Donald J Trump announces Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as The United States Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Open Thread – Fri 20 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.
I suppose so.
Will our pro-Palestinian crowd vociferously denounce Hamas for this?
I got back on HotCopper.
They kept on sending me alerts, so I whinged.
No email response, but can log in and use the app.
Weird?!
“NEVER AGAIN,” AGAIN
by Faydra Shapiro
10 . 19 . 23
Karvelas is peak ALPBC. Best to get acclimatised first.
Is there any news on Min’s awful house issues?
Female — tick!
Homosexual — tick!
Never had a real job — tick!
Marxist radical tax eater — tick!
“The laid has been pleased to pay for your passages to Australia” and “put on the ship”
Maybe the ‘Laird’, or if got laid, then maybe the parlour maid.
Thoughts?
Too much ABC even for ABC listeners according to the ratings figures.
In Sydney RN Breakfast ratings more than halved after she took over.
Worse in other capitals.
Iirc, in Perth she’s down to a regular audience of c.1000.
Exactly.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen, we enter the chainsaw juggling stage.”
That caucus meeting is like the 7 year old who comes home from school and says “My friend Shaniiaa says Santa isn’t real. I said he was! (footstamp)”.
The parents don’t go with, “Yeah, Santa is all bullshit”, straight off the bat.
Palacechook is now in the “explaining that Mummy and Daddy are Santa’s helpers” phase.
Thoughts:
MATT RIDLEY: The official true cost of net zero is the same as spending £1 a SECOND for the next 31,000 years!
Maybe stop spending stupendous amounts of money on a lie.
Considering she took over from Frank Elly that’s actually quite an achievement.
The last poll in QLD (RedBridge, Sept.) showed Labor’s primary vote at 26%.
Palaszczuk could unilaterally dictate policy while she was an election winner but the knucklehead unionists on the Left won’t tolerate that now.
Bethany S. Mandel
@bethanyshondark
Interesting choice of words from Washington Post. “detained”
https://x.com/bethanyshondark/status/1715163257705549869?s=20
WaPo publishes that Hamas “detains” Israelis.
F*ck.
Me.
Dead.
Quite so.
So typical of the types who populate Industry Associations like AIG.
Utter bullshit that they didn’t pay the swimmers because “they didn’t lodge an invoice”. Do recipients of scholarships at major universities have to invoice the Uni? No.
Any organisation can issue a Recipient Created Tax Invoice (RCTI) for funds paid out. And I’m sure if there were any GST/Income Tax issues for the swimmers, Gina would have happily seconded an accountant from her company for a couple of days to set it up.
Good on her for bypassing these wankers and funding the swimmers directly.
They’re Gillardian numbers.
Let’s see…59 000 listeners in a city of 5 000 000+.
The 1%.
Step one should be for them to cut off the absolutely ridiculous amounts of foreign aid cash they hand out. Their current government never saw a foreign tab they weren’t eager to pay or outstretched foreign hand they weren’t willing to fill with money.
Consider this one… while giving billions to Ukraine to support them in their war against Russia the US also gave RUSSIA $160M in aid this year. WT ever-loving F?
Why is this such an issue? Because they are borrowing the damned money to do it! Thus the Debt numbers.
Leaks cartoon today caricatures the word “moist” perfectly.
If only they could parachute Kevni in to save the furniture.
Still, it’s a year to the election and we shouldn’t underestimate the ability of Crisafulli & the LNP to stuff things up.
Luigi between a rock and a hard place. He’s ruled out going to Israel, either on his way to Washington or on the way home.
His reason? The trip’s about primarily about trade. (Though it does include defence concerns).
Other leaders have gone, pointed out a U.S. guest on Sky – sorry, missed his name.
With two of his own parliamentary party members and the Unions on the side of
Hamasthe Palestinians, how’s he to handle it?He’ll be giving a press conference later, Sky reported.
Most fitters would kill for something that works with rusted-ons like that.
“Thoughts?”
What’s to think? If no-one will lend it money the country will be broke.
We’re in the very best of hands.
They will just retreat to the defence that the only reason Hams and Islamic Jihad (a tautology surely – who else would use that word) is because of Israel’s (purported) misdeeds.
If the Jews of Israel had simply en masse walked into the sea and drowned, leaving behind all their belongings, then Hams and IJ would not have been driven to this.
Total US Debt is now $33.649 trillion
A pending VC deal values Open AI at $US80bill.
The US can innovate their way out in front of their credit card payments.
The rest of the world, not so much.
Why doesn’t she go and you do something else?
Some thought leader in the US this week was proposing all Jews go back to the countries they came from.
In 2023, someone felt comfortable enough to tweet that.
Unlike Ukraine, Israel doesn’t need anything from the US apart from diplomatic support.
Inflation or default?
No biggie 🙂
If you have your own currency you’d choose inflation.
feelthebern
Probably sounded better in the original German.
Alle Juden kehren in die Länder zurück, aus denen sie kamen.
An interesting idea I’ve read,
“I often wonder if aircraft wheels are spinning when they land. There is always a puff of smoke which would indicate they may not be. A wheel of that size, particularly for the larger aircraft must be subject to extreme stress if it goes from zero to landing speed in an instant. Surely it would incur less tyre wear and stress on the landing componentry if the wheels were set spinning at the relative ground speed in advance of making contact with the ground.”
Would this be practical?
————————————
Re. Tartaria, I often wondered why otherwise normal, sane people get caught up in this sort of nonsense.
Had a co-worker, before the internet, quite normal in every respect but he belonged to a cult something to do with the planet Jupiter, and that humanity originated from there or something.
Every break he would go on about it, can’t remember much as I just tuned out.
Sancho, we made a deal, I can complain until we board, then I have to be good for two weeks. I can’t do much else and I do love her, so all part of the fun. After mashing my ankle I miss most of the excursions. Still on crutches for a while.
I often wondered why otherwise normal, sane people get caught up in this sort of nonsense.
Custard & Qanon.
Cohenite & owls.
It happens.
thefrollickingmole
Oct 20, 2023 12:39 PM
feelthebern
Depends on the context, here simply means that the Jews will return to their original land ie. probably Israel.
On the other hand are they forcibly returned or voluntarily?
All in context.
Bullshit as usual from Zero Knowledge.
There were a bunch of maturities this quarter that had to be rolled over. The writer is taking that amount and then adding it to the US$1.5 trillion projected deficit for 2023. The projected deficit works out to about US$4 billion a day. That’s not to say the US Federal government doesn’t have a big spending problem because it does. However, it’s not 20 billion a day. Zero hedge are creating fake news, but no surprise there.
From Nigel Farage.
https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1715055162165710977
Here’s the Danish government statement, for evidence.
https://www.ft.dk/samling/20191/almdel/uui/spm/412/svar/1691136/2247791.pdf
Just as a point of note. The old owner of Zero Knowledge was some Russian dude banned for life in the US financial markets for security fraud. He’s also Russian. Don’t know who owns the shit hole now, but it’s worth keeping that in mind.
“I often wonder if aircraft wheels are spinning when they land. There is always a puff of smoke which would indicate they may not be…”
How close is the tyre spinning speed to the ground speed of the aircraft?
Kind of ironic that ZH is good for non-market related news.
When it comes to anything market related…not so much.
Bugger, I had previously thought that Steve Coogan would be good company for some beer and repartee.
Goes to show, actors is as actors does.
Two things about the referendum coverage.
Antony Green. OK, I didn’t watch the coverage on Saturday, but I generally find he is just a fairly passive scoreboard operator, compared to the Politburo members on the desk. I didn’t find anything unremarkable about his graph showing the correlation (or not) between Aboriginal electors and Yes/No split in individual seats. Mostly the percentage of Aboriginal voters is so low that no meaningful conclusion could be drawn, although where the Aboriginal population is close to 40% and the No vote was 55% (Lingiari), it stretches credulity to suggest that there might not have been a few Aboriginal No voters.
AEC slow to complete counting. So what. It’s over. Yes, they need to collate and count all votes for legal and historical purposes, but there is no urgency. In fact, the fiscally responsible thing to do was to stand down all the casual employees immediately after close of business on Saturday, rather than piss money away employing them to push through counting this week just to get it done quickly.
