My favourite Madison Avenue story: I was walking along the famous old street on a cold January day in 1990…
Open Thread – Mon 11 Dec 2023
- TULIP versus ruinous Labor
- Open Thread – Weekend 18 May 2024
- Bumtree #15
- Bumtree #14
- Open Thread – Thurs 16 May 2024
Week In Pictures.
Dover, Ive just sent you an email. And it’s half last one, so I’m off to bed.
Scroll on warning for those who prefer not to read a travellers ramblings. Given we had decided to opt for…
There is no negotiating with sub human, low IQ barbarians. Continue the offensive until there is no movement… no other…
I think what the trannie terrorists are doing to the kids is of more concern than a flap, the removal of which does provide some benefits apart from aesthetics
Can I give that a thumbs up, or would that out me as an antisemite?.
I concede that there was a certain amount of cultism on both sides.
No, there wasn’t.
>
Obviously, cronkers clicked on the wrong pic. He needs to learn to code.
How do you feel about haircuts and manicures, Duk?
Like when you blamed the victoms using a weird girl’s scout analogy.
Or you fanatical approach to assisted death.
I hesitate to call you a liar. I’m charitable enough to conjecture that you are confusing me with someone else. But you are completely wrong.
Nah you did beag, CL had a go at you about it and the comment was removed.
It was after all, disgusting.
You also suggested that Cardinal Pell didn’t put the hard word on my young teenager relative who was his altar server for a couple of years because he wasn’t good looking (he was very good looking)
Did George Pell buy icecream for leetle girls in Cuba?
I don’t theenk so.
areff, sorry to hear about your cat quandary, she looks like a nice little one.
We have always had house kitties, 40+yrs, mostly two at any time but presently four because our daughter has moved home. We have kept cats for friends and family as well, but in our opinion it isn’t good for cats to be taken out of their home environment, away from their people. They fret and wander, and it’s not unusual for them to go missing altogether. That is sad all round.
If you have the funds, put her into a small boarding situation where she will have personal care in secure surroundings. When we were travelling a lot in our working lives we had a wonderful lady nearby who boarded ours and a few others regularly, up to 20 max, 5-star cat hotel, well worth it for our peace of mind knowing our kitts would be fed and cared for properly.
Toxoplasmosis demands nothing less.
Good luck.
Duk
If you’re arguing that Israel’s existence is problematic, you may also argue that all settler nations are problematic, in which case you ought to have voted in favor of Yes in the ref.
I agree, Its self evident that having 2 populations with historical claims to the same land is problematic….. history tells us that conquerers *must* eliminate all trace of the conquered population or face conflict in the future. We face the same issues here as in the middle east, albeit a critical mass really hasnt formed here yet.
It is getting to be quite depressing to search through history for grievances.Duk
If you’re arguing that Israel’s existence is problematic, you may also argue that all settler nations are problematic, in which case you ought to have voted in favor of Yes in the ref.
It is getting to be quite depressing to search through history for grievances.
And right there is the problem and the solution…. historical grievances are only perpetuated if gifted to todays generations by those who went before….should I really care if some long dead ancestor of mine was wronged by sone ling dead ancestor of yours, or should I just make my way in the world I was born into, free of the grievances of the past?
IDF clearing out the rat’s nests in Jabaliya
Richard Kemp doing a fine job with palipests
Enjoy the few times you go around the sun and make the best of it.
Sancho Panzer
Dec 12, 2023 8:46 PM
How do you feel about haircuts and manicures, Duk?
Do they grow back?
Again, I shall suppose you have me confused with someone else. You are completely wrong about everything here.
It’s odd that Christians can be so careless with the truth. Frankly, I expected better.
In the west the intolerant religion is the left. On every position that the left deems important you will be ostracised if you don’t concede to them.
Climate change.
Illegal immigrants.
The Voice, treaty and truth telling.
Any opinion that does not have the left’s imprimatur.
During Covid, vaxxing, masking and lockdowns, and rabid threats to withdraw medical treatments, including being happy to let the unvaxxed die, if they would not conform.
No confusion here Dr Icecream.
The cheap jibes about Pell (including the deleted comment) came thick and fast, and with that famous faux-sciency certainty.
After the HC conclusively decided that the whole thing was a fiction, all we got was “Well, maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. Who knows?”
Anyway, what say you now, Beaugy?
Guilty or not guilty?
That was the state doing that heavy lifting against the populace. But here, who behaved like a cult member in favor of forced vaxing? I can’t recall anyone and in fact the vaxxed were also against those rules.
