Open Thread – Mon 11 Sept 2023


Napoleon at Brienne, Jacques Marie Gaston Onfroy de Breville, 1908

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rosie
rosie
September 11, 2023 12:45 pm

been ongoing freeway upgrade on a bridge that has lasted 4 years and still far from complete. I don’t understand why it takes so long to complete these projects.

Could be the local Aboriginal Corporation has insisted that every shovel full of soil must be removed by hand and put through a fine sieve because artifacts.

flyingduk
flyingduk
September 11, 2023 12:46 pm

Known antivaxxer wins US Open tennis.

Baffling!!!

Real Deal
Real Deal
September 11, 2023 12:48 pm

Treated myself to a prezzie .. lotza building brick models of the TITANIC around but this is the 1st time I’ve come across .. sinking …..!

Lego are bringing out a Concorde in Lego shortly. Might be worth a look.

Leon L.
Leon L.
September 11, 2023 12:50 pm

From Dover earlier: “As you said last week, they are making 90% of the profits from 10% of the share in the phone market.”

US cell phone market share

Apple’s market share of the cell phone market in the USA is greater than 50%.
In Australia, Apple’s share is north of 40%.

John H.
John H.
September 11, 2023 12:51 pm

Real Deal
Sep 11, 2023 12:48 PM
Treated myself to a prezzie .. lotza building brick models of the TITANIC around but this is the 1st time I’ve come across .. sinking …..!

Lego are bringing out a Concorde in Lego shortly. Might be worth a look.

Does it come with flames pouring out of the engines?

Robert Sewell
September 11, 2023 1:03 pm

Robert Sewell
Sep 11, 2023 10:57 AM
Cassie of Sydney
Jorge:

Sep 10, 2023 5:22 PM
Italian people have been a gift to many countries….to Australia, the US, Canada, Argentina, Uruquay, Scotland, England, Wales, Brazil etc.

Looking at the chaotic Italian Parliament and economy, they haven’t done much for Italy.
Maybe they could demand them all back?
?

Robert Sewell
September 11, 2023 1:03 pm

Robert Sewell
Sep 11, 2023 11:16 AM

JMH
Sep 10, 2023 6:12 PM

There’s essentially two ways to go. Either people who can’t get along ignore each other or the blog owner forces it.
I’m not sure how that would work for some of you because that’s all you do.

FFS. Anyone else smell a stench? The hypocrisy?

Got things to do. I won’t suspend myself in animation awaiting the vitriol that will pervade this blog because of this simple observation.

Yes, It’s his sandpit and he’ll defend it no matter what the Blogmeister says.

Robert Sewell
September 11, 2023 1:04 pm

Robert Sewell
Sep 11, 2023 11:52 AM
JC:

Perhaps you’re not as insightful and popular as what you give yourself credit for. No, it wasn’t me, dickhead. I reckon it was a lot of people who just don’t like you either.

You don’t speak for me, you arrogant prick.
Just shut up and don’t talk to me.

Robert Sewell
September 11, 2023 1:11 pm

JC:

And the temerity of your newly found attitude that I shouldn’t talk to you? I’ve been me asking you to stop grovelling to me for 5 years.

Someone who confuses a friendly hand of reconciliation with grovelling is someone with a wildly distorted sense of reality.
It goes along with your laughingly stupid accusation that:

Dover:
Above is another example of the Driller inciting stoushes because of some prior grudges. I’ll keep pointing them out.

You really are a twit.
No reference required – it’s free.

calli
calli
September 11, 2023 1:14 pm

Just a half day at S&B on account of the dodgy knee…also painkillers and sharp tool’s don’t go well together.

Not a peep about the Voice…nothing. These girls swing Left, so the silence told me all I needed to know. If Yes, there would have been much…much volume and persuasion, for that it how they roll.

On Qantas, I wasn’t suggesting they had a “supercomputer”, just a serviceable ticketing system like other airlines. Or any other business that deals in high volumes and complex product mixes.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
September 11, 2023 1:14 pm

Dr. Faustus do you know anything about road construction? Near my home there has been ongoing freeway upgrade on a bridge that has lasted 4 years and still far from complete. I don’t understand why it takes so long to complete these projects.

Not much more than the average Ministerial Media Advisor.

Doing anything to an existing bridge connected to an operating freeway is necessarily going to be fiddly and time consuming (although 4 years does sound a bit epic). You’re going to be dealing with the many risks of construction operations coming into contact with traffic, as well as minimizing disturbance to the traffic flow itself.

I’d also guess that pulling in the appropriate skilled resources is going to depend on whatever else is going on in motorway construction land – either locally or nationally. Governments (and government agencies with Governments up their backsides) tend not to think too much about practical resource constraints when they set forth with their signature infrastructure projects.

calli
calli
September 11, 2023 1:15 pm

Apostrophe alert! Tools. They don’t own anything yet.

JC
JC
September 11, 2023 1:21 pm

Turtlehead is looking for ticks. Please do.

He posted this rambling crap on the old thread and re-jigged it here.

He doesn’t want to talk to me or about me, but that’s all he wants to do.
Sad and pathetic.

Diogenes
Diogenes
September 11, 2023 1:21 pm

n Qantas, I wasn’t suggesting they had a “supercomputer”, just a serviceable ticketing system like other airlines. Or any other

Calli,
I did a 9 month stint in the Reservations IT group in the late 80s so any info I have is waaaaay out of date. The system was written in IBM 360 assembly language with a few PL1 bolt ons. Nothing gets changed quickly in Assembly.

calli
calli
September 11, 2023 1:23 pm

It’s gone now Dover. Not earth shattering, just something on the timing of sales and product availability.

I did use some formatting (em), but that’s all.

calli
calli
September 11, 2023 1:24 pm

Diogenes, my airline experience is the same dates too. Everything has changed.

DrBeauGan
DrBeauGan
September 11, 2023 1:28 pm

Oakeshott has an optimistic view of scientists.

Oakeshot was a little behind the times.

There was a time when scientists were regarded as innocent weirdos. Nerds, geeks. Then they produced nukes and nuclear power; immediately they acquired status and respect. Thus, people for whom status and respect were important began, for the first time, to become scientists. Usually not physicists, because physics is hard, but scientists in name at least.

Filling science up with these greatly inferior minds has led to its collapse.

Vicki
Vicki
September 11, 2023 1:28 pm

Known antivaxxer wins US Open tennis.

And what a joy that was.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
September 11, 2023 1:31 pm

Calli the problem is you were trying to post on the august blog when you should have been on the september blog. Hehe.

Tom
Tom
September 11, 2023 1:32 pm

Oh goodie! My favourite Pommy cook Mary Berry is the star turn on my favourite show on SBS Food this arvo, Jamie (Oliver) & Jimmy’s Food Fight Club (Foxtel channel 171 at 3.30pm). Meantime, I’m off to the shops to stock up on food!

PS: CL, if you’re lurking, Mary Berry has a much smaller bottom than your pinup girl Nigella Lawson, but she knows twice as much about food.

Johnny Rotten
September 11, 2023 1:34 pm

Does it come with flames pouring out of the engines?

No, as it will be unburnt fuel and not flames. Those Olympus jet engines were very, very polluting. They also powered the Vulcan bomber that carried Britain’s nuclear deterrent.

I’m sure that Leggo is on the case. Maybe a Lego nuclear bomb is next……………….

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 11, 2023 1:35 pm

Sweden brings back books, handwriting to schools
Charlene PeleAP
Mon, 11 September 2023 9:43AM

As young children went back to school across Sweden last month, many of their teachers were putting a new emphasis on printed books, quiet reading time and handwriting practice and devoting less time to tablets, independent online research and keyboarding skills.

The return to more traditional ways of learning is a response to politicians and experts questioning whether the country’s hyper-digitalised approach to education, including the introduction of tablets in nursery schools, had led to a decline in basic skills.

Swedish Minister for Schools Lotta Edholm, who took office 11 months ago as part of a new centre-right coalition government, was one of the biggest critics of the all-out embrace of technology.

“Sweden’s students need more textbooks,” Edholm said in March. “Physical books are important for student learning.”

The minister announced last month in a statement that the government wants to reverse the decision by the National Agency for Education to make digital devices mandatory in preschools. It plans to go further and to completely end digital learning for children under age six, the ministry also told The Associated Press.

Although Sweden’s students score above the European average for reading ability, an international assessment of fourth-grade reading levels, the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, highlighted a decline among Sweden’s children between 2016 and 2021.

In 2021, Swedish fourth graders averaged 544 points, a drop from the 555 average in 2016. However, their performance still placed the country in a tie with Taiwan for the seventh-highest overall test score.

In comparison, Singapore – which topped the rankings – improved its PIRLS reading scores from 576 to 587 during the same period, and England’s average reading achievement score fell only slightly, from 559 in 2016 to 558 in 2021.

Some learning deficits may have resulted from the COVID pandemic or reflect a growing number of immigrant students who don’t speak Swedish as their first language, but an overuse of screens during school lessons may cause youngsters to fall behind in core subjects, education experts say.

“There’s clear scientific evidence that digital tools impair rather than enhance student learning,” Sweden’s Karolinska Institute said in a statement last month on the country’s national digitalisation strategy in education.

Johnny Rotten
September 11, 2023 1:37 pm

Jamie (Oliver) & Jimmy’s Food Fight Club

Those two are Brillo. Having an Eatery at the end of Sarf’end Pier. Cushty.

Dot
Dot
September 11, 2023 1:38 pm

A Lego set of Los Alamos Laboratories making Fat Man and Little Boy would be cool, but they’ve primarily avoided making anything militaristic.

You could even have Oppenheimer, FDR and Truman.

Jorge
Jorge
September 11, 2023 1:40 pm

Also, I just think Labor has done a really lousy job of selling this to be brutally honest.

Jackie doesn’t say how she would have done it better.

Dot
Dot
September 11, 2023 1:41 pm

“There’s clear scientific evidence that digital tools impair rather than enhance student learning,”

The aversion to using modern technology seems like voodoo stuff, like “social distancing” and “wear TWO masks!”.

Graphite pencils were a mass-produced technology made to fairly specific tolerances.

Good lord even writing is a technology.

calli
calli
September 11, 2023 1:43 pm

Cool funfact. One of my forebears is a Lego mini figure.

The grandsons think it’s cool anyway….

Johnny Rotten
September 11, 2023 1:43 pm

The system was written in IBM 360 assembly language with a few PL1 bolt ons. Nothing gets changed quickly in Assembly.

IBM Assembler language is the machine language and it is farking hard to get to grips with. You need to know your hexadecimals and what Register does what.

