Open Thread – Wed 25 Oct 2023


Friday at the French artist Salon, Jules Alexandre Grun, 1929

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Mother Lode
Mother Lode
October 25, 2023 12:01 pm

Because I am here first it means I own the thread.

We can discuss a voice, a treaty, and (your) reconciliation (with me) later.

mizaris
mizaris
October 25, 2023 12:01 pm

2nd

Johnny Rotten
October 25, 2023 12:02 pm

Razey
Oct 25, 2023 11:57 AM
LOL. Coming from the very Arnold Schwarzenegger that said ‘f8k your freedom’ during the plandemic?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYn5t0tuuAk

I’m amazed that he didn’t say – “Safe and Effective”.

Roger
Roger
October 25, 2023 12:02 pm

Oi, it’s only 11:02AM.

Johnny Rotten
October 25, 2023 12:04 pm

Mother Lode
Oct 25, 2023 12:01 PM
Because I am here first it means I own the thread.

We can discuss a voice, a treaty, and (your) reconciliation (with me) later.

No I can’t as that probably isn’t your real name. My legal people have told me that.

John Brumble
John Brumble
October 25, 2023 12:05 pm

ML- Only if you negotiate the treaty with people who benefit most by giving you more.

Chris
Chris
October 25, 2023 12:08 pm

As a proud Wojila man of the Noongar Nation lands, I own this thread, my sovereignty was never ceded.
Pay the rent, white …persons.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
October 25, 2023 12:08 pm

Things are so bad in defence right now that I’m agreeing with Jacqui Lambie.
I must be hallucinating.

Jacqui Lambie urges Albanese government to ‘wake up’ as Australia ‘not ready for another war’ with ‘dire’ national security (Sky News, 25 Oct)

Senator Jacqui Lambie has warned Australia is in “dire straits” when it comes to national security, after the federal government announced it will send additional Australian troops to the Middle East.

I’m sure a tweak to ADF’s LGBTIQ policy and a few more imaginary subs will fix it.

Johnny Rotten
October 25, 2023 12:09 pm

Roger
Oct 25, 2023 12:02 PM
Oi, it’s only 11:02AM.

Tennis Elbow thought that it was still 1982 and that he was working in some cellar trying to write “Elbow Economics” for his “Legacy” (for sometime in the future). Or, was that “Back to the Future”? Oh well, I ‘m sure that Blackout Bowen can give him a candle or two.

Chris
Chris
October 25, 2023 12:16 pm

Has the meat puppet POTATUS ordered Qatar on pain of war, to hand over the mass murderers to be tried for their crimes?

Johnny Rotten
October 25, 2023 12:16 pm

Mother Lode
Oct 25, 2023 12:01 PM
Because I am here first it means I own the thread.

Alright Fred – And Right said Fred –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5XX9LX2es4

Johnny Rotten
October 25, 2023 12:19 pm

Chris
Oct 25, 2023 12:08 PM
As a proud Wojila man of the Noongar Nation lands, I own this thread, my sovereignty was never ceded.
Pay the rent, white …persons.

Well, I’m not white. I have a pinkyish whiteish skin. And you are not black. Coal is though.

Carpe Jugulum
Carpe Jugulum
October 25, 2023 12:21 pm

Good Morning All

`Sold the house looking at moving to either Osaka or closer to the inland sea.

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
October 25, 2023 12:23 pm

Remember the good old days when evidence was needed to halt major projects?

Pepperidge farm remembers.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/25/goldmine-assessed-as-low-heritage-risk-is-on-a-sacred-songline-wiradyuri-elders-say

That survey was completed in 2019, in consultation with the Orange Local Aboriginal Land Council, who represented the Registered Aboriginal Parties (RAPs) under NSW heritage laws. The survey did not address the question of intangible heritage, notably the Galari songline

Its lucky no grifters could ever imagine making shit up to prevent or profit from “intangibles”/…

If the Aboriginal people ever became extinct, the final line which is supposed to be profound and moving would make a suitable epitath..

“We’ve got nothing to gain from this, we just want it to be left the way it is – sitting in country for ever.”

Razey
Razey
October 25, 2023 12:24 pm

Carpe Jugulum
Oct 25, 2023 12:21 PM
Good Morning All

`Sold the house looking at moving to either Osaka or closer to the inland sea.

Im sure Sancho will remind me.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
October 25, 2023 12:28 pm

Haha, climate activists are literally insane.

Greta Thunberg is far from the only neurodivergent climate activist (Phys.org, 24 Oct)

In my doctoral research, I interviewed 23 youth activists, conservation workers and environmentalists to examine the link between nature experiences and mental health in an era of climate breakdown. My findings shed light on the motivations and intentions of neurodivergent people who work in the environmental and conservation sector, as well as those who are drawn to climate activism.

Many of my participants had been diagnosed with mental health, psychiatric and neurological conditions including autism, ADHD and bipolar disorder. They reported finding community and a sense of purpose in the environmental activism movement and through a connection with nature.

Not exactly sure your findings, lady, are going to aid your obsession with weather.
Here’s who she is:

Louise Taylor
Early Career Researcher and Ecotherapist, Queen’s University Belfast

Ecotherapist?

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
October 25, 2023 12:33 pm

What has prompted the move Carpe?

Dot
Dot
October 25, 2023 12:38 pm

Wiradjuri

WTF Is Wiradyuri?

“We have more virtue because we change the spelling every few years to make Aborigines sound less and less literate”

Kamilaroi

Gammilarayy

WTF!?

Dot
Dot
October 25, 2023 12:39 pm

Inland Sea has always intrigued me.

Be warned. Bastard Great Whites go there.

Johnny Rotten
October 25, 2023 12:39 pm

Bruce of Newcastle
Oct 25, 2023 12:28 PM
Haha, climate activists are literally insane.

They are insane. As to being literally. There is nothing literal at all. Can they read anyfink’? Maybe they are lateral and laying down somewhere.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
October 25, 2023 12:39 pm

Its lucky no grifters could ever imagine making shit up to prevent or profit from “intangibles”

If a land council turns up and says my garden shed is inhabited by the spirit of Bula I will ring up my local Catholic church and ask them to send out an exorcist.

Johnny Rotten
October 25, 2023 12:44 pm

Inland Sea has always intrigued me.

Be warned. Bastard Great Whites go there.

Go to Balmoral Beach (often called Immoral Beach) in Sydney in the Summer. Plenty of “White Pointers” there. Men, please wear your sunglasses as it is rude to stare at a Lady’s naked tits.

Damon
Damon
October 25, 2023 12:44 pm

I stronngly suggest that everyone with an ancestor include the word ‘proud’ when speaking of themselves. A proud Sicilian.

Cassie of Sydney
October 25, 2023 12:49 pm

Australia 2023…

A Sydney council has unanimously agreed to show their support for the residents of Gaza and fly the Palestinian flag.

Canterbury-Bankstown council has voted to raise the flag over Paul Keating Park in Bankstown and the Campsie administration building until a ceasefire is declared in Palestine.

Jewish men, women and children raped, butchered, slaughtered, Jews held hostage in tunnels in Gaza, elderly Jewish men and women beaten with bats, and a Sydney council flies the flag of Nazis.

I am lost for words.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
October 25, 2023 12:49 pm

Wodney.
The posting of Benny Hill jokes and glib desk calendar philosophy quotes?
Was that all your own idea?
Or did Marty Armstrong (convicted fraudster) suggest it as a hook to attract the suckers?
Oh, and what is your cut?

Damon
Damon
October 25, 2023 12:51 pm

Yeah well, he was a crook, but in those times, who wasn’t. Sounds a bit like today.

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
October 25, 2023 12:58 pm

after the federal government announced it will send additional Australian troops to the Middle East.

Would it save some time and money if the ABC alleges war crimes and we keep the accused here to face court before they go?

rosie
rosie
October 25, 2023 1:00 pm

Oh then I’m a proud Anglo Celtic Channel Island Huguenot possibly a dash of Iberian women woman then.

flyingduk
flyingduk
October 25, 2023 1:02 pm

stronngly suggest that everyone with an ancestor include the word ‘proud’ when speaking of themselves. A proud Sicilian.

Im a proud white colonist mice elf.

rosie
rosie
October 25, 2023 1:02 pm

According to Hamas there are no Hamas in Gaza.
How do we know?
Only civilians are being bombed.
And only in civilian buildings.
Rocket launch sites, munitions storage etc are kept in a different dimension.

Damon
Damon
October 25, 2023 1:03 pm

Pre-emptive justice. Great idea, it should be employed more widely. Oh. It was, when I went to school. About 60 years ago.

Pogria
Pogria
October 25, 2023 1:04 pm

from the previous thread,

rock art that is so worn down it can only be viewed through special X-ray glasses.

These X-Ray Glasses?

Damon
Damon
October 25, 2023 1:09 pm

Pre-emptive justice. Like, you get a good belting now, and you won’t do what I know you were thinking about.

Louis Litt
Louis Litt
October 25, 2023 1:13 pm

Dover

Jules Grun is some painter – the previous painting you had of his was stunning – teh Dinner – I think .
THis is another beautiful painting – thank you for the uplift in the day.

Nelson_Kidd-Players
October 25, 2023 1:14 pm

“rock art that is so worn down it can only be viewed through special X-ray glasses.”

What about the ones that used to get advertised in comic books?

Chris
Chris
October 25, 2023 1:18 pm

So do Australians (including Jews) need the right to self-defense?

Fair Shake
Fair Shake
October 25, 2023 1:20 pm

“rock art that is so worn down it can only be viewed through special X-ray glasses.”

