Open Thread – Wed 20 Sept 2023


Still Life with Bouquet, August Renoir, 1871

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Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 21, 2023 11:34 pm
Indolent
Indolent
September 21, 2023 11:46 pm

Dr John Campbell

Vaccine Injury Reporting

Gabor
Gabor
September 21, 2023 11:56 pm

Johnny Rotten
Sep 21, 2023 11:05 PM

There are no upticks or down ticks on this Blog. Thumbs away to infinity and beyond……………..Specsavers awaits those who have trouble seeing

I think you have gone with this line too far now and you are still wrong and boring with it.

The fact is we are ticking a space on screen shaped like a thumb, that’s all.
It could be a square box or shaped like Donald Duck, would make no difference to the action that is ticking.

John H.
John H.
September 22, 2023 12:16 am

Sam Newman went too far calling for booing of the Welcome to Country. His critics are completely over the top in their condemnation. Which high profile figures have the guts to put forward an alternative form of protest, or faintly suggest that the ceremony is silly? I’d prefer a more passive form of protest. When the welcome to country starts, everyone get out their mobile phone, look down, and start scrolling.

Johnny Rotten
September 22, 2023 12:37 am

America is being invaded while Biden just watches it happen.

“This is a video from Eagle Pass, Texas today.

Tens of thousands of unvetted, unknown male illegals are simply walking into America like they own the place.

This is dangerous. This is an invasion. This is evil.

Joe Biden is a TRAITOR.

Mayorkas is a TRAITOR.

There is no bipartisan deal to broker.

Shut down the border.”

https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2023/09/america-is-being-invaded-while-biden-just-watches-it-happen.html

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 22, 2023 12:37 am

Sam Newman went too far calling for booing of the Welcome to Country.

Why? It is for people that purchase newspapers in the morning? F*ckwits that walk to the shop on a daily basis.

billie
billie
September 22, 2023 12:38 am

“When the welcome to country starts, everyone get out their mobile phone, look down, and start scrolling.”

Nah, stand up and turn around, turn your back on them like they did to Brendan Nelson.

They deserve no less and anyone with a brain on their side will realise immediately the source of the insult. No entitlement to bitch at all in my opinion.

The left never understands that there can be consequences to actions and poor decisions.

Would they ever take responsibility for it, nope, never.

Johnny Rotten
September 22, 2023 12:54 am

The fact is we are ticking a space on screen shaped like a thumb, that’s all.
It could be a square box or shaped like Donald Duck, would make no difference to the action that is ticking.

Not ticking at all. You are tapping or clicking a thumb using a keyboard or similar.

Specsavers awaits you all.

Please scroll down if you feel offended.

John H.
John H.
September 22, 2023 1:12 am

billie
Sep 22, 2023 12:38 AM
“When the welcome to country starts, everyone get out their mobile phone, look down, and start scrolling.”

Nah, stand up and turn around, turn your back on them like they did to Brendan Nelson.

You and Steve want to demonstrate contempt. That makes us look like assholes. In political matters there is enough contempt been spread around. This forum is full of it. The nonsense I read here about how the Left is composed of immoral stupid evil morons hellbent on bringing down Western Civilization. Those comments here are the virtue signaling. The hypocrisy is laughable. I have left wing friends whose IQ literally can’t be measured because modern IQ tests stop at 160, others who have made large personal sacrifices for the common good etc. So when I read all the contemptuous bile spilled forth here I am pleased I never chose to become so politically involved that I end up dehumanizing people I disagree with.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
September 22, 2023 1:17 am

JC

Sep 21, 2023 8:05 PM

Good ride, Sanchez. I’ve never ridden one, but I’ve read the 350 is actually a better plane than the Dreamliner.

Yeah, we had A350-900 and A350-1000 on the way over and they were great.
The old 777 didn’t have flat bed seats, but this leg was only four hours, so not the end of the world.
The A350 has a funny configuration in Business. Four abreast sort of angled off at 30 degrees to the aisles. Ideal if you want the cone of silence from the bride for 10 hours.
🙂

feelthebern
feelthebern
September 22, 2023 3:04 am

Drumgold racked up over 5k of international charges on his iPad.
Sounds like he liked watching movies while on holiday.

Tom
Tom
September 22, 2023 4:00 am
Tom
Tom
September 22, 2023 4:01 am
Tom
Tom
September 22, 2023 4:02 am
Tom
Tom
September 22, 2023 4:03 am
Tom
Tom
September 22, 2023 4:04 am
Tom
Tom
September 22, 2023 4:05 am
Tom
Tom
September 22, 2023 4:07 am
Tom
Tom
September 22, 2023 4:08 am
JC
JC
September 22, 2023 4:49 am

Ideal if you want the cone of silence from the bride for 10 hours.
?

Heaven.

miltonf
miltonf
September 22, 2023 4:54 am

While Prince William’s ambitious environmental program aims to find new ideas and technologies around the world to tackle climate change and Earth’s most pressing challenges, the royal admitted he’s growing “impatient” waiting for the momentum to move quicker.-had enough of these useless turds yets?

Dot
Dot
September 22, 2023 4:54 am

F*ckwits that walk to the shop on a daily basis.

???

Going for moderate exercise (before breakfast too) is literally one of the best things you can do, along with sleep hygiene and early sunlight.

miltonf
miltonf
September 22, 2023 4:57 am

I think one of the Spiked chicks hit the nail on the head- ‘rather uninteresting and rather unpleasant people’.

Dot
Dot
September 22, 2023 5:03 am

This is dangerous. This is an invasion. This is evil.

No, the west is weak, divided and “right wingers” serve up welfare and money printing up on a platter too.

It’s not an invasion if you walk in without resistance.*

This could be fixed very easily, but not enough Americans care to vote Biden out to cancel out the vote rigging.

“Ukraine should surrender though” is laughable. A country stands up to an actual invasion and they’re evil Nazis.

*How many border patrol officers are on the take? People don’t understand how embedded the cartels really are in the US economy. They’re massive and are semi legitimate and hold overt political power. They no longer stand in the shadows and threaten politicians. They are Mexican politics now.

Dot
Dot
September 22, 2023 5:12 am

The chick who reckoned Trump “lunged at the wheel” on January 6 2021 also reckons Giuliani groped her that day, she said this yesterday and her BOOK is coming out TOMORROW.

27 years old with memoirs built on absolute bullshit.

A life well lived.

Gabor
Gabor
September 22, 2023 5:45 am

I have to say, never was fond of the US governments of late, probably since the Clintons, but now I have doubts about the kind of society they are building.

Not saying ‘grave’ doubts, but near enough.
How are they going to get out of this immoral, fascist hole and at what cost?

Gabor
Gabor
September 22, 2023 5:54 am

JC
Sep 22, 2023 5:18 AM

She really gives Garland a really decent serving and she’s a decent looker to boot.

That was magnificent, a bit long and angry, but good.
Would have been better to give him a point by point question instead of haranguing him like that but better than most politicians can manage.

feelthebern
feelthebern
September 22, 2023 5:57 am

Rich Voss was on the Shane Gilles podcast and told the story how he & Patrice O’Neal went in to pitch a sitcom to CBS.
Patrice was in one of his moods and he & Voss ended up have a monster argument in the meeting.
CBS kicked them out, ending what could have been possibly one of the best sitcoms we never saw.

feelthebern
feelthebern
September 22, 2023 6:08 am

I wonder how Albo feels this morning after seeing Assad getting the red carpet treatment in China.
After 18 months of begging, Albo still is waiting in line.
On his knees.

Robert Sewell
September 22, 2023 6:27 am

feelthebern

Sep 22, 2023 6:08 AM
I wonder how Albo feels this morning after seeing Assad getting the red carpet treatment in China.
After 18 months of begging, Albo still is waiting in line.
On his knees.

The Chinese are like most people – they despise traitors.

Crossie
Crossie
September 22, 2023 6:38 am

Has anyone noticed the similar face structure of the transgender Ukrainian spokesman to that Zelensky? Is the world being punked? Zelensky was an actor after all.

MatrixTransform
September 22, 2023 6:42 am

Those comments here are the virtue signaling. The hypocrisy is laughable.
I have left wing friends whose IQ literally can’t be measured because modern IQ tests stop at 160, others who have made large personal sacrifices for the common good etc.

brain the size of a planet?

Dot
Dot
September 22, 2023 6:44 am

The letter to Rumble per Russell Brand from the English Parliament is behaviour befitting mafiosi.

Sorry guys, you overreacted on COVID, you enabled Jimmy Saville, suck on the proverbial, you officious bullies.

Rosie
Rosie
September 22, 2023 6:45 am

Read the Australian article about the Integrity Commission allegations re the former DPP.
Completing stat decs for expenses, running to the remuneration review tribunal, organising his renovations, and watching movie on his ipad; he was a very busy man.

Dot
Dot
September 22, 2023 6:51 am

Read the Australian article about the Integrity Commission allegations re the former DPP.
Completing stat decs for expenses, running to the remuneration review tribunal, organising his renovations, and watching movie on his ipad; he was a very busy man.

Better get a lawyer son.

Better get a real good one.

Dot
Dot
September 22, 2023 6:59 am

Rich Voss was on the Shane Gilles podcast and told the story how he & Patrice O’Neal went in to pitch a sitcom to CBS.
Patrice was in one of his moods and he & Voss ended up have a monster argument in the meeting.
CBS kicked them out, ending what could have been possibly one of the best sitcoms we never saw.

Imagine if it was a prank Norm orchestrated.

But of course Bob Einstein would have been the network President.

“THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS! HOW IS COMEDY!? DID ADAM EGET WRITE THIS!?”

Rosie
Rosie
September 22, 2023 7:03 am

Marcus Einfield is a good lawyer with expertise in the field of statutory declarations.

Gabor
Gabor
September 22, 2023 7:05 am

Robert Sewell
Sep 22, 2023 6:27 AM

Robert, did you say you were watching people working in thongs or sandals with no protective equipment, doing welding and grinding?

I can trump that, barefoot in a foundry!!
Can’t link for some reason, it’s on FB, absolutely incredible, they stamp the casting sand into the mold by foot and carry the molten metal barefoot.

Not to mention they are breaking up the old engine blocks by hand and load it into the furnace by hand, feeding the furnace with waste sump engine oil.

I must say, sometimes when I see these videos, I think to myself, they must be fake, surely, nobody could be working under those condition, or could they?

But the casting come out perfect, no doubt about it.

Dot
Dot
September 22, 2023 7:06 am

SO, HOW ‘BOUT THIS HEATWAVE!?