I did a 3 week course on it in April/May 1981. It took me 4 weeks to recover.

Kneel
Kneel
September 11, 2023 1:46 pm

“He remarked how the indigenous people by offering the Voice were expressing their love to the Australian people.”

I’ve spoken to about half a dozen Aboriginal people that I know, and without fail they have told me to vote “No”, even before they knew I was going to anyway.

Tom
Tom
September 11, 2023 1:46 pm

Filling science up with these greatly inferior minds has led to its collapse.

The scientific establishment’s decision to launch the biggest scientific fraud in history, global warmening, has not only destroyed science’s credibility, it has allowed hundreds of thousands of hare-brained political activists to call themselves “scientists” and signalled to STEM students that ideology, not scientific curiosity, will determine how far up the professional ladder they can climb.

calli
calli
September 11, 2023 1:47 pm

It would have been even cooler if it was Darth Vader. Children can be so picky.

Cassie of Sydney
September 11, 2023 1:47 pm

I’m a Delia Smith fan.

H B Bear
H B Bear
September 11, 2023 1:47 pm

Tom at 12:04

Robert Gottliebsen on Qantas:

Pretty much spot on (as usual).

Jorge
Jorge
September 11, 2023 1:48 pm

I vaguely remember on the Sinc Cat a discussion of Joyce as CEO in which someone pointed out that not long after he arrived in the big seat the price of oil declined and airlines pocketed a nice windfall profit for several years afterwards.

Luck of the Irish if accurate.

calli
calli
September 11, 2023 1:52 pm

I remember that Jorge. A lot of Joyce’s woes are union fracas coming home to roost too. I’m prepared to cut him some slack on that, as these guys wait years for revenge. And it’s been years in the making.

Kneel
Kneel
September 11, 2023 1:57 pm

“A Lego set of Los Alamos Laboratories making Fat Man and Little Boy would be cool,…”

Trigger (and bad taste) warning.

Hiroshima optional extra?

H B Bear
H B Bear
September 11, 2023 1:58 pm

Joyce and the Board showed more resolve on legacy IR issues than Dixon ever did. More than an element of payback in a lot of media about at moment.

Cassie of Sydney
September 11, 2023 1:59 pm

“I remember that Jorge. A lot of Joyce’s woes are union fracas coming home to roost too. I’m prepared to cut him some slack on that, as these guys wait years for revenge. And it’s been years in the making.”

Correct, which is why Tony Sheldon, current Labor senator and ex-union hack, is out for revenge. He has been at the forefront of the pile on of Joyce.

Given the choice of Joyce or Sheldon, I choose Joyce.

Alan Joyce began pursuing social causes with the SSM campaign, before then he focused on business, and largely kept quiet. Maybe he got roped in because he’s a little homosexual Irishman. I don’t know but this I do know, he should have stuck to his knitting, which was making an airline profitable. His campaigning for SSM, and his subsequent cosying up to Labor and Albanese has tarnished him bigtime, and it hasn’t made him popular with any of the unions….they hate him, always have, always will.

Cassie of Sydney
September 11, 2023 2:00 pm

Joyce’s woes prove that business shouldn’t dance with far-left social causes.

Jorge
Jorge
September 11, 2023 2:06 pm

A lot of Joyce’s woes are union fracas coming home to roost too.

He must be the only public figure to take them on and win, Maggie Thatcher style. They haven’t said boo since then.
Put him in charge of the ABC.

Buccaneer
Buccaneer
September 11, 2023 2:06 pm

Relying solely on digital resources for learning seems to result in teachers simply task setting for students rather than actually teaching them the content. This might also be a result of left wing ideologues loading up curricula with unproductive left shibboleths as administrative tasks that demonstrate fealty to the cause, like diversity days etc..

Task setting leaves students who don’t have a strong parental involvement or significant paid tutoring at a huge disadvantage, ironically entrenching the gap for the very demographics the left pretends to represent. After all, their children all go to private schools, almost exclusively.

Jorge
Jorge
September 11, 2023 2:06 pm

On second thoughts, perhaps not.

flyingduk
flyingduk
September 11, 2023 2:15 pm

Looking at the chaotic Italian Parliament and economy, they haven’t done much for Italy.

After the last 3 years, I have come to think that the more chaotic the parliament is, the better …. much prefer them struggling to get anything done than have both parties agree to ruin my energy system, tax me more, lock me down, keep me safe etc etc etc….

Kneel
Kneel
September 11, 2023 2:19 pm

“…I have come to think that the more chaotic the parliament is, the better…”

Indeed – divide and conquer! They keep trying it on us, so turn about is fair play, right?

Spinning Mouse
Spinning Mouse
September 11, 2023 2:19 pm

Palaszczuk admits to ‘medical episode’

On the Australian’s internet page.

Concerned Qlder here. What could this be?

More importantly, is the Chook able to fend off Steven “idiot” Miles?

Cassie of Sydney
September 11, 2023 2:21 pm

Rob Stokes, what a joke. So we have the NSW Liberals rehashing dopes, Andrew Constance and Rob Stokes.

Stokes endorsed for federal tilt in Mackellar

NSW Liberal Party president Jason Falinski said NSW Premier Chris Minns’ government was “flailing and failing” and offered support for former NSW cabinet minister Rob Stokes to take on the seat of Mackellar at the 2025 election.

Mr Falinski, who lost the federal seat in the 2022 election, said it wasn’t just the Liberal Party who had been in open criticism of “the left” and suggested the seat of Mackellar would be hotly contested in two-years time.

“What we are seeing in New South Wales is a flailing and failing Minns’ government that reminds us of the late stages of the Carr government,” Mr Falinski told Sky News.
“This is driving support for Labor in New South Wales through the floor and you are seeing a lot of people coming forward to take on the left whether they bed red, green or teal.”

He endorsed Mr Stokes as a “quality” candidate for the seat of Mackellar and to go head-to-head against independent MP Sophie Scamps.”

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 11, 2023 2:21 pm

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2023/08-online/the-myths-of-truth-telling/

Yoorrook “truth telling” exposed for the farce and sham that it actually is.

Black Ball
Black Ball
September 11, 2023 2:24 pm

Queen Anastasia news:

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has faced an intense media grilling amid torrid leadership speculation, internal leaking and dire polling figures.

Ms Palaszczuk will this afternoon face a divided caucus ahead of a critical sitting week after jetting back into Queensland late on Sunday night following her two-week Italian holiday.

Ms Palaszczuk, who revealed in Italy this month she was battling “health issues”, told a press conference she’s “happy to be back to a normal Monday”.

“I feel refreshed, I feel energised and I’m absolutely determined to lead this government to the next election,” she said.

Labor MPs have privately raised concerns about Ms Palaszczuk’s leadership, however there is unlikely to be any move to oust her.

But in response to backbenchers who have privately expressed concerns about her leadership style, the Premier said “my door is always open”.

The Premier revealed she had a “medical episode” at the Labor state conference in Mackay in early June, which contributed to her need to take a vacation in Italy.

“I was rushed to emergency, I spent about five or six hours in the Mackay Hospital,” she said.

“I’ve had some tests following (and) everything’s fine.”

The Premier did not reveal the specific nature of the health episode.

Ms Palaszczuk dismissed consecutive polls suggesting support for her leadership and the Labor government was wilting.

“The only poll that counts is on election day and I’ve been the underdog on many occasions,” the Premier said.

“Politics should be the contest of ideas, not the combat of personalities.

“This is where politics has been driven to the lowest level. We’ve got to drag ourselves out of that and start having the contest by raising the standard.”

The Premier addressed concerns shared privately to the media by members of her own backbench and admitted she needed to improve how she communicates with her colleagues.

“People can have their own opinions (but) like I said to you, not one person has raised any issues with me,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

“Of course, as a government, as a leader of the government … I need to communicate more to people and I need to communicate to the people.”

Ms Palaszczuk declared politics should be a “contest of ideas”, but revealed she had not “in completeness” read Treasurer Cameron Dick’s 576-word manifesto to win the next election.

“Everyone’s entitled to their ideas, this is the great strength of the Labor Party that people have their own ideas,” she said.

The Premier said she will give her cabinet members a deadline of October to reveal if they will put their hands up to be re-elected in the 2024 state poll.

“I will be speaking to (cabinet) this afternoon and saying that candidates should be thinking seriously about, with the election coming up, do they plan to recontest (the state election),” Ms Palaszczuk said.

“Let me know by the end of October.”

Ms Palaszczuk said the reason for her vacation was also motivated by impending concern about a potentially disastrous bushfire season.

She insists she was unlikely to get a break during the summer if fires threaten the state.

Shit hey? So a medical episode forced her to piss off to Italy. In addition to the spectre of a bushfire season from Hades. Yeah cool story.

Cassie of Sydney
September 11, 2023 2:26 pm

Belgian didn’t have a government for months. I quite like that. Governments are a menace.

Lysander
Lysander
September 11, 2023 2:31 pm

Andrew Giles said:

“We read a lot in the media about polling. On the ground I’m seeing a very different story,” Giles told reporters in Canberra this morning.

He said what he was seeing on the ground from people is that people were “responding to the very generous offer from First Nations peoples”.

Huh?

Turnip
Turnip
September 11, 2023 2:37 pm

ACCC tells us it was 8,000 flights, not bookings. So, unless QANTAS was cancelling an extraordinary series of one pax flights, we appear to be talking 100’s of thousands of paid bookings.

Not to defend the indefensible, but these 8000 flights that were cancelled were only open for sale a “short” period after being cancelled so the only fliers affected would have only been those that bought during that 2 or 3 weeks period.

All bookings on the cancelled flights would have been moved or cancelled, but the majority would have purchased when the flight was still scheduled.

My guess is that the booking system is different to the “asset management’ system. The flights were cancelled in the asset system which did not then flow through to the sale/ booking platform.

Given the common complaint is that Qantas IT is run by work experience kiddies, this is no surprise.

Probably more incompetence than outright malice.

Robert Sewell
September 11, 2023 2:37 pm

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/poll-shock-48-percent-americans-under-30-support/?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=the-gateway-pundit&utm_campaign=dailypm&utm_content=2023-09-11
From the Gateway Pundit:

A poll released Sunday by CBS News/YouGov shows that 48 percent of Americans under 30 support sending U.S. Troops to defend Ukraine from Russia’s invasion of the former Soviet state. Support for sending U.S. troops to defend Ukraine drops dramatically for each older age group: 28 percent of Americans 30-44, down to 17 percent of 45-64 and cratering to 8 percent among those 65 and older. The poll subset of those under 30 was 484 respondents, with the poll of 2,335 U.S. adults having an overall margin of error plus or minus 2.7 percent.