It boils down to why all humans need fantasy, escapism, call it what you like, to free their minds from the daily grind. The problem is when one can’t differentiate between that and reality. When they go too deep.
But it’s also healthy in that it’s how fiction gets written: Aesop’s Fables, Asimov, the Hobbit, etc.
In the absence of Hallward Hughes I will have a go.
They are not spinning at all, hence the big skid when they touch.
I have seen Soshul Meeja discussion of this, with most “experts” declaring that the cost and weight of gear to spin the wheels up wouldn’t be justified in saved tyre wear.
I have long thought that small vanes, either moulded to the tyre or attached to the hub to catch airflow and spin up the wheels on final approach might be an inexpensive solution.
Tyres cost about $5k each and last 100-300 landings, so not massive savings to be had.
I’d think the biggest issue with the artificially spinning tyres, other than the apparatus which would be required to spin them, might be in the interference with the anti-skid system used in ice or wet conditions, which is already pretty complex.
spinning
like the chickens that you find in the walnuts of your mind
Reading Guy Larons monumental book “The Six-Day War – The Breaking of the Middle East.”
Seems that, in the build up to that war, Israeli Intelligence services were flat out spying on the Arabs. Arab Intelligence services were so busy spying on their own citizens, they had very few, if any resources to deploy against Israel.
Moshe Dayan had such a reputation as a womanizer that, when the Israeli Cabinet asked him to serve as Minister for Defence, the request was sent to his mistresses apartment, rather then the marital home.
Lovely:
Dover Beach:
·
Buy gold.
You won’t make a fortune, but if you buy most of your stuff locally, you’ll at least keep your value.
Question:
Are bar mitzvahs for girls genuine or recently invented nonsense?
Zatara at 1:07.
I agree as far as ancillary electrical-mechanical drives to spin up the wheels.
I am thinking of a passive device, kind of like weather-vane cups attached to the hub or moulded to the tyre.
There are 14 tyres on a 777, costing $75-$100k a set.
If they last 200 landings that is an average cost of $500 per landing. Given you are only going to make incremental savings, probably not worth the guts-ache.
No doubt there will be a God Oracle on the subject along shortly to advise.
Meanwhile drowned out by the paid “referendum recovery” leave story is another interesting story in Courier Mail.
Two articles, one written by Health Minister, about low vaccines uptake, particularly in children. “Misinformation” is to blame.
There is a conference today in Brisbane to discuss this. Articles call upon Federal Government to get involved.
They have not given up.
I have been reading Trickler’s links.
I am rapidly becoming a born-again Tartarian true believer.
Why are people obsessing about this Tartarian stuff and what the hell is it?
Sancho Panzer
Oct 20, 2023 1:03 PM
Mother Lode
Oct 20, 2023 12:49 PM
“I often wonder if aircraft wheels are spinning when they land. There is always a puff of smoke which would indicate they may not be…”
How close is the tyre spinning speed to the ground speed of the aircraft?
In the absence of Hallward Hughes I will have a go.
They are not spinning at all, hence the big skid when they touch.
I have seen Soshul Meeja discussion of this, with most “experts” declaring that the cost and weight of gear to spin the wheels up wouldn’t be justified in saved tyre wear.
I have long thought that small vanes, either moulded to the tyre or attached to the hub to catch airflow and spin up the wheels on final approach might be an inexpensive solution.
Tyres cost about $5k each and last 100-300 landings, so not massive savings to be had.
I recall a long time ago that someone did put vanes on the wheels to spin them up before the landing. In light of your statement, I don’t know what the cost / benefit came out as but I believe a tyre company bought the patent……….
Black Ball
Oct 20, 2023 10:02 AM
Much like politics, our sporting bodies are run by non entities and farkwits with absolutely no idea, other than the money that follows.
Spot on BB. I’ve had many dealings with one of our major sporting associations at a national level and they epitomize the worst features of the federal public service in their utter lack of commercial experience or acceptance of commercial reality. They will get to ‘the task’ (whatever that task may be) in their own good time and will not (cannot) explain how a decision was arrived at. Funding, whether from government or various dues from athletes/parents, disappears into a black hole never to be seen again and certainly not in new equipment or other support for the athletes. As for the allocation/accountability of that funding, it is the equivalent of ‘move along, leave it to us – the right people are in charge’.
All that’s missing is a recorded message saying “your call is important to us…..”
That’s rich! After lying to the population they are surprised the said population doesn’t trust them. What’s more, they need a conference to discuss it but a Royal Commission must not be allowed to look into it. All you can do is shake your head.
Gabor
Oct 20, 2023 12:40 PM
There’s no reason that a crescent shape rib around the tyre, or even the rim, couldn’t be formed to catch the moving air as it came out of the wheel housing and start the wheel spinning.
Pauline Hanson latest cartoon, The Blame Game, is a cracker. Summed up the characters brilliantly.
However I don’t think Pauline and ON been given enough credit for their work in campaigning for No. Media prefers to blame Dutton.
Industry standard is for planes to carry +15% of their wheel and tyre requirements in case of emergency or diversion to another landing strip- usually unneeded, extras are jettisoned at altitude to save weight at landing.
Crossie
Oct 20, 2023 11:20 AM
I still think the funniest part of the speech was building the Middle East railroad that will bring jobs and peace to the region.
Crossie,
Lawrence of Arabia Rides again – Lawrence of Arabia- Train attacks
Thanks for the reminder, Bourne.
Please Explain cartoon 20/10/2023.
Watching a little sky news while having a cuppa. Showing Pallywoods’ latest cinema greats. The footage of how the film fakery is made is so easy to find on the net, you can’t help but come to the conclusion that Sky, as well as other msm are grossly anti-semitic, otherwise, why not show the fakery.
What is in it for them not to screen the truth?
Alcoa refinery, obvious casualty of energy price. Premier disappointed because nothing to do with gov, obvs, it’s like, environmental fears for drinking water all of a sudden. Like climate warming was going to dry up the taps twenty years ago, hence the white elephant desal plant which is just up the coast a bit…
Perth’s drinking water is most at contamination risk from mothballed industry
Is Karvelas a bloke – check the mandible.
Dropping more listeners than Frank Elly had is a huge effort. Of course, it’s their ABC, fully funded. Ratings don’t matter.
Karvelas is peak ALPBC. Best to get acclimatised first.
She is a remarkably unpleasant person. Not an ounce of generosity about her – at least not in her public persona. Sarah Ferguson, on the other hand, is both professional and likeable, even when you disagree with her.
I thought that her interview of Shivshankar Menon, an apologist for Hamas, was forceful and unrelenting.
Stephen Williams Avatar
Stephen Williams
Oct 20, 2023 12:43 PM
Sancho, we made a deal, I can complain until we board, then I have to be good for two weeks. I can’t do much else and I do love her, so all part of the fun. After mashing my ankle I miss most of the excursions. Still on crutches for a while.
Steven,
are you on https://www.pocruises.com.au/ships/pacific-adventure from Circular Quay today
Saw Big Cruise Ship at Circular Quay Overseas Terminal as we drove my Grandkids back in 4WD over Cahill Expressway rather than Tunnel to see Jacaranda’s in MacDougall Street Kirribilli next to Ensemble Theatre (and loads of Asians taking photos in middle of road) from Uncle’s wedding (kids not invited to reception) Future Aunt from China – only child, Other Uncle Wife Hong Kong Chinese – Large Family
Sorry, Ferguson’s interview was of course with Hamas’ Dr Basem Naim.
I remember a time when journo’s used to be pretty brutal with their subjects regardless of their political affiliations.
On TV domestically, that appeared to change when Red Kerry went full bore lefty on Lateline.
When was that? Early 90’s?
Other forms of media happened long before that.
Finally a solution to all Sicktorians problems.
Dogbox living.
Infrastructure Victoria finds building ‘compact cities’ would bring $43 billion to Victoria
Because only the wealthiest Australians should have a single story house on a block bigger than a postage stamp.
Chief executive Jonathan Spear said the report found Victorians would be $43 billion better off in a compact city, compared to a more sprawling one, through boosted productivity, increased house prices and people having more access to jobs.
So people would be better off because their houses cost more?
Awesome story boomer.