Your local AFL tipping comp winner could beat the BOM.

PS

Please don’t stop the candlelight vigils, they’re clearly working.

Cassie of Sydney
September 22, 2023 7:11 am

“So when I read all the contemptuous bile spilled forth here “

Seriously? Oh well, at least that ‘contemptuous bile’ is usually always more entertaining than the sanctimonious, holier-than-thou, pious and boring bile you spill here.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
September 22, 2023 7:14 am

JohnH you seem quite happy to bend over while the pineapple is inserted and they help themselves to your wallet, if only Stalin knew. Grow up. These arseholes don’t like it if you don’t agree with them and even less if you fight back and worst of all treat them like they treat you.

Cassie of Sydney
September 22, 2023 7:16 am

“The letter to Rumble per Russell Brand from the English Parliament is behaviour befitting mafiosi.”

I think it’s worse than that. By the way, the UK government, a “Conservative” government, has passed its own “Online Safety Bill”.

Oh and if the NO vote prevails, hell will hath no fury like a rejected Sleazy and his government. Watch them join with da Greens, Looser Liberals like Leeser and Bragg, and Archer and co, and push through our very own “Online Safety Bill”, a bill drafted under PM Scumbag.

Cassie of Sydney
September 22, 2023 7:18 am

I’ve never been into “booing” but I’ll make an exception for Welcome to Country.

This is my country too. I don’t and won’t be welcomed to the country I was born in.

Dot
Dot
September 22, 2023 7:30 am

Quite disgusted that I had to listen to welcome to country before the confirmation mass where I sponsored my “nephew”.

Other than that, it was a very solemn ceremony.

Parish priest then remarked how he wants to rebuild the parish.

Good luck with that, champ.

If they pull this shit with weddings then it’s over.

Cassie of Sydney
September 22, 2023 7:36 am

I read here and saw on the Telegraph home page the incident re. spitting by a YES campaigner, but it’s been pulled.

Does anyone know why?

Pogria
Pogria
September 22, 2023 7:39 am

Our future if we behave the way JohnH believes we should behave.

We need Mongrel, not effing manners. Fight. Back. Harder.

Cassie of Sydney
September 22, 2023 7:41 am

“We need Mongrel, not effing manners. Fight. Back. Harder.”

Liberty quote for the day, the week, and the month.

Cassie of Sydney
September 22, 2023 7:42 am

Is it just me or do others also get the impression that St JohnH the Pious doesn’t like many of us here?

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
September 22, 2023 7:45 am

So highly intelligent mongs with good intentions leading to really, really crap outcomes?

I reserve the right to judge ” highly intelligent/ off the scale IQ” people by the outcomes of their oh so clever ideas.
If the ideas they have are shit then the brains producing them are shit as well.

There is also the amazing cases of intelligent people who get wealthy, then prescribe policies which immiserate others or even better policies which if they had followed would have seen them fail.

Supposedly much of the senior Nazis tested very well on IQ, you’d hardly defend their character based on their ” good intentions” for the German people, genuine as they may have been

calli
calli
September 22, 2023 7:46 am

Under investigation, Cassie. Daily Mail has the story.

Cassie of Sydney
September 22, 2023 7:47 am

PJW has just uploaded this. He nails the Brand imbroglio….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQrMWvweF0U

Dot
Dot
September 22, 2023 7:49 am

You DO need civility (but you can still mock egregious actions like senile Biden babbling on).

You need to win people over. There’s a balance between attacking too many people (limiting your appeal) and not being critical enough (which limits your own ability to articulate a strong platform and message).

Langton, Mao, the spitting YES campaigner, the scrawny soy abortion activist who kicked the woman after ‘he’ lost an argument to her…

How many people have they won over?

If we simply let Marcia Langton talk, then NO would get up 25 : 75.

Civility doesn’t mean you have no backbone.

Only fools confuse kindness with weakness.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 22, 2023 7:53 am

Will Happer in Brisbane put up some nice slides:

Will Happer IPA Speech Brisbane – Climate Physics in Understandable Bites (WUWT, 21 Sep)

The second slide derives 2XCO2 to be 0.71 K/doubling. That’s the same as what Lindzen got from the CERES satellite data, and what I got using long term HadCET and solar activity data.

At 0.7 C/doubling you can’t burn enough fossil fuels to raise the global temperature by 2 C since that would be three doublings, or about 3000 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere. There just isn’t enough carbon fuel on Earth to raise pCO2 that much. So CO2 is harmless.

calli
calli
September 22, 2023 7:54 am

I think I’m in a bit of strife.

The Beloved’s birthday today. The card looked waaay too boring so I decided to embellish it with stickers from my kiddie stash. I had “space” and “dinosaur” ones, so I did an extinction scene with a falling meteorite.

It might be a bridge too far. 😀

Pogria
Pogria
September 22, 2023 8:02 am

Calli,
that sounds awesome, fun and very personal. I’m sure the Beloved will adore it. 😀

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
September 22, 2023 8:04 am

Calli

Make it up to him by cooking a nice brekkie of mushrooms.

shatterzzz
September 22, 2023 8:05 am

If it hasn’t already been posted …….
PLEASE EXPLAIN .. the Chairmans Lounge edition ……!
https://youtu.be/bveOtZWYKFc

Pogria
Pogria
September 22, 2023 8:07 am

I was reading about Denise Ferris and Dylan Voller came to mind. Remember the photos of that poor, sensitive little boy who “didn do nuffin? Well, he was wearing a Spit Hood.
That is how I now think of Denise. The Spit Hood. If the hood fits. 😀

Dot
Dot
September 22, 2023 8:07 am

So is the Tory MP behind the “Online Safety Bill” married to somebody involved in UK intelligence?

You know, as in a former Major General and Minister for Armed Services?

It’s an op.

will
will
September 22, 2023 8:12 am

Bump me into Parliament:

Frydenberg takes reins as Goldman Sachs ANZ chair
The former federal treasurer became an adviser at the US firm after losing his blue-ribbon Melbourne seat of Kooyong at the federal election in May last year.

The Australian

Pogria
Pogria
September 22, 2023 8:12 am

thefrollickingmole
Sep 22, 2023 8:04 AM
Calli

Make it up to him by cooking a nice brekkie of mushrooms.

Mole, you stinking, hilarious arsehole! You owe me a giant bottle of screen cleaner. My outburst even sent the cats flying. 😀 😀 😀

Calli,
you need to demand satisfaction from Mole. This cannot be allowed to stand. I will help you stitch him up. hehe

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
September 22, 2023 8:16 am

Colonel Crispin Berka
Sep 21, 2023 9:38 PM

Those are links to a post National Cabinet era text which does not explain the 16 months of lockdowns that preceded the 6 August 2021 consensus, nor what the default responsibilities for the Commonwealth and States were prior to Covid19, and the only border controls mentioned on that page are for the international border (which is also what “quarantine” refers to on that page).

1) National Cabinet is still with us, there is no “post National Cabinet era“.

2) International border controls were and are the Commonwealth’s responsibility.

3) Any international border quarantine (including for human diseases) was and is a Commonwealth power that overrides any State process.

4) The link shows that, after handing arrival quarantine responsibility away to the States (in Queensland, see the Wellcamp/Pinkenba debacle), it took 16 months to coordinate a ‘National Agreement’ – during which time (after the first weeks) the States made it up as they went along. Which was the point of the original comment you took exception to.

Other than that, you are quite correct; none of it explains the lockdown circus.

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
September 22, 2023 8:16 am

Allan Joyce and his lucky charms….

Awesome one nation vid.

Dot
Dot
September 22, 2023 8:18 am

Maybe we need an anti nepotism rule.

Marriage or anyone you’re barred from marrying ever holding the same office bars you for life for the same or an office in the line of succession.

Sorry Royals, this is bigger than you. Plus if they thought it through it would revert back to the McAlpine model where the Crown was more or less shared across two extended families.

Dot
Dot
September 22, 2023 8:20 am

The rule should include cohabitation justiciable as a de facto relationship as well.

Pogria
Pogria
September 22, 2023 8:22 am

Shatterzzz, thanks for the link.

That Episode of Please Explain would have to be one of, if not the best so far. That episode had Mongrel. There was no “we have to be nicer than them”.
The Ball Wall was absolutely inspired.

Makka
Makka
September 22, 2023 8:23 am

So is the Tory MP behind the “Online Safety Bill” married to somebody involved in UK intelligence?

She’s a woman. And a Karen at that.

Aaron
Aaron
September 22, 2023 8:28 am

The student activist shows what a lightweight he is:

“A modest proposal” ( But I claim it will improve literacy, suicide, employment and domestic violence rates as well as average life span in the Aboriginal community).

“It will lower your electricity bill by $275 ( But it’s only a projection).

“We announce an enquiry into the COVID response” (But we know the answers as we won’t look too closely).

“We have a net zero target” ( But me and Richie are going to rack up more aviation emissions than the Luftwaffe).

The grub is beneath contempt and hopefully he will be hung drawn and quartered by his own mob on 15th Oct 23.

Top Ender
Top Ender
September 22, 2023 8:29 am

Heeeerrrreeees Shane!

Alcohol, flights and phone bills: Shane Drumgold investigation over expenses

Former ACT chief prosecutor Shane Drumgold’s office manager went to the territory’s integrity watchdog with allegations her then boss mishandled expenses and broke department policy by claiming for alcohol and $5000 in global phone roaming charges.

The allegations are made by his former office manager Mercy ­Wilkie, who claims in a seven-page letter to the ACT Integrity Commission that her long-running concerns over Mr Drumgold’s conduct were heightened during the inquiry into his handling of the prosecution of former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann.

Ms Wilkie sent the claims in March this year, around the time her partner, builder Matthew Thompson, was becoming embroiled in a legal case with her boss over building work on Mr Drumgold’s holiday homes.

“Sometimes these declarations are supported by bank statements, at other times they are not. I have repeatedly asked Mr Drumgold to simply keep receipts so that I can review the purchase before re­imbursement is made,” she wrote to the commission.

“Notwithstanding many conversations about this practice of not providing receipts, completing statutory declarations still remains the practice for Mr Drumgold. I hold real concerns that many items that I have been asked to reimburse Mr Drumgold for purchasing involve alcohol or other expenses that would not ordinarily be appropriate to re­imburse government officials for.”

The Australian is not suggesting Mr Drumgold has committed any wrongdoing or that he was involved in Ms Wilkie’s suspension from the DPP, only that Ms Wilkie made allegations to the Integrity Commission and that she believed they should be investigated.

