Donald J Trump announces Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as The United States Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Open Thread – Thurs 12 Oct 2023
- Open Thread – Thurs 14 Nov 2024
- Open Thread – Remembrance Day 2024
- The Sweetest Victory
- Open Thread – Weekend 9 November 2024
- Open Thread – Thurs 7 Nov 2024
This week Elizabeth Lund was booted – she was VP of Quality. And dusky Mr Ted Colbert was let go…
I had no idea that Rita Panahi is quite famous in the US due to her “Lefties Losing It” segments…
More chick bashing Trends In Wokeness & Girlbossery In Science -but I’m pleased to see ‘physiognomy’ back in the charts,…
Sour grapes.
Since I’ve gone diesel, I’ve found the best stuff is from the 7/11 servos.
Which is a problem as one has to walk past the Krispy Kreme display when you go to pay.
Get behind me Krispy Kreme !
Oh oil. Thought you were referring fuel above 98 grade.
JC
Oct 12, 2023 11:05 PM
Ozzie
Where does he buy Shell 100?
Unfortunately Switzerland
JC, you’re getting quite bizarre – has someone stuck some THC into your ciggies?
So, there is fuel 100 grade then?
our local Continental recently had them in the $1 bin out of date by a few days
I bought ’em anyway
… the missus is terrified
Waleed Aly voices his concern that pro-Palestinian rallies could be banned after angry mob chanted ‘gas the Jews’ outside the Opera House
Waleed Aly warned against banning Palestinian protests
Comments not Kind!
The only link to the Herzog press conference I can find.
It’s a live link so you have to drag it back to the start of the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4nJvGUhayM
ABC with egg on it’s face one more time.
They’re so biased, they appear to screw up every important story now.
BB quoting the Persian Princes, Rita.
Noel of Noosa is a prime target for a “How it started – How it’s going” meme.
My fervent hope is that, if da Voice is defeated, it is only the beginning of dismantling the gravy train.
JC Avatar
JC
Oct 12, 2023 11:08 PM
Unfortunately Switzerland
So, there is fuel 100 grade then?
Fuel
Petrol
Euro 95 unleaded (Senza Pb / Benzina Senza Piombo / Benzina Verde / SP) is readily available. Senza Piombo means unleaded.
Superplus 98 unleaded (Super / Benzina Super Senza Piombo Plus / Benzina Verde Plus), ie petrol with an octane rating of 98-100, is offered depending on the company under different names, such as HiPerform, BluSuper or Premium. In some parts of Italy this gasoline may be less well available.
BP Unleaded 100
So, what’s been happening?
I’ve been busy prepping the mashed potatoes and scrambled eggs for November.
Okay, I’d never heard of 100 grade, Oz.
I noticed in your link there’s also 85 grade too, which is also something I’ve never heard of.
This is a topic of much interest on the Cat. Please share your technique.
Just a thought for Cassie.
Maybe take a break and suck in some deep breaths.
It’s been a shit of a week, putting it mildly.
A good starting point would be a formal inquiry into the funding of that gravy train. What was his name with four wives, living in luxury mansions, with his private helicopter on call?
JC
Oct 12, 2023 11:27 PM
Okay, I’d never heard of 100 grade, Oz.
I noticed in your link there’s also 85 grade too, which is also something I’ve never heard of.
JC,
100 Octane not easy to find – in Switzerland Shell and in Italy Q8 but not all those Stations have 100 Octane
JC
Oct 12, 2023 10:20 PM
Robert Sewell
Oct 12, 2023 10:13 PM
Incredible.
We live on an island and have sod all shipbuilding capacity.
You need to start buying shares in a lithium mine, Bignose.
More positive vibes!
Stan Grant unleashes on Australia ahead of the Voice referendum calling it a ‘mean country’ with an ‘absence of kindness’
Daily Mail
Riveting suggestion , Drills.
We can see how your blog picked up an incredible 279 comments over 14 years.
Was it 279 or 269. I forget exactly.
Salvatore, Iron Publican
Bignose is one of the nastier drunks I’ve met in a looong time.
Another monumental dummy spit…….
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha Avatar
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Oct 12, 2023 11:30 PM
My fervent hope is that, if da Voice is defeated, it is only the beginning of dismantling the gravy train.
A good starting point would be a formal inquiry into the funding of that gravy train.
What was his name with four wives, living in luxury mansions, with his private helicopter on call?
Zulu,
Voice Special Edition
Galarrwuy Yunupingu: Lord of the Manor
8th August 2023
Keith Windschuttle
Editor-in-chief
Editor, Quadrant Magazine
Conspicuous consumption and superfluous ceremony
What gave a bitter taste to these concerns was the fact that, at this time of his life, Yunupingu was displaying numerous signs of conspicuous consumption.
When journalist Elizabeth Wynhausen interviewed him at home in 1995 (Weekend Australian, January 6-7, 1996) his choice of car was the Territory’s most coveted vehicle, a top-of-the-range Toyota Landcruiser, the same as those of the senior executives at the Nabalco plant.
He had a boat as good as any of those anchored at the Gove Boat Club in Nhulunbuy.
Wynhausen was shown around his best property, a mansion on Drimmie Head in Melville Bay, the prime location on the coast. “Like the well-to-do whites in Gove,” she wrote, “he has all the latest gadgets, from a new icemaker to the big bathroom’s spa bath, a big TV set, which covers half the wall.”
Nhulunbuy locals told Wynhausen he employed white gardeners and Filipino servants.
On one issue, however, Yunupingu easily outdid all the highest paid of the white mining managers.
As well as his own home and office, he had four houses for his four wives.
They were at different locations on the east coast, another on the north coast of Arnhem Land, plus an apartment in Darwin.
In front of the Drimmie Head property was a helicopter pad with a pilot and helicopter (hired for $1400 per hour) waiting to take him to whichever of his wives’ houses he chose to visit that night.
Yunupingu told Wynhausen that the Gumatj clan had signed to buy a helicopter of its own.
AI attempts empathy and comes across as a condescending wanker again
… nice try sancho
Okay, explain why we don’t when we actually used to.
So far today, you’ve indirectly criticized markets setting prices and you’re now telling us how terrible it is that because we’re an island, we need to build ships.
We haven’t quite understood the importance of an island = shipbuilding.
Thought leader is around so you could ask him to help you as he gets a hard on talking about “industry policy”.
There’s going to be some corkers on Saturday night, and on Sunday.
Probably for much of next week.
Put it over there with the dinosaur, Stan.
Israel-Hamas clash sparks fears of ‘World War’-style escalation
Iran involvement could trigger dangerous great power alignments
The worst fighting in Israel in a quarter century has many worried that the clash with Hamas could spiral far beyond Gaza and trigger a war that draws in regional and even global powers, including the U.S., China and Russia.
In a worst-case scenario, the clash in Gaza could draw in other Iran-allied militant groups, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Palestinian extremists in the West Bank and Syria, before ballooning into a direct Israel-Iran war featuring long-range ballistic missile barrages from Iran and potential nuclear strikes by Israel on Iranian military sites.
From there, analysts say, the real risk is a widening geopolitical conflagration in which Russia and China align behind Iran against Israel, the U.S. and Western allies while regional powers such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other Middle Eastern nations are pulled in both directions and forced to choose sides.
National security strategists say such a scenario would be tantamount to a World War III-type dynamic, with hot wars raging in multiple parts of the world, particularly if the Russia-Ukraine war drags on and China seizes on the spiraling Middle Eastern chaos to make a military move on Taiwan.
“There is the potential for a multifront conflict triggered by Iran that plunges the wider Middle East into crisis. If this transpires in parallel to other hot wars such as Ukraine, and if China decides to use this as a diversion to move on Taiwan, you’re increasingly looking at a global conflict,” said Jonathan Schanzer at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
“In other words, if there are multiple fronts going on at the same time, that is World War III,” he said in an interview. “Not every front has to be connected with a straight line. There can be a dotted line between them.”
Mr. Schanzer tempered the analysis by asserting that such a scenario is precisely what Israel aims to avoid.
Iran has denied knowing about or helping plan the Hamas uprising, and the U.S. and Israeli governments have said in recent days that they have seen no intelligence that Tehran had a direct role in the surprise attack, which has killed more than 2,000 Israelis and nearly two dozen Americans living in Israel.
“I don’t see World War III,” Mr. Schanzer said. “The worst-case scenario I see is a multifront conflict for Israel,” he said.
Israeli leaders, he said, hope to rout Hamas from Gaza without confronting Palestinian elements in the larger West Bank area or being drawn into a simultaneous clash with Hezbollah or Iran.
Commenting on observations of price differential within a short walk is “indirectly” criticizing the market.
Mmmkay, got that. Now entered into the lexicon.
Actually, we went out for dinner and I had my max, which is one glass of house wine.
I’m not really nasty. I just don’t really think highly of you, coupled with the bigoted comments you post here (along with the other stupid hyperbolic crap). You know this, as I’ve been telling you for a long time. I also think you’re mentally feeble.
You obviously believe market participants shouldn’t set prices on their lonesome. You’re really on the iodine these days, aren’t you?