As in ancient drawings of rocks on rocks. So life-like you feel that if hit over the head with this rock art it would hurt and potentially draw blood. This rock art has been exhibited or ‘hurled’ at authorities in a mostly peaceful manner.

billie
billie
October 25, 2023 1:29 pm

Announcing your (proud) titles is similar to welcome to country theatrics and other fanciful fantasy, like songlines and secret women’s business.

Done to create an us and them distinction, as if we are not all equals in Australia and only they belong. As if .. some are better than others, how discriminatory some might say.

Why do so many educated Australians believe the utter nonsense of links to the land and spirituality BS. Is it just patronising the poor ignorant folk and feeling sorry for their state that drives so many educated people into gullibility?

Though the same people who oooh and aaaah at magical smoke ceremonies and are so deeply respectful of some kind of mystical land husbandry then insist we all believe the science of climate change or covid 19 vaccines.

The level of entitlement is Everestish (?) The hot air has been blown up their skirts and trousers for so long, they believe they can fly.

I guess it’s why they were all so shocked at the Voice Referendum being hosed.

“a proud Baldwynn Narrahbean Cydenknee Nations Australian person”

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
October 25, 2023 1:30 pm

You currently are (or were) in Kobe, weren’t you, Carpe?

Tom
Tom
October 25, 2023 1:35 pm

Oi, it’s only 11:02AM.

Redneck heathen. Doncha know we’re no longer on God’s time, but whatever-we-say-it-is human time.

Besides: we had to do something about the fading curtains in summer.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
October 25, 2023 1:37 pm

Why don’t they touch up the rock art with some acrylic paint. Of course the art never would have weathered over time. Should patent it if it does, lasts millennia, how many is your guess as good as mine.

Pogria
Pogria
October 25, 2023 1:38 pm

Jacinta Allen whining that Mark Knight’s cartoon is sexualising her.

Sexualising Allen is the furthest thing in that cartoon. What a precious petal. 😀

Chris
Chris
October 25, 2023 1:41 pm

In Australia, despite a proven record of ‘home-grown’ terrorist attacks, a firearm license CANNOT be granted for either self-defense or for a security guard protecting lives.
The John Winston Howard- led m witch hunt against the people who did not commit mass murder in 1996 explicitly denies that human right.

calli
calli
October 25, 2023 1:42 pm

Next time he should draw her with a beard.

Chris
Chris
October 25, 2023 1:47 pm

Though the same people who oooh and aaaah at magical smoke ceremonies and are so deeply respectful of some kind of mystical land husbandry then insist we all believe the science of climate change or covid 19 vaccines.

The level of entitlement is Everestish (?) The hot air has been blown up their skirts and trousers for so long, they believe they can fly.

I guess it’s why they were all so shocked at the Voice Referendum being hosed.

WHUT Someone downvoted this?

calli
calli
October 25, 2023 1:48 pm

Whoops! Invitation time.

I do apologise for my rudeness.

alwaysright
alwaysright
October 25, 2023 1:51 pm

Sexualising Allen

Can’t be done.

Vicki
Vicki
October 25, 2023 1:51 pm

Go to Balmoral Beach (often called Immoral Beach) in Sydney in the Summer. Plenty of “White Pointers” there. Men, please wear your sunglasses as it is rude to stare at a Lady’s naked tits.

Not at 7-9am when the locals take coffee, exercise & social contact.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
October 25, 2023 1:51 pm

Jacinta Allen whining that Mark Knight’s cartoon is sexualising her.

How do you sexualise a prune?

Tom
Tom
October 25, 2023 1:54 pm

Hahaha, Calli. I love the white cat in the Trumpian memes.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
October 25, 2023 1:54 pm

Went to the witchdoctor this morning. Trying a new painkiller as endone doesn’t do the job and she suggested retrying a different one. If I get it through the PBS it was $27 for 20 tabs I seem to remember and she can only prescribe 20 without getting an authority. If I get it outside of the PBS she can prescribe 2x 20 tabs at a cost of $6.30 per 20 at chemist warehouse.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
October 25, 2023 1:56 pm

Damon
Oct 25, 2023 1:03 PM

Pre-emptive justice. Great idea, it should be employed more widely. Oh. It was, when I went to school. About 60 years ago.

Yep in 6th Class Mid 50s – Brother gave me 6 of the best at the beginning of the week because he knew I would get into trouble – He was right of course, but I still grumbled about being unfair

P
P
October 25, 2023 1:57 pm

Being Jewish in Britain at a time of crisis

JC Editor Jake Wallis Simons is joined by star panellists Tanya Gold, Jonathan Freedland, Melanie Phillips and Howard Jacobson about what it’s like being Jewish during this time of crisis in Israel.

I am pleased to say I watched this whole video. I found it very worthwhile.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
October 25, 2023 1:59 pm

She’s lucky Larry Pickering isn’t still around.
He liked drawing Labor ladies.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
October 25, 2023 2:00 pm

How can you sexualise Jacinta Allen, genderise maybe, as a variation of birth control. No morning glory there. Then again there’s always some sicko that gets off on that sort of thing.

Chris
Chris
October 25, 2023 2:05 pm

Copycat massacres are real.
The way to prevent them is firstly, to not encourage them with media attention, or use words that allow people to read success, power and significance for the perpetrator.
Downplay and disrespect their names.
Move the stories down in prominence.
Secondly, protection for known targets.
When the YWAM church in the US was targeted, another nearby had a volunteer guard team rostered the following day. A lady on that team neutralised the killer.

rosie
rosie
October 25, 2023 2:07 pm

Melbourne now .1 of a mm below the October average and we’ll be going over today.
I’m just pointing it out because apparently some shallow breathing weather bimbette was reporting September’s rainfall was the lowest since blah blah.
Also it’s cold.

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
October 25, 2023 2:08 pm
Rabz
October 25, 2023 2:10 pm

we had to do something about the fading curtains in summer

Was daylight saving meant to cause curtains to fade, or prevent it?

Can’t remember which. Also, cows* getting up an hour earlier.

*No, not Pluckachook, Allen, et al …

Colonel Crispin Berka
Colonel Crispin Berka
October 25, 2023 2:10 pm

Draft laws mandate public ownership of energy assets does not drop below 54 per cent

I don’t want to ensure that the government owns the disaster.
I want them to avoid a disaster.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
October 25, 2023 2:13 pm

Why women should never get married – ever – AFR

A new book by Australian feminist Clementine Ford aims to stop females entering into an institution that does them harm.

Theo Chapman
Weekend Fin editor

have no interest in marriage’s salvation … I seek to abolish completely what is a corrupt and oppressive institution,” writes Australian feminist Clementine Ford in the introduction to her new book about why women shouldn’t marry.

There is little in Ford’s attack on marriage that hasn’t been said before.

But her deft use of irony and sarcasm ensures her arguments are presented in the highly entertaining way that viewers of John Oliver or Samantha Bee will find familiar.

Ford, who is 42, has her Millennial peers and their Gen Z sisters in her sights with this work. Given that these are the generations who have turned what was a half-day event for their mothers into a multi-day extravaganza, I Don’t: The Case Against Marriage should be required reading.

The key message, however, is not about the profligate cost of weddings, it’s that marriage is the structure that underpins the patriarchial family unit. This, Ford writes, “needs to be destroyed because it is overwhelmingly hurting women”.

By examining the history of key wedding traditions, Ford argues that even in its modern form, marriage inherently embodies earlier ideas of women as property to be passed from father to bridegroom. The very traditions that brides are encouraged to continue cement the idea that women are destined for domestic duties and economic disenfranchisement.

The metamorphosis of weddings into insanely expensive and highly produced multimedia performances is another good reason for women to eschew the institution. To be fair, men are also under pressure to meet the needs of social media and must now plan elaborate proposals that are captured by professional videographers.

What is somewhat depressing for a reader like me, who is old enough to be Ford’s mother, is that the examples she gives of male expectations of married life suggest little has changed since I was a teenager, despite countless consciousness-raising efforts.

What is equally saddening is that there are so many awful men out there – in particular, the ones who have weaponised incompetence and then feel compelled to boast about it on social media. This type of man, Ford writes, “is an overgrown child who’s convinced his wife he’s a hapless twit, so she stops asking him to do things he doesn’t want to (but will undertake as a gesture of goodwill when he wants to have sex that night)”.

It’s hard to argue that domestic chores and child minding are anything other than boring. But the expectation that women should carry the entire load is what Ford is railing against.

In an elegant encapsulation of the heart of the problem, Ford quotes the work of Adrienne Rich, which identifies the fact that married women with children are less likely to be financially independent and it is this that keeps them reliant on men. Women happily submit to this, thanks to the cultural pressures that convince them that this state of affairs is what will make them “whole”.

It’s an idea absent from the male narrative of marriage, which primes men to expect women to take an economic back seat, especially if there are children.

This, Ford writes, is a myth designed “to convince us that nothing we do, create, achieve, say, build or strive for as humans in the world will ever be as meaningful or exciting to us as becoming the kind of woman a man decides to come home to, sometimes”.

Although the focus of Ford’s book is marriage, much of what she says about bad relationships is just as true for co-habitees.

Ford is a mother who no longer lives with her son’s father.

She writes about the breakdown of her relationship and describes how the two of them now co-parent. A point she underscores throughout the book is that being a single woman is something to be embraced rather than seen as a failure to capture a partner.

However, when it comes to children, the benefits of having more than one parent living in the same house are glossed over.

To be fair, this topic is a book in itself (indeed, there is a new work on this very subject –The Two Parent Privilege – by Professor Melissa Kearney of the University of Maryland).

Ford doesn’t discuss how to overcome the economic and emotional issues of raising children alone.

But she does point out that once there are children in the equation, women can be just as disadvantaged, regardless of marital status.

