The Russia-Ukraine War Is Just About Over

It is all something of a set piece. America’s habit of wandering into a conflict and then losing interest is long (Iraq) enough to count as an addition to history (Afghanistan.) “We have your back” and “we will not abandon you” join “the check’s in the mail” and “I’m from the government and I’m here to help” among joking faux reassurances. Our proxies seem to end up abandoned and hung out to die. As in Iraq and Afghanistan, never mind Vietnam before that, what was realized at the end could have most likely been achievable at pretty much anytime after the initial hurrahs passed away. It is sad that so many had to die to likely see it happen in 2023.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/peter-van-buren-ukraine-war-just-about-over

JC, my original point was that the behemoth of China cannot be ‘stood up to’ by little Australia.

China isn’t as stable as you’re making out with millions of Uighurs living in slave like conditions.

China doesn’t want a Pakistan push within its borders and I don’t blame them.

This just in:

Dublin stabber had been arrested for knife possession in May – and had come to the attention of police “several times” over the past year.

He was let off without a conviction.

Western police and judges are as dangerous as terrorists these days.

Proof positive…

Shocking footage of Argentinian Nazi Javier Milei:

https://twitter.com/RitaPanahi/status/1728955259635327070

Leo Varadkar’s twitter take on the Irish/ Israeli lass kidnapped by Hamas is astonishing. She was lost but now is found? Never given much thought to Conor McGregor but he has rightly belted him.

Hamas is hoping to lull Israelis into dropping their guard. I hope Israelis are doing the same, and will at some point, swoop in for the kill. Sure, some civilians will be killed, but that’s to be expected, and is a small price to pay for the eradication of these terrorists, and quietude, if not peace, in the Middle East.

C.L.
Nov 27, 2023 12:41 PM

The United States is no longer a stable society. It’s a toilet.

I don’t think things are going well eather.
But some perspective is needed.

This site yours and instapundits act as a funnel for all the weird things going on in the US.

That perception would be different if all you did was watch shows like Lake Front Living, American restoration.

Boambee John
Nov 27, 2023 8:57 AM

Over the weekend, someone mentioned the positioning of the Australian, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Flags in the Cabinet Room.

The described position, with the Aboriginal flag in the centre, flanked by the National and TSI flags, both breaches protocol (the National Flag should be in the centre) and denigrates the TSI flag by making it appear less important that the Aboriginal one.

Sorry, John. The Australian flag should be on the left because the Aboriginal and TSI flgs are not national flags. The Australian flag should be in the centre when the other flags are national.

If the Australian flag is placed between two non-national flags it is in a subordinate position, and that is a breach of protocol.

The order between the Aboriginal and TSI flags is not set and either coukd be given precedence over the other.

The order of precedence is:

1: The Australian National Flag

2: National flag of other nations

3: State and territory flags

4: Other flags prescribed by the Flags Act 1953 including:

the Australian Aboriginal Flag and the Torres Strait Islander Flag in either order and
the Defence ensigns which should be flown in the following order:
the Australian Defence Force ensign
the Australian white ensign
the Royal Australian Air Force ensign.

5: Ensigns and pennants – local government; Commonwealth, state and territory agencies; non-government organisations.

Source: Australian Flags Booklet, Dept. of PM&C

Vicki – It’s an interesting geopolitical conundrum.

China’s Checkbook Diplomacy Has Bounced (21 Feb)

China can make friends or break legs. It can’t do both.

In the span of a decade, China has emerged as the developing world’s bank of choice, pouring hundreds of billions of dollars in loans into global infrastructure projects as part of its sprawling Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

But as its borrowers fail to pay up, China is finding that its newfound authority is coming at a price. Eager to recoup its money, Beijing is transitioning from generous investor to tough enforcer—and jeopardizing the very goodwill that it tried to build with initiatives such as the BRI. China has broken a few bones in Sri Lanka, whose financial turmoil allowed Beijing to seize control of a strategic port, and is hassling Pakistan, Zambia, and Suriname for repayment.