A spokesman for the Integrity Commissioner confirmed they had recieved the complaint and it was under assessment.

Mr Drumgold, his lawyer Mark Tedeschi and the ACT Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions were contacted for comment.

Amid 21 separate complaints to the commission, Ms Wilkie claims that Mr Drumgold would regularly not provide receipts for things for which he wanted the DPP office to reimburse him.

Ms Wilkie alleges Mr Drumgold tried to hide a reimbursement claim for alcohol because of a failure to provide receipts and a photograph of a glass of gin posted on a social media account while he was at a conference.

“I believe Mr Drumgold completed the statutory declaration, rather than providing receipts to hide the purchase of alcohol and/or other items, which should not properly be reimbursed to him,” she wrote.

She also accused Mr Drumgold of charging a Telstra global roaming bill of $5000 for his iPad, despite her advising him it was against policy. The DPP reimbursed him despite it being against standard practice.

“The standard practice at the DPP is to enable international roaming at a cost of about $350 a month. When Mr Drumgold returned from England, the DPP received an invoice for around $5000 from Telstra, and this related to his iPad,” Ms Wilkie writes.

“I drew this invoice to Mr Drumgold’s attention, reminded him of our discussion about international roaming, and advised he would need to pay the invoice. Mr Drumgold said the iPad was work-related and the DPP would pay for it.”

She also claims that the then ACT chief prosecutor directed an employee to buy a plane ticket for his wife to Perth, on a government account.

“Mr Drumgold advised that he would put (his wife’s) ticket on his frequent flyer points. A few days later, Mr Drumgold advised Corporate that Qantas had put the frequent flyer ticket intended for (his wife) in his name, and would not change it,” she writes.

“He then directed (an employee) from corporate to book (his wife’s) ticket under the government account. When (the employee) tried to do this, she was questioned by Qantas about it, but ultimately (the DPP) purchased the ticket.”

The then-office manager for the DPP – who had worked there for 15 years when she put in her complaint – said she had a good relationship with her bosses and that she even received praise from Mr Drumgold when she extended her contract.

“In or around 2022, I received a salary increase. I also received a text message from the Director of Public Prosecutions which said ‘I don’t want to get mushy, but I’m glad you’re hanging around’,” Ms Wilkie wrote to the commission.

The praise from her superior did not stop Ms Wilkie putting 21 causes for concern about Mr Drumgold to the integrity watchdog.

“For some time now, I have been troubled by the conduct of Mr Shane Drumgold and some of the irregularities at the DPP,” she wrote.

“My concerns have escalated over the course of the last six months, and I am now at a point where I think it is important I raise the concerns I have so that the ­issues can be investigated more thoroughly and by an independent person.

“Many of the concerns I have had with Mr Drumgold’s conduct became more acute since the ­announcement of the independent review into Mr Drumgold’s conduct in the well publicised Brittany Higgins trial.”

Ms Wilkie was stood down from her position just over a week after making the complaint, on the grounds that she had accessed Mr Drumgold’s emails.

It is understood Ms Wilkie had been required to access the email as part of her duties.

Among her other claims are that Mr Drumgold allowed his daughter – who also worked at the ACT DPP – to use his official car park spot and that he met his lawyer Mark Tedeschi SC under the “ruse of the Higgins inquiry” when in fact he wanted to discuss suing this masthead over its report into his texts to Ms Wilkie’s builder partner.

In her letter, Ms Wilkie also claimed that her boss was meeting her partner, Mr Thompson, to ­discuss their plans for Mr Drumgold’s holiday homes during work hours.

Ms Wilkie says she thought these meetings in work hours were inappropriate but “felt conflicted about this because Matt needed the business, but Mr Drumgold should not have been paid by the Territory for attending a private meeting during work hours.”

The dispute between Mr Thompson and Mr Drumgold was first revealed in The Australian last February after it emerged that text messages had been sent from Mr Drumgold’s phone number to the builder asking for updates on renovations at the very time he was in the ACT Supreme Court leading the prosecution of Mr Lehrmann last year.

Oz without comments open

Gonski even more. Drumgold will be lucky to get a job for the rest of his life but it won’t help Bruce Lehrmann get his back.

Indolent
Indolent
September 22, 2023 8:29 am
Miltonf
Miltonf
September 22, 2023 8:30 am

Like I said and I’m showing my age, it was bad enough having to hear my Minister quote Al Grassy in one of his sermons. Sad.

Roger
Roger
September 22, 2023 8:33 am

Quite disgusted that I had to listen to welcome to country before the confirmation mass where I sponsored my “nephew”.

The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof;
the world, and those that dwell therein.

For he has founded it upon the seas,
and established it upon the waters.

Who may ascend the hill of the Lord?
Who may stand in his holy place?

Psalm 24:1-3.

I presume the “Welcome to Country” has been authorised by the Catholic bishops.

Who on earth advised them to do so?

Roger
Roger
September 22, 2023 8:36 am

Who on earth advised them to do so?

They all have theological advisers these days.

It seems they can’t remember their catechism.

flyingduk
flyingduk
September 22, 2023 8:39 am

Those comments here are the virtue signaling.

Projection what?

The hypocrisy is laughable. I have left wing friends whose IQ literally can’t be measured because modern IQ tests stop at 160

In artillery terms, more likely your lefty friends were ‘short’ than ‘over’

others who have made large personal sacrifices for the common good etc

AFAIK, lefties generally require *others* to make sacrifices for the ‘greater good’ no?

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
September 22, 2023 8:43 am

On EV charging.

Chatting with London son about the Queensland Fire Service policy on not extinguishing EV fires in underground car parks. Car-free himself, he lives in a ULEZ zone which applies draconian daily penalties to ICE vehicles.

His street is a Georgian terrace, with houses converted into flats, so hundreds of individual residents and both kerbs lined with cars – many EV’s. There is no off-street parking, EV owners either join a queue to use a commercial charging station – or use a street bollard or lamp post charging station (running a power cord from flat to car over the footpath is verboten – and in any event street parking is a random lottery, so impractical).

His street has three charging bollards – they take about six hours to 80% charge an EV. Apparently, coordination between EV residents is a panic; desperate ‘please call me when you’ve finished, there’s a drink in it for you‘ notes on windscreens, getting up at 2am to (hopefully) move your car in front of the charging bollard, arguments and street screaming, yobbo passers-by unplugging the charging lead ‘for a bit of a laff‘ leaving an uncharged car that the owner won’t move – and so on.

But at least they are accessible for when they catch fire.

calli
calli
September 22, 2023 8:46 am

He liked it! He’s been very sad these last few days because bereavement and other stuff, so that shook a good, hearty laugh out of him.

Cobwebs now cleaned.

I have to thank Rabz and his “dinobores” for inspiration. The rest was easy.

Dot
Dot
September 22, 2023 8:47 am

PS

Queen Karen, Kathy Hochul has upgraded the climate crisis of “global boiling” to a climate assault.

The temps this week have literally dropped 15 deg C off the forecast minimums and maximums.

The grift will never end.

Soon there must be a WAR ON FOSSIL FUELS! Be patriotic, support the war.

Service guarantees citizenship!

Would you like to know more?

Indolent
Indolent
September 22, 2023 8:48 am

This clip is 4 minutes long. It’s a year old but the first time I’ve seen it. Teaching it in schools would kill the climate scam stone dead overnight so, of course, it won’t happen.

The Climate Change story told by ice cores…

shatterzzz
September 22, 2023 8:52 am

Seems the AFL doesn’t agree with Sam Newman on “Welcome to Country” but I’m guessing they did’t click on the comments section either ..

https://www.msn.com/en-au/sport/other/afl-boss-hits-out-at-newman-over-welcome-to-country-call/ar-AA1h2tTP?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=3d0b021df08c41fcad917089d3ded9a9&ei=12

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 22, 2023 8:56 am

Images of the royal dinner at the Palace of Versailles near Paris for King Charles and Macron.

That the same King Charles as this one?

King Charles Brands Climate Change World’s Largest ‘Existential Challenge’, Calls for French-UK ‘Sustainability Agreement’ (21 Sep)

Why, yes. Yes it is. That was a very long table in Versailles, I wonder what they had for desert? Cake?

Black Ball
Black Ball
September 22, 2023 8:58 am

Rupert Murdoch stepping down from NewsCorp and Fox chairman

Black Ball
Black Ball
September 22, 2023 9:05 am

As chairman.
In his papers however, Anthony Albanese writes:

What Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people want for their children is what you want for yours. That’s what they are asking you to say Yes to at this referendum. The same opportunity for their children to make a good life for themselves. Nothing extra, just an equal chance. That’s the change we can make happen.

For many years, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have advocated for Constitutional Recognition through a Voice – one that’s independent from day-to-day politics. A practical way of making real progress on issues like health and education.

The Voice will be a committee of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, local representatives from every state and territory. Indigenous Australians, chosen by Indigenous Australians, giving advice to Government.

The Voice will mean we listen to people about issues that affect them, so we get better results.

Giving locals a say also means we save money because we’ll be making sure funding actually reaches the people on the ground and makes a difference.

Our Government – along with every State and Territory Government – has committed to it. Legal experts have endorsed it. People on all sides of the parliament have backed it. Faith groups, sporting codes, local councils, businesses and unions have embraced it.

And on October 14th, you can vote for it. The idea for a Voice came from the people – and it will be decided by the people.

Government will remain the decision maker. But they’ll be equipped with better advice because with a Voice we’ll hear directly from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities – both about the challenges they face, but also their success stories, which we can then work to replicate across the nation.

Voting Yes won’t fix everything overnight, but it will mean we finally have the right approach in place to start finding the answers.

Let’s be clear about the alternative. Voting No means nothing changes.

Voting No means closing the door on practical progress that will help people live better lives.

The worst of times tend to bring out the best in Australians. Now the people who confront the worst of circumstances every day are appealing to the best in us, and offering Australia a way ahead.

We can take up that offer by voting Yes and making a change for the better. Together.

If you’re unsure, read the very clear wording of the proposed change. It’s constitutional recognition with an advisory group to give a Voice so that we get better results.

Our Australian story goes back 65,000 years. It’s up to all of us – together – to write the next chapter. We can start by writing Yes.

That one word can be our key to a great moment of national unity, a moment when we join together in fairness and in pride, and with excitement about the even greater nation we can become when we take this step.

In the words of the great Evonne Goolagong, “Voting yes is a chance for all Australians to celebrate the contribution Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have made to our country and to help the next generation chase their dreams. Let’s grab this moment with both hands.”