“If we allow our cities to continue to sprawl, we’ll be using up to 12,000 times the size of the MCG in valuable agricultural and environmental land on the edges of our towns,” he said.
The modelling also shows there would be 17.3 million tonnes less emissions from trucks and cars in a compact city than in a dispersed city.
So net zero means cramming people into prole huts.
Urban bugperson asked how they like living urban, and buglike.
Chelsea Tunnicliffe says she and her dog Bella love the apartment lifestyle in Glen Waverley.
What’s going on in the oil markets?
The highest level of US debt was in 1946 at 119% of GDP. It’s now 130% … in peace time. Man, they’ve gone absolutely overboard.
In 10 years, despite the Korean war, they had cut that down to ~60%. That’s discipline.
Or, and in another, more accurate way:
‘Chief executive Jonathan Spear said the report found some Victorians would be $43 billion better off in a compact city’
Normies would not be included in the ‘some’.
The modelling also shows
As soon as I see the word “modelling” I know whatever the projection is bullshit.
Tell me about “climate modelling”.
Sancho Panzer
Oct 20, 2023 1:21 PM
Zatara at 1:07.
I agree as far as ancillary electrical-mechanical drives to spin up the wheels.
I am thinking of a passive device, kind of like weather-vane cups attached to the hub or moulded to the tyre.
There are 14 tyres on a 777, costing $75-$100k a set.
If they last 200 landings that is an average cost of $500 per landing. Given you are only going to make incremental savings, probably not worth the guts-ache.
No doubt there will be a God Oracle on the subject along shortly to advise.
Not a God Oracle, but Wallis Simpson’s Dambuster Bomb had Back Spin imposed on the Bomb before release
Back-spin helps bomb bounce further and hugs it close to dam while sinking – it detonates at depth of 30ft
Hydraulic motor attached by belt to pulley on Bomb – see dagram in link below
Ten minutes from target, motor starts and spins bomb counter-clockwise to 500 rpm
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/16/Dambusters-80/
Mid East tension, Dover. Add to that, Demented has restricted supply by doing all he can to prevent new drilling. Even so, the US is an exporter.
About a month ago, Saudi reduced production.
If Iran is hit, expect oil at $150 a barrel.
PS Re wedding – Call from passing car in street – “Don’t Do It”
Spinning landing gear risks aquaplaning.
You need solid contact to bust through any water layer and utilise grip to allow the tires to cut a path through the water.
Once experienced, aquaplaning is not readily forgotten, especially at night.
Read about this previously on how they came up with the idea of a bouncing bomb and how they optimised it to bounce the right height and number of times so it would not go over the dam wall and also sink to the right level before it detonated.
Pretty impressive stuff given they had to create a mock dam for testing and they didn’t have prior examples or computer modelling to guide them.
To be honest, Dover as against being dishonest, I’m a little surprised oil isn’t over 100 bucks a barrel with the potential shit going on.
Interesting market, looking at the chart. WTI traded at 95 bucks around when Saudi reduced supply. It went down to below 62 bucks early Oct then began to climb and see-saw to just under 90 bucks where it is now. Hasn’t made the old high yet.
One could argue that a skidding contact on a dry runway has bugger all grip until the wheels roughly match landing speed.
If aquaplaning is a risk, simply add a step to the short final checklist.
“For wet conditions, touch brakes on short final”.
Proof positive that HAMAS will never win.
Having just paid Home & Contents Insurance – 34.8% increase on last year (did negotiate down over 60 Mins)
Nice to have a Company Give you a reduction
Hi
Your plan price is coming down!
Yep, you read that right – we love passing on the value to our customers and giving them some good news.
From 21 November 2023, your NBN Home Superfast (250/25Mbps) Unlimited ($129) plan is coming down to $119.
Why is this happening?
In recent months, you may have heard about the review and variation to NBN’s Special Access Undertaking (SAU).The SAU sets the industry standard for wholesale pricing, including their own structure for NBN plans until 2040.
Throughout the drawn-out process of developing this new SAU, we have been championing our customers, including the need to make high-speed internet more accessible and affordable. NBN’s newly revised SAU supports this, resulting in a reduced cost for our highest speed plans, yours included.
For us, it was a no-brainer to pass the savings onto our customers.
More competitive pricing on higher tier plans allows smaller internet providers, like Aussie Broadband, to continue offering value to our customers.
We advocated for this greater competition because we know that that’s what serves all Aussies in the long run.
Competition pushes us all to do better for our customers.
It is a feature of Urban bugpersons that they always seek to impose their lifestyle choices on everyone else.
By Jove!
This sounds like pro Saturnian propaganda.
Daily Mail.
Opinion Chris Kenny
Hamas ‘threatening families’ who consider evacuating from north of Gaza to south
Israeli journalist and author Ehud Yaari says the Palestinian militant group Hamas has been “threatening families” who consider evacuating from the north of Gaza to the south.
The Israeli military has given a warning to civilians to evacuate Gaza’s north and to go to the south to avoid the incoming ground assault targeted towards Hamas’ headquarters.
“We are for example – I don’t think people in Australia knowing, we are calling people on their phones apart from distributing leaflets … saying to them move out in time before we are coming in,” he told Sky News host Chris Kenny.
“Because this time unlike previous rounds of fighting in Gaza, the Israeli Army is going to roll in behind a screen of fire and reach as fast as possible – the tunnels.
“Where most of the military leadership of Hamas and Islamic Jihad are hiding now, where they keep most of their fighters.”
Huzzah! Time to celebrate with a couple of relevant Scott Morrison quotes:
‘How good’s Australia?’
‘I don’t hold a hose mate’
From the Oz….
NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Mal Lanyon says there will be no tolerance for those who break the law at an anticipated 17 protests scheduled over the next week following the Israeli-Hamas conflict.
After what was seen as a mishandled rally outside the Sydney Opera House on October 9 with pro-Palestinian protesters chanting anti-Semitic rhetoric, NSW Police are scheduled to have a heavy presence at a protest on Saturday
17 protests scheduled. So, let me get this right, Nazi Pallie scum (I refuse to call them animals) launch an unprovoked attack against Israel on 7 October 2023, butchering and slaughtering over 1400 Jewish men, women and children, a massacre of Jews not seen since the Holocaust, take hostages into Gaza, including Jewish babies and elderly Jews, and yet it’s the Nazi Pallies who are the victims, and the Nazi Pallies in this country take to the streets, accompanied by the scabs of the progressive left who also rush to join in the feverish Nazi Pallie protests that celebrate the murder of Jews, and bay for the murder of more Jews.
I don’t recognise this country anymore.
We have a government who makes a false equivalence between Jew hatred and “Islamophobia”, even though the Nazi scum at the Opera House screaming “gas the Jews”….weren’t Grampian Nazis, weren’t Scientologists, weren’t Buddhists, weren’t Presbyterians, weren’t Catholics…..NO…they were MUSLIM.
I am going to say it here and now, multiculturalism is one big failure.
Australia has a very high number of young women on Seeking Arrangement as well. 120,000 abortions per year. This should not be a surprise.
Opinion Pete Credlin
Victorian farmers ‘incredibly concerned’ with transmission lines for renewable projects
Victorian farmer Glenden Watts says people in his Victorian community are “incredibly concerned” about the harm of new transmission lines and potential fire risks.
Farmers and landowners in western Victoria are up in arms about Labor’s plan for new transmission lines connecting new wind and solar projects into the grid.
“If the project goes ahead, it’s not a question of if we have these fire risks and the impacts, it’ll be a matter of when,” Mr Watts told Sky News host Peta Credlin.
“We’re not allowed to go near them as a CFA (Country Fire Authority) volunteer.
“And all the volunteers up there, we’ve been told ‘you don’t go near the transmission lines’.”
Our House & Contents went up 28%.
Breaking it down, they automatically increased the sum insured by 21% (which I think is realistic) and contents by 10% (maybe OK, and we don’t have a lot of contents cover anyway).
Need to break your increase into building costs, contents costs, and premium/risk increase.
Discussing this over coffee with a couple of people recently I formed the view that a lot of people are grossly over-insured on their contents, and under-insured on their building.
“Are bar mitzvahs for girls genuine or recently invented nonsense?”