As a consciousness-raising exercise, this book is an excellent tool. But simply getting mad as hell and not marrying won’t fix the underlying economic issues that disadvantage any woman trying to raise children without a live-in partner.

There are many pithy points in I Don’t, but one of my favourites is Ford’s comeback to a smug male relative who asked her what a woman is. “A woman is an anomaly in the animal kingdom in that she’s conditioned to love her most dangerous predator,” she told him.

In a perfect world, men and women would be equal partners sharing the economic and domestic load. Making this the social norm is a generations-long project that starts with books such as Ford’s and the efforts of parents to change the expectations of their daughters and, more especially, their sons.

calli
calli
October 25, 2023 2:17 pm

A woman is an anomaly in the animal kingdom in that she’s conditioned to love her most dangerous predator,”

Nah.

That’s the praying mantis.

Frank
Frank
October 25, 2023 2:18 pm

Starving Gazans ‘are going to start killing each other over food’, desperate residents warn as Israel pounds Hamas and Hezbollah in wave of new airstrikes

Sounds like some cool drone footage of “Gaza: Cannibalistic Thunderdome” is about to drop.

rosie
rosie
October 25, 2023 2:18 pm

That’s right kids, looking after you is dead boring.
Clemmy has much better things to do with her time.

Barking Toad
Barking Toad
October 25, 2023 2:19 pm

She’s lucky Larry Pickering isn’t still around.
He liked drawing Labor ladies.

Pickering including her in his calendar would be beaut. And meaty.

calli
calli
October 25, 2023 2:20 pm

Here Clemmie! The Big G no less.

Stop peddling misinformation.

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
October 25, 2023 2:22 pm

Take him to Compton. He’d have about dozen bodyguards in a instant. I love this dog.

—-

Cash:

Cash 2.0 Great Dane at the P-22 Day Festival 2023 in Griffith Park (1 of 6)

calli
calli
October 25, 2023 2:22 pm

That took me exactly three minutes (plus one minute typing) to refute that idiotic lie. And I wasn’t even trying.

Please femininist harder, Clemmie. We know you can.

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
October 25, 2023 2:23 pm

He’d have about a dozen bodyguards in a instant.

calli
calli
October 25, 2023 2:23 pm

Starving Gazans ‘are going to start killing each other over food’, desperate residents warn as Israel pounds Hamas and Hezbollah in wave of new airstrikes

Simples.

Surrender. Return the hostages.

Eat.

duncanm
duncanm
October 25, 2023 2:25 pm

OldOzzie
Oct 25, 2023 2:13 PM
Why women should never get married – ever – AFR

Bone Tomahawk was on the other night – this is one of the funny bits.

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

calli
calli
October 25, 2023 2:27 pm

Awwwww…someone doesn’t want the hostages returned. And they want people to kill each other over food.

What a champion.

bons
bons
October 25, 2023 2:28 pm

Prune faced trougher Blanchette supports Hamas.

As predictable as her monochromic acting.

Oblivious to constantly being proven wrong:
Rudd’s 20 20.
Albanese’s Voice.
Wong’s Hamas.

Carpe Jugulum
Carpe Jugulum
October 25, 2023 2:28 pm

Ford, who is 42

42?? is that in dog years? Because Clemmy isn’t aging well.

C.L.
C.L.
October 25, 2023 2:30 pm
calli
calli
October 25, 2023 2:31 pm

All these political and celebrity chicks with the hots for Hamas.

There must be something about black clad, balaclava-ed bipeds with green bandanas and blood dripping knives.

Can’t really see it myself, but there’s no accounting for taste.

Cassie of Sydney
October 25, 2023 2:33 pm

“Prune faced trougher Blanchette supports Hamas.”

Oh right, so I presume she supports the Hamas charter, which calls for the annihilation of ALL Jews on the planet?

I suppose it’s good to know where these cockroaches stand. In a decent world, she’d never get another job again, but we no longer live in a decent word.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
October 25, 2023 2:36 pm

Razey

Oct 25, 2023 12:24 PM

Carpe Jugulum
Oct 25, 2023 12:21 PM
Good Morning All

`Sold the house looking at moving to either Osaka or closer to the inland sea.

Im sure Sancho will remind me.

You can count on it, Razey-san.
Are you still here?

Cassie of Sydney
October 25, 2023 2:36 pm

“As predictable as her monochromic acting.”

And yes, I’ve never liked her acting.

Lee
Lee
October 25, 2023 2:39 pm

Prune faced trougher Blanchette supports Hamas.

One very famous older actor (I forgot who he is) once said that actors should refrain from political commentary or risk making fools of themselves.

That aside, Cate Blanchett is an insufferable, vastly overrated actress.

Cassie of Sydney
October 25, 2023 2:40 pm

Bari Weiss, mugged by reality…

Journalist Bari Weiss, a Jewish liberal who quit the New York Times over its anti-Semitism, writes on Twitter:

”As a Democrat who has been left homeless, who is now definitely in the center but probably leaning increasingly right, I am left yet again with an appreciation, despite the messenger, of the message of the Trump administration because what those guys did was pretty incredible in hindsight.”

“So much of the work that happened in that [Trump] administration turns out to have been right. And that’s what is so frustrating for me. The work on the border wall? We didn’t like the messenger, so we killed the message. Turned out it was right. Issuing long-term debt to refinance when rates were at zero? We didn’t like the messenger, so we killed the message. A structural peace in the Middle East? We didn’t like the messenger, so we killed the message.”

“When are we gonna stop shooting ourselves in the foot? And when are we going to actually see and take the time to look past who is saying things and actually listen to them word for word?”

“If it’s clear that the last two weeks have been a wake-up call, the next question is: Why?”

“Part of the answer is the sheer depravity of Hamas’s terrorism. That depravity has made the justification and celebration of their acts by those who police pronouns that much starker. The contradictions and moral bankruptcy of a worldview that spends years worrying about microaggressions and tone policing, but can’t decide what side it is on after the beheading of babies, aren’t exactly difficult to spot.”

“To put it another way: when Black Lives Matter organizations are lionizing Islamist terrorists by posting a paraglider logo, you’d be a fool not to reassess things.”

“The events of the last week have shattered the illusion that wokeness is about protecting victims and standing up for persecuted minorities. This ideology is and has always been about the one thing many of us have told you it is about for years: power.

“And after the last two weeks, there can be no doubt about how these people will use any power they seize: they will seek to destroy, in any way they can, those who disagree.”

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
October 25, 2023 2:40 pm

The Specter Of Barack Obama’s Deeply Held Anti-Israel Ideology Hovers Over Israeli Attacks

BY: MARK HEMINGWAY

Obama embraced antisemites, steeped himself in anti-American ideas, and cozied up to Iran — and now he leaves a violent legacy.

And it’s probably time to admit that, while attempting to bury their aims under layers of academic sophistication, Obama and his acolytes used his presidency to destabilize the Middle East in the service of a left-wing ideology that excuses antisemitism and justifies terrorist violence.

In August, Tablet magazine published a much-discussed, comprehensive interview between David Samuels and Obama biographer David Garrow.

The biggest headlines that emerged from that interview had to do with Garrow uncovering letters where Obama wrote in detail about his gay sex fantasies.

But buried beneath that revelation was a substantial discussion of Obama’s anti-Israel politics.

Or as Tablet’s David Samuels put it, “Obama’s hostility to American exceptionalism also seemed linked to his hostility to Israel, or more specifically to America’s identification with Israel.”

As Samuels went on to note, the inexplicable fixation Obama had with making Iran — the world’s leading state sponsor of terror attacks, and the same country behind Hamas’ atrocities in Israel over the weekend — a regional hegemon in spite of Israeli (and Saudi) objections is ample proof of that.

calli
calli
October 25, 2023 2:41 pm

we no longer live in a decent word.

See C.L.’s link above.

I imagined my two little grandies and I wanted to reach in to that video and throttle the smugging, grinning b*tch.

But then I realised that the burden of her life is only her first punishment.

Wally Dalí
Wally Dalí
October 25, 2023 2:41 pm

Why get so antsy pantsy about a single disposable cartoon? Because, Allen knows that there is only one thing worse than being talked about… h/t Wilde

Barking Toad
Barking Toad
October 25, 2023 2:41 pm

Watched a bit of the Press Club speech by the Israeli Ambassador.

Very firm and clear.

Then questions came: Guardian, ABC, SMH, Press Club Directors (ABC) and some minor papers. All asking about the actions by Israel. Talk about f#cking bias. Though princey Tom from Fox (moderator) did ask about the video shown to journalists of the Hanas atrocities recovered from their body cams.

But the whole questioning slanted towards Israel as at fault and how they have to protect the Palestineans.

Ambassador was quite strong – “we are the victims not the agressor in this”

He batted them all away strongly.

Cassie of Sydney
October 25, 2023 2:41 pm

Cate Blanchette wants me dead.

Rabz
October 25, 2023 2:41 pm

In a perfect world, men and women would be equal partners sharing the economic and domestic load

We will never exist in a perfect world or even the sort of bizarre parallel universe that obnoxious sanctimonious wrong about everything bores like clammie would want to see inflicted on us.

Here’s a hint you, you staggeringly stupid, uglee (inside and out) harridan.

Go and tell it to the gazans* or any other bunch of mindless moozley morons. They’ll no doubt be very receptive to your idiotic ideas, endlessly struggling as they are with The Thrusting Phallus of the Patriarchy™.

*Although perhaps not – they might mistake you for a cow and eat you (“this beautiful creature must die”, etc).