In the history of our nation, the great acts of progress and fairness have always required hard work. But when they’re done, the only question we ever ask is: “Why didn’t we do it earlier?”

And it will be the same this time. When Yes wins, all Australians will win.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
September 22, 2023 9:10 am

As mentioned by others – an outstanding Please Explain in a crowded field.

Junior Albo is excellent.

‘This isn’t what 33% of the country voted for!’

Haaaa.

Roger
Roger
September 22, 2023 9:13 am

What Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people want for their children is what you want for yours.

Dare I suggest assimilation then?

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 22, 2023 9:14 am

Advance Australia:

More and more Indigenous Australians are voting no. Here’s why.

We’re voting No

Diogenes
Diogenes
September 22, 2023 9:15 am

Indolent,
Thanks for the clip. Bookmarked for classroom use.

Bear Necessities
Bear Necessities
September 22, 2023 9:17 am

The real fear for the elistist left is not the ‘NO’ vote winning the Voice referendum. The real fear is that a ‘NO’ vote win will enable ordinary people to have more courage to stand up to ‘Norms’ which they are trying to entrench such as ‘Trans rights’ etc. Shouting down to the normal folk becomes a lot harder to do without pushback.

Black Ball
Black Ball
September 22, 2023 9:28 am

Peter Dutton in the same papers:

Our Constitution, institutions and democracy have been the source of our stability and progress for 122 years.

A Voice would be the most consequential change to our system in history. There is no similar constitutional body anywhere in the world. And there is nothing ‘modest’ about the proposed change before us.

Whether you are an Indigenous Australian, were born Australian, or have come from around the world and become Australian, we are all Australians. And because we are all Australians, we are treated equally under the law.

A Voice will change this fundamental democratic principle. It will confer a privilege on one set of Australians purely based on their ancestry. All of us recognise the significant disadvantages facing many Indigenous Australians, especially those living in remote communities in the outback.

But a Voice will not deliver the change and improvements we all desire. The Voice will be more Canberra bureaucracy which hoovers up more taxpayer dollars which gives more of a platform to activists. In January, I wrote to Mr Albanese on behalf of Australians. I respectfully sought information in response to 15 reasonable questions about how the Voice would function.

Weeks out from this referendum, we are none the wiser. If the referendum is successful, only then will the Government spend six months working out the details. If you want to alter our Constitution, details should come before the vote, not the vote before the details.

Why isn’t Prime Minister Albanese providing details? Either he hasn’t considered the unintended consequences – in which case he is being reckless. Or he is withholding information because the details will turn more Australians off his proposal – in which case he is being tricky. The fact that our best legal minds remain divided on the Voice shows that this constitutional change is risky.

The Prime Minister is being deceptive when he says the Voice will be controlled by parliament and only advise on matters relating to Indigenous Australians. The very words which would be included in the Constitution mean that no issue is off limits to the Voice and that the High Court – not the parliament – will determine the Voice’s powers and remit.

The Government could have established and tested the Voice through legislation. But the Prime Minister refused to walk this cautious road. Remember the disastrous Western Australian cultural heritage laws? They could only be scrapped because the WA parliament could repeal that legislation. But if anything goes wrong with a constitutional Voice, we are stuck with it.

This Voice comes with a no returns policy. Why are so many Voice advocates uncompromising in their demand for a permanent Voice in our Constitution? Their own words expose their true objective.

Thomas Mayo (appointed by Mr Albanese) said the Voice is ‘a black political force to be reckoned with’. Teela Reid said the Voice is ‘the first step in redistributing power’. The longer version of the Uluru Statement mentions the goals of ‘self-government’, ‘self-determination’, ‘reparations’ and ‘a financial settlement’.

Does this sound like a ‘gracious request’ as the Prime Minister suggests? Activists are focused on using the constitutional power of a Voice to pursue an agenda driven by resentment and retribution – not the noble goals of reconciliation and improving Indigenous lives.

Putting a Voice in our Constitution will take our country backwards, not forwards. It will drive us apart, not bring us together.

Voting ‘No’ is not to turn our backs on disadvantaged Indigenous Australians. Rather, voting ‘No’ is to reject a bad idea and changing our country for the worse.

Dot
Dot
September 22, 2023 9:29 am

Aboriginal woman to ABC:

Gee thanks, smart white fella!

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-22/fact-check-jacinta-nampijinpa-price-colonisation-no-impact/102884690

Urban green left privilege flowing into the storm water drains around Ultimo and Surry Hills like glowing toxic ooze.

Makka
Makka
September 22, 2023 9:31 am

Bear Necessities
Sep 22, 2023 9:17 AM

Good call Bear. This is a Brexit like moment. A choice between 2 different futures.

Roger
Roger
September 22, 2023 9:32 am

The real fear is that a ‘NO’ vote win will enable ordinary people to have more courage to stand up to ‘Norms’ which they are trying to entrench such as ‘Trans rights’ etc.

Speaking of which…

Trans prejudice doubles in three years in wake of JK Rowling cancel culture row

Erosion in support likely accelerated by recent public debates, report finds

– The (UK) Telegraph

johanna
johanna
September 22, 2023 9:32 am

1) National Cabinet is still with us, there is no “post National Cabinet era“.

True, but misleading.

The predecessor of National Cabinet was COAG (Council of Australian Governments) and before that they were called Premiers’ Conferences. I can’t be bothered going back further to disprove uninformed conspiracy theories.

There is nothing unconstitutional about the Commonwealth and State/Territory governments having meetings and making agreements, unless the agreements themselves are unconstitutional.

Yes, some of those agreements are repellent, but that doesn’t make them illegal or unconstitutional.

Oh, and another plus one for Pauline’s latest. I loved the hostie seats, the window where you could watch the peasants, the iced-up passenger. It’s a hoot! 🙂

It urinates with power and rancidity (?) over the sad attempts of local so-called ‘comedians’.

Crossie
Crossie
September 22, 2023 9:34 am

Roger
Sep 22, 2023 8:33 AM
Quite disgusted that I had to listen to welcome to country before the confirmation mass where I sponsored my “nephew”.

The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof;
the world, and those that dwell therein.
For he has founded it upon the seas,
and established it upon the waters.
Who may ascend the hill of the Lord?
Who may stand in his holy place?
Psalm 24:1-3.
I presume the “Welcome to Country” has been authorised by the Catholic bishops.
Who on earth advised them to do so?

I was equally horrified when I heard it at my local parish. I could see that it contravened the Bible and yet people who spent years studying theology couldn’t see it. They have also forgotten that they will have to answer to The Boss for misleading the faithful when they come face to face with him.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
September 22, 2023 9:34 am

The Voice will mean we listen to people about issues that affect them, so we get better results.

Giving locals a say also means we save money because we’ll be making sure funding actually reaches the people on the ground and makes a difference.

Our Government – along with every State and Territory Government – has committed to it.

The National Agreement on closing the Gap, signed off by the Commonwealth and all State Governments – and advised on indigenous needs and issues by the Coalition of Peaks – committed to do exactly that.

Unfortunately, the Productivity Commission 2023 report says that things are going backwards because of a lack of actual government commitment.

No analysis or reasons or explanation given of why it might be different this time.

Failure on failure.

Ponce.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 22, 2023 9:36 am

This is a Brexit like moment. A choice between 2 different futures.

Sadly just like Brexit the prog elites will white ant our decision and enact what they want via a back door. Still, if No gets up, it will be nice to’ve sent them an impudent gesture.

Pogria
Pogria
September 22, 2023 9:37 am

I watched the clip Steve linked to. It was succinct, sensitive and to the point.
My favourite part is when Jacinta’s husband Colin stated “he won’t let them put a line through his family”.
That is exactly what the troughers are after. Put a line through Australia and while the squabbling goes on in the aftermath, the grifters reap the rewards.

Cassie of Sydney
September 22, 2023 9:39 am

Just further to being ‘civil’ when confronted by leftist ‘incivility’.

My 84 year old mother is a rather formidable woman, highly opinionated (something she’s passed on to her children), she is not one to cross swords with, and if you do you’ll likely come the loser, and a bruised one at that. Anyway, my mother lives in a very nice inner-city apartment, and there are quite a few gay men who live in the same apartment block. They know my mother’s views on things, if asked for her opinion, she speaks her mind, she ain’t no meek and mild pussy cat. She’s an old school feminist, much like Germaine Greer and other early feminists. Gay men like her, and she likes gay men (many of my mother’s gay friends are conservatives).

Anyway, it was late March of this year, on NSW election day to be precise, and she got into the lift in her building. One of her gay neighbours who lives upstairs was in the lift, he campaigns for Clover and for that creepy Alex Greenfilth. Anyway, he and my mother have crossed swords before about things, particularly politics and SSM. But on that March day earlier this year, Mum got into the lift, and out of no where, completely unprovoked, this homosexual raised his voice at Mum, became rude and mocking, and then said excitedly that today there’ll be a change of government and that Mum’s side will lose, and he started laughing at her. He was very uncivil to my mother, so how did my 84 year old mother respond?

“Get f*** ked”

and she then got out of the lift.

The neighbour was quite shocked. Later that day, when Mum got home, there was a card from this same neighbour apologising to her for his nasty incivility. I think sometimes we need to be uncivil in response to uncivil fascists.

* I should add that my mother is not given to much swearing, and she certainly has never encouraged coarse behaviour in her children. In fact I still remember the day in 1974, when I was a little girl, and she washed my mouth out with soap for saying ‘bloody’.

Crossie
Crossie
September 22, 2023 9:40 am

yobbo passers-by unplugging the charging lead ‘for a bit of a laff‘ leaving an uncharged car that the owner won’t move – and so on.

It seems yobbos have a better grasp on reality than smug and rich greenies.

Rabz
September 22, 2023 9:42 am

Just had a comment vanish into the ether for reasons unknown. No swear words or anything else that might have triggered the spaminator. Very annoying.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
September 22, 2023 9:43 am

Yes, some of those agreements are repellent, but that doesn’t make them illegal or unconstitutional.

Not sure who you think suggested any of that – and not interested in chasing rabbits.

The simple fact is that Morrison was content to pass off political risk to the Premiers – and Albanese’s terms of reference will eliminate any proper analysis of Australia’s Covid response.

johanna
johanna
September 22, 2023 9:44 am

Roger, ‘trans prejudice doubles’ bla bla, just like we are now being told that racism is surging during the debate for Da Invoice. Note, these claims are unsupported by evidence, but faithfully repeated and reported by the MSM.