‘Man defecates in own mouth and leaves devastating review on social media.’
A one-pot screamer. Wow.
Biden squandered Trump inheritance
Why can’t he leave well enough alone?
President Biden and Democrats are outdoing history in the disasters they have brought to foreign affairs and to the American middle class who live by the rules, struggle with family budgets and work hard.
Former President Donald Trump handed Mr. Biden a number of domestic and international victories. The Biden team gleefully reversed them into today’s disasters while the president lied. “America is back,” he claimed.
The recent Iran-backed Hamas brutality against Israel is just one example.
I draw a distinction between America’s heartland and Washington Democrats like those who inhabit the Biden world. They got rich from the government and are protected from reality by our city’s economic bubble of stock trades, lobbying, public relations work and federal contracts. They dabble in left-wing ideas for controlling the peasants as their chauffeurs shop for groceries.
The federal government, then and now, has a knack for causing disasters.
The Great Depression was the handiwork of a hapless, secretive Federal Reserve. The Fed started raising interest rates for no real reason other than the idiots thought the Roaring ’20s were too loud. Curtailing the money supply for banks sent the U.S. into a downturn.
When this sank in on Wall Street, an overvalued stock market crashed. This brought on a bank panic. Businesses and people could not get money.
This was the time for the Fed to act boldly to shore up banks with loans. A meek Fed did nothing. It let the banks fail. And the Great Depression was off and running.
Economists have established that the U.S. money supply shrank by a whopping 30% from 1928 to 1933. This meant too few dollars were chasing goods and services, which brought on a horrible case of deflation.
Former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke put the central bank’s man-made disaster into a quick talking point.
“Regarding the Great Depression … we did it. We’re very sorry. … We won’t do it again,” Mr. Bernanke said.
Mr. Bernanke ruled the Fed in 2008, when he inherited another federal government-triggered collapse that struck middle-class America: the Great Recession.
In 1995, President Bill Clinton pressed banks to relax mortgage lending standards through a new Housing and Urban Development law that made it easier to buy a home. Lax credit, no down payment, interest-only payments — all meant more homeownership.
Unfortunately, there lies the creek that fed Disaster River.
You will never guess what happened to the greedy banks that went hog-wild. When full monthly mortgage payments came due, people started walking away from their homes.
The ripple effect shocked Wall Street. Mortgage-backed securities collapsed in value, taking investment firms with them.
Surprise, surprise: Guess who got a lot of the blame? Yep. The Fed and Chairman Alan Greenspan, who left his post in 2006.
“Fed Shrugged as Subprime Crisis Spread,” said a New York Times 2007 headline in a slap at Mr. Greenspan.
In 2021, President Biden took office and quickly broke records for ignoring history and ushering in government-created disasters.
Inflation
He inherited a country on an upswing after contending with a deadly virus from China. COVID-19 was receding. Government-closed businesses were opening back up. The economy grew by more than 30% in the third quarter of 2020, 6% in the fourth and was surging an added 6% in 2021. The energy market stood self-sufficient. You told your children that inflation was in their history books.
Mr. Biden and the Democrats wrote a new chapter. They passed a massive $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill that wasn’t needed unless the need was to reward party loyalists with our tax dollars by the billions.
– Energy
– Southern border
– Urban crime
– Vladimir Putin
– Iran and its terrorists
There you have it. Iran, Russia, gasoline, inflation, the border, crime-ridden cities — thank Mr. Biden and the Democrats.
If they had just left things alone, we would all be leading better lives today.
Obviously, seeing as he had to highlight thems Injiuns having the highest pwice. But you can explain to us the purpose of posting a 20-cent differential between the three stations? What’s the interesting scoop there, Driller? Let’s see what you can come up with that sounds mildly fascinating.
Fascinating.
Huh? You’re too dumb to grasp the purpose of that post?
As you’ve proved upthread, you’re in cognitively impaired territory dude.
Seek help.
Ewe hoggets- bought 2200 for $62/head.
Tragic price, I feel sorry for the supplier. Bad indicator of confidence in the sector.
The puffed-up case against Trump
New York’s financial fraud indictment of former president is built on blarney
By Editorial Board – The Washington Times
Former President Donald Trump has a penchant for big talk. Whether it’s the extent of his wealth, the perfection of his phone calls or the square footage of his apartment, the former president never fails to express himself in superlatives. Anyone paying attention knows this.
And nobody is on higher alert for such overstatement than a bank appraiser entrusted with the mission of lending millions of dollars for use in a business deal.
Apparently, however, New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur F. Engoron hasn’t been paying attention and is indulging a partisan effort to brand the leading candidate for the 2024 Republican nomination a criminal over a bit of asset valuation embroidery.
The former president isn’t the only one who engages in hyperbole.
The “Justice” in Mr. Engoron’s title doesn’t mean he serves on the state’s highest court.
Rather, New York applies the elevated term to the lowest district court judges. One form of embellishment is customary; the other is a felony.
Justice Engoron, a registered Democrat, issued a preliminary ruling last month essentially giving away his intention to find the former president guilty of financial fraud.
Dig below the surface and the nefarious conduct he outlines seems unexceptional.
In securing financing, Trump Organization accountants handed lenders their estimates of the value of various properties.
Naturally, assessments of this sort are biased, and lenders take this into account before extending credit.
That’s why, in this instance, the banks made the calculations needed to turn a tidy profit on each transaction with the Trump Organization.
As the funds were repaid in full, the deals were a success for both sides.
“That is completely irrelevant,” Justice Engoron asserted in his ruling.
Despite the inherent subjectivity of any property valuation, the justice insisted the “crime” lies in Mr. Trump’s estimates for a number of assets, including his 11,000-square-foot Trump Tower apartment, a 200-acre real estate development, a Park Avenue building, and his home at Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
While there is substantial padding in Mr. Trump’s figures, the court engages in the same conduct in the opposite direction.
The biggest whopper of all is Justice Engoron’s assertion that Mr. Trump’s 17-acre beachfront resort in Palm Beach is worth $18 million to $28 million when, just up the road, a house one-eighth the square footage of Mar-a-Lago is listed for sale at just under $60 million.
If one scales that listing price to match the size of the former president’s mansion, the Trump Organization’s valuation is spot-on.
Democrats know that they don’t actually have to come up with legitimate charges against their political rivals. Under what’s known as “lawfare,” they use the legal system itself to brand their opponent a criminal.
Generally speaking, an indictment is sufficient to secure the desired media coverage, but Democratic judges in solidly Democratic jurisdictions seem eager to take the next step and deliver convictions.
“This is high-level election interference, and it’s happening for a single reason,” Mr. Trump said in a speech in Iowa on Saturday. “I’m the only candidate they don’t want to run against.”
The real fraud isn’t the conduct of Donald Trump, the businessman. It’s the pettifoggery of Justice Arthur F. Engoron, whose exaggerations undermine the public’s ability to make a free choice in 2024.
Thankfully, not nearly as stupid as you.
I’d be more worried about making false claims for over a decade how you were some sort of conrad hilton and we then find out, it’s a run down motel shack that needs to be torn down. That’s outright delusional and the worrying thing is that I suspect you began to believe it yourself. Now go clean the mould out of the filthy rooms, cowboy.
Steveinman:
F*ck Around & Find Out Compilation
I’m not the one who thought diesel vehicles run on petrol. Einstein.
wtf are you on about?
You can’t even find out what a diesel car runs on.
I am starting to doubt that the World Trade Center collapsed without interference from … who knows?
Okay, I think this conversation has run its course. Thanks for participating, Driller.
Al Qaida
This has been known for 22 years.
It ran its course before it began, you dingbat.
You’re not all there.
Daily reminder …
The world has gone to hell under Joe Biden.
I know, sometimes you feel like an Anzac at Lone Pine.
Wtf are you on about?
RUOK?
Quite happy to give you the citation to whom and when you made the clownshow comment, but you’re pretending to not understand.
Just give the go ahead I’m happy to post the link. Yes?
Salvatore, Iron Publican
Oct 13, 2023 12:01 AM
I am starting to doubt that the World Trade Center collapsed without interference from … who knows?
Inside job. Direct Energy Weapon.
I have no idea what you are on about.
Seriously dude, the only time I’ve ever commented on Lone Pine was in a book review a couple of years ago of “Desert Column” & on a brief discussion on the old cat about the Lone Pine VCs.
Your memory is playing tricks.
No surprise, you’re well known for having recall that falls far short of 20/20
I seem to remember a stolen valour Lone Pine comment, but can’t recall who posted it.
Is it okay to post the link? Yes?
Appeasement in Real Time
Biden and Blinken pay the Dane-Geld
It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say:–
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say:
“We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!”
Rudyard Kipling, Dane-Geld (closing verses).
LESSONS OF MUNICH – WEAKNESS INVITES AGGRESSION
Showing weakness has long been regarded as an invitation to aggression and war. Perhaps the most infamous example in modern history is Neville Chamberlain’s sit-down with Adolph Hitler in Munich in 1938, where he agreed to appease Hitler by agreeing to Germany’s annexation of the Sudetenland, in exchange for “peace for our time.”