For two decades, countries “were getting to know China as the kind of benevolent financier of big-ticket infrastructure,” said Bradley Parks, the executive director of the AidData research group at William & Mary. Now, he said, “the developing world is getting to know China in a very new role—and that new role is as the world’s largest official debt collector.”

The problem for China is that nobody likes being hounded for money. Chasing down unpaid debts won’t win many friends.

This is why I don’t mind Chinese people buying up large chunks of Australia, since it would take one Act of Parliament to confiscate the whole lot. Same goes with every Belt and Road country. If they refuse to repay the loans China either has to get all colonial imperialistic or suck it up. So far they’ve not felt like doing anything muscular, and the African countries have taken Xi’s measure.

In the end it all comes down to military force. We’ve had 80 years without too much of that, but the same imperative has been simmering under the surface. The recent wars may be a sign the current world geopolitical stasis is fraying.

Damon
Nov 27, 2023 2:31 PM
Dover, if Hamas succeeds in eradicating Jews from Israel, which country is goiing to welcome a large population of angry and resentful Jews?

Bring them here, they will be welcomed by most, and will greatly outnumber the local Mooslimes (who could usefully be invited to re-settle “between the river and the sea”, with all of their maaaaaates).

They can bring their nuclear weapons with them.

OK, but what does this mean practically? If they stay in situ, it means their permanent domination by Israel.

Dover – Two million people living in tents Dover.
Hard to build rockets in tents.
They can then govern themselves however they want.
Just don’t build anything out of masonry, since Israel will flatten it.

Israel is buying time to some extent.

Israeli ‘Iron Beam’ Lasers Are ‘Future Of Warfare’ (27 Nov)

Now, it’s being reported that the system – which has been in development by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems for 15 years, and was originally set for a 2025 rollout, will be deployed more quickly than that due to the Israel-Hamas war, and it may be placed in service as early as 2024.

More than a hundred Rafael engineers have reportedly been working on this project, considered one of the most significant technological challenges ever faced by the Israeli defense industries, in order to create a fast and effective interception system, with inexhaustible and near cost-free ammunition.

Recent tests of Iron Beam in the Negev have shown promising results, with the system successfully intercepting various airborne threats. The heart of the system is an electric laser pointer, capable of targeting and sending out a powerful laser beam, invisible to the naked eye.
…
Speaking with Calcalist, one of Rafael’s iron beam program managers expressed high hopes for the system, saying “Our aim is to reach a state where the enemy feels totally powerless.

There are vids around of some of the prototype deployment shoot downs of Gaza rockets. It’s like science fiction.

I suspect this system was in the mind of the Hamas guys when they launched their attack. The use-it-or-lose-it imperative is a powerful one, and the reporting of progress on Iron Beam has been more substantive this year.

No defensive system can be perfect. But Iron Beam is fighting DIY rockets built in a garage, small drones and terror balloons. Deployed widely it will cut Hamas or a Hamas-successor off at the knees in terms of offensive leverage.

“Damon
Nov 27, 2023 2:31 PM
Dover, if Hamas succeeds in eradicating Jews from Israel, which country is goiing to welcome a large population of angry and resentful Jews?”

I have said for decades that we should have given Tassie to the Jews as their homeland.
Think what they could have achieved with land as rich as Tasmania, over and above what they have managed with that tiny speck of desert.
It would be a win/win for the Israeli’s and for us.

duncanm
Nov 27, 2023 12:20 PM

a direct threat to the production of Coca Cola.. therefore immediately actioned by the US.

And fair enough.
A company that pays millions in protection money tax every year should expect some jolly good protection every once in a while when they actually need it.

Simple Simon

Sorry, John. The Australian flag should be on the left because the Aboriginal and TSI flgs are not national flags. The Australian flag should be in the centre when the other flags are national.

I missed this point earlier.

IIRC, the Labor government has been placing the National flag on the left, the Aboriginal in the centre, and the TSI on the right. If so, I wonder did they think that they were “downgrading” the National flag? Instead, they are pointedly, if ignorantly, stating that aborigines and TSI are NOT nations.

