Tom Stiglich.
Open Thread – Mon 18 Dec 2023
- Open Thread – Mon 16 Sept 2024
- No, Your Holiness, killing babies and border control are not the same
- Open Thread – Weekend 14 Sept 2024
- Open Thread – Thurs 12 Sept 2024
- Open Thread – Mon 9 Sept 2024
Matt Margolis.
Brett Lethbridge.
Peter Broelman.
Mark Knight.
You know when you try to put two north ends of a magnet together and they repel? So it is with Political correctness and humour.
“A dozen, a gross, and a score
Plus three times the square root of four
Divided by seven
Plus five times eleven
Is nine squared and not a bit more.”
One less ruling for Lee J. I suspect Llewelyn’s evidence may have lead to a change of mind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_under_Muslim_rule
From Ye Olde Fred:
This is all very confused, When I was in that world, the rule was ‘don’t write, say or do anything that you don’t want to see on the front page of the Canbeeea Times,’
Woodturning – The Worlds Most Expensive Wood?!
Understood and quite reasonable.
Meet it halfway like the Beloved did, running at the @rsehole with the axe, in a mist of tear gas. Run at it swearing your head off, arms flailing, making yourself look ten times bigger than you really are. Be strong and very courageous.
thefrollickingmole
Dec 18, 2023 4:19 PM
This has confused me. Why the delay? As I understand, Fiona Brown is willing to give evidence. I heard His Honour say, he wanted an open and transparent Hearing regarding her evidence, including not shafting the media.
What’s going on?
“Katzenjammer
Dec 18, 2023 4:30 PM
Thanks Katz. Pogroms against Jews were commonplace during the Ottoman empire and beforehand.
Alamak
So why make that comment given the context of the discussion?
I think we all know why.
What calli said +100
Bespoke:
That’s the point Bespoke – he’s asking if it raises questions, which it certainly does. But Dover is also not answering them because he doesn’t know – obviously.
And frankly I wouldn’t be trying to give answers without any further investigation.
Would you accept that it was a shitty situation, and nobody knows what was going through the participants minds?
WTF!!?
Sure!
.. Winston.
Kneel:
A small correction, Kneel.
This is Newcat and the call is:
“Chin up, tits out, be proud.”
1m ago
16.37 AEDT
The Guardian
I think we all need to pull up our big girl panties, but not too tight!
There. I said it. Panties.
The ABC’s new chair faces a big audience problem
A new chair to replace Ita Buttrose will be named within weeks with the ABC now reaching fewer than two in three Australians.
Nick Bonyhady and Sam Buckingham-Jones
Earlier this month, Kate McClymont rose early and prepared for interviews with the ABC’s Radio National and its Melbourne morning radio program.
The Sydney Morning Herald’s investigative reporter had broken a major story that morning, reporting on allegations of indecent assault made against high-profile broadcaster Alan Jones.
Suddenly, the interviews were cancelled. The ABC’s legal team had decided the broadcaster had to independently verify her story, which had been years in the making.
Australian defamation law is notoriously strict and Jones, who denied the allegations, had threatened to sue.
Everyone, including the Herald’s publishers Nine Entertainment, was being careful.
But the decision is one of many that some of the national broadcaster’s staff point to when they complain of a timidity that has crept in at an organisation once known for – and which still has elements of – fearless reporting.
More recently, it made headlines for the damaging defamation loss to former special forces commander Heston Russell.
In a little over three months, ABC chairman Ita Buttrose will step down after five years in the job.
Turning 82 in January, she has opted not to ask the government for a second term.
Between now and then, the government will announce a new chair of the public broadcaster, a role that attracts the cream of the media, technology and business crop.
Whoever that person is will inherit an ABC, with more than 4300 staff and an annual budget of $1.2 billion, at an inflection point.
For the first time in its measured history, fewer than two in three Australians interact with the ABC each week.
Its weekly “reach”, a key internal metric, has been trending downwards for at least the past decade.
In 2014, 71 per cent of Australians read, watched or listened to something the ABC had produced every week.
Now, that figure is 65.4 per cent.
Three candidates have been submitted to the government for the role by the independent nomination panel, including, it can be revealed, current ABC deputy chair Peter Tonagh.
Tonagh, a former chief executive of Foxtel, REA Group and News Corp Australia, has been on the board since May 2021.