So much for bringing us together, if it is true (which I doubt). Well done, Albo.

On another topic, Their ABC has been running scare bushfire stories on a daily basis, presumably having received instructions from that media alarmist group that they belong to. The mention of ‘global boiling’ is always slipped in somewhere.

Some are about the effects of past fires, some are typical computer model bullshit about how we are doomed, some are hyped-up stories about fires that happen somewhere every year.

Scaring people seems to be TheirABC’s mission statement these days.

Pogria
Pogria
September 22, 2023 9:44 am

Cassie,
thanks for reposting that comment. I had been thinking about just that comment earlier and had meant to bring it up.
Your mother’s response was exactly the correct one. Any less and she would have been treated with great disrespect and indeed “pity for the poor old Dear”, for the rest of her time living in that building.

Roger
Roger
September 22, 2023 9:46 am

The Voice will mean we listen to people about issues that affect them, so we get better results.

Giving locals a say also means we save money because we’ll be making sure funding actually reaches the people on the ground and makes a difference.

Yes, we’d all like a bit of subsidiarity.

What say you devolve all the Commonwealth powers acquired since WWII?

Well…what about it?

johanna
johanna
September 22, 2023 9:46 am

Oh, and Dover, I’ve been getting all sorts of weird error messages, but find that closing the tab and reloading the site usually works.

Definitely something not right.

Rabz
September 22, 2023 9:51 am

Albansleazey: “We announce an enquiry into the Bat Flu insanity”

The enquiry’s findings, which of course, were known beforehand:

Goose Morristeen and Joshi Frydchickenberger: BAD
That grotesque deformed jug eared fascist imbecile, Lispy McClown and House Sized Backside Pluckachook: GOOD
Beryl Gladyschlocklian and the Marshmallow: BAD
Utterly incompetent wrong about everything panic and hysteria mongering public ‘elf kommissars: GOOD

So no need for anyone to eagerly anticipate something unexpected, in other words.

Rabz
September 22, 2023 9:52 am

Well, that worked. Only changed two words slightly.

Black Ball
Black Ball
September 22, 2023 9:58 am

It really is quite astonishing. Albo wants people to come together by seperating them in the Constitution. Except that is a pipedream, as observed by Perfesser Spitball. Like she gives a toss about black fellas anyway.

Rabz
September 22, 2023 9:58 am

I’ve used the term before as a pisstake, note the quote below from one Dr Tracy Westerman (via the ALPBC):

So, as a psychologist, and scientistic and an Aboriginal one at that

Idiots and pseuds.

johanna
johanna
September 22, 2023 9:58 am

The simple fact is that Morrison was content to pass off political risk to the Premiers – and Albanese’s terms of reference will eliminate any proper analysis of Australia’s Covid response.

100% agree.

I just needed to lay to rest that recurring nonsense about how the National Cabinet was somehow shady.

Also, don’t forget that Morrison passed off the risk, and his responsibilities for looking after our civil rights, with our money. Oh, wait, it was other people’s money, that we now have to repay with interest.

As for the reviewers, I worked with Robyn Kruk a lifetime ago. She is very, very smart, much smarter than me – at least in bureaucratic and political skilz. Probably elsewhere as well. 🙂

Makka
Makka
September 22, 2023 10:01 am

Giving locals a say also means we save money because we’ll be making sure funding actually reaches the people on the ground and makes a difference.

Changing our Constitution is required to do that?? For you grubs to do the job you’re are elected to do? It’s not as if you don’t pay yourselves enough to get off your fat arses and do the work.

This is admitting that funding $30+ Billion annually is NOT reaching the people on the ground. Where TF is it going then? Maybe that’s the real problem right there. The indigenous industry monolith just isn’t big enough to shelter all the parasites that demand to get on board this (OP) money train.?

These type of platitudes and verbal diarrhea are seriously insulting.

Roger
Roger
September 22, 2023 10:01 am

I just needed to lay to rest that recurring nonsense about how the National Cabinet was somehow shady.

The chief purveyor of that notion no longer frequents the blog.

H B Bear
H B Bear
September 22, 2023 10:03 am

Is it just me or do others also get the impression that St JohnH the Pious doesn’t like many of us here?

Probably just here under sufferance. Pass me that hair shirt.

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 22, 2023 10:03 am

* I should add that my mother is not given to much swearing, and she certainly has never encouraged coarse behaviour in her children. In fact I still remember the day in 1974, when I was a little girl, and she washed my mouth out with soap for saying ‘bloody’.

I dropped the f-bomb when I was five and Oma did the same. Something you’ll never forget.

Makka
Makka
September 22, 2023 10:10 am

My view of the National Cabinet is that Morrison funded the covid era thuggery , oppression and tyranny . He stood by smiling , posing , preening himself and approved of it all. And so did his cabinet, and his Party.

Unforgivable betrayal.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 22, 2023 10:11 am

‘trans prejudice doubles’ bla bla, just like we are now being told that racism is surging

Instapundit reminds today that we’ve still not seen the Nashville shooter’s manifesto. It hasn’t leaked, we know nothing about what’s in it.

Must be off the dial radioactive. I suspect the various surgings are as much to do with the so called victims than it is of the general public. Certainly some of the vids we’ve been seeing of local aboriginal activists are quite revealing.

Roger
Roger
September 22, 2023 10:11 am

These type of platitudes and verbal diarrhea are seriously insulting.

Trots regard ordinary folk as ideological enemies.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 22, 2023 10:13 am

Celebrity
MC Hammer throws support behind Yes campaign for Voice referendum
Madeleine AchenzaNCA NewsWire
Fri, 22 September 2023 6:29AM

A surprising celebrity has come forward in support of the Yes campaign ahead of the Voice referendum.

There are just three weeks left before the nation votes to decide whether the constitution should be altered to establish an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.

“I’m with you. Australia it’s time. Repair the breach. #Yes2023,” US rapper MC Hammer said in a post shared to X, formerly known as Twitter, on Thursday night (AEST).

The Bay area resident admitted he didn’t know what the Voice referendum was until one of his 3.1 million followers alerted him to the event in a post to the platform earlier that day.

“Australia has no treaty with its Indigenous people, and has done little in comparison to other British dominions like Canada, New Zealand and the United States to include and uplift its First Nations people,” he said.

H B Bear
H B Bear
September 22, 2023 10:18 am

Time to get out those hammer pants
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=otCpCn0l4Wo

Roger
Roger
September 22, 2023 10:19 am

The Bay area resident admitted he didn’t know what the Voice referendum was until one of his 3.1 million followers alerted him to the event in a post to the platform earlier that day.

A fool rushes in…

H B Bear
H B Bear
September 22, 2023 10:20 am

Kenny Loggins position on the Voice remains unknown
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=siwpn14IE7E

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
September 22, 2023 10:20 am

H B Bear
Sep 22, 2023 10:03 AM

Is it just me or do others also get the impression that St JohnH the Pious doesn’t like many of us here?

Probably just here under sufferance. Pass me that hair shirt.

Enough with the hair-shirts and self-flagellation

The Nationalist Party is not going to get anywhere fast if it carries on parading about in a hair-shirt and ankle-chains, whipping itself and chanting ‘mea culpa, mea maxima culpa’.

johanna
johanna
September 22, 2023 10:22 am

Story of a wild child, horrible home life (if it can be called that), the whole tale is just dreadful and she is now 16 years old.

At the end of the story:

Given suppressions covering children’s cases, it is unclear where Emma is now.

Mr Kearney said despite the unknowns, he was optimistic about the future.

“You should have every confidence that both the court but also the department have so invested themselves in Emma’s welfare … they’re going to do their best to assist Emma until she is 18,” he said.

Any prizes for guessing where and how Emma will be when she is 19?

Cassie of Sydney
September 22, 2023 10:23 am

I walked to a bus stop this morning and there’s a shop right near the bus stop which last year had a big Spender poster on its front window, and about a month ago it put up a big “YES” poster on its window.

This morning I noticed that the YES poster has come down.

Could it be that the proprietor of this shop has had customers complaining and pulling their patronage? Interestingly, another shop offering the same services has recently opened about 150 metres down the road, and there’s no YES poster on that window.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
September 22, 2023 10:26 am

Lee, one of the signatories, posted that when senators asked during the briefing how much the conflict in Ukraine would cost the U.S. in the next 14 months, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “came up with a staggering estimate of $100 billion,” in addition to the $113 billion already spent.

The letter noted that the approximately $113 billion did not even “reflect the full picture.”

“The vast majority of Congress remains unaware of how much the United States has spent to date in total on this conflict, information which is necessary for Congress to prudently exercise its appropriations power. It is difficult to envision a benign explanation for this lack of clarity,” they wrote, adding:

Your request cites President Biden’s pledge that ‘we will stand with Ukraine as it defends its sovereignty for as long as it takes.’ Andrew Desiderio of PunchBowl News has received a background quote from a senior administration official stating the White House ‘won’t be bashful about going back to the Congress beyond the first quarter of next year.’ … These statements imply an open-ended commitment to supporting the war in Ukraine of an indeterminate nature, based on a strategy that is unclear, to achieve a goal yet to be articulated to the public or the Congress.

For these reasons — and certainly until we receive answers to the questions above and others forthcoming — we oppose the additional expenditure for war in Ukraine included in your request.

The letter signatories included: Republican Sens. Rand Paul (KY), Mike Lee (UT), Mike Braun (IN), Roger Marshall (KS), Tommy Tuberville (AL), Roger Williams (TX), and Reps. Paul Gosar (AZ), Clay Higgins (LA), Dan Bishop (TX), Harriet Hageman (WY), Bill Posey (FL), Bob Good, (VA), Warren Davidson (OH), Eli Craine (AZ), Anna Paulina Luna (FL), Jeff Duncan (SC), W. Gregory Steube (FL), Beth Van Duyne (TX), Josh Brecheen (OK), Lance Gooden (TX), Andy Ogles (TN), Mary E. Miller (IL), Andy Biggs (AZ), Byron Donalds (FL), Russell Fry (SC), Michael Cloud (TX), and Troy Nehls (TX).

And there are other Republican lawmakers and senators who have expressed opposition to more Ukraine funding, including Reps. Matt Gaetz (FL), Tim Burchett (TN), Mike Garcia (CA), and Kat Cammack (FL), according to the Washington Post.

While a majority of Republicans in the House and Senate have expressed support for more Ukraine aid, there are now enough dissenters to throw a wrench in those plans — something both House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will have to reckon with.

