Joe Aston saw the writing on the wall early.
Open Thread – Wed 22 Nov 2023
- Madame Cackle and her media mates
- Open Thread – Weekend 27 July 2024
- Open Thread – Thurs 25 July 2024
- Open Thread – Mon 22 July 2024
- All the drivel fit to print
It’s conceivable it may fold in our lifetimes.I’ll go out on a limb here and say Brisbane 2032 won’t happen.
Regarding the World Trade Centercollapse: I have it on impeccable (hush-hush) authority that the primary hijackers on BOTH aircraft had given…
Are you visiting Cork at all? Check out the old gaol, where there was a set of scales – used…
Excellent. We can but hope that this is the final nail in the whole corrupt enterprise.
Oh right, a Muslim male from Algeria goes on a knife rampage in Dublin, stabbing adults and children.
The BBC is cutting up rough about Geert Wilders success in becoming PM in Holland. I heard them running a commentary that not only called him far right, but went too far.
They said he was basically anti-Muslim, and went on to say that he peroxides his hair because he wants to look more Dutch and less foreign. Why? Well, they said his mother was “part” Indonesian (or some such) and that he was ashamed of his Muslim blood!
They’ve really jumped the shahark this time.
cassie
I heard David Adler say that their slogan shouting did not result in their having converted.
A quick shout out to Viking – we were booked on their river cruise Prague to Berlin.
Full refund of pre-booked excursions and a credit on the cruise which we can now re-book next year. Or any other cruise that takes our fancy. Credit where credit is due.
Unlike one of the Beloved’s mates, booked on a high end cruise with a company starting with and ending with “A”, similar circumstances, zip…see ya later.
Would recommend V, but as the rider goes, past performance is not indicative of future performance.
Tucker Carlson’s latest live talk has him warning that the next twelve months will see dramatic developments in the USA. I found that thirty minute speech under Andrea Widburg’s latest piece at American Thinker – it’s actually in comments. Someone might have a direct link to add here.
I don’t know which event will trigger the majority of the population to revolt against the regime. Jailing Trump? Obviously cheating in the next election, or cancelling it?
Some other gross infringement of rights?
Tucker is correct. The next year is make or break for the republic.
Luigi has spent 27 years as a public servant (parliament) and is a multi millionaire ..! now if you extrapolate that across the 10s of 1000s of PS who spend their wukka lives as PS why aren’t they all multis, as well ? .. answer seems quite obvious lotza brown paper bags and insider tips on offer if your lucky enuf to score a seat at the parliamentary trough ……..!
This weird mash-up lately of climate change and pro-Hamas protesting seems to be accelerating.
Pro-Palestinian Climate Change Group Disrupts Macy’s Parade (23 Nov)
You have to wonder what they’re thinking, since supporting rapists and baby murderers would seem to be unwise if you’re trying to get climate action happening. There’s also a lot of Marxist tosh in the mix too, as is apparent in the story.
The Bungonia Bee
Indolent posted it here yesterday. I thought it was worth watching.
I heard David Adler say that their slogan shouting did not result in their having converted.”
No, David Alder did not say that specifically, he said as a disclaimer that you are supposed to say the Shahada three times with intent to become a Muslim, in the presence of witnesses. However the shouting of the Shahada, and the reciting in public of the Shahada as happened yesterday, is quite deliberate. Those adolescents yesterday are not just clueless, that’s normal in adolescents, more worryingly they are being used as deliberate pawns in the Islamic jihad against the West, and they are being aided and abetted by leftist teachers and other assorted activists. Every protest, be it in Europe, the USA or here, has the Shahada recited publicly, along with public prayer. Both are intrinsic rituals of jihad.
KD, There is not a day goes by without thinking what I could have done to prevent my kids death. So I get what you’re saying but I don’t get the idea that a perent should just up. If they did that nothing will change.
The Washington letter piece mentions one of the two foundation stones of American liberalism as the right to believe and practice one’s religion.
Nice idea. What does Allah say ?
I certainly think it’s likely that muslims will use this as an opportunity to proletize teenage airheads, they’ve certainly swallowed the river to the sea narrative.
There are just so many influences on children, parenting is a big chunk of the foundation work, but not all. School teachers, other family members, friendship groups, faith groups all play their part.
Even when you breathe a sigh of relief that they’ve got through school reasonably sane and based, it can all come crashing down with the wrong girlfriend/boyfriend and hideous uni groups.
I’ve been fortunate as a mum, but it hasn’t all been plain sailing. Now some of the grandchildren are on the cusp of adolescence, and it’s as if the tape has rewound. My hope is that I can be a confidant, as so many trustworthy grandparents become.
This says it all.
Today there should be 13 hostages released.
Please let it be so.
Or, as Graham Hood says: 32,000 hours as a pilot and never left a passenger up there…
In “One Rule For Them and Another Rule For The Rest Of Australia” news:
NSW Regional Transport Minister Jenny Aitchison has apologised to senior female executive Rochelle Hicks, the recipient of a death threat from an Indigenous department adviser who was retained “because he is Aboriginal and a cultural knowledge holder”.
It follows Labor’s upper house benches “watering down” a motion condemning how Transport for NSW and the Minns government handled the case of Ian Brown, the Aboriginal adviser who threatened Ms Hicks. (The Oz).
Mostly teenage girls Rosie.
The psychology of the fad groupie is alive and well. I’m not worried about noisy opinionated girls, it’s the quiet young males who devoutly listen to the poison from the mouths of the Imams, I’m more worried about.
But as others have mentioned here, the problem ultimately lies with the parents of these indoctrinated adolescents.
There is NO way I would have been allowed to have attended a political protest as a 15, 16 or 17 year old. Even as a bolshie 16 or 17 year old, if I’d attended such a protest without my parent’s approval, on arrival home I would have been met at the door by my mother with her trusty very thick French wooden spoon. The subsequent smacking, both verbal and physical, would not have been pleasant.
Special Thanksgiving WIP
I bought one of those years ago! An agile and innovative weapon. Never used except on cakes.
My mum did “groundings”. The cruellest deprivation of all.
Mum never hit any of us but Dad had a riding crop above the kitchen door.
I’ll take the French wooden spoon any day.
It’s not just some individual classroom teachers who are fermenting discontent.
All teachers, good and bad, indoctrinated or not, politically active or neutral, have to follow the state-written syllabus which starts the rot of low levels of knowledge, biased interpretations, ignorance of history, and anti-Western Civilisation attitudes.
Hey, calli. Good that you are safely back. 🙂
Re the article that JC linked about American Jews and their strong preference to the Dimmocrats, it’s not bad, but I’ve seen better ones. Regrettably, it was a while back and I can’t link.
For example, the kibbutz movement in Israel has strong socialist overtones, to say the least. Further, immigrant Jews in the late C19th – early C20th came from a background of persecution and related to the black community. Hence the strong links in the music business between black artists and Jewish entrepreneurs, for example.
Of course, nowadays blacks are among the most anti-Semitic groups out there. No good deed goes unpunished in racial politics.
Meanwhile, stupid Republicans were keeping Jews (and blacks) out of golf clubs and universities.
The increasing secularisation of nominally Jewish people is also a factor.
It’s a long and complicated story, but finally some Jews and blacks are realising that they have been sold a pup. Donald Trump and his allies broke through the ceiling in that regard.
Real Deal at 6:01.
Opportunistic Pommy bastard indeed.
The other one which springs to mind for recklessly taking others to an untimely death is the Titan submersible guy, Stockton Rush.
Idf pmainaining the pressure
IDF fighter jets, directed by IDF and ISA intelligence, neutralized Amar Abu Jalalah, commander of the Hamas naval forces in Khan Yunis and an additional operative in Hamas’ naval forces.
Amar Abu Jalalah was a senior operative in Hamas’ naval forces and involved in directing several terror attacks by sea that were thwarted by the IDF.
Me too. Over having knives throne, being run over or chucked onto cement steps.
Bree A Dail
@breeadail
Meanwhile, in Dublin—The Gardaí claim protests in response to the stabbing of three children and a woman, are “hooligans” inspired by the “far right”.
That’s it. That’s their response.
Laura Loomer
@LauraLoomer
The Irish are burning down the immigration centers.
I guess people are really sick of being invaded and attacked by illegal “migrants”.
Philip Anderson
@PhilipAnde25595
Joe Biden has some nerve telling us to “Come together as a nation” while persecuting and oppressing half the country. Joe Biden is a dictator and anyone who supports him is the enemy of democracy. Every word out of his mouth is a filthy lie.
The Bungonia Bee
Nov 24, 2023 7:25 AM
Tucker Carlson’s latest live talk has him warning that the next twelve months will see dramatic developments in the USA. I found that thirty minute speech under Andrea Widburg’s latest piece at American Thinker – it’s actually in comments. Someone might have a direct link to add here.
The Bungonia Bee,
was this the Link?
Familiar Refrains – Tucker Carlson “Risk on 360” Speech About Current Global and Political Events
November 23, 2023 – Sundance
Tucker Carlson delivered some remarks that have a familiar refrain for CTH readers. Beginning with the topic of trusting your instincts, Carlson walks through a deliberate warning about the United States in 2024 as the presidential election looms. There is a lot within this speech that is familiar. WATCH:
– The Guardian
Man (& child) now serves the economy, rather than the economy serving man.
Universal state funded childcare was first provided in the Soviet Union.
In 1974, the New York Times reported:
[RTWT]
My…what progress we have made!
More battery fires.
Stellantis Recalls 32,000+ Hybrid Jeep Wrangler SUVs After Several Catch Fire While Parked (23 Nov)
They must be Li ion battery packs. I can’t recall many fires in Toyota Prius hybrids, but they used NiMH battery chemistry, although maybe that has changed since Li ion is lighter and more powerful.
I expect socialism and communism are no longer cool causes. The only difference is that there seem to be few if any boys at the protests. I suppose being demonised as the oppressors isn’t inspiring them to join their actual oppressors.
I am one of those parents.
literally one of those parents
my first 2 graduated from that joint
back then it wasn’t known as an uber progressive school, it was know as an academically inclined school that would selectively take students from other zones based on particular criteria
like multiple languages, or a bent for math/science
#3 went thru an all girls catholic private school
rosie, I do have issues with the way you like to polarize things based on simplistic reductions
and this is one of those times
in some ways among my own kids the differences couldn’t be more stark
not academically, they’re all brainiacs
I mean ethically
not religious …. a personal ethic, work, self resourcing, striving for excellence etc
in other ways, those “teenage airheads” all came out of the institutions with the same shit in their heads
and it certainly wasn’t Ahmed that converted them to any nefarious cause
teenage airheads everywhere and all at once are shit-scared about Therma-geddon, an are cutting their dicks off en masse while wearing a Pali flag
thy’re calling everybody else a bigoted nazi nanna killer
the real truth is that they all have common-cause and they are disenfranchised and dirty on the Boomers
you wanna know where the crap in their heads came from ?
look inside yourselves … you all played yr part in getting us here
French wooden spoon? Oooh la la, le temps perdue
$2 nasties from Coles, and our mum would break them over our backsides…
LoL … you’re a nanna and therefore there head of yr own personal terror cell
you should be feeling shame not hope
/sarc
These are mostly children of two groups of parents. Most of them have their parents’ approval and even participation on the part of some of those parents. The other group have parents who want to be their friends or are too busy with their work lives to give a damn. In either case no pushback from parents.
The one thing all these students have in common is their upper middle class status, they come from well off homes so any consequences of their actions will be smoothed away by their wealth and social position. The peace protestors of the 60s and 70s were of the same social strata, they current crop are probably grandchildren of the old peace protestors.
What is it with Western nations and immigration? They simply refuse to control it, again and again.
The latest figures from the UK are shocking:
and
Even the Left are sniffing the wind, after Geert Wilders in The Netherlands and similar results in other parts of Europe. Voters are fed up. Joe Biden is not doing too well either.