But history has taught us that, like paying the Dane-Geld, such appeasement is more likely to cause war and indescribable suffering than it is to prevent it. Despite those blood-soaked lessons, the appeasement gene continues to proliferate among cowardly politicians.
There are countless examples of this in modern history, but it is beyond the scope of this short article to attempt to catalogue them here. Each reader will think of examples.
BLINKEN’S WEASEL-WORDED EVASIONS AND DENIALS
Sunday, on NBC’s Meet the Press, and CNN’s State of the Union. Blinken said, “In this moment, we don’t have anything that shows us that Iran was directly involved in this attack, in planning it or in carrying it out.” “In this specific instance, we have not yet seen evidence that Iran directed or was behind this particular attack.”
What a weasel-worded evasion.</strong> These are people who carefully plan their statements and choose their words carefully. So, look at the qualifier: Blinken claims that we have no evidence that Iran was “directly” involved. That qualifier concedes that we do have evidence that Iran was indirectly involved.
BLINKEN AND BIDEN DOUBLE DOWN
Both Blinken and Biden demonstrated more weakness on Tuesday. Blinken refused to say that the administration would take steps to revoke any possibility that Iran would get the much-discussed $6 billion that originally was frozen as a sanction for its support of terrorism. Those funds supposedly were to be used only for humanitarian relief. But almost a month before Hamas’ attack, Iran’s president made clear that they would use the money “wherever we need it.” Believe them.
For his part, in his televised address that same day, Biden gave a speech about the conflict. But in those comments, Biden did not once mention Iran’s support for Hamas. Not a word. That failure sent another message of weakness to our enemies.
PAYING THE DANE-GELD
Blinken’s denials in the face of all available evidence and Biden’s refusal to even mention Iran, are so blatant that they cannot be chalked up to the Administration’s now-customary incompetence. He is lying and the Congress and responsible people must probe the motivations behind his lies and their likely consequences. The question is, not whether Blinken is telling the truth, but “Why is he lying?”
They are paying Iran the Dane-Geld, that is why.
Biden has been paying off Iran, not only by first agreeing to release, and now refusing to rule out, a reimposition of the freeze of the $6 billion. But that $6 billion is a just a fraction of the benefits Biden has allowed Iran to reap. Iran has collected a huge amount of oil revenues due to Biden’s failure to enforce the economic sanctions previously imposed.
The most valuable Dane-Geld that the administration insists upon paying, however, is rewarding Iran by first scrapping Trump’s termination of the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program and then making it the centerpiece of Biden’s Mideast policy. Despite any agreement that is reached, we know that Iran will cheat.
No serious person can credibly assert that the result will not green-light Iran’s eventual possession of nuclear weapons. Not if, but when.
CAN IT COME HERE?
The short answer to this is, “Yes. Next question.”
For anyone who requires an explanation, rather that showing strength, Biden and Blinken are too cowardly to take a strong position against Iran. Rather than even criticize a terrorist outlaw regime, Biden hopes to consummate a nuclear treaty with mullahs who make no secret of their religious desire to destroy “the Great Satan,” and who support the beheading of infants and their mothers.
During Biden’s administration, there has been an increasing number of criminal “migrants” on the FBI’s terrorist watch list, who have been apprehended at our Southern border, including 160 through July 2023 alone in just this year.
As of April 2023, the Border Patrol confirmed that 1.2 million illegal “migrants” “got away” from authorities while crossing the border under this administration. And these got-aways are just those who were spotted but not apprehended.
Maybe it was the gold braid plagiarism guy.
That rules out the planting of explosives by hand theory then?
Phew – coz that one required several miles of det cord & no end of blokes traipsing up inside the building with various powder monkey knick-knacks.
To the burnt toast bullshit?
There is no such link. That never happened. Your mind is playing tricks.
So it’s fine to post it then? Yea?
It never happened you drongo. You’re misremembering, as usual.
I’ve sacked no end of people, for all manner of reason. Never for burning toast.
(This is not a comment on the validity or otherwise of burnt toast being reason for dismissal.)
A near dingoat sighting on the blogue.
But I think we got away with it
Drills
As you know, we’re now way past the burned toast and onto the your Lone Pine comment. Stop the dissembling as anyone who’s following this bilge you started is well aware of what you’re trying to do.
Enuff, you dishonest gutless fraud.
I spent hours researching pictures of Stan grant the other day, I cant figure if he was using skin whitener 25 years ago or is using fake tan now.
What I do know is he has changed from fairly white to very brown. Some recent pictures show a distinct colour change at his hair line with light skin under his hair.
draw your own conclusions.
What fuking lone pine comment? Have I missed something?
Doesn’t matter how many swearwords you throw in, it doesn’t make you any smarter. Just show how poorly raised you are.
Big Namblas: Not saying this is the case, or is a big part of the reason with Stan, however skin may change colour as one ages, this may be to the lighter, or the darker.
(Skin heavier melanized than pure European epidermis)
Salvatore, Iron Publican
Oct 13, 2023 12:14 AM
Inside job. Direct Energy Weapon.
That rules out the planting of explosives by hand theory then?
Phew – coz that one required several miles of det cord & no end of blokes traipsing up inside the building with various powder monkey knick-knacks.
All that theory is sh*t. I’ve already posted the footage of the internal steel columns getting vaporized.
From where, I don’t know? Others will figure it out.
Swear words yeah?
I’m guessing you’re not in favor of posting the link then? Come on, fresh air is good for you, it will allow you to begin a new life.
Just say Yes and vote No on the weekend.
Did Musk have his satellites up at that time?
Literally fewer than 5 minutes ago I had a Cruskit very lavishly layered with Devilled Ham Spread, to help “wash down” the evening medication.
Small world!
It’s the hi gloss topcoat that bugs me about Stan the Tan. Sure sign that he’s on a very good paddock.
What link you dingbat? You haven’t got a link to any burnt toast story, what the heck are you on about?
Do you believe you have some capture over me? You don’t know who I am or where I am from dude.
You make that plain with all your bloviating. (If you actually believe any of your own bullshit that is – & you’ve given every indication that you believe your own fakery, repeat it 100 times & you act like it is real)
Grow up.
I don’t know how, but living together with people whose occupation and profession is hate for another religious group or race is not going to happen
the only solution in my humble opinion is permanent segregation
as a mullah said in Sydney many years ago, it’s like putting a cat and a dog in a box together, they will always fight
Nina Paley, interesting view on the middle eastern region everyone is watching right now
Wow, we’re back to he burnt toast digression again. You really think people are so dense as to believe that dead squirrel is alive?
Link, Yes or No?
Then wtf are you on about you drongo?
Rear Window
Joe Aston’s farewell column
Twelve years ago next month I was employed as a staff writer on The Australian Financial Review Magazine – back in the days when magazines had staff writers. My brief, hilariously, was to profile the international tastemakers of architecture and industrial design.
This mission-critical role lasted but a few weeks, until the Financial Review’s then-deputy editor James Chessell insisted I do some real work. So I took over the Rear Window column in January 2012.
Six months after that, Fairfax Media laid off another 400 journalists. Nobody on staff specialising in Italian sandwich makers survived. I had squeaked into journalism.
Rear Window has changed profoundly since, as my editor-in-chief Michael Stutchbury has already observed. Back then, it was a column of snippets – who gave how much to the Red Shield Appeal, and which AGM had the best sandwiches.
It was no particular extension to park myself at Sydney’s establishment canteens – mostly Rockpool Bar & Grill but also Azuma, Mr Wong and sundry others – and catalogue the power diners of the day, to draw aside the privacy screen on the cliques of financiers, politicians and industrialists dividing the spoils of oligopolies over their Cape Grim eye fillets or their dumplings.
The conspicuous truth is that in the early years of writing this column, I didn’t know what I didn’t know, which was anything. A smidgen of overconfidence can be an asset in journalism, but I was unconstrained by self-awareness and the Dunning-Kruger effect was in full force. Being inexperienced, immature and occasionally out of control made Rear Window a bit hit-and-miss, a bit loose.
I recall an evening when broadcasting doyen Kerry O’Brien called to confront me over an item I’d written about him, which was incorrect and which I hadn’t bothered to check. “You are the pits, sir!” he exclaimed, before hanging up. And he was right.
There’s no way I could’ve done this for more than a decade if I’d just kept filing merry reports of who was lunching at Rockpool or attending another charity ball. That would’ve been indentured torture for me and incredibly boring for you. It also would’ve made me a part of the problem, by perpetuating the ridiculous oxymoron of the business celebrity.
In these names and faces, there was a whole other story staring me right in my face. This was the wealth-without-work crew, this was the soft-palmed caste bludging off the nation’s savings. It’s always the ones who want to be seen the most who are the most trivial, or overcompensating for something dark or dubious. This was the fabulous triage point, to observe these creatures striving, spinning, preening, misrepresenting and incrementally, I learned to stop and ask, “What’s really going on there?” The real story lay beneath, and how lucky am I that I twigged?