And some signatories indicated their minds would not be changed.

Marshall (R-KS) said Thursday he would not even attend a scheduled meeting with Zelensky:

I will not support another cent going to Ukraine. At a time when our nation is facing a historic debt crisis, a wide-open southern border with fentanyl, Chinese military-aged nationalists, known terrorists, and cartels pouring into our country, I can’t even understand how this body can justify sending another blank check to Zelenskyy.

The U.S. is hemorrhaging money we do not have to pay for this war while the EU and other leaders on the world stage are absent. Since the war began, American taxpayers have blindly been forced to give Ukraine over $113B, and we have no idea where that money has gone. There is no strategy, no exit plan, and no accountability from Zelenskyy. My priority is securing our American homeland, not sitting through another charade.

For those reasons and a litany of others, I will not be attending today’s meeting.

However, Democrats and members of the Biden administration are expressing optimism that Congress will eventually approve the additional $24 billion, with Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley earlier this week pledging support for “as long as it takes.”

Milley said at a press briefing earlier this week that the U.S. and allies could sustain the war, because they are “rich.”

“Can we continue to do this? The short answer is yes, we can continue to do this, and the United States and its allied countries are rich, powerful, with significant resources, military resources that are capable of sustaining this fight, in President Biden’s words, as long as it takes,” he said.

And McConnell, a supporter of more money to Ukraine, posted a photo on X of Zelensky arriving to the Senate, adding that he was “proud” to welcome him to the Capitol.

“I was proud to welcome President @ZelenskyyUa to the Capitol this morning and hear firsthand about the status of Ukraine’s counteroffensive. American support for Ukraine is not charity. It’s in our own direct interests – not least because degrading Russia helps to deter China,” he posted.

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 22, 2023 10:26 am

“I’m with you. Australia it’s time. Repair the breach. #Yes2023,” US rapper MC Hammer said in a post shared to X, formerly known as Twitter, on Thursday night (AEST).

The blokes music was sh*t and catered for dunderheads. Hopefully someone on Twitter will tell him to STFU.

H B Bear
H B Bear
September 22, 2023 10:26 am

I would be taking reports of growing momentum for YES with a grain of salt. Only 3 more weeks.

Tom
Tom
September 22, 2023 10:32 am

This morning I noticed that the YES poster has come down.

Could it be that the proprietor of this shop has had customers complaining and pulling their patronage? Interestingly, another shop offering the same services has recently opened about 150 metres down the road, and there’s no YES poster on that window.

The free market in action.

You won’t find it in any Keynesian textbook.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
September 22, 2023 10:34 am

“I’m with you. Australia it’s time. Repair the breach. #Yes2023,” US rapper MC Hammer said in a post

My, my, my, my
Music hits me so hard
Makes me say “Oh, my Lord
Thank you for blessing me
With a mind to rhyme and two hyped feet”

It feels good when you know you’re down
A super dope homeboy from the Oaktown
And I’m known as such
And this is a beat, uh, you can’t touch

Credible and authentic.

Roger
Roger
September 22, 2023 10:35 am

This morning I noticed that the YES poster has come down.

Could it be that the proprietor of this shop has had customers complaining and pulling their patronage?

Virtue signaling is great fun until it hits the bottom line.

On a not unrelated matter, QANTAS’s balance sheet is drawing some attention from the markets and not in a good way.

flyingduk
flyingduk
September 22, 2023 10:35 am

Albanese’s terms of reference will eliminate any proper analysis of Australia’s Covid response

Of course they will…

Black Ball
Black Ball
September 22, 2023 10:36 am

MC Hammer. Well that’s sealed the deal. For the no campaign.

H B Bear
H B Bear
September 22, 2023 10:36 am

The Voice came up (briefly) over beers at the pub last Sunday. My mate said he had a YES sign on his lawn in a nice part of the Western Suburbs a stones throw from UWA. Our votes will cancel each other out, something I suspect they have been doing for 30 years now.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
September 22, 2023 10:40 am

PM’s inch-deep COVID inquiry treats us all like idiots

The government would have more credibility had it just broken its promise altogether and had no inquiry.

Phillip Coorey – Political editor

Thursday’s announcement of an “inquiry into the response to the COVID-19 pandemic” was so utterly disingenuous and patronising that the government would have more credibility had it just broken its promise altogether and done nothing.

Instead, Anthony Albanese and Health Minister Mark Butler stood up and treated the Australian people like idiots.

On so many fronts, it’s hard to know where to start.

But let’s try. First, it must be said Albanese did not break a promise per se by not having a royal commission. He mentioned several times in opposition a thorough inquiry was needed, be it a royal commission or something similar.

“I support looking at it through a measure like a royal commission,” he said two weeks before the election. “We haven’t finalised what the structure would be.

“We need to examine it, we need to make sure that we learn the lessons which are there because this is a once-in-a-century impact.”

Clearly the expectation was for something robust and comprehensive, more so when Butler pledged two weeks ago, there would be a “deep inquiry”.

An inch deep, more like it.

The toothless and narrow probe he and the prime minister announced was made all the worse by the risible reasons as to why they decided against a royal commission.

“They can roll on, and on, and on, for year after year, after year,” argued the same prime minister who, upon coming to office, established a royal commission into robo-debt that took 12 months, the same timeframe the COVID-19 inquiry was given.

The other reason given was that royal commissions are headed by judges or former judges who, he implied, did not have the necessary expertise to inquire into the economic, health and governance issues the pandemic raised.

“They look at things in a particular way,” he said of the judiciary. Yes, they do. It’s called impartiality. It is common for royal commission heads to be supported by commissioners who are expert on the subject of inquiry.

By Albanese’s logic, we’ll never have a royal commission again, more so when he dismissed a persistent journalist with the riposte:

“Well, what do you think a royal commission could do that this couldn’t do? Nothing.”

Other, that is, than have coercive powers to hold public hearings, call witnesses under oath and compel evidence.

States ruled out

It was inconceivable the inquiry’s terms of reference stated explicitly that “actions taken unilaterally by state and territory governments” are “not in scope for the inquiry”.

That means almost everything that still gives people nightmares about COVID – school closures, lockdowns, state border closures, vaccine mandates, failed contact tracing and overzealous policing – are all off limits.

These are the actions that caused economic ruin, widespread heartache, mental health problems and which set back the education of thousands of children.

The inquiry should never be about payback or retribution.

But the whole nation suffered during the pandemic and to not examine how we could do it better – all of it, not just the Commonwealth’s contribution – is a complete betrayal of the people.

As Professor Peter Collignon pointed out, Victoria locked down harder and meaner than any other state yet had the worst rate of infection, death and economic ruin, especially in comparison with NSW.

Why shouldn’t the different proportionality of responses be looked at, so everyone has a better model to work off next time?

One can only assume the states, especially Queensland which has an election next year, were not going to agree to a royal commission which would require them to agree to issue joint letters patent.

Either way, just like they ran roughshod over Scott Morrison during the pandemic, the premiers have come up trumps again.

Barking Toad
Barking Toad
September 22, 2023 10:41 am

Insipid Simon….

Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham says the Covid-19 inquiry is “some half-baked job that only looks at half the issues”.

Half the issues?! Get real – not even close to half you dissembling, enabling appeaser.

H B Bear
H B Bear
September 22, 2023 10:42 am

On a not unrelated matter, QANTAS’s balance sheet is drawing some attention from the markets and not in a good way.

Some scrutiny on share buybacks more generally wouldn’t be a bad thing. Call me a cynic but I have my doubts that your company is actually the best use of cash that can be found.

H B Bear
H B Bear
September 22, 2023 10:46 am

PM’s inch-deep COVID inquiry treats us all like idiots

Phillip Coorey – Political editor

The AFR gets it half right.

Rosie
Rosie
September 22, 2023 10:47 am
Makka
Makka
September 22, 2023 10:47 am

“Can we continue to do this? The short answer is yes, we can continue to do this, and the United States and its allied countries are rich, powerful, with significant resources, military resources that are capable of sustaining this fight, in President Biden’s words, as long as it takes,” he said.

To the last Ukrainian.

Dot
Dot
September 22, 2023 10:48 am

MC Hammer.

Wow, I’m impressed.

…and I’m not easily impressed.

I’m…wow, a pigeon!

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 22, 2023 10:48 am

PM’s inch-deep COVID inquiry treats us all like idiots

Phillip Coorey – Political editor

Golly, when even Phil Coorey is critical about an ALP “inquiry” it means the whitewash is even more eyewateringly whiter than white than usual.

johanna
johanna
September 22, 2023 10:49 am

Here we go:

Russell Brand has been accused of exposing himself to a woman and then laughing about it on his radio show, according to the BBC.

Oh, FFS. It’s the entertainment industry. People walk around semi nude or nude, they do practical jokes involving nudity, everyone is having sex with everyone.

Darling, if the mere sight of a penis freaks you out, you are in the wrong business.

Jorge
Jorge
September 22, 2023 10:54 am

Say No gets up.

Expect condemnation from the UN.

They overrule us.

Sanctions called for. Australians, international pariahs.

No need to wonder how Albo, Wong and co will respond.

Barking Toad
Barking Toad
September 22, 2023 10:54 am

Golly, when even Phil Coorey is critical about an ALP “inquiry” it means the whitewash is even more eyewateringly whiter than white than usual.

And BoN, throw in Van Oscillate and his piece in the Oz.

H B Bear
H B Bear
September 22, 2023 10:55 am

Darling, if the mere sight of a penis freaks you out, you are in the wrong business.

Said the bishop to the showgirl.

Tom
Tom
September 22, 2023 10:55 am

Thanks for the link, shatterzzz at 8.05am. The latest Please Explain is a ripper. The entire series makes the Australian “comedy” industry look like amateur hour. Brilliant!

Vicki
Vicki
September 22, 2023 10:57 am

Not sure the peace offer back in late March was laughable. Not sure continuing to undertake a war that you are very likely to lose is prudent either

My view is that it should have had a negotiated settlement in Istanbul when Turkey hosted peace talks “way back then”. So many lives could have been saved. And where have the expensively maintained UN been all this time????

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 22, 2023 10:58 am

To the last Ukrainian.

Makka – You’re not going to like Tony Abbott’s column in the Tele today… 😀

Dunno why but it isn’t paywalled. Maybe Lachlan is less stingy than his dad.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
September 22, 2023 11:00 am

Albansleazey: “We announce an enquiry into the Bat Flu insanity”

The enquiry’s findings, which of course, were known beforehand:

One exciting finding in the crystal ball will be the rediscovery that Scott Morrison secretly appoint himself to multiple ministries.