The 48 percent may have just worked out they wouldn’t be sending some other poor bugger – they would probably be sending themselves.

calli
calli
September 11, 2023 2:38 pm

He said what he was seeing on the ground from people is that people were “responding to the very generous offer from First Nations peoples”.

What exactly did he see on the ground by way of a response?

A great steaming pile of manure?

Lysander
Lysander
September 11, 2023 2:40 pm

very generous offer from First Nations peoples”.

Truly Orwellian (the opposite of what he’s really saying)

Robert Sewell
September 11, 2023 2:40 pm

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/nike-permanently-closes-factory-store-democrat-run-portland/?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=the-gateway-pundit&utm_campaign=dailyam&utm_content=2023-09-10
Oh Noes!
Who will they get to drive them to another city to steal their stock?

After closing its Portland, Oregon factory outlet store temporarily last fall, Nike has decided to close it permanently due to ongoing issues of theft and concerns for safety. Not a surprising move for a business to pull out of a Democrat-run, lawless trash pile like Portland.

johanna
johanna
September 11, 2023 2:43 pm

I see that another predator dingo has been ‘humanely euthanised’ on Fraser Island. Note the cute picture illustrating the story.

These people either have NFI or are completely in thrall of the luvvies.

Another dingo on Queensland’s heritage-listed island, K’gari (Fraser Island), has been euthanased by wildlife rangers, the third so far this year because of high-risk behaviour.
Key points:

Rangers have destroyed a dingo after it displayed repeated high-risk behaviour
It is the third dingo to be euthanased on K’gari since the start of the year
Visitor numbers to the island have boomed in recent years

The Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS) says the dingo was humanely euthanased at the weekend after being closely monitored since January.

The service said it had recorded six “high-risk” interactions involving the animal with children, adults and rangers.

In the most recent incident, the dingo bit a young woman who was standing alone on a beach on August 26.

The dingo was also part of a pack that mauled a young woman in July as she jogged alone on Orchid Beach on the northern end of K’gari.

Wildlife rangers previously euthanased another dingo from the same pack over the July attack.

They then go on to berate tourists for not behaving appropriately.

Here’s the thing. I’m guessing ‘humanely euthanised’ did not send any sort of message to the rest of the pack.

And, that’s the only way to change their behaviour.

They need to be scared of humans. It’s not Disneyland, you idiots. They need to know that if they approach a human, they will (at a minimum) be peppered with shotgun pellets, if not have their heads blown off.

But alas, if I had to bet, humans will be restricted/banned from the island before realistic policies are implemented.

John H.
John H.
September 11, 2023 2:44 pm

Tom
Sep 11, 2023 1:46 PM
Filling science up with these greatly inferior minds has led to its collapse.

The scientific establishment’s decision to launch the biggest scientific fraud in history, global warmening, has not only destroyed science’s credibility, it has allowed hundreds of thousands of hare-brained political activists to call themselves “scientists” and signalled to STEM students that ideology, not scientific curiosity, will determine how far up the professional ladder they can climb.

It is much more than that. The rot goes far beyond political issues. Post docs, adjunct positions, causalisation of academic staff, have becomes means to exploit individuals for institutional purposes. Encouraging people to go into science as a career is laudable but lowering the standards to make that possible has resulted in a net qualitative decrease in scientific endeavour. For example, all that crap about mindfulness therapy. They even take credit for it when Buddhists have been advocating it for centuries. Science has become far too institutionalised. A striking example of that is the way string theory, led by very brilliant people, completely distorted the research agenda for 30 years. In a forum discussion Weinstein goes after Greene full pelt for promoting a theory that the advocates promised would be the next big thing in physics and it has flopped. Ed Witten, the only physicist to win the Fields medal, was a chief proponent of it. Weinstein pointed out that if you weren’t doing string theory in your doctorate it was very difficult to get a position. Hossenfelder wrote a whole book about that issue.

H B Bear
H B Bear
September 11, 2023 2:48 pm

Probably more incompetence than outright malice.

That would be my initial thoughts too for what it’s worth. Although after the banking RC I wouldn’t take that to the … umm … bank.

DrBeauGan
DrBeauGan
September 11, 2023 2:49 pm

Yoorrook “truth telling” exposed for the farce and sham that it actually is.

Yes. This is the aboriginal industry’s idea of ‘Truth’.

Looks a lot like lies to me.

H B Bear
H B Bear
September 11, 2023 2:57 pm

Anyone familiar with keeping chickens is well placed to speculate on likely Queensland political developments.

johanna
johanna
September 11, 2023 3:03 pm

How did we get to the point where just because a person is (or claims to be) Aboriginal, everything they say is the ‘truth’?

It’s ridiculous on the face of it, and since Aborigines often argue vigorously among themselves about what the ‘truth’ is – witness those violent and long running inter-familial disputes – it is just the racism of low expectations again.

Johnny Rotten
September 11, 2023 3:04 pm

H B Bear
Sep 11, 2023 2:57 PM
Anyone familiar with keeping chickens is well placed to speculate on likely Queensland political developments.

As long as chickens keep laying eggs, I will be happy.

Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the King’s horse and all the King’s men…………….had eggs for breakfast.

Diogenes
Diogenes
September 11, 2023 3:04 pm

I did a 3 week course on it in April/May 1981. It took me 4 weeks to recover.

I was working on the PL1 bolt ons. They had a 2 year maintenance backlog on the PL1 when I arrived, when I left I was fixing bugs as they came in.

I sat in on many structured walkthroughs of changes to Assembly code. Because I could speak “code” , but was not experienced with Assembly, we found more problems as they had to explain their code to their “mother in law” ie explain every line.

Johnny Rotten
September 11, 2023 3:13 pm

Cassie of Sydney
Sep 11, 2023 2:26 PM
Belgian didn’t have a government for months. I quite like that. Governments are a menace.

Italy with its many many Guv’ments in disarray still used to keep going when the next Guv’ment was being formed and then failed. LOL.

Robert Sewell
September 11, 2023 3:16 pm

Indolent
Sep 11, 2023 11:05 AM
Why the Ruling Elite Is Anti-American | Constitution 101 Highlight
A very very good deconstruction of the Managerial Class and the perils it holds for us.

shatterzzz
September 11, 2023 3:19 pm

Doing anything to an existing bridge connected to an operating freeway is necessarily going to be fiddly and time consuming

NSW Rail is/has been putting an extra 1km heavy goods line in between Cabramatta & Warwick Farm which includes a bridge and is now into it’s 3rd year .. Bridge & line have been operational for past 3 months but they dug up so much of the street surrounds, as well it’ll be another year before it’s all open again …..

Johnny Rotten
September 11, 2023 3:24 pm

As Dover or Tom I think said earlier. Jimmy and Jamie’s Food Fight Club TV cooking programme is on soon.

Ch 33 – SBS Food at 3.30 pm.

They are good.

johanna
johanna
September 11, 2023 3:26 pm

Johnny Rotten
Sep 11, 2023 3:13 PM

Cassie of Sydney
Sep 11, 2023 2:26 PM
Belgian didn’t have a government for months. I quite like that. Governments are a menace.

Italy with its many many Guv’ments in disarray still used to keep going when the next Guv’ment was being formed and then failed. LOL.

Italy is mired in heavy and sometimes contradictory regulation.

While the cat’s away …

Or, if you prefer, nature abhors a vacuum.

There are no easy solutions.

2dogs
2dogs
September 11, 2023 3:26 pm

Apple’s market share of the cell phone market in the USA is greater than 50%.
In Australia, Apple’s share is north of 40%.

In dollars, not units. Apple is expensive.

shatterzzz
September 11, 2023 3:27 pm

Probably more incompetence than outright malice.

Billion dollar businesses that rip-off the customer are NOT entitled to “benefit of the doubt” .. they have enuf assets to ensure the system(s) function properly ..
If incompetence is the answer then a clean sweep of management is what is needed .. lotza folk on BIG money not doing their jerbs .
Upper echelon teabreaks in the Chairman’s Lounge need to be curtailed forthwith ……!

H B Bear
H B Bear
September 11, 2023 3:32 pm

Lot of Gen X and following waiting for the Grim Reaper to knock on a few Boomer doors. Might not be a vote winner.

calli
calli
September 11, 2023 3:35 pm

They’re already on the bot from their parents – I have witnessed some of this stuff first hand. Why wait for mum and dad to die before you can lean on them?

On the other hand, I suspect these highly “altruistic” and caring generations don’t really like to share. Especially with the government.

johanna
johanna
September 11, 2023 3:37 pm

Anything involving that sanctiminous git Jamie Oliver gets a thumb up the fundament from me. He was the male Michelle Obama, claiming that school food was causing chidren to die younger than their parents.

Listening to Canned Heat at Woodstock, On The Road Again. Magic.

It was amusing to read the media reports about the ultra chic Burning Man being turned into a muddy morass because it rained. Shades of Woodstock.

And, as it normal for festivals catering to those who care deeply about The Environment, huge mountains of trash were left behind for others to clean up.

Pogria
Pogria
September 11, 2023 3:41 pm

PS: CL, if you’re lurking, Mary Berry has a much smaller bottom than your pinup girl Nigella Lawson, but she knows twice as much about food.

Aah Tom, you disappoint me. Do you truly believe you would rather look at Mary Berry’s bottom instead of Nigella’s? Also, while Mary is a good cook, she is a slave to margarine. Nigella is glorious BUTTER, all the way. 😀

Cassie, I used to admire Delia until she became a full on, loud and proud Remainer.
That said, I still make a Standing Rib Roast her way, and her Marmalade recipes are spot on.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
September 11, 2023 3:42 pm

Qantas.
Abject disregard for customers? … tick.
Playing fast and loose with refunds, hoping to wait customers out? … tick.
Stifling competition through troughing at the Chairman’s Lounge? … tick.
Fraud? … Good luck with that.
As for Lizzie’s experience, we are flying with another airline which uses Qantas Business lounge at Tullamarine.
Totally f-ckung atrocious.
The sort of cheap catering and hospitality you might expect at a cash-strapped government school speech night.

calli
calli
September 11, 2023 3:44 pm

Joh, the “environmentalists” practise what Dickens called “telescopic philanthropy”.

The problem is always somewhere else, and requires subscriptions and much posturing.

johanna
johanna
September 11, 2023 3:50 pm

Lucky Bundaberg! Soon, it could become Australia’s San Francisco or LA!

