Open Thread – Mon 18 Dec 2023


The pilot’s jetty, Le Havre, Camille Pissarro, 1903

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Jezzer
Jezzer
December 18, 2023 12:35 am

1st for WA

Rockdoctor
Rockdoctor
December 18, 2023 12:40 am

Noity noit.

Last of the decent Bond’s on 9gem tonight. Shame as I have thoroughly enjoyed the old ones marathoned over the last odd week or more.

Roger Moore is the best Bond, Connery a close second but anyone since na, nowhere in the field…

Jezzer
Jezzer
December 18, 2023 12:42 am

2nd, hopefully JC is still u know what.

JC and Mark Bolton , I actually hate seeing your names as I have to scroll.

Idiots, no argument to both.

Merry Christmas

Johnny Rotten
December 18, 2023 12:44 am

I seem to recollect that there were Posters here wanting the Up Thumbs and Down Thumbs put back on after they were taken off by the Blog Owner.

Now that they are on again, paranoia seems to have set in with some Posters with regard to the Down Thumbs that they get. Not so with the Up Thumbs though.

Some Sensitive Posters or what?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Katzenjammer
Katzenjammer
December 18, 2023 1:11 am

Britain did refuse immigration in the 193os, so that’s not an “if” cosideration. Whatever Britain did in the 1930s is totally unrelated to whatever happens now or in the future.

John H.
John H.
December 18, 2023 1:18 am

ohnny Rotten
Dec 18, 2023 12:44 AM
I seem to recollect that there were Posters here wanting the Up Thumbs and Down Thumbs put back on after they were taken off by the Blog Owner.

Now that they are on again, paranoia seems to have set in with some Posters with regard to the Down Thumbs that they get. Not so with the Up Thumbs though.

Some Sensitive Posters or what?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I have a persistent down ticker. I did a few tests so I think I know who it is. I don’t care.

Black Ball
Black Ball
December 18, 2023 1:22 am

Howdy

Katzenjammer
Katzenjammer
December 18, 2023 1:26 am

If anyone wants to establish an invented country that no-one questions, let’s take Jordan as an example and a precedent. Pick any territory with no historical or geographic reason to be called a country, choose a regent from somewhere else who was kicked out of the first place he was attempted to be installed, and use a remote foreign British organised military to expand its borders to straight lines ruled on a map. But never question the legitimacy of this, the most fake designed country in the world – the Arab state of Palestine.

Katzenjammer
Katzenjammer
December 18, 2023 1:38 am

The point is had Britain in the 30s offered a partition plan that denied immigration of European Jews to the proposed Jewish state it would have been refused as absurd by the Zionists.

Britain did refuse imigration of Jews, so that’s not an “If”.

That is all it needs to do to establish the implausibility of a like proposal being accepted by Palestinians currently in the disputed territories that excludes Palestinians without.

Decrees and mismanagement by Britain under the Mandate have no relationship to anything about Arabs of the area today. This premisis and argument are a load of rubbish,

JC
JC
December 18, 2023 2:45 am

The point is had Britain in the 30s offered a partition plan that denied immigration of European Jews to the proposed Jewish state it would have been refused as absurd by the Zionists.

Is this your argument or someone else, Dover? Yes or no?

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
December 18, 2023 3:22 am
Beertruk
December 18, 2023 3:48 am

First XI.

Tom
Tom
December 18, 2023 4:01 am
Tom
Tom
December 18, 2023 4:02 am
Tom
Tom
December 18, 2023 4:03 am

Mark Knight classic.

Tom
Tom
December 18, 2023 4:04 am
Tom
Tom
December 18, 2023 4:05 am
Tom
Tom
December 18, 2023 4:06 am
Tom
Tom
December 18, 2023 4:07 am
Tom
Tom
December 18, 2023 4:08 am
Tom
Tom
December 18, 2023 4:09 am
Tom
Tom
December 18, 2023 4:10 am
Johnny Rotten
December 18, 2023 4:17 am

Thanks Tom.

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
December 18, 2023 4:18 am
Beertruk
December 18, 2023 4:35 am

Via Tim Blair’s blog on Blackouts Bowen:

Monday Noticeboard
Today’s noticeboard is brought to you by senior Labor envirobuddy Chris Bowen, who is beginning to boil under pressure:

Chris Bowen
@Bowenchris
Like most Australians I usually ignore Andrew Bolt. But on this occasion I won’t. His attack on First Nations people as “primitive” is racist and disgusting. News Ltd should sack him.

Tim Bliar:
The beady-eyed fan of four-wheeled crap recently lashed out at Andrew Bolt:

Blackouts: Like most Australians I usually ignore Andrew Bolt. But on this occasion I won’t. His attack on First Nations people as “primitive” is racist and disgusting. News Ltd should sack him.

Tim Blair: Hmmm. Firstly, Bolt didn’t attack any people as primitive. He accurately observed that primitive beliefs – held by Celts, Saxons, Gauls, Romans, Batavi and the Aboriginal people, among others – had been overtaken by science.

Secondly, News Ltd can’t sack Andrew Bolt. News Ltd hasn’t existed since 2013, when it was replaced by News Corp. Our boy Chris sure does cling to his ancient belief systems, doesn’t he?

Please enjoy Andrew’s response:

Andrew Bolt: I have Aboriginal friends far more sophisticated than Chris Bowen
Manic Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen’s response to being criticised is to demand my bosses sack me for being “racist”.

How frightening is this bloke?

Last week I accused Chris Bowen of being an anti-science zealot who was wrecking our electricity system and threatening our $200bn-a-year exports of coal and gas.

Bowen’s only response? To demand my bosses sack me for being “racist”. Wow.

What makes that frightening is that the comprehension skills of our manic Energy and Climate Change Minister are pitiful for a man claiming he can replace our coal-fired electricity generators with renewable pixie dust.

What got Bowen’s green goat was that I mocked his speech to the latest UN global warming love-in, which started: “I begin with an acknowledgment that at the heart of action on climate change must be profound respect for those people who have cared for our respective lands for millennia – Indigenous people across the world … Recognising that respect for Indigenous knowledge, cultures and traditional practices is critical.”

As I pointed out, Indigenous people who’ve been around for “millennia” include the white tribes of Europe, including the Saxons of Germany, the Gauls of France, the Celts of Britain, and my lot – the formerly tree-worshipping and human-sacrificing Batavi of Holland.

Well, excuse me if I don’t respect their “Indigenous knowledge” but value instead what reason and science has brought – not least unprecedented wealth, ease, longevity and freedom.

And if I don’t respect the primitive beliefs of “my” Batavi, why should I respect, say, the professed belief of a few Tiwi islanders who now claim a man-turned-crocodile lives in exactly the patch of sea where the pipeline from a giant new gas project would go, which is why it should be stopped?

Bowen exploded: “(Bolt’s) attack on First Nations people as ‘primitive’ is racist and disgusting. News Ltd should sack him.”

Should I flatter Bowen’s intelligence by calling him a liar, or flatter his character by calling him a fool? If he’s smart, he’d know I was not calling Aboriginals “primitive”.

Indeed, I have Aboriginal friends – Jacinta, Warren, Anthony, Adam – far more sophisticated than Bowen.

“Primitive” is what I called a Stone Age belief in an anti-gas Crocodile Man.

Bowen is either smart enough to know this yet still smears a critic as a racist, or he’s so stupid as to cry racist at anyone who scoffs at Crocodile Man.

Either way, the question is now even more urgent: Can we trust this country’s power to a man so dumb or dishonest?

Andrew Bolt
Columnist

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
December 18, 2023 4:55 am

Reinhardt Buhr:

This bloke is a JET!

New Boss RC-505 MK2 – Live Looping by Reinhardt Buhr

Bespoke
Bespoke
December 18, 2023 5:25 am

No, the problem is that I don’t have sufficient knowledge of the relevant circumstance to render a confident judgement. Neither does anyone here.

Sigh!

Tintarella di Luna
Tintarella di Luna
December 18, 2023 5:34 am

The foundation of every state is the education of its youth – Diogenes

I just saw this quote — if that’s the case then we are well and truly stuffed

Beertruk
December 18, 2023 5:48 am

Tintarella di Luna
Dec 18, 2023 5:34 AM
The foundation of every state is the education of its youth –
Diogenes

I just saw this quote — if that’s the case then we are well and truly stuffed

Tinta, just read this at the Paywallion:

PEGGY NOONAN
What universities have done to themselves

Fareed Zakaria opened his CNN show last weekend with a commentary that seemed to me a signal moment in the DEI/woke/identity-politics wars. I don’t know how Mr. Zakaria would characterise his political views, but there was a quality of something building within him that finally came out. It was an earnest commentary that perhaps took some daring.

“When one thinks of America’s greatest strengths, the kind of assets the world looks at with admiration and envy, America’s elite universities would long have been at the top of that list,” he said. “But the American public has been losing faith in these universities for good reason.”

He scored the three presidents who’d come under fire in the House for their “vague and indecisive answers when asked whether calling for the genocide of Jews would violate their institutions’ codes of conduct.”

Their performance was understandable if you understand that our elite universities “have gone from being centres of excellence to institutions pushing political agendas.”

Those agendas, “clustered around diversity and inclusion,” began in good faith, “but those good intentions have morphed into a dogmatic ideology and turned these universities into places where the pervasive goals are political and social engineering, not academic merit.”

“In the humanities, hiring for new academic positions now appears to centre on the race and gender of the applicant, as well as the subject matter, which needs to be about marginalised groups. A white man studying the American presidency does not have a prayer of getting tenure at a major history department in America today … New subjects crop up that are really political agendas, not academic fields.”

“Out of this culture of diversity has grown the collection of ideas and practices that we have now all heard of — safe spaces, trigger warnings and microaggressions.” Schools have instituted speech codes “that make it a violation of university rules to say things that some groups might find offensive. Universities advise students not to speak, act, even dress in ways that might cause offence to some minority groups.” When the George Floyd protests erupted, universities publicly aligned their institutions to those protests. “In this context, it is understandable that Jewish groups would wonder: Why do safe spaces, microaggressions and hate speech not apply to us? If universities can take positions against free speech to make some groups feel safe, why not us? Having coddled so many student groups for so long, university administrators found themselves squirming, unable to explain why certain groups (Jews, Asians) don’t seem to count in these conversations.”

The House testimony “was the inevitable result of decades of the politicisation of universities. America’s top colleges are no longer seen as bastions of excellence but partisan outfits.” They should “abandon this long misadventure into politics … and rebuild their reputations as centres of research and learning.”

This was a realistic and straightforward assessment of where the universities are and what they should do. It would be helpful if all on the sane left would drop their relative silence, rise up and end the misadventure.

I make two points connected to Mr. Zakaria’s larger statement. He emphasised the decreasing number of Americans who have confidence in our elite universities. I have been reading Edmund Wilson’s 1940 classic, “To the Finland Station: A Study in the Writing and Acting of History.” It famously offers a portrait of the groundbreaking French historian Jules Michelet (1798-1874), a father of modern historiography. The whole section reads like a tribute to the idea of learning, of understanding, of telling. It is not too much to say it is a kind of paean to the idea of the university.

What a scholar Michelet was, what a searcher for truth. His early life, in Wilson’s words, was “sad, poor and hard.” Natural brilliance drove him to and through the academy. He received honours, tutored princesses, but he was really a historian. He longed to know the facts of the past and to understand them. Appointed to the civil service, he was put in the Record Office. He was in charge of the archives of all of France. Wilson: “No one had really explored the French archives before; the histories had mostly been written from other histories” and by hired hands. Over the coming decades Michelet would write the first serious, documented, comprehensive history of France from its beginning through the 1789 revolution.

Michelet said there came to him in the archives “the whispers of the souls who had suffered so long ago and who were smothered now in the past.” His approach was rational and realistic, not romantic, though there was plenty of colour and sweep in his work. The story of Joan of Arc interested him because her story was fully documented — “incontestable” — and because he saw her as the first modern hero of action, “contrary to passive Christianity.”

Michelet said the historian is one who, “taking history as something more than a game, makes the effort in good faith to enter into the life of the past.” He treated history as the crowded, jagged thing it is, Wilson observes, and he didn’t simplify. He saw the story of France, and history in general, as complex, braided, intertwined, and driven in the end more by the masses than their leaders.

The idea of this man — a true scholar who attempts to find the honest truth — seems inapplicable to the current moment. And the reason is the three words he uses — “in good faith” — to define how the historian must act. In the DEI/woke regime, the good faith of the scholar is sacrificed to political fashion. In going all in on the regime, those who run the universities negate their own worth. Faculty and professors, administrators and department heads lower their own standing. Because they are not now seen as people of the mind, of the intellect, but as mere operatives, enforcers. They thus give up their place of respect in the public imagination.

Regular people used to imagine what a university looks like — rows of gleaming books, learned professors, an air of honest inquiry. That isn’t now a picture the public can see. Now it’s something else, less impressive, less moving. Less important to our continuance as a people.

The elites who run our elite colleges are killing their own status. They are also lowering the esteem in which college graduates are held. Your primary job as a student is taking in. You read, learn, connect this event with that, apply your imagination, empathise, judge. It is a spacious act — it takes time to absorb, reflect, feel — which is why you’re given four whole years to do it. But if the public senses that few are studying like independent scholars in there, not enough are absorbing the expertise of their field, that they’ve merely been instructed to internalise a particular worldview and parrot it back …

Well, if that’s the case, who needs them? Is it even worth having them around in the office? The people of a country have a greater stake in all this than universities and their students understand. And the elite schools are lowering their own standing more than they know.

The Wall Street Journal

calli
calli
December 18, 2023 5:51 am

Johnny Rotten
Dec 17, 2023 9:48 PM
calli
Dec 17, 2023 4:37 PM

I really have no idea what you are on about.