And, Mr Speaker, Those Opposite did nothing, nothing Mr Speaker, to prevent this unprecedented and unconstitutional power grab. Which is why, Mr Speaker, they should never again be elected to Government of this country…

A happy reload of Torrie-fighting ammunition, just in time to dignify Labor’s 2024/25 election campaign…

Dot
Dot
September 22, 2023 11:01 am

Darling, if the mere sight of a penis freaks you out, you are in the wrong business.

What an inclusive statement too.

Vicki
Vicki
September 22, 2023 11:02 am

Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham says the Covid-19 inquiry is “some half-baked job that only looks at half the issues”.

Half the issues?! Get real – not even close to half you dissembling, enabling appeaser.

Birmingham is the epitome of what is wrong with the Libs. “dissembling, enabling appeaser” – brilliant, Barking Toad!!!

m0nty
m0nty
September 22, 2023 11:06 am

Good news about Rupert retiring.

Third generation failson time.

Meanwhile, on Fox News, Jesse Watters has makeup in his eye.

Tom
Tom
September 22, 2023 11:08 am

And where have the expensively maintained UN been all this time????

The UN is the world’s biggest activist organisation and does the bidding of the activist mob and whatever war the mob is fighting this week.

“This week” has been going for 18 months and the current war is against Putin — the corrupt, violent Russian oligarch who the US Democratic Party has turned into an all-purpose propaganda baddie to get keep Donald Trump out of office.

Vicki
Vicki
September 22, 2023 11:08 am

He was very uncivil to my mother, so how did my 84 year old mother respond?
“Get f*** ked”
and she then got out of the lift. The neighbour was quite shocked. Later that day, when Mum got home, there was a card from this same neighbour apologising to her for his nasty incivility

Hey Cassie, maybe your mum’s gay neighbour thought it was an expression of encouragement!

H B Bear
H B Bear
September 22, 2023 11:09 am

While all Covid outrages were done under the regulations of the various State Health Acts, arguably Albo misses 100% of the issues.

H B Bear
H B Bear
September 22, 2023 11:10 am

The Cth role was largely to pick up the bill. And Josh has been looked after quite nicely.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 22, 2023 11:14 am

Haha, the Tele has Tim Blair’s latest epic unpaywalled too…

Readers Take the Albanese Challenge (22 Sep)

It’s the toughest quest known to all of humankind. Readers are today invited to devise anything more pointless than an Australian pandemic investigation that doesn’t examine the role of the states.

Far easier would be to study KFC without looking at chickens or probe the rise in graceless political narcissism without mentioning Malcolm Turnbull. It’s basically impossible, but give it your best blogging shot.

Read on…

(The Tele incidentally has Terry McCrann’s take on the uninquiry still paywalled. So rthey haven’t unpaywalled everything today.)

Crossie
Crossie
September 22, 2023 11:16 am

The simple fact is that Morrison was content to pass off political risk to the Premiers – and Albanese’s terms of reference will eliminate any proper analysis of Australia’s Covid response.

That doesn’t mean we can’t have another, proper review at a later date with a more grown up government. Albo’s histrionics are just that at this point.

Makka
Makka
September 22, 2023 11:20 am

The short answer is yes, we can continue to do this, and the United States and its allied countries are rich, powerful, with significant resources, military resources that are capable of sustaining this fight, in President Biden’s words, as long as it takes,”

This reminds me of Westmoreland/Vietnam/70’s era rhetoric, when the enemy was North Vietnam and Communism. The era of massive inflation, social disruption, yuuuge Govt and arms industry spending and corruption, CIA running amok, endemic lying and cheating by Govts, wars across the globe, daily news terrorism.

“Just give us the money and your boys- we’ll get the job done. Ooo-Rah.”

Overnight US 10 yr bond yields reached levels not seen in 16 years. Servicing the US debt ($32+T+) will soon be a bigger expense line item than US Social Service costs. This is unknown territory The answer of course will be to create more dollars into existence, replacing older (cheaper) debt with (much more expensive ) new debt- a few keystrokes and a helpful Fed. Around $2 Billion per day just to service the debt – yes more debt creation to pay for the debt creation. At already near 130% of debt to GDP and rising. Levels last seen in WW2. But back then, the US was about to embark on decades of massive capital investment and enormous manufacturing build out , making masses of everything to export to shattered world. That’s not today.

Who knows where this fkg mess is headed.

Crossie
Crossie
September 22, 2023 11:20 am

On another topic, Their ABC has been running scare bushfire stories on a daily basis, presumably having received instructions from that media alarmist group that they belong to. The mention of ‘global boiling’ is always slipped in somewhere.

Johanna, there was a scientist(?)on Sky last night, I think it was on Credlin, who explained that the really big fire season will be in about seven years’ time. The new vegetation cover is still fresh at present but by then it will be well and truly dry and ready to burn and he thought it will be bigger than anything we have seen unless back burning minimises the fuel load.

Pogria
Pogria
September 22, 2023 11:25 am

Hey, Cassie’s favourite pervert is back. Found the key to the outside toilet eh?

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
September 22, 2023 11:25 am

That doesn’t mean we can’t have another, proper review at a later date with a more grown up government. Albo’s histrionics are just that at this point.

This is all quite true.
I’d just prefer that Albanese makes up his campaign material at the ALP’s expense, rather than at the joint account. After all, only 32% actually voted for the little swine.

johanna
johanna
September 22, 2023 11:27 am

He left it to Lachlan, the slightly brighter one.

I’ll never forget that UK committee inquiry when his brother was asked to explain paying 750,000 quid on a libel suit without even reading the papers.

He should have left it to the daughter of the Chinese chick. At least she had a good eye for money.

duncanm
duncanm
September 22, 2023 11:27 am

I find it amusing that the human rights people are up in arms about the inquiry not looking at the States’ responses.

Where were they when it was happening in real time? Not a peep!

Hypocrites, the lot of them.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 22, 2023 11:29 am

It has 0 comments so far. Predictable article.

I didn’t think you’d like it either Dover!

As to comments, the article has only been up for an hour, and I suspect the Tele kiddies have their big black moderation crayons poised to squelch anything going against the agreed pro-Ukie narrative.

Boambee John
Boambee John
September 22, 2023 11:30 am

Vicki
Sep 22, 2023 10:57 AM
Not sure the peace offer back in late March was laughable. Not sure continuing to undertake a war that you are very likely to lose is prudent either

My view is that it should have had a negotiated settlement in Istanbul when Turkey hosted peace talks “way back then”. So many lives could have been saved. And where have the expensively maintained UN been all this time????

Indeed. Usually, five minutes after the first shot the UN is screeching for a ceasefire, negotiations and a peacekeeping force. Yet after 18 months, not a word.

Cassie of Sydney
September 22, 2023 11:30 am

“He left it to Lachlan, the slightly brighter one.”

Yep.

Rabz
September 22, 2023 11:31 am

This MC Hammer?

“I like big bottoms and I cannot lie
That Pluckachook ho is mighty fly
Juliar Gillard has a booty to die
So ‘scuse me while I kiss the sky …”

Cassie of Sydney
September 22, 2023 11:34 am

“Meanwhile, on Fox News, Jesse Watters has makeup in his eye.”

So, the pervert apologist watches Fox News.

LOL. Punched any “Nazis” today, pervert apologist?

Boambee John
Boambee John
September 22, 2023 11:34 am

m0nty
Sep 22, 2023 11:06 AM
Good news about Rupert retiring.

Third generation failson time.

And how ag=bout the collapse in CNN ratings. Is this the third generation of bosses after whomever Jane Fonda’s squeeze was at the time CNN was founded. The third generation need not only be family, as you should know.

Makka
Makka
September 22, 2023 11:37 am

Makka – You’re not going to like Tony Abbott’s column in the Tele today…

Abbott rolling over to get his belly rubbed. Not news.

His shirt fronting of Putin is still bugging him.

But still disappointing. The proper thing to do would be to go into bat for an immediate ceasefire , stop the killing and get to the negotiating table.

It’s shaping up for a rotten winter in Ukraine;

Big Serge ??????
@witte_sergei
·
2h
Really interesting that Russia hit infrastructure last night – power outages reported in many Ukrainian cities for the first time in a long time. They left the utilities alone for the entirety of the spring and summer, but they may be preparing to attack the grid before winter.
Over the last winter they hit a lot of transformers and substations but never really went after generation. Ukrainian AD is so degraded that they can probably wipe the grid if they want to.

Kneel
Kneel
September 22, 2023 11:40 am

“When the welcome to country starts, everyone get out their mobile phone, look down, and start scrolling.”

That would be called “disrespecting” them – remember what happened when they turned their back on the Haka? Looking at your phone would generate the same response.
Since no matter how you choose to protest against it you will be pilloried, may as well boo them – it’s much more obvious what percentage disapprove.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
September 22, 2023 11:42 am

West Australian Department of Education starts its OWN Voice

By Brittany Chain

The West Australian Department of Education has today unveiled its own advisory Voice body to help close the gap between Indigenous students and their peers.

The group will be comprised of 10 members, who will help to inform policies to assist in the education of First Nations children.

It comes amid revelations the number of Aboriginal students achieving the minimum requirements to complete year 12 had dropped from 47.7 per cent to 41.5 per cent between 2018 and 2022.

Kimberley Land Council CEO Tyronne Garstone will be part of this advisory body, and told The West Australian the outcome of the referendum into a Voice to Parliament could shape how much power the WA Voice holds.

He also noted that a Voice to Parliament could address and tackle problems within the education system which disproportionately impact Aboriginal children and their families.

‘If your parents only reached Year 9, they may not value education as much as a family that has been through university and who understand that education is critical,’ he said.

‘For many Aboriginal families, just getting through a week, dealing with the cost of living and securing housing, is a challenge.’

areff
areff
September 22, 2023 11:47 am

Apologies if already posted, but this latest of Hanson’s Please Explains is, without a doubt, the very, very best so far:

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

Pogria
Pogria
September 22, 2023 11:52 am

This is almost as funny as Please Explain today.
Watch the sixty second clip if you have time.
My favourite comment below it, ” I have never seen a Human Simpson”. 😀

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 22, 2023 11:58 am

Cyborg cockroaches have feelings too.

A non-invasive way to turn a cockroach into a cyborg (21 Sep, via Phys.org)

A team of mechanical engineers at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore has found a way to electronically control cockroaches without injuring them.