Yet, nothing ever changes, and the hordes keep pouring in.
We are lucky to be an island, but even here cracks are appearing in the dam wall (thanks, Albo!) and TheirABC frequently runs stories about battling businesses who need migrant labour. Plus sob stories about relatives in less fortunate parts of the world who the nasty government is forcing to live in squalor.
I’m hoping that a massive backlash will create physical, legal and political barriers to prevent the dam wall from breaking.
Because, if it keeps on raining, the levee’s gonna break.
the Productivity Commission has said
¡Afuera!
The commission’s report follows two interim reports from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
¡A-fuera!
h/t Chainsaw Milei
Perhaps The Australian Schoolchildren should be given a Video Tour?
Cameron: I’ve seen things I’ll never forget at kibbutz targeted by Hamas
Foreign Secretary describes what he saw in Be’eri, where terrorists massacred more than 100 people, as ‘absolutely horrific’
By Nataliya Vasilyeva, MIDDLE EAST CORRESPONDENT, JERUSALEM
23 November 2023
Wearing a blue flak jacket, Lord Cameron stepped gingerly over a pile of crushed terracotta tiles outside a bullet-riddled cottage as he toured Be’eri, a kibbutz targeted by Hamas in the Oct 7 attacks on Israel.
The Foreign Secretary described what he saw in Be’eri, where the terror group massacred more than 100 people and kidnapped many others, as “absolutely horrific”.
Lord Cameron said: “I wanted to come here to see it for myself; I’ve heard things, I’ve seen things I will never forget.”
He arrived in Israel a day before a ceasefire deal was due to take effect. Under the terms of the agreement, fighting will stop at 7am on Friday, with a first batch of hostages held by Hamas set to be freed in the afternoon.
Critical supplies of aid will also be allowed to flow into the Gaza Strip, which has been devastated by Israel’s offensive.
Lord Cameron urged both sides to follow through with the deal after it was pushed back by a day at the last minute late on Wednesday evening.
“This is a crucial opportunity to get hostages out and aid into Gaza, to help Palestinian civilians who are facing a growing humanitarian crisis,” he said. “And I hope and would urge everyone involved in that agreement to make sure that it happens.”
Lord Cameron was accompanied by Eli Cohen, the Israeli foreign minister, and several Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officers, who described the horror that unfolded during the Hamas attacks.
Standing in the charred remnants of one of the community’s houses, an officer told Lord Cameron how Hamas had deliberately torched the building on Oct 7, burning some of those inside to death.
Those who escaped were shot in the head by gunmen lurking outside, the officer said.
Lord Cameron was later seen walking outside the house. Nearby, a white plastic high chair stood abandoned on the side of a gravel path.
After his tour of the kibbutz, the Foreign Secretary met Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and Isaac Herzog, the president, telling them he stood “with the people of Israel” as they endured “a huge amount of trauma”.
“I’m not sure anyone can fully understand and share that trauma, but I remember the worst days of being prime minister was when British hostages were taken in Syria, and so many of them lost their lives in the most gruesome, terrible fashion,” he told Mr Herzog.
“I remember the effect that had on me as prime minister and thinking about that, and so perhaps know a tiny bit of what your nation is going through.”
Lord Cameron met counterparts from Arab and Islamic countries in London on Wednesday to discuss the conflict.
So When is the Labor Party Foreign Minister Penny Wong going to meet Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, and Isaac Herzog, the President and go on a guided Tour – I am sure Labor PM AirBus Albo can spare his plane after Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles Cricket Trip
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles took a 2,000 kilometre round trip on a taxpayer-funded flight to watch the Cricket World Cup on Sunday in India.
The Defence Minister and Foreign Minister Penny Wong are in India to co-chair the 2nd India-Australia 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue with Defence Minister Rajnath Singh
But it has now emerged he popped into Ahmedabad, which is 1,000 kilometres away, to attend the world cup in the cricket-mad country.
His latest VIP flight comes after revelations Mr Marles’ expenses for flights have totalled nearly $3.6 million this year.
But taxpayers may never know a breakdown of the cost of the cricket trip because Mr Marles’ department has banned the publication of where ministers are flying on “security grounds”.
This is despite the fact the Defence Minister posed for photographs during the cricket game and the Indian Government put out a press release the day before he attended.
His office confirmed he made the journey on a taxpayer-funded RAAF VIP jet for the six-hour pitstop before flying to New Delhi.
“Look who is here to support and cheer for #TeamAustralia! Our Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence @RichardMarlesMP is at, #Ahmedabad to witness #INDvsAUS #CWC2023Final,‘’ the Australian High Commissioner Philip Green said.
“It cannot get bigger than this!”
In August, news.com.au revealed Mr Marles took a ride on a RAAF flight to attend the Matildas World Cup semi-final at an estimated cost to taxpayers of $16,000. He has not revealed the defence department’s own estimate of the cost of the flight despite requests to do so.
From Al Jazeera, so, possibly investigate further.
Who is being exterminated?
Blair…
They’re All Individuals
Heh!
Not sure when I will be seeing it but if seen Napoleon let us know your thoughts.
I’ve a hand-cam copy to watch sometime today ……… summary will follow .. & I do know my Napoleon so Ridley better be up on target .. LOL!
Napoleon trivia fact: 2nd only to Jesus Christ on related books published …
Duk earlier
Or, as Graham Hood says: 32,000 hours as a pilot and never left a passenger up there…
The other saying is “A good landing is one you can walk away from. A better landing is one when they can use the plane again.”
We can’t abolish the PC because technically it is the Inter State Commission.
Nevertheless, liberty goes forward you sons of bitches.
I love this clip. It shows what can be achieved when you don’t panic.
Keep your wits about you, and when you touch firm ground, GUN IT!
many manufacturers use Li polymer pouches or cells
LiFe is vastly safer but less energy dense
God Oracle will be fine.
Until he employs a third or fourth Ahmed.
There are boomers and then there are Boomers. Most of the negative effects of the post-WWII generation have been caused by members of the middle and upper middle classes. We got here because this same cohort invaded the halls of power and corporate office and remade the world in their image. The old age pensioner boomers are as much victims of that group as are today’s kids. Therefore these protesting kids can now demand redress from their activist grandparents.
Anti-Israeli Hot Take Of The Day.
another go at the greasy pole sancho?
what do you imagine I’m doing when working with Ahmed?
you think I employed him … er, no
or you reckon Ahmed is a “switch-flicker” or a “pipe-solderer … er, no
Good to hear that about Viking, Calli, as they are taking us to the Carribbean and South America in March and unforseens can happen. They refunded our deposits when they cancelled this trip in 2021 due to Covid flare ups. Other booked trips made us wait for a new timeslot.
Speaking of Marles…
Did I not hear a correspondent on Sky last night describe his recent performances as “prime ministerial”, marking him as a threat to Dim Chalmers’s ambitions?
I dare say someone in the Canberra press gallery is already running a book on who will elbow Elbow out.
French wooden spoons, Coles cheapo wooden spoons, phfft!
Mum, jug cord.
Dad, buckle end of the belt.
my mother’s stirring spoon was not wooden
I only copped it once
Anecdotes, we all have them.
None of my children are marxists, despite three of them going to university and only one of them in stem, and yes to all went to catholic school and Sunday mass, though only one is a regular church goer now.
They all voted No, at least.
Princes Hill was the go to school for Union and Labor royalty in the 90s, whatever the claims re academic excellence that was also a strong motivator.
If you want to pretend muslims involved in the protests weren’t all in on proletizings, whatever.
They just love them a ‘revert’.
Napoleon is still alive and well in continental Europe. His code is still around throughout the modern European legal system
One of my daughter’s friends got involved with a non practicising university educated Shia, they moved into together and he pressured her to enter an Islamic marriage to placate his family.
Lasted six weeks before there was violence and it was over.
Adding to my previous comment about not panicking.
Amazing what can be achieved.
The Mail also has the story. Determination, and a life saved.
Hilariously this is a real headline from Newsweek.
Bugs Instead of Turkey? Why Insects Make a Perfect Thanksgiving Dish and How to Cook Them (23 Nov)
The article is actually from 2017 repeated by CD, but the Babylon Bee could not have bettered it!
Ahmed is an Electrical Enginerd who is fluent an multiple languages like C++, python, R, etc
he works as a part of a local team of a multinational company who, among other things, design bespoke software solutions
and if you must know, they use me as a consultant
… because I know where to kick
sancho, do you know anything about rest APIs and Big Data?
Difficult times for Celtic supporters.
Jordan Peterson nicely explained to Bill Maher whats going on with young people buying into the Pali cause. If you see things through the lens of CRT and view life as oppressor vs oppressed, you begin to see where it all fits in.
https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1726376635740373167
WFH employees may find themselves at the front of a redundancy queue
Sally Patten and Euan Black
Employees who predominantly work from home are likely to find themselves at the front of a redundancy queue, employers warn.
As signs emerge that more companies are preparing to lay off staff over the next 12 months, employees who spend most of their time working from home may suffer from being “out of sight and out of mind”, or may be viewed as less productive than colleagues who spend more time in the office.
“As the labour market shifts, you’re going to see employers start to make some decisions around who to retain and the circumstances under which they retain [staff].
There is that [feeling that] if you don’t turn up, you’re not as close a member of the team,” Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox said.
“It will almost certainly play to people’s detriment in the end. [An employee] will say, ‘I’m as productive as X,’ and an employer will say, ‘yes, but X turns up. They’re part of the team. They’re collaborative, and contributing more because they’re in the office more often.’
“It is that out-of-sight, out-of-mind conversation. But it’s also, how much are they contributing to the overall success of the organisation?”
Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry CEO Andrew McKellar concurred.
“It is starkly obvious that [the issue of people working predominantly from home] is likely to be a factor taken into account,” he said.
The Australian HR Institute’s most recent work report revealed a sharp rise in redundancy intentions among employers.
The survey found that 31 per cent of employers intend to make redundancies this quarter, up from 17 per cent in the three months to September.
AI Group found a similar trend among its member companies. In the past three months, the organisation has fielded a rise in the number of calls to its advice line that were related to redundancies.
“We’ve had a strong labour market, but there are clear signs of weakening within the economy, led by consumer confidence. That flows through the economy, so the prospect of redundancy is on the up,” Mr Willox said.
The prospect of people working from home being pushed to the front of the redundancy queue comes as some companies are linking office attendance to annual performance reviews and bonuses.
Rhonda Brighton-Hall expects a rise in the number of redundancies and says employees who worked predominantly from home could be more vulnerable.
This week ANZ told staff annual bonuses may be cut if they failed to spend at least 50 per cent of their scheduled working hours in the office.
The policy put the bank in line with Suncorp Group and Origin Energy.
Human resources consultant Rhonda Brighton-Hall said she also expected a rise in the number of redundancies and agreed that employees who worked predominantly from home were more vulnerable, partly because their relationships with colleagues and bosses were weaker.
“You have to be pretty good to maintain relationships remotely,” Ms Brighton-Hall said, adding that staff who often talked to their managers about working arrangements were at particular risk.
“If you are arguing about work hours, you are in a less strong relationship. It is not a warm and caring relationship. It’s a tough relationship.
“Where relationships have been weakened, weaker macroeconomic conditions make you more vulnerable,” said Ms Brighton-Hall, who is the CEO of Making Work Absolutely Human.
Australian HR Institute CEO Sarah McCann-Bartlett warned employers that redundancy processes should be carried out “correctly and fairly”, and they “should not use redundancies because they haven’t managed their working-from-home or flexible work policy properly, or they wish to change it”.
She said employers should use “a set of objective criteria such as skills, qualifications, experience and competencies, including performance” to determine who should be made redundant.
The Financial Services Union also warned employers not to discriminate against staff who worked predominantly from home.
“It would a problem if employers were to target workers for redundancy based on their working arrangements,” FSU national secretary Julia Angrisano said.