Here’s an opportunity.
Bastards announced it on Friday with cutoff date this Friday (15/12) obviously hoping no one notices i.e in reality they don’t want submissions.
Call for submissions and evidence to the COVID-19 Response Inquiry
The COVID-19 Response Inquiry Panel invites interested people and organisations to make a submission and/or provide evidence to inform recommendations that aim to improve Australia’s preparedness for future pandemics.
https://www.pmc.gov.au/covid-19-response-inquiry/consultation
For someone that claims to be rational and not driven by emotion.
You do use emotive language allot, BG…
I didn’t want to open a scab picking contest. My point was that cultish behaviour happens everywhere. And what happens if you are perceived to deviate from the “cult”.
Human nature to form groups of like minded people, and when pressure is applied, that becomes even more pronounced. Then the fences go up and the inquisitions start. Are they “one of us?”. How do we know? And where even the smallest deviation is punished.
That’s what I meant by not being able to leave without censure and ostracism.
To answer your last question first, Pell was clearly not guilty, and as I said, should never have been charged. The case was malicious from the beginning.
I think you may have me confused with m0nty, which is bizarre. You are just wrong about everything.
I’ve told you this before, ages ago when you made similar accusations. It doesn’t seem to have made any difference.
JC, I don’t, and didn’t, disagree.
As I recall the discussIon’s been about tolerant-intolerant religions.
Clearly Islam is intolerant as Christianity is not.
The intolerance once seen between different Christian denominations is no more. The left is the home both of religious zeal and intolerance.
The left is the home both of religious zeal and intolerance.
Yep.
Seconded.
You’re a very strange person, bespoke. And your English comprehension leaves something to be desired.
did youse know it’s a thing?
not safe for anything … Wiki
LOL!
Playing that card, BG.
You condending is just squirrel.
BREAKING:I hour ago
The IDF has now encircled and besieged and area near Khan Younis
Ok
Go tell that to his fellow troopers.
The ones that gave evidence.
This is real:
https://twitter.com/ezralevant/status/1734212833116659946
pattern recognition ??
I have no idea whether BenRS is a bad guy or not, but what is bullshit is that he was found to be complicit in murder. He wasn’t.
The expression “shown the instruments of torture” was a mere verbal formality. There were classes of people who were immune to torture, such a pregnant women. Galileo was protected on at least two grounds – his age (69 – pretty old for the time and he had been ill so we can call this one and a half), as well his having been granted ‘Clerical Benefice’ which gave him the protection accorded to clergy.
Galileo’s crime (such as it was) was not aeguing for heliocenrism against Church dogma – it was him personally insisting it as truth when he personally had been forbnidden from insisting it as absolutley certain.
Most astrologers at the time accepted the Brahe model (amomg the many theories extant) and not because the Church said so, but because it fit best with observations. Back in those days there was little interest in the layout of the heavens – a purely abstract concern. They were more interested in navigation, predicting the position of objects in the sky from which bearings could be taken, and the fact was that Brahe’s model was more accurate than any other.
Against this was Galileo’s claims, which ran into some pretty irresolvable problems. First, if the Earth moved then there would be a parallax problem – a star immediately above the Earth in summer ought to be to the east in winter as the Earth shifted beneath it. We now know that the shift was hidden by the relative crudeness of the insrtuments at the time – and the unimaginable distances involved: How do you explain lightyears to people who think on miles? We did not think of lightyears, but the angles and the theories required such distances to make sense of observations. Similarly there was the issue of wind – if the Earth was moving around the sun and rotating on its axis then why did we not experience the winds? Back the they assumed that the whole of space had air. If the Earth was moving then there would be winds much as if you were riding a horse. The idea that something as tenuous as air could be bound to a planet which moved in a vacuum was incomprehensible – and I believe would remain so until the late 19th century.
So what was Galileo’s great proof? Everyone now tells themselves they would not be so stupid as those churchmen and would have sided with Galileo. Because smart. Galileo’s proof for the movement of the Earth was…tides. He believed that the tides were caused by the movement of the Earth the same way that the water in a ship’s bilge sloshed forward and back. Any of our current age’s enlightened want to stick with that theory? And without it, do they have anything more than what they were taught as school?
With all this in mind the Church did not call the idea of heliocentrism actually wrong – it was one theory among many. With multiple competing theories each with their strengths and weaknesses, I would argue their attitude was the very model of ‘science’, rather than the benighted doctrinal blindness of which they are so often accused by people most of whom have absolutely no proof one way or the other but have blindly accepted what they have been told. The blind.