This morning I posted an article re Christmas in Bethlehem. It got one thumbs up so on reading up on another mag (NCR) I thought that whoever gave it the uptick may like this comment from the NCR.
Luke 2:14 was not something I’d thought about even though I’m well aware of so many Christians advocating peace for all sides.

Comment from Joe (6 hrs ago) from The National Catholic Register:

This year’s Christmas celebrations won’t happen outside for all people to see in the streets of Bethlehem. These will be hidden celebrations, inside a few church buildings, and inside of the hearts of people of good will. This is a powerful, radical return to the First Christmas, when only a few shepherds were deemed to be fit to be invited to the greatest birthday celebration in history, only they were deemed to be pure enough to hear the Angels sing “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to people of good will.” (Luke 2:14); only the shepherds received the favor of seeing the heavenly Child with their own eyes and worshipping him in the name of all humankind.

This particular verse in the Bible unsettled and fascinated me since I was a child. The Angels do not pray for peace for all people, they only pray for peace for people of good will! And all the earthly authorities in Israel, King Herod and his court, even the High Priest in the Temple and the Sanhedrin, were all excluded from the celebration that only a few shepherds with pure hearts were invited to!

In these evil times, the new hidden Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem do seem very fitting, even prophetic.

I found it interesting checking out the many versions of Luke 2:14.

Bloody hell, the line up of silks gouging thousands by the hour is incredible.

Hammering Bruce on the most innocuous discrepancies to build a case of him as a liar. Seems to be holding his own.

Can’t wait for knickerless thunder thighs to put the hand on the bible in the box.

Looing at X, posters are loving that Bruce can’t recall exactly what happened and relies on “can’t recall” as an answer. They seem to forget how this is the standard set by Premiers when asked questions.

Anyway, somehow, not remembering some details about a night on the piss, or bullshitting the guards in the office means he is guilty of rape.

I will be amazed if Britt takes the stand ,even if called. She will be all over the place justifying the changes in her story that are fundamental. Lerhmann has always denied sex took place and she is the one that didn’t bother to obtain evidence by going to the Dr, despite claiming she had.

However, taht will not change the mind of most on Twitter.

Last month convicted terrorist Abdul Nacer Benbrika won his High Court bid to have his citizenship restored after it was cancelled by then home affairs minister Peter Dutton in November 2020.

Benbrika, who was born in Algeria, was found guilty of leading a terror cell that had plotted to blow up Australian landmarks and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

The High Court ruled that stripping someone of their Australian citizenship was such an extreme punishment that it should be imposed by a judge, not a minister.

Now, there’s a blatant power grab by one arm of the ‘separation of powers’ if ever I saw one.

I doubt if the collective of mediocrities who currently inhabit the Government benches have a clue what this means. After all, it doesn’t affect their tax free sitting allowances or anything like that.

I would have thought that the rules of citizenship are the province of the elected government, and if these dickheads had a brain cell between them, they would be huddled up with the best lawyers in the land to wrest that power back to where it belongs.

No doubt they are too busy worrying about pronouns and destroying the economy to bother.

I palled up with a Vietnamese Jesuit at my MIL’s funeral.
Vietnamese Marine captain during the war.
After the capitulation he experienced a fake firing squad followed by 14 years in a reeducation camp.
Upon conditional release, he and 15 others built a boat. To have stolen one would have given them away.
Their voyage was replete with extraordinary adventures including defeating a pirate attack. (“They chose the wrong people for victims” he said with a grin).
He claimed that had he done the seven years at the Jesuit seminary before his capture by the Commies there was nothing they could have done to him that would have had any effect whatsoever. I think he was half serious.

Speaking as a nobody here but I do wish Dover would make his position clear on Israel’s very existence and its future prospects.

I would have thought that the rules of citizenship are the province of the elected government, and if these dickheads had a brain cell between them, they would be huddled up with the best lawyers in the land to wrest that power back to where it belongs.

+1000 Jo.