“It is important that those who work from home and those who don’t, are treated equally in terms of pay, incentives and access to promotions and opportunities in the workplace, including job security.”
“One of my daughter’s friends got involved with a non practicising university educated Shia, they moved into together and he pressured her to enter an Islamic marriage to placate his family.
Lasted six weeks before there was violence and it was over.”
Rosie,
I have seen that happen several times over the last thirty years. All sweetness and light until the paperwork is signed. Then it becomes like Colonel Kurtz.
Engineering, the favourite degree of Iranians.
So what?
Nyt might be paywalled
in the ranks of captured and confessed terrorists, engineers and engineering students are significantly overrepresented. Maybe that’s a numerological accident. The sociologist Diego Gambetta and the political scientist Steffen Hertog don’t think so.
It would have been a ‘temporary’ marriage, not a legal one and she at least said no to that.
Achmed the terrorist
How did this happen?
I assume your parents had little to do with it.
I don’t want to jinx it, but it is great that at the moment most of Tim Blair’s posts are not paywalled. I guess it won’t last but it has been good to regularly read his stuff again.
According to a biography published 34 years after his death, during his last exile Napoleon responded to an aide who expressed scepticism about Jesus Christ thus:
“I know men, and I tell you Jesus Christ was not a [mere] man.
Superficial minds see a resemblance between Christ and the founders of empires and the gods of other religions. That resemblance does not exist.
There is between Christianity and other religions the distance of infinity.
Alexander, Cæsar, Charlemagne and myself founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon sheer force. Jesus Christ alone founded His empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men will die for Him. In every other existence but that of Christ how many imperfections!
From the first day to the last He is the same; majestic and simple; infinitely firm and infinitely gentle. He proposes to our faith a series of mysteries and commands with authority that we should believe them, giving no other reason than those tremendous words, ‘I am God.’”
The economy is being driven by a ‘bankocracy’ housing boom
A political conspiracy to increase property values, and win votes, is being amplified by a banking industry that wants to increase profits.
Alan Kohler
The problem of housing affordability now dominates the national consciousness and has affected the lives of everyone, dividing Australia into those who own a house and those who don’t; those whose families have housing wealth to pass on and those who don’t.
And what’s more, most people now believe the way to build wealth is to buy a house, then another one, and another one after that, or to keep upgrading the one you live in. Or both.
A home is no longer what Australia’s longest-serving prime minister Robert Menzies, who championed home ownership and what he called “little capitalists,” once extolled: “One of the best instincts in us is that which induces us to have one little piece of earth with a house and a garden which is ours; to which we can withdraw, in which we can be among our friends, into which no stranger may come against our will.”
There have been many fine words spoken before and after Menzies by both well-meaning and cynical politicians, but the political class as a whole has failed Australians at all levels – federal, state and local government – for a simple reason that former prime minister John Howard once put into words: “No one ever came up to me to complain about the increase in the value of their home.” Howard did more than anyone to make housing unaffordable, but at least he was honest about why.
In my view, the quiet political conspiracy identified by Howard – to preserve and increase the value of houses to keep the majority of voters happy – has been amplified by the banks doing the same thing to increase their profits.
Bank power
Australia is in the grip of a “bankocracy”, in which four banks control our access to money.
Their profits, and therefore the salaries of their executives, depend on both the volume and the value of their assets growing.
The volume of their assets (that is, the number of loans) increases because Australians believe the only way to increase their wealth is to borrow 80 per cent to 100 per cent of the value of one or more houses.
And the value grows because the banks’ customers compete with each other to buy the houses and push up their prices and therefore the size of their loans.
The more house prices rise, the greater the banks’ profits. As US investment guru Charlie Munger says: “Show me the incentive and I’ll show you the outcome.”
The way real estate works in Australia is that the federal government and banks encourage demand for it while state and local governments restrict the supply of it.
The states restrict supply through zoning, and local councils do it by their planning decisions every day.
Federal government decisions increase demand for housing in four main ways: first, through interest rates; second, with immigration; third, with tax breaks for investors and homeowners; and fourth, with grants to first home buyers.
In recent years, interest rates have been the main thing determining house prices, although they are not controlled by federal politicians but rather by the independent Reserve Bank of Australia. It is a federal body, appointed by the treasurer, and it manages the economy mainly through housing.
That is, interest rates regulate the cost of housing and therefore the demand for it, and to a lesser extent the supply. By reducing or increasing the cost of shelter, the RBA controls our spending on everything else, which in turn governs the level of employment and inflation.
Incidentally, the result of the thing called monetary policy is that borrowers bear the entire burden of economic adjustment. And not just all borrowers – it’s the ones who are already living on the edge. Rich borrowers are fine – they’ve got plenty left after higher repayments, so their spending doesn’t change and they don’t contribute to the economic adjustment. The spending cuts that result in slower economic growth are entirely made by those who are already struggling to make ends meet: the use of housing to regulate the economy is essentially a policy of cruelty.
Prices going up
Three main things pushed up demand for housing after 2000: a sharp lift in immigration that increased the number of people needing a place to live; capital gains tax breaks and negative gearing, which represent a $96 billion per year subsidy for buying houses; and federal first home buyer grants, which represent a $1.5 billion direct addition to house prices each year.
As for supply, in 2018, researchers at the RBA figured out that zoning restrictions raised the average price of detached houses by 73 per cent in Sydney, 69 per cent in Melbourne, and 29 per cent in Brisbane. For apartments, the figures were 85 per cent in Sydney, 30 per cent in Melbourne and 26 per cent in Brisbane.
Those are astonishing numbers, and that’s without including the effect of local government planning decisions, which are, by definition, haphazard and unquantifiable but mostly aimed at keeping local councillors in a job by keeping the existing residents happy by making sure they don’t let in too many new ones.
House prices started trending higher for the first time after World War II, but up to the turn of the millennium they were more or less keeping pace with incomes and the size of the economy.
At the same time as everybody was worrying about the world’s computers grinding to a halt with Y2K, there was a collision between demand and supply and house prices started to depart from the rest of the economy, and from our incomes.
What happened in the year 2000? Well, that’s what my Quarterly Essay lays out in detail; In short, the nitro of a surge in demand around that time mixed with the existing glycerine of restricted supply to create an explosion that has blown up the Australia that our parents knew. And each of those things was almost entirely due to government policies, either the unintended consequences of misguided ideas or deliberate policies designed to preserve the wealth of the majority of voters – that is, those who own a house.
One not at all simple solution is to significantly increasing the density of housing within 10 to 30 kilometres of Australia’s CBDs. When looking at this in practice this is going to be difficult, if not impossible. A lot of the houses within 10 kilometres are Victorian or Edwardian terraces and villas and can’t be pulled down for heritage reasons, and the “efficient and equitable consolidation of urban blocks,” as the YIMBYs put it, is a lot easier said than done. People sell their houses at different times, and no government is going to compulsorily acquire them to suit the timing of a developer.
On top of that, the cartel of developers is holding back supply. Prosper Australia recently did a big study of master planned communities (what used to be called housing estates) and found that after an average of 9.5 years of production time, developers still held 76.2 per cent of their land banks vacant. Instead of prices falling because of this potential supply, the average land price inflation was 5.5 per cent annually. By contrast, wage growth ran at only 2.4 per cent.
Says Prosper Australia: “If supply can be curtailed in this way, we suggest it shows that property markets are inherently monopolistic, rather than competitive, unlike markets for goods and services. Property is an asset: land banks are patiently managed and development projects are timed to maximise overall returns.”
So as part of any housing affordability strategy, governments need to recognise the monopoly characteristics of the property market and get the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission involved.
At the very least the ACCC should treat land development as it would any cartel and keep an eye on what’s happening. At the moment there is a complete absence of government oversight.
So governments can theoretically take steps to fix this mess, but it’s politically easier to make an asset worth more than to make it worth less.
Actually doing something about housing affordability would require courage, Minister.
I demoted myself for a day as self-flagellation, however the change in author pseudonym caused me to go into auto moderation purgatory, from which I may never return (and you won’t see this comment) until Dover gives me the tick’n’flick.
Wally Dalí
Nov 24, 2023 8:29 AM
French wooden spoon? Oooh la la, le temps perdue
$2 nasties from Coles, and our mum would break them over our backsides…
Buying Dad a new pair of slippers every year at Christmas when he would proceed to wear them out on the back of our arses during the following year. And then we would buy him a new pair of slippers the following Christmas when he would proceed to………….Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Getting the cane at School and then the slippers at home after the Headmaster had informed Dad of me being naughty at School.
Getting the 12 inch rule across the hands by the Teacher in front of the whole class.
Not being able to go out and play after being naughty.
Parents and Teachers had lots of options back then.
Rafiki
Nov 24, 2023 7:21 AM
cassie
I heard David Adler say that their slogan shouting did not result in their having converted.
How to convert to islam: conversion is a simple and straightforward process with no official registration, the pronounce- ment of the shahadah (testifying that there is no God but God and Muhammad is His messenger, normally in front of two witnesses) being the sole formal requirement.
That’s it guys: any ape can become a muslim; and many do!
But hey, the only way to leave is to blow yourself up while killing the infidel.
Listening to the mostly little white uni girls praising the pallis and islam makes me ill. Every second teacher who has filled these morons with this crap should be taken out and whipped.
What the ####.
exactly
Okay, apparently reposting as a previously approved pseudonym will get through straight away. It’s only the derivative name that was the holdup.
Back to the commentary.
The Bungonia Bee
Nov 24, 2023 7:18 AM
There is, of course, no such stuff. Nobody is born with a religion.
If you have a direct quote from the BBC saying this, that would be appreciated.
If true, it just gives further life to Ryan Long’s parody skit of Woke and Racist being best friends.
That was almost “Shariark” which would have fitted wonderfully.
rosie
Nov 24, 2023 9:02 AM
Engineering, the favourite degree of Iranians.
So what?
Nyt might be paywalled
Yep it is!
from the article
In a paper published last year in The European Journal of Sociology, Gambetta and Hertog argue that the engineer-terrorist connection is part of the answer: it is a new window onto what Gambetta calls the “hidden logic” of society. Though the difference in susceptibility is very small — “it’s like saying the probability that you will be struck by lightning is one in a million,” Gambetta says, “and the probability for an engineer to be struck by lightning is four in a million” — it is, they say, real.
For their recent study, the two men collected records on 404 men who belonged to violent Islamist groups active over the past few decades (some in jail, some not). Had those groups reflected the working-age populations of their countries, engineers would have made up about 3.5 percent of the membership. Instead, nearly 20 percent of the militants had engineering degrees. When Gambetta and Hertog looked at only the militants whose education was known for certain to have gone beyond high school, close to half (44 percent) had trained in engineering. Among those with advanced degrees in the militants’ homelands, only 18 percent are engineers.
The two authors found the same high ratio of engineers in most of the 21 organizations they examined, including Jemaah Islamiya in Southeast Asia and Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Middle East. Sorting the militants according to their 30 homelands showed the same pattern: engineers represented a fifth of all militants from every nation except one, and nearly half of those with advanced degrees.
One seemingly obvious explanation for the presence of engineers in violent groups lies in the terrorist’s job description. Who, after all, is least likely to confuse the radio with the landing gear, as Gambetta puts it, or the red wire with the green? But if groups need geeks for political violence, then engineering degrees ought to turn up in the rosters of all terrorist groups that plant bombs, hijack planes and stage kidnappings. And that’s not the case.
Among Communists, anarchists and other groups whose shining ideal lies in the future, the researchers found almost no engineers. Yet these organizations mastered the same technical skills as the right-wingers. Between 1970 and 1978, for instance, the Baader-Meinhof gang in Germany staged kidnappings, assassinations, bank robberies and bombings. Seventeen of its members had college or graduate degrees, mostly in law or the humanities.
Not one studied engineering.