But when the Pope asked Galileo to write a book to show that the Catholic Church was aware of all manner astrological theories Galileo wrote a book which really pushed one thoery and ridiculed the others – which was precisely what he had been forbidden from doing years before.
It is easy to forget how many concepts had to be developed, and were at different times being developed in the past. The delination between speculation, hypothesis, theory, and fact that we take as so obvious now had to be created. Unknown to the ancients for whom most of science (natural philosophy) was a pleasant topic of conversation after dinner. They did not actually have scientists. Engineers, yes. Mathemeticians, certainly. But few of what we would call scientists. Again what we call the scientific method was once unknown. Form a hypothesis, develop a way to demonstrate just the one salient point which other factors would be negated, conduct the test to see the result, and then compare to the hypothesis. Again the ancients – the Romans and Greeks who are seen as so enlightened compared to the middle ages – no idea. They believed in in just drawing parallels between nature and humans, for example. Or puzzles like Zeno’s paradoxes. If the science of the middle ages seems a bit simplistic of silly to us, it is likely because they were still developing the principles that we take for granted. But they were the ones working it out. We have just had the answers given to us. Which of the two requires the greater mind?
Who are they, exactly?
Freedom From Religion Foundations Erects ‘Resist Christian Nationalism’ Billboard
Everything?
That is quite absolutist for an alleged sciency guy.
Awful.
Lovely.
This is a compelling argument.
The mood was more of feeling sorry for Victorians.
Arise for the Victorian National Anthem!
Professionals with morals.
I thought I understood tides, but this explanation humbled me.
From 2015.
What Physics Teachers Get Wrong About Tides! | Space Time | PBS Digital Studios
All true, or at least mostly true. You are perhaps rather kinder to the orthodoxy than they deserve. Going against it did involve risk. Giordano Bruno got his for having the wrong, i.e. then unfashionable, opinions.
There’s a fundamental difference between resolving a difference of opinion by force or the threat of it, and using argument. The church was not averse to the former at one time. Pretending otherwise is not altogether honest.
Confessions of an Environmentalist
Everything you wrote in the post. You may be right about some other stuff. I wouldn’t know.
So they never caught up with the Aborigines?
This is predicated by you knowing they are telling the truth.
General David Petraeus’ and Andrew Roberts book “Conflict” has a very informative chapter on the war in the Ukraine.
Seems that, in November 2022, it was discovered that Russia was buying fridges, dishwashers, electric breast pumps and wargame consoles, in order to cannibalize them for microchips for it’s arms industry,” a sure sign of desperation.” (Page 392.)
Imagine Edmund Campion was a Calvinist-aligned Sufi refugee who believed in partial circumcision and an Israeli homeland in the Atacama Desert.
The troopers that are bitter because Ben Roberts Smith was awarded a Victoria Cross, and they consider they should have been decorated?
You probably should be more pacific.
Until then, maybe don’t cricketise the English comprehension and expression skills of others.
…and the existence of Nibiru but not general or special relativity.
Anything other than an immediate military response would have, understandably, been unacceptable to the Israeli populace. It would be a mistake, however, to believe that the degradation/incapacitation of h@m@s assets in Gaza will ‘solve’ anything in the long-term, though it is of course a desirable outcome.
While the financial, logistical, and political arms of h@m@s (beyond Gaza) exist, h@m@s will continue to pose a threat to Israel. Indeed, h@m@s arguably achieved their desired victory state when the 7th Oct slaughter was implemented, and the whittling away of their disposable foot soldiers will be perceived by the peak porkers as merely an irritation. Personnel losses will serve as a recruiting tool, and the notoriety of h@m@s will burn as a beacon.
I have no idea if there were and are, more effective options for Israel, but I do believe that h@m@s’s battlefield defeat in Gaza – while certainly welcome – does not herald the end of the threat. It may be that the residue will change tactics while rebuilding.
.
In the Oz.
Wow.
Disgusting.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/10/israel-cannot-carry-out-collective-punishment-of-people-in-gaza-lavrov
LBW
the Australian opening batter plans to wear shoes with the words ‘Freedom is a human right’ and ‘All lives are equal’
LBW
Surely the BLM people will be calling for his removal.
I’ve never cricketised anyone. I wouldn’t know how.
Pointing out that your memory is defective and that bespoke has language handling problems is doing a kindness.
No good deed goes unpunished, or at least most good deeds get whinged about. I learnt this long ago.