Lee
Lee
October 25, 2023 2:44 pm

Palestinian ‘civilian’ mum:

https://twitter.com/ImMeme0/status/1716539220527845854

Evil personified.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
October 25, 2023 2:45 pm

Crate Blandshit the gratest wooden actress of our time. All spelling correct. Doesn’t act, plays herself.

calli
calli
October 25, 2023 2:48 pm

Cassie, it’s the abstraction she wants “dead”. Her grasp of the real world is tenuous, a thread that keeps her breathing, and moving and mouthing other people’s words and not much else.

Like so many with little imagination, she cannot conjure the smell, the sight, the sound of a genuine heinous act. She can only produce what other mummers have done before – a slight start, a hesitation, a mouth movement, a raised hand. It’s how they survive.

A genuine confrontation would have her scurrying off to the therapist.

duncanm
duncanm
October 25, 2023 2:50 pm

Barking Toad
Oct 25, 2023 2:41 PM
Watched a bit of the Press Club speech by the Israeli Ambassador.

ABC sample question. Biased, as you’d expect.
https://youtu.be/LgJiZ0F8ong?t=2007

calli
calli
October 25, 2023 2:52 pm

Ahahaha! So keen to offer me my downtick obeisance you pressed the button twice!

😀

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
October 25, 2023 2:53 pm

Mega-Jolt: The Costs and Logistics of Plugging In EVs Are About to Become Supercharged

By John Murawski, RealClearInvestigations
October 24, 2023

U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm gave Americans an unintended glimpse of the future during her road trip this summer touting the wonders of electric vehicles.

Far from spotlighting the promise of EVs, her public relations misadventure in Georgia involved one of her staff in a gasoline-powered vehicle blocking off a coveted charger in advance of her arrival, leading to frayed tempers and a local EV owner calling the cops.

It was an illustration of the challenges drivers could face as governments push the public to embrace plug-in vehicles.

Hyped as technological marvels, EVs are boobytrapped with a host of inconveniences and tradeoffs. By now many people have heard about range anxiety, exploding lithium-ion batteries, and the environmental destruction caused by global mining for battery minerals.

But another wave of challenges is in the offing as the federal government and state officials pump in billions of dollars to build out a massive national infrastructure of charging stations to power the EVs.

The sheer scale of a charging infrastructure means recruiting retailers and businesses to install and maintain chargers that are expected to lose money in the near future, with some likely to be written off as economic losses.

In the heyday of California car cruising culture, it used to be “two girls for every boy.” Now the refrain is 20 EV chargers for every gas pump.

In California, which is slated to ban sales of new gasoline-powered cars in just 12 years, government estimates indicate the state may need to install at least 20 electric chargers for every gas pump now in service to create a reliable, seamless network.

Massive public subsidies will be a crucial part of this effort because private industry is not willing to take the financial risks of betting on an uncertain future.

Government subsidies mean complying with recordkeeping and reporting mandates and making sure chargers are online 97% of the time, while bearing the financial risk of vandalism, mechanical malfunctions, daily fluctuations in electricity pricing, and cashflow unpredictability.

A “net zero” society inherently favors the haves over the have-nots.

Renters and low-income families aren’t as likely to own private chargers, and electricity purchased from public chargers can cost five to 10 times as much as charging privately in a garage at home.

To avoid penalizing the little guy, federal EV mandates require that 40% of benefits pay for public chargers in disadvantaged areas, while California requires that at least half go to such “equity” communities, where relatively few people currently drive EVs.

The analytics firm J.D. Power said this year that 20% of all EV drivers reported visiting a charger that did not or could not charge because it wasn’t working or there were long lines.

The dissatisfaction rates ranged from 12% in the Cleveland-Akron-Canton area to 35% in South Florida. The firm said the trend is moving in the wrong direction: As more people buy EVs, “overall satisfaction continues to decline.”

A University of California, Berkeley, study last year found similar results: only 72.5% of chargers in the Bay Area were functional.

A newspaper columnist in California described the charging experience as miserable. “The misery was meted out in several ways,” he documented. “Charging stations were hard to find. Maps that locate stations were not reliable. Paying for a charge with a credit card often proved troublesome, sometimes impossible. Worst of all, way too many chargers were broken or otherwise out of order.”

He warned of a public backlash against the state’s mandate banning the sale of non-electric cars in 2035 if the situation doesn’t improve.

This year, an exasperated Los Angeles Times columnist declared she’s ready to trade in her EV because charging is such a hassle.

She wrote that chargers are sometimes blocked by cars that aren’t charging, exposed to blistering sunlight, charging at lower levels than advertised, or “it may shut off mid-charge with no warning or reason.”

Barking Toad
Barking Toad
October 25, 2023 2:54 pm

That aside, Cate Blanchett is an insufferable, vastly overrated actress.

Krudd had to visit her in hospital to get cred among her class. Say no more.

Chris
Chris
October 25, 2023 2:55 pm

Ahahaha! So keen to offer me my downtick obeisance you pressed the button twice!

It was meeeee! Zero downtick followed by uptick.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
October 25, 2023 2:57 pm

Lee
Oct 25, 2023 2:44 PM

Palestinian ‘civilian’ mum:

https://twitter.com/ImMeme0/status/1716539220527845854

Evil personified.

Lee,

Definitely supported by ABC, Labor PM Albosleezy, Labour Senator Penny Wong, Labor Mps, Greens. Some TEALS & Vlover Moore

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
October 25, 2023 3:00 pm

that being a single woman is something to be embraced rather than seen as a failure to capture a partner.

Clemmies brain as she typed that

Razey
Razey
October 25, 2023 3:02 pm

Why do the left want Jews back in the gas chambers?

feelthebern
feelthebern
October 25, 2023 3:04 pm

Sold the house looking at moving to either Osaka or closer to the inland sea.

Tartaria has some spectacular real estate.

feelthebern
feelthebern
October 25, 2023 3:09 pm

To take my mind of the pure evil in Gaza, I was channel surfing last night & found Burn Notice on the Disney channel.
Crappy TV but it got me thinking.
How did Bruce Campbell not have more Hollywood success?
The Evil Dead movies should have been a spring board to greatness.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
October 25, 2023 3:12 pm

I liked Cate Blanchett in Indiana Jones and the Nuclear Fridge.
She was an especially creepy Soviet KGB agent.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
October 25, 2023 3:14 pm

ABC’s AM host Sabra Lane ignores ‘hell’ of Israeli hostage saga

By jenna clarke
Associate Editor
2:50PM October 25, 2023
No Comments

The ABC’s AM host Sabra Lane and the national broadcaster’s Middle East correspondent Allyson Horn have omitted key details of the terror an 85-year-old grandmother Yocheved Lifshitz endured while she was held hostage by Hamas in a report about her recent release.

Jewish groups in Australia have voiced their outrage over the omissions, as the segment on the ABC’s flagship radio current affairs program instead focused on Mrs Lifshitz saying she was “treated well” once she was inside Gaza.

But the ABC failed to mention in their story on Wednesday the beatings Mrs Lifshitz endured, the details of her violent kidnapping, and only mentioned her husband’s continued captivity briefly at the very end of the segment.
Read Next

The news of the release of the first hostages was covered in a five minute segment on the program on Wednesday after a frail looking Mrs Lifshitz and her neighbour, who was also kidnapped, Nurit Cooper, 79, fronted a press conference to talk about their ordeal outside a hospital in Tel Aviv, surrounded by family.

Mrs Lifshitz, whose husband is still being held captive, sat in a wheelchair and told of how she was attacked on the first day of her 17-day ordeal.

She was snatched from her home, detained, thrown across a motorbike and, once she was in Gaza, was beaten with sticks by Hamas fighters.

Mrs Lifshitz, one of 200 being kidnapped during the terrorist attack on October 7, added that she and other hostages were then marched for several kilometres on wet ground inside a “spiderweb” of underground tunnels, reportedly stretching 500km long.

She said: “I went through hell”.

“Eighty-five year old Yocheved Lifshitz says she was taken to a spiderweb of underground tunnels, that it was terrifying, but she was treated well in captivity,” Lane said.

Horn, speaking from Israel, also didn’t mention the assaults the hostages endured.

“She said that a medic and the doctor came at the hostages were put on mattresses. She said doctors came every couple of days and she described the treatment by Hamas as ‘good’ as saying that her captors made sure the conditions were sanitary, and that they were very friendly to the people who had been captured and that they took care of all of their needs,” Horn said.

Horn added that Mrs Lifshitz also “took a swipe at Israel”.

“(She was) saying that the lack of knowledge by the IDF, the Israeli defence force, and the Shin Bet here about what Hamas had been planning really hurt the people of Israel badly and the people of Israel had become scapegoats for poor leadership. She said that there were multiple signs ahead of the onslaught that something was coming and that the IDF had somehow not taken it very seriously,” Horn said.

The ABC has been contacted for comment over the omissions.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Peter Wertheim said he was confused as to how the ABC had chosen to ignore elements of Mrs Lifshitz’s experience and shocked the national broadcaster, once again, gave a terrorist organisation glowing coverage.

Your A.B.C. Kissing terrorist arze since whenever?

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
October 25, 2023 3:14 pm

Oppenheimer’s Digital Release Finally Revealed After A Long Theatrical Run

You’ll soon be able to watch Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster film Oppenheimer — plus over three hours of bonus features — from the comfort of your own home.

Four months after its theatrical premiere on July 21, Oppenheimer has finally set a digital release date for November 21, 2023.

The R-rated film has already surpassed $940 million at the global box office.

The 4K Blu-ray DVD can be purchased from physical storefronts like Amazon, Best Buy, Target and Walmart.

Oppenheimer will also be able to stream on platforms like Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Vudu, Xfinity, YouTube, Microsoft MSFT +0.4% and Verizon, according to Variety.