William A. Wulf, a former president of the National Academy of Engineering, is, no surprise, no fan of the Gambetta-Hertog theory. “If you have a million coin flips,” he says, “it’s almost certain that somewhere in those coin flips there will be 20 heads in a row.” The sample of militants Gambetta and Hertog used was simply too small for them to be sure they haven’t stumbled into a meaningless numerical accident, he says. The theory, according to Wulf, misrepresents what engineers are about. “A person who is rigid,” he says, “is a bad engineer.”
Ahmed is Kashmiri
… adding engineers to the list
1 – Grandparents
2 – Engineers
And that made you the man you are today.
/sarc
Labor just love open borders. Online visas with may/maybe not closer examination as per Credlin last night. Give Australia away to Hamas supporters, rapists, paedophiles, islamic nutters.
Do not apply for a visa if you are hard working and have civilised values as you will probably never be a Labor voter. You are unwanted just like all the civilised citizens already resident here who have been placed on the scrap heap.
This was a clear sign that the relevant migration law might be found invalid.
The only solution I can see is to put the minister as the last backstop over the Judges. Has risks but the Justices are not barracking for the underdog here and my lessons on Government as a school boy was all three arms were a check and balance on the other. So far I am seeing little checks on Judicial excesses in any state or Federal jurisdiction.
That said the inbound call above might be closer to home than comfortable. I heard a rumour a few weeks back from ex defence types Navy is already gearing up for SIEV’s. The words gone out to source Army escort parties already on a voluntary basis.
Very much looking like a one term government now. Boats arriving will be the nail in the coffin, that’s if the media choose to report on them. The latter I am not so sure of anymore…
500 German police raid properties of Hamas supporters throughout the country
The SMH:
Not interested in listening or learning from her fellow Australians then. Astonishing arrogance and ignorance.
I don’t think she’s right in the head.
Yellen: We Have Additional Deficit Challenges Due to Rates, But We Don’t Need to Pay for Israel, Ukraine Spending
It is simple.
Keep the number of landings and takeoffs in equilibrium.
JC
Nov 24, 2023 9:00 AM
Jordan Peterson nicely explained to Bill Maher whats going on with young people buying into the Pali cause. If you see things through the lens of CRT and view life as oppressor vs oppressed, you begin to see where it all fits in.
https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1726376635740373167
Good link head prefect. Jordan sums up the left completely.
favourite degree of our own stupid kiddies? … Arts
When working on the project in northern India in the days when the world was black and white, we palled up with folks from the US embassy in Delhi. They used to come north to escape Delhi for a while . We happily hosted them, not only because they would arrive with an esky full of forbidden pork.
On two occasions they asked us to attempt to locate American girls who had married Kashmiris and had disappeared into mussie families and were no longer heard from.
It wasn’t hard. Our local staff knew all about them. We actually met one of the girls. She was obviously sick and had had her papers stolen by the MIL. There was evidence of Stockholm syndrome but she did want out.
You just have to love Americans. A bloke from the Consulate and a lady Marine drove up from Delhi, grabbed the girl, gave her a red passport and put her on a flight out of Delhi. Local screams of outrage were ignored.
A co-worker used to have a Kurdish boyfriend but it did not work out. She is an atheist so the religion was not the problem, the culture of female submission was too much to overcome.
Jordan said “meta”
… the shame
This should be encouraged, Roger.
The footage of those illiterate, innumerate anti-scientific ahistorical anti-Semitic imbeciles in mosquebourne yesterday was profoundly infuriating and depressing.
Infuriating because they all deserve a damn good thrashing for being such stupid obnoxious little shitheads and depressing because they will eventually end up in unearned positions of power in the bureaucracy, corporations and quackademia.
If you were wondering what the impact of mass brainwashing has on “impressionable” yoof, then that footage in Mosquebourne showed the results very clearly.
“Tomorrow belongs to me”, indeed.
What percentage came from you do you think?
To the nearest 10%.
Alan Kohler – The economy is being driven by a ‘bankocracy’ housing boom – Prices going up – One of the reasons follows – just up the road yesterday 2 examples – Concrete delivery in street, lollipop people both ends plus signs, again around the corner pipe wokr private house – not on road – lollipop people both ends again & signs
When a traffic controller is paid more than a teacher or nurse
Union power in the construction industry distorts pay and makes projects more expensive than they need to be.
John Lloyd
In Victoria, large government civil projects proceeding under the banner of “the big build” are known for their cost blowouts and completion delays.
An important factor behind this malign performance is the exorbitant cost of labour.
The construction unions, particularly the dominant union, the CFMMEU, are off the leash. A watchdog with teeth, the Australian Building and Construction Commission, has been removed.
Subcontractors on the big build projects simply cop what they are told are the terms and conditions that will form their enterprise agreements.
Take the traffic controllers who brandish slow and stop signs at building sites.
A traffic controller working at Melbourne Metropolitan Tunnel Project is paid $126,200 a year, which comes from a $94,500 wage, $17,900 site allowance and $13,800 fares-and-travelling allowance.
The training required is rudimentary: a two-day course. Work on the tunnel can occur at night and on some weekends and attracts penalties of basically double time rates.
The contractor employing the Traffic Controller has to meet significant additional payments for the controller’s work entitlements. These payments include the IncoLink redundancy fund, which is $160 a week, income protection insurance of $31.50 a week, Cbus superannuation of $280 a week, a training fund of $12.50 per week, welfare for families and apprentices payments of $6 a week and a long-service leave fund of $49 a week.
The payment of these mandatory entitlements adds a further $540-a-week to the cost of employing a lollipop person.
A workplace relations system that produces such bizarre pay relativities is in strife. It will produce a labour market where incentive and reward mis-allocate labour resources. The wrong signals are sent to labour market entrants and participants.
The starting salary for a registered nurse in Victorian public hospitals is $72,000 and that of a state school teacher is $78,000. Both roles require tertiary qualifications.
In 2023, hardly a week goes by without a report about the shortage of teachers and nurses. These skilled jobs play a critical role in a modern and efficient society. Governments and employer parties in all jurisdictions are devising strategies to attract more nurses and teachers.
Why devote four years study for a nursing or teacher degree to then spend years trying to catch up to the earning capacity of an unskilled worker who chose construction?
This mess would be less damaging if construction in Australia were highly efficient.
In reality, commercial building and construction is a price-setting activity with low levels of price and product competition.
Its fundamental role in the nation’s economic functioning should demand constant attention to productivity and efficiency improvement.
Agreements like that applying to Melbourne Metro Tunnel Project make only passing references to productivity and efficiency in very general terms. More efficient work practices changes are typically kept off the negotiating table.
CFMMEU officials in the past have boasted about winning agreements without any commitment to improve productivity.
The current dominance of the CFMMEU and fellow unions aided by Labor governments will not end well.
The cost of projects, particularly, public infrastructure projects, is high and on a clear upward trajectory.
Taxpayers foot the bill and in Victoria’s case endure massive debt for many years to come. Eventually, the ribbon cutting of the glitzy new station or tunnel will not hide the longer-term economic folly of the workplace relations jungle on big build projects.
John Lloyd was the inaugural commissioner of the Australian Building and Construction Commission, abolished by the Albanese government this year. This is an edited version of a speech given to the HR Nicholls Society on November 17.
Boat carrying 12 “asylum seekers” arrived on the Kimberley coast from Indon early this week.
Wide coverage in the media.
Ms Allen has a problem. Shannon Deery Hun:
So a 20% payrise for a 20% reduction in working hours. This on top of 50 odd public serpents still getting paid for the non existent Commonwealth Games.
What a country.
I think it’s time to piss arts courses off altogether. It’s not you study Shakespeare, Austen and Goethe anymore.
you want me to point to it on a gaussian curve ?
Prediction: The “Ukraine has lost the war” line coming from the Kremlin and amplified by it’s apologists and broadcast by the scummy Gonzo Peso types until finally picked up third hand in the blogosphere, indicates that Moscow is about to try for a ceasefire to give them time to prepare for another push.
Yes, well…arrogance in politicians certainly doesn’t sit well with the electorate & happily she won’t get another go at it.
That’s a win, win!
Arts is the where the cultural terrorists hide their weapons cache
you cannot even do a hard degree these day without being practically forced into taking some of the brain-washing modules
Rabz, that is a given. The most obnoxious, snotty, entitled children of the elite will be given their rightful places in the power structure. It was ever so, look at Rose Jackson, an MP and a minister in the Minns government, as an example of one such.
Boat carrying 12 “asylum seekers” arrived on the Kimberley coast from Indon early this week.
Article rosie:
A fresh political storm is brewing over how a boatload of people arrived “undetected” on the Australian mainland, with the government asked to explain.
The group of 12 people had landed on a remote part of the West Australian coast, according to reports.
The group, understood to be mostly men, were first noticed at remote Mungalalu-Truscott Airbase in the Kimberley region earlier this week.
It is not yet known whether the group are fisherman or asylum seekers, or how long they had been in the country before they were detected.
WA Police directed inquiries to the Australian Border Force (ABF) when contacted for comment.
The ABF refused to provide any detail on transfer plans.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil was also contacted for comment.
The Opposition’s home affairs spokesman, James Paterson, claimed the group’s arrival marked the 10th people smuggling venture since the Albanese government was elected.
He said it was a sign that Labor “has failed on border security”.
“Under Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil and Labor, Australia’s border security is getting worse every month,” he said.
Senator Paterson said Ms O’Neil must “immediately front the media and share with the public what the government knows about these reports”.
He noted the arrivals came weeks after “Labor botched the management of the release” of the detainees impacted by the High Court decision.
Earlier this month, the High Court ruled that indefinite detention without the prospect of deportation was unlawful, overturning 20 years of precedent.
Dozens of people – including some convicted criminals – have been released into the community.
Emergency measures passed by the parliament require those non-citizens to wear ankle monitors and abide by a raft of rules.
Education Minister Jason Clare warned against conflating the High Court decision and this incident, saying they are “two separate matters”.
“There is an investigation going on, we don’t comment on operation matters,” he said.
“If people seek to come to Australia by boat, the boat is either turned back, people return to their country of origin, or they are settled in a third country. That was the position of the former government, the same one for our government,” he told Channel 7.
Deputy Opposition leader Sussan Ley, who appeared on the program with him, said she was “very concerned” by the reports.
ALP President Wayne Swan said what the government was doing was “the normal procedure”.
“The government will process these arrivals, and they will be deported,” he told Channel 9.
“That’s been policy in Australia now for a long time, and talking about it and exaggerating its impact is precisely what the people smugglers want.”
Pressed on whether the arrival was a flaw in border security, Mr Swan said such instances happen “from time to time”.
“This won’t be the first undetected boat and it won’t be the last,” he said.
“But you would be disturbed if there were a flurry of undetected boats. I don’t think there will be.”
Core elements of Operation Sovereign Borders have continued under Labor, namely offshore detention, boat turnbacks and takebacks when feasible, and a ban on refugees or asylum seekers who arrived after 2013 settling in Australia.
Sugar back on the table. How can anyone have any confidence that they will be sent packing after many were released by the High Court?
The Pakis are currently booting Afghans out of Pakistan. Not much love between fellow muzzies it seems.
Pakistan Mass Deports Afghan Refugees (23 Nov)
Could you just imagine the howling if a western country did such a thing? Not a peep in the MSM though about this.
The immigration issue sparked the election, and it appears the result is for lower immigration.
A lot of left wing votes ended up going to new party NSC, which is left wing on most issues except favouring lower immigration.
The are saying that other parties will try to block Geert Wilders from becoming PM, which might stop Nexit, but they won’t be able to form a governing coalition without including lower immigration parties.
Black Ball, it’s only Victoria at the moment but I’m sure it’s coming to the other states.
Kashmiris are distinct, as are many other groups in India. As I have said before in relation to Indonesia, keeping those disparate groups together as a country is incalculably beyond the capability of our local hacks, who barely manage to keep the Party branches in line.