Rear Window’s style evolved (and its rigour improved), but my primary motivation never really changed, and that was to entertain.
It was simply the most riotous fun exposing the rampant spin over substance in Australian business and politics, and demonstrating just how thin that veneer is.
There was a public service aspect to it, no doubt, but let’s not get too deep here – that’s just a collateral effect. It’s a “nice to have.” The real reward was the belly laughs I got to share with AFR readers as, again and again, we denuded the most fantastic pretenders in the nation.
My prize was colluding with the readers, asking “Do you see what I see?” as together we waded through the daily barrage of hopeless, ridiculous, turgid, untrue spin in a money-go-round system where everyone else is enfranchised to play along.
Almost all the participants in this circus – in this ticket-clipping extravaganza – are incentivised to applaud, but I was never incentivised in the same way.
I was paid to be on the reader’s side, and ours were the best seats in the house.
The beauty of a daily column is that in its innate incessancy, it invites the pursuit of a theme, the chipping away at a charade.
It looms over its subjects like Paul Keating’s immortal promise that “I wanna do you slowly.”
It wasn’t always about personal motivational discrepancies, either. The daily format also afforded me the luxury to return to policy themes. It was the perfect place to unpick implausible policy positions, freestanding – paradoxically – of the daily news cycle; to unpick the substance of them, not just the personal foibles, like the epic waste in the JobKeeper program or, more recently, Australia’s scandalous aviation policy settings.
And frankly, who wouldn’t want to laugh at Alan Joyce, the man with the enchanted spectacles? Or barking mad Andrew Forrest hanging on by a thread, or that cartoonish, self-declared “miserable bastard” Gerry Harvey.
It’s a target-rich environment!
Ironically, it’s the social regulation that helps these people rise to the top that abandons them when they get there. The higher they rise, the less tethered they are and when the self-delusion takes over, along come the wild flights of fantasy.
I’ve seen it again and again. It’s always the lies they tell themselves.
Human beings are endlessly fascinating and our capacity to delude ourselves is limitless, especially if we’re being rewarded at every step of the way.
All of us inherently have reward bias. Why would you change something that’s worked so well to date? The reward bias is mirrored by their acolytes who will never risk their epic sinecures by speaking up.
Who gives them the sense check? Who’s in the room saying, “Twiggy, you are speaking complete nonsense.” Absolutely nobody. When you’re running on the treadmill of high corporate life, people only say, “Great idea Hamish Douglass, that’s a ripper!” Nobody says, “Hammer, buddy, you’re being a gigantic fool.”
The spoils of power and status – the material wealth, the silly Order of Australia pins and the unbroken deference – cons our Australian business legends into thinking a) that they deserve it and b) that people might be interested in what they have to say about the world. There’s this bizarre idea that the mercantile businessman proficient at selling widgets for quadruple what they’re worth has any meaningful contribution to make to public policy.
Placebo salesman Marcus Blackmore acknowledged he’s only voting “No” in the Voice referendum because Jacinta Price told him to. There is almost no fashionable cause Mike Cannon-Brookes won’t hold forth on.
When he’s proposing energy market policy that would fit on a fridge magnet, no tech bro in his inner circle is saying, “Dude, we’re just coders.” They’re saying, “Yes, Double Bay Jesus! Save my soul! I bow down before you and your employee stock scheme.”
Nobody at Sportsbet is saying to CEO Barni Evans, patron saint of problem gamblers, “Boss, we’re up to our noses in shit so for heaven’s sake just shut your mouth.”
Nobody said that to Tom Seymour at PwC. How easy it was to deconstruct his tortured logic. He had nothing. He fell apart. Lies depend on plausibility and his had none.
I got to be that person they don’t have, saying “Yeah, nah, but good try. That’s a stupid idea, pal. Call me anytime.”
That’s what you can do in a format like Rear Window.
You can analyse their inventions and half-truths – because the best lies are lies of omission – and you can say “This man is talking pure crap, dear reader.” That’s difficult or even impossible to do as a reporter, when you’re relying on their voice, not your own, to tell the story.
These people are often just the highest-paid person in the building. I mean, if Twiggy wants to be crazy, at least he’s got his name on the door. The ones who are completely deluded are the ones who’ve just commando-crawled to the top of the steaming pile and then expect us to adore them. You haven’t taken any risk pal, you’ve just lucked in! That’s the other inopportune truth about this caper: luck plays a huge role in business, though you’d never know it from the heroic self-narratives of chief executives.
It’s never enough, either, to be recognised for your commercial acumen. That’s the soulless part of the capitalist endeavour. You also need to be loved for your charity patronage and your (highly selective) corporate social responsibility. You can’t just be Mr Profit, you’ve got to be Mr Altruism, Mr Community. The desire to be feted is all a part of the rarefied delusion state.
I got to stand at the watchtower and say “Sorry, not doing that champion. The money will have to be enough.” I got to turn to the reader and remind them, “Hey, their shit smells the same as ours.”
We all wrap ourselves in soothing stories, to dilute our insecurity and feel legitimate and worthwhile in the world. That’s how I recognise the patterns of delusion in corporate egomaniacs because I’m accustomed to seeing them in myself.
It was ultimately my choice not to be the good guy, and so yeah, I’m often met with hostility when I walk into a room. Whatever. The social favour of these people is mostly worthless.
You can’t be a good journalist if you need to be loved, at least in an interpersonal sense.
All you’ve got in the end is your family and your health, and I’m now blessed with both. I’m reminded of the words of distinguished philosopher Miley Cyrus, who said, “I can buy myself flowers. I can love me better than you can.”
I’m so glad I graduated from corporate star spotting.
Phoning it in from Global HQ at 5pm while another Super Tuscan decants, having the cosy relationship with the Prime Minister’s Office, being on the Qantas gravy train, haunting the BCA salon – that’s the jammy life.
This version of Rear Window is vastly more rewarding. Mining the source material, pulling apart the logical incoherences, doing the work, landing the belly laughs.
I was privileged enough to learn at the feet of some of the smartest people in the Australian market, all of whom are AFR readers. I learned from my terrific colleagues in the newsroom, subject matter experts like Neil Chenoweth and Matthew Stevens, my contemporaries Anthony Macdonald, James Thomson, Jonathan Shapiro, Vesna Poljak and Ed Tadros, and many others.
One of the real delights of this job was working alongside Myriam Robin, my co-columnist of the past six years, whose gimlet eye I leave you with.
Of course, there’s no way this column works without a staunch and unflappable editor, and in that regard, AFR editor-in-chief Michael Stutchbury really stands alone. I was also very lucky to have the backing and encouragement of Fairfax Media CEO Greg Hywood until 2018.
Every journalist and media organisation says it operates with independence, but it is so often a chimera.
I was granted genuine, often excruciating independence. I remember towelling up Domino’s Pizza over its fanciful growth targets, which the company is now busy falling short of, among other things, while the largest shareholder in Domino’s, Jack Cowin, was a member of the Fairfax Media board. I gave just as much hell to another Fairfax director, Todd Sampson.
My long-time nemesis, Gerry Harvey, was one of Fairfax’s (and now Nine Entertainment’s) largest advertisers. To his and Katie Page’s enormous credit, they didn’t chuck Alan Joyce-style tantrums; they pretty much copped it sweet. Plus, Gerry gave as good as he got!
All of these stories would have hit the cutting room floor of any other Australian media company.
I’ve also been supported by an honourable network of people out there who have provided me with the information needed to do this job. They believed, sometimes at personal risk or cost to themselves, that these things needed to be said. I salute them.
But above anything else, it’s always been about the readers.
My column only ever succeeded because there is a critical mass of Australians who want this job to be done, who want the craven opportunism, greed, hubris, hypocrisy and plain absurdity of Australian business and politics exposed.
Please stay hungry for that, and continue to support journalism that uncovers it.
Thank you Old Ozzie. That’s a .. well quite an article. Joe Aston has .. well, he’s been really something.
Old Ozzie, it was quite an interesting read.
Read it to the end, any idea what he is going to do in the future?
Hey Salvatore and JC,
Italians always fighting… why can’t you be more indigenous you pair of grifters?
Avi:
RUNNING FOR MY LIFE: That was a bit too close
Johannes Leak.
Mark Knight.
Christian Adams.
Friday the 13th. Doomsday.
Think about it.
Meanwhile I keep scrolling..
Michael Ramirez.
A.F. Branco.
Matt Margolis.
Al Goodwyn.
Tom Stiglich.
A.F. Branco #2. Brilliant.
Henry Payne.
Lisa Benson.
I see the littles ‘uns were restless last night.
The children weren’t sent to bed.