The film’s producer Emma Thomas hinted to the Associated Press last month that Oppenheimer won’t be available to be streamed at home until “late November.” This amounts to 16 weeks of theatrical playtime, which is outside the recent industry standard of 45 days (or six weeks).

Bourne1879
Bourne1879
October 25, 2023 3:14 pm

From Gateway Pundit article.
Those Union workers probably voted for this people who like open borders.

“Some hotels in Los Angeles are apparently replacing striking American unionized workers with people who crossed the border into America illegally.

Talk about adding insult to injury.

Do the people of Los Angeles still like the idea of being a sanctuary city? Do they like being replaced in this way?”

shatterzzz
October 25, 2023 3:14 pm

Starving Gazans ‘are going to start killing each other over food’, desperate residents warn as Israel pounds Hamas and Hezbollah in wave of new airstrikes

And the problem is ………..?

C.L.
C.L.
October 25, 2023 3:15 pm

I hope Tim Blair revives his interest in Our Cate.

He had hundreds of words of fun when she said of actors, “We change people’s lives, at the risk of our own.”

Razey
Razey
October 25, 2023 3:16 pm

Anyone looking for Japanese real estate, the links below are some of the good ones.
The first link below is very good. It has the sale prices – in English – for the whole country.

https://www.land.mlit.go.jp/webland_english/download.html

https://www.homes.co.jp/

https://house.goo.ne.jp/

feelthebern
feelthebern
October 25, 2023 3:19 pm

If you want to torture yourself, watch Blue Jasmine sober.

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
October 25, 2023 3:25 pm

I used to live in a mansion in Takitanicho, just near where highway
went into the toe-nail (that is not a typo, BTW).

But certainly Osaka is a lively place. I always liked the brashness of Osakans.

I first lived in Mozuu which is a traditionally Kawachi area. As a result I was picking up Kawachi-ben from the locals. Things like ‘nanbo’. Staff where I worked suggested that sounded strange so I had to excuse some words. Still, I was very flattered when I went to places like Okayama and Hiroshima and had people remark that I had an Osaka accent.

What accent/dialect do you have, Carpe?

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
October 25, 2023 3:26 pm

SITREP 10/24/23: Avdeevka Victories Confirmed as Mid-East Continues Slide Toward War
25 OCT 2023

We start with major acknowledgments by Ukraine that Russia has captured important positions in Avdeevka, particularly around the Slag Heap and Stepove-railway area. Yes, these are the same positions discussed for a week now but I believe they have been going back and forth in a ‘gray zone’ that no one quite controlled. Now Russia has reportedly established firm control over them from which further expansions can be made, after some consolidations.

We talked about Russia’s OPSEC in this area, but it seems they were saving up to release one big produced video for the capture of the Slag Heap, which they finally revealed today – 3 Mons 04 Secs

It gives some interesting insight, as I myself didn’t realize the Slag Heap had actual burrows dug into it all over.

Not only have Russian forces burned out all the defenders but placed the flag of the 114th Guards Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade on top, which is the unit I’ve been saying since the beginning has been the main breakthrough force assaulting in the north Krasnogorovka area.

The AFU was so utterly miffed (read: butthurt) about this, they even squandered precious FPV drones on trying to destroy the Russian flag—talk about insecurity and having your priorities set. It shows that to them, vanity and the information war is all-important:

More and more reports come to light suggesting that the AFU’s losses in this region are staggering.

Firstly, understand that reports came literally a week before the start of the Avdeevka operation that the famed Ukrainian 47th brigade had been “removed” or pulled back from the Zaporozhye front because it was so heavily destroyed and faced mutiny from within, as much of the fighters refused to go on assault any further.

Recall that the 47th is the only brigade to have been given M2 Bradleys as part of the big elite 9 brigades that took part in the summer counteroffensive.

Now, it’s been confirmed that elements of the 47th, after being pulled to the rear, have been urgently injected into Avdeevka to help staunch the losses. This is confirmed through a variety of sources, including the fact that Bradleys have appeared for the first time, geolocated to the north sector near Krasnogorovka at 48°12’46.5″N 37°42’15.7″E:

And pro-Ukrainian maps are now featuring the 47th there as well:

So, why is all that important?

Because we have a new video from a female medic from the 47th who plainly states that their casualties are the most horrific they’ve ever been, since the start of the conflict:

We lost more in a few hours than in the past 4 months.”

She’s been identified as Olena Rizh of the 47th brigade:

Considering that the past 4 months, the 47th was in the absolute worst Rabotino meat-grinder it’s nearly unimaginable the type of losses she must be referring to.

Due to heavy losses, at least one battalion of the 47th mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was transferred to Ocheretino and Novobakhmutovka from the Orekhovsky site. Their forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces tried to strike positions near the waste heap, but to no avail.

feelthebern
feelthebern
October 25, 2023 3:27 pm

In my opinion, Cate Blanchett has only had two great leading roles.
Elizabeth (the second one was a bucket of pure shit).
And The Missing (cracking movie).
The rest of the catalogue are supporting roles that range from very good to terrible.
If she wasn’t an Aussie she’d be someone most people would recognise but fail to name.

Frank
Frank
October 25, 2023 3:30 pm

Sabra Lane: why do they always look like that. Straight out of central casting with an extra side order of smug.

Fair Shake
Fair Shake
October 25, 2023 3:31 pm

Kate Blanket? I’d rather watch Dan Andrews fake sincerity. Now that guy could act.

feelthebern
feelthebern
October 25, 2023 3:31 pm

What accent/dialect do you have, Carpe?

Just as long as you don’t sound Hentai.

Cassie of Sydney
October 25, 2023 3:32 pm

“and shocked the national broadcaster, once again, gave a terrorist organisation glowing coverage.”

Don’t worry, Andrew Bolt, who thinks Mark Latham should be confined to anonymity because he wrote some true words on Twitter about homosexual sex, will ride to the rescue of their ABC, saying that it’s “free speech”.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
October 25, 2023 3:34 pm

Sabra Lane: why do they always look like that. Straight out of central casting with an extra side order of smug.

The ladies name is ironic, to say the least. Sabra is a nickname for Israeli Jews born in Israel. The nickname comes from the fruit that grows on a cactus. Israeli-born Jews are called Sabras because, like the fruit, they are prickly on the outside but on the inside, they are soft and tender.

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
October 25, 2023 3:36 pm

Starving Gazans ‘are going to start killing each other over food’,

Man, out there somewhere out there, there is a band with a sack full of brilliant songs looking for a band name.

As for actual starving Pali’s – as if they were not going to find something to fight about.

calli
calli
October 25, 2023 3:42 pm

She was an especially creepy Soviet KGB agent.

That wasn’t acting.

I think the line C.L. seeks is about “changing gravity”.

calli
calli
October 25, 2023 3:43 pm

And…Chrisl…I’m shocked. And chagrined. 😀

Lee
Lee
October 25, 2023 3:43 pm

He had hundreds of words of fun when she said of actors, “We change people’s lives, at the risk of our own.”

ROFLMAO!

When has an actor or actress ever risked his or her life other than in wartime, like Clark Gable or James Stewart?

Carpe Jugulum
Carpe Jugulum
October 25, 2023 3:45 pm

What accent/dialect do you have, Carpe?

Mainly Kansai, from my wife’s family with a bit of Shikoku.

Carpe Jugulum
Carpe Jugulum
October 25, 2023 3:46 pm

What accent/dialect do you have, Carpe?

I’m impressed people even know that.

calli
calli
October 25, 2023 3:48 pm

Those Japanese websites are very cute. As usual. The other day I checked out duty free plonk at Haneda…cute. Couldn’t read a thing, but cute. Made me want to shop there anyway.

Top Ender
Top Ender
October 25, 2023 3:49 pm

Don’t worry, Andrew Bolt, who thinks Mark Latham should be confined to anonymity

Where is Mark lately? He always made good sense, both live and in print, especially considering he’s a recycled lefty.

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
October 25, 2023 3:49 pm

Starving Gazans ‘are going to start killing each other over food’,

Hamasta Blasta : “who run Gazatown”??

Aunty non-Entities : “Hamasta Blasta run gazatown”

feelthebern
feelthebern
October 25, 2023 3:49 pm

He had hundreds of words of fun when she said of actors, “We change people’s lives, at the risk of our own.”

Jim Caviezel risked his professional career.
Still lives a pretty decent life.

calli
calli
October 25, 2023 3:50 pm

Don’t forget Audie Murphy when it comes to brave actors.

Carpe Jugulum
Carpe Jugulum
October 25, 2023 3:51 pm

Mother Lode
Oct 25, 2023 3:25 PM

I used to live in a mansion in Takitanicho, just near where highway
went into the toe-nail (that is not a typo, BTW).

We are up in Arima near one of the many golf courses below the snow line. and a golf membership was part of the sale as well as preferred access to the Golden Onsen, (This was through my FIL) so the house sold fairly quick at a premium in USD.

Tom
Tom
October 25, 2023 3:54 pm

That aside, Cate Blanchett is an insufferable, vastly overrated actress.

Never forget that actors spend their entire professional lives pretending to be someone else.

That’s the whole idea of acting: to enable the audience to suspend disbelief — in other words, to deceive.

calli
calli
October 25, 2023 3:55 pm

It’s only Wiki, but here’s Murphy’s story.

Another fun acting anecdote involves Christopher Lee and his personal experience of throttling sounds. Made Jackson’s LOTR orc death throes more realistic. Saruman the martial arts consultant.

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
October 25, 2023 3:55 pm

I got a down tick for asking Carpe his Japanese accent.

I think there are some Kawachi people sick of being told their Japanese sounds dirty.

Baka is as baka does.

Dot
Dot
October 25, 2023 3:57 pm

When has an actor or actress ever risked his or her life other than in wartime, like Clark Gable or James Stewart?