Posted 3h ago
3 hours ago
Tens set up in a park beneath a bridge.
Homeless people are seeking shelter in Bundaberg’s Lions Park.(ABC Wide Bay: Nikki Sorbello)
Help keep family & friends informed by sharing this article
Link copied

Anyone who has been to Bundaberg would have passed across its century-old metal bridge that towers over the mighty Burnett River snaking through the city.
Key points:

Social services are attracting homeless people to Bundaberg
A pastor who spends his nights feeding the needy says services will struggle if the numbers continue to increase
The Queensland government is committed to building social housing, but there are concerns about the rate and size of developments

The thump-thump of cars can be heard from the caravans and makeshift tents lined up in the shade beneath the bridge.

There are few places to be found in the city of 100,000 that offer privacy to the growing number of homeless.

Pastor Dallas Hobbs said Bundaberg was a place that looked after its most vulnerable.
An older, grey-haired man stands in front of some greenery.
Dallas Hobbs says there is only so much support services will be able to handle.(Supplied: Dallas Hobbs)

“[Homeless people] move here from the other regions because they can’t get the support in those other areas,” he said.

“There’s certainly quite a need from people that are struggling to put food on the table and we are just seeing more and more of that increase.”

Mr Hobbs has been leading Bundaberg’s Living Word Fellowship for almost two decades.

He can regularly be found on the streets helping to provide more than 130 meals and offering a friendly ear.

“It’s an amazing thing that you can go and get food nearly every night of the week from somewhere [in Bundaberg],” Mr Hobbs said.

“It’s great to be in a community where there are great services to help people who are struggling.”

State Member for Bundaberg Tom Smith said such services made the city a beacon for people in need.

“We are getting more and more people come from outside of the region because in Bundaberg you can get a hot meal three times a day, every single day of the week, because of our amazing church groups and community organisations,” he said.

The permanent residents of Bundaberg must be elated that their town has become a magnet for homeless people.

Pogria
Pogria
September 11, 2023 3:53 pm

A Taco Bell Marketing “expert”, has come up with a slogan to counter the “If you don’t Know, Vote No”, campaign which is really hitting home.

The “experts’”, slogan is, “if you Don’t Care, Vote Yeah”.

A definite winner. snork.

H B Bear
H B Bear
September 11, 2023 3:54 pm

The sort of cheap catering and hospitality you might expect at a cash-strapped government school speech night.

In this case have the chicken.

John H.
John H.
September 11, 2023 3:55 pm

johanna
Sep 11, 2023 3:03 PM
How did we get to the point where just because a person is (or claims to be) Aboriginal, everything they say is the ‘truth’?

It’s ridiculous on the face of it, and since Aborigines often argue vigorously among themselves about what the ‘truth’ is – witness those violent and long running inter-familial disputes – it is just the racism of low expectations again.

We made the mistake of tolerating a lot of stuff and nonsense put forward by the activists. We were too kind when we should have said, “Wait a minute, that’s just plain wrong.” Now, as the recent Heritage Act fiasco has revealed, the activists are deluded into thinking that we will never say, “We’re sick of your nonsense.” The No vote needs to be followed up with a few basic lessons for the activists in truth telling.

On that note, I’m off to the library.

Robert Sewell
September 11, 2023 3:58 pm

Sancho Panzer:
Check your email.
Bignose needs some support.

Tom
Tom
September 11, 2023 3:58 pm

Anything involving that sanctiminous git Jamie Oliver gets a thumb up the fundament from me. He was the male Michelle Obama, claiming that school food was causing chidren to die younger than their parents.

I get that Johanna.

I treat Oliver’s show the same way I treat Nigella Lawson, who’s a looney left fruitcake: the minute it’s no longer about food, I’m off!

Footnote: In his Food Fight Club show, Jamie Oliver and his handyman mate Jimmy get around in a hot Ford Capri and, to show how cool they are, they spin the wheels every time they take off. It’s so juvenile undergraduate, evidently designed to appeal to 14-year-old boys, who somehow are in the demographic they’re aiming at.

Johnny Rotten
September 11, 2023 4:00 pm

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Sep 11, 2023 3:28 PM
https://www.news.com.au/finance/money/tax/political-dynamite-prime-minister-urged-to-consider-inheritance-taxes/news-story/f116fa9b4d5d99124429fbfb0885ca21

Good luck with that one, Albo.

The CGT is already a pseudo Death Tax.

Dot
Dot
September 11, 2023 4:00 pm

John Ruddick on The Corey Hotline recently pointed out that the ALP has had 1/25 referendums successfully passed; even Corey pointed out that Rudd has that stupid Local Government recognition referendum sunk because his government fell and it basically got pocket vetoed.

John Ruddick on the Corey Hotline.

Johnny Rotten
September 11, 2023 4:02 pm

Footnote: In his Food Fight Club show, Jamie Oliver and his handyman mate Jimmy get around in a hot Ford Capri and, to show how cool they are, they spin the wheels every time they take off. It’s so juvenile undergraduate, evidently designed to appeal to 14-year-old boys, who somehow are in the demographic they’re aiming at.

I used to have a Ford Capri. Great motors. Brmmm, brmmm……………………

Dot
Dot
September 11, 2023 4:03 pm

hot Ford Capri

Actually slow down there turbo.

A mint condition one in Australia fully optioned is very rare and worth a pretty penny, despite the generally bad reputation they have.

It’s not one of those models is it?

Robert Sewell
September 11, 2023 4:07 pm

Johanna:

The Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS) says the dingo was humanely euthanased at the weekend after being closely monitored since January.
The service said it had recorded six “high-risk” interactions involving the animal with children, adults and rangers.
In the most recent incident, the dingo bit a young woman who was standing alone on a beach on August 26.

They’ve known for eight months the particular dingo is a risk to humans? And just ‘observed’? They would have needed to have a REALLY good excuse for the Magistrate if it had attacked a kid or a toddler – they have form for that, you know.

Jorge
Jorge
September 11, 2023 4:11 pm

Oh come on, you lot.

You’d have to be miserable not to enjoy the vibe uplift from Jamie in the kitchen with Mary.

Though she looked rather thoughtful as he fiddled with the mushrooms for the Beef Wellington. Perhaps she wanted to slip a death cap into his slice.

Robert Sewell
September 11, 2023 4:13 pm

Johanna:

But alas, if I had to bet, humans will be restricted/banned from the island before realistic policies are implemented.

There’s a nasty little thought just popped into my head that banning humans – except for the odd few who have a cultural identity card – that says they are special and have a special kinship with the dingos that means special people are not in danger.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
September 11, 2023 4:13 pm

‘Shot of the Day’ on Michael Smith news.

Hilarious.

Johnny Rotten
September 11, 2023 4:16 pm

The permanent residents of Bundaberg must be elated that their town has become a magnet for homeless people.

They have to go somewhere. Lots here in Sydney. I just tell them to go to Tennis Elbow’s Electorate in the Inner West of Sydney. Go and park outside one of his many houses and look poor. Which they are BTW.

Cassie of Sydney
September 11, 2023 4:23 pm

Aah Tom, you disappoint me. Do you truly believe you would rather look at Mary Berry’s bottom instead of Nigella’s? Also, while Mary is a good cook, she is a slave to margarine. Nigella is glorious BUTTER, all the way. ?

Cassie, I used to admire Delia until she became a full on, loud and proud Remainer.
That said, I still make a Standing Rib Roast her way, and her Marmalade recipes are spot on.”

Agree about Delia’s politics but her book “How to Cook” is a classic. I love watching her old programmes.

As for Jamie, I like his cooking and I have his recipe books and I love cooking his recipes. Yes, his school food zealotry was over the top but when you consider a lot of UK food, it’s abysmal.

As for Nigella, I’ll forgive her everything, even her leftist leanings. However, she comes from good stock, her late father was Maggie’s chancellor, her brother, Dominic Lawson, is a rock solid conservative (once edited the Speccie), and her brother’s wife is Rosa Monkton, sister to Christopher Monkton. Whilst all toffs, they aren’t luvvies.

As an aside, Dominic and Rosa’s daughter, Domenica Lawson, was born with down syndrome, and her godmother was Princess Diana. What’s interesting, in the recent fall out from the Nigel Farage bank cancelling and how it emerged that thousands of Britons have also had their bank accounts closed or were deemed ineligible for a bank account, this from Dominic Lawson….

And not just them, but their immediate family — which, typically, include the PEP’s ‘parents, siblings, spouse, children, in-laws, grandparents and grandchildren’.

Which is why my daughter Domenica, now 28, got caught up in this morass.

In 2016 we decided to open a bank account for her. She has Down’s Syndrome; this was not something she could do herself. But when my wife Rosa went to the Barclays in our nearest town (where Rosa had had an account for many years), she was told it would not be possible for Domenica to have an account. No reason was given.

Fortunately Rosa knew the manager there — the position now no longer exists, and the branch itself is about to close — and he said that he would look into the matter.

He came back to Rosa: ‘I’m really sorry, but it’s out of our hands. It’s because of money-laundering risks.

‘I know this sounds ridiculous, but it’s because of Domenica’s grandfather. He is a politically exposed person.’ This was a reference to Nigel Lawson, my late father, the former chancellor, who was by then a member of the House of Lords.

Cassie of Sydney
September 11, 2023 4:25 pm

And to be fair to Jamie, I’ve never heard him discussing politics (happy to be corrected). Sure he spoke up about the dismal state of UK government school food, but unlike Michelle Obama, his food ideas were good. He wants to see more children eat their veg…and that’s a good thing. Veggies can be scrumptious.

Tom
Tom
September 11, 2023 4:28 pm

Though she looked rather thoughtful as he fiddled with the mushrooms for the Beef Wellington.

It remains one of my life’s ambitions to do a medium rare beef Wellington in pastry without stuffing it up. Marvellous tucker. Mmmm.

Cassie of Sydney
September 11, 2023 4:29 pm

“It remains one of my life’s ambitions to do a medium rare beef Wellington in pastry without stuffing it up. Marvellous tucker. Mmmm.”

I’ve done it!

Fair Shake
Fair Shake
September 11, 2023 4:31 pm

I had to sit through a talk given by a 3rd party today at work. I knew I was in trouble when…
Introduced as receiving an award from UN,
Opened with acknowledgement to country,
Saw all global migration driven by climate change,
Used words like data researched evidence, Story telling is truth,
Lived experience, Truth is power, inclusion is choice…

The presenter was polished and smooth. If you had not been engaged with these issues via Cat, Sky, others then it all made complete sense and why would you not support it. I felt i was watching a living breathing swamp dweller whose organisation is hoovering up corporate ESG and taxpayers dollars.

We are gonna need a bigger boat or bucket and mop.

calli
calli
September 11, 2023 4:31 pm

it’s because of Domenica’s grandfather. He is a politically exposed person.’ This was a reference to Nigel Lawson, my late father, the former chancellor, who was by then a member of the House of Lords.