Today in Split, Croatia. So many invaders onto the original local Dalmati tribes, the Illyrians, then the Romans, then the Slavicic peoples, then fighting off the Ottomans. In the process of fighting the Ottomans the old Roman town of Salonic was destroyed, buried, and we saw the excavated ruins today, of an ampitheatre and forum of Old Salonica, where Julius Caesar started his career as a Roman administrator, and I sensed how much he longed for, and got, greater things, which of course Emperor Marcus Aurelius, as I read nightly, deems mere vanity in the scheme of things. The Emperor Hadrian built defensive walls, and the Emperor Diocletian built himself a magnificent limestone palace, the many remains of which, now infilled with medieval buildings, we walked around today, including a temple to Zeus now turned into a church to St. John the Baptist. There is a Christ in this cathedral cruficied on a branch of a tree rather than a Cross. Inflections, say our guide not me, of the Yggdrassil Wolrd Tree of Odin, who also hung on a wooden tree, and who gave his eye to gain knowledge. These people were pagan until the seventh century. The key Christian saint of the seventh century was Saint Dominicus, the Lord, who is memorialised in the excavations which were led by a C19th priest who reconstructed many early Christian sites. Lots of Chi Rhos there.
The palace of Diocletian was huge as its current foot print shows, built in white limestone and used during summer retreats. Amazing, says Hairy, how many Roman Emperors wanted to get away from Rome: Augustus with Sorrento, Tiberius with Capri, Hadrian with his Greek longings and meanderings, Aurelius with his campaign musings, Diocletian with his Summer Palace in Split, and Constantine with Constantinople.
There’s a nice story about the 14th century plague in Split. A nunnery existed within the walls of the old palace, where no nun ever spoke. During the plague all of the men fled the town leaving only the women and children. The nuns cared for them, and broke their vow of silence to implore God for help for all those left bereft. The plague passed, and from that time to the present nunnery no man has ever crossed over the entrance guarded by a fierce nun.
I don’t know if any trannies have ever tried though.
Stan Grant unleashes on Australia ahead of the Voice referendum calling it a ‘mean country’ with an ‘absence of kindness’
these people are like spiteful infants
I know I must be right if I piss off tanned Stan.
Friday the 13th & I’m going to the dentist.
Not a good omen.
One thing is certain about this latest Israel/ Palestinian conflict. The other Arab countries in the region aren’t going to war with Israel over Gaza.
And this time there is a steely resolve in Israel with much face to save. The IDF will do its best to flatten Gaza I suspect. Once again , the Palis have been duped and are going to be mightily slammed.
The other Arab countries in the region aren’t going to war with Israel over Gaza.
There are pockets of Hamas support all over the place.
But zero broadbased support for them.
Blinkden is in Israel.
This is good.
A couple a days late.
But better late than never.
Biden finally forced into un-doing what should never have been done.
U.S., Qatar Agreed to Freeze Iran From Accessing $6 Billion
Blinkden was shown the source material of the baby massacre.
Images have been posted on-line.
And after all that, there are retards out there claiming a win because:
1) it wasn’t 40 babies in that single location &
2) it wasn’t 40 beheaded babies.
Do these people hear themselves?
Absolutely f*cking deluded.
No suggestion that muslims in the UK are fearful for their safety.
It’s the Guardian.
Two Jewish schools in north-west London are set to close temporarily because of safety fears brought about by the crisis in Israel and Gaza, as ministers announced £3m for a charity that helps protect Jewish community sites.
And France has banned any pro gaza protests.
Coincidence? The wind change looked like divine intervention.
https://twitter.com/LibsFails/status/1712268462586732676?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1712268462586732676%7Ctwgr%5Ee74da7f2508ff4c90e74d1981ce800830d1dbc6d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.godlikeproductions.com%2Fforum1%2Fmessage5547340%2Fpg1
I wonder how many children killed in Gaza have been hamas fighters.
They use their boys to build tunnels and train them from birth to fight.
Any discussion in the media about boy soldiers?
That’s a good point rosie.
What would Nahoul the Bee say?
Wildlife photography prizewinning pics here.
Wonderful stuff. The crab photo definitely deserved the big prize.
feelthebern- yesterday a “friend” insisted the photos were false. What, I said, are you saying the Israelis killed their own babies?????
Friendship over. Anti-semitism is still alive & simmering in their souls.
Way to change No voters minds, you pampered wringer.
Razey at 6:45.
That made my coffee taste all that much better this sunny morn.
Whinger! Should have my glasses on before I hit submit, knowing that autocorrupt is 1000% untrustworthy.
To NSW Labor, this is how it’s done.
Friendship over. Anti-semitism is still alive & simmering in their souls.
As Shaun Micallef used to say during that window when he was funny:
Into the bin !
I ditched the anti Semites in 2014.
So good to block their crap on social media too.
ndtv with dumb article about women in war. Note use of ‘murdered’ to describe killing of woman in her home by terrorists.
Even soft cock Piers Morgan gets it.
Piers Morgan
@piersmorgan
There’s a debate raging about whether Hamas beheaded babies or stabbed/shot them dead in their bedrooms, as if somehow one of these evil depraved acts of terrorism is less wicked than the other.
If you’re trying to argue this point, you’re a sick b*stard.
9:43 PM · Oct 12, 2023 4M Views
Seems reasonable to me.
cnn
Hamas militants showed how they make rockets out of water pipes.
https://x.com/nexta_tv/status/1712441643280793903?s=20
When the usual suspects clutch their pearls & wail “the evil Israelis have turned off the water to Gaza” share this video with them.
Considering Hamas fired 5000 rockets in 20mins on day one, think how much piping would need to be ripped up to supply that.
Somewhere between 5 & 6kms of pipes.
Pretty sure Gaza would have had their water disrupted long before Israel turned it off.
It’s good to wake up and listen to the Douglas Murray speak such moral clarity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw81d46yUD0
Please watch, Douglas doesn’t mince words, and he echoes what I wrote yesterday, that the scab that is Jew hatred has now finally been lifted for all to see.
No Megan, “wringer” is about right.
Wringing every drop of money and power he can out of political wets.
Zulu 12/9 @ 9:54pm
Your point about South Africans also extends to the vietnamese.
These people will not be allowed in Oz. These people come from countries where there is no social security and they think how they can do a job better and set up their own businesses.
These people are inspirational. They will get an idea and set up a business with a minimum of annalysis – and guess what it usually works. If it does not work they quickly shit down, say it was too hard and move onto the next idea or job. They also own property where the entire extended family live in an over crowded area.
Best thing I have seen recently is this Asian family, looks like Vietnamese – unsure – live in a cream brick house on a main road , front yard concreted with the hair dressing sign on the fence. Mum dad , 3 or 4 children playing badminton at dusk with a grandmother sitting outside.
What I am hearing from African migrants – black skinned- my apologies and middle easterners is the colonialism bullshit and being paid by government( I can’t call it a job)- then bang on about the local racist attitudes to them.
Whenever someone mentions the ‘poor children of Gaza’ I recall the videos of them spitting on the tortured corpses of the kids raped and killed at the rave.
Sorry, that dog won’t hunt anymore.
So, I hope tomorrow night we have a thread devoted to da Voice.
What’s the consensus? That it’ll go down? I reckon it will, but as I’ve said, the opera ain’t over until the fat lady sings. It the YES gets up, this country is over and the Marxists will be in charge, the same Marxists who support Hamas et al.
Thanks to Delta, Sancho and everyone here concerned about my mental health. It’s taken a battering over the last five days, but I’m okay. I do find it helps venting, I like writing, it is quite therapeutic.
I even contacted an old boyfriend last night (his mother is a survivor), someone I swore I’d never to speak to again (it was a rather tumultuous relationship back in the day), because I wanted to check on him and his family. We are all numb with grief and fear.
I can’t wait to cuddle my sister’s Zionist dogs tomorrow. Zionist dogs rule!
Johanna those animal photos are really good.
My sympathy for Gaza will begin when:
1) All hostages are returned;
2) The bulk of Hamas are red goo;
3) They hold elections & vote out Hamas.
Until then, my sympathy dial is sitting comfortably at “don’t much give a damn”.
Vicki
Oct 13, 2023 6:59 AM
Plenty of them around I’m afraid, some come out of the woodwork at times like this, but many keep stumm and reveal themselves accidentally.
Had a couple in the shop lately.
It will become clear today or tomorrow whether Hamas has any hostages to bargain with. It may be bluff and these poor souls are gone.
In which case Israel will have no impediment remaining.
A lot of the “cool hot takes” on American anti interventionism are really just anti Semites.
Zelensky isn’t a litmus test but many don’t like him because he’s Jewish.
A lot of them say “Israel does the same”, which is very dishonest.
A lot of them say “USS Liberty” (Israel apologised and paid reparations).
If they really believed in non interventionism, how many of them consistently opposed foreign wars?
(I questioned the nation building process in 2001 and got berated. I questioned the “evidence” presented to the UN in 2002/3 and got berated.) People can change their minds but you get suspicious when wars are judged by their righteousness depending on who is in office.
Lindsay Graham has made some inflammatory remarks. I don’t agree with him, but I don’t think he is entirely wrong to blame Iran for inciting a call for global Jihad.
We should morally support Israel. Israel can indeed look after itself. Israel has a right to retaliate against Iran as well.
From a perspective of creating a disincentive to their enemies, Israel having an avowed policy of annexation after winning a war brought to them in an unprovoked manner would only require one or two small wars and their treatment in their regional affairs would change dramatically.