Johnny, I was not accusing you of downticking my comments. I don’t think you understand what my attitude to this tiresome person is even now. And it definitely isn’t paranoid – that is your own construct. But it suits a few people, including yourself, to see me in that way.

What I was referring to with the “comment in moderation” was the trigger word that is clearly one because it’s one that you’ve used so many times Dover got sick of it. You know it yourself, otherwise why would you use “jer cough cretin” when abusing JC?

And now I’ve explained because I complained. I’d prefer to do neither.

calli
calli
December 18, 2023 6:03 am

Love Lethbridge’s Miles, Tom. Those teeth! A good find.

I’m still waiting for one of them to paint a blue mask on Wallet Wizard Chalmers.

Real Deal
Real Deal
December 18, 2023 6:14 am

Thanks, Beertruk, for posting anything of Tim Blair. It’s really appreciated.

Bespoke
Bespoke
December 18, 2023 6:15 am
calli
calli
December 18, 2023 6:26 am

Can we trust this country’s power to a man so dumb or dishonest?

Embrace the power of “and” Andrew.

I don’t think he’s dumb though. He’s a slick, smooth, pudding faced political operator who has managed to insinuate himself into, and ruin, several portfolios.

Just like his namesake Cassanova, he’s intentional. The brave new world proceeds from the ashes of the old after all.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
December 18, 2023 6:28 am

What got Bowen’s green goat was that I mocked his speech to the latest UN global warming love-in

MAGA!

Trump Coins New Term: ‘Green New Scam’ (16 Dec)

Former President Donald Trump coined a new term Saturday for the Green New Deal, calling it the “Green New Scam.”

“Crooked Joe will put you, really, in the poor house, and I don’t even get the politics of it,” Trump told his Durham, New Hampshire, campaign rally in a speech that aired live and in its entirety on Newsmax. “What is the politics of it? They don’t know what they’re doing.

“But you’re going to be in the poor house to fund his big government Green New Deal, which is a socialist scam, and you know what, you have to be careful. It’s going to put us all in big trouble.

“The Green New Deal that doesn’t work.”

I hope Bowen reads this, he just might pop a foofter valve in furious outrage.

Tintarella di Luna
Tintarella di Luna
December 18, 2023 6:32 am

Beertruk
Dec 18, 2023 5:48 AM
Tintarella di Luna
Dec 18, 2023 5:34 AM
The foundation of every state is the education of its youth –
Diogenes

I just saw this quote — if that’s the case then we are well and truly stuffed

Tinta, just read this at the Paywallion:

PEGGY NOONAN
What universities have done to themselves

Dear Beertruck thank you – sadly it reminds of a quote about education being too important to leave to the ‘educators’

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
December 18, 2023 6:39 am

The education system literally has turned most young people into Nazis.

Poll: 51% of Young Americans Believe Israel Should Be ‘Ended’ (16 Dec)

A recent Harvard-Harris poll revealed this week unveiled that 51% of respondents in the 18 to 24 age group expressed the belief that Israel should “be ended and given to Hamas and the Palestinians,” reported the N.Y. Post.

“Ideological rot among young Americans, driven by ‘woke’ values and victim culture, has gotten so bad they’ve convinced themselves to sympathize with actual terrorists who hate America,” Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., said to The Post.

The generational gap became even more apparent when comparing responses across different age brackets. A stark 60% of the 18-24 age group stated that Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack could be justified by the grievances of Palestinians, a position shared by only 27% of Americans overall.

Equally important is that 58% of young Americans in this demographic believed that “Hamas would like to commit genocide against the Jews in Israel.”

Very depressing. Not only do they support Hamas and the atrocities they committed on Oct 7 but they still support Hamas even knowing they want to exterminate all the Jews.

How do we get back from this situation? Add in all the other mad stuff they’ve been indoctrinated with and we have a vast population of insane psychopaths we somehow are going to have to live with.

Tintarella di Luna
Tintarella di Luna
December 18, 2023 6:39 am

I don’t think he’s dumb though. He’s a slick, smooth, pudding faced political operator

. may I add, a chinless wonder with arrogance the size of Uluru and enough self-awareness to fit inside the navel of a flea and still have room for a couple of sesame seeds (H/t to Fred Allen’s view of Hollyweird sincerity)

The Bungonia Bee
The Bungonia Bee
December 18, 2023 6:49 am

“Roger Moore is the best Bond …”
As a person who read all the books by Ian Fleming and then saw the movies as they appeared (mostly while I was in High School, back then), Connery fitted the character perfectly. Cubby Broccoli’s daughter, interviewed on radio some fifteen years ago, said Sean was selected by Saltzman and Broccoli for that reason and that he was “testosterone in a suit”.
Moore was well cast as The Saint, that TV series from the 1960s where he drove a white Volvo sports car. Sophisticated, but way too smooth to be a great Bond. Daniel Craig worked pretty well despite not fitting the description as well as Connery.

The Bungonia Bee
The Bungonia Bee
December 18, 2023 6:54 am

“ How do we get back from this situation?”
The USA is finished unless there is a new revolution. The institutions have been so thoroughly marched through and subverted (see the various shonky charges levelled at Trump by corrupt forces) that there are simply too many bad actors in too many places, in too many professions, in too many positions of influence, funded by enemies of the US.

Bespoke
Bespoke
December 18, 2023 6:57 am

How do we get back from this situation?

Start a NGO like Campus reform. To support teachers and perents who are pushing back against the woke.

Makes short videos like prager u with an Australian theme.

Volunteer some research time to already established groups and centre right politicians.

Cassie of Sydney
December 18, 2023 7:05 am

The USA is finished unless there is a new revolution. The institutions have been so thoroughly marched through and subverted (see the various shonky charges levelled at Trump by corrupt forces) that there are simply too many bad actors in too many places, in too many professions, in too many positions of influence, funded by enemies of the US.

Agree. And commentators like Victor David Hanson have warned about this for years. As Hanson said in 2020, during the ‘summer of riots’, these universities are now munitions factories where they turn young men and women into ideological grenades.

I now await our resident fright bat to come on here and accuse you, me and others of over egging the situation. I wish we were, but we’re not.

And let me just add this, we are not far behind in this country.

The Bungonia Bee
The Bungonia Bee
December 18, 2023 7:05 am

This is a tunnel! Largest example uncovered close to the northern Erez crossing used by Gazans entering Israel for work or medical needs – so much for the “open air prison” meme.
Hamas Attack Tunnel

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
December 18, 2023 7:24 am

Hamas Attack Tunnel

We should get Albo’s 860 Palis to dig Snowy 2.0 and the Suburban Rail Loop. They’re obviously very good at it and cheaper than the CFMEU.

Bespoke
Bespoke
December 18, 2023 7:37 am

If all is lost.
Why protest, complain online, send letters to the press, sighn petitions?

Why encourage a mind set that make those things futile?

Why not do the honourable thing and step aside and let the the ones still trying to make a difference?

Mak Siccar
Mak Siccar
December 18, 2023 7:42 am

When are our spineless politicians and police going excise this festering sore?

Radical Sydney cleric calls for Muslim army to fight against West in incendiary sermon

(‘Brother Muhammad’ delivers a sermon calling for a Muslim army at Sydney’s Al Madina Dawah Centre on December 15. Picture: YouTube)

By ALEXI DEMETRIADI
NSW POLITICAL REPORTER

6:34AM DECEMBER 18, 2023 462 COMMENTS

A cleric’s sermon at a southwest Sydney Islamic centre – the subject of two recently dropped investigations – has called for the establishment of a Muslim army to defend Islam and fight against the West.

“This (the Israel-Palestine conflict) has to be a spark for the Muslim community and the final solution, to unite (under one leader) who implements the sharia and sends Muslim armies to defend the lands of Islam,” a cleric known as “Brother Muhammad” told a crowd at the Al Madina Dawah Centre, Bankstown.

The Australian has previously reported how both the state and federal police had launched but then dropped investigations into previous sermons at the centre, from Abu Ousayd – also known as Wissam Haddad – and a cleric known as “Brother Ismail”.

In a Friday sermon, Brother Muhammad accused Israel of using an AI supercomputer to target Palestinian mothers and children, and said the Islamic world needed to become one ­nation under one leader with a Muslim army, calling it the “final solution”.

“The final solution is we must be united as one state under a Muslim government,” he said. “All these lands must be united under one leader who implements the Koran and sunnah way of life: it will use its resources, its oil, its army to defend its people.

Boambee John
Boambee John
December 18, 2023 7:44 am

Katzenjammer
Dec 17, 2023 9:40 PM
State and federal police have dropped their investigations into the series of hate-fuelled anti-­Semitic sermons in NSW, saying the clerics’ calls for jihad and spitting on Israel so “Jews would drown” didn’t meet the criminality threshold

So it’s not a crime then to screach drown all Muslims and slaughter all Aboriginals. Who woddah thoughtit. What a loverly tolerant society we is for menancing intollerance, at least about Jews.

Complain to the ‘Ooman Rites Commission about anti-Jewish Hate Speech.

They won’t take any action, but that in itself will expose their bias and general uselessness.

Alinsky: Make them live up to their (proclaimed) standards. They can’t.

Dot
Dot
December 18, 2023 7:44 am

I now await our resident fright bat to come on here and accuse you, me and others of over egging the situation. I wish we were, but we’re not.

You are over egging the situation. If only universities were more elitist and taught more esoteric subjects and had higher entrance standards, then all of the commies would go away.

Wait, when exactly did they become infiltrated and who agitated for lower standards, joke degrees and everyone having a degree?

Dot
Dot
December 18, 2023 7:45 am

In a Friday sermon, Brother Muhammad accused Israel of using an AI supercomputer to target Palestinian mothers and children, and said the Islamic world needed to become one ­nation under one leader with a Muslim army, calling it the “final solution”.

A certain convicted fraudster has a lot to answer for.

Dot
Dot
December 18, 2023 7:50 am

Brother Mo’ seems to have chosen generic enough language to get away with it for now.

Even this:

“The final solution is we must be united as one state under a Muslim government,” he said. “All these lands must be united under one leader who implements the Koran and sunnah way of life: it will use its resources, its oil, its army to defend its people.

Leaves open the possibility of peaceful and legal means to do so. He’s not inciting violence (yet) or preaching sedition.

Let me guess about this leader, Brother Mo’ – the best man for the job, you believe, is your good self?

Rightfully I should be the Emperor of Mankind. You know it makes sense.

Boambee John
Boambee John
December 18, 2023 7:51 am

dover0beach
Dec 17, 2023 10:27 PM
If your judgement has to wait until the conflict is over, it is not particularly useful. Why not be upfront, and just say “No”, which seems to be your preference?

No, the problem is that I don’t have sufficient knowledge of the relevant circumstance to render a confident judgement. Neither does anyone here. This isn’t helped by contradictory reports. If I were pressed though, I ‘d say at the very least that claims that it is doing more than any other military are exaggerated, and that is on the basis of several reports by people involved directly or indirectly in Iraq/ Afghanistan/etc.

Can I interpret that as you saying that Israel is doing as well as can be expected in the circumstances appertaining to the situation in which it finds itself at this point in time?

Crossie
Crossie
December 18, 2023 7:52 am

But if the public senses that few are studying like independent scholars in there, not enough are absorbing the expertise of their field, that they’ve merely been instructed to internalise a particular worldview and parrot it back …
Well, if that’s the case, who needs them? Is it even worth having them around in the office? The people of a country have a greater stake in all this than universities and their students understand. And the elite schools are lowering their own standing more than they know.

The elite universities will be undone by their own products, the graduates. If there is no advantage to hiring them, and even a disadvantage, then their value will sink and so will the value of their alma mater. Some high profile employers in the US are already stating that they will not hire from Ivy League.

JC
JC
December 18, 2023 7:52 am

Johnny, I was not accusing you of downticking my comments.

You should, because this limey crook has the ethics of an alley cat, and just as vindictive and sneaky. Filth on legs.

I see, the jurc word was banned because of this filth rag using so often? Filth on legs. FMD, he’s one revolting pos.

Gabor
Gabor
December 18, 2023 7:55 am

Bruce of Newcastle
Dec 18, 2023 7:24 AM

Hamas Attack Tunnel

We should get Albo’s 860 Palis to dig Snowy 2.0 and the Suburban Rail Loop. They’re obviously very good at it and cheaper than the CFMEU.

Now, that is a Tunnel!

You are right about engaging them to drill the Snowy tunnel.
How on earth did they get away with doing all that heavy duty tunneling right under the Israelis’ nose?

Dot
Dot
December 18, 2023 7:56 am

What grinds my gears, you poltroons, is the lack of diversity given in dishing out umbrage lately.

You absolute muppets.

Cassie of Sydney
December 18, 2023 7:58 am

“calling it the “final solution”.”

Remember when Senator Fraser Anning, who was a friend to both Israel and the Jews, used such words in a senate speech and for his crime was censored and pilloried, including by many left-wing Jews? Remember the howls, the screeches and the screams of outrage…..’he’s a Nazi”. Geez, I think I recall our own resident slug calling Anning a “Nazi”. The never ending hypocrisy and double standards! I’m still waiting for the senate to censure that vile Pakistani slug, the grotesque and very ugly female by the name of Mehreen Faruqi, who only two weeks ago at a ‘school strike’ for Palestine was pictured smiling in front of a placard that compared Jews to garbage. Goebbels would be smiling.

Of course, when it comes to this Islamic hate preacher absolutely nothing will happen. This is the same NSWaffen Police that provided a personal escort to hundreds of frothing Muslims and leftists all the way down to the Sydney Opera House so they could scream “gas the Jews”.

Just stop and ponder this, imagine the outrage if this was a Christian preacher? Anyone think a Christian preacher would not be charged by the NSWaffen?

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
December 18, 2023 7:59 am

The limey doth protest too much, methinks.

Dot
Dot
December 18, 2023 8:01 am

This is how spite is done correctly, you fishmongers’ wives and chinless manlets:

That’s it then! Cancel the kitchen scraps for lepers and orphans, no more merciful beheadings…and call off Christmas!