I assume all politicians and their families have this same problem when opening bank accounts? /sarc

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 11, 2023 4:34 pm

The last time Australia had inheritance taxes/death duties, a farm which had been”in the family” for a hundred years had to be sold, following the deaths of the patriarch, and his son, within eighteen months, and a grieving widow was faced with getting a bank loan to pay for her husband’s funeral – all the bank accounts were in his name, and the estate was frozen, to be valued, from the time of his death…

calli
calli
September 11, 2023 4:34 pm

I am a-political when it comes to good cooking. Pretty much all authors are represented on the bookshelf except Gordon Ramsay.

There’s always the risk that you will be abused if you make a mistake…like a Harry Potter “howler”. I can do without the stress.

H B Bear
H B Bear
September 11, 2023 4:36 pm

I’m with Uncle Roger on Jamie Oliver.

Makka
Makka
September 11, 2023 4:39 pm

So a medical episode forced her to piss off to Italy.

Is that what they call a bum/boob lift these days?

Cassie of Sydney
September 11, 2023 4:41 pm

Here are some of my favourite cooks and cookbook authors…

Delia Smith
Keith Floyd
Rick Stein
Claudia Roden
David Herbert (who suffers from TDS but I ignore it)
Nigella Lawson
Jamie Oliver
Evelyn Rose
Greta Anna
Gabriel Gate
My mother (who’s written recipes down for me)
My aunt, who taught my mother and I how to make Hungarian strudel and Dobos torte
A friend’s mother, who gave me her challah recipe which is full proof
Another friend’s mother, who passed away two years ago, her chiffon cake (made with 10 eggs) is the best chiffon cake recipe ever
My brother in law’s mother, who’s now suffering from dementia. She taught me how to make Piroshki (she’s White Russian).

There are others.

Johnny Rotten
September 11, 2023 4:42 pm

H B Bear
Sep 11, 2023 4:36 PM
I’m with Uncle Roger on Jamie Oliver.

The only problem with Jamie is that he is a ‘Gooner’.

Cassie of Sydney
September 11, 2023 4:43 pm

“I assume all politicians and their families have this same problem when opening bank accounts? /sarc”

Odd that, I’m not aware of any UK Labour notables having their bank accounts closed.

John H.
John H.
September 11, 2023 4:45 pm

But alas, if I had to bet, humans will be restricted/banned from the island before realistic policies are implemented.

On this issue Johanna I think banning humans from Fraser Island is an example of “Wait a minute, that’s just plain wrong.”

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 11, 2023 4:46 pm

Roberts-Smith’s bid to question war crimes investigator
Jack GramenzAAP
Mon, 11 September 2023 2:33PM

Disgraced ex-SAS soldier Ben Roberts-Smith’s lawyers want to know how war crimes investigators will use sensitive material from his failed defamation case against newspapers that reported his alleged involvement in four murders.

Investigators looking into dozens of possible Afghanistan war crimes under Operation Emerald want access to sensitive documents tendered when Mr Roberts-Smith sued the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and the Canberra Times.

The Federal Court ruled in June that the newspapers’ reports alleging Mr Roberts-Smith’s involvement in four murders while deployed in Afghanistan were substantially true.

He has not been criminally charged and is appealing the judgment of Justice Anthony Besanko.

The Office of the Special Investigator and Australian Federal Police are jointly investigating 33 alleged offences by defence force members in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016, the court heard on Monday.

The OSI was established after an inquiry by the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force into soldiers’ conduct in Afghanistan

Some of the material sought by investigators includes partial transcripts from witnesses who were compelled to give potentially self-incriminating evidence at the inspector-general’s inquiry and also gave evidence during the defamation case.

“We’re concerned not just about (Mr Roberts-Smith’s) immunities but the immunities that protect any suspect who gave information under compulsion to the (inspector-general’s) inquiry,” the ex-soldier’s barrister, Luke Livingston SC, told the court.

Mr Livingston also sought to cross-examine OSI investigations director Ross Barnett.

Mr Barnett told the court in affidavits there were procedures in place to properly protect the integrity of investigations and the rights of suspects, but Mr Livingston said that was an unsupported assertion.

“The court will want to be satisfied that the procedures are robust and practically effective and it is that we are seeking to test,” he said.

Lawyers already raised questions about the processes and requested policy documents, but the Commonwealth did not give any “substantive” response, Mr Livingston said.

Commonwealth barrister Jennifer Single SC said it was very unlikely any information not already protected by statutory immunities made its way into the sensitive court file.

There was a risk of human error in redactions to documents on the file but there were filters and safeguards in place, she said.

Despite the safeguards, the practical consequence of any leak would remain the same, Mr Livingston said as he requested more information.

Tom
Tom
September 11, 2023 4:48 pm

What’s a “gooner”, JR?

Sounds like a blackfella at an afternoon “Coolabah corroboree” on the nature strip outside the main pub in Katherine NT.

Farmer Gez
Farmer Gez
September 11, 2023 4:49 pm

A good list Cassie but do any of them know the right ratio of butter to Vegemite or the exact moment to apply both so the toast doesn’t go soggy?
I think not!

Crossie
Crossie
September 11, 2023 4:51 pm

I am an admirer of Goyder, which why I have faith in him doing the right thing by Qantas and the nation. Sadly, he made the mistake of taking on the chair of arguably the three most difficult organisations in this country – the AFL Commission, Woodside and Qantas. His talents were spread too thin, and living in Perth did not help.

Spreading himself too thin? He is just hungry for power and money, customers were as unimportant to him as to Joyce.

Dot
Dot
September 11, 2023 4:51 pm

THIS is a “Gooner”.

What a deadset onion soup-drinking legend.

Speedbox
September 11, 2023 4:52 pm

Robert Sewell
Sep 11, 2023 4:13 PM
There’s a nasty little thought just popped into my head that banning humans – except for the odd few who have a cultural identity card – that says they are special and have a special kinship with the dingos that means special people are not in danger.

Never say never but it would be a very brave move by any government to ban humans (except special ones) from Fraser Island. Thousands of ‘ordinary’ punters go there every weekend for camping/fishing/other recreation and to tell them they can’t ‘cos of dingos would provoke intense offense. To add salt into that wound, to then say only special people could go and the screams of outrage would be heard on Mars.

Makka
Makka
September 11, 2023 4:52 pm

Cassie of Sydney
Sep 11, 2023 4:41 PM

You might like to add Antonio Carluccio

He’s passed on now but wonderful recipes. He had a restaurant in London which we visited in the 90’s. Magnificent food, simple but delicious. His sausages were epic! He did a great TV series travelling throughout Italy showcasing home cooking recipes with each “mamma” in their home kitchens in the various regions.

H B Bear
H B Bear
September 11, 2023 4:53 pm

Is that what they call a bum/boob lift these days?

Bit late if the diff’s blown.

Crossie
Crossie
September 11, 2023 4:54 pm

More on Qantas, Joyce would have been responsible for operational matters and customers while Goyder also had to consider shareholders so it looks like neither has done their job well.

calli
calli
September 11, 2023 4:57 pm
calli
calli
September 11, 2023 5:00 pm

Gez, also just the right amount of butter and vegemite to make Vitaweet worms without side slippage.

It’s an art form perfected by hundreds of school children. I’d like to see Heston try it.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 11, 2023 5:01 pm

From the Hun

Completely mishandled’: Dutton urges Albanese to scrap Voice vote

Peter Dutton has unleashed a bombshell new push on the Voice to Parliament vote in a spectacular attack on Anthony Albanese.

calli
calli
September 11, 2023 5:03 pm

Speaking of Heston, I use his stock making technique. It uses powdered milk on the protein prior to roasting. Have to be careful though as it isn’t kosher. Frozen stock marked accordingly.

Makka
Makka
September 11, 2023 5:03 pm

More on Qantas, Joyce would have been responsible for operational matters and customers

I have 2 family members ex-Q employees. Between 10 and over 30 years service – mid management ground staff and on the flight deck. Qantas under Joyce were essentially at war with their employees. After covid, it was common knowledge within Q that flights were being posted and seats sold, when they didn’t even know if they had crews or ground staff to make the flights happen. Joyce and the Exec team were roundly loathed , deeply. I think that animosity manifested itself in customer service. Unless someone else is paying, I tend to avoid them like the plague.But with Joyce out, will watch for any improvements.

MatrixTransform
September 11, 2023 5:05 pm

Veggies can be scrumptious

Duck Fat Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Pogria
Pogria
September 11, 2023 5:10 pm

It remains one of my life’s ambitions to do a medium rare beef Wellington in pastry without stuffing it up. Marvellous tucker. Mmmm.

Aah Tom, you keep disappointing me. sigh… Beef Wellington should be RARE! Bloody, bleeding like a stuck pig, RARE!

Feel better now I have that off my chest.

Also, what the hell is with the querty definitions of cooked steak these days? Medium rare, medium well etc, blah, blah. When I was working my way through the Restaurant scene, steak was cooked 3 ways only. Rare, medium and boot. Occasionally we would be asked for BLUE. Blue is great. Volcanic heat for the sear and only for sixty seconds a side. mmmmmmmmmm

Medium rare was brought into use in the late nineties for the pussies who were ashamed to be eating a boot when their friends had red juice pooling on the plate.

As for cookbooks, all I will say is “lots”. A few weeks back, in a second hand bookshop, I was so chuffed to find a copy of “Two Fat Ladies”. Sheer Joy.

Makka, Antonio Carluccio was a particular food hero of mine. Shed a tear when he passed.

Pogria
Pogria
September 11, 2023 5:16 pm

Calli,
will you let us know how the Coulibiac is received when you make it for your family? I haven’t made it for years, but it was always a splendid casual dinner party dish that looked and ate as if you were serving Royalty. Easy to make was a bonus!

Farmer Gez
Farmer Gez
September 11, 2023 5:19 pm

Beef Wellington à la Leongatha – it’s simply to die for.

Pogria
Pogria
September 11, 2023 5:19 pm

Tom,
I don’t really find you disappointing. 😀
You just need educating, steak and bottom wise. 😀 😀

Please don’t stop posting toons!

calli
calli
September 11, 2023 5:20 pm

Thanks for reminding me. It will probably be New Year before I get the opportunity.

JC
JC
September 11, 2023 5:22 pm

More on Qantas
From reports I’ve heard , a disturbing number of Q’s staff were useless, parasitical union lackeys and senior management had to play hard in order to get decent results. Easy to recall that the most senior union parasite , Tony Sheldon, once said he wanted to see Q destroyed through union menace. We shouldn’t be surprised if senior management had a harsh view towards some of the staff. Mr. Sheldon is now and exalted Liars Party senator. Unsuccessfully attempt to destroy an iconic Australian company and after your union days, you’re promoted to full senator by the Liars Party.

