonna tell you something New Yorkers, never in my life have I had a problem that I didn’t see an ending to. I don’t see an ending to this,” Adams raved at a town hall meeting on Wednesday night.
“This issue will destroy New York City. Destroy New York City.”
President Biden’s lack of federal assistance drew special attention from Mayor Adams.
“Month after month I stood up and said this is gonna come to a neighbourhood near you. Well, we’re here, we’re getting no support on this national crisis and we’re receiving no support,” he said.
“One hundred ten thousand migrants we have to feed, clothe, house, educate the children, wash their laundry sheets, give them everything they need, health care.”
That’s basically a longer version of the Statue of Liberty’s beautiful promise.
Perpetually left-voting New York was invited to live up to its own noble slogan and plainly can’t quite manage it.
“One time we were just getting Venezuela,” Adams continued. “Now we’re getting Ecuador, now we’re getting Russian-speaking coming through Mexico, now we’re getting Western Africa.”
If a conservative said various races and nationalities were destroying an entire city they’d be condemned, driven from public life.
But much of New York is on the mayor’s side.
The city has run headfirst into reality. And now it wants a way out.
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Tom Switzer had Shireen Morris on his RN program on the weekend. She is a keen Voice advocate.
She put up a word wall when he pointed out that the Yessers describe it as a modest, measured request but also a profound, transformational change. How can it be both ?
Alexander Downer was interviewed as well and made some knockout points.
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Rosie, the only problem I have is a simple processing one.
Cancel a flight, hold ticket sales – the moment the decision is made, the system is activated. A keystroke or two. This is not difficult, because someone decided to cancel the flight. That someone in operations has access to the scheduling and sales via their keyboard.
It sounds as though this simple but vital element was left for later on and someone else – which is basic incompetence.
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I for one, will never fly with quaintarse again. Too much arrogance in the way it’s staff are made to treat us.
I am also not a fan of Branson, but I am ok with his airline. At least the air staff appear to be friendly.
Fraud? Dunno, that one can be tough to prove. That leprechaun though, what a prick.
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Elbow and his predecessor Scott Morrison authored Australia’s new fascist economy.
They had willing eager partners. The totally innocent Australian Business didn’t get their arms twisted to get in bed with the Govt.
The only reason this soft fascist partnership manifested was because they mutually benefited. Govt gets Business to go into bat for it’s Green/Woke/Vax agenda and Business can “encourage” Govt to impose regulatory hurdles that restrict/suppress competition. That’s the Aussie way.
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How can Trump win a fixed election?
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Cancel a flight, hold ticket sales – the moment the decision is made, the system is activated. A keystroke or two. This is not difficult, because someone decided to cancel the flight.
I dont know how Qantas systems were coping. I’m guessing in the circumstances of unprededented demand and staff, including adminstrative staff, testing positive to covid, there may have been system problems.
I doubt it was as simple as a keystroke or two. -
Internationals didnt have the problem of being hit with a sudden surge in demand for flights in 2022 after two years of Australian border closures, coupled with stringent exclusion rules for positive tests.
Europeans had been flying around since at least May 2021.
I’m not going to assume fraud simply because post covid there was a lag between flights being cancelled and bookings being taken. -
Let’s say I book a flight from Sydney to Melbourne at 4:30 p.m. on 30th September.
That flight is cancelled, but Qantas has other flights available on that route.
Is it wrong to retain the cash and offer alternatives.
I think the problem with long standing flight credits is that they regarded them as captive fares to be dealt with at leisure.
If they can sell seats for 50% more than my credit is worth, they are going to keep bumping me. -
rosie
If a bank has 200 bn transactions in a month and has 800,000 questionable transactions in the same period, you cannot dismiss them as mere errors.
These claims need to be investigated (and they may be totally baseless). If the terminal access was intentionally compromised for competitors then QUNTAS may be in deep doo doo.
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Brutal:
Armchair Warlord
@ArmchairW
Cross-post from Telegram because my man @finntrasan asked for my detailed thoughts on the matter:Let’s look at the data points we have showing Ukrainian KIA in the 200-400,000 range.
– Population surveys
– Obituary counts on social media
– Cemetery construction
– Amputation disclosures
– Older, inadvertent official disclosures
– Endless conscription but no army growthIt’s all completely internally consistent, pointing to the same approximate number of casualties in the 2[00]-400k range. This is exactly what you would expect if that was in fact the case – all these secondary indicators are consistent with each other and there is very little data supporting a lower count besides the dubious statements of Ukrainian and Western officials and equally dubious “rule of thumb” claims from pro-Ukrainian commentators.
Given that Mediazona’s count of Russian KIA in the 30,000 range has recently been validated by another inadvertent disclosure on their side (of some 8,500 WIA returned to duty, total, in the entire VDV for the entire SMO) this also points to an absolutely brutal fact: for every Russian soldier killed in this war, somewhere between seven and thirteen Ukrainian soldiers die.* I also note that this ratio has likely only grown in favor of Russia as time has progressed, with steadily declining casualties over the last six months and even over the course of the Ukrainian Spring-Summer-Fall 2023 Counteroffensive (pictured).
* Lukashenko claimed in a recent interview that it was 8:1, for what that’s worth.
In time, the Western narrative about this war is going to be absolutely exposed as a series of deceptions, lies and obfuscations.
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I dont know how Qantas systems were coping
If QAN systems are anything like banks I expect it take months to get anything done. I also expect someone in management knew the problem was occurring and decided to allow it to continue. I am not sure that would have been the CEO (it should have been but I would not be surprised if it was not.)
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The other possibility is provisional cancellation.
An undersubscribed flight is *cancelled* subject to more bums on seats, then it is reinstated should sufficient tickets be sold.
As for “simple keystrokes” it’s amazing what they can achieve if a system is programmed accordingly. Seems to work for other complex businesses.
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Calli, the ACCC has created more problems than it has solved, but I have fully supported its new rules that ban companies from lying about their products and services in their advertising.
The ACCC is talking about fining Qantas around $250 million for selling seats on flights that it never had any intention of operating.
For a company making north of $2 billion p.a. in annual profits, that’s not a disincentive. To get the new CEO’s attention, the fine will need to be $500 million+.
ACCC chairwoman Gina Cass-Gottlieb is just a wealthy corporate lawyer whose uncle Moss Cass, was one of the radicals in the Whitlam regime. That’s why she got the job.
Cass-Gottleib is no friend of Australian consumers. Her weekly shopping is covered by a luxurious expense account. Being Moss Cass’s niece, she is, I expect, an enthusiastic supporter of Australia’s skyrocketing domestic electricity bills because it is helping to bring down capitalism. Like the rest of the wealthy elite, household budgeting is not her problem.
But I hope the fine Qantas is forced to pay breaks a record.
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“I’m gonna tell you something New Yorkers, never in my life have I had a problem that I didn’t see an ending to. I don’t see an ending to this,” Adams raved at a town hall meeting on Wednesday night.
“This issue will destroy New York City. Destroy New York City.”
How long before Adams starts shining a spotlight on the New York skyline with a bat shaped symbol?
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