You – 10:30
You – 10:45, and bring a friend!

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
December 18, 2023 8:01 am

More coal burned on Earth in 2023 than ever before in human history

By Jo Nova

The best kept secret in the world is that humans are using more coal than ever – So much for the “stranded dead asset”.

In 2022 the world set a new all-time record for coal use — reaching 8.4 billion tons. In 2023, despite all the Net Zero billions in spending, despite the boom in windmills and solar panels, global demand for coal will top 8.54 billion tons.

The IEA is the “International Energy Agency” — supposedly, the impartial servant of 31 nations worth of taxpayers. Yet they decided to ignore the world record and instead tell us how coal is set to decline. It’s what they think the taxpayers need to hear. Their press release:

It’s almost as if the IEA works for the renewables industry and their banker investors?

Mr Vestas himself could hardly have written a more successful headline to hide the truth and gaslight the taxpayers.

calli
calli
December 18, 2023 8:05 am

Dot channelling Lord Flasheart!

Johnny Rotten
December 18, 2023 8:06 am

Dover got sick of it. You know it yourself, otherwise why would you use “jer cough cretin” when abusing JC?

Fair enough and I haven’t used anything like that for a while. When Junior abuses me now (as this Poster continues to do), I have others in the war chest that I use.

Hope you find out who the Down Thumber is as well.

calli
calli
December 18, 2023 8:06 am

Anyone think a Christian preacher would not be charged by the NSWaffen?

One was certainly escorted off the block for producing a triggering Israeli flag.

The very hide of the man!

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
December 18, 2023 8:08 am

Homeowners hit with £120 ‘boiler tax’ to pay for heat pump drive

Companies increase prices of gas boilers to offset fines for missed heat pump sales targets

Homeowners face being hit with a “boiler tax” as manufacturers attempt to offset the cost of the heat pump rollout.

Worcester Bosch has announced the price of all its gas boilers will increase by £120 in the new year, while Vaillant is also preparing to increase its prices by £95.

The Government aims to install 600,000 heat pumps a year from 2028, but Worcester Bosch said it had “no option” but to raise the price of boilers as the UK market “does not have the scale” to meet government targets.

It said it took the decision following the implementation of new rules designed to incentivise heat pump installations which will result in companies who undershoot government-mandated quotes being fined.

Worcester Bosch said “to cover the costs of these fines and remain in business” it had “no option but to raise the prices of the boilers we sell to meet what is in effect a boiler tax”.

As part of its net zero drive to reduce carbon emissions, the Government will introduce its “Clean Heat Market Mechanism” (CHMM) in January 2024.

The price increases are being implemented to offset government plans to fine manufacturers for failing to meet sales quotas for heat pumps from next year.

The scheme aims to incentivise manufacturers to sell more heat pumps by requiring that 4pc of all gas boiler sales are matched in volume with heat pump sales.

New builds, which are required by law to have a heat pump from 2025, are exempt from the scheme.

However, industry forecasts suggest around half of heat pumps set to be installed next year will be in newly built houses, and will therefore not count towards the sales quota.

It is estimated that 80,000 heat pumps will be installed in 2024, but only 40,000 of these will be retrofit installations.

Based on a boiler market of 1.5 million homes, government plans would require manufacturers to install 60,000 heat pumps in its first year – 50pc higher than the forecast market size, Worcester Bosch said, adding “penalties are therefore inevitable”.

This target would increase to 90,000 installations in the scheme’s second year, and to 450,000 in its fourth. For each heat pump a manufacturer fails to sell under that target, it will be fined £3,000.

Worcester Bosch said the targets were “clearly unachievable within the timescales allowed”, and that manufacturers would have no choice but to “pass these fines onto the market in the form of a CHMM levy”.

A spokesman said: “Worcester Bosch will not benefit in any way and interestingly, neither will market growth for heat pumps as the revenue raised from the fines will go to the Treasury and not be used to grow demand for heat pumps.

“This does, however, support the Government’s overall goal of closing the price gap between a gas boiler and heat pump installation.”

Baxi, another manufacturer, also announced a “market mechanism levy of £120 on all our residential gas boilers” starting in the new year earlier this month.

The manufacturer said: “This levy is not a price increase, but a direct impact of the CHMM on our business, which we will use as payment to the Government for the penalty they award us for not meeting its 4pc target.”

Vaillant also confirmed it would be increasing the prices of its boilers by £95. The manufacturer told merchant partners on Thursday that from January 1, it will introduce “a CHMM levy of £95 on all boiler sales under 70kW”.

A spokesman added: “There are multiple factors announced by the Government that will impact Vaillant. The current process does not allow manufacturers the full visibility of how many heat pumps sold are MCS registered.

“Given the changing market dynamics and push for heat pump installations generated by CHMM, we in the current circumstances are left with no option but to act.”

A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesman said: “We have not required any increase to the price of gas boilers.

“Targets are realistic and fully achievable, providing industry with flexible options to support our ambition to make heat pumps easy and affordable to install.

“This is alongside making it easier to get a heat pump by increasing the Boiler Upgrade Scheme by 50pc to £7,500 – tripling applications in the week after it was rolled out.”

Roger
Roger
December 18, 2023 8:08 am

I’d like to see Brother Mo’s credentials.

What? He has none.

Perhaps we should, like France and Germany, move to licensing Muslim clerics.

You don’t want Bor Mo and his ilk going into prisons as “chaplains”, for example.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
December 18, 2023 8:09 am

Hope you find out who the Down Thumber is as well.

Sure you do.

calli
calli
December 18, 2023 8:12 am

Johnny, I can make an edumacated guess. There are very few people who are nasty enough to object to posts about grief for a dead parent.

So it boils down to those who perceive that I have harmed them either here or on the old blog, or a purely spiteful individual who does it for s&gs. Either way, Gollum or Nazgul, they are to be pitied.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
December 18, 2023 8:13 am
rosie
rosie
December 18, 2023 8:15 am

All is not lost.
The my truth ivys will bleed donations and enrolments and employers will look elsewhere.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
December 18, 2023 8:16 am

Or someone hoping to wind up trouble and deflect it to someone else?
Marty’s disciple fits the bill.

rosie
rosie
December 18, 2023 8:17 am

Perhaps we should, like France and Germany, move to licensing Muslim clerics.

It seems like it’s the English speaking world who are most in thrall to our would be masters.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
December 18, 2023 8:17 am

Islamism is rampant in French schools

A rigid incarnation of the religion has taken root in many classrooms, threatening the liberal values of France. It serves as a warning

ANNE-ELISABETH MOUTET

Twenty years ago, the story that a bunch of teenaged French pupils had protested they were “shocked” by their teacher showing them a 1603 painting of five nude women would have caused hilarity across the country, not fear.

“What are they complaining about?” would have been the universal guffaw.

But the teachers at the Jacques Cartier secondary school in Issou, west of Paris, have known otherwise for years.

The scenario that unfolded in a French literature classroom last week has happened many, many times across the country in the same kind of state sink schools.

It has, in the last three years, led to two of their profession being murdered by pupils or friends of their pupils, abetted by many parents supposedly roused to outrage by some sort of infringement to strict religious “morals”.

The scene that unfolded was as follows, we are told: one girl stood up during class to object to the use of the picture (the original is in the Louvre).

A gaggle of pupils supported her loudly, insulting the teacher.

The class ended in loud discord.

The following hour, several pupils ran the class head ragged, calling the literature teacher “racist”; the following day a mother threatened the head with a lawsuit.

As the story made local then national TV news, Gabriel Attal, France’s new activist Education Minister visited the school to talk tough on infringements to French secularism and school disruption, and promised that the offenders would be disciplined.

The teaching staff reminded him that this was the 16th such registered incident in the previous two months. In October, the Arras fatal stabbing of another teacher, Dominique Bernard, by a Chechen former pupil, caused outrage:

it reawakened French anger at what is increasingly obvious: failures of integration by pockets of communities in a country that until recently had a centuries-old tradition of happy assimilation.

An arch-rigid variation of Islam, derived from Wahhabism, has been actively fostered by radical Islamist organisations like Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood since the late 1970s, changing the traditions of the Muslim community in France, and that of their countries of origin.

The colonial historian Pascal Blanchard, one of the thinking heads behind the Paris Musée de l’Immigration, who has worked extensively on contemporary documents, notes how easily the first wave of Maghreb workers who came to rebuild post-war France in the 1950s and 1960s integrated among mixed communities in social housing.

The Algerian Independence fighters were as secular as their French Communist allies: three decades later, the same regime fought a bloody civil war against Islamist terror in which over 200,000 died.

It is no surprise that the Qatari Al-Jazeera news channel, and its TikTok-like young-oriented incarnation AJ+, targets supposed French “racism” almost daily: its sponsors seem to see French secularism and the freedom of choice it fosters, which they affect not to understand, as their deadliest enemy.

The existential war relentlessly waged against Western culture and freedoms should serve as a warning to Britain:

integration is not “oppression” but a gift to the populations who have chosen to live in our societies; a promise of success and happiness in the economic and political system that made such a promise possible.

The French like the British Left have bought into a narrative that serves the people who want to destroy that, and the danger is that their centrist allies, needing their votes, refuse to be warned.

As government after government, from the Netherlands to Denmark to Italy to the US is faced with public anger over botched integration, there will be more victories for a radical Right that may not have better answers, but at least seems to acknowledge reality.

Boambee John
Boambee John
December 18, 2023 8:18 am

The Bungonia Bee
Dec 18, 2023 6:49 AM
“Roger Moore is the best Bond …”
As a person who read all the books by Ian Fleming and then saw the movies as they appeared (mostly while I was in High School, back then),

Fleming, who was in Naval Intelligence during the Second World War, inserted an “in-house” joke into the books.

The First Director of the SIS was a naval officer named Smith-Cumming. He had the habit of initialing documents with the letter “C”. Over time, the initial became associated with the position, which itself became known as “C”.

In the Bond books, the position is referred to as “M”. Smith-Cumming’s first name was Mansfield, and Fleming used that initial instead of “C”.

JC
JC
December 18, 2023 8:21 am

Either way, Gollum or Nazgul, they are to be pitied.

It’s him. Don’t ever pity an unethical scumbag with zero ethics. He’s admitted to ticking on the basis of personal animosities.

Ironically he’s downgraded ticking to the point where it’s actually funny because it highlights triggering.

calli
calli
December 18, 2023 8:22 am

No Sancho. This one isn’t particularly bright, just malicious. You can’t argue if you’ve been banned, so the options are fairly limited.

And you can’t return under another name and still adhere to your “brand” – you’d be found out in an instant. The downtick is a perfect vehicle to settle scores without exposure. Anonymity has its uses.

rosie
rosie
December 18, 2023 8:23 am

I foolishly got in to a blue with a Yemeni terrorist supporter running the line that the surrendered were either too skinny or too fat to be terrorists.
Pointed out the proportions of Shani Louk’s killers.
It’s called lying for jihad.
Oh and killing innocent young Africans.
Who are the biggest racists?
video has emerged of the murder on 7 October of Tanzanian student Joshua Mollel. His poor family to see this.

Cassie of Sydney
December 18, 2023 8:23 am

One was certainly escorted off the block for producing a triggering Israeli flag.

The very hide of the man!”

Ah yes, the Reverend Mark Leach, who isn’t just a Christian Pastor but also a halachic Jew, the son of a Jewish mother. Mark Leach is also the father of Freya Leach, a young woman who gives me hope in this mad world.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
December 18, 2023 8:23 am

Brother Mohammad, the clue is in the last 3 letters.

Boambee John
Boambee John
December 18, 2023 8:25 am

calli
Dec 18, 2023 8:05 AM
Dot channelling Lord Flasheart!

I thought it was the Sherrif of Nottingham.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
December 18, 2023 8:25 am

What we can all learn from Blind Freddie

This is an edited extract of Gina Rinehart’s speech to The Australian Financial Review Business Person of the Year awards on December 14.

Gina Rinehart

My dad’s estate was bankrupt – which should be public knowledge, given the lengthy legal proceedings and appeal.

So I still puzzle why the left media love to call me heiress, and even more puzzling is how they portray that once the government awards tenements to a company, after doing nothing much, money flows.

Other than to undermine those who try hard and work hard.

The vast majority of tenements never make it to become mines.

And, as Blind Freddie knows, no money flows.

Our company has shown what outcomes can be achieved when employers and employees are able to work together.

It has been a challenging year for our primary industries, with more and more interventions from the government – and many in the city not understanding the import of these.

In agriculture, it’s no longer the dangerous fires, droughts, floods that are the main problem, but man-made ones. Government ones.

One of my least favourites is restricting farmers from being able to protect their families, staff, pets, homes and investment from fires – outlawing firebreaks over inadequate dimensions.

Another that has upset many farmers is the building of vast tracts of solar panels and wind farms and electricity connections across their land.

It is estimated that one-third of prime agricultural land will be taken over. What do you think this will mean to fresh quality food availability, and prices?

Maybe some more of these eyesores should be placed in city parks, rivers and city beaches – for us city dwellers to get a better idea, and to lessen the impact on agricultural land.

I know this won’t happen, you’re safe, given the cities are where the votes are.

And although farmers are upset, worried, even frightened, with these fire risks, transmission lines and large bird killers being placed on their properties, this is just the tip of the landslide waiting for them with net zero policies.

Take a typical station, like Fossil Downs – using the exact numbers of vehicles used to work that iconic station, replacing them with electric vehicles will cost $10.4 million to $11.4 million.

Increasing cost of food

Plus unknown fines, as some of those EVs aren’t produced yet. And it doesn’t stop there.

If your station has, say, 50 windmills – essential to get the daily water stock need – and you are required to change that to solar pumps at $70,000 a pop, that’s another $3.5 million.