Colonel Crispin Berka
Colonel Crispin Berka
September 11, 2023 5:25 pm

Still reckon the UN job interview theory of the Italian Chooknection is more likely than the cosmetic theory.

Tom
Tom
September 11, 2023 5:26 pm

Aah Tom, you keep disappointing me. sigh… Beef Wellington should be RARE! Bloody, bleeding like a stuck pig, RARE!

So, Pogria, you like your beef still mooing. I like it pink.

We’ll agree to disagree.

PS: I spent around three years in my twenties as a vegetarian — part of my growing up.

Thank God I outlived that phase!

I didn’t like baby lambs born out of season being knocked on the head.

PPS: I’m a farmer’s son.

Pogria
Pogria
September 11, 2023 5:27 pm

Cassie,
I had read about Nigella’s family and the problems Dominic and Rosa were having with the Banks. Reprehensible.
I have cooked many of her recipes. They truly are simple to make and delicious.
Her Christmas Goose with Mashed Potato Stuffing was a standout one year.

And her Brownie recipe is the best one I have tried. It is the only one I make now. I did fiddle with it a little to make it my own. That is what happens with pretty much every recipe I try.

duncanm
duncanm
September 11, 2023 5:30 pm

Speedbox
Sep 11, 2023 4:52 PM
Robert Sewell
Sep 11, 2023 4:13 PM
There’s a nasty little thought just popped into my head that banning humans – except for the odd few who have a cultural identity card – that says they are special and have a special kinship with the dingos that means special people are not in danger.

Never say never but it would be a very brave move by any government to ban humans (except special ones) from Fraser Island. Thousands of ‘ordinary’ punters go there every weekend for camping/fishing/other recreation and to tell them they can’t ‘cos of dingos would provoke intense offense. To add salt into that wound, to then say only special people could go and the screams of outrage would be heard on Mars.

Mount Warning.

JC
JC
September 11, 2023 5:31 pm

You misinterpreted what I said.

I understood clearly what you said. You accused Apple of “exploiting” its customers with what you opine is an inferior product. I’m a little humbler though, as I believe we should let the market decide, and while on the subject of markets giving their verdict, let’s take a look, prompted by Leon’s earlier comment about market share both here and the US (even though we were obviously talking about the global market). In my earlier response, I posted an out-of-date stat suggesting Apple had a 10% share of the market while enjoying 90% of the profits. That was a recollection from several years ago. No matter, as the most recent figures suggest, the firm now enjoys almost 30% of the global phone market. I hope that puts paid to the idea of your claim that Apple is exploiting its customers with an inferior product.

Given those factors previously mentioned, users are going to ignore temporary declines in quality, ignore middling improvements, and/or pass over substantial improvements in competitor products and Apple know this.

And how exactly are you coming up with these claims during a period of increasing market share, or should we ignore the market’s response and just go with your opinion?

Further, I wasn’t specifically referring to the iPhone as inferior, but that the laptops/ desktops prior to the M1/ M2 units were mid at best but they did have some pros in niche markets like video editing.

Really, because the subject of your first Twitter paste was about smartphones and our first discussion cantered on the phone market.
I’m not sure one person’s opinion is enough. I’m happy to counter that and suggest their products are superior.

I think you ought to reconsider using the word “exploiting” in this instance when barriers to entry are very low.

What is Apple’s iPhone market share?
Apple claimed a 16 percent share of the market in the second quarter of 2023, a decrease from the previous quarter. Apple’s long time competitor, Samsung, ranked first with a market share of 20.2 percent.10 Aug 2023

and

Apple’s share of profitability and revenue in the global smartphone market hit record levels in the second quarter of 2023, amid another down three-month period for the industry, a new study has shown.

The iPhone-maker was the single-largest contributor to profitability in the smartphone sector with 85 per cent, up from 81 per cent a year ago and 84 per cent from the first quarter, Counterpoint Research said in a report on Friday.

The share of revenue from the California-based company grew to 45 per cent, up by about 3 per cent from the second quarter of 2023, it said.

JC
JC
September 11, 2023 5:34 pm

I saw another stat suggesting Apple has between 15 and 20% of the global phone market. Ignore the 30% and go with the lower figure I excerpted.

duncanm
duncanm
September 11, 2023 5:37 pm

Makka
Sep 11, 2023 4:52 PM
Cassie of Sydney
Sep 11, 2023 4:41 PM

You might like to add Antonio Carluccio

He’s passed on now but wonderful recipes. He had a restaurant in London which we visited in the 90’s. Magnificent food, simple but delicious. His sausages were epic! He did a great TV series travelling throughout Italy showcasing home cooking recipes with each “mamma” in their home kitchens in the various regions.

Antonio did a great show – His most memorable regional fare – Sardinian Casu Marzu

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
September 11, 2023 5:43 pm

Would involve regular or non-regular posters writing about a loved recipe each week

Looking forward to the blood pudding kipper trifle recipe.

Colonel Crispin Berka
Colonel Crispin Berka
September 11, 2023 5:45 pm

speedbox ventured:

to ban humans (except special ones) from Fraser Island.

duncanm cautioned:

Mt Warning

You may glimpse the future of Fraser Island in the Stradbroke Island of today. The local indigenous obtained control, closed half the camp sites, and doubled the fees on the remainder.

MatrixTransform
September 11, 2023 5:45 pm

Catallaxy: the order brought about by the mutual adjustment of many individual economies in a market

there’s more to food that is relevant here than there seems

it connects generations and it transcends cultures

it leap-frogs epochs … and yet we barely think twice when sup on warmed olives, charcuterie and a glass of pinot

or have a beer after work

for thousands of years we have husbanded and farmed … and transformed

and eating is the penultimate human gesture at the end of a very long supply chain

if your eye doesnt twinkle at the thought of nanna’s sausage rolls or mum’s marinara

you gotta ask yourself, “can you even cook bro?”

Tom
Tom
September 11, 2023 5:46 pm

Sardinian Casu Marzu

No idea what that is, but I trust Mediterranean cooking tradition — especially outside the non-Mafia Italian south!

Makka
Makka
September 11, 2023 5:46 pm

Antonio did a great show – His most memorable regional fare – Sardinian Casu Marzu

I loved the guy. Never missed him on the tellie.

JC
JC
September 11, 2023 5:48 pm

I’ll respond further later tonight, but, briefly, if you’re going to claim market share is determinative, 20% market share for iOS and the majority of phones run Android, pretty much indicates that the market thinks Apple/iOS isn’t worth the price to performance.

It’s the most expensive on the market. You need to explain the “exploiting its customers” comment as the rest of the missive is unimportant. How does Apple exploit its customers when it doesn’t have a commanding share of sales?

Colonel Crispin Berka
Colonel Crispin Berka
September 11, 2023 5:50 pm

dover0beach
Sep 11, 2023 5:31 PM

I’ve been meaning to get something like a weekly post of a recipe for a Friday going.

Friedman Food Friday

or Freedom Food Friday, but I prefer the “fried” in Friedman being a food pun.

Pogria
Pogria
September 11, 2023 5:54 pm

Tom, all good.
The best part about food, to me anyway, is if you cook it yourself. Cook it any bloody way you enjoy it most. As long as you cook it yourself. Even if you are only warming a can of beans, add some hot sauce and a few spices or seasonings to taste, and you have made it your own.
With your medium rare Wellington, invest in a good meat probe. As long as you have seared the meat well, the meat probe will tell you when it is done to your taste.
Hard to go wrong with a Wellington. The beauty of it also, it can be prepared in advance.

Tom
Tom
September 11, 2023 5:55 pm

Dover’s Food Friday.

Robert Sewell
September 11, 2023 5:56 pm

dover0beach
Sep 11, 2023 5:31 PM

I’ve been meaning to get something like a weekly post of a recipe for a Friday going.
Would people like that?

I have a marvellous scrambled egg recipe…

Pogria
Pogria
September 11, 2023 6:06 pm

Dover,
I will search out the recipe I have for Coulibiac. I can’t remember it having soggy pastry.

I also have made a, according to the recipe title, “Gourmet Seafood Pie”. It was excellent. Full of firm, white fish, prawns and scallops.

One of the few things I have still to cook, and have been wanting to for ages, is a whole octopus, slow cooked in a heavy pot, on its own. Apparently you add no liquid as it releases a large amount of its own. Soon, I hope.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 11, 2023 6:07 pm

Food is war.

Iron Chef – Season 1, Episode 1 (1993)

My favourite chef is Rokusaburo Michiba. He’s still with us aged 92.
Long may he cook.

Cassie of Sydney
September 11, 2023 6:08 pm

“I did fiddle with it a little to make it my own. That is what happens with pretty much every recipe I try.”

Me too. When it comes to recipes you do inevitably tinker with them.

With my brownies, I add walnuts, I get my nuts from The Nut Shop in the Strand Arcade.

They’re fresh and really, really good.

Cassie of Sydney
September 11, 2023 6:08 pm

Oh and another food hero….Charmain Solomon.

Rosie
Rosie
September 11, 2023 6:08 pm

Is this argument about phones similar to claiming that Bosch or Miele exploit their dishwasher machine customers?

Cassie of Sydney
September 11, 2023 6:09 pm

As a child I remember Mum making her own puff pastry, which she used for fish pie.

Tom
Tom
September 11, 2023 6:11 pm

I have more blackfella blood in me than Professor Megan Davis.

She’s an identity bank robber who thinks we are as dumb as she is and won’t notice she’s as white as an English woman.

Cassie of Sydney
September 11, 2023 6:12 pm

Would people like that?”

Yes please DB.

Another favourite food writer it the late Italian food writer, Marcella Hazan. Marcella was from Bologna and she married Victor Hazan, who came from an Italian Jewish family.

I have hundreds of cookbooks. I’m obsessed with shoes and cookbooks. I like to collect obscure books, particularly on Jewish food. I have some treasures, one of which is called the Cookbook of the Jews of Greece and the other is a cookbook on the Jews of Italy

Davey Boy
Davey Boy
September 11, 2023 6:16 pm

The King of Hearts
He had four tarts
All on a Summer’s day
and four and twenty black birds
Or at least that’s what they say

MatrixTransform
September 11, 2023 6:19 pm

Charmain Solomon

seconded

we use her green bean sambal all the time … beans, garlic salt, shallots and olek

stack that on a schnitty with whole egg mayo and roast potatoes!

hmmm, or cumin honey apple cider coleslaw

wait, wait … the coleslaw and left over schnitty with cheese in a turkish bun dripping with russian dressing

Roger
Roger
September 11, 2023 6:19 pm

Hard to go wrong with a Wellington.