The one Kashmiri I have known was one of the best looking men I’ve ever seen. He had brown hair, light brown skin and bright blue eyes, He was nominally Muslim, but enjoyed a glass of good red wine.
Someone above mentioned various sources for Kashmiris – this guy was definitely Caucasian, for the most part.
Generalisations about India are always wrong.
Another mobilisation order will be welcomed like a fly in the borscht.
Quite funny what’s happening in Ireland ??
On one hand it is by far the most antisemitic and pro-Hamas country in Europe
On the other hand, they are burning cars and calling for deportation of the same Jihadists they love so much
“Precocious” is a word that springs to mind.
Indolent
Nov 24, 2023 9:21 AM
500 German police raid properties of Hamas supporters throughout the country
Wish it Were Australia – From the Comments
– This is amazing. Crackdown on terrorists deserving of it with rhetoric from government officials to back it up
In the US we get look the other way, intimidated and assaulted Jews + lectures on Islamophobia
Quite a lot actually, but I won’t be dishing out my IP free of charge here.
However, my special Mastermind subject is f-ckwits who play at Top Gun and spear into the drink, taking innocents with them.
I think it’s time to piss arts courses off altogether. It’s not you study Shakespeare, Austen and Goethe anymore.
Correct. My first degree was a BA. In that I had 2 years of statistics, 2 years of physical sciences, including a mini thesis on the historical climate of the Hunter Valley, 2 years of psychology, very black letter, p-test orientated, 2 years of economics and 3 years of English, Australian and American literature, the real stuff from Chaucer to Bill and our Jane, every poet worth reading and playwright as well.
Now when I mention I have a BA I might as well say I have a boil on my arse.
Aye Crossie I believe this policy will be looked at in the other states as you said.
Becoming a very useless country. The article above coupled with the one yesterday with the banks trying to get their staff back to the office. And teachers getting off work to ‘march for Palestine’.
I can just imagine the curriculum, finger painting and graffiti, gangster rap and transgender literature and the most important of all, political activism*.
*Political activism was actually an elective unit offered by a university I know well.
Self evident that the only ones intent on genocide are hamas, oh and many, many gazan ‘civilians’.
debunking claims of genocide in gaza
Just a simple fraction or percentage will do.
If your kid exhibits unacceptable behaviour I would attribute 93.1% of that to you.
Prove me wrong.
It’s so stupid, it’s hilarious.
Shoaib Akhtar? He’s a married man!
He married Rhubarb Karen.
“Precocious” is a word that springs to mind.
Nah; ugly, vicious, braindead, arrogant, selfish queer bitch. Kunt should be expelled.
Rita Panahi with her Good, Bad and Ugly:
Very good round up there by Ms Panahi.
Students choose which subjects they study in an arts degree, my daughter went to Melbourne, and did zero of the gender studies etc units.
Dr Eli David days the Irish are the most anti-Semitic people in Europe according to the post Rosie put up.
You don’t win support by throwing shit at everyone and making bullshit statements. Has he ever been to Ireland?
Please!
Says
Like sands through the hour glass.
Nothing surer. Like a herd of antelope drinking at a waterhole.
The school attended by the pallimuppet.
Black Ball
Nov 24, 2023 9:57 AM
Rita Panahi with her Good, Bad and Ugly:
THE GOOD
Argentina: Elections have consequences and after years of far-Left, Peronist rule Argentina is a country in crisis with the inflation rate hitting 143 per cent earlier this month. Argentina has gone from a wealthy nation with an enviable standard of living to one plunged into poverty and economic chaos.
The AFR View
Thank Britain for why Australia isn’t Argentina
Trying to understand Argentina’s failure should also make Australians think more deeply about the sources of Australia’s success.
It’s hard to believe that Argentina and Australia were once peer frontier economies that generated roughly the same high per capita income from similar natural resource bases at the end of the 19th century.
Since then, Argentina has become a politically volatile economic basket case and low-trust society with a long history of military coups, embroiled in almost permanent financial crises, and a byword for corruption and incompetence. It lives beyond its means, suffers triple-digit inflation, and can’t repay its debts.
Australia – for all its faults and room for improvement – has developed into a G20 economy that is among the most prosperous and egalitarian nations on Earth, and a politically safe and economically stable destination for foreign capital.
Trying to understand Argentina’s failure should also make Australians think more deeply about the sources of Australia’s success.
It is easy to dismiss Argentinian president-elect Javier Milei as just Latin America’s Donald Trump, right down to the weird hairdo.
In terms of political style, there may be some truth to the comparison, given the self-described anarcho-capitalist, one-time rock star and ex-tantric sex coach’s colourful campaign promises to “burn down” the Central Bank of Argentina and take a “chainsaw” to government spending.
But there should be no doubt that the root cause of Argentina’s sudden embrace of right-wing libertarian populism is decades of political infatuation with left-wing populism or “Peronism”, named after postwar ruler Juan Peron and his wife Eva, immortalised in the musical Evita and the song Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina.
Mismanagement of public finances
Argentina’s current crisis is due to the Peronist mismanagement of the economy and public finances.
To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher, having run out of other people’s money, it’s been forced to print its own.
With no access to global capital markets following the country’s third sovereign debt default since 2001 in May 2020, the leftist coalition government of President Alberto Fernandez ordered the central bank to print more pesos to finance the country’s chronic fiscal deficit and pay for its pandemic financial supports.
Without a politically independent central bank like Australia’s Reserve Bank, the peso printing has triggered the first outbreak of hyperinflation in three decades. With inflation running at 143 per cent and plunging the living standards of four in 10 Argentinians below the poverty line, Mr Milei’s victory margin in the presidential election’s second round run-off was the biggest since military rule ended in 1983.
His promised cure for inflation is “dollarisation”, or replacing the peso with the US dollar, which would outsource the country’s monetary policy independence to the US Federal Reserve and remove the option of politicians turning the money-printing presses back on to monetise deficits and debt.
However, with the peso’s value having plunged on the news of Mr Milei’s election, his cure for inflation would likely lead to soaring interest rates and a deep recession.
There is no painless way out of the current crisis for debt-laden Argentina short of some kind of major structural adjustment.
Differing cultural inheritances
With the central bank running out of foreign reserves to prop up the collapsing value of the peso, and with the country already dependent on bailout funding from the International Monetary Fund, another debt default amid higher interest rates and rising repayments is the highly likely outcome.
Scholars seeking the explanation for Australia’s continued rise and Argentina’s slide have pointed to the differing cultural inheritances from their respective Spanish and British colonisers.
Like politics, the rise and fall of nations is indeed downstream of culture.
However, saying a good word about the legacy of colonialism these days is a fraught matter, amid the rise of identity politics and efforts to balance the historical ledger by admitting the negative impact of colonial dispossession on indigenous populations, including Australia’s First Nations.
But that needs to be balanced by appreciating the positive legacies of colonialism if we are to properly understand the strengths of our own country.
The institutional and cultural foundations inherited from Enlightenment Britain after 1788 – which include parliamentary democracy, the impartial administration of the rule of law, and respect for the rights of the individual, including private property rights – explain why modern Australia isn’t Argentina, and ought to be celebrated as such.
I’m not going out on a limb here but there has been a fair bit of hamas support from Irish politicians.
Guardian article so ton of salt required.
It’s part of our psyche’: why Ireland sides with ‘underdog’ Palestine
Although most j’ismists are terrified of original thought and cling to each other and Twitter (the original of course). Don’t want to miss that scoop.
Farmer Gez
Nov 24, 2023 10:04 AM
Says
Like sands through the hour glass.
Farmer Gez,
my wife has been watching Days of Our Life since 70s and is the reason we have Foxtel (OK I have Foxtel Sport for F1 – Last F1 for the Season tonight in Abu Dhabi)
More than 70 series have aired since the 1960s, and “Days” is just one of four remaining on the air. – celebrating 50 years in 2015
Offshore Wind cannot be justified
Paul Driessen and I just finished a study on the impact of offshore wind developments on CO2 emissions, since emission reduction is their primary justification. Turns out global emissions from mining, processing, manufacturing and transportation offset any reductions from power production.
The full study report is published by CFACT’s NetZero Reality Coalition: – 23 Pages pdf
How Offshore Wind Drives Up Global Carbon Emissions
David Wojick, PhD, Paul Driessen, JD
Here is the Executive Summary
Offshore wind facilities are enormously expensive and environmentally destructive. The primary purported justification for constructing them is to reduce “carbon” (carbon dioxide or CO2) emissions and save the planet from “catastrophic climate change.” However, this justification is not just built on a false premise; adding offshore wind to a state’s energy mix will most likely increase global CO2 emissions. That means the net emission benefits are hugely negative, as are other net environmental and economic effects.
This study finds that carbon dioxide reductions from local (state and national, as opposed to global) wind power generation are greatly overstated. For starters, any CO2 decrease will be small at best, largely because the intermittency of necessary wind speeds forces backup gas-fired power emissions to increase when the wind isn’t blowing. (Sufficient backup electricity from battery modules is also hugely expensive, heavily reliant on raw materials that are in short supply, and likely a decade or more away.)
The net result is that adding offshore wind to the existing coal, gas and nuclear and/or hydroelectric power system, though modestly lowering emissions at first glance, does little to reduce local power emissions overall because of the gas (or coal) backup generation now needed to maintain a stable grid.
But the story gets worse.
It’s not only arts, why would a class in criminal pathology be disecting the reasons behind the PM saying sorry.
at least some Palestinians are blaming hamas for their predicament. They may well yet tear them to shreds.
And if you do History of Art you have to learn Freud and Marx to know what the HELL the 20th Century art world had in their heads.
Dan Andrews pissing on Chris Minns
rosie
Nov 24, 2023 10:06 AM
The school attended by the pallimuppet.
The school charges no fees and is entirely reliant on federal and state funding of about $36,000 for each student a year, which also covers the cost of employing a youth worker in every class.
rosie,
The Photo of the Students could have been Mosman High.
The Irish also hold grudges forever – like the one re Cromwell. In this case I suspect the British being involved in establishing Israel in 1948 means they’d instinctively take the side of the Palis. Ireland also was fairly warm towards the Nazis in WW2.
This seems prudent and wise to be analytical in such a manner.
Looks like OpenAI made another breakthrough which triggered the decels into panic with its Q* algo. Details are sketchy but its known to be able to solve high school maths problems. Merge that with the currently in training GTP-5, if it’s not AGI, they are very very close.
500 German police raid properties of Hamas supporters throughout the country
Studying this is not unwise; getting people to be unpaid activists for your cause is self serving, but unfortunately expected of academia these days.
My expectations have been lowered by frequent disappointment.
Seems like Andrews has retired to play golf every day.
Not the only one, by a long shot.
Much better for the rest of us if he stuck to golfing.
Is it really in the national interest to sell Origin to Brookfield?
In the case of the electricity generation and retailing giant, the national interest is being invoked in favour of the foreign bidders rather than against them.
Ben Potter
Takeovers of public companies are usually decided on narrow commercial grounds: offer price, the target company’s prospects, and the value for money on offer.
But in the past month – as Brookfield and EIG’s $20 billion takeover offer for Origin Energy has looked increasingly in jeopardy at the hands of AustralianSuper, prompting a last-minute pivot to a complicated two-step deal that’s no certainty to work either – Origin has joined the rarefied ranks of target companies for which the national interest is invoked.
When Shell bid for Woodside in 2001, the then treasurer Peter Costello blocked it on the national interest grounds that Australia’s liquefied natural gas champion should remain in Australian ownership. When Rio Tinto entertained a lifeline in the form of a large capital injection from Chinese government-backed Chinalco during the global financial crisis alarm bells went off in Canberra, BHP withdrew a $US150 billion ($229 billion) takeover bid and the deal was called off.