(As for Ukraine, Putin is in the wrong, he belongs in the 18th century. Europe should support Ukraine – they are still being subsidised by America).
It’s lonely not agreeing with groups. I don’t entirely disagree with other positions. I have mine and I think valid reasons for them.
All I will say is who was right about Afghanistan and Iraq?
If people want to defend Gaddafi and Assad, look at their reprehensible record of funding, tasking, planning or enabling terrorism as a way to seek great power status or bully other local powers.
The terrorism attacks stopped largely in Europe when the bases and enablers were hit or engagement finally was established at an effective level. When decisive action was taken, a lot of small engagements were ended and terms were able to be dictated.
I don’t recommend perusing them if you have weak stomach, but if one needs photos to convince the naysayers/doubters about the specifics of the atrocities committed by Hamas Ben Shapiro has been posting photos of them on his X (twitter) account.
Cassie, Hairy and I love you and are keeping you in our hearts and thoughts, as are so many others here on the Cat, some who know you, others who don’t, and even some of the lurkers. What you are experiencing as a Jewish woman is more than just an isolated terrorist attack – it is a strike against the heart of the idea of Israel, the homeland, the place of refuge, and the words of Never Again must ring true from this. Israel will exist and continue on, because it must. Bear up. Hamas will be destroyed.
A massive force assembling now on the edge of the Gaza strip – and the seige of Gaza continues, all power, water and other facilites are turned off. Israel will prevail.
The Douglas Murray interview which Cassie linked to is worth viewing.
I hear the “context” stuff a lot from people trying to look reasonable and smart. There is no “context” for what has happened, in the same way there is no “context” for the cruel NT pervert caught last week, or Footscray Mr Stabbie.
Wickedness never looks for “context”, it simmers and reveals itself opportunistically, stunningly. It comes out of the mouths of people we thought were friends, people we thought we knew well.
The best revenge is massive success.
– Frank Sinatra
“Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Oct 13, 2023 7:57 AM”
I know Lizzie, and I can’t wait to see you both in a few weeks.
“It may be bluff and these poor souls are gone.”
I suspect the latter, sadly I’ve never been one for optimism.
Ethanol absorbs water, hence the problem. Use ethanol-free petrol.
The same problem frequently occurs in outboard motors, if fuel is left in the tank during the off-season.
No Cassie. The blood lust was upon them, they wanted death regardless of advantage gained from a bit of restraint.
In which case any Israeli near the border must be aware of the danger of being taken. The IDF waiting to go in will also be aware – if you’re captured, you’re lost. They can’t afford to be used in this way. What a terrible world it is when this becomes the reality.
After this, Israel will spend years going after Hamas. Anywhere and everywhere. A deadly campaign going right to the top and no holds barred. The rage is intense and the commitment is total.
I’d be interested to hear from older or better read Catallaxians as to why the UN never offered a credible peacekeeping force in Israel – Palestine and for maintaining Jerusalem as a free city.
Was it simply that the USSR used the Ba’athists as proxies and so any constructive move could always be vetoed?
What an idiot.
He is supposed to shut up with such opinions until after the referendum so as to avoid driving more people to vote No.
After the referendum the leaders of the ‘Yes’ cause will be looking to assign blame. Sure, most of it is their own but that possibility will never cross their mind. It will be scapegoat season, and things like this are begging to be scaped.
Court dismisses activists’ case against Plibersek
“It may be bluff and these poor souls are gone.”
“I suspect the latter, sadly I’ve never been one for optimism.”
IDF will still demand their bodies returned. Else these evil fkrs will likely have scurried them away for a living nightmare in some godforsaken hell hole.
No you didn’t Tickler.
Fake news.
Hundreds of public servant roles to be cut in Victoria
Mike is upset with ZK2A and Cassie.
Mike is a fragile creature.
Please don’t upset Mike.
Correction: October 12, 2023 — An earlier version of this story included a misleading quote and headline that implied that a Doctors Without Borders clinic had treated many children in a 24-hour period. The clinic only treated two children in that period.
you voted for them, Stockholm.
Obviously there’s potential for the Best Weekend Evah coming up, first with State plod riot squads handing Hamas murderer/r@pist apologisers their asses back, then the Voice going down 0/6 Yes/No, with the undertow sucking down Sleazy and his mob, Corporates, assorted handwringers, John Farnham, Adam Goodes and the “Australians of the Year” into the abyss.
I don’t hold much hope for the first possibility because “public safety” and “we can’t be expected to police 1000 people” but the beer and popcorn is ready anyways.
“why the UN never offered a credible peacekeeping force in Israel – Palestine “
The blue helmets would just become targets and get dragged into the Hamas hellscape. Recommend DMZ 1 mile wide min. Then the UN might have a v small hope.
Speaking of such things I hope the book is thrown at this woman:
Australia’s Answer to Greta Thunberg Faces Years In Jail (11 Oct)
What these people get away with is such that anyone else would be in the clink for a very long stretch. Two tiered justice must end.
From Old Ozzie at 1:21 (Joe Aaron’s last article).
There is no such thing as a credible UN peacekeeping force if one or both of the opposing sides don’t want it.
Think Beirut in 1983 when both the USMC and the French Paratroops in the UN peacekeeping force suffered horrific casualties in Hezbollah bombings.
There have been UN peacekeeping forces in Israel and the Sinai for many decades. The recent infiltration attacks from southern Lebanon passed right through them with a wave.
“Shadow Treasurer Brad Rowswell said the job cuts would put the community at risk.?“
Idiot. What he should be saying is the jobs cuts in Vic PS are nowhere deep enough as the place is overloaded with useless parasites who are just a burden on all Victorians.
Joe Aaron?
Joe Aston.
Herald Sun paywalled.
Good luck with that.
Community and Public Sector Union asks for 20 per cent pay hike in new enterprise agreement
Victoria’s key public sector union has lodged a hefty new pay claim which demands a 20 per cent wage hike, four-day work week, an extra week’s holiday and 17 per cent super.
“Please don’t upset Mike”
Who appointed mediocre Mike? Oh that’s right, a Coalition government.
Hey Mike, anything to say about “gas the Jews”? Dunno about others but I find that language to be “inflamed language”.
You know something, Mike can f*ck off.
Bad luck if you don’t want either.
aljiz
Rosie.
As I mentioned yesterday, the Pallies can’t be forgiven by the rest of the Islamic world until they erase the ” stain” that is Israel…
How does Hamas get its weapons? A mix of improvisation, resourcefulness and a key overseas benefactor
The complete uselessness of the UN shouldn’t shock me anymore, yet it does.
Big_Nambas: I spent hours researching pictures of Stan grant the other day, I cant figure if he was using skin whitener 25 years ago or is using fake tan now.
What I do know is he has changed from fairly white to very brown.
He’s not called STan for nothing you know.
The UN doesn’t do credible peacekeeping forces.
Hamas Hides Behind Civilians
https://twitter.com/baiswar_vikas/status/1712071313186287673
Anyone inciting more violence does not understand that the civilians are trapped. Hamas continually hides behind civilians because they are cowards pretending to be men who attack vulnerable children and women on BOTH sides. The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed this fact shortly after the group overtook Gaza and portions of the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority reported then that Hamas militias were using civilian hospitals as their military bases. “The Ministry of Health, along with all the Palestinian people, was shocked to discover that Hamas militias have returned to their old ways and have expelled all the medical staff responding to the calls of the homeland (to continue their work.) Unfortunately, these same militias used the medical centers, especially in a number of hospitals, converting them into centers for interrogation, torture, and imprisonment,” Palestine stated in 2009. Palestine begged Hamas to “act responsibly” and leave these medical centers, but Hamas is more powerful than the actual government.
“Why Hamas stores its weapons inside hospitals, mosques and schools” was published by the Washington Post in 2014. “The many mosques in the Gaza Strip serve not only religious functions, but are also put to military use by Hamas and other terrorist organizations,” the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center said at the time. “They are used to hide terrorist operatives, store weapons, as sites from which rockets and mortar shells are launched.” This is the same year that our War Cycle turned up and accurately predicted civil unrest and international tensions in both Palestine and Ukraine.
The United Nations also found numerous rockets stored in schools. They have developed an intricate tunnel system that runs between these civilian public areas that double as their military bases. They do this because they are cowards and feel as if the international community will defend them if Israel bombs a hospital, school, or mosque. People with no regard for human life do not have loyalties. Hamas is prepared to watch their own people die, as it has been their plan all along.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/war/hamas-hides-behind-civilians/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=RSS
As Previously Stated Earlier in Thread – NSW Premier Chris Minns & your useless Female Police Minister & Female Police Commissioner “This is How it is Done”
PARIS, Oct 12 (Reuters) – French police used teargas and water cannon to break up a banned rally in support of the Palestinian people in Paris on Thursday, as President Emmanuel Macron urged the French to remain united and refrain from bringing the Israel-Hamas conflict home.
Macron’s interior minister had earlier banned pro-Palestinian protests, saying they were “likely to generate disturbances to public order”.