Recently invented nonsense, C.L. Invented by Progressive Judaism in the US 100 years ago.
OldAussie> re
My message was a sad tale of the provider having no choice other than to raise the monthly from $69 to $75 due to the same NBN SPXXX. thingy.
Thanks, Cassie.
That was such a lovely ceremony – albeit improvised.
Mum must have had a few tears on the go, I think.
. Johannes Leak is brilliant — made me immediately think of the old Fatty and Skinny ditties
Dutton understands Labor voters better than Albanese
Coalition wins for the No vote from 2022 Labor two-party preferred voters were huge, and spread across what used to be safe ALP outer-suburban or provincial city seats.
John Black
Election analyst
The idea of Opposition Leader Peter Dutton becoming prime minister in 2025 without regaining teal seats is not as silly as it seemed after last year’s election, thanks to the hubris of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in pushing ahead with the Voice referendum, despite all the evidence and advice that it would fail without Opposition support.
Albanese owned the Yes campaign since he effectively announced it when he claimed victory on election night on May 21, 2022, and called for “a Voice enshrined in our Constitution”.
Given Albanese’s strong support and the Yes campaigns run by Labor, the teals and most of the Greens, it was reasonable to expect that the 39.2 per cent Yes vote across the 151 House of Representatives seats would bear some statistical and demographic resemblance to the two-party preferred (2PP) Labor votes in the same seats in last year’s election.
Last year, the ALP polled 52.1 per cent of 2PP vote at the national level. Some 32.6 per cent of this came from the ALP primary vote, and the remaining 19.5 per cent came mainly from 2 million Green and teal preferences.
So, if the Yes vote was a consistent proportion of the 2022 Labor, teal and Green voters, we’d be looking at the Yes vote being about four-fifths of the ALP 2PP vote across the seats.
However, we did not see consistency across the seats. The problems started for Labor with the bulk of the 39.2 per cent Yes vote locked into a small number of top income quartile inner-city seats the party holds now or is unlikely to win on a Centre Left platform.
For example, with one exception, the top 20 seats for the Yes vote were very high socio-economic status (SES) inner-city or ACT seats. Eleven of these seats are already held by the ALP, six by popular local teals and three by the Greens.
There’s no apparent benefit to the ALP there from the Yes campaign, although it would tend to inoculate the 11 sitting Labor MPs from losing their seats in 2025 to the Greens. The top ALP seat on this list is Grayndler, held by Albanese. An ill wind and all that.
When we look at the bottom 20 seats for the Yes vote – also the top seats for No – we see very low SES seats, with lower incomes. Here the Yes vote was an average of 17 per cent below that of the ALP 2PP vote last year, not that there were many ALP votes in these seats then because all were won by the Coalition or Bob Katter. These days, the low SES seats are dominated by the National Party and the LNP.
To get an idea of the effectiveness of the two parties’ campaigns in drawing in their supporters, we calculated the Yes vote minus the ALP 2PP vote for each seat and modelled that. This would tell us the profile of seats where the ALP Yes campaign did better than the ALP 2022 election campaign, and the profile of the seats where the Coalition did better at harvesting Nos than they did in winning Coalition votes last year.
We found a few ALP wins of Yes votes from 2022 Coalition votes, including people making a lot of money running their own business, either incorporated or not, families with large amounts of acquired wealth, and well-paid male managers. All of these were top Coalition supporters in 2022, but voted Yes. Perhaps they ran into Albanese in the Qantas Chairman’s Lounge.
There were also gains for the Yes campaign from well-paid professionals who have been moving left for years. So the ALP could make some gains here in 2025 in 2PP terms, but mostly in seats with such a low base of support in primary votes that these seats are probably more likely to be won by teals or Greens with the help of more Labor preferences.
The No voters
Then we looked at the numbers from the Coalition’s viewpoint and checked out the seats where the No vote was well ahead of the Coalition 2PP vote last year. Bear in mind, these are Labor 2PP voters who rejected the increasingly desperate and emotional campaign entreaties of the prime minister and voted No.
As it turned out, Dutton is pretty good at getting people to oppose things, and his grasp of Labor voters is a lot better than that of Labor’s prime minister.
The Coalition wins for the No vote from 2022 Labor 2PP voters were just plain huge and spread across what used to be safe Labor outer-suburban or provincial city seats, but where the Labor primary vote has been whittled away in recent elections by the party du jour for Pauline Hanson and Clive Palmer then fed back to the Coalition as second preferences.
We saw 36 seats where the No vote was more than 20 per cent above the Coalition 2PP vote in 2022. In some cases, up to 36 per cent above. Of the 36 seats, 29 were held by current ALP MPs in Albanese’s caucus. There are 10 from NSW, nine from Queensland, seven from Western Australia, five from Victoria, four from South Australia and one from the NT – and they’ve just seen the first half of their first term’s work blown apart by the hubris of their leader and his inability to tell his mates he can’t deliver everything he promised.
When we looked at the demographics of these voters, they were led by classic working families (a tradie dad married to a white-collar mum, with a couple of kids and a mortgage) along with digitally disrupted families (a dad working as machine operator or labourer, often in manufacturing, with a white-collar mum and kids), and low- to medium-income families generally with two or three kids on Family Tax A or B, and finally women with a certificate qualification in hospitality.
Unless Albanese can regain the support of these big dollops of Labor voters across so many Labor seats in 2025, he is leading a one-term government. He’s now been told officially by more than 8.5 million Australian voters in all six states who voted No.
John Black is a former Labor senator for Queensland. He is executive chairman of profiling company Australian Development Strategies. ADS 2022 election profiles can be found here.
There must be a time convention analogous to BC/AD which distinguishes the age of cadetships from the age of university j’ism degrees.
..
From very recent experience, given the long times for permitting and getting trades, the key thing is to check the clauses and make sure your policy covers the accomodation you will need while waiting perhaps years to rebuild.
Total US Debt is now $33.649 trillion
…
Thoughts?
Bartercard?
The parents don’t go with, “Yeah, Santa is all bullshit”, straight off the bat.
Palacechook is now in the “explaining that Mummy and Daddy are Santa’s helpers” phase.
Chortle. A Kevin Bloody Wilson ditty comes to mind
I feel kind of bad now that I know of Wallis Simpson’s contribution to the war.
Puts that Barnes Wallis fellow to shame.
SFW
They could the engines off and you’d whine all the way to the destination. Stop whining. If you didn’t want to go then you shouldn’t have gone.
Also, insurance companies may low ball a cash offer at you from the outset to try to get you to take the whole thing on yourself.
Another chortle. Headline at the Daily Telegraph could well have come from Borat.
Not sure of the metrics used to discern the handsomeness but there you go.
Sancho Panzer
Oct 20, 2023 2:53 PM
Our House & Contents went up 28%
.
Breaking it down, they automatically increased the sum insured by 21% (which I think is realistic) and contents by 10% (maybe OK, and we don’t have a lot of contents cover anyway).
Need to break your increase into building costs, contents costs, and premium/risk increase.
Discussing this over coffee with a couple of people recently I formed the view that a lot of people are grossly over-insured on their contents, and under-insured on their building.
Sancho,
re Breaking it down, they automatically increased the sum insured by 21% (which I think is realistic) and contents by 10% (maybe OK, and we don’t have a lot of contents cover anyway).
34.8% on last year – House Replacement up 9% to $2.2 Million, Home Contents 5% up to $450K
I had Strata Property Insurance Renewal from 3 months ago same firm which had had year on year increase of 5.6% – so I had that for an arguing point
As I said to the Supervisor, after asking to be transferred and agreeing on re-negotiated premium – They would have been better to have attached a final page statement outlining why there was such a big increase
– one reason why had been noted recently in AFR, and it would have saved them a lot of phone calls which they had been receiving.
ICA data shows Australian reinsurance cost increases of up to 20% to 30%.
Global events have reinsurance cost impacts in Australia, too. … Data from the Actuaries Institute released in August this year found a 28% increase in median home insurance premiums over the last 12 months
6 Oct 2023Reinsurance price increases of 20%-60% were observed in most property markets, which had been affected by natural catastrophe events in 2021 or 2022.
In the US, which had been hit by hurricane Ian, prices sometimes even doubled. Retrocession (retro) prices moved up in lockstep.