This year, when a Chinese businessman wanted to double its stake in rare earths miner Northern Minerals to 19.9 per cent, Jim Chalmers blocked it because loosening China’s grip on global rare earth supply has become a matter of national interest.
In Origin’s case, the national interest is being invoked in favour of the foreign bidders rather than against them, and on the novel ground that accelerating the shift to clean energy to help avert dangerous climate change is in everyone’s interest, not just the bidders’ and the shareholders’ interest.
The argument from activists and some politicians is that the proposed takeover by Brookfield and its private equity partner is in the national interest because the Canadian investment group wants to put a $30 billion rocket under the energy company’s shift to renewable energy from coal power.
Tim Buckley, director of Climate Energy Finance and former stockbroker, agrees with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission that the public benefit from Brookfield’s ambitious plan outweighs competition concerns raised by its ownership of Victorian poles and wires business AusNet Services.
“At the end of the day, we do have an energy crisis, a cost of living crisis and a climate crisis. And all three of them can be solved by unlocking a huge amount of capital at speed and scale in alignment with building new capacity,” Buckley tells The Australian Financial Review.
“That will help solve the energy crisis, that’ll push our prices down, that’ll push inflation down [and] that’ll push the cost of living prices down. And at the same time, it helps mobilise capital to solve the climate crisis which is the elephant in the room.”
Still, AustralianSuper says it will vote against the scheme – which will now be put to shareholders on December 4 – because it believes Origin is worth more long term than the $9.43 per share on offer from Brookfield, and it stands ready to fund Origin’s Climate Transition Action Plan if it remains a listed company.
What are they fighting over?
One thing Brookfield and AustralianSuper agree on is that Origin offers an unmatched – in Australia at least – platform for an owner to profit from the energy transition.
Its giant coal-fired Eraring power station is scheduled to close in 2025, subject to negotiations with the NSW government.
It has by far the largest fleet of gas peaking plants in the country.
Despite the clamour from some activist groups for a swifter exit, these gas peakers will be needed as insurance for those rare periods when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow for a week or two.
Origin also owns the Shoalhaven pumped hydro storage scheme.
Apart from Shoalhaven, Origin has little renewable generation of its own.
Since 2016 it has contracted 1200 MW of clean power purchase agreements with renewable generation projects such as Victoria’s 450 MW Stockyard Hill Wind farm and the Moree, Bungala and Darling Downs solar farms.
Origin is advancing a plan to build 4000 MW of new renewable energy and storage and cut the carbon emissions intensity of its generation by 40 per cent and its absolute emissions by 20 million tonnes per annum, all by 2030.
It has a growing virtual power plant, with 815 MW of customer energy resources such as solar panels, batteries and EV chargers, under orchestration – set to grow to 2000 MW by 2026 – and 400 electric vehicles under management (which it wants to grow to 5000).
Adding sizzle to the asset mix, it has a 20 per cent stake in boom Britain’s green energy retailer Octopus, and has migrated all of its customers in Australia to Octopus’ Kraken digital platform. The stake is worth more than three times the $776 million Origin has paid for it and the business is growing rapidly.
Origin also has an impressive pipeline of solar and storage projects.
In April, it green-lit a $600 million investment in a battery at the Eraring site. Two solar farms are well advanced in development, another three are proposed, a second stage at Shoalhaven pumped hydro is in development, and hydrogen projects in NSW and Tasmania, are at the feasibility stage.
Origin has also applied for licences in Victoria’s hotly contested offshore wind regions, which will bear fruit in the early 2030s.
What Brookfield brings
The Canadian investment giant is focused on the energy transition, via its $US15 billion Brookfield Global Transition Fund.
BGTF has formed a consortium with two Singapore government entities – GIC and Temasek – to bid for Origin alongside EIG.
The BGTF consortium wants to more than triple Origin’s “green build out” to 14 gigawatts (a GW is 1000 MW) at a cost of $20 billion to $30 billion, which is on top of its share of the $20 billion purchase price for Origin. The consortium says it can fund this by reinvesting cashflow that Origin would have to pay out as dividends, and topping that up with capital from the BGTF consortium’s ample resources and “capital recycling”. Capital recycling is selling off completed and “de-risked” clean energy projects, and using the proceeds to develop new projects.
“Retaining cash to invest in renewables is a key difference in the strategy proposed by the BGTF Consortium compared to Origin’s current plans to achieve decarbonisation,” Brookfield’s Asia Pacific chief executive Stewart Upson told the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission this year.
After the latest twists and turns in the takeover battle, there is still no guarantee a deal will get done that delivers Origin’s energy markets business to Brookfield.
If no deal gets done, Origin would continue as a publicly listed company pursuing its existing climate transition plan, which is much less ambitious than Brookfield’s plan, and even less ambitious than the plan of rival AGL Energy to build 5 GW of clean energy and storage by 2030, and 12 GW by 2035.
Transition Plan B?
AustralianSuper insists that it is willing and able to fund Origin’s plan from the $20 billion of annual inflows it receives – but it hasn’t committed to accelerating the build, and neither has Origin.
Even so, there’s an expectation Origin would be under intense pressure to do so, and a common view that there is no shortage of capital available to fund the transition, just a shortage of viable opportunities as transmission approvals and final investment decisions stall.
Macquarie, Rest, Aware Super, BlackRock and HESTA have all committed billions of dollars to transition projects, and a string of rich family offices are eager to join in.
So what’s the problem?
Not all of this capital is willing to take merchant risk on big new clean energy projects at a tricky time in what’s become a rocky transition, says Ed McManus, a former chief executive of clean energy investor Meridian Energy.
“The key point here that I think that not many people appreciate is that not much of that capital is willing to come in and take wholesale market exposure.
And banks aren’t willing to fund projects that have a high degree of wholesale market exposure. So you’ve got both a debt and an equity issue,” McManus says.
“The transition is slowing down.
From a national interest perspective it’s encouraging to hear about a major investor coming in willing to spend 20 to 30 billion.
Presumably their strategy is to use Origin’s retail position to reduce that risk – it seems to me like it should be in the national interest.”
That suggests Australia Inc should be willing to take the bird in the hand.
Alternatively, AustralianSuper could decisively step up to the plate.
“AustralianSuper has a massive voice. It’s got a very powerful position in the Australian economy. We need them to step up the way Brookfield is and encourage and push Origin to go faster,” Climate Energy Finance’s Buckley says.
“I’d like them to help solve three concurrent crises that Brookfield was trying to help Australia solve.”
No French wooden spoons here but I did pick up a French style Huon pine rolling pin on my fang around Tasmania one Christmas. It is superlative, although Perf weather does not lend itself to pastry making, particularly lately.
Perfectly fine by the hamasmuppets.
Tomorrow, Abigail will turn 4 years old.
Her parents were brutally slaughtered by Hamas in front of her on October 7. She was supposed to be released, but in a sick and twisted plan to hurt Israel and her family even more, Hamas decided not to release her tomorrow.
Another little girl who will spend her birthday underground in Gaza, held at gunpoint.
Many of you have called for the ceasefire that will begin tomorrow.
Every second that Abigail and 240+ others spend in captivity is on you too.
Israel may ‘intensify’ bombardment before cease-fire as Hamas morale plummets
Israeli military officials said their bombardment of Gaza may “intensify” in the final hours before a four-day cease-fire begins early Friday — as reports say Hamas morale has plummeted, causing many terrorists to retreat south.
“[It’s] business as usual,” said Lt. Col Richard Hecht, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), told reporters Thursday.
Artillery airstrikes “may even intensify” in the coming hours, Recht added, according to NBC News.
Israeli shells have been reported falling north of Gaza and in the southern city of Khan Younis Thursday, according to the BBC, while heavy fighting is still raging in northern sections of the city.
Meanwhile, some Hamas terrorists have abandoned their guns and fled south as the IDF continues to gain ground and has successfully eliminated senior officials, the Jerusalem Post reported.
Watch the 9 sec Video in this Explosion
Directed terror attacks by sea: Hamas naval commander in Khan Yunis eliminated
IDF fighter jets, directed by IDF and Shin Bet intelligence, eliminate Amar Abu Jalalah, commander of the Hamas naval forces in Khan Yunis.
1979 news
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1979/09/09/ira-and-plo-alliance-for-violence/6e8363ad-a18f-49b1-a95b-8c8f2239098c/
2009 news
IRA and Arafat’s PLO collaborated in the 1970s & ’80s.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/op-ed-contributors/ira-plo-cooperation-a-long-cozy-relationship
Soldiers of the Republic who fought with the Allies in WWII were quite severely persecuted by the government of de Valera upon their return to Ireland.
Here you go Zippy.
Was Sam Altman’s Sacking By OpenAI’s Board Over ‘Q-Star’ Breakthrough Seen As Threat To Humanity? (24 Nov)
Quite a lot of interesting stuff, especially the very last tweet from Elon. He had to go there… 😀
Australian visas in hand?
Hostage deal, even if it fails, shows Hamas’s desperation
The exchange rate for an Israeli hostage is no longer measured in hundreds of released prisoners but in moments of reprieve from looming destruction
If AI starts inventing new mathematical techniques like a generalised analytical technique to integration or solving differentials then science is going to boom.
In theory we should have many new pharmaceuticals in the pipeline stemming from DFT modelling of as yet unstressed experimental molecules.
Imagine the power of enterprise level data collected from IOT devices; combining with all manner of mathematical and statistical modelling techniques applied in a logical and consistent manner being calculated near to real time.
Inventing new mathematical & statistical techniques and algorithms is my own personal benchmark for genuine AI.
Traveling there a few years ago, we heard the story of families who hadn’t spoken to each other, for taking opposing sides in the war of the 1920’s.
Reading about the child stabber in Ireland, the huge part that stands out is that, the ordinary Dubliner dropped everything and went to the aid of the children.
The woman creche worker put herself between the nutjob and the children, being stabbed herself in the process.
Passersby who could see the horror unfolding didn’t hesitate to get involved either tackling the madman or helping the children. No footage seems to be about of randos watching and filming everything on their phones instead of helping. That part especially is cheering.
unsynthesised
The fight for Origin Energy gets ugly
The North American bidders for Origin have forced a delay in the shareholder vote by lodging an alternative proposal should the scheme fail. But AusSuper believes it’s an elaborate bluff to buy time.
Jennifer Hewett – Columnist
Just when it seemed the fierce fight for Origin Energy was coming to an end, its North American suitors have doubled back. Brookfield and EIG Partners were desperate to find another route to winning from what seemed certain defeat after their takeover bid was thwarted by Australia’s biggest super fund.
Their last-minute Plan B offer to the board on Wednesday not only forced a delay in the vote of shareholders scheduled for Thursday afternoon until December 4. It also compounds the drama of the extraordinary corporate showdown between Australia’s increasingly important superannuation sector and one of the world’s biggest private equity investors in Brookfield and a powerful global oil and gas player in EIG.
Add in the strange coincidence of a sudden major shift in government policy after the Labor government finally conceded its timetable to shift the national electricity grid to 82 per cent renewables by 2030 had no chance of being realised.
Energy minister Chris Bowen’s proposed solution – multiplying by more than five times Canberra’s underwriting of renewables generation at undefined cost to taxpayers – may also not work as planned. That won’t be clear for some time.
What is clear to Origin Energy – as well as to the company’s suitors – is that this new policy can be argued to further alter the volatile dynamics of the energy market.
It’s also given all those Origin retail shareholders a rare glimpse into the hardball tactics of the global M&A game.
That the new “alternative” proposal by Brookfield and EIG would only require approval of 50.1 per cent of shareholders rather than the 75 per cent needed for a scheme of arrangement is only one part of this complicated game of big-money bluff.
So the Origin board sounds underwhelmed by the lower price involved, stating it has “significant reservations as to the complexity, conditionality and differing value, and potential adverse tax outcomes to Origin and shareholders”.