France is home to Europe’s largest Muslim and Jewish communities. The Middle East conflict has often stoked domestic tensions in the past.
“This event is an earthquake for Israel, the Middle East and beyond,” Macron said in a solemn TV address. “Let’s not pursue at home ideological adventures by imitating or projecting.”
“Let’s not add, through illusions or calculations, domestic divides to international divides,” he said. “The shield of unity will protect us from hatred and excesses.”
Macron said the government had acted to boost police protection of Jewish sites, including schools and synagogues, and that there could be no justification for atrocities.
“There is no ‘Yes, but’. Those who confuse the Palestinian cause with the justification of terrorism are making a moral, political and strategic mistake.”
One more note. The blue beret/helmeted lads aren’t supposed to fight off the opponents to keep the peace, they are supposed to observe and report. But so often in the past they have suffered heavily for their role. They have lost 32 in Mali so far this year for example.
It’s about time we stop making targets of our militaries by participating in such dangerous farces. Instead, empty out the UN building of the asshole bureaucrats who come up with such ideas and let THEM go stand between the belligerents. Blue beanie and all.
What if we had da Voice last week?
You know, the panel which only gives advice on matters directly impacting ‘digineous Australians.
What odds they would have jumped in on the side of Humus, citing “colonially oppressed brotherhood” or somesuch tenuous link, and directing the government to send support to the towel-heads?
Wretch, you forgot the NZ election which hopefully will also provide some knee trembling thrills.
Wimp Australian Labor at Work – Look At French President Emmanuel Macron words from above – “There is no ‘Yes, but’. “ Those who confuse the Palestinian cause with the justification of terrorism are making a moral, political and strategic mistake.”
‘Words matter’: ASIO warns social cohesion at risk
Phillip Coorey
Political editor
ASIO boss Mike Burgess has warned politicians and others against inflaming religious and racial tensions on the back of the war in Israel, saying social cohesion was at risk.
In a statement issued on the back of escalating political rhetoric, and police reports of threats of violence against Jews from radical members of the pro-Palestinian community, Mr Burgess said his agency was concerned about the “potential for opportunistic violence with little or no warning”.
He said the national terrorism threat level remained unchanged at “possible”, and it was “important to distinguish opportunistic violence from planned violence or acts of terrorism”.
However, he stressed it was important “that all parties consider the implications for social cohesion when making public statements”.
“As I have said previously, words matter. ASIO has seen direct connections between inflamed language and inflamed community tensions.”
The statement was issued just hours after Labor was privately expressing outrage at an interview Opposition Leader Peter Dutton gave to 2GB radio host Ray Hadley.
Asked whether he agreed “that part of the DNA of some Labor people is just to hate the Israelis”, Mr Dutton replied: “I think there’s certainly that element to it, Ray.?
“I mean, there’s a political element to it as well, because people like (Energy Minister) Chris Bowen, (Industry Minister) Ed Husic and others will be playing to their electorates.
“That, I think, is shameful because they’re, I think, giving, frankly, encouragement to see the sort of conduct that we saw at the Sydney Opera House.”
Mr Dutton also criticised Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for working with Muslim leaders in Western Sydney to enlist their support for the Voice to parliament but not pulling them into line over their support for Hamas.
Mr Dutton said non-citizens who preached hate speech against Jews should be deported.
“People with that hate in their minds, in their hearts, don’t have any place in our society,” he said.
With another pro-Palestinian rally planned for Sydney on Sunday, Mr Burgess said ASIO’s focus was not people engaged in lawful protest but those “who may wish to escalate protest to violence”.
“This includes religiously motivated and ideologically motivated extremists, or anyone who believes that violence is a means to further their own interests.”
Mr Albanese is using his public remarks to try and defuse tensions. In a speech at a Melbourne synagogue on Wednesday night, the prime minister empathised with the Jewish community and its fears of rising antisemitism.
“I want to assure you, that kind of hateful prejudice has no place in Australia,” he said.
“Our country is better than that, and our country is a better place because of you and your community.
“And my government is committed to keeping the community safe.
“I want to say very clearly: you are not alone.”
The Australian Muslim Advocacy Network called on Mr Dutton and Mr Albanese to temper their language.
“Australian leaders must take responsibility for the effects of their actions on civilians under occupation, in war overseas and Australians at home,” the network said in a statement.
With more than 10,000 Australian citizens and tourists in Israel, the government announced on Thursday that a third Qantas emergency flight would depart Tel Aviv for London next week to help those wishing to leave but can’t book a commercial flight.
The first of the three confirmed flights will depart Friday and be free of charge.
Australian Labor Party AlbaSleezy, Blackout Bowen speak with Forked Tongue
Also the ‘Global Jihad’ announced for today to kick the weekend off.
Stack some ammo next to the popcorn just in case.
What cruise line are you on Lizzie, and what ports are you visiting?
Off to the booth – second last time.
Memo to self – don’t talk to the Yesers. You are tired and cranky and they will light your fuse.
Why the signals from the bond market are truly terrifying
EU Spent $100M On Pipelines That Hamas Turned Into Rockets.
I’ve been disturbed by the unfurling of the Aboriginal flag (many of them) at the “peaceful” Pali gatherings in Sydney this week.
Even more than this, the dismissiveness of the atrocity that shocked me so much came from an aboriginal woman. I reiterate…you think you know people and suddenly they become complete strangers.
The AFR View
A referendum tragedy that didn’t need to happen
Brexit-style recriminations in the divisive aftermath of the Yes vote failing would not be in the interests of heartbroken Indigenous Australians.
Short of a miraculous surprise turnaround, Saturday’s referendum on an Indigenous Voice to parliament is shaping as a national tragedy that will break First Australian hearts and set back the cause of reconciling the original inhabitants of this ancient continent with modern Australia.
This tragedy is unfolding despite the sincerity of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, the generosity of the offer from the 250 Indigenous Australians who took part in the process, the decades of commitment by leaders including Noel Pearson, Marcia Langton, Megan Davis and Pat Anderson and despite the inherent goodwill of the great majority of the Australian population towards overcoming unacceptable levels of Indigenous disadvantage in remote and regional parts of the nation. This worst-case result would be a further heartbreak in that the tragedy did not need to happen.
Heading into the 2017 same-sex marriage plebiscite, The Australian Financial Review maintained that conservatives had failed to make out a case against marriage equality that a clear majority of Australians subsequently supported.
In 2023, despite extensive funding, celebrity endorsements, and institutional support from big business, sporting codes, and academic, cultural and community organisations, the Yes campaign has failed to make a compelling case for how entrenching an Indigenous Voice into the nation’s Constitution would actually close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
In January this year, when support for the Voice sat above 60 per cent in the polls, the Financial Review said that most Australians would support recognising Australia’s First Peoples in the nation’s founding document and that the goodwill of most Australians towards ending the shameful disadvantage in rural and remote Indigenous communities should extend to supporting the principle of a well-functioning Indigenous advisory body to parliament to advise on practical measures to help close the gap.
However we warned that Anthony Albanese’s refusal to seek to legislate the Voice and get it up and running before trying to insert it into the Constitution was a high-stakes and high-risk strategy given the high bar for such referendums.
By the time the prime minister announced the October 14 referendum date, support for the Voice had slipped below 50 per cent. The Financial Review said the best hope for the referendum was for the Yes campaign to use the next six weeks to convince Australians that the Voice would focus on Mr Pearson’s practical agenda of empowering Indigenous communities to take responsibility for turning the tide on entrenched social problems in remote communities such as welfare dependency, low school attendance, substance abuse, and child neglect.
The challenge for the Yes campaign was to give Australians a greater certainty and confidence about what they would be voting Yes for and about what the Voice might say and do.
Yet as the weeks have passed, there has been no real debate or discussion by the Yes campaign about what concrete kind of policy action the Voice would advise to overcome remote Indigenous disadvantage.
Instead, the question that has surfaced during the campaign is whether the Voice would focus on advancing the progressive Indigenous political agenda of truth-telling, treaty, and sovereignty.
That uncertainty has been driven home by Indigenous senator and No campaign leader Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s effective attack on the Voice as seeking to entrench “separatism” between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
That points to the differences between the successful 1967 referendum that garnered 90 per cent support and which was couched in the US civil rights language of the day as being about racial equality and overcoming racial differences, and a Voice referendum that appears to harden racial difference by inserting an extra race-based political right in Australia’s liberal democratic governing charter.
The Brexit-style recriminations and divisive aftermath of the Yes vote failing to achieve the double-majority of the popular vote and of the six states will likely include pouring blame on Peter Dutton and the Coalition along with the supposed latent racism of the Australian people.
Blaming what in reality is one of the most diverse and tolerant multicultural societies in the world would only compound the tragedy for the Indigenous Australians who may feel heartbroken by Saturday’s vote.
DC_Draino
@DC_Draino
I received this horrifying message from a follower today
A healthy father played 18 holes of golf without any complaints, got the Pfizer vax at 3:30 PM, and was dead by 6 PM
People need to be thrown in jail for this
Enough is enough
and this
Connecticut high school student dies suddenly after collapsing at football practice
If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?