And it doesn’t stop there. Stations run on diesel-fuelled generators; change them to solar, and giant batteries will also be required.

Just how many farms and stations do you think will be able to pay for all this and still be able to operate, after hugely increasing the cost of food and fibres to city folk?

Probably only those with a mining company in their back pocket. But perhaps inner cities won’t mind different quality food coming in from overseas – not as fresh, not produced with our clean air and water, or environmental standards.

When primary industries are used to carrying onerous government burdens, Blind Freddie knows those costs must be passed on. Increasing council rates affect you even if you don’t own a house, as the landlord has to pass them on via rent.

Cut red tape

And payroll tax isn’t just for businesses to pay – as Blind Freddie knows, that too has to be passed on to you.

And excise on fuel, even if you don’t own a car – well, anything that requires transport requires fuel, so these costs are passed on.

I can’t think of anything that isn’t touched by the excise on fuel. I call that a nasty tax that, with people struggling, would be an absolutely fantastic one to cut.

Like other businesses, we have been speaking out regarding these interventions where we see that the path the government is taking is not in the best interests of Australians.

We need policy that helps Australians. We need policies that make investment in our country worth doing. If we have any interest in maintaining our standards of living, we should be doing what other countries are doing.

Rolling out the red carpet for investment. Expensive trade trips, even the expense of trade personnel overseas, well – without cutting the cost and delay, or worse, of government red tape, there’s no reason for those.

We need to understand that rolling out the red carpet for investment does not mean increasing government red tape and regulations. It does not mean the overburdened taxpayers paying for lawfare to delay or stop projects.

Blind Freddie can see. Common sense would be so helpful.

The Australian Financial Review, Australia’s leading business newspaper, and its media mates have an important role to play in conveying these Blind Freddie messages to our government.

Gina Rinehart is the executive chairman of Hancock Prospecting and Australia’s richest person. She is The Australian Financial Review Business Person of the Year for 2023.

calli
calli
December 18, 2023 8:29 am

Sheriff of Nottingham? How could I have forgotten him? 😀

Of course it is. Not enough harroomph! for Flasheart.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
December 18, 2023 8:36 am

calli, all it needs is another email address to access and comment on the Cat. I’m sure Dover could check the device identifier but thats more work fore him. If I ran a blog I wouldn’t allow VPN access to comment which several I’m a contributor to don’t allow commenting.

Johnny Rotten
December 18, 2023 8:38 am

Where to Hide – & What to Consider

QUESTION: Dear Martin and the team.
Perhaps the chances are very low that this would somehow reach Martin. However, I would like to try to use “the power of the internet.” I have to try, so at least I am not blaming myself. I would like to ask a question and if somehow, possibly get the answer and Martin’s thoughts. (btw I bought your books, but sadly I can’t come to those conferences as they are quite far away, not to mention visas…!)

I am originally from Russia but came to the UK 9 years ago. I never thought that we would go threw such insanity during my life. My parents who passed in the 90s (the time when SU collapsed) believe that there is nothing scarier than this. Yet, based on their description, it looks like the 90s is coming worldwide, which scares me to the bones. I just can’t recognize the UK and the rest of the western countries anymore. After COVID (and also Brexit) everything twisted upside down. Cost of living, quality of life, education level, total surveillance, CBDC, digital ID and other things seem to be coming all worldwide.

Even in Russia, this ESG agenda (Sberbank was working with WEF on their cyberattack convention in 2019 for Christ’s sake!), social credit score, CBDC progressing! They are all in cahoots together… Many people don’t see a danger of those elements, and when you even try to explain the danger of those things, all what they call you are just another conspiracy theorist….
I understand that the storm is coming and most likely we will all come out as different people in 2032. I really hope that your prognosis is correct and there is a light in the end of the tunnel which brings at least some hope that we will not be stuck in this doom loop.

I am right now stuck in a dilemma which doesn’t give me peace, so I would like to try to use such an opportunity and ask questions about how Martin thinks:

1) The worst fear for me right now is being stuck in the UK. If we all go into such shit period, I would prefer to be in my home country (Russia). However, I have been in the UK for almost 10 years and was thinking about applying for a passport in 2025. After that, I was considering leaving the country for good. Question comes : is it worth it? If this all goes so downhill. How much time do I have till the storm comes, and will I not be able to leave? Is it really worth it? I can, of course, return home, but all those years which I have been in the UK will be basically worthless… Moreover, the passport opportunity could help me… one day…. This cross-road doesn’t give me peace of mind.

2) In your prognosis of the safest places you mostly consider the USA. What places in the UK are safest? Is Edinburgh safe? I can see that England is in full turmoil. All those green zealots and green zones which would destroy the economy… Not to mention those cameras today have been deployed everywhere.

3) Don’t you think that this world power grab will be worldwide? We can see that they all argue with each other, yet when it comes to COP-28 or WEF events, they all sit together… I can see the same things happening in Russia. The main bank, Sberbank, even has a director of ESG, plus they are pushing for CBDC and Machine-learning integration in the transactions… Madness.
I still believe that I have a higher chance of surviving in Russia. I have parents who have their own garden…. And overall, it is easier to survive mentally when your parents are nearby…

I greatly appreciate that you try to predict and guide us towards those insane times. If somehow this message arrives, could you please share your thoughts?
Kind regards
Max

ANSWER: “This turmoil that we are heading into is global. There really will be no country that will not be affected in some way. The US Congress just passed legislation anticipating a Trump victory that is intended to PREVENT any president from withdrawing from NATO unilaterally as Trump had vowed. The politicians throughout the West are pushing us into World War III, and there is nothing we can do to stop this insanity.

The West is the aggressor. While they claim Putin’s invasion was unprovoked and this is about freedom and democracy, that is just nonsense. The Minsk Agreement was to allow the Donbas to have a free election. Merkel and the West lied to allow Ukraine to build an army to fight Russia which has been the plan all along. Zelensky, the puppet selling out his own country, stood up and said that Ukraine would rearm itself with nuclear weapons. So, in addition to tearing up the Minsk Agreement, Zelensky also tore up the Budapest Memorandum where Ukraine had more nuclear weapons than China. It was a major world nuclear power – the third-largest nuclear power in the world.

The Budapest Memorandum was where Ukraine made the decision to completely denuclearize in exchange, the U.S., the U.K., and Russia guaranteed Ukraine’s security in that 1994 agreement. Therefore, when Zelensky stood up and declared Ukraine would re-arm with nukes and was no longer going to be neutral, Putin had no choice but to come to the aid of the Donbas the next day. Zelensky never told his people and he said to the Washington Post that had he told the people Russia would invade, he would have lost $7 billion.

Hillary is saying that they are using Ukraine as cannon fodder and the plan is to weaken Russia to overthrow their government if you just listen. Afghanistan is the “model” to keep throwing Ukrainians into the war, and maybe the West will win. These people love to play God with nations, and people’s lives, on both sides. NEVER have I ever heard Hillary or any Neocon even once express remorse for the dead soldiers or their families where children grow up without a parent.

These Neocons are just hateful people, and they have seized power in Washington to wage war. They hate all Russians and Chinese because they used to be communists and they cannot let that go. They still have to defeat them no matter what.

Hillary is a Neocon who was behind the entire move to overthrow the governments of the Middle East – Iraq, Syria, and Libya. The Benghazi attack on the US embassy was because it was being used to funnel arms into Syria and Libya to create civil wars just as they have done in Ukraine.

Far too many politicians have been brainwashed by the Neocons. They think Putin is the enemy and may think they are supporting national security, but they too are just stupid pawns. Nobody in Washington is even interested in peace. Most are not competent to even comprehend that the West needs war so desperately as the excuse to justify CBDCs, capital controls, martial law, and the sovereign debt default that wipes out pensions so they also need to reduce the population to reduce their unfunded liabilities.

Leave the World Behind. So where to hide? There will be safe places within many countries, even the UK, but they will be away from major cities. That is where the risk will lie. That was sort of the theme of the movie, strangely partly funded by Obama, Leave the World Behind, but that was really about taking down communications, including satellites. I found it curious that Obama would be behind such a film. This will certainly be one impact of war, which is why I am against digital currency, for you will be unable to buy anything. In the film, the only way a guy could buy medicine was with cash.

What you must understand is that all the old wounds will resurface. You even have Biden’s education official claiming that democracy, fatphobia, is based on white supremacy. At the same time, Obama’s new film is against white people. Look around the world. Whatever old dispute there was is resurfacing. Ukrainians hate Russian-speaking Ukrainians. The same is now unfolding in Estonia. All of this bullshit about “equality” is a smokescreen. The old hatreds are all surfacing and these will be part of the process of tearing about civilization as we head into 2032. So in your case, it may just be safer in Russia, for in World War II, they locked up Japanese who were born in the United States simply because of their race and ethnic origin. Be very careful about where you move to. Remember the Boxer Rebellion in China, where it was get all foreigners?

By the time we get to 2032, that will be the light at the end of the tunnel. The shit-storm, as they say, will begin primarily after 2024. The US election will further divide the USA, for NEITHER side will accept the result. The USA will eventually break apart into three primary regions: the South & midwest Bible Belt will join together against the Northeast, and the Pacific States will be their own la-la-land. You will most likely be safer with the region that best matches your political philosophy. Even during the American Revolution, they were confiscating assets of people who supported the king politically. There is NEVER any rule of law during the war – NEVER forget that. You have no rights it will always be the will of those in power.

I would get the passport as a hedge, but you may be safer in Russia than in the US or Europe. You certainly want to stay away from any major city no matter what country you are in. That is where the civil unrest will flare up the most. Keep in mind, cities like NYC, will be out of food in 7 days when there are no trucks to bring it into town.”

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/armstrongeconomics101/opinion/where-to-hide-what-to-consider/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=RSS

Rafiki
Rafiki
December 18, 2023 8:38 am

Johannes Leak’s portrayal of the O’Leary’s woman as a white hand on modern Aboriginal art-work may be accurate to an extent. There are however many questions about the extent and circumstances of her role, such as whether her collaboration was generally welcomed, which might be related to amount of cash that flowed into the art collective.
It is the amount of such cash that could well have attracted the attacks on O’Meara. Elderly Aboriginal ladies with cash are often targeted by other Aboriginals, brutally and remorselessly. There are other white, or off-white dealers and scammers who may well want a focus of this APY brou-ha-ha to protect their interests.
My point? Johannes needs to think through his singling out of O’Meara. He’s playing into the hands of people whose exploitation of the desert artists is as bad or worse.

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
December 18, 2023 8:42 am

For anyone needing a quick response to any mongs claiming there was no “gas the jews” at the opera house this will be handy..

https://twitter.com/AustralianJA/status/1711501583295680694

Though maybe they were keen DIYers and chanting Gloss the jews, wishing to give them a fresh coat of paint??

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
December 18, 2023 8:45 am

While Lang Hancock went off the rails a bit in his dotage he certainly gave Gina a giant wack with the cluebat. I think she got most of the clues that our wonderful, truthful politicians. Something politicians have never learnt is 20% of something is better than 100% of nothing.

Black Ball
Black Ball
December 18, 2023 8:46 am

Andrew Bolt:

How frightening is this bloke?

Last week I accused Chris Bowen of being an anti-science zealot who was wrecking our electricity system and threatening our $200bn-a-year exports of coal and gas.

Bowen’s only response? To demand my bosses sack me for being “racist”. Wow.

What makes that frightening is that the comprehension skills of our manic Energy and Climate Change Minister are pitiful for a man claiming he can replace our coal-fired electricity generators with renewable pixie dust.

What got Bowen’s green goat was that I mocked his speech to the latest UN global warming love-in, which started: “I begin with an acknowledgment that at the heart of action on climate change must be profound respect for those people who have cared for our respective lands for millennia – Indigenous people across the world … Recognising that respect for Indigenous knowledge, cultures and traditional practices is critical.”

As I pointed out, Indigenous people who’ve been around for “millennia” include the white tribes of Europe, including the Saxons of Germany, the Gauls of France, the Celts of Britain, and my lot – the formerly tree-worshipping and human-sacrificing Batavi of Holland.

Well, excuse me if I don’t respect their “Indigenous knowledge” but value instead what reason and science has brought – not least unprecedented wealth, ease, longevity and freedom.

And if I don’t respect the primitive beliefs of “my” Batavi, why should I respect, say, the professed belief of a few Tiwi islanders who now claim a man-turned-crocodile lives in exactly the patch of sea where the pipeline from a giant new gas project would go, which is why it should be stopped?

Bowen exploded: “(Bolt’s) attack on First Nations people as ‘primitive’ is racist and disgusting. News Ltd should sack him.”

Should I flatter Bowen’s intelligence by calling him a liar, or flatter his character by calling him a fool? If he’s smart, he’d know I was not calling Aboriginals “primitive”.

Indeed, I have Aboriginal friends – Jacinta, Warren, Anthony, Adam – far more sophisticated than Bowen.

“Primitive” is what I called a Stone Age belief in an anti-gas Crocodile Man.

Bowen is either smart enough to know this yet still smears a critic as a racist, or he’s so stupid as to cry racist at anyone who scoffs at Crocodile Man.

Either way, the question is now even more urgent: Can we trust this country’s power to a man so dumb or dishonest?

Roger
Roger
December 18, 2023 8:48 am

Highlighting the problem we face:

A western Sydney Muslim community leader was quoted in an ABC article (on the anger of such voters at the ALP) as saying “At a time like this we are all Palestinians.”

No, you’re meant to be Australians.

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
December 18, 2023 8:53 am

I hope Bowen reads this, he just might pop a foofter valve in furious outrage.

His response will be to demand be sacked by…someone.

First we see that Bowen’s response to Bolt’s analysis is to demand him be sacked.

Add to that the new misinformation bill where a politician can direct the ACMA to go after individuals how wrongthink. As determined by Minitrue.

Shutting up people who have different (quite likely right) understandings of affairs. Does this seem like a confident government?