“Nevertheless the board has a responsibility to fully assess this revised proposal, so it can provide an informed view about its merits or otherwise to shareholders,” the board said in a statement on Thursday.
But of course, that delay also gives the bidders an extra 10 days to try to turn more institutional shareholders to vote in favour of what remains the preferred option – the original scheme also backed by the board. And Origin now knows exactly who voted no among all the institutional and proxy votes lodged ahead of the scheduled meeting.
The extra enticement from the bidders to try to encourage more institutional investors to back the deal is to allow them to roll into the transaction if they wish.
But AustralianSuper had already refused an earlier offer to retain its shareholding in a privately owned energy markets business. Its rejection of the latest ploy by the bidders has only hardened in tone as well as substance, accusing them of trying to “buy more time”. It sees the offer as more of a carefully timed public diversion to the real pressure going on behind the scenes.
“This latest low-ball offer strengthens AustralianSuper’s view that the offer remains substantially below our estimate of Origin’s long-term value,” the fund said in a statement Thursday.
“AustralianSuper is resolute the value and future value of Origin is better in the hands of AustralianSuper members and other shareholders than a private equity consortium planning to shortchange them.”
Furious mood
That certainly doesn’t leave much room for doubt about the furious mood in the fund.
But the Origin board’s new timetable also gives AusSuper no chance to increase its voting stake from the 17.5 per cent shareholding it had accumulated in time for the scheduled meeting.
Some shareholders are considering a legal challenge to this restriction.
The fund had been confident that building its stake over the past few weeks was enough to block the deal in the first major demonstration of industry super’s ability to exert decisive influence on corporate moves in the Australian market.
It had previously expressed its strong belief that even a revised and slightly improved offer of $9.53 a share (now down to $9.43 due to currency movements) substantially undervalued the company’s assets and growth prospects.
These include Origin’s 27.5 per cent stake APLNG, its Queensland LNG business, as well as the domestic energy markets business with 4.5 million customers and its 20 per cent stake in Octopus, the British energy retailer.
The last-minute salvage operation by the bidders offers shareholders the reduced price worth up to $9.30 a share – in a complicated deal in two parts.
It would allow existing shareholders to receive around $5.30 a share from the sale of the energy markets business. EIG would then make a separate offer for the APLNG stake, with a minimum acceptance of 50.1 per cent of shareholders.
AusSuper deliberately quoted the board’s less than complimentary description of this alternative proposal being “inferior” to the existing scheme.
It restated its view the energy transition “further enhances the value of strategic energy transition platforms such as Origin”.
This didn’t stop the scheme’s backers suggesting Bowen’s new policy reduces the value of Origin’s gas-peaking assets overnight – supposedly making the bid more appealing. This seems optimistic given the fractured record of Australia’s energy transition and delays in building crucial new transmission networks.
Yet Brookfield was still able to persuade the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and some environmental groups that its stated commitment to spend $20 billion to $30 billion on renewables generation and storage over this decade would accelerate the energy transition.
AusSuper retorts it is willing to invest whatever Origin requires, arguing the issue for the energy transition is not a shortage of capital but the lack of good quality investment opportunities.
Next move?
Labor Screw The Australian Taxpayer – Labor Blackout Bowen to Strike Again?
Australia’s Leading Anti-Business Daily says that a ‘Bankocracy’…
Then goes on to show that most of the root cause is Government.
oh sorry sancho … I though you said percentile
‘Hooligans’ torch vehicles and loot shops in Dublin after school stabbing left girl, five, and woman seriously hurt: Riots erupt amid unconfirmed rumours knifeman is foreign national – police say attack was ‘not terror’, mob chants ‘get them out’
No statement has been made on the suspect’s nationality – but gardai say they are satisfied the incident is not terror related.
The Irish Independent reports that he is an Irish citizen who, while not born in the country, had lived there for a number of years.
Detectives are said to be following a line of inquiry that he may have suffered a ‘psychotic episode’ prior to the attack.
Where is Lizzie? Perking up her 80 year old tits?
I had a look at mine, which are considerably younger. recently. Oh, well. It is what it is, Gravity and declining skin elasticity, as chaps with same in the lower regions will know.
That someone who never posts anything new, just her hopes and wishes, in between nauseating personal trivia, is even acknowledged here is weird.
How’s the book going, Lizzie?
You know, the one you teased readers about for yearss, people here even said that they would buy it.
You had cocktail patries where you had to deflect questions about your previous non-existent ‘book.’
As I told you, gutter rat, you made a big mistake in crossing me.
Regarding Rochelle Hicks and her treatment by the indigenous Mr Ian Brown
You can hear from Rochelle herself at this video (3:52).
https://www.facebook.com/theaustralian/videos/a-respected-executive-who-has-held-several-senior-project-management-roles-with-/1011144636659080/
She is an Australian who has been shamefully mistreated.
A perfect example imo of the shafting Australians would have received en masse, had “the Voice” been successful.
Meanwhile Under Labor in Australia
Afghan refugee asked three boys for sex after being released from immigration detention
. High Court found indefinite detention unlawful
. Asylum seekers released into the community
I thought it was supposed to be 50?
Let’s see if Hamas fail to meet the agreement.
“Today there should be 13 hostages released.
Please let it be so”
That goes back to the 1970’s, when the Marxist wing of the IRA cozied up to Gaddafi for funding and weapons. That relationship jumped to the PLO and the joy was spread when the IRA began training Hezbollah in bomb-making.
Years after Good Friday, hardline human excrement Jerry Adams was still snuggling with Hamas.
Turds bob to the same surface.
I’d hazard a guess that Jewish people are safer in Ireland than here at the moment.
The Irish habit of siding with the worlds supposed underdogs is under extreme pressure after the Hamas attacks.
A lovely Chilean girl is working at the grain site but you know there’s a dark history of terrorism and violence in that country.
We’ve been lucky so far but our politicians are determined to plan for division at every turn.
Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane weather forecast: As Australia is hit with a rain bomb, thousands are reaching for this new ‘unbreakable’ umbrella
. Wild weather will wreak havoc on the east coast for the next week
. Shoppers can’t get enough of the Blunt ‘unbreakable’ umbrella
Recommended by My Daughter in Melbourne – I have a Yellow Blunt Umbrella
PS Blog Farmers I hope you get some good rain!
It’ll be fun when the IDF releases those Pali stabby peoples…into Gaza.
Rather than sit in cushy cells in Israeli prisons they’ll have to dodge bombs.
*chuckles
Thanks for posting Rita’s latest article BB. We were lucky she came to Oz. As for O’Neil, Giles, Anal etc, what toxic mediocrities they are.
“He gets treated differently because he’s Aboriginal…”
Getting rain – don’t want rain.
Speaking for myself naturally.
Ask it to invent a star drive Dot.
I’d love to see double star Alpha Centauri up close.
here’s the deal sancho
you keep your little Lego hands clipped onto your greasy pole and continue on wanking
… and I’ll think about it
Not a ‘fiery but mostly peaceful protest’?
eeew MT … phrasing !!
Australian Labor Party Doubling Down on Stupid!
Anthony Albanese’s government not closing the door on commitment to Uluru Statement – which calls for treaty along with a voice – despite failed referendum
. Truth-telling remains on government agenda
. Similar framework is possible at local level
From the Comments
– Never ends with this disgraceful government – only care about their pointless social(ist) agenda and have absolutely nothing else to offer or any solutions to the cost of living – aside from making it worse.
Worst government in history.
4 key facts about Victoria Villarruel, the Catholic vice-president-elect of Argentina
By Diego Lopez Marina – ACI Prensa Staff, Nov 22, 2023
Last Sunday, Nov. 19, the presidential runoff election in Argentina was won by libertarian economist Javier Milei and his running mate lawyer Victoria Villarruel who will take office Dec. 10 as president and vice president of the nation.
Here are some key facts about the Argentine leader:
1. She’s a practicing Catholic
2. She’s against abortion
3. She opposed same-sex “marriage” during the campaign
4. She is the daughter of a soldier and fights for the victims of terrorism
Have you tried finding a goat in a metropolitan area?
Meghan was a 24-carat celebrity when she was a member of the British Royals, writes RICHARD EDEN. Now she looks more like the ‘wannabe starlet’ she was before
The contrast with dazzling Kate at this week’s state banquet ‘is striking’
Not just the de Valera government.
Soldiers who deserted the feckin’ Oirish Army to fight for the Allies were denied everything upon return.
Even the old age pension.
Only after the last one had died, were these brave men officially pardoned.
How worrying numbers of young people are falling for Hamas’s dirty tricks in the propaganda war, writes AMI H ORKABY
A week and a half ago, a Hamas rocket fired from Gaza — one of 10,500 launched at Israel since the current conflict began — scored a direct hit on a house less than 300 yards from my own in the outskirts of Tel Aviv.
Fortunately, the inhabitants had headed for their air-raid shelter as soon as the sirens sounded and escaped unscathed. But it was a salutary reminder of our vulnerability.
Living, as we do, six miles from Ben Gurion Airport — one of the key targets of the Palestinian terrorists — we have grown accustomed to the daily wail of the air-raid sirens as incoming missiles are detected and the deafening sound of explosions as Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system is activated.
I have three daughters, the youngest of whom is ten, and my wife and I lead them to our shelter — every new house in Israel has to have one by law — once, if not twice, a day.
Apart from the sense of trauma that this creates, they are getting no schooling to speak of as their teachers are called up for reserve duty.
Seeing my girls put through such an ordeal only fuels my anger about the way so many people in the West, particularly among the younger generation, have taken up the Palestinian cause and view Israel with such unfounded animosity.
The situation is all the more tragic because so much of this venom is born of ignorance.
This was vividly illustrated recently by an exercise carried out by the Jewish-American comedian Mikey Greenblatt on the streets of New York.
He accosted people at random with a request to sign a petition in support of Hamas and freeing Palestine.
Once they agreed, he insisted on quoting them the small print, which included the slaughter of every Jew, Christian and non-Muslim in the world, making homosexuality a capital offence, and the implementation of a system of sharia law that would ban women from showing their knees or hair, playing sports in public, or travelling without a man’s permission.
Naturally, all his would-be backers responded by performing abrupt U-turns.
But this grotesque level of ignorance about the true nature of Hamas means that many in the West are susceptible to the terrorists’ propaganda.
The truth is that, for all its economic might and social sophistication, as well as the support of the leaders of the free world, Israel is losing the battle for hearts and minds on the street.
And this is down, in large part, to a multimedia campaign based on a combination of fake news, bogus images and a sinister manipulation of social media.
When it comes to propagandising online, Hamas has a massive inbuilt advantage. While the world’s Jewish population is 15.3 million — 0.2 per cent of the global total — there are no fewer than 1.9 billion Muslims — 24 per cent.
Clearly, not every Muslim is a supporter of the psychopathic Hamas but many are broadly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, often because they are not familiar with the history of the conflict.
This means that Israeli influencers face an uphill struggle to make headway on sites such as TikTok.
In the final week of October, the hashtag #standwithpalestine had 251 million views on the video-hosting site, while #standwithisrael had just 65 million.
Not content with this numerical advantage, Hamas and its proxies, probably funded by Iran, resort to increasingly sophisticated dirty tricks to press home their advantage. Cyber companies are hired to use bots — automated software programs — to bombard pro-Israeli posts with hundreds of pro-Palestinian messages.
Bots are also used to submit fake reports to Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram and TikTok moderators in a bid to get accounts suspended or deactivated by alleging they are in breach of guidelines relating to anything from hateful or abusive content to suicide or self-harming.
If a moderator receives 500 reports in a matter of minutes or hours, they may well take the line of least resistance and suspend the targeted account indefinitely.
Another danger of social media is that it is actually designed to be an echo chamber. Users who view or search a particular topic are then offered more of the same sort of content, a process that only serves to confirm their prejudices.
And there is plenty of content out there.