Dr. John Campbell interviews Andrew Bridgen on tomorrow’s debate in the U.K. parliament on excess deaths.
Excess death debate
OldOzzie at 3:02 – didn’t think it would take John Black long to get started on the Voice voting. While interesting, I feel there is lot of Monday morning quarterbacking in this stuff. Be interesting to see how many Teals survive for a 2nd term? I was wrong the first time so I’ll keep my thoughts to myself.
Emboldened by the complete spinelessness of NSW Plod, I would almost expect this to spill onto the streets:
They aren’t hiding their disdain for Jews any longer. A disgrace doesn’t even begin to cover this shit.
Mother Lode Avatar
Mother Lode
Oct 20, 2023 3:18 PM
I feel kind of bad now that I know of Wallis Simpson’s contribution to the war.
Puts that Barnes Wallis fellow to shame.
Oops Motherlode – Brain Snap – apologies for Comparing Barnes Wallis of Dambusters to Megan Markle the First
The moment the parody shows stopped. They started to take themselves seriously.
“They aren’t hiding their disdain for Jews any longer. A disgrace doesn’t even begin to cover this shit.”
Yep, and we can feel it.
bons
Oct 20, 2023 2:35 PM
Once experienced, aquaplaning is not readily forgotten, especially at night.
Bloody oath.
Not a God Oracle, but Wallis Simpson’s Dambuster Bomb had Back Spin imposed on the Bomb before release
Dr. Barnes Wallis also invented the swing wing which went into the TSR2 and the F One Eleven. And the “Tallboy” and “Grand Slam” bombs. The “Tallboy” sank the Tirpitz.
The man was a Genius.
Definitely not. We sat around my kitchen table this morning praying for Israel, the Christians left in Gaza, the Aussie synagogues and schools and particularly safety for the kids at Moriah College.
Once you’re on the prayer list, you stay on it. 🙂
At some point in the past few days I read (or, perhaps, heard) a Lib… I think Dutton… say something along the lines of “we are out of step with the Teal electorates”.
I remember thinking at the time I hoped he’d meant that in a positive way, but suspecting he hadn’t.
If he is brave enough to just write the Teals off and head for a bit of common sense (most notably and obviously, nuclear) he can win quite easily. The Teals, etc would hate – absolutely hate – being ignored, and would scream bloody murder.
We have just been given an illustration of how effective screaming at people is. If Dutton encourages more of it from all the “right people” he is on an absolute winner. Blind Freddy the Drover’s Dog can see how this could – and would – play out.
He has such a rich cornucopia of policy options available, just begging to be used.
All he has to do is get the panty-waisted wastes of space on his “side” of politics to go along with. Like the boy with the wheelbarrow, he has the job in front of him.
I suspect the Teal electorates are out of step with conservatives.
Best to forget them until they grow out of it.
There is a moss like substance that grows on some bitumen roads in Tasmania Extraordinary frictionless substance.
Thanks to some questionable tyre choices and Perth rainfall patterns my Suzuki Jimny would aquaplane at 40kph. I think Fred Flintstone did the handling setup.
This is real…
https://twitter.com/RitaPanahi/status/1715223279403929855
“Detained”
That wasn’t my experience.
I had a claim last year for property damage which was sizeable, but didn’t make the house uninhabitable.
Admittedly it was a total PITA dealing with them, but ultimately we took a cash payout.
I did a few extra things concurrent with the insurance works but only spent 52% of the payout on the insured works. Adding in a few other things (e.g. sandblasting and painting some wrought iron gates which weren’t damaged) we still only spent about 60% of the payout.
The big thing was rendering. They paid out about four times what I ended up paying.
This was no Mickey Mouse claim.
Thick end of $100k.
Speedbox – try a couple of inches of gum tree litter on a C road through the Ottways on a bike.
Au contraire! My first good giggle of the day.
Although, when one ponders, it seems pretty clear that Simpson 1 and 2’s formula for success might well have contained “spin”, “dam-buster”, “swing” and “earthquake” in one guise or another.
I think it was Senator James Paterson on Sky on Sunday, in the aftermath of the Voice referendum, who sensibly said that if the Teals return to the Liberal fold, all well and good, but the impression I got was that regaining Teal electorates is not the Liberals’ first priority.
I think this is sensible. I’m still of the view that half, if not more, will return. I may be wrong, the election is 16 – 18 months away, but I reckon Stink, Big Spender and Cheney will be gone.
‘Simply terrifying’: Footage from around the world shows protests at US embassies
Never let a good crisis go to waste… encourage them!
“Chelsea Tunnicliffe says she and her dog Bella love the apartment lifestyle in Glen Waverley.”
Ask her if she’d like it as much if she was forced to move to HK for a year.
Chaney definitely. I was surprised she got up in the first place. Incumbency might help.
Let lefty parts of Labor and Teals fight it out over the small number of inner-city seats.
Libs should be aiming for the heart of the Labor working class seats – thats the easy way to win next election.
Another Thick as Brick Australian Federal Labor Minister for Climate Change and Energy – Blackout Bowen
Does this Idiot pay his own Gas & Electricty Bills or do we The Australian Taxpayer pay them for Him”?
Chris Bowen
@Bowenchris
New data out today shows wholesale power prices are less than half what they were the same time last year.
Two reasons:
?? Cleaner, cheaper renewable solar is up
? The government’s coal and gas price caps are working
Both of which Peter Dutton recklessly opposes.
Old Ozzie at 3:02.
m0nster was here the other day crowing about the Teal Yes vote.
In fact, two of those seats voted Yes on very narrow margins.
In any case, I just don’t get the epic denialism. Running around high-fiving and claiming that a Yes vote in a handful of Teal seats was bad news for Dutton, whilst dismissing the fact the 59 (yep, fifty nine) ALP seats voted No, and a couple of dozen by massive margins.
I think it was Adelaide which had a 2PP of 65:35 to ALP in 2022, but voted 65% No.
Trust me, the ALP faceless men won’t be high-fiving about the Teal seats.
That John Black stuff shows Greens preferences providing 20%+ of Albo’s winning margin. No wonder compulsory preferential voting isn’t going anywhere at the Cth level.
Indolent
Those aren’t protests, they are attacks and according to international law, they must be dealt with by the host nation.
I don’t see any effective attempt at doing this. Therefore the attacks are coming with the connivance of the host nation.
mUnty struggles a bit when he steps outside fantasy football. Well fantasy anything really.
From 21 November 2023, your NBN Home Superfast (250/25Mbps) Unlimited ($129) plan is coming down to $119.
Woof, woof! .. $119 a month .. I’m with SUPERLOOP .. $69 a month unlimited …….
no idea of the Mbps but never had any “speed” problems ……..
I’m not sure how much of the Voice voting should be read into voting patterns at a General Election. With a c33% Primary vote Albo never had any political capital to begin with and certainly hasn’t acquired any since then. The absence of SloMo will be a greater factor.
Kingston, covering Adelaide’s southern suburbs, was 66% Labor 2PP, 65% No. Also in Adelaide – Spence 63% Labor, 72% No; Makin 61% Labor, 68.5% No.
A most disturbing essay from JJ Sefton.
He pulls no punches in his visceral hatred for the junta, as he calls the Biden Administration.
Henry Ergas was at his very best in his column today in The Australian. Erudite, incisive, but also so, so fundamentally humane. He most elegantly uplifts the Israeli tragedy into the realm of the eternal. Those who can extract themselves from the polemics of the day – such as the blighted Teals & Greens – and perceive the dimension of the brutality of Hamas will be grateful for his column.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/from-hamas-to-lakemba-this-was-evil-at-its-root/news-story/7c8689e94b6c6d4c6449eb4758c90732
Have several comments pending on The Oz and Courier Mail. Two for 24 hours.
Can see articles where they are obviously restricting comments in general. See earlier post about Courier Mail.
Some of the long pending or rejected are cleary down to a bias in thinking of the moderator as nothing contentious.
Does not bode well for the coming misinformation era.
Blair is getting lazy!!
Imagine dedicating a whole – hilarious – column to this piece of absolute dross.
C’mon, Tim. Pick on someone your own size.