I would also note that to accuse Bolt of the shameful error of racism, he had to lie about what Bolt had said. Bowen was the one who lied, but he was demanding Bolt be punished.

calli
calli
December 18, 2023 8:56 am

Just look what you made me do!

Roger
Roger
December 18, 2023 9:00 am

Bowen was the one who lied, but he was demanding Bolt be punished.

Bolt should demand Bowen be sacked for defaming him.

Elbow’s prime ministership is like a Jenga tower about to collapse atm.

Every block pulled out and placed back on top increases the pressure.

Tom
Tom
December 18, 2023 9:03 am

Johannes needs to think through his singling out of O’Meara. He’s playing into the hands of people whose exploitation of the desert artists is as bad or worse.

Rafiki, many thanks for your thoughtful comment at 8.38am.

In this case, I think Leak has done his job brilliantly, drawing attention to a story that, for passing pedestrians like me, was of little consequence and a bit of a yawn.

It prompted me to Google the Paywallian story reporting on regulators’ growing interest in the APY art centre and Skye O’Meara, the activist at the centre of allegations of wrongdoing.

Top Ender
Top Ender
December 18, 2023 9:07 am

Sydney’s night-time economy is being led by a boom in the number of party boats and revellers on the harbour, which has exploded in recent months.

More than 100 licensed charter boats and private yachts – each carrying anywhere from 20 to 450 people – now shimmer from bay to bay every Saturday night.

The Daily Telegraph witnessed King St wharf, Barangaroo and other pick-up and drop-off points heaving with revellers – some too intoxicated to board – on Saturday as water police carried out Operation Swell targeting drunk or rowdy behaviour.

Funny memories that brought back. In my youth I worked as a security bloke – bouncer – on the ferry Cartela in Hobart. It cruised the Derwent up and down, with a band on board and at least three bars from memory.

Things got progressively untidier as the Friday night progressed. Occasionally we’d have a problem bad enough so that the punter needed to be ejected. Unfortunately we couldn’t ditch him into the Derwent, so he was restrained – eg: someone sat on him – until the ferry berthed.

Trouble was that the Cartela called into both sides of the river. From memory there were two stops either side. That meant the punter often got put off a long way away from where his transport was. We usually sailed away to him both yelling insults at us but also “what am I going to do?” to which the response was “You should have thought of that.”

Lovely old ferry the Cartela. Built in 1913 again from memory, from Tassie timbers. I heard lately she was going steadily to rack and ruin.

Indolent
Indolent
December 18, 2023 9:08 am
thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
December 18, 2023 9:10 am

This may be the saddest article ever written….
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/dec/18/department-of-rock-the-band-competition-rocking-canberras-cool-public-servants

The cosy, bohemian art cafe in Canberra’s CBD could easily fit in Sydney’s Newtown or Melbourne’s Fitzroy. But unlike most gigs in those cities, the room is crammed with public servants who moonlight as musicians, as well as the occasional politician.

The lanyards and ties have been swapped for band T-shirts and eyeliner as four bands, made up entirely of government workers, play to win the inaugural Australian Public Service battle of the bands.


The three-piece kick off their 20-minute set with a rendition of the Ramones punk anthem I Wanna Be Sedated, which they change to I Wanna Be Seconded.

The group soon have the crowd singing “Girls, they wanna write code” to the tune of the 80s Cyndi Lauper hit Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Their acoustic punk originals cover a broad range of public service topics, including what it would be like having ChatGPT in 1994 (apparently it would mean getting in late and going home early).

Sitting on the judging panel and bouncing his legs as the bands come and go is Betts, who is sporting a Bikini Kill shirt. His reputation for wearing T-shirts and never donning a tie has recently attracted attention by some senators, who suggest it is inappropriate for the professional public service.

The infrastructure boss wants to get a simple message out: public servants can be “cool” too.

“I’m just a guy in a T-shirt going into a gig, really. And it’s great fun,” Betts says. “I really love the public service and I really love music, so it’s kind of ideal for me.”

Just before the final set, the arts minister, Tony Burke, slips into the room and sits down at the back of the crowd next to Betts. The minister is in town for an employment policy meeting but says he made sure it finished right on 8pm so he could catch the final acts.

Jol is happy with the result given his band didn’t exist two months ago, but notes Burke has been in more fan photos tonight than any of the musicians.

The minister had more people hanging around him than the bands,” Jol says. “Typical Canberra.”

Big_Nambas
Big_Nambas
December 18, 2023 9:10 am

Made me laugh out loud!

comment image?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Tintarella di Luna
Tintarella di Luna
December 18, 2023 9:12 am

who agitated for lower standards, joke degrees and everyone having a degree?

. someone who said

everyone deserved a Grayt Ejakashun

?

Roger
Roger
December 18, 2023 9:13 am

Hello…

‘Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer represented Hizb ut-Tahrir, an extremist Islamist group, in a legal challenge against Germany’s ban on the group’s activities.’

– The Telegraph (UK)

The application claimed the ban breached the group’s freedom of religion and expression, was presented before the European Court of Human Rights in 2008. The court rejected it. Hizb ut-Tahrir was already known at the time for calling for the murder of Jews “wherever they are found” and the Conservatives were calling for the then Labour government in the UK to follow suit.

JC
JC
December 18, 2023 9:16 am

QUESTION: Dear Martin and the team.

Small edit suggestion.

Dear Martin and fellow inmates.

Indolent
Indolent
December 18, 2023 9:16 am
Boambee John
Boambee John
December 18, 2023 9:18 am

Roger
Dec 18, 2023 8:48 AM
Highlighting the problem we face:

A western Sydney Muslim community leader was quoted in an ABC article (on the anger of such voters at the ALP) as saying “At a time like this we are all Palestinians.”

No, you’re meant to be Australians.

Don’t knock this (rare) moment of honesty.

Roger
Roger
December 18, 2023 9:25 am

Don’t knock this (rare) moment of honesty.

They should bloody well go and live there then.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
December 18, 2023 9:32 am

The three-piece kick off their 20-minute set with a rendition of the Ramones punk anthem I Wanna Be Sedated, which they change to I Wanna Be Seconded.

Woke punk is a thing now?

P
P
December 18, 2023 9:36 am

Becciu v Pell: a mystery left to solve
George Pell believed the Vatican was being robbed blind and that he was the target of corrupt forces. Did Angelo Becciu adversely influence the trial of his nemesis?

I’d like to read this article.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
December 18, 2023 9:38 am

The three-piece kick off their 20-minute set with a rendition of the Ramones punk anthem I Wanna Be Sedated, which they change to I Wanna Be Seconded.

I bet they wear Daffy Duck socks and ties to their jerb at the Department of Administrative Administration too.
Wild and crazy.

Dot
Dot
December 18, 2023 9:39 am

The group soon have the crowd singing “Girls, they wanna write code” to the tune of the 80s Cyndi Lauper hit Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Sounds as contrived and awkward as a corporate birthday cake as you’ve just been caught pooping on an inter city train.

Dot
Dot
December 18, 2023 9:40 am

I bet they wear Daffy Duck socks and ties to their jerb at the Department of Administrative Administration too.
Wild and crazy.

These guys f**k.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
December 18, 2023 9:42 am

Roger

Dec 18, 2023 9:25 AM

Don’t knock this (rare) moment of honesty.

They should bloody well go and live there then.

Roger, please!
Language!

Real Deal
Real Deal
December 18, 2023 9:49 am

A week or so ago, someone quoted a text about the history of the Palestinian state going back to the time of Abraham. Can someone re-post it? I am having an argument with a work colleague about when (or not) Palestine was an actual independent nation. Any help would be appreciated.

Roger
Roger
December 18, 2023 9:49 am

Roger, please!
Language!

Too early?

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
December 18, 2023 9:53 am

Indolent
Dec 18, 2023 9:08 AM
Melanie Phillips

Brainwashing becomes the new normal

Indolent,

the photo of Harvard’s Widener Library, December 10 2023 ; credit, Dan Sullivan at that link, really sums up the Uselessness of American Elite Universities – Besides the Black Lady Claudine Gay Harvard DEI President pick on obviously Race – American Employers are shying away from employing Elite University Graduates

Becket Adams, writing at NRO, asks why we didn’t read about this first in the New York Times or the Washington Post — or even the Boston Globe. Why the incuriosity about a serious breach of ethics at one of the major institutions of higher learning in America?

The reason is that Gay is the president of Harvard and a black woman. The chances of Ms. Gay being fired for anything, much less plagiarism, are slim and none.

This is America in 2023, and it’s not likely to change anytime soon.

Johnny Rotten
December 18, 2023 9:53 am

JC
Dec 18, 2023 9:16 AM

Junior, as you love Martin so much, then here is some more –

Viktor Orbán Tries to Save Europe from World War III

“Europe is desperate to commit geopolitical and economic suicide. They have bullshitted the people all along, and all they are interested in is creating war to devastate Europe a third time simply as the excuse to cover up the economic failure of the Euro and the fiscal mismanagement of the economy. All world leaders have been borrowing endlessly with absolutely NO INTENTION of ever paying off what they borrowed. These elites NEVER represent the people. They are putting all the lives of Europe and the world at risk – for what? Not a single one of these politicians will ever even consider peace. Rome had peace for 1,000 years BECAUSE everyone benefitted economically. These morons do the opposite imposing sanctions on people if they do not do as they command.

Europe has wanted war with Russia from the start. They negotiate in BAD FAITH to stall Russia so Ukraine could build an army and wage war against Russia to weaken it first BEFORE NATO finds the excuse to justify invading Russia. Where it was once Khrushchev saying he would bury the West by spreading communism, now, even though communism collapsed all by itself, the West has not abandoned the Cold War. It is on the very same mission to “spread” democracy to the world when we do not even have democracy – we are under a dictatorship pretending to be a republic representing the people when they represent only their own thirst for power. Russia would be a fool to negotiate with the West when they do not honor their agreements. This is why 2032 is necessary.

Here you have Hillary Clinton, a real warmonger who wanted to draft girls back in 2016 (which was why three girls in our office voted against her calling her a female Nazi). Listen to her. She states that Afghanistan is the “model” to suck in Russia, use the Ukrainians as bait, keep funding them to die for her agenda and weaken Russia. The agenda has never changed. They have sought to seize Russia and all its wealth since 1998, and their attempt to blackmail Yeltsin to seize control by installing their puppet Berzobvsky. They even tried to get me to invest $10 billion into this scheme. When I refused, Berezovsky even called me personally. Over 500,000 Ukrainians are dead on the battlefield, their country destroyed, and between 8 to 10 million have fled to Europe, all to seize Russia in this endless war.

Hillary said they did not expect Ukraine actually to defeat Russia. She also skips over the “unintended consequences” of Afghanistan, like the Taliban turning our weapons on Americans and, of course, 9/11 and the Iraq War. That’s a lot of “unintended consequences” that she pushes aside. So how many dead Ukrainians will this unintended consequence result in or the millions of Ukrainians who have fled to Europe with no intention of returning?

Viktor Orbán is the ONLY leader trying to save Europe from these Neocon warmongers. Russia is on the verge of total victory in Ukraine. So, the EU is desperate to try to rush Ukraine into the EU and then NATO. This proxy war, which has devastated Ukraine and sacrificed its people on the Neocon altar of world domination, has placed the US and the EU, along with NATO, in a difficult position. After all the propaganda about Russia and Putin as the aggressor, it has been the West that does not want peace, as evidenced by even the Ukrainian press reporting that the purpose of Boris Johnson’s visit was to make sure there would be no peace agreement. EVERYTHING we have been told is an absolute lie. The Russian people do not want war any more than the average European or American. Politicians always create war, and they ALWAYS lie about everything. They tried to take over Russia and even tried to bring it into NATO. This set in motion the 1991 collapse.”

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/geopolitical/viktor-orban-tries-to-save-europe-from-world-war-iii/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=RSS

will
will
December 18, 2023 9:59 am

1. Before Israel, there was a British mandate, not a Palestinian state.
2. Before the British mandate, it was the Ottoman Empire, not the Palestinian state.
3. Before the Ottoman Empire, there was an Islamic state of the Mamluks of Egypt, not a Palestinian state.
4. Before the Mamluk Islamic state of Egypt, there was the Ayyubid Empire, not the Palestinian state.
5. Before the Ayyubid Empire, there was a Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem, not a Palestinian Empire.
6. Before the Kingdom of Jerusalem, there was the Umayyad and Fatimid empires, not the Palestinian state.
7. Before the Umayyad and Fatimid empires, there was the Byzantine Empire, not the Palestinian state.
8. Before the Byzantine Empire, there was the Roman Empire, not the Palestinian state.
9. Before the Roman Empire, there was the Hasmonean Empire, not the Palestinian state.
10. Before the Hasmonean Empire, there was the Seleucid Empire, not the Palestinian state.
11. Before the Seleucid Empire, there was the Empire of Alexander the Great, not the Palestinian state.
12. Before the Empire of Alexander the Great, there was a Persian Empire, not the Palestinian state.
13. Before the Persian Empire, there was the Babylonian Empire, not the Palestinian state. 14. Before the Babylonian Empire, there was the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, not the Palestinian state.
15. Before the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, there was the Kingdom of Israel, not the Palestinian state.
16. Before the Kingdom of Israel, there was the theocracy of the twelve tribes of Israel, not the Palestinian state.
17. Before the theocracy of the twelve tribes of Israel, there was an agglomeration of independent Canaanite city-kingdoms, not a Palestinian state.

In fact, there was everything on this piece of land except the Palestinian state.

will
will
December 18, 2023 10:00 am

Real Deal
Dec 18, 2023 9:49 AM

there ya go

Kneel
Kneel
December 18, 2023 10:00 am

“I have a persistent down ticker. I did a few tests so I think I know who it is.
I don’t care.”

Nor should you – opinions are like arseholes: everyone has one and they all stink.