Are you kidding?

Gary was a Top Gun actor.

He made a promise and from that point on, he couldn’t die.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
October 25, 2023 3:57 pm

Australia has given us a masterclass in how to defeat identity politics

The country’s referendum on ‘the Voice’ saw division beaten by optimism. The Tories should take note – Tories Fighter Labor PM Albosleezy will not be pleased

FRASER NELSON

For a Brit to visit Australia at the moment is to step back in time to the aftermath of the Brexit vote.

The mood here is one of political shock and disorientation after a referendum on whether to create a group representing Aboriginals was rejected by 61 per cent of voters.

The Yes campaign outspent No by five to one. It had sports stars, companies and the whole establishment on its side, yet still lost every Australian state.

Stunned, it blames its defeat on racism, ignorance, misinformation and general black magic. How, otherwise, could No have prevailed?

Normally, the machinations of Australian politics would not have much read-across to Britain but, on this issue, politics down under is moving ahead of ours.

Australia has just had the world’s first referendum on identity politics, a creed so established among its elites that Anthony Albanese, the prime minister, wanted it embedded in the constitution.

Rather than all voters being equal, Aboriginals would be given a special (but undefined) “Voice” heard by parliament.

It was pitched as a battle between compassion and cruelty.

Pupils were given Yes badges to wear in schools, employees urged to vote Yes by their boss. Cities were draped in “Yes” flags by local authorities.

Only one publication advocated a No vote: the Australian edition of The Spectator.

At times, it seemed as if the aim was nothing short of atonement for the original sin of colonisation. “We can’t change our history,” the Melbourne city council proclaims in still-showing Yes posters. “But we can move forward together.”

What makes this referendum fascinating was that, with no one saying how the Voice would actually work, debate focused on the principles.

How should Australians see themselves?

As tribes, defined by skin colour; the exploiters and the exploited?

Or as equal citizens with mutual respect?

The Voice would embed the idea of white privilege representing a fundamental racial imbalance in society.

Nonsense, said No voters, why split Australian democracy along racial lines? It’s already split, said Yes voters. It’s time to acknowledge it.

This row has been brewing for years, first on university campuses, then soon spreading.

In his new book of the phenomenon, The Identity Trap, Yascha Mounk traces it back to the failure of Marxism and the need for a new social narrative.

A strand of the Left, he says, became disillusioned with Martin Luther King’s “dream” of people being defined not “by the colour of their skin but the content of their character”.

His dream, that of equality, was seen as an excuse for continued racism; free speech as an excuse for hate speech.

Undergraduates were marinated in this new ideology then moved into the corporate world – and HR departments.

Suddenly, workers were being urged to see each other not as equals but as members of tribes: black or white, gay or straight, cis or trans.

Black History Month started being celebrated in workplaces; straight workers were encouraged to proclaim themselves “allies” of gay or trans colleagues.

Employees even had to declare their gender, with pronouns stated on name badges and at the end of emails.

Conservatives, by and large, looked on bewildered.

At first, it seemed harmless: who would deny that gender dysphoria deserves to be treated with compassion?

Who would not treat minorities with respect?

But this quickly mutated into a new authoritarianism, with visible displays of support required and dissent seen as bigotry.

Women’s rights campaigners ended up hounded as transphobes.

Police were asked to identify transgressors as hate criminals.

I didn’t take this seriously until shamefully late on.

I stumbled across a protest in Glasgow where an activist going by the name of Posie Parker had gathered crowds to chant slogans, daring nearby police to arrest them. “Women don’t have penises,” they said. “No rapists in women’s prisons.”

When she took her protest to Melbourne, the reaction was incendiary.

A local MP was expelled from her conservative (Liberal) party for attending Parker’s rally.

Identity politics had suddenly become a secular religion, with apostates denounced. This was the backdrop for Australia’s referendum.

It was an Aboriginal politician, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, who led the No campaign. No one, she said, could explain how “the Voice” would actually work – or help. Australia is not racist, it’s the greatest country in the world and made so by belief in equality, she said.

Aboriginals differ, speak 300 languages and middle-class ones are doing very well.

Why treat them all as one? Surely that’s the real racism.

The true divide in Australia, she said, is between the wealthy and the marginalised – of all colours.

To watch Price speak is a masterclass in how to respond to identity politics.

Her tone is not an angry “war on woke” but humorous and optimistic, emphasising social cohesion.

When challenged about the “intergenerational trauma” of the Aboriginals, she responded that, being of mixed race, she suffers double trauma: her white ancestors had been deported in chains from Wales and dumped in a penal colony on the other side of the world. So it all evens out.

In fact, she said, colonisation has benefited Aboriginals.

The reaction to her final point was almost as furious as that when Kemi Badenoch said Britain was the best country in the world to be black.

Both use the same word to attack identity politics: an attempt to “re-racialise” society.

Both see conservatism as the natural antidote: colour-blind and the natural inheritor of Dr King’s message about character over colour.

But both Price and Badenoch serve party leaders who have tended to be ambivalent about identity politics. Unsure whether to take a stand or steer clear.

Rishi Sunak could, of course, be just as powerful an advocate. He may be more comfortable talking about bond yields or smoking bans, but this is the curse of those on the Right.

Slow to recognise new dividing lines, slow to decide which side to join.

As Australia discovered last weekend, modern conservatism has been given a new cause and a message: “Vote no to the voice of division.”

We have seen the cause, the language and the votes. The dots are there, waiting for the Tories to join them.

Alamak!
October 25, 2023 3:57 pm

In a perfect world, men and women would be equal partners sharing the economic and domestic load. Making this the social norm is a generations-long project that starts with books such as Ford’s and the efforts of parents to change the expectations of their daughters and, more especially, their sons.

Trying to lower Male expectations of their partners may simply result in them losing all interest in marriage as an institution, which may (already) cause unintended consequences. Don’t think she has really thought this through or just lazily assumes whatever the family did can be replaced by the State.

Regardless of the rhetoric, she does appear to be lacking some male presence in her life – at least to provide a model for her growing son. Old-school, hopelessly patriarchal thinking, I know.

Wally Dali
Wally Dali
October 25, 2023 3:58 pm

Decent?
She lost $750m running the Sydney theatre company as her own private showcase for a year, bringing the trannies to Shakespeare.
Decadent is the word you’re after.

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
October 25, 2023 3:58 pm

Mainly Kansai

Do you get the thing in other regions where they think everything you say has or is a punchline?

I got told that once but other Kansaijin said it was pretty commonplace.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
October 25, 2023 4:01 pm

Hamasta Blasta : “who run Gazatown”??

I doubt Gaza runs off pig poo.

Tina Turner was a great choice for that role!

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
October 25, 2023 4:04 pm

I went to Arima all of…once. And for an onsen. But it was a perfect day – cold outside, almost passing out in scalding water (although I quickly twigged that if you bring a small cloth to wash the water over you that you can sit it on your head when not in use).

And afterward a katsudon and beer in the cafeteria by the windows while it snowed outside.

As you can see the day left a strong impression – one day from over 25 years ago.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
October 25, 2023 4:04 pm

Saruman the martial arts consultant.

I’ve heard he’s pretty good with a light saber too.
Except against small green guys.

Barking Toad
Barking Toad
October 25, 2023 4:05 pm

Don’t forget Audie Murphy when it comes to brave actors.

Yes. Incredible bloke.

Diogenes
Diogenes
October 25, 2023 4:06 pm

If you want to torture yourself, watch Blue Jasmine sober.

Some of the exteriors include shots of Mrs D aunts former place in Portal SFO. There is a low flat roofed white building ( a dentist surgery in real life).

“Our” Kate looked horrified to get a gday Kate from the aunt.

Diogenes
Proud Szekler man of the Magyar people

bons
bons
October 25, 2023 4:07 pm

I just ordered an eventing saddle for the only granddaughter for Christmas.

My daughter has had a lend of me. It would have been cheaper to buy her a Harley.

Admittedly, it would be at least 40 years since I have bought a new saddle and I have never bought an eventing saddle, but wow.

How on earth do modern families kit their (invariably daughters) out for competitive riding.

Our kids got jeans and Blunnies.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
October 25, 2023 4:07 pm

When has an actor or actress ever risked his or her life other than in wartime, like Clark Gable or James Stewart?

James Stewart was interviewed, regarding his wartime service, in the United States Air Force. He mentioned looking out of the aircraft window, on one raid, and noticing “All the burning haystacks in the fields below” before it dawned on him that each of those haystacks was a shot down, crashed and burning bomber aircraft…

Bushkid
Bushkid
October 25, 2023 4:17 pm

Cassie of Sydney
Oct 25, 2023 2:41 PM
Cate Blanchette wants me dead.

The thing is, Cassie, Blanchette would probably dissemble and claim she didn’t want you, personally, dead, yet she’d apparently happily see plenty just like you dead. No doubt once the Jews were all gone, she’d be equally happy to see me and all Christians dead too, because that’s what the ideology she lauds involves at its heart.

What too many in the ignorant west fail to understand is that, as posted by someone in the past few days (possibly yourself, I can’t recall now), the islamists have stated that they’ll take care of the “Saturday people first, then the Sunday people”, meaning they’ll kill the Jews first, then the Christians. In fact, the only way they see the world “at peace” is when it is totally muslim.

I rarely comment these days Cassie, but you have my support, prayers and compassion. What was done on the 7th, and the disgusting displays and comments by all too many around the world since cannot be forgiven by any mortal; I for one have not the capacity. Only God could forgive such depravity, and forgive me but I suspect even He would choke on the words.