I had a claim last year for property damage which was sizeable, but didn’t make the house uninhabitable.
Admittedly it was a total PITA dealing with them, but ultimately we took a cash payout.
My son took a cash payout over storm damage 2 years ago .. total fix-up & 3 months external rental only took up 75% of the payment .. used the other 25% on household fixes on the ‘to do” list ……. I think, from memory, a $50 000 settlement ….!
This one’s for Cassie of Sydney. I’ve just had a copy of Joan Peter’s book “From Time Immemorial – The Origins of the Arab – Jewish Conflict Over Palestine” delivered.
Using research done, in the archives of the old Ottoman Empire, Peters demonstrates that the Jews did NOT displace Arabs in Palestine – quite the reverse: Arabs displaced Jews, that a hidden, but major ARAB migration and immigration took place into areas settled by the Jews in pre – Israel Palestine, that, for every Arab refugee who left Israel in 1948, there was a Jewish refugee who fled, or was expelled from his or her Arab birthplace at the same time, and that it’s a myth that Arabs and Jews harmoniously co existed for centuries in the Arab world – the truth is that the Jews, along with other non – Muslims, were second class citizens, oppressed in the Muslim world for more then a Millennium.
H B Bear
Oct 20, 2023 3:44 PM
Speedbox – try a couple of inches of gum tree litter on a C road through the Ottways on a bike.
No thanks. You can have your two wheeled contraptions and the best of luck to you.
. no that mandible is the tell-tale sign of anorexia nervosa
It’s a replacement copy – some scoundrel borrowed my original copy some time ago, and failed to return it.
I would think it only etiquette that, if you borrow a book, and don’t return it, you pay for a replacement copy…
I agree, as does my experience. If a claim is within the scope of the policy, insurance companies generally treat you fine. However, if you’re really on the edge of what is allowed, like, for instance, welding up a storm, causing sparks to fly like it was the surface of the sun, in a garage that was never meant for such a purpose, the insurance firm will invariably get shitty and won’t treat a policyholder as nicely.
Just spoke to my mother. She made me smile because she said she’s lying on her couch, and she’s been watching Fauda again, from the first series, episode one. She said it gives her hope for Israel and the IDF! And whilst Fauda is fiction, all the actors in the series served in the army, and they’ve all now been called up.
Start of the “fitba” A League season today! ..
Adelaide v Central Coast Mariners .. 5.00pm kick-off .. Paramount & one of the TEN outlets ………….
To be fair, I guess I did the Project Management on my insurance claim, and also put some labour into the job (loading debris into skips, a bit of brickies labouring).
I reckon I could round it off to 40% profit even taking that into account.
My biking days are over. Have swapped 2 wheels for 6. Guess that makes me a survivor though.
Actually, that Footyology site is quite the thing.
It is apparently where failed Aged and ABC journos, expat Monash journo grads, “proud” Wurundjeri muslims, some “not even pats”, employment consultants with pretensions to grandeur and a smattering of actual sports journos go to die… along with a surprisingly large number who post there once or twice, recoil in horror and run away.
The football content is derivative. The rest is just, well… Tim Blair, do not pick on these poor souls!
shatterzzz
Oct 20, 2023 4:00 PM
From 21 November 2023, your NBN Home Superfast (250/25Mbps) Unlimited ($129) plan is coming down to $119.
Woof, woof! .. $119 a month .. I’m with SUPERLOOP .. $69 a month unlimited …….
no idea of the Mbps but never had any “speed” problems ……..
shatterzzz
Blended 3 generation Family of 7 people under 1 roof – Streaming to 4 TVs over 2 levels in house, multiple IPADS, iPhones, Lap Tops & Desktop Computers connected to WiFi & Netgear Routers – Big Concurrent Load
When Optus told me they were pulling the plug on HFC Cable in Dec 2017 (Illegally) went with NBN (having in 90s been with Telstra HFC – ran cables myself from front street underground to house – long runs) on Old Telstra HFC Cable to House with AussieBroadband based on Australian Techos Support
Turned out to be good move – had been using been using Poweline Plug adaptors to run internet from Optus Modem through electrical wiring in house to WiFi Routers and even though 3 Phase and Power over 2 circuits – it worked
Loads of problems initially with NBN and AussieBroadband Techos were amazing over the 6 months we took analysing and trying resolutions to the problem
NBN did not work on 3 phase – Rewired from NBN Modem with Cat 6A Cable throughout house, up walls through roof and down walls – currenly 4 runs to 4 Netgear Nighthawk Routers throughout 2 levels rear and front house – Full Double Brick Walls & Concrete Slabs on Bondek in Rear and Full Double Brick Walls Throughout in Old Front House and use Cat 6A Cable for all hardwired connections
had problems also moving local phone from Old Telstra Twisted Pair Connection to NBN VOIP which did not work – again solution after assist from AussieBroad Band was CISCO SPA 112 VOIP Adapter – the Aussie Broadband Techo Girl was excellent in her knowledge in helping me set it up – thankfully I come from a Comms Background in IT
We were originally on 100 Mbps but with 4 TVs and Computers concurrent – 250 Mbps realistic – consistently see 260-270 Mbps on OKLA Speedtest – Still on HFC in our Area – have not had NBN in our area Upgraded since installed, though lots of work on the old Telstra Pits
I presume, 6 is a wheel chair? There are 6 wheels on a chair? Do you have a motorized one.?There’s this old dude around here who goes like a freaking concorde on one of these contraptions. I’ve seen one incident when he almost mowed someone down. Built for speed.
I think that will be sooner rather than later. The problem is that the Teal Seats are all areas where the voters are used to having PMs or Ministers as their MPs. Having a teal MP diminishes the clout of the electorate. The voters will realise that it’s better to have a government MP than an idependent who can get nothing done. In Wentworth our teal MP has been worse than useless.
So the swarthy sit-boy Squalid Aly has weighed in with his featherweight opinion on why The Voice failed, and divined that it is because the population is not as edumacated as he and his fellow travellers?
Squalid and his spouse, on two substantial incomes, were unable to martial their resources to buy a house until embarrassed into it. The average plumber or sparky is able to do this and think nothing of it.
It is not really about uni degrees per se. I know people with degrees in engineering and science who are not so breezily condescending. Probably because they must be careful to distinguish what they know, and what they don’t. Knowing what they don’t know is an important skill.
Then there are the other type – lawyers, j’ismists, and so on. They think they have an insight into everything. Nothing is beyond their horizon and thereby nothing beyond their remit. They meddle in complicated affairs, convinced that they are especially qualified because all the people they talk to tell them (and are told in turn). These are the people who think they can make renewables work by throwing OPM at it. They know nothing about the engineering or commercials. In fact they have now decided that science is not objectively binding, but dependent on culture a new feminist or post-racial science will give a different result.
Anyway, despite that self-pleasuring elitist fop’s claims my sense is that the biggest issues now are not about untangling complexity but about values. Albo’s mob believe we should embrace a two-class system as some sort of atonement while most Australians (60%) think we should strive for equality.
There is an intellectual dimension to values, they can be framed, can be argued for and argued against. Squalid and his crowd argue the phrasing but not the conviction. Sophistry against belief.
They will tell you that equality can only ‘really’ occur with a system that divides people into two classes and then comparing them – but you must divide first. But the people they are trying to show off to know equality exists where there is no division.
Squalid thinks he is clever and that everyone who disagrees does so because they are stupid. Does that sound profound to you?
Sheesh!
So the swarthy soy-boy…
Sancho Panzer
Oct 20, 2023 1:23 PM
I have been reading Trickler’s links.
I am rapidly becoming a born-again Tartarian true believer
You should be perplexed, like many, when it comes to the architecture and engineering.
X Building firm looking at the Cologne Cathedral. We can build that!
No, no you can not. You could try but will fail.
When I was a teenager three mates left the party, driver a bit pissed, the Chevy BelAir aquaplained, hit a powerpole killing the driver and the one by the passengers door, the guy in the middle only survived coz the engine came back pinning his legs. The other guys went through the windscreen. He ended up losing both his legs.
Israel’s appropriately named “Operation Swords of Iron” is soon to be set in motion against Hamas. It is very evocative – for Islamists – of the sword of Allah that has despatched many heads over the centuries.