Mak Siccar
Mak Siccar
December 18, 2023 10:01 am

Here you go P.

DENNIS SHANAHAN

One question left for jailed cardinal Angelo Becciu: did he adversely influence the trial of the late George Pell?

10:16PM DECEMBER 17, 2023 68 COMMENTS

The rare Vatican charges, trial, conviction and jail sentencing of Cardinal Angelo Becciu have answered a range of questions about fraud, money laundering and corruption at the top of the Catholic Church except for the question of most interest to Australia: Did the corrupt cardinal adversely influence the trial of his nemesis, George Pell?

Of course, Becciu’s jail sentence on the weekend and Pell’s death earlier this year have made even less likely that there will ever be a full investigation or satisfactory conclusion to this Australian angle.

Indeed, even the so-called “mystery funds” sent to Melbourne during Pell’s investi­gation and trials in 2016 and 2017 may have been part of the wider criminal laundering of money around the world.

The alle­gations that Pell’s Australian criminal trials were adversely ­affected were simply not a top priority for the Vatican investigators,

Becciu’s historic sentencing as a cardinal before the Vatican court and several of his corrupt cronies who helped him steal hundreds of millions of Euros from the Vatican and the poorest of the poor established what the late Pell had believed from the moment he was appointed in 2014 to clean up Vatican’s finances. He believed the Vatican was being robbed blind because its fin­ances were archaic, unaudited, disorganised and ripe for fraud.

Within just months of his appointment as the Vatican’s treasurer, he had located more than €1bn of “lost funds” tucked away in obscure and hidden accounts.

Pell also believed up to his death last year in Rome that he was the target of corrupt forces using their senior church positions and nefarious contacts to block his efforts to reform the Vatican finances and later to ensnare him in several years of sexual abuse charges and trials, for which he served more than a year in jail and which were ultimately quashed by the High Court.

Pell always believed it; Becciu has always denied it.

What the sentencing of Becciu does prove is that Pell was right about the Vatican being robbed, there was a wide conspiracy of both clerics and non-clerics, Becciu’s closest associates, including one of his brothers and his so-called “niece”, were also involved in international scams and there were attempts to get to witnesses and change the course of an investigation and trial.

In the wider perspective, the belief that Becciu or his associates had organised a campaign against Pell to adversely influence the trial was a lesser matter for a Vatican facing widespread allegations of fraud that centred on a €160m property investment in London.

Even when Vatican investigators looked into $2.3m in “mystery funds” transferred to Australia during the police investigation and trials of Pell, for which no definite explanation has ever been given, their main concern was whether the funds led back to corrupt deals in Europe.

During Becciu’s trial, Pell questioned the suspended cardinal’s testimony and focused on a series of transfers, including money personally sent by Becciu to the then Melbourne tech company Neustar, totalling $2.3m, which has variously been described as being for hi-tech services, new electronic gates for the Vatican embassy in Canberra and even for Pell’s legal defence.

In a statement, Pell said Becciu gave Vatican judges “a spirited defence of his blameless subordinate role in the Vatican finances” during the court hearing but “his account was somewhat incomplete.”

Pell was appointed by Francis to clean up the Vatican finances in 2014 and until 2017 led the Secretariat of the Economy.

Before Victorian police charges truncated Pell’s appointment in 2017, his phone had been bugged and a car was torched outside the Rome apartment of a close aide. A separate telephone tap has also revealed a conversation in which one person tells another “the highway is open to you” after Pell was charged.

Vatican investigators have been told money was sent to Australia to adversely affect the case against the cardinal.

In his statement last year, Pell said the use of a Vatican charity, Peter’s pence, which included allegations of hundreds of thousands of euros being used for luxury items for Becciu’s “niece”, was “bizarre” and “at odds with the official publicity for the fund”.

In a statement to The Australian, Pell said “my main purpose is to comment on Cardinal Becciu’s final remarks on the $2.3m paid to Neustar for the internet domain ‘catholic’ on 4/9/2015”.

“Cardinal Becciu confirmed in Rome previous reports that the $2m he authorised to the office of Neustar, a tech security firm, in Melbourne, Australia, were for the registration of internet domain ‘catholic’,” Pell said.

“No one disputes that the Pontifical Council for Social Communications paid amounts to Neustar Australia for their expensive services and to ICANN, the registry, for the reservation of the title ‘Catholic’ in 2012, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.

“Doubts, of course, are removed by facts, by evidence, not assertions.

Unfortunately, I do not have information on payments to Neustar Australia in 2015 beyond $US150,000 the Council for ­Social Communi­cations paid as a deposit.

“It was not my usual practice to sign off on payments from the Secretariat of State.

“My interest is focused on four payments with a value of $2.3m made by the Secretariat of State in 2017 and 2018 to Neustar Australia, two of which with a value of $1.236m were authorised by Monsignor Becciu on 17/5/2017 and 6/6/2018.

“Obviously, these are different payments from those of 11/9/2015, which I allegedly authorised.

“What was the purpose? Where did the money go after Neustar?’’

Since the Vatican court trial began, there have been suggestions to investigators that the $2.3m transfers, first reported in The Australian, did not stay in Australia but were rerouted to the Middle East as part of a wider money-laundering scheme.

There has still been no resolution of where the money went or what it was used for.

Nor is there any evidence it was used in any way to adversely affect the investigations and trials of Pell.

But Becciu’s sentencing has confirmed that Pell was right – and right from the beginning – that the Vatican was like a rich old dowager ripe for being robbed and that there were highly placed personnel in positions of power who were prepared to do the ­robbing and attempt to influence witnesses and trials.

The Pell question that remains is whether he served more than year in jail for something he did not do and had his reputation destroyed as collateral damage for correctly identifying Vatican corruption, which has taken a decade to prove.

Colonel Crispin Berka
Colonel Crispin Berka
December 18, 2023 10:02 am

Muppets’ Lives Matter

Roger
Roger
December 18, 2023 10:03 am

The Cory Bernardi show finishes up on Sky…

Hooray!

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
December 18, 2023 10:04 am

They Were Taught To Hate, But They Escaped to a Better World – Paywalled

Earlier this month, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) introduced and is sponsoring House Bill 929, “Condemning All Forms of Hate.” That seems a laudable goal, yes?

You can see the entire bill here.

Here’s the twist: when you read the bill, it’s a lot of “woke” pandering and vague promises about “comprehensive policies” and “communicating support,” but it doesn’t really do anything. It’s just more folderol; the left is always quick to bring out the “Hate Has No Home Here” signs and wag their fingers at the right, calling them “hateful,” but they never seem to talk about real hate, which in some parts of the world is not only encouraged but taught to children.

On Saturday, The Free Press’s Madeleine Rowley brought us the tale of five people who grew up in the Islamic world and were taught to hate from childhood.

Here are some selected quotes from these five brave people:

At my school in Tehran, in my new shapeless uniform, we read the Quran every morning and repeated sayings like, “Down with the USA, down with Israel.” To enter our classroom, we had to step on a painting of the Israeli flag on the ground. There are still universities in Iran that have painted American and Israeli flags on the ground, but most students walk around them.

Iran, of course, is the primary state sponsor of Islamic terrorism in the world. And this exporter of terror is developing nuclear weapons. Their actions have drawn little response from the Biden Administration, which encourages them to even greater efforts.

But it’s not just Iran. The hate has spread as far as Canada.

At 19, I was forced to marry an al-Qaeda terrorist named Essam Marzouk. My mother and her husband were sympathizers of a group called the mujahideen, which, after 9/11, would be folded into al-Qaeda, and they knew that Essam was a terrorist. My mother said I needed a man who was strong enough to control me, so that’s who she chose.

He was 36 and acting as Osama bin Laden’s counterpart in Canada. I didn’t want to get pregnant, but in Islam, wives can’t refuse their husbands. I gave birth to my daughter at 20.

A year later, I took my mother to the hospital, and an agent from CSIS, Canada’s version of the CIA, approached me and told me that I was married to a terrorist. I knew he terrorized me—he beat me mercilessly, and once he punched me so hard that he broke his wrist—but I didn’t know that he was an actual terrorist.

It took a little bit of time, but eventually, I got out. I did it for my daughter’s sake; my mother and Essam planned to have her circumcised, an abhorrent practice known as female genital mutilation, or FGM.

But perhaps the most chilling tale of all comes from a young man who bought into the hate drilled into him, against not only Jews but against the country he was born in – the United Kingdom.

I was radicalized at age six. My parents practiced Wahhabism, which is a subset of the broader extremist Salafi movement. They taught me that Britain was the enemy, even though I was born in London.

One day when I was 14, my father and I went to a Jewish home because my father was doing some business with them. The couple had a toddler who smiled at me and wanted to play.

The parents told me it was okay to play with him, and as I was playing with the baby, I thought, “I hate them, but they don’t hate me.

They trust me with their child.” That’s when I began to question the antisemitism that had been drilled into me for nearly a decade.

Another time, I was sitting on the couch, and my father sat next to me and said that Allah punished Jews because they were an evil race of people.

I remember thinking, “How is an entire race of people evil?”

This young man escaped, not through a religious conversion or adoption of some “milder” version of Islam, but through recognition of his cognitive dissonance; unfortunately, that’s not something you can generally count on people doing.

These people – and read all five accounts, they are chilling – were all taught to hate, and all escaped that legacy of hate.

But the common thread, the one thing that binds all of these stories together, is not “white supremacy” or “ultra-MAGA Republicans” or some nefarious secret agenda hidden in Melania Trump’s underwear drawer.

The common thread is radical, fundamentalist Islam.

And, no, understanding this doesn’t make one “Islamophobic.” That’s a canard. The suffix “-phobic” implies an unreasoning or irrational fear, and concern over Islamic terror is anything but irrational.

It’s rational, and part of the reason it’s rational is because of the sheer randomness of terror attacks.

I don’t waste a lot of brain run-time worrying about it myself, as I doubt any fundamentalist Islamic terrorists are going to go poking around in the rural Alaska woods looking for trouble, and even if they did, they wouldn’t last long against a bunch of heavily armed Alaskans.

But some folks worry more. And they have a reason.

Too many of the Western nations have literally thrown the doors open to unchecked Third World immigration, and this is the result.

One of the few legitimate roles of government is to keep other people from hurting us or taking our stuff.

Terrorists operate in those thin areas where the government, for one reason or another, is unwilling, unable, or simply unprepared to provide that protection.

That, whether it be in Israel or Chicago, Toronto or London, is unsettling to lots of people, and no, that’s not an irrational viewpoint.

Especially in these ever-more-uncertain times. Especially in the wake of Oct 7th and the sudden outpouring of antisemitism, even among the secular left.

It all, of course, has a source.

Fundamentalist Islam is the problem.

This is the elephant in the room.

This is what caused October 7th.

This is what caused 9/11.

This is what caused the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre.

This is what caused the Achille Lauro hijacking and murders.

This, the teaching of hate for Jews and, indeed, “infidels” of every stripe, has to stop.

One way or another, this must end.

This teaching of hate has to stop.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
December 18, 2023 10:05 am

They should bloody well go and live there then.

What, in such a Third World sh!thole, surrounded by the practitioners of one of the most backward religions on the face of the planet?

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
December 18, 2023 10:09 am

I wonder if Seven-Nilligan and her fellow travellers who were interested in all things Pell will report on Becciu’s downfall.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
December 18, 2023 10:11 am

We Were Taught to Hate Jews

‘It’s like asking me how often I drink water. Antisemitism was everywhere.’ Apostates, former Islamists, and an almost-terrorist on how they changed their minds.

By Madeleine Rowley – December 16, 2023

“To enter our classroom, we had to step on a painting of the Israeli flag on the ground.”

P
P
December 18, 2023 10:11 am

Mak Siccar
Dec 18, 2023 10:01 AM

Many thanks.

Boambee John
Boambee John
December 18, 2023 10:12 am

Roger
Dec 18, 2023 9:25 AM
Don’t knock this (rare) moment of honesty.

They should bloody well go and live there then.

Fully agree.

Perhaps a payment to go, and a (less than social welfare) annual block payment for every year that they stay there?

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
December 18, 2023 10:16 am

31m ago
Reynolds’ former chief-of-staff to take stand
Joanna Panagopoulos
Joanna Panagopoulos

Linda Reynolds’ former chiefi-of-staff Fiona Brown is expected to appear at the Federal Court on Monday as Lehrmann versus Network Ten heads into its final week.

Bruce Lehrmann is suing Network Ten and presenter Lisa Wilkinson over her interview with Brittany Higgins on The Project in 2021, detailing accu­sations that Mr Lehrmann raped Ms Higgins on March 23, 2019, but not naming him as the ­alleged attacker. He has consistently denied raping Ms Higgins.

Before Ms Brown is called, there will be one last witness for Ten’s truth defence, before former Ten executive Peter Meakin and The Project co-executive producer Chris Bendall enter the witness box for the ‘qualified privilege’ defence.

In that defence, Network Ten and The Project argue they did everything in their power to act reasonably and fairly in preparing the program that broadcast Ms Higgins’ allegations of rape in Parliament House.

Ms Wilkinson told the Federal Court last week that many decisions made ahead of The Project episode were handled by producers and executives.

On Monday, the court is also expected to hear evidence from a toxicologist.

Ms Brown previously asked to be excused on medical grounds from giving evidence in the defamation trial.

Justice Michael Lee has yet to rule on whether she will be required to testify. However, lawyers for Mr Lehrmann indicated on Friday Ms Brown had provided an affidavit to the court and would be called as part of their case.

Ms Brown is an important witness in Mr Lehrmann’s case.

She has previously denied a number of Ms Higgins’ claims including that she told Ms Brown in their first meeting she had been raped in Reynolds’ office; that Ms Brown had viewed the CCTV footage from that night but refused to let Higgins see it; that Ms Brown had not supported Higgins after that night, and in fact offered Ms Higgins a “payout” to get her out of the way in the lead up to the election.