A slur against the professionalism and bravery of the blokes who came forward.
“rosie
Dec 12, 2023 4:40 PM
this is sad. Pretty sure it’s a real dead baby, though not its cause of death but it has at least one too many parents.”
Rosie,
one of those parents is Jussie Smollet.
They really are taking the piss.
And again, thanks for the work you put into finding these links.
I’m guessing that the Israelis already know that since thay live with it 24/7. They should be left to what they see fit. NO! Winston it is not a green light to go genocidal.
Thay are an (trigger warning for Dover) liberal democracy and should not and likely does not care what 4x swilling keyboard commandos think.
Maybe Khawaja’s virtue signal should be “all lives matter”…Oops, hard to keep up with what’s in and what’s out in the conspicuous compassion game.
Ummm, it’s the Palestinians that have rejected five attempts at a “Two State” solution since the late 1930’s.
Amortiser #10:28
Excactly
not having a go at you Morty …
they can ‘call’ all they like
I think that universally, people have so much shit in their heads that they mistake ‘soft’ power for actual power
Dragged to court and forced to give testimony.
Of course BRS, definitely not a psychopath who should never have passed selection and never went glory hunting, can be relied upon for the truth in much the same way as Mother Teresa.
Got it.
Sure.
What was the RoI on the icecream btw?
LoL … I did
depends on the temperature dickhead
and we do know how fast you can lick sancho … so that’s pretty much a constant
Why thanks genius.
Let me point out something less bleeding obvious (to most enyway)
Your arrogance and bravado is a skin suit. Underneath is a scared insecure individual.
Cue: some sooking about ad hominems like how dare you respond with the same contempt.
Batsman.
bigot
Fine, so I could wear shoes with a Star of David?
Blake
@_BlakeHabyan
Watch: 2009 Clip Of Alex Jones Warning The World Of Medical Tyranny:
Today @RealAlexJones was welcomed back on X after being banned from the platform for 1,921 days (over 5 years).
A win for freedom!
How they tried to stop Andrew Bridgen’s meeting
UniMelb grad ceremony today. 600+ degrees awarded, only six brain dead sheep who wore the keffiyah along with their gowns.
Surprised it wasn’t a lot more, but then the Middle Kingdom grads outnumbered everybody else at least 10 to 1.
Excruciating WTC including indig singer who culturally appropriated Western musical style performing her own piece and a claim that these grades are following in the footsteps of indigenous scientists, astronomers mathematiciations, architects (WTF count by good self now reaching extreme numbers), farmers and traders. Yeah, right. Name one if you are so devoted to evidence based scholarship.
Noted also that majority of female academics* of doctoral standard or higher have pointy chins and thin lips. Reminded me of why I chose not to pursue an academic career. You end up in company resembling a gaggle of old witches.
*NotOurLiz
‘DEI must be dismantled’ at Harvard: Alan Dershowitz | Morning in America
* chuckles
Short of an internationally financed “Marshall Plan” I can’t see any way Israel can continue to occupy Gaza or reform the population. Rebuilding Gaza, transforming it into a modern infrastructure state, might make the people there willing to relinquish their long sought extermination of Israel. Before going down that road we need to see that the people have decided to opt for democracy with UN controlled elections for the next 20 years; and that all Hamas operatives are hunted down and in the very least kicked out. That’s the precondition that the citizens must agree with. In the interim the Arabs in high positions within Israel might be able to provide administration and other forms of support to get things moving in the right direction.
I doubt it will happen but as you state Israel is a modern state and occupying Gaza indefinitely, as Duk has indicated, only breeds further conflict. The big problem, probably the most serious problem, is as Roger pointed out: the intrinsic antisemitism of Islam and Arabs.
In the “Small mercies” department, Adelaide’s iconic scoreboard changed “Batsmen” to “Batting”, not “Batters”.
Apparently the 1911 building read “Batting” originally.
I just found out that the horrible term “Batter” is used because of a 2021 change to the Laws of Cricket i.e. wokeism has infected everything.
grades= grads, you stupid AI grammar idiot.
Malcolm Roberts
Labor Hides Corrupt Cronies from Scrutiny
There are only two Abrahamic faiths and I’m happy – yes, happy – to be targeted alongside my ‘elder brothers’ (cf. Saint John Paul II):
Pro-Palestinian Radicals Target Symbols of Christianity.
Read on.
Volunteer Surf Lifesavers have branded as “ideological activism” a new draft “Diverse Gender Factsheet for Surf Life Saving Clubs” which says the iconic organisation should instruct members to “retrain your brain” to avoid calling people by their biological gender.