– William Shakespeare
Judge caught on phone during toddler’s murder trial sent 500 texts, called dead boy’s mom ‘liar, liar’
Cory Mills
@CoryMillsFL
If Biden and his administration won’t prioritize American lives then I will step up and do his job for him!
77 Americans in 2 days safe and no longer trapped in Israel while Biden thinks of a plan.
Politician Talk and Statesmen Act!
This is the second country (Afghanistan 2021 & Israel 2023) we’ve had to save Americans because Biden had no plan and No leadership!
This never happened under President Trump!
Collin Rugg
@CollinRugg
JUST IN: Perfume giant Jo Malone’s son was reportedly behind the letter at Harvard that blamed Israel for the Hamas terror attacks.
Her son, Josh Willcox, is one of the leaders of the Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee.
Malone spoke out about the war in the Middle East but failed to condemn her son, as reported by the Daily Mail.
“We as a family are heartbroken by the events of recent days and strongly condemn all forms of violence.”
“The abhorrent attack on innocent people on Saturday in Israel is beyond what any family should endure.”
These students are now learning what it means to be held accountable for their own actions as a pro-Israel group is driving a truck around Harvard’s campus, displaying the names of those who signed the letter.
We’re all Australians’: John Howard gives final pitch for No case against Voice
Former prime minister John Howard has shared his final pitch for why Australians should vote No to the Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
His remarks come ahead of the controversial referendum on Saturday.
“Don’t vote for the Voice because the Voice will divide people according to their race,” Mr Howard told Sky News host Paul Murray.
“My ancestors were Anglo-Celtic, other ancestors were from Greece, others were Indigenous, others were Indigenous, others were Chinese, others were Indian.
“But we are all Australians – one nation, one people, one destiny, one law.”
Yes, but I disagree with him and the interviewer about how anti-semitism is only recently fashionable among the Left.
I remember in the early 1970s when the Australian Union of Students – then immensely rich – supported the pro Palestine movement, including with cash and in kind resourcing. They were 100% left wing. Particularly in Melbourne, the various communist splinter groups have always been pro Palestine and anti Zionist. So were a lot of left wing controlled unions.
It is true that a few garage Nazis and allegedly right wing nutters of other stripes shared and share that view, but they are few in number and politically impotent, unlike the large organisations controlled by the Left.
From what I can make out, the UK and US have much the same history.
The pain continues for the Antarctic ship, which had to go from Hobart to Burnie to refuel ‘cos it isn’t allowed through the Tasman Bridge:
The Australian Antarctic Division’s RSV Nuyina will be sitting idle for nearly four days off Burnie before being berthed at the port because of a fuel tanker delay.
A tanker with diesel needed to power research stations in Antarctica has been delayed because of poor weather, forcing the $529m icebreaker with 77 expeditioners to anchor and wait.
Any Nuyina diversions are likely to cost hundreds of thousands of extra dollars, with the AAD revealing last week it overspent by $42m last year.
Why it can;t be refuled on the wharf from a tanker, or from a lighter alongside is unclear.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Issues Executive Order to Rescue 20,000 Americans, Including 1,000 Floridians, from Israel for FREE, Amid Ongoing Conflict
Is he the only world leader who knows who he’s supposed to work for these days?
New World Odor™
@hugh_mankind
Government Exempted Medical Staff From COVID Jabs While Mandating Public Vaccinations: New Zealand OIA Reveals
New Zealand allowed over 11,000 of its key health staff to get COVID-19 vaccination exemptions while urging the public to get vaccinated.
Just heard on a Sydney radio station that the pro-Hummus rally on the weekend will not march down to the Opera House but instead be held in Hyde Park, which apparently they are legally allowed to do.
Small problem…… ‘Diversity – divides’
Oh, I don’t know …
Rwanda 1994 – stood by drooling with their mouths agape while millions were slaughtered
Timor Leste 2006(?) – jordanians busted getting intimate with local goats
At least the second had some comedy value.
John Howard criticises Labor government’s failure to issue ‘unanimous, instantaneous condemnation’ of Hamas’ attack on Israel
John Howard has criticised the Albanese government for not being part of an “international moral response” to the “utterly reprehensible” targeting of Israeli civilians, saying there should have been “unanimous, instantaneous condemnation” of Hamas’ actions, as there was in response to the September 11 terrorist attack.
Speaking to Sky News Australia’s Paul Murray on Thursday night, former Prime Minister John Howard said there should have been “unanimous, instantaneous condemnation” of the “utterly reprehensible” attacks on Israeli civilians, as there was for the September 11 terrorist attacks.
“I was in Washington on the 11th of September 2001 and I immediately made the government’s position known, and to his great credit, Kim Beazley, as leader of the opposition Labor Party came out very strongly saying the same thing,” Mr Howard said.
“And I for the life of me can’t understand why there wasn’t an instantaneous denunciation of the horrific character of the attack by Hamas on the people of Israel.
“I mean, the murder of babies – the sickening assault – it was inexcusable.
“No matter what your views are, no matter how strongly you feel – one side or the other – about a two-state solution in the Middle East, what happened a few days ago was totally and utterly reprehensible and deserve unanimous, instantaneous condemnation. And yet it didn’t happen.”
Mr Howard said Australia should have been part of an “international moral response” to the attacks, lamenting the government’s decision not to sign on to a joint statement issued by the United States and several European nations.
“I’m disappointed a statement was issued by America, Britain, Germany, France, Italy – a joint statement – (and) we weren’t part of that statement,” he said
“In earlier days… under a different government, we might have been part of it. Because we are a close friend of Israel.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese shared a statement about the attacks on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday morning.
“Australia stands with our friend Israel in this time. We condemn the indiscriminate and abhorrent attacks by Hamas on Israel, its cities and civilians. We recognise Israel’s right to defend itself,” the prime minister wrote.
But, Mr Albanese has been criticised for not issuing the statement until a day after Hamas launched the surprise attack out of Gaza, and for reportedly not having called a meeting of the national security committee of cabinet.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong did put out a statement on Saturday evening, just hours after the attacks, stating Australia “unequivocally condemns” the attacks and recognises “Israel’s right to defend itself”.
But, the Foreign Minister has been criticised for urging “the exercise of restraint”, with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton saying it was “completely and utterly the wrong time for that sort of language”.
Prime Minister Albanese was also criticised for initially failing to condemn the anti-Semitic nature of protests at the Sydney Opera House on Monday night.
43 Comments so far & Not Kind to Labor & AlboSleezy
… except for the poor goats.
The source story. They knew exactly what they were doing. Politicians too.
Government Exempted Medical Staff From COVID Jabs While Mandating Public Vaccinations: New Zealand OIA Reveals
Blasted three middle aged middle class pasty voice spruikers outside central this morning, a wonderful start to this day of global jihad.
New World Odor™
@hugh_mankind
No Excess Deaths During Covid But an Explosion of it After the Covid “Vaccines”
The data in every country is similar. No increase in excess deaths during 2020 and maybe even a decrease in some countries when it was supposed to be a deadly Pandemic.
And why did excess deaths then take a sharp rise in comparison with years before immediately after the Covid Shots rolled out in every country at the start of 2021?
BYO “Gas the Jews” toddler sandwich board.
Apparently there was some sort of debate on Teh Voice last night? Between Peta Credlin and Joe Hildebrand? Trying to find a video.
I posted this late last night but, in case you missed it, it’s well worth listening to. Only four minutes long but she doesn’t mince her words.
New World Odor™
@hugh_mankind
Holocaust survivor Vera Sharav, interviewed on Vax-UnVax-Bus-Tour, has powerful message for the World:
”I see the Agenda. They mean to do harm!”
”People need to resist. Your best weapon is to just say NO!”
OK but in exchange cut 20% of public service jobs. It’s not like they can offer productivity improvements for the pay increases.
Jesus Christ, leave it at home and buy a stick mag. FFS.
‘Doxxing truck’ drives around Harvard showing names, photos of students who blamed Israel for Hamas attacks
A “doxxing truck” is driving around the campus of Harvard University with digital billboards that display the names and photos of students who allegedly signed a letter blaming Israel for Hamas’ violent attack that killed more than 1,200 people over the weekend.
Giant video screens hung on the sides and back of the truck display the words “Harvard’s Leading Antisemites” in gothic script over a slideshow of Ivy Leaguers’ headshots and names in bold, red block letters, according to photos on social media.
Nonprofit news watchdog Accuracy in Media was behind the truck, which showed the students involved in the 34 student groups that signed a letter saying Israel is “entirely responsible” for Hamas’ deadly attack on Saturday.
The truck’s surprise appearance around campus on Wednesday “was the first day [of a] multi-day, multi-pronged campaign involving multiple billboards and a variety of other tactics,” Accuracy in Media president Adam Guillette told The Post.
The group deployed the truck because it’s “incredibly important to know who the hateful antisemites are in our society.
And it’s important for people to know that their actions have consequences,” Guillette said in an interview with The Post.
“Our mobile billboards will be at Harvard for the foreseeable future,” he said