Matthew Richardson SC suggested last week that The Project painted Ms Brown as a “vile apparatchik”, which Ms Wilkinson denied.

This week, the court is also expected to hear from deaf British lip reader Tim Reedy who will to give expert evidence on what Mr Lehrmann and Ms Higgins were saying to each other at a pub on the night the ­former Liberal staffer alleges she was raped.

Ten flew him over from the UK on the weekend alongside a qualified lip speaker, who will lip read the questions to Mr Reedy.

The defamation trial is expected to conclude this week.

Roger
Roger
December 18, 2023 10:18 am

Perhaps a payment to go, and a (less than social welfare) annual block payment for every year that they stay there?

Why should we pay them?

They’re Palestinians now.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
December 18, 2023 10:18 am

Poll: Trump Dominance Hits New Level as He Nears 70 Percent Support in GOP Primary

Gerard Baker has an oped in the Paywallian today reckoning that Trump’s primary numbers will fizzle by the time the primaries happen. Best laugh of the day so far.

(I’m sure this rubbish is on orders from above – the Murdochs want Haley so bad.)

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
December 18, 2023 10:21 am

EDITORIAL: Biden needs to stop the mixed messages

The White House continues to send mixed signals on America’s support for Israel. That emboldens Hamas and needs to stop.

At a Tuesday fundraiser, President Joe Biden vigorously defended the Jewish state, saying that the United States is “not going to do a damn thing other than protect Israel in the process. Not a single thing.” He later added, “Without Israel as a free-standing state, not a Jew in the world is safe,” The New York Times reported.

Yet at that same fundraiser, Mr. Biden publicly warned Israeli leaders that they risked losing international support for their response to the Oct. 7 terror attack if they continue “indiscriminate bombing.”

And by the end of the week, the administration’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, was pressuring Israel to wrap up its military campaign and accept a Gaza run by the Palestinian Authority.

This is unhelpful. Hamas has made clear that its goal is to eliminate the state of Israel.

It has carried out unspeakable attacks on civilians and continues to hold hostages — including eight American citizens — that it took during its barbaric Oct. 7 incursion.

The terror group intentionally hides military targets among civilians, revealing a callous disregard for the lives of its own people.

Last week, Israeli soldiers arrested dozens of Hamas fighters at a hospital in northern Gaza, the BBC reported.

The conflicting rhetoric makes it only more difficult for Israel to achieve its goals.

On Thursday, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby allowed that, “The last thing we would want to do is telegraph to Hamas what they’re likely to face in coming weeks and months.”

Really? What other practical effect does the administration’s public stance that Israel wind everything down and avoid “indiscriminate” attacks have than to telegraph to Hamas that it will live to terrorize the Jewish state another day if it can postpone defeat for a few months?

Who knows what the American message has been in back-channel diplomatic conversations with Israel.

Perhaps the president’s attempt to have it both ways is just a ham-fisted way to appease the radical progressives that have taken over the Democratic Party and would just as soon leave Israel out in the cold.

But either way, Mr. Biden’s public criticisms and attempts to micromanage the Israeli war effort invigorate the enemy.

lotocoti
lotocoti
December 18, 2023 10:22 am

Two down, 648 to go.
Fetishist fails again.

Roger
Roger
December 18, 2023 10:22 am

My mother said I needed a man who was strong enough to control me, so that’s who she chose. He was 36 and acting as Osama bin Laden’s counterpart in Canada. I didn’t want to get pregnant, but in Islam, wives can’t refuse their husbands.

“World’s most feminist religion.”

Iirc, even Yassmin complained about how girls were treated as inferior in her milieu growing up and that she rebelled against that.

I suppose ideology trumped ‘lived experience’ in the end.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
December 18, 2023 10:27 am

Pakistan likens mass deportation of Afghans to UK’s Rwanda plan

Writing in The Telegraph, the interim prime minister of Pakistan said the plan was a sign of the migration pressures

Harriet Barber

Pakistan’s prime minister has cited the UK’s Rwanda plan in a defence of his deportation of millions of Afghans from the country.

Writing in The Telegraph, Anwaar-ul-Huq Kakar, the interim prime minister of Pakistan, said governments all over the world are “adapting to a new era of mass migration” and that “the UK Government’s plan to deport illegal immigrants to Rwanda is a sign of that pressure”.

In October, Islamabad ordered all foreign nationals residing in the country illegally to leave by November – a decree which particularly affects Afghans.

The South Asian country hosts an estimated three million Afghan refugees and migrants – including at least 600,000 who fled persecution on the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021.

More than 450,000 Afghans have now left Pakistan, and authorities have begun arresting and deporting others who have not.

Thousands more have gone underground, fearing for their lives if they return to their homeland.

The UK’s Rwanda asylum plan – which has been ruled unlawful over fears of harm to refugees – would see asylum seekers sent to Rwanda for processing, in a bid to deter people arriving in the UK.

Mr Kakar said “France is struggling while Italy has expressed fears it may become ‘Europe’s refugee camp’” and “Germany is also feeling the strain, prompting the announcement of tough new deportation measures”.

He added that the situation in the US is “no easier”.

Pakistan’s problem is of a “different magnitude altogether”, he said. “Over the last three to four decades, between four and five million migrants (roughly the population of Ireland) have arrived.

Many have no right to remain.”

The country’s caretaker government cited the involvement of Afghans in suicide bombings as part of the reason for its move, and said that those working on the black market “depress wages for legitimate workers”.

Mr Kakar also said the West needed to take greater responsibility for Afghan refugees from the Taliban.

More than 40,000 in Pakistan are awaiting evacuation to the West, he said.

About 200 members of the Afghan special forces, trained and funded by the UK, face deportation from Pakistan back into the hands of the Taliban.

Gen Sir Richard Barrons, who served the British Army in Afghanistan for over 12 years, told the BBC the failure to relocate the troops was “a disgrace, because it reflects that either we’re duplicitous as a nation or incompetent”.

Islamabad’s decision has been met with condemnation from international bodies and refugee agencies fearing for the safety of those returning to the Taliban-run country.

The Taliban called the policy “cruel and barbaric”.

Shahid, a 35-year-old former Afghan government official, told the Telegraph last month that while he has a visa to stay in Pakistan, his wife and children do not and are now facing the threat of deportation.

Mr Shahid remains trapped – unable to return to his homeland for fear of persecution and now also unable to leave his house in Pakistan.

“They [the Taliban] have threatened to kill me; they’ve already killed my friend. They call me a slave of the foreigners,” Shahid said. “We don’t leave the house at all, and have locked ourselves indoors.”

Lawyers and activists have said the scale of the crackdown is unprecedented.

The interior ministry established a hotline encouraging Pakistanis to report any “illegal foreigners” living in their neighbourhoods, while the police has been searching door-to-door in refugee settlements.

Large numbers of undocumented Afghans have been transported directly to the border.

In his comment piece, Mr Kakar called international criticism of the policy “predictable”, saying “in any such programme, there will always be a small number of particularly difficult cases”.

He said that Pakistan has set up 79 transit centres and given free meals and shelter to those crossing back into Afghanistan.

Speaking about Afghans fearing persecution of the Taliban, he added: “We are reassured by the strong tribal and regional links between those who are being repatriated and the authorities in Kabul and Kandahar.”

He also insisted that Pakistan will “continue to fulfil our legal, moral and humanitarian obligations”.

Pakistan will hold elections on Feb 8. Imran Khan, the former prime minister, has been jailed after declaring the military was behind his ousting from power.

Pakistan’s powerful armed forces have long objected to the presence of millions of Afghans living inside the country, viewing them as a security threat.

In his first year in power, 2018, Mr Khan offered all Afghans living in Pakistan a path to full citizenship, before u-turning reportedly under pressure from the military.

Jorge
Jorge
December 18, 2023 10:28 am

To say that a $1.23m dollars transfer from the Vatican bank to Australia is untraceable is hogwash.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
December 18, 2023 10:30 am

Jeffrey Epstein Never Stopped Abusing Women—and His VIP Circle Helped Make It Possible

A WSJ investigation shows Epstein continued ensnaring young women for abuse after his 2008 conviction.

This is their story of what happened.

Real Deal
Real Deal
December 18, 2023 10:36 am

Thanks Will, appreciate that.

I guess my question for my irritating interlocutor is if it was under the Ottoman Empire, in what sense was it or not a nation? Sorry to be pedantic, but was it considered a nation of its own when it was a vassal of the Turks.

feelthebern
feelthebern
December 18, 2023 10:39 am

The funds are the traceable.
Why are the parties who can trace it refusing to do so?
Or refusing to definitively say where they went?

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
December 18, 2023 10:40 am

These are the same people who think Israel should be wiped from the map.

Exclusive: US Army faces ‘TikTok mutiny’ as Gen Z recruits whine about low pay, ‘sh***y’ food and FITNESS TESTS while on bases in uniform (17 Dec)

The brazen posts – by uniformed troops on US bases – represent an audacious challenge to top brass amid a recruitment crisis. The Army fell short of its target by 25 percent last year.

One of the posts by military influencer Anthony Laster slams Army life for having ‘No Privacy, The Pay S***s, Sh***y Food, Disrespectful Leadership, NO SLEEP!’ and has been viewed more than 600,000 times.

The military has faced criticism for using ‘woke’ advertising campaigns focused on diversity, equity and inclusion as well as drag shows for troops, to appeal to Gen Z.

It’d be black comedy if it wasn’t so depressing. On the other hand when the revolution comes it looks like the woke US Army will fold like a wet napkin.

feelthebern
feelthebern
December 18, 2023 10:40 am

The good justice starts the morning giving the solicitor-general a light back hand across the chops.

Old School Conservative
Old School Conservative
December 18, 2023 10:43 am

Roger, I read the Bernadi statement at TEs link and Cory says a lot of commonsense things.
He summarises many of the lies and scams perpetrated onto us mug punters and despite his past vascillations whilst in politics, I like the boy.

Roger
Roger
December 18, 2023 10:45 am

I guess my question for my irritating interlocutor is if it was under the Ottoman Empire, in what sense was it or not a nation?

The land of Palestine under the Ottomans generally consisted of five administrative districts and various sub-districts that were part of the province of Syria governed from Damascus. So, not a nation.

Nationalism was not even a historical or sociological movement until the mid to latter part of the 19th C., so the contention that Palestine was ever a nation in the modern sense is anachronous. i.e. it is projecting modern notions into the past.

Frank
Frank
December 18, 2023 10:48 am

Woke punk is a thing now?

Punk always had a woke contingent. All those vegan core left wing outfits or the poseurs like Midnight Oil.

Diogenes
Diogenes
December 18, 2023 10:48 am

Sorry to be pedantic, but was it considered a nation of its own when it was a vassal of the Turks.

Short answer no.
Longer answer

In 1887-88, the area that later became Mandatory Palestine was divided into three administrative units: the district (sanjak) of Jerusalem, comprising the southern half of the country, and the two northern districts of Nablus and Acre. The two northern districts were administratively attached to the province (vilayet) of Beirut, but because of its importance to the Ottomans, the district of Jerusalem was governed directly by Constantinople. The area across the Jordan River (Trans-Jordan or Jordan) was administratively separate from the Palestinian districts and formed part of the province of Syria, with Damascus as its capital. At this time the population of the three Palestinian districts was ca. 600,000

Source https://digitalprojects.palestine-studies.org/resources/special-focus/ottoman-palestine

Dot
Dot
December 18, 2023 10:48 am

Jorge
Dec 18, 2023 10:28 AM
To say that a $1.23m dollars transfer from the Vatican bank to Australia is untraceable is hogwash.

Is to do with Gate Gate or just a malicious prosecution though, or both considering a curated RC that ignored public schools.

Yes, I’m out for blood. “Lost paperwork” this isn’t the first time the upper echelons of the “workers” party have tried this on in recent years.

Dot
Dot
December 18, 2023 10:49 am

Madgwick Auditors Inc?

Delta A
Delta A
December 18, 2023 10:52 am

Court in session again.

STJOHNOFGRAFTON
STJOHNOFGRAFTON
December 18, 2023 10:54 am

From American Thinker:Bill Maher: ‘They’re here, they like their bagel with a shmear, get used to it.’
https://youtu.be/KP-CRXROorw

rosie
rosie
December 18, 2023 10:55 am

Arabs are not the pretend Palestinian state so much that there is no letter P in Arabic and many Arabs cannot even pronounce the letter P.

Roger
Roger
December 18, 2023 10:56 am

Eject the Hashemites from Jordan and you have your Palestinian state.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
December 18, 2023 10:56 am

Boris Johnson’s rousing Sydney speech on Palestine, threats to West showed ‘moral clarity’ that is sorely lacking in Labor-led Australia

Boris Johnson’s Churchillian address in Sydney this week showed that, unlike our pandering Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, he is steadfast in his unwavering support for Israel and its justified war against Hamas, writes Nick Cater.

Any doubt that the Albanese government has lost its bearings was dispelled in the early hours of Wednesday when results came through in a crucial UN vote on the Israel-Hamas war.

Our closest allies, the US and Britain, were among the 33 countries who did not support the demand for a humanitarian ceasefire.

Russia, China, Iran and Australia were among the 153 countries in favour.

The result would hardly have raised a shrug in Jerusalem.

Israel knew long before October 7 that Australia was not a friend it could count upon under this government.

Australia, by comparison, is led by the flakiest prime minister in foreign affairs since Gough Whitlam.

Israel’s justified and necessary war against the terrorist state on its border was a test of Albanese’s conviction.

He has failed.

He has capitulated to electoral pressure and the shibboleths of plodding progressives who seek to defend the virtue of rapists, kidnappers, torturers and baby killers.

As proceedings at the UK’s COVID-19 inquiry have demonstrated, Johnson’s prime ministership was far from perfect. Yet, on foreign policy, he was a rock for freedom, an unwavering ally of Israel and Ukraine.