And I am angry as I have rarely been before at the cowardly “forbearance” of the police and politicians in allowing these pro-palestinian/hamas protests to go ahead unhindered, and the disgusting weasel worded excuses used to justify the lack of action. At some point, that hatred will be turned on the rest of the “kaffir”, on all of us – and who will those police and politicians turn to then?

Wally Dali
Wally Dali
October 25, 2023 4:18 pm

Blundstone boots?
Loooxury.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
October 25, 2023 4:22 pm

It’s only Wiki, but here’s Murphy’s story.

I’d never read his story, thanks for that Calli. Very few men have done that, very very few. CMH, a DSC, two Silver Stars, a Legion of Merit, two Bronze Stars, three Purple Hearts, two Prez Unit Citations and ten campaign medals even before you get to all the other medals. And then, after all that, he became a film star.

H B Bear
H B Bear
October 25, 2023 4:24 pm

Sabra Lane: why do they always look like that. Straight out of central casting with an extra side order of smug.

If Richard Fidler transitioned.

cohenite
October 25, 2023 4:24 pm

Don’t forget Audie Murphy when it comes to brave actors.

And David Niven

Boambee John
Boambee John
October 25, 2023 4:27 pm

calli
Oct 25, 2023 1:42 PM
Next time he should draw her with a beard.

Her beard was hidden by the pixilation.

cohenite
October 25, 2023 4:28 pm

Actually quite a few actors and actresses were in WW11.

Cassie of Sydney
October 25, 2023 4:30 pm

Kirk Douglas and Alex Guinness also served in World War II, as did Leslie Howard and Paul Newman.

132andBush
132andBush
October 25, 2023 4:31 pm

Lee
Oct 25, 2023 2:44 PM

Palestinian ‘civilian’ mum:

17+ years of hamas indoctrination has raised a generation of psychopaths.
More evidence of why any word of this attack didn’t get out.

An elephant in the room unseen by the FMIC.

calli
calli
October 25, 2023 4:32 pm

I rarely comment these days Cassie, but you have my support, prayers and compassion.

Please comment more Bushkid. I always enjoy your opinions, and you make me think.

Cassie of Sydney
October 25, 2023 4:32 pm

“Bushkid
Oct 25, 2023 4:17 PM”

Agree with every word. Thank you.

132andBush
132andBush
October 25, 2023 4:33 pm

Spike Milligan

calli
calli
October 25, 2023 4:35 pm

James “Scotty” Doohan had a finger shot off in WWII.

They must have used a “hand double” for the beaming sequences.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
October 25, 2023 4:35 pm

On every page of the Cat there is more wisdom, interest and humour than any newspaper or night of FTA. Maybe except the odd night when it goes postal. Can’t have everything. Thanks Dover.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
October 25, 2023 4:41 pm

All we can hope for is the subhumans get what is due. Nothing can bring back the dead but a good dose of retribution may go some way to make the others think. Probably not as we’re talking about the slowest of learners.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
October 25, 2023 4:44 pm

Cassie of Sydney

Oct 25, 2023 2:41 PM

Cate Blanchette wants me dead.

Take some comfort from the fact that she hasn’t backed a winner in a long time.

Boambee John
Boambee John
October 25, 2023 4:45 pm

Bruce of Newcastle
Oct 25, 2023 3:12 PM
I liked Cate Blanchett in Indiana Jones and the Nuclear Fridge.
She was an especially creepy Soviet KGB agent.

She didn’t have to act to perfect the part.

Chris
Chris
October 25, 2023 4:45 pm

All we can hope for is the subhumans get what is due. Nothing can bring back the dead but a good dose of retribution may go some way to make the others think. Probably not as we’re talking about the slowest of learners.

And will Gillian Triggs and the HRC charge and fine Palestinian supporters for hate speech? Will people be called out for TEACHING hate speech, and their character deficiencies diagnsed and made material for embarassment?

cohenite
October 25, 2023 4:46 pm

Cate Blanchet: I feel sorry for her hubbie having to root the supercilious hypocrite. But then he’s a woke dickhead so bad luck.

bons
bons
October 25, 2023 4:47 pm

Leslie Howard’s WWII service was a touch problematic.
He resigned his commussion in a Territorial regiment.
Normaly, that was a ticket for being immediately drafted. For some reason he wasn’t.
He fluffed around doing acting stuff until he was killed when his airliner was shot down enroute from Lisbon.
His studio created the myth that he had been engaged in secret intelligence work in Portugal and Spain.
He was actually flogging movies.
But he was very brave in Gone With the Wind.
But Niven. The real deal.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
October 25, 2023 4:49 pm

My son tells me he is doing a Company Directors course at the instigation of his employer. Not bad for a 28yo. Hate to think how much that costs. Wonder if welcome to country has been dropped from the curriculum.

feelthebern
feelthebern
October 25, 2023 4:49 pm

Good movie on SBS tonight.
Black ’47.
The main story is a bit cliche but incredibly well acted.

Frank
Frank
October 25, 2023 4:53 pm

Lack of water leading to disease in Gaza might not be such a bad thing. Once the cholera has had its way the ground invasion would be much less strenuous. Best to wear wellingtons though.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
October 25, 2023 4:53 pm

GreyRanga

Oct 25, 2023 2:45 PM

Crate Blandshit the gratest wooden actress of our time. All spelling correct. Doesn’t act, plays herself.

I am not a big fan of movies because most are predictable, “left-messaging through a bullhorn” tripe.
Mrs Panzer dragged me along to see “TAR” a while back.
I resisted the urge to “harumph” – as apparently I am prone to do in the fillem theatre – but I think even my eye-rolls became audible after a while.
Pretentious, vacuous, poorly written and badly acted sludge. The subject matter could have been easily dealt with in a 30 minute TV episode, but this went on for several days (well, it seemed like that).
The upside is, Mrs P agreed what rubbish it was, so a night at the fillems won’t get a mention for quite some time I think.

Roger
Roger
October 25, 2023 4:54 pm

Lee Marvin was in the Marines in the Pacific Theatre. He was hit by machine gun fire in the amphibious invasion of Saipan, severing his sciatic nerve. Interviewed by Parkinson years later, he played it down, saying he “got shot in the butt.”

calli
calli
October 25, 2023 4:56 pm

Take some comfort from the fact that she hasn’t backed a winner in a long time.

Also that she fronted up to an awards night in a dress made from “grannie squares”.

This is a crime against humanity.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
October 25, 2023 4:58 pm

Chris don’t forget Triggslypuff wanted to police what was said around the kitchen table.

Cassie of Sydney
October 25, 2023 5:00 pm

I used to subscribe to the STC but stopped my sub when she and her dickhead husband, Andrew Uphimself, took over. They destroyed it.

Roger
Roger
October 25, 2023 5:00 pm

Also that she fronted up to an awards night in a dress made from “grannie squares”.

The dress maker must have laughed all the way to the bank!

Chris
Chris
October 25, 2023 5:01 pm

Chris don’t forget Triggslypuff wanted to police what was said around the kitchen table.

I would settle for the vicious overbearing thought-policewoman enforcing the law against the rabid dogs in Australia.

calli
calli
October 25, 2023 5:03 pm

Pssst…I thought the sartorial Cassie would get a giggle out of that.

I would probably turn up in a pair of elegantly torn jeans and t-shirt. Or not at all, having forgotten the date.

On the brave actors, it’s a time long ago and reminds me of sport – people were more than their public persona, they had actual jobs or in the case of war, were called up to do their duty.

Boambee John
Boambee John
October 25, 2023 5:04 pm

But Niven. The real deal.

Richard Todd, jumped into Normandy on the night of June 5/6 with the Airborne Division, later played Major Howard of Pegasus Bridge/night glider attack, a Scottish soldier in Burma in The Hasty Heart and Guy Gibson in The Dam Busters.

H B Bear
H B Bear
October 25, 2023 5:04 pm

I used to subscribe to the STC but stopped my sub when she and her dickhead husband, Andrew Uphimself, took over. They destroyed it.

Shades of Lord Waffleworth and the Lieborals. The Bonfire of their Vanites.

mem
mem
October 25, 2023 5:05 pm

Someone earlier today or last night posted the menu that Albo will be feasting on at the Whitehouse. Can anyone repost this or point me to it. I have an acquaintance who says you can tell by what is being provided foodwise as to what is going down politically and I want to test him out. A bit like reading the tea leaves, so to speak. Thanks in advance.

Cassie of Sydney
October 25, 2023 5:05 pm

I think Nicole Kidman is a better actor.

Vicki
Vicki
October 25, 2023 5:06 pm

I just ordered an eventing saddle for the only granddaughter for Christmas.

Good grief, man. That could be a present for birthdays & Christmas’ combined! Having said that, we have just agreed to share the costs of grandson’s 21st. The guest numbers keep growing.

calli
calli
October 25, 2023 5:07 pm

You realise we’re doing WolfmanOz’s job for him, while he’s on holiday.

He could probably do a post on military actors and their records. It would be fun to collate them all.

H B Bear
H B Bear
October 25, 2023 5:07 pm

mem – humble pie and crow. Biden’s caterers do a very good one.

Cassie of Sydney
October 25, 2023 5:08 pm

“Also that she fronted up to an awards night in a dress made from “grannie squares”.

This is a crime against humanity.”

LOL…..hadn’t seen that. My God, gross man, gross.

Blandshitt regards herself as some kind of fashion doyenne! A a fashion doyenne from a creepy Stephen King novel.

Johnny Rotten
October 25, 2023 5:08 pm

mem
Oct 25, 2023 5:05 PM
Someone earlier today or last night posted the menu that Albo will be feasting on at the Whitehouse. Can anyone repost this or point me to it. I have an acquaintance who says you can tell by what is being provided foodwise as to what is going down politically and I want to test him out. A bit like reading the tea leaves, so to speak. Thanks in advance.