I know, right?
It’s amazing.
And it’s not the only one.
The closer you look the more perplexed you are.
MotherLode @ 4.40. Good comment. So true.
Amazing that the only people who can figure out the Tartarians were meth-addled Russian nationalists and people on the net who believe anything.
Rodrigo Duterte had a similar policy, also wrong but for different reasons.
No he lied.
They owned a house in Mitcham but wanted to live in Richmond because cooler.
This is a plot from the new and woke Neighbours right? Asking as a NSWelshman, Glen Waverly is basically Erinsborough, right?
Bella. The 9th generation grandpup of Bouncer.
Tesla electric cars cost 25 per cent more to repair than petrol, diesel vehicles – report
The average cost to repair a Tesla electric vehicle is approximately 25 per cent more than the average petrol or diesel car, according to experts in the US.
..
I might have been tempted by the offer if we were living onsite.
Glad I didn’t though.
Hopefully, NEW! in Hamas MRE ration packs.
A mind-blowing experience and a truly lasting flavour.
My mistake .. womens AL fitba at 5 .. mens kick-off 7.45pm ……. duuuuh!
Sancho Panzer
Oct 20, 2023 4:46 PM
X Building firm looking at the Cologne Cathedral. We can build that!
No, no you can not. You could try but will fail.
I know, right?
It’s amazing.
And it’s not the only one.
The closer you look the more perplexed you are.
Henry Kissinger had Tartaria front and center on his book cover World Order … was he trolling?
Minor heavy metal dosage at 2700fps is all it takes.
I very much doubt it.
Henry is a very serious man.
That’s because it would have been Siberia, where many Soviet ICBMs were located.
For those interested, my report on some fantastic Greco-Roman ruins, including a Grecian theatre, and a much revered Black Madonna in a brand new hillltop cathedral, are bothering no-one except those who like such things, at the end of the old OT.
Was he wearing a rakish boater but no pants?
Bear!!? 😀
Albanese looks into the abyss after No vote
Suburban battlers are weakening Albanese’s political capital and potentially derailing his grand ambition to keep Labor in power for a generation.
Jacob Greber and Samantha Hutchinson
Great-grandmother Dawn Wylie, 83, was not surprised when more than half of the residents inside Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney’s electorate of Barton voted No.
Lack of clarity about the cause and a sense of deafness to how all Australians are “finding it hard to survive” meant the Voice to parliament was doomed, she tells AFR Weekend.
“A lot of people couldn’t understand what was going on,” says the long-term Earlwood and Marrickville resident. She spent most of her life working in childcare and retail jobs at Coles and Australia Post, well into her mid-70s, before her husband’s dementia forced her into a full-time carer’s role.
“They never explained what would happen if you said yes … I think a lot of our people need extra support. It’s not just one group. Why do they deserve it all? A lot of people around here do, too”.
Reliant on a pension, Wylie’s primary focus is on rising household costs. She doesn’t have a mobile phone or internet, but a landline that comes in at $27 a month. She says her electricity bill is going through the roof, but it’s her Canterbury Council rates, which are now at $900 a quarter, which are causing her the most pain.
“It was all ridiculous when people are finding it hard to survive,” she said about the Voice to parliament referendum held on October 14.
Pollsters, strategists and analysts from both sides of the political divide acknowledge that the concerns of voters like Wylie – who on paper look and sound like once-loyal Labor voters – were widespread and a key factor in the No vote succeeding.
And while racism undoubtedly played a role for some voters, many were simply overwhelmed by ongoing economic fears about high interest rates. That may have blunted their scope for compassion as well as any capacity to understand the arguments of the Yes campaign.
The economic gloom that pervades Australian households also reinforced a view that Albanese is focused on the wrong priorities, say analysts.
Above and beyond such explanations, the Voice result has reaffirmed longer-running trends, such as the shift away from ideology and battles between capital and labour.
The Voice demonstrated for those who have forgotten that politics hinges most often on cultural and economic pivots, as well as raw emotion.
Political recalibration
In its wake, last Saturday’s devastatingly unambiguous rejection of the Indigenous Voice to parliament unleashed a rethink on both sides of the political divide.
Labor and Coalition strategists are taking the outcome as a hammer blow that has shattered the conventional wisdom about Labor’s political ascendancy.
If the forces unleashed by the vote – and seen in New Zealand’s general election on the same day – translate at the next election, Albanese would be plunged into a minority government, forced to cut deals with the Greens and Teals.
And even before then, most political observers believe the referendum will force Labor to pivot away from the kind of progressive causes that light up X (formerly Twitter) and voters in the inner cities, and get back to the basics of suburban household-budget politics.
To the dismay of Labor, the last week has also seen an invigoration of Peter Dutton, who looked bereft and devoid of any real strategic road map for victory after the Liberal Party’s Aston byelection defeat in April.
While Albanese might have harboured hopes the Voice campaign would split the Coalition and render Dutton a political corpse, the process has instead wounded the prime minister.
He heads into the second half of his term enveloped by the stench of failure.
And most worryingly for government strategists: voters who backed Albanese in May 2022 have demonstrated a readiness to turn away just 17 months later.
“It’s bad for Albo, events are worsening for him,” says Tony Mitchelmore, a veteran political consultant who helped on Kevin Rudd’s successful 2007 campaign.
“He’s not a winner. He’s kind of a bit of a loser.
“It’s not that he’s unelectable because of this, but if you’re painted that way and there’s a growing sense that he’s ineffective in the current environment, that is a bad thing to be, because this cost of living thing is huge.”
Much of this week’s commentary has focused on charges of moral failure across Australia’s electorate, which rejected the historic righteousness of the cause.
Progressives have sought solace in the idea that voters were duped by a pernicious campaign of lies and misinformation led by Dutton and his indigenous spokeswoman Jancinta Nampijinpa Price.
For conservatives, the outcome has reinforced the view that the Coalition has definitively lost its former crown jewels – the socially progressive but wealthy women who switched to the teals and away from the Liberal party’s male-dominated offerings in 2022.
Saturday’s vote reaffirms these voters will not be embracing Duttonism any time soon.
At the same time, the Coalition detects fertile new ground in the Labor-held suburban fringes, where low- and middle-income voters rejected the Voice in droves, delivering a blunt message that Labor has lost touch with their overarching economic concerns.
Progressive agenda in strife
To be sure, nobody – including top Liberal Party strategists – believes the Coalition can win without regaining at least some of the Teal seats.
But Saturday’s vote indicates the electorate is angry enough about the economy that the Coalition could pick up a healthy swag of the roughly 21 to 22 seats it needs to win government.
Labor need only lose three seats to become a minority party.
John Utting, the long-time Labor pollster who worked on the last victorious NSW and Victorian state elections, believes Saturday’s vote is a wake-up call for Labor that Albanese will be heeding.
“What this really told them is don’t let this progressive agenda get in front of where the centre of gravity is in Australia,” Utting says. “They’ve got to really respond to those kinds of downscale and regional voters.”
Utting adds that the result has left no doubt that Dutton “is a much bigger threat than people think”.
“He called this issue out and demonstrated that he has a significantly potent political skill set.”
Dutton, who has spent a political career hanging on to his north Brisbane suburban seat by the skin of his teeth, is well-placed to battle Albanese in the kind of seats that John Howard used to win – places like Cherrybrook in north-west Sydney.
Utting characterises such electorates as dominated by “people in middle and lower management positions, at home in McMansions that are too big for their suburban blocks, driving Pajeros and RAV4s rather than more expensive luxury four-wheel drives, and sending their kids to cheaper Catholic schools rather than exclusive Anglican institutions”.
Heavily indebted and halfway to attaining the good life these “are the people who really decide elections in Australia,” he says.
“When Labor gets to 48 per cent or 49 per cent, these are the people who get them over the line,” he adds. “Lose them, you go down the tube”.
Saturday saw many such electorates ruthlessly dump the Voice, reinforcing the notion that they are unmoved by political tribalism and more likely to get their news from old-school commercial TV or FM radio stations.
“They’re not ideological at all. In a sense, they’re just focused on themselves. For them, politics is almost another consumer issue,” says Utting. “They see politics essentially as a delivery mechanism for them.”