Mind the mushrooms.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
September 11, 2023 6:21 pm

Test.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
September 11, 2023 6:24 pm

We’ve got a Charmaine Solomon’s South East Asian cookbook from the ’80’s.
It has all manner of splatters on the favoured pages.
We regard it is as almost the equivalent of “Cookery, The Australian Way” for Asian staple dishes.

Cassie of Sydney
September 11, 2023 6:25 pm

I live alone. I cook every night, from scratch. Sometimes I might buy a gourmet pie (I quite like the Simone Logue chicken pies). I’m having a Simone Logue chicken pie tonight because I have a friend coming over. I was taught to cook by my mother. My sister is a sensational cook, my brother also, and all their children cook.

It isn’t hard to cook, a simple stir fry, a grilled lamb cutlet, served with some nice peas and a spud baked in the oven. It doesn’t have to be fancy. I love my slow cooked brisket or a roast chook, but even they’re easy to prepare and cook.

I live in a nice, trendy apartment block here in Sydney’s inner-east, and yet I see and hear every night those food delivery people (usually Indians) buzzing other apartments, and I think to myself….why are they doing this? Surely it must cost a lot? I mean, I understand why some might do it occasionally, for convenience, people are tired, but every night or second night?

I’m glad I know how to cook, and I love cooking, but even more than that, I love eating and I love eating good, delicious food!

H B Bear
H B Bear
September 11, 2023 6:26 pm

I have hundreds of cookbooks

That’s probably too many. I have too many as well. I have put them on the banned list although it is not strictly enforced. One of the best is New York City Food which is as much a history book with recipes.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
September 11, 2023 6:28 pm

I’ve been meaning to get something like a weekly post of a recipe for a Friday going.

Tickety tick tick!
Another favourite of mine is Yotam Ottolenghi.
I had to be force fed a few of his dishes because I didn’t like the sound of them.
I am a bit of a salad dodger, but some of his salads are very tasty.

MatrixTransform
September 11, 2023 6:30 pm

got an Asko steam oven here

damned thing has a mind of it’s own

if you don’t curse it properly when you open the door it will shut off or apply the kiddie lock just to shit you

dastardly thing

I imagine V-zug or Miele are of the same premium quality

just with different accents

should have bought a Fisher and Paykel

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
September 11, 2023 6:30 pm

I have hundreds of cookbooks

Interesting factoid.
The average number of pages looked at in a recipe book is under ten, and the average number of dishes cooked is 1-2.
Not sure how “they” know this, but not surprising.
We’ve probably got 80-100.

JC
JC
September 11, 2023 6:31 pm

Dover

If you believe that Apple is being exploitive with the brand name then everything purchased by brand is exploitive. We may as well drop ourselves into Mao suits.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 11, 2023 6:31 pm

Good afternoon,

Animals Australia have once again attempted to insert themselves into the sheep industry debate, using the media – particularly the ABC – as their megaphone of choice.

Animals Australia’s methods are dubious, to say the least.

A few years back, after the footage of the Awassi Express voyage shocked many – including many sheep farmers – and provoked a strong and positive industry response, details of how that footage was procured by Animals Australia entered the media.

The following quotes from the West Australian in September 2019 reveal the blatant disregard for animal welfare displayed by their supposed defender, Animals Australia:

“A Pakistani live export worker claims he was paid several thousand dollars of Australian animal activists’ money — his equivalent of a year’s pay — to film cruelty images from ships after they told him they needed vision of “suffering” sheep to force the Government to “shut down the trade”.

“In an exclusive interview with The West Australian, Pakistani seafarer Mahmood Raza Mazher has also claimed he was working with 60 Minutes star whistle blower Fazal Ullah to earn money via activist organisation Animals Australia.”

From the same article:

“Earlier this year, The West’s “cash for cruelty” investigation exposed how activists had sent emails to ship workers offering them the equivalent of three months wages for footage.”

Animals Australia denied any payments. However, the truth was revealed in the Australian in May 2022:

“Animals Australia has admitted covering up payments of more than $148,000 to a whistle blower whose footage of distressed and dead sheep shut down Australia’s summer live export trade.”

Animals Australia cannot be trusted in these matters – and their destructive approach should be condemned by all – including the Minister – whose own departmental officials have admitted that international animal welfare standards would decline without the presence of Australia in the market.

Meanwhile, Animals Australia raise millions from the images they spread through the media and online.

Kind regards,

Slade Brockman
Senator for Western Australia

These were the arzeholes who turned off the ventilation fans, and sold the resultant footage of thirsty and heat stressed sheep.

Peter Greagg
Peter Greagg
September 11, 2023 6:33 pm

Judith in the Oz on taxes vs spending.

What she doesn’t say is that the “break even point” where government spending is economically justified is where there is $140 benefit from spending each $100. This is because of the lost consumption and production possibilities as a consequence of the decision to raise $100 in taxes.

Once you see the economic costs of taxes, it should seriously focus the mind on whether all that spending is generating the benefits necessary to justify the taxes imposed.

Eg taxpayer assistance to families earing around $500, 000 pa to help with the cost of childcare.

Add your own targets.

Don’t raise our taxes, slash the government’s big spending
JUDITH SLOAN

If we had a dollar for every column written about the need for comprehensive taxation reform in Australia we would all be seriously rich by now.

No doubt the advocates think they have right on their side and that the suggestions they make should be implemented as soon as possible.

I think they are wrong, not least because most of these appeals are really just code for higher taxes.
Some politicians obviously think pushing the tax-reform barrel could have electoral appeal. Independent federal member for Wentworth Allegra Spender is using tax reform as a centrepiece of her political activities, even holding special forums to discuss the issues. A number of other teals are on the same bandwagon.
Recently installed Liberal senator Maria Kovacic mentioned putting a cap on the number of negatively gearing properties taxpayers could have as a means of improving housing affordability, even though the net effect almost certainly would make life harder for renters.

Even before considering the need for tax reform, a more useful avenue of inquiry is to examine government spending, including the failure to achieve objectives as well as outright waste.
The trouble with most of the discussion about tax reform is the unquestioning acceptance that spending must rise to meet community expectations – a very ill-defined and woolly concept.

If we look under the spending hood, what we often find are ways of politicians seeking to win votes by offering “free” or highly subsidised goods and services as well as income support. But there is nothing preordained about the way we fund health, education, aged care, disability services and the like.

As a rule, the tax reform enthusiasts aren’t interested in this topic; according to them, big government is here to stay and we need to figure out how to fund it. The reality is that we would all be better off if thorough and detailed analyses of government spending were regularly undertaken with a view to limiting spending to areas with the highest net benefits.

It’s worth reminding ourselves of the key principles that should govern the design of tax policy: efficiency, equity and simplicity. Needless to say, these three elements are impossible to achieve simultaneously; there are always trade-offs.

Because income tax looks certain to form a higher proportion of the tax take in the future, the point is often made that the tax mix must change lest the disincentive effects of the income-tax schedule become too sizeable.

Where most advocates of tax reform turn next is to recommend a lift in the rate of the GST as well as extend its coverage. A common figure is 15 per cent and the inclusions of fresh food, financial ser­vices, water and sewerage services, education and health are often listed. But there is a range of reasons why this sort of advice is wrongheaded.

For starters, all the GST revenue goes to the states and territories but everyone agrees that an increase in the rate of GST would have to be accompanied by a very substantial compensation package for low-income earners and those dependent on government transfers. Such a change therefore would not generate any net revenue for the federal government but would involve a substantial political cost, even with the backing of the states and territories.
There is also the vexed issue of the unsettled distribution of GST revenues among the states, with Western Australia the current recipient of a favourable deal that is not supported by Victoria and NSW, in particular. Increasing the rate of the GST would serve to rip the scab off this sore.

When it comes to extending the coverage of the GST, it is worth noting that value-added taxes imposed in other countries typically have exemptions and lower rates for particular goods and services.

New Zealand is seen as the cleanest example in this respect, but the Hipkins Labour government is planning to remove the country’s GST from fruit and vegetables if re-elected next month.

Apart from the inflationary impact of increasing the rate of GST and extending its coverage – the timing couldn’t be worse – there are also practical reasons for keeping most of the exemptions. Does it really make any sense to impose the GST on medical and hospital services when the government provides significant subsidies to them? The same logic applies to private-school fees. Would the advocates of tax reform want to see GST added to childcare and aged-care fees?

The point is that there are many barriers to altering the GST arrangements, so much so it’s not clear why it is even up for discussion. Neither side of politics supports any change.

But even assuming a higher GST and greater coverage generated net revenue to the federal government – state grants would have to be cut – it’s not clear to what end the money should be used.

Much is made of the fact personal income tax now makes up more than 50 per cent of all federal tax receipts. All things being equal, this percentage could be closer to 60 per cent in 40 years. But using the additional revenue to reduce income-tax rates, particularly at the top level, is particularly fraught. Just look at the controversy generated by the modest stage three tax cuts, and let’s not forget a lot of people don’t pay any income tax at all.

Another big-ticket item promoted by the tax-reform advocates is the switch from stamp duty to land tax, which is in the hands of the states and territories. The case is often made on efficiency grounds but also as a means of improving housing affordability.

The ACT experiment has provided little comfort in this context: across a long time, property taxes have been ratcheted up and stamp duties lowered. There has been no noticeable impact on housing affordability and Canberrans have ended up just paying more for the privilege of living in the country’s capital. NSW’s experiment with a limited form of switch has now been ditched.

Other taxes often mentioned include higher company taxes, super-profits taxes, wealth taxes, higher capital-gains tax, limits on negative gearing, inheritance tax and higher taxes on all superannuants, including in retirement. The list goes on.

The trouble with many of these taxes is that they represent significant disincentives to accumulate wealth and invest, which can be economically damaging. Note here that Australia’s company taxes are already high by international standards.

For those carrying the tax-reform banner high, the obvious conclusion is that they would serve the country better if they focused on reforming the spending side of the equation. In that way, we wouldn’t need to increase taxes; indeed, the aim would be to reduce the tax burden and this could be done in a way that improves the efficiency of the system. Now we’re talking.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
September 11, 2023 6:36 pm

 I love my slow cooked brisket or a roast chook, but even they’re easy to prepare and cook.

Can’t beat a good quality roast chook.
You might spend over $20 for a home-schooled, free-range, corn fed, yada yada, but it keeps on giving, even if cooking for 1-2.
Next day, sangas with stuffing, lettuce and mayo.
Same with roast lamb.
Sandwiches with chutney next day, and maybe shepherd’s pie a couple of days later.