Prior research teams have created a variety of cyborg cockroaches, but they all had one feature in common—they all involved attaching probes to the insect’s nervous system—procedures that led to damage to the insect, and likely some degree of pain.

In this new effort, the researchers noted that damaging cockroaches during attempts to control them results in a very short life expectancy, which then results in very little payoff for a lot of work. They also suggest such research is unethical because of the pain inflicted on the cockroaches. In this new effort, they have found a way to control cockroaches that does not involve cutting into them, resulting in a much longer lifespan.

Next time I see a cockroach I will think twice about stepping on it. It might feel pain, and its lifespan would be somewhat foreshortened. Tash Peterson will thank me for my empathy.

johanna
johanna
September 22, 2023 12:01 pm

The West Australian Department of Education has today unveiled its own advisory Voice body to help close the gap between Indigenous students and their peers.

The group will be comprised of 10 members, who will help to inform policies to assist in the education of First Nations children.

‘Closing the Gap’ evidently doesn’t include understanding basic English and grammar.

No wonder these ‘initiatives’ never work.

It’s the illterate trying to teach the … I dunno.

Lysander
Lysander
September 22, 2023 12:02 pm

Good news about Rupert retiring.

With Fox ratings flopping, Carlson continuing to build his own (very large) alternate viewership, establishment, RINO and Leftard Fox presenters failing to resonate with ordinary, struggling, US voters, I’d agree Munted.

Well done son, just a few more steps to the right…

shatterzzz
September 22, 2023 12:02 pm

Oh, and Dover, I’ve been getting all sorts of weird error messages, but find that closing the tab and reloading the site usually works.

Lot of “bad gateway 504” msgs but back to norm after refesh hit ……..

Top Ender
Top Ender
September 22, 2023 12:02 pm

Stand by Cats – one of Henry Ergas’s best coming up for you…

Top Ender
Top Ender
September 22, 2023 12:06 pm

Common sense was once quintessentially Australian. Not any more

HENRY ERGAS

If today’s zeitgeist has a defining feature, it is magical thinking, in which premonitions of disaster are combined with utopian fantasies.

We are, for example, told that if global warming continues unabated, our homes will be consumed in flames, as uncontrollable blazes scorch the continent. “Humanity has opened the gates to hell,” proclaimed United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres just this week.

Yet we are also assured that so long as Australia’s “energy transition” is accelerated, we will somehow escape the cataclysm, regardless, it seems, of what is done by the world’s largest emitters.

Equally, in the current referendum, the Yes case claims defeat would lead to dreadful consequences: “the gap” would widen; relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians would forever sour; the world would shun us as red-necked bigots.

But were this “generous and modest” proposal accepted, the effects would be “truly transformational”: Indigenous kids would, at last, get their “fair shot”, the problems that doomed the voice’s predecessors would vanish and genuine reconciliation would lie ahead.

What is lacking, in both instances, is a credible explanation of quite how eternal bliss would be achieved. With cause unrelated to effect, magical thinking is at work; or perhaps – in a final gasp of this country’s Christian heritage – a plain old faith in miracles.

After all, the juxtaposition of apocalypse and salvation is at the heart of the great religions. The Revelation of St John set out its canonical Christian version: a cosmic catastrophe looming at the end of history, a violent struggle between good and evil, the destruction of the Earth, a moment of universal judgment, and then, the transition to a New Jerusalem.

There is, nonetheless, a fundamental difference between that vision and its contemporary analogues. In the Christian “adventus” – literally, “that which comes towards us” – the driving force was divine providence, not human action. The modern age jettisoned the element of inevitability: the future, it asserted, could be planned, shaped by human decisions, averted by human foresight.

The future was, in other words, open, creating space for the catastrophic imaginary to coexist with the dream of realising heaven on Earth.

In modernity’s catastrophic imagination, what Arthur Schopenhauer called “the small dark cloud of the present” morphed into man-made disasters so terrifying as to leave humanity quaking in the antechamber of its own extinction.

At the same time, in modernity’s version of millenarianism, the eternal “tomorrow” of utopian fantasy became next Monday morning, suddenly taking on the drama – and urgent call to action – of concrete possibility.

The grim prospect of the end-times was thus relieved by the palpable nearness of the messianic future, in which the world would finally shed its worn skin.

It is not hard to see in those ravings all of religious revivalism’s hallmarks. Protestant theologians spoke of “great awakenings” as divine manifestations of concern for the “salvation of Adam’s children from the bondage of Satan”; they were signs of “Kairos”, that is, of a time when the gap between this world and the next disappears.

But revivals have always been periods of deepening social conflict too. As William McLoughlin, an eminent scholar of revival movements, noted, when the prospect of salvation becomes more immediate, “the spiritual power of evil also becomes more immanent: the distraught see God and the devil locked in conflict for men’s souls” – and nothing can be more important to them than “to root out the old Adam, the old errors, the old sins”. Scratch the fantasist and you find the fanatic, committed to extirpating the laggards blocking the second coming.

No doubt, the revival movements periodically dotting Australian history are not identical to those elsewhere: America’s spiritual revivalism typically viewed the individual as the primary agent of salvation; in Australia, our largely secular revivals placed the burden of cleansing the stain of moral corruption on the state.

More explicitly political, and mainly championed by professional elites, Australia’s revivals took the form of waves of irrational enthusiasm, epitomised by those that marked Gough Whitlam’s and Kevin Rudd’s rise to power, as well as by the acclaim that greeted Paul Keating’s cultural nationalism.

And when those wild ghost dances ended – as they must – in ignominious defeat, the dashed expectations left a reservoir of simmering resentments and unused, turbulent energies that eventually metastasised into the next revival’s fuel.

But the fact that each revival has had its own features should not hide the similarity in their causes.

Emile Durkheim, one of sociology’s greatest pioneers, located them in two factors: what he described as “anomie”, or the collapse of stable identity, and the longing for new gods who could fill the void left by the weakening of traditional authority. That those factors are at work in contemporary Australia is undeniable.

Never has our society been as willing to believe that every feature of personal existence is a matter of untrammelled individual choice, with it being regarded as completely normal – rather than completely pathological – for grown adults to spend their days trying wildly different identities out for size.

Nor has the stabilising influence of traditional authority, and notably of a shared regard for this country’s past, ever been more roundly rejected.

Little wonder then that so many now bow to strange gods: what surer evidence of collective madness could there be than the many thousands of inner-city lefties, who, having denounced Australia’s founding fathers as murderers, daily “pay their respects” to past Indigenous elders who rained violence on women and children? Convinced, like the European romantics of the 19th century, that their own civilisation is rotten to the core, our cultural elites have found its replacement among rose-coloured visions of noble savagery.

And little wonder too that magical thinking, whose woolly-minded appeal is entirely to the emotions, has become so widespread – with devastating effects on the quality of the public debate.

That is not to deny that emotions have a place in politics; but the arguments being mounted by our revivalists are to reasoned deliberation what kitsch is to art. The late, lamented Milan Kundera thought it was only a matter of time before the Western bourgeoisie, having shed the final vestiges of its cultural inheritance, would flock to exhibitions of garden gnomes, fluffy kittens and children in tears, while shunning those of Giotto, Titian, Monet and similar rubbish.

Had Kundera seen the ads being run by the Yes campaign, he would have known that in Australian politics, the triumph of kitsch has come even sooner than he dared imagine.

It may be that barrages of kitsch-laden ads will convince voters to accept irreversible changes to our political institutions. But it is not irrational to place some confidence in the laconic common sense that was once regarded as the quintessence of our national character.

Deriding the revivalists with biting humour, it scorned yesterday’s apocalypses and utopias. With any luck, it will also scorn today’s.

Oz

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
September 22, 2023 12:12 pm

Not familiar with this music. Fun to watch and listen for a first time.

—-

DR Koncerthuset:

My Neighbor Totoro // Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Concert Choir & DR Big Band (Live)

shatterzzz
September 22, 2023 12:18 pm

My pick from the Tim BLair .. Readers Take the Albanese Challenge (22 Sep) comments

Gary…Pending…Rejected
1 hour ago
An analysis of our worst Prime Ministers that excludes those brought up by single mothers in housing commission

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
September 22, 2023 12:19 pm

We must warn trees about climate change.

Conversations with plants: Can we provide plants with advance warning of impending dangers? (Phys.org, 21 Sep)

Imagine if humans could “talk” to plants and pre-warn them of approaching pest attacks or extreme weather.

A team of plant scientists at the Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University (SLCU) would like to turn this science fiction into reality using light-based messaging to “talk” to plants.

A lot of people say scientists are otherworldly. Certainly seems correct to me, and I’m a scientist.

Cassie of Sydney
September 22, 2023 12:20 pm

By the way pervert apologist, we know you’re here lurking, your sole talent. It’s been noted here how you quite sanctimonious when people on the right and far-right spruik Jew hatred or engage in anti-Semitic tropes, or when mysterious Grampion Nazis turn up at Let Women Speak rallies and so on, and then of course you always profess some outrage about about “anti-Semitism”. Of course, we here know your outrage is…ahem….selective, and even calling it selective is generous on my part. However I’m curious, because whilst I note your comments here have been few and far between recently (and that makes many of us quite happy), you do like to appear here when you have a cheap point to make, particularly when Liberals and Nationals step out of line. I remember your arse splattered comments about Perrottet wearing a Nazi uniform to a 21st birthday. So, I can’t help but note your silence, just like I note Anthony Albanese’s silence, on the case of a senior NSW Labor left politician by the name of Amanda Fazio, who wrote the following on her Facebook page a few weeks ago about Jews…

Here we go again. The race of whingers complaining,” Ms Fazio wrote on Facebook.

Of course, if a Liberal or National politician had written the following on their Facebook page about Arabs and Muslims…

“Here we go again. The race of terrorists complaining,”

Who here reckons the pervert apologist would have been jumping up and down with sanctimonious outrage at such a smear? Shouting, screaming, and screeching “racist”, and calling for the Liberal/National person in question to step down?

But Minns has not sanctioned Fazio, she remains in her role, and Albanese has not sanctioned her either, she remains in her job. The leftist media are silent. If that had been a Liberal or National, he/she would no longer be in their role.

Oh Cassie, perhaps it’s those “legitimate grievances” again.

Finally, are we a race of whingers? Well, given our history, we probably have every right to “whinge” but we don’t, we get on with life, and the greatest testament to that is the state of Israel.

Crawl back into your hole, pervert apologist, and take the likes of your ideological buddy, Amanda Fazio, with you.

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