The guidelines also say that volunteers should advocate for the needs and rights of “gender diverse people” and clubs should modify existing change-rooms, bathrooms and showers to “gender neutral spaces” and build more unisex toilets.
But several volunteer Surf Lifesaving Australia members have contacted the Daily Telegraph, concerned at the appropriateness of the instructions, saying the iconic organisation should stick to its core job of preventing drownings.
The new guidelines, which will be given to clubs across Australia, state that Surf Life Saving Australia members should become “educated on gender diverse identities and experiences”.
“Avoid making assumptions or asking invasive questions about someone’s gender identity, expression, or history,” the guidelines state.
More at the Daily Tele
Lead comment under the story above:
There are now 75,999 members in Surf Life Saving. I’ve just resigned and won’t be coming back. At the age of 73, after 59 years of volunteering, competing, administration and fundraising, I won’t be around next weekend to meet my patrol roster commitments. Nor will I be donating my usual $5000 to SLSA at Christmas time. I’m over this tail-wagging-the-dog bullshit, and so are the majority of my fellow (male and female) surf lifesaving friends. Good luck and best wishes to those/them/that who choose to stay.
Ian4 hours ago
The Problems with Regulating Hate Speech | Jordan Peterson
1. How come his superior officers did not say anything about him, let alone the army psychiatrists and psychologists? Why did they allow him to become an NCO? Who chooses who becomes NCOs?
2. Passing selection is more about being competent enough to pass and having endurance rather than being assessed like a normal exam. Where did he otherwise fail selection? I’m not sure anyone involved would claim any SASR trooper was passed when they should have failed.
3. If he did so, why wasn’t he reprimanded by his commanders? How did he keep his NCO rank? Surely the incident in question was not isolated?
If he and other SF soldiers did wrong, there are no officers being reprimanded in any manner. They were given medals for not even being in the theatre of conflict and other non SF officers led an inquiry.
‘We’re all conspiracy theorists now’: Andrews government’s lockdown profiles criticised
Glenn Greenwald: Power ALWAYS Cracks Down on REAL Dissidents
When a lifesaver arrives on the board to fetch someone who is struggling on the wrong end of a rip and asks, “Do you need help, sir?”, I very much doubt the answer will be, “Did you just mis-gender me?”
oh ffs .. as if
life savee: omfg, help I’m drowning
life saver: state yr gender mate, or yr not getting the boat
I don’t have the faintest idea what you are talking about. Are you confusing me with someone else again?
TE, I said here the other day that the two great volunteer organisations in this country are the CFA (or RFS etc) and SLSA.
Dan Xi Man screwed the CFA in Victoria and it looks like the whiteants have got into SLSA as well.
Agree with Dot about BRS.
There is no way his seniors did not know what he and others were doing. In the incident involving the shooting of the Taliban with prosthetic leg there were two Australian Orions and an Australian drone above. He was shot outside.
Funny how the two award winning journalists dont mention command must have known. The focus is always on BRS.
All of a sudden you’ve mastered spelling. Well done, keep it up.
Test.
Sloooooow
A bit on the quiet side tonight!
New OT up.
more dead hostages.
Ziv Dado was one of the IDF soldiers who’s body was paraded in Gaza, Eden Zacharia taken hostage at the Nova concert
Duk, I’ve been out Christmas lunching all day, hence a late response. I’ve kept my comments to you rational and mostly re military matters. I started though pulling you up on a statement you made about Jews not needing Israel as a homeland. I know that many Jews would see that as a slander on their religion, so I implied to you that you were unknowledgable and perhaps thus unwittingly slanderous. You seemed to have either no idea about or no regard for the Jewish religion’s most sacred elements. The homeland of Israel, as well as Jerusalem, is held as sacred to Jews as Mecca and the Al Aqsa Mosque are to Muslims.
I haven’t ever called you anti-Semitic, just not up to speed in your commentary on Jewishness and the religious significance of Israel within the diaspora. I think that should be clear from my general commentary yesterday. I’ve said you are rather too inclined to take a unitary view about the Muslim and Jewish worlds beyond the middle east, and even re the Arab world of the middle east, and I’m certainly not the only one here saying that. Recall too that I have noted how middle eastern Israel itself is.
None of this is to say that I am all kumbaya about Muslim settlement in Europe.
Far from it. However what happens in the middle east doesn’t determine entirely what happens elsewhere. Much else comes into play.