With cost of living crowding out the list of things voters care about, the push for a Voice came across as badly timed and irrelevant.
Western Sydney Labor MP Mike Freelander’s city-fringe seat of Macarthur has a sizeable migrant and refugee population, and posted a No vote higher than 65 per cent. He sat apart from his Labor colleagues during the week as he called out the sense of disenfranchisement the Voice engendered in many cash-strapped or outer-city groups.
Those groups perceived the initiative as a “project for the elites” that did little for the masses. “It was an echo chamber, elites talking to elites,” he said.
Freelander’s position is exemplified by the fact that support for the Voice was at its strongest in the most financially secure seats across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra and Adelaide.
Outflanked
There was also the unmistakable weakness of the Yes campaign, which found itself outflanked by the No army.
One Yes campaigner, who could only speak on anonymity for fear of repercussions for his corporate role, compared a trip to polling booths on the city’s working class and immigrant-heavy fringes as a step back in time.
He saw scant resources going into materials for non-English speakers, as well as poor co-ordination on the slogans campaigners were meant to be using.
“What I’ve found completely striking was the lack of awareness … they didn’t appear to have done the grassroots network building that underpins effective campaigning. You need numbers and dozens and dozens and dozens of people who can give up time and energy.
“Of course, the north shore had high volunteer numbers. They’ve got a huge retired population and people on high incomes with time on their hands … in lower socio-economic indexing areas, where are the volunteers?
They’re working.
They don’t have time to spend an afternoon or three on pre-polling booths.”
Libs should be wary
Former Liberal strategist and director at Redbridge Tony Barry says both sides of politics now run the risk of learning the wrong lessons from Saturday’s vote.
While there is no doubt the Yes campaign ran a “singularly spectacularly bad campaign” that relied on celebrities and corporates, Barry says it would be wrong for Liberals to assume the outcome was “somehow an endorsement of the electorate rejecting so-called woke politics”.
“I wish that were the case, but it’s not. Yes 23 lost that campaign, is the truth of it. They talked the public out of it.
“So the Liberals wouldn’t want to read too much into it and Labor would want to be very mindful that people are very outcomes-focused right now.”
Rather than symbolic gestures, they want relief, particularly on issues like housing.
“The risk for Albo is not the so-called embarrassment of losing the referendum,” says Barry. “It’s the fact that he has not been talking about housing and cost-of-living for six months, and it’s difficult to pivot back to that seamlessly.”
Barry notes the Greens campaigned at the “bare minimum” on the Voice while keeping the foot on Labor’s neck over housing shortages and rental caps.
Another Yes campaigner who went to Parramatta was frank about the culture shock they endured jumping from the eastern suburbs.
“The vibe was not great,” they said. “It was tough. Really, really tough … the feedback at times was direct and open and very negative.”
Everyone who walked past would give you a ‘You’ve got to be joking’ or ‘Not on your life’ or just, ‘Get f—ed’.
Labor managed to crawl over the line in May 2022 and form a government with only a handful of seats and the lowest primary vote in living memory.
Albanese’s success was not because the electorate was in love with him. Rather, they were sick of the Coalition’s handling of climate policy and many women loathed Scott Morrison.
“A lot of the things that Labor won on are no longer front-of-mind,” says Barry.
Economic uncertainty dominates, and there are no easy fixes for Labor. Spending more money to help households risks making inflation and interest rates worse.
“They’ve come up with kind of cost-of-living gimmicks,” says Mitchelmore. “They’ll make a real difference to a few people but not enough to change the economy, not really.”
“They need the world economy to switch. They need the Ukraine war to end, they need interest rates to come down in America. It’s all beyond them, really.”
At the same time, Labor can no longer shun responsibility for the economy, or blame it on its predecessors or offshore events.
“That’s changing. People are going to get more and more impatient. And if they’re not seen to be making a difference, they’ll be characterised as ineffective, so maybe it’d be better under the Liberals,” notes Mitchelmore.
Ironically, the success of the No campaign might end up saving Labor. Had the Voice got up, progressives forces would now be demanding Albanese become even more ambitious, perhaps triggering a domino effect on issues like the Republic, Australia Day or the flag.
As one Coalition strategist noted this week, Saturday’s vote puts a spoke in the wheel of such objectives. It may even save Albanese’s political skin.
Look at that @1:45!
FMD!
Ancient Pasadena?
Welcome to the party!
We are in Salerno on the Italian coast today where some stalwart people are starting early, taking a longish trip to see the ruins of Pompei. One of the advantages of cruising is that they often provide comfortable bus tours to some key sites at quite a distance away. Having seen and marvelled at Pompei previously, we are making do with a trip to some local archaeology. We start at 8.30am, which is early enough for us.
I read it, Lizzie. Very early this morning.
Hope to be in Sicily in 2024. It was going to be this year, but I thought my parents would be close to leaving this mortal coil.
They have rallied an hung on to life like limpets, bless them!
Michael Gawenda at the Oz. Mentioning that journalists by and large are activists.
Oh really?
(Jew hating activists to boot)
Missing in action: factual, fair reporting of Gaza war
On Wednesday, the phones of many thousands of Australians buzzed with a terrible news alert. Almost immediately, social media was full of a terrible blood libel, perhaps the most ancient anti-Semitic trope.
In other words, we would be there right now, but shortened the away time just in case.
And there’re only so many greenies in the world.
Elon Musk Cautious About Expansion Of Tesla Fearing Fall In Demand (20 Oct)
We’ve just about hit market saturation. So far the iron hand of government hasn’t succeeded in getting the proles to like overpriced electric Roman Candles, so I can’t see demand expanding too much. I can see a lot of soon-to-be-dead car companies though, the ones which don’t speak Chinese.
H B Bear
Oct 20, 2023 4:32 PM
My biking days are over. Have swapped 2 wheels for 6. Guess that makes me a survivor though.
Huh? What, like one of those six wheel ATVs?
Old news but from the LA Times!?
https://www.latimes.com/la-oe-radosh17-2008sep17-story.html
I really doubt these facts are taught in our self-hating, subversive, treacherous school and university system.
Best typo evah.
Overhead three older ladies chatting about the Voice result.
Education, jobs, getting out of remote communities.
Was music to my ears.
Awwwww….my fanboi wants my parents dead.
What a champion.
I’d like to return to Sicily in January, circumstances permitting.
OldOzzie
Oct 20, 2023 4:34 PM
Bloody hell! .. just me and a 12 years old desktop, a laptop next to the TV for casting and a 2nd W11 8gb ram laptop (bought at clearance for $199) and all i ever do with it is switch it on once a fortnight and do the upgrades … no idea what the phone connects too .. I have enuf trouble answering the bloody thing when it rings so never used its internet .. mainly for grandees msgs & pix …
That said I can field strip my DT and rebuild’update/hardware .. no probs .. but that bloody phone …… duuuuuuuh!
My son is the bloke responsible for the entire Vodaphone Oz call centre operations what he doesn’t know about mobiles could be written on the back of a postage stamp with a meme underneath ….. but meeeeeeeeeeeeeee! ..
Of course!
He is a sitzpinkler.
The “proof” is disbelief that someone 100 years ago could do X, but Russia had a global civilisation thousands of years ago, and played golf too?
This isn’t stupid, it is schizo.
It’s nihilism, really.
You are absolutely right. This civilization is not capable of building anything like this.
Well I’ve returned from a “wild tour*” of the South West and still no moonscape in Gaza?
*wild meaning it was a boring work trip that lasted several days…. yawn…
Speaking of architecture, in a few weeks I’ll be in Alesund, Norway. It has, I’m told, a great number of Art Nouveau buildings. Can hardly wait to see them.
Already have my SLR low light cheat sheet at the ready. Going to be very interesting – the only time I’ve been in these latitudes is in summer when you have almost 24 hour daylight. Taking the tripod for long exposures as a precaution.
A few big “crackers” going off in Gaza (live): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpF3b5bsVXY but no invasion yet…
JC Yep, electric wheelchair. 2 big solid rubber wheels directly under you for drive and 4 shopping trolley like wheels on the corners so you don’t fall over. Can more or less spin on your own length but not too good with lots of backwards and forwards.
A real page-turner.