I mentioned the other day that my memories of learning about government is that there were checks and balances between the arms but I am increasingly seeing very little checks on the justices.

That said David Starkey had an excellent lecture that someone posted here last week that talked about Montesquieu, how the seperation of powers are much less defined in the British system which we inherited a lot of.

This debacle could have been stopped dead in it’s tracks with creative thinking, as one commenter suggest visa class restricted to Christmas Is. However deep down I know both parties don’t want to fix it.

Lehrmann has been cross-examined relentlessy and repetitiously to make an argument that he lied, quite often on issues of fact which appear tangential. He has lost some skin.
OTOH, as noted above, Higgins will be open to the same kind of attack, won’t have McCallum CJ to protect her, and Whybrow KC knows a great deal about her inconsistent and false statements. What has been put to Lehrmann about how he raped Higgins must have been based on an assumption that she would give evidence of what was put. Were she now to refuse to give evidence, the justification defence should fail completely.
Lehrmann has had an uncomfortable time, and deal with many allegations from the bar table that he is a liar and fantasiser. Higgins should get the same treatment, and the public will know abaout it.

ZK2A some relative of the wifes worked in the mines in the Pilbara and every time they went on strike which was usually harvesting season, he went to work on the farms. The result was he paid cash for a farm in NZ after several years work.

C.L.:

Dublin stabber had been arrested for knife possession in May – and had come to the attention of police “several times” over the past year.
He was let off without a conviction.
Western police and judges are as dangerous as terrorists these days.

Still no photos of the suspect who was ‘known to police for knife incidents’.
Ordinary man in the street is also still “a far right activist” rioted in Dublin’s north inner city, causing major damage.
Yes, that will settle the street down you morons – call people with legitimate grievances, Nazis.

Bruce of Newcastle
Nov 27, 2023 1:58 PM:

China is just now finding out that when 50 feral African and Asian nations decide not to repay their Belt and Road debts then it’s China who has a problem. Plus the demographic trap has been getting worse.

China thought “China Rules” beat “African Rules.”
Silly people.

Oh, the irony:

“In these troubled times, we sought a novel with a guiding vision, a book to remind us that we are more than ourselves, to remind us of all that is worth saving.”

Upon accepting the award, Lynch said: “This was not an easy book to write. The rational part of me believed I was dooming my career by writing this novel — though I had to write the book anyway. We do not have a choice in such matters.”

Lynch, who received two bursaries funded by the Irish Arts Council while writing Prophet Song, thanked the arts body for its support of Irish literature.

and

Prophet Song begins with a knock on the door.
A book cover showing an illustration with black geometric shapes and a rising sun over mountain peaks at the top
Judge Esi Edugyan described Prophet Song as “soul-shattering”.(Supplied: Simon & Schuster)

Eilish Stack is stuck at home with three of her children while her husband, Larry, is working late.

It’s the Garda National Services, Ireland’s newly formed secret police, and they’re looking for Larry, who works as a trade unionist.

A few days later, he’s taken in for questioning and doesn’t return home.

“From that point, it’s a barrel roll down a hill,” Lynch told ABC RN’s The Book Show.

Prophet Song describes a world of increasing political repression and social disintegration from the perspective of Eilish, a mother-of-four living in Dublin.

Looking at what is really happening in Ireland, this is yet another reminder that the Luvvies live in another world.

Speaking as a nobody here but I do wish Dover would make his position clear on Israel’s very existence and its future prospects.

What’s the point dopey, the Rapture is at hand. At least that’s what db is hoping.

Oh, great. A Struggle Session for our blog host.

I’ll fetch the hammer and tongs.

rosie:

And we would also have to say goodbye to ever going near the cradle of Christianity again.

And that – to me – is the biggest stumbling block of all. We must retain a stake in the Middle East among the cultural beginnings of our societies.

My last comment was sarcasm, in case anyone imagines I’ll be holding Dover’s feet to the fire.

There will come a time when the current fracas is over and the ruins will have to be dealt with. Doesn’t hurt to look ahead.

m0nty
Nov 27, 2023 5:58 PM
Speaking as a nobody here but I do wish Dover would make his position clear on Israel’s very existence and its future prospects.