After the YES Referendum ended up as a Big Fat NO, he now has to eat Humble Pie wherever he goes. LOL.

Dot
Dot
October 25, 2023 5:10 pm

Trying to lower Male expectations of their partners may simply result in them losing all interest in marriage as an institution

Birthrates, bridal companies, jewellers and florists are all suffering. May is not the correct tense or state.

These gals have the worst hot takes. Who appointed them to referee social interactions? I particularly was impressed by the barren old mask-wearing lesbian c**k-blocking men. Like the fat friend of the girl you were interested in high school has never gone away.

https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/17b5lzc/starbucks_baristas_secret_note_to_help_woman/

Reminds me of this.

Chris
Chris
October 25, 2023 5:11 pm

humble pie and crow

While they deserve that, elections have consequences. They will be actually dining on larks tongues and caviar.
Blended into a paste for the sippy cup set.

Johnny Rotten
October 25, 2023 5:11 pm

After the YES Referendum ended up as a Big Fat NO, he now has to eat Humble Pie wherever he goes. LOL.

And then, he gets a Shit Sandwich. More LOL.

Wally Dali
Wally Dali
October 25, 2023 5:12 pm

Got to give her her acting chops, but i can sees a body of work, wet Blanket is no Naomi Watts.
…but Watts has made a transvestite child.
Very hard to have a crush on anyone apart from the divine Radha Mitchell.

rosie
rosie
October 25, 2023 5:12 pm

Does botox interfere with facial expressions?
I remember this being for sale in Target in the US one time I was there, so sorry I didn’t buy it.
A Cate version would be fantastic.
this.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
October 25, 2023 5:13 pm

H B Bear

Oct 25, 2023 5:07 PM

mem – humble pie and crow. Biden’s caterers do a very good one.

Garnished with bitter wattleseed and rainbow serpent venom.

JC
JC
October 25, 2023 5:15 pm

I don’t know what to make of Bass’s comments. He’s a hedge player and comes from an extremely wealthy family. He’s hated the CCP and the Chinese economy since I can recall. Stubborn people can be right too eventually.

Kyle Bass ??
@Jkylebass
Environmentalist and CIO Hayman Capital Management ??Happy to Block ccp Twitter bots, Fan of Democracy, Rule of Law, and National Security. Life Member CFR
Investment CompanyDallas, Joined February 2015

Here’s what he’s saying on X from about 5 hours ago.

1. China is experiencing a USD funding crisis ? (similar to the rest of the emerging world). Xi was forced to visit the PBOC and SAFE for the FIRST TIME EVER yesterday. China’s banking system is in free fall and Xi 1/9

2. has been forced to sell US Treasury bonds and US stocks to stem the decline in Chinese USD balances globally and to defend the Chinese RMB. China’s SAFE has been lending USD balances to Chinese banks instructed

3. to protect the Chinese currency. In a move reminiscent of S. Korea in 1998, China is running desperately low on its USD balances due to its aggressive state-run mkt intervention. 3/9

4. The Korean crisis was caused by the government hiding the fact that they were using their USD reserves to prop-up the Korean Won by ‘lending’ them to the Korean banks to maintain an artificial exchange rate. Investment decisions 4/9

5. were made on political grounds as opposed to economic grounds. Korea LIED to the world about its FX reserves and suffered a 95% decline in its currency along with massive USD defaults across its corporate and government sectors. China is doing the same now with RMB and HKD

6. Expect more forced selling of US stocks and bonds by Chinese institutions. Remember, in an angry, knee-jerk reaction, Xi sloppily fired the head of the PBOC, Yi Gang, at the 20th Party Congress in Oct 2022. Yi Gang also lost his seat on the CCP’s Central Committee. 6/9

7. He was reappointed as Central Bank head a few weeks later but FIRED AGAIN in July 2023. Just imagine how the world would react if we abruptly fired Jerome Powell, rehired him, and fired him again a few months later. Xi is panicking. 7/9

8. China is experiencing massive financial instability – both a liquidity AND a solvency crisis in Chinese real estate which immediately precipitated a banking crisis given the levels of leverage to the property sector. Be prepared for large currency breaks and additional 8/9

9. global instability. Number go down… 9/9

The thing that caught my eye recently was that in fact I did see a piece about Chinese holdings of US bonds has really gone down of late in a very protected decline. People spoke about this as being China divesting of US assets to reduce exposure to the US. Dunno, maybe Bass is right for once over the past two decades.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
October 25, 2023 5:16 pm

Wodney, you seem to have dropped the link on your Avatar promoting Martin Armstrong’s Ponzi scheme.
What gives, dude?

JC
JC
October 25, 2023 5:17 pm

I don’t know what to make of Bass’s comments. He’s a hedge player and comes from an extremely wealthy family. He’s hated the CCP and the Chinese economy since I can recall. Stubborn people can be right too eventually.

Quotes highlighted only.

Kyle Bass
@Jkylebass
Environmentalist and CIO Hayman Capital Management ??Happy to Block ccp Twitter bots, Fan of Democracy, Rule of Law, and National Security. Life Member CFR
Investment CompanyDallas, Joined February 2015

Here’s what he’s saying on X from about 5 hours ago.

1. China is experiencing a USD funding crisis ? (similar to the rest of the emerging world). Xi was forced to visit the PBOC and SAFE for the FIRST TIME EVER yesterday. China’s banking system is in free fall and Xi 1/9

2. has been forced to sell US Treasury bonds and US stocks to stem the decline in Chinese USD balances globally and to defend the Chinese RMB. China’s SAFE has been lending USD balances to Chinese banks instructed

3. to protect the Chinese currency. In a move reminiscent of S. Korea in 1998, China is running desperately low on its USD balances due to its aggressive state-run mkt intervention. 3/9

4. The Korean crisis was caused by the government hiding the fact that they were using their USD reserves to prop-up the Korean Won by ‘lending’ them to the Korean banks to maintain an artificial exchange rate. Investment decisions 4/9

5. were made on political grounds as opposed to economic grounds. Korea LIED to the world about its FX reserves and suffered a 95% decline in its currency along with massive USD defaults across its corporate and government sectors. China is doing the same now with RMB and HKD

6. Expect more forced selling of US stocks and bonds by Chinese institutions. Remember, in an angry, knee-jerk reaction, Xi sloppily fired the head of the PBOC, Yi Gang, at the 20th Party Congress in Oct 2022. Yi Gang also lost his seat on the CCP’s Central Committee. 6/9

7. He was reappointed as Central Bank head a few weeks later but FIRED AGAIN in July 2023. Just imagine how the world would react if we abruptly fired Jerome Powell, rehired him, and fired him again a few months later. Xi is panicking. 7/9

8. China is experiencing massive financial instability – both a liquidity AND a solvency crisis in Chinese real estate which immediately precipitated a banking crisis given the levels of leverage to the property sector. Be prepared for large currency breaks and additional 8/9

9. global instability. Number go down… 9/9

The thing that caught my eye recently was that in fact I did see a piece about Chinese holdings of US bonds has really gone down of late in a very protected decline. People spoke about this as being China divesting of US assets to reduce exposure to the US. Dunno, maybe Bass is right for once over the past two decades.

JC
JC
October 25, 2023 5:19 pm

I reckon he had three quick diaper changes when he realized the implications.

feelthebern
feelthebern
October 25, 2023 5:19 pm

Over the past few years, I’ve become a Anna Torv fan.
I went back and binge watched Fringe too.
Has great presence on screen.

JC
JC
October 25, 2023 5:20 pm

I don’t know what to make of Bass’s comments. He’s a hedge player and comes from an extremely wealthy family. He’s hated the CCP and the Chinese economy since I can recall. Stubborn people can be right too eventually.

Quotes highlighted only.

Kyle Bass
@Jkylebass
Environmentalist and CIO Hayman Capital Management ??Happy to Block ccp Twitter bots, Fan of Democracy, Rule of Law, and National Security. Life Member CFR
Investment CompanyDallas, Joined February 2015

Here’s what he’s saying on X from about 5 hours ago.

1. China is experiencing a USD funding crisis ? (similar to the rest of the emerging world). Xi was forced to visit the PBOC and SAFE for the FIRST TIME EVER yesterday. China’s banking system is in free fall and Xi 1/9

2. has been forced to sell US Treasury bonds and US stocks to stem the decline in Chinese USD balances globally and to defend the Chinese RMB. China’s SAFE has been lending USD balances to Chinese banks instructed

3. to protect the Chinese currency. In a move reminiscent of S. Korea in 1998, China is running desperately low on its USD balances due to its aggressive state-run mkt intervention. 3/9

4. The Korean crisis was caused by the government hiding the fact that they were using their USD reserves to prop-up the Korean Won by ‘lending’ them to the Korean banks to maintain an artificial exchange rate. Investment decisions 4/9

Johnny Rotten
October 25, 2023 5:21 pm

calli
Oct 25, 2023 5:03 PM
Pssst…I thought the sartorial Cassie would get a giggle out of that.

I would probably turn up in a pair of elegantly torn jeans and t-shirt. Or not at all, having forgotten the date.

On the brave actors, it’s a time long ago and reminds me of sport – people were more than their public persona, they had actual jobs or in the case of war, were called up to do their duty.

And Leslie Howard was shot down in a BOAC aircraft over the Bay of Biscay/near Spain in WW2. James Stewart was a Bomber pilot with the Americans in WW2.

Meanwhile, John Wayne didn’t do very much fighting at all. Except in those films of course.

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  1. https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/media/thumbnails/collection_images/2/27.1983%23%23S.jpg.500x294_q85.jpg An Autumn morning at Milson’s Point, Sydney. Tom Roberts.

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