Yet Johnson bought a Churchillian clarity in describing the global battle between the civilised West and the axis of tyranny that joins China, North Korea, Russia and Iran with its barbarous proxy death cult in Gaza.

He warned of the barbarians within our ranks manifest in the anti-Semitism that is sprouting again in Western capitals.

“Jewish kids, once again, are afraid to take the bus to school… and middle-class intellectuals tear down the posters of Jewish kids being held hostage,” he said.

“We must call that out for what it is: The emergence from beneath the collective floorboards of the ancient spore of anti-Semitism, that lazy, horrible, diversionary tactic of the human race.”

Australia under Albanese is bereft of the moral clarity of Johnson or even Biden, who has dared to stare down the pro-Palestinian left and stand firmly behind America’s most important Middle East ally.

Roger
Roger
December 18, 2023 10:57 am

For better or worse, it’s up to them.

JohnJJJ
JohnJJJ
December 18, 2023 10:57 am

Perhaps we should, like France and Germany, move to licensing Muslim clerics. And in Saudi Arabia. the Muslim Brotherhood’s ( the gang behind Hamas) first enemy was the Saudi royal family. The Saudi government has no qualms about licensing the clerics and executing them, if needs be. Ma’shalla – God has willed it.

H B Bear
H B Bear
December 18, 2023 10:57 am

We all have our downthumbers. Don’t we Groogs? If you don’t, you really have to take a look at yourself.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
December 18, 2023 11:02 am

One of the posts by military influencer Anthony Laster slams Army life for having ‘No Privacy, The Pay S***s, Sh***y Food, Disrespectful Leadership, NO SLEEP!’ and has been viewed more than 600,000 times.

Anybody imagine these little snowflakes, confronted by some of the almost legendary instructors of days gone by?

“YOU Horrible, disgusting, little man! You are a walking disgrace to the Queens uniform, you are!”

Real Deal
Real Deal
December 18, 2023 11:02 am

Roger and Diogenes (and Will.) Thanks. That is so helpful. I’m trying to combat an ABC listening Covid Karen. Perhaps this should be a pushover but she has all the earnest insistence of someone who still regularly listens to “Dr” Norman Swan.

Katzenjammer
Katzenjammer
December 18, 2023 11:03 am

but that the relevant proposal, a Palestinian State that excludes displaced Palestinians, is not a serious proposal that would be refused out of hand, or alternatively, accepted and then reneged at the earliest opportunity.

Who proposed this? And why discuss it when all proposals are dismissed by Palestinians.

H B Bear
H B Bear
December 18, 2023 11:04 am

First we see that Bowen’s response to Bolt’s analysis is to demand him be sacked.

Positively Gillardian.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
December 18, 2023 11:04 am

Lizzie (that someone) raised the proposal of establishing a Palestinian State with the proviso that Palestinians abroad be excluded. I said that was a non-starter, and in order to explain this I added that an analgous proposal, excluding the emigration of European Jews to any proposed Jewish state, by the British would have been received by Zionists in Mandate Palestine in precisely the same way. This is just obvious.

Dover, on the end of the last Open Forum.

My reply is that when you also say to me, as you have, that there is ‘no meaningful’ difference between the Palestinian diaspora being stateless compared to all Jews being stateless then I think you lack historical perspective. Jews have been continuously expelled wherever they have tried to settle. You fail to recognise the history of the Jews within medieval Christianity and later with Islam, from the days of the Roman expulsion onwards. Specifically, you fail to address the Holocaust as a driving factor in the moral agreement to the creation of the State of Israel as a Jewish homeland by the then morally uncontaminated United Nations in 1948.

I do not think that history can be equated with the spread of Palestinian settlement around the Middle East both before and after the creation of the State of Israel, given the agreements made at that time when both Jew and Muslims moved domiciles, and Jews suffered pogroms then also. What enters into all agreement now is the simple realpolitik of disparity in demographics. A Palestinian State within the borders of Greater Israel can only exist if it is a dwelling place for those already there. That is a Real Politik that cannot be denied given the fecund generations of Palestinians dwelling in many neighbouring areas.

History doesn’t present an abstract philosophical balance sheet,

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
December 18, 2023 11:05 am

Sorry, too busy with the argument to remember to put blockquotes around the first para above, which was written by Dover.

rosie
rosie
December 18, 2023 11:07 am

Oh, who cares if there is a ‘Palestinian’ state and their diaspora emigrate there?

Roger
Roger
December 18, 2023 11:10 am

Perhaps this should be a pushover but she has all the earnest insistence of someone who still regularly listens to “Dr” Norman Swan.

Break it to her gently that Dr Norman is Jewish.

Chuckle.

(I have no idea what his views are on this issue.)

rosie
rosie
December 18, 2023 11:10 am

One of the extremely wealthy families IMSHIN catalogues on twitter send their children to an UNWRA school.
UNWRA schools seem to have an awful lot of hamas tunnels, why is that?

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
December 18, 2023 11:15 am

I’ve also said in this discussion that history dictates we could no longer accept as an immigrant everyone in Britain or the US who wished to live here in sunny wealthy Australia simply on the grounds of common culture and ancestry. That this disadvantages some people in Australia is undoubted – ask anyone of British stock here (still a lot of us) whether or not they’d like their rellies to come over and whether it is fair that they can’t, and they tell you how they feel about that. They might even add something about Palestinian immigration here if ‘justice’ was brought into your conversation.

These issues are always going to be fraught.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
December 18, 2023 11:22 am

Britnah trying to shore up jerb by going to former boss (O’Conner) in Qld.
Another in the sorry Britnah saga who “lost” SMS messages.

Lost messages. Two phones ago.

It seems these are the only people on the planet who don’t carry messages etc over when they get a new phone.
Britnah complaining to O’Conner that she was “banished to WA to keep her away from the centre of the action in Canbra”.
FFS. Parliament had risen prior to the election. Her boss (Reynolds) was a WA Senator and campaigning in WA. Surely that would be the “centre of the action” at that point? I would think being told to sit in Canbra and monitor the fax machine would have been a “freezing out” if that was the objective.

Arky
December 18, 2023 11:24 am

On Fox Business on Thursday, the former president called for setting this tariff at 10 percent “automatically” for all countries, a move that experts warn could lead to higher prices for consumers throughout the economy and could lead to a global trade war.
“I think we should have a ring around the collar” of the U.S. economy, Trump said in an interview with Kudlow on Fox Business on Thursday. “When companies come in and they dump their products in the United States, they should pay, automatically, let’s say a 10 percent tax … I do like the 10 percent for everybody.”

– Washington Post, August 2023.

Old School Conservative
Old School Conservative
December 18, 2023 11:26 am

Anybody imagine these little snowflakes, confronted by some of the almost legendary instructors of days gone by?

Or confronted by Gunnery Sergeant Hartman of Full Metal Jacket fame.
He wasn’t acting – he was reprising his real life role.
Scared me and I was just a film goer.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
December 18, 2023 11:27 am

What might have been only a nascent national identity in the 20s and 30s has developed into a strong national identity now.

Artificially created, an ideology, and best firmly put to one side in any negotiations re the situation of those Palestinians currently living within the ambit of a Israel’s current borders. The time depth of Palestinian claims is very different indeed to the time depth of the Jewish diaspora has re the ‘homeland’ of Israel, one that is religiously-grounded and has been for millennia. Islam is a late development in this context, and even the Islamic attachment to the Temple Mount has, to outsiders, the sense of “Me too”.

Jordan, Qatar, the UAE, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, let alone Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia, all need to step up to integrate those Palestinian generations of ‘refugees’ living within their borders or those Palestinians claiming displacement who may wish to do so. The answer lies there, with the Islamic nations, not with Israel. If the West can accept refugees in huge numbers from various conflicted sites around the world, then so can Islamic nations. It’s time for the West and Israel to now make this call.

rosie
rosie
December 18, 2023 11:27 am
Eyrie
Eyrie
December 18, 2023 11:27 am

“YOU Horrible, disgusting, little man! You are a walking disgrace to the Queens uniform, you are!”

See Sharpe TV series. Really enjoying it.

“There’s forty shillings on the drum
For those who volunteer to come
and list to fight the foe today
Over the hills and far away

O’er the hills and far away
through Flanders, Portugal and Spain
King George commands and we obey
Over the hills and far away”

Warning- the theme song is a earworm

JC
JC
December 18, 2023 11:27 am

Don’t get too giddy, Juan. It has to go through the Congress and after the last experience it has no hope of ever through. All the previous hike did was raise prices as imports rose.

Bourne1879
Bourne1879
December 18, 2023 11:28 am

Fiona Browns evidence is going to be interesting to say the least.

I can understand that she and Senator Reynolds feel they have been much malingned by Brittany and Lisa. Lisa was out to get Reynolds and the so called cover up was a major part of her interest.

Then you have the fact Brown and Reynolds were not allowed to give their version of events when Labour approved the settlement for Brittany.

I hope Brown lays it all out. I never believed she was a good witness to support Brittany. She has been done a great injustice.

rosie
rosie
December 18, 2023 11:28 am
John H.
John H.
December 18, 2023 11:29 am

‘Prison or bullet’: new Argentina government promises harsh response to protest

A libertarian who uses the State to suppress protests. That reminds me of a comment an ethicist made about the elites who insist on freedom. It is freedom for them to impose their will on everyone else.

Bourne1879
Bourne1879
December 18, 2023 11:31 am

Engineering must be their most popular subject. Practical work useful.

“UNWRA schools seem to have an awful lot of hamas tunnels, why is that?’”

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
December 18, 2023 11:32 am

Oh, who cares if there is a ‘Palestinian’ state and their diaspora emigrate there?

Don’t know if you are serious here, Rosie, but Israel cares. Very much.
A population surge in a fragile new State with little to offer to a population overload would lead to more bulldozers on the border fences.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
December 18, 2023 11:35 am

“The state is not going to pay for the use of the security forces; organizations that have legal status will have to pay or individuals will have to bear the cost,” Bullrich said.

In Argentina. You demonstrate with hints of violence, you pay.

Let’s now do that in Australia to the weekly demos of Hamas supporters.

JC
JC
December 18, 2023 11:37 am

Currently, as a result of restoring, US firms are setting up giant factories in Ohio. The huge problem they’re currently facing is… not enough workers.

This isn’t 2016 when the unemployment rate was much higher. Tariff increases will just be felt through the price level … and more so.

US has a worker shortage problem that could last for decades.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
December 18, 2023 11:37 am

Oh look, more Nazis in Melbourne.

Roads closed in Port Melbourne as pro-Palestine protesters hold rally outside government office (Sky News, 18 Dec)

Pro-Palestine supporters have continued to hold a demonstration in Port Melbourne with some roads closed off since 5.30am, causing major delays and traffic in the area.

We should ask Mr Pesutto about all this. He seems to’ve been oddly quiet lately.

Johnny Rotten
December 18, 2023 11:38 am

A young psychic midget named Marge
Went to jail on a serious charge.
But despite lock and key
The lady broke free
And the News said “Small Medium at Large”.

Robert Sewell
December 18, 2023 11:38 am

Beertruk/Tinta
Brilliant essay.
But they miss that the effort to destroy the learning institutions is deliberate.

rosie
rosie
December 18, 2023 11:39 am

Can you link to an official Israeli government policy statement on this.
It’s odd to me, given that Gazans are only allowed to emigrate in very small numbers, many more would have left if it were not for Hamas severely limiting the number of visas.

Bourne1879
Bourne1879
December 18, 2023 11:39 am

I forgot something.

Gina for PM!

The country would be far better off if we listened to her.

A few years ago I mentioned to somebody in late 20’s about the newsletters and work of the IPA. He did his “research” and came back to me to say they had no credibility. This was because he had seen a reference to Gina providing some funding. In his mind that discredited all their work.

Perfect example of Uni educated brainwashed thinking.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
December 18, 2023 11:39 am

in the UK islam flexes its muscles.

And the Police ‘Service’ are where?

Diogenes
Diogenes
December 18, 2023 11:40 am

Talking about homeless encampments around the Coast and Brisbane at Christmas at Christmas drinks in the village last, trotted out the “Alboville” name. It was an instant hit and put into use by many. Many thanks to whoever it was that put up as a suggestion.

Diogenes
Diogenes
December 18, 2023 11:45 am

A libertarian who uses the State to suppress protests

No. He is just making the organisers pay for the police protection. Seems reasonable to me.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
December 18, 2023 11:47 am

Jorge

Dec 18, 2023 10:28 AM

To say that a $1.23m dollars transfer from the Vatican bank to Australia is untraceable is hogwash.

More like $2.4m (or, as we now call it, a “full Britnah”).
But, yes.
Surprisingly incurious.

JC
JC
December 18, 2023 11:48 am

Re-shoring

Robert Sewell
December 18, 2023 11:48 am

Bruce O’Nuke:
Bruce of Newcastle Avatar
Bruce of Newcastle
Dec 18, 2023 6:39 AM

The education system literally has turned most young people into Nazis.

Poll: 51% of Young Americans Believe Israel Should Be ‘Ended’ (16 Dec)
A recent Harvard-Harris poll revealed this week unveiled that 51% of respondents in the 18 to 24 age group expressed the belief that Israel should “be ended and given to Hamas and the Palestinians,” reported the N.Y. Post.

The US is in the same position as Germany in 1934.
Perhaps a little understanding of what the Good Burghers of Germany woke up to on the 3rd September 1939, and asked themselves “How on earth did we get here?”
Try not to be blasé about this – America is on the very same path.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
December 18, 2023 11:50 am

feelthebern

Dec 18, 2023 10:40 AM

The good justice starts the morning giving the solicitor-general a light back hand across the chops.

I missed the starter’s gun.
What was that?
I understand Lee didn’t admonish Oz journalists for ridiculing our Lisa.

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