What’s the point dopey, the Rapture is at hand. At least that’s what db is hoping.

Another well thought out, logically constructed, comment from the master of wrongology.

Hey FatBoy, would you rent your investment property to a Jew?

Hey FatBoy, would you rent your investment property to a Jew?

A question for the ages.

One might pose the same question to the lollipoppers, who are now almost uniformly of the view that 7/10 was a false flag psyop in furtherance of ‘genocide’.

All influenced by Trusted BloGers, naturally.

Re the Pezzullo sacking, I now find that:

“This action was based on a recommendation to me by the secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Australian Public Service Commissioner, following an independent inquiry by Lynelle Briggs,” he said.

Don’t want to get Dover into trouble, but Briggs was for a long time senior in the old Department of Social Security, and her political preferences were hardly a secret.

Wine can be turned into water and vice versa under the right circumstances.

Bespoke, I won’t presume to get inside the thinking of others. I have enough problems sorting out my own motives.

To me, the Israeli response was just and moral. There will be heartache and a land of rubble at the end. They are in it to win and win decisively, so that when it’s over the threat of further atrocities from Gaza is removed. But unless they kill everyone, there will have to be a plan for future building and peace.

Do you see it? I can’t. The hatred is too deep and too wide. It has engulfed the haters to the point of lunacy. How do you deal with it?

No more jokes about reverse parking a tank!

Just don’t let these gals loose on Military Road during school drop-off time! 😀

Wow, for a good woman, you’re not a keeper. Matrix.

Guys like you explain why no woman should ever trust a man.

There are other reasons, but thanks for the highlights,

In your spare time, look up the history of the Deserted Wives Pension.

That Javier Milei seems just an incredible human being. Engaging, warm and intelligent.

Lucky Argentina!

He’s suffering from Falklands disease. That ailment has brought down many an Argie leader. The Falklands have never been Argie except for a brief few months when they invaded. Twice. The Brits kicked them back off again both times.

Falklands Issue Re-Ignited After New Argentine President Elected (23 Nov)

Argentina’s new president Javier Milei has fighter jets that can hit the Falklands (26 Nov)

Give up the stupid squirrel son and clean your room fix your country.

Guys like you explain why no woman should ever trust a man.

Just searched the net.

No mention of a ‘Deserted Husband’s Pension for Blokes Who Lost Half Their Shit and Most of Their Super Because Wifey Had To Go Away And Find A Better Meal Ticket’ benefit.

It’s weird, you know. People complain about AI chicks* but nobody ever works up a sweat^ about dildo ’empowerment’.

*Not my personal cup of tea.
^PHRASING.

Again I ask myself, why do people live in Sydney?

yes Sydney is congested and neurotic- especially Military Road

Guys, Joh is referring to a historical fact, not the current vanity flensing of male partners. I knew a couple of women who were left high and dry with little children and no means of support. None.

I have no sympathy for the Live, Laugh, Love brigade.

Milei might have the firepower… he might even be using his brainpower to guess that the current UK government- and King- are cucks enough to simply give up the Falklands.

Would that be the same creature as the “blind mullet” bespoke?

Brrrrrrr.

BofN,

I think you will find this is for domestic consumption only and will result in 2/3 of sweet FA. A self-proclaimed libertarian would be hard-pressed to articulate a solid reason for denying the will of the Falkland Islanders to decide for themselves.

All Latin histrionics and showboating aside, I think he has much, much bigger fish to fry.

Wally – The Falkland Islanders would fight the Argies with knives. Then once they were gone they’d use their teeth and fingernails.

The Argies haven’t got a tin to piss in. That’s why they finally elected a guy with a clue. I’d really hate it if he loses it over a stupid romantic vision of no relevance or consequence (except bad).

I need to know. Be honest. Am I a “meta Cat”? 🙂

In my defence, Inner Rings terrify me. I know my CS Lewis.

Would that be the same creature as the “blind mullet” bespoke?