Since the advent of the smartphone, everyone is now a photographer and, thanks to Photoshop, a special effects expert too. One digitally doctored picture of a giant Palestinian flag unfurled at a football match has been viewed millions of times.
That said, in the age of AI (artificial intelligence), there is no need to even go to the trouble of taking a photograph. AI tools such as DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion are capable of creating uncannily realistic images based on textual descriptions.
As Israel’s largest news website reported earlier this month: ‘Anyone can write a line such as ‘Two Palestinian children covered in blood standing amid the rubble of a building in the Gaza Strip next to their mother’s body’ and the generator will do whatever they wish.’
But the misinformation is not confined to the online world. Mainstream media is also culpable and, yes, BBC I am talking about you.
Hamas’s talent for malicious fabrication has rarely been utilised to more malign effect than in the now notorious case of the al-Ahli Arab Hospital bombing.
I suspect your special mastermind subject is “yourself”, you obsessive, confabulating, self-absorbed, superman
lemme help you out
you cannot win
and it is because your vain exploit to somehow un-mask me is nothing but a construction in your own head
I may from time-to-time take some narrative license when i post here
however, for the most part, none of it a lie.
I am an engineer among other things, I did work with Ahmed all day yesterday, my first two kids went to Princes Hell Secondary and an old friend just died in a plane crash
your pattern recognition software needs a few fixes …
Not sure that’s happened yet; it’s been a subject of political debate this year.
Yes, they were denied their pensions and any government employ, while their names were circulated on lists with the intention of dissuading private employers from taking them on. An act of political bastardry known colloquially as the ‘starvation Act.’
Yet Again Labor sets out to Destroy Australia
Strahan community living in fear as Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek reviews Tasmania’s salmon farming industry in Macquarie Harbour
The potential shutdown of the nation’s most prominent salmon farming industry could see a coastal town “with nothing left” as locals fear the impact would be “catastrophic”.
A government review into salmon farming on Tasmania’s west coast has sparked widespread fears through the close-knit town of Strahan.
Earlier this month, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek warned of a potential shutdown of the state’s $1.3 billion salmon industry following requests from environmental groups over concerns the Maguean skate – a unique species of fish – would become extinct.
Ms Plibersek said if salmon farming in the Macquarie Harbour didn’t have the necessary approvals under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act – put in place by the Howard government in 2000 – then she would have no choice but to pause operations.
Fears are now growing in the Strahan community as almost half of the 700 people who live there work in the aquaculture sector, and would be forced to leave town if salmon farming was wound back.
Tasmania supplies 90 per cent of Australia’s Atlantic Salmon, with 11 farming leases held in the Macquarie Harbour, operated by some of the nation’s largest salmon production companies which are based in the island state.
Adam Saltmarsh, who works for the well-known salmon production company Tassal, says any potential industry stoppage would be “catastrophic” for the community in Strahan.
“If this industry was to be scaled back, it would affect the community a lot, the flow on effects for the schools, local sporting groups, doctors, the nurses,” he told SkyNews.com.au.
“We take pride in what we do, it’s our backyard, our life is revolved around this body of water. It’s not an inland town, it’s a harbour side town and without the industry on the harbour, there is no town.
“It would be catastrophic if we had to give this up.”
Manager of Huon Aquaculture, Linton Kringle, argued there were already environmental regulations in place and called on Ms Plibersek to visit the town to better understand the scale of the Harbour before any decision was made.
“We’re doing everything we possibly can to make it environmentally friendly…we get regulated so heavily, probably one of the most regulated sectors in all of the industry yet it doesn’t get portrayed that way.
“Most of our crew have lived here all their lives, there is no option…the mental health issues that would come with it would be huge, and not having other facilities like doctors and proper mental health areas, the suicide rates, drugs, crime would all be huge, especially in a small town like this.
“To lose the industry would be devastating to the community.”
When asked what his biggest message was, Mr Kringle said: “For Tanya Plibersek to just think carefully, and come down and meet us, and have a look at what we’re doing before any decision is made, and look at all the science not just what the environmentalists are putting out.”
Last month, it was revealed the Australia Institute, the Bob Brown Foundation and the Environmental Defenders Office requested the Federal government “reconsider” whether the salmon farming industry had all the environmental approvals under the EPBC Act.
Ms Plibersek then wrote to Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff warning of a potential pause in the industry if the review finds the requests to be valid.
“If the reconsideration finds that the salmon industry in Macquarie Harbour does not have the necessary environmental approvals, the EPBC Act…would require operations to pause while approvals are sought,” she wrote.
“But I will look at any action I can take, consistent with my legal obligations under the EPBC Act, to support the Tasmania government regulator, and the salmon farming industry, to put their operations on a truly sustainable footing.”
The letter came after the Threatened Species Scientific Committee warned endangered species, like the Maugean Skate, would go extinct unless salmon farm impacts were reduced in the Macquarie Harbour – which saw Ms Plibersek announce a $2.1 million captive breeding program in September.
Salmon Tasmania CEO Luke Martin said he hoped Ms Plibersek comes to a “good outcome” which protects locals in the industry.
“We understand there is a legal process but the reality is, the language she’s putting out is creating a real uncertainty in this community,” he told SkyNews.com.au.
“Just to pick on salmon because it’s an easy catch phrase for activist groups is not a sensible outcome.
“I think Tasmanians are sick and tired of being told by politicians in Sydney and Canberra on how to live their lives.”
good for her.
did she do any sociology, criminology or anthropology ?
Labor Foreign Minister Penny Wong Where Are You?
UK Foreign Secretary visits Israel
UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron has visited Israel in what is his second trip in the job in as many weeks.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen showed Lord Cameron around the Kibbutz where more than 100 people were killed.
Both Lord Cameron and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in Jerusalem on Thursday.
Israel declared war on Hamas on October 7 after the Palestinian terrorist group fired thousands of rockets as far north as Tel Aviv.
Following seven weeks of conflict, a ceasefire is expected to begin on Friday with the release of 13 Israeli hostages from Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
Rain! Rain!
Wazzat OldAussie.
Are you some kind of BOM fantasist?
We can’t even remember rain up here in real Oz.
QLD Opposition Leader David Crisafulli plays it safe with vows to bolster public services instead of focusing on real issues of youth crime, propping up crucial sectors
David Crisafulli is more focused on fixing the LNP’s public service record when he should be tackling Queensland’s more pressing issues, writes Rocco Loiacono.
In a speech given to the Queensland Media Club this week, Queensland Opposition Leader David Crisafulli outlined his case to become premier at the next state election, due in October 2024.
After eight years in power, the Palaszczuk Government is on the nose, presiding over teacher shortages, nurse shortages, a struggle to recruit police officers and a youth crime crisis.
However, rather than focus on these issues, Mr Crisafulli chose to unveil a seven-point plan to restore public service integrity, capability and accountability.
These include a new Corporate Graduate Program and an independent Public Sector Commission.
Mr Crisafulli said good governments relied on a strong public service to deliver programs and services, at the same time agreeing with the view that the last LNP government under Campbell Newman got it wrong and didn’t deliver a turnaround in services.
“Queensland has spoken, and you’ve got to acknowledge that and you have to learn from that.”
Mr Crisafulli also believes the service delivery issues plaguing Queensland can be solved with more money: “When I look at the public service, and I look at what is being delivered, the answer is we actually need to attract more.”
Mr Crisafulli would be well advised to look at some facts, not believe the narrative.
One fact that is often ignored is that in the years since the then National Party government was defeated in 1989, the highest primary vote that its successor the LNP received was in 2012 (when the ALP was almost wiped out) and in 2015.
In this election, the LNP primary vote was 41.3 per cent, almost enough to keep it in office, mainly because hospital waiting times were significantly reduced, crime was down 15 per cent, outlaw bikie gangs were gone and the education system reforms were well underway.
Do not underestimate the propaganda machine and reach of the Palestinian supporters.
A friend has an internet clothing business. For many years she has imported an Israeli brand of swimwear. In the last week she has been suddenly receiving hate mail from unidentified Palestinian supporters. And it is foul – threats to kill her & to violate her mother (her mother is dead, so they don’t know her). That they would have the ability and desire to seek out individual business contacts of Israelis is horrifying.
I, myself, received an email this morning from an Abir Ballan – a children’s book writer in the USA. In the email she set out – she is well educated – the “rationale” (hers, obviously) for supporting the Palestinians. How did she get my email address? No doubt most of you savvy digital warriors will laugh at my naivety. But I still find the extent Palestinian propaganda machine quite surprising.
Cyber companies are hired to use bots — automated software programs — to bombard pro-Israeli posts with hundreds of pro-Palestinian messages.
Aha! this is probably how the Muslim writer contacted me.
“A friend has an internet clothing business. For many years she has imported an Israeli brand of swimwear. In the last week she has been suddenly receiving hate mail from unidentified Palestinian supporters. And it is foul – threats to kill her & to violate her mother (her mother is dead, so they don’t know her). That they would have the ability and desire to seek out individual business contacts of Israelis is horrifying.”
She needs to report this to the police.
Why judge refused Ten’s plea to take Lehrmann trial offline
Open justice has been on trial in the Lehrmann v Ten defamation case.
Michael Pelly Legal editor
For a media company to request a suppression order really takes some chutzpah. Thankfully, Justice Michael Lee has shot down the Ten Network’s bid to take the Lehrmann defamation trial offline.
The reasons Ten put forward for shutting down a broadcast of the trial on the Federal Court’s YouTube channel were flimsy, self-serving and offensive to the principle of a free press.
For example, Ten argued it was in Bruce Lehrmann’s interest that there be no broadcast. Lee suggested such concern was “misdirected”.
“Mr Lehrmann’s express preference is for the hearing to be livestreamed.” (When judges use italics, it’s like capital letters.)
Justice Lee also made short work of the other submissions by Ten; that the public would breach an order related to the livestream; that it was already being widely reported and scrutinised, and that it involved an alleged sexual assault.
The judge said he had reached “a clear view that the administration of justice is best served and facilitated by the court adopting the now common course of livestreaming the hearing of this case and rejecting Network Ten’s proposed alternative orders”.
“Open justice should not yield to hypothetical risks of abuse by bad actors.”
Justice Lee said what happened in a criminal trial – alleged victims can testify “in camera” – had no direct application because it was a civil matter. And it wasn’t as if Lehrmann’s accuser – Brittany Higgins – had been in a cone of silence.
He noted Higgins and others had volunteered to give evidence for Ten, did not maintain anonymity – as was her statutory right – in the criminal trial that was aborted in the ACT, and had “engaged in extensive publicity in relation to the factual substratum of this proceeding”.
In other words, he was not going to shut the open justice gate after the horse had bolted.
Amazing aerial photo of Bondi. Australia’s alright.
https://www.aquabumps.com/2023/11/24/hectic-friday/
Teacher shortages can be easily fixed by slashing the curriculum.
Wow. Be interesting in the north with Chrisafulli’s white flag on crime.
ALP may just hold by a fingernail some seats up this way if the LNP isn’t giving any solutions especially on crime.
They certainly can.
Last weekend I received an e-card from a friend. The image was a photo-likeness of me, dressed in a kilt, walking off a casino floor holding a stack of chips, with a 30-something version of Halle Berry on my arm.
Surprisingly enough, that never happened. But the AI image itself was really quite sophisticated: good scale, lighting/shadows in synch, no obvious edge effects – and all done by an IT near imbecile.
No doubt experts would instantly spot it as computer generated (Mrs Faustus, rather snarkily, immediately called it as an obvious fake ‘because Halle is smiling’). But the 97.3% uncritical media commentariat would take it as gospel – just as they would images of laughing IDF soldiers tossing babies onto a bonfire.
Dangerous times.
Yes, it’s a criminal offence.
Even if the police can’t do much about it (absent a court order against the ISP and a mistake exposing the identity of the sender) they need to be made aware it’s happening.