H B Bear
H B Bear
September 11, 2023 6:36 pm

got an Asko steam oven here
damned thing has a mind of it’s own

My oven still has a clock with those dials you push in to change. Was on the list to go to God but spared by my stroke. Definitely cheaper for me to buy ready made now. Usually ordering off the kids menu now.

JC
JC
September 11, 2023 6:40 pm

I live in a nice, trendy apartment block here in Sydney’s inner-east, and yet I see and hear every night those food delivery people (usually Indians) buzzing other apartments, and I think to myself….why are they doing this? Surely it must cost a lot? I mean, I understand why some might do it occasionally, for convenience, people are tired, but every night or second night?

Cassie, it may be hard to believe, but some of us have no idea about cooking. I wouldn’t include barbecuing nor frying egg and bacon, but anything else is impossible. I empathize with those people in the building because when wifey is away I exist on takeout. I also have a Greek restaurant close-by that will fix up a nice home cooked style meal.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
September 11, 2023 6:41 pm

Re abandoning da Voice vote.
I heard Nanny Neil Mitchell on about it this morning*.
Apparently it will cause “bitterness and division”.
You’re a bit late to the Bitterness and Division Party, Neil.
Suddenly, when it looks like the punters are about to serve up a Brexit Style wrong answer, it’s all off.
They wanted this vote.
Well, f-cking bring it on.
.
* Unable to escape him in the back-blocks of Japan.

MatrixTransform
September 11, 2023 6:42 pm

a clock with those dials you push in to change

good old St George ?

I struggle to understand how that bloody push-button timer managed to dominate white-goods the market

diabolical

MatrixTransform
September 11, 2023 6:45 pm

it may be hard to believe, but some of us have no idea about cooking

if you can’t cook … then what use are you?

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
September 11, 2023 6:46 pm

H B Bear

Sep 11, 2023 6:36 PM

got an Asko steam oven here
damned thing has a mind of it’s own

My oven still has a clock with those dials you push in to change. Was on the list to go to God but spared by my stroke. Definitely cheaper for me to buy ready made now. Usually ordering off the kids menu now.

Bear, if you are looking for an oven which might be easy to work around, Neff make ovens with “slide and hide” door.
Even if you don’t have a disability it is way easier and safer to get larger items in and out.
We’ve got two.
One steam, one pyroletic.
You can’t have pyro cleaning with the steam oven.
The inbuilt meat thermometer is a beauty.

Peter Greagg
Peter Greagg
September 11, 2023 6:47 pm

McCrann in the Oz about Joyce and Qantas>
JC should like this column.

Qantas media hysteria flies past reality
TERRY MCCRANN

The media hysteria over Qantas and its now former CEO Alan Joyce has been quite something – even in our social media age when immediate and unrestrained all-in hysteria has become the desperate default survival mode of formerly mainstream media.

If the headlines and breathless newsreaders – who, to be fair, are only mindlessly reciting what’s been put before them on their teleprompters – are to be believed, Joyce has all-but destroyed the airline, its brand flushed through the U-bend of history.

Nobody will ever fly Qantas again.
Just like nobody will ever bank with the Commonwealth again. Or Westpac. Or NAB or ANZ.

Just like nobody will ever shop at Woolies or Coles again. Or use Telstra or Optus.

The happiest man in Australia must surely be Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe.

At least for a week or so, he’s no longer the ‘most hated person’ in Australia.

At least, as projected by the media.

Let’s deal with the major myths. Starting with that $2.7bn of ‘government handouts’ for Qantas.

The single biggest component was $1.2bn paid as a straight-forward, completely normal, fee-for-service to Qantas, operating very much as the national airline, flying passenger s and freight through the desperate government-mandated days of Covid.

Almost as much – over $900m – was paid through Qantas in JobKeeper to staff. Just like as with every other business in Australia. Not a payment to Qantas, but paid to its workers.

That terrible behaviour, pursued by the ACCC seeking a $250m-plus fine, of selling tickets for flights that had already been cancelled?

This has been universally painted as a wicked attempt at ‘fees for no service’, A LA the banks.

It is absolutely no such thing.

Everyone who bought one either got on another adjacent flight or got a refund.

More fundamentally, the reason it happened were the massive problems Qantas faced restarting after Covid, dealing with re-hiring staff and supply change issues.

Not, as so ludicrously suggested, trying to claw money from customers – less than $10m or so.

Apart from what should be obvious; taking an ACCC accusation as ‘case proven’.

Remember, this is the same ACCC which, as I have shown with its rejection of the ANZ-Suncorp deal, does not even understand its own law.

The most inane feature of all the hysteria is as if Covid and government closing down the entire Qantas business for three months and then sporadically for another 18 months never happened.

Why didn’t Qantas spring back to a 2019 future immediately it could fly again?

The broader flight credits issue?

Everyone could have got a full refund or used the credit. Qantas kept extending.

And so, Qatar and those 21 ‘not allowed’ extra flights.

A business lobbying government for something to benefit it?

How outrageous. It’s never happened before.

If someone’s to blame it’s the government, not Qantas. Or Joyce.

The entire media is unable to understand, it might have benefited Qantas, but it also benefited every other airline flying into Australia; and they have got three times as many flights as Qantas.

Ah. It’s at least comforting that stupidity still reigns so pervasively.

Roger
Roger
September 11, 2023 6:48 pm

Can’t beat a good quality roast chook.

Freeze the carcass and when you’ve got a few make your own stock.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 11, 2023 6:50 pm

Animals Australia have once again attempted to insert themselves into the sheep

Oops, bad me, cut that quote off a bit short.
Fits though.

eric hinton
eric hinton
September 11, 2023 6:52 pm

Re blood sausage a few dozen threads back… Morcilla Colombiana for anyone a bit squeamish. The trick is Colombians put rice in the sausage. Rodiguez gets an uptick from a Colombian friend.

bons
bons
September 11, 2023 6:52 pm

Maxi,
As the global chair, and only member of the ‘Bring Back Knobs’ revolutionay action liberation group, I invite you to fulfill an unpaid consultancy role in this growing movement.
Dover will provide contact details and passwords.

Tom
Tom
September 11, 2023 6:55 pm

Another favourite of mine is Yotam Ottolenghi.

Yet another fashionable male homosexual with an iron grip on Australian government media cooking shows.

It’s almost as if, in order to get a gig, you have to be a pouve or a female fag hag.

PS: One of Maggie Beer’s cooking show colleagues on SBS Food is a pommy pouve (Simon someone whose surname I have forgotten), who has forgotten more about the food business than most chefs have ever learned.

JC
JC
September 11, 2023 6:56 pm

Thanks Peter G, obviously Mac was reading what I was posting last evening and this morning against this putrid Q hysteria. 🙂

I actually thought the problem was bigger than what Mc describes with all the hysteria being demonstrated here by several hysterical drama queens.

Not, as so ludicrously suggested, trying to claw money from customers – less than $10m or so.

And this was what all the drama was about? FMD. If this was my blog I’d punitively ban all those hysterical lady boys for a week after learning this.

JC
JC
September 11, 2023 6:59 pm

Oh but I take it back, Joyce was a really hard taskmaster with the staff and deserves being treated as a fraud.

FMD.

Robert Sewell
September 11, 2023 6:59 pm

dover0beach
Sep 11, 2023 6:00 PM

It’s the most expensive on the market. You need to explain the “exploiting its customers” comment as the rest of the missive is unimportant. How does Apple exploit its customers when it doesn’t have a commanding share of sales?

Because they’re paying the premium for the brand and not, largely, the product.

Well, it’s obvious to me.
Perhaps I’m not Soffisticated enuff to understand the Newance.

JC
JC
September 11, 2023 7:03 pm

That settles it then.

Pogria
Pogria
September 11, 2023 7:03 pm

Cassie,
I’m on my own again now and I still cook for myself. For days when I’m really not up to much because I’ve had a big day outside, one of my favourite quick meals is Cacio e Pepe. Simple as.
I have cookbooks from all creeds and countries. Italian being favourite, but I try everything from Japanese to Argentine Barbecue. I love all food.
I have several Jewish cookbooks, old and modern. I enjoy the inventiveness of Jewish cooking because of the Laws regarding food, I am always surprised at the combinations that work and are delicious.
I also make bulk soups and casseroles for the times when I am too tired to even boil water for pasta. Trusty old microwave. 😀

H B Bear
H B Bear
September 11, 2023 7:06 pm

Think my cooking days are behind me now. I had a useful range of stuff that served me well before my stroke but lack of dexterity plus swallowing issues pushes it well into the too hard basket now. Can still eat a lot of stuff but need to be careful and have my thickened drink nearby if things go awry.

Robert Sewell
September 11, 2023 7:10 pm

HBBear:
Why is your Gravatar a psychotic cow standing in a doorway?

JC
JC
September 11, 2023 7:11 pm

Pogria

Please don’t take this the wrong way as it’s not meant to suggest anything.

one of my favourite quick meals is Cacio e Pepe. Simple as.

That’s basically an all cheese sauce save for the pepe (pepper). It’s delicious, but the downside is that the sauce alone would be like 76,000 calories, and that doesn’t count the pasta. Do you exercise a lot?

Indolent
Indolent
September 11, 2023 7:11 pm

Not much could be done about it, the Joker paid for his stand. If you ain’t allowed to play that is worse than not being at top condition.

A much lower price than risking his health, especially for someone who’s already earned more than enough to live in luxury the rest of his life.

H B Bear
H B Bear
September 11, 2023 7:11 pm

For days when I’m really not up to much because I’ve had a big day outside, one of my favourite quick meals is Cacio e Pepe.

Carbonara was always my go to. Or chorizo and scrambled egg. Gyudon another good quickie. With a wok on the stove a quick meal was never far away.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 11, 2023 7:12 pm

Animals Australia were the arzeholes with footage of dead lambs on the sheep ships. Any sheep farmer could have told them that you don’t supply ewes, let alone ewes in lamb or ewes with lambs at foot, to the live trade…

MatrixTransform
September 11, 2023 7:13 pm

the Newance

I bought an iPhone because there was a particular piece of software that only runs on one.

in the end, we never adopted the software so I have a piece of crap phone with a good camera

don’t even get me started with how many ways it’s a piece of crap

I’ll give it to the missus cos she’s camera-ish

funny thing is that this is the second time around.

she still runs an iPhone 11 from my last foolhardy dalliance with Apple

Davey Boy
Davey Boy
September 11, 2023 7:14 pm

Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater
Had a wife and could not keep her
So he put her in a pumpkin shell
And there he cooked her very well.

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