The names often floated – Gilbert + Tobin’s Danny Gilbert, former Fairfax Media chief executive Greg Hywood and former News Corp Australia boss Kim Williams – were not on the list, a source close to the process said.
Interviews with current and former ABC journalists and executives reveal the scale of the challenge facing a new chair.
Insiders say they work in silos, are spread thin and don’t feel entirely supported.
There is a universal sense that management is too sensitive to regular barbs from News Corp publications.
“Too much heed is given to the criticism from those outlets,” one reporter says.
There have been budget pressures. Since the mid-1980s, there has been a 34 per cent reduction in funding in real terms for the ABC, including almost 15 per cent in cuts since 2014.
Former ABC board member Joe Gersh says the major challenge for the broadcaster is the same one it has been for the last five years – to develop a “meaningful response to the constantly changing media environment and bring all of its stakeholders along”.
“It is a formidable challenge, for the ABC as well as all other media organisations,” he says.
A spokesman for the ABC did not respond when approached about audience declines on Sunday.
Reach down
The ABC’s charter requires it to provide “broadcasting services of a high standard … that contribute to a sense of national identity and inform and entertain, and reflect the cultural diversity of, the … community.”
That vague but high-minded statement once meant the ABC simply needed to provide high calibre, trusted programming.
Viewership was assured by the ABC’s ubiquity and a limited number of competitors.
Now, in an age of digital media, everything can be measured.
And, under pressure to justify more than $1 billion in annual funding, the national broadcaster has set itself ambitious targets for viewership.
It is well behind them. In addition to declining overall reach, the ABC wants to have 18.3 million of Australia’s 26.6 million people go to its digital properties – the ABC website, ABC News app, ABC iView and ABC listen – every week.
But it is nowhere near that figure.
After an audience bump – like many outlets, driven by the COVID-19 pandemic – its numbers this year slipped back to 13 million from 17 million.
Likewise, more than 80 per cent of the audience for its marquee, 7pm news bulletin are over 55 years old, internal data revealed.
Conversely, it has maintained a 19 per cent gap over commercial outlets as the most trusted media source, with 79 per cent of Australians saying they trust information from the ABC.
Geraldine Doogue, a veteran journalist and an institution at the national broadcaster, says it was the year when the scale of the ABC’s digital challenge fully hit home.
She said it reminded her of something Hywood had said about Fairfax Media, now Nine and the publisher of The Australian Financial Review.
He had, as chief executive, dragged the company through a wrenching digital transition.
“He realised that the digital future was just knocking on the door but he and others weren’t ready, and he came back to headquarters and changed everything,” Doogue says. “I don’t think he had a lovely designed plan.
He just knew he wasn’t there and nor was the organisation, and he had to flip the switch to digital vaudeville, to misquote Paul Keating.”
To fix its audience problems, the ABC has sought to hire popular TikTok content creators with an express mandate to do everything but news.
At the same time it has tried to manage staff being influenced by – or damaging its brand with intemperate comments on – social media.
The ABC’s news director Justin Stevens recently warned staff not to sign open letters after a pro-Palestine missive attracted at least 20 signatures from the broadcaster.
In another internal email this month, Stevens bluntly reminded his employees that the broadcaster did not require them to use personal social media accounts for work.
“To align with this, we are updating employee website bios to remove any remaining links to Twitter/X,” he wrote in the email obtained by the Financial Review.
Year of overhaul
As part of its push for online readers, staff say the ABC previously used the mantra “local for national”. It meant those in regional areas were to find stories that appealed to “someone in a café in Perth”.
That could be public interest journalism about a bushfire, for example, but it also led to soft coverage of human interest topics getting priority on the ABC’s website.
The ABC has recently de-emphasised that approach, with senior managers telling staff to work on “high value” news over dutiful “low value” stories.
ABC boss David Anderson has conceded the organisation’s broadcast audience is declining, but says it must change or lose cultural relevance.
Millennials and younger generations “will not turn to broadcast radio and TV as they grow older, but they will still expect the same high quality and editorial standards of the ABC,” he said in a speech last month.
There have been sweeping restructures this past year, injecting new, commercially minded executives such as Chris Oliver-Taylor, who joined from Netflix as chief content officer, and Ben Latimer, who joined from Nova as head of audio content.
Already, their decision-making has been deeply felt. This past week, The Drum was axed, and finished up days later.
Veteran ABC music director Richard Kingsmill was made redundant after decades as one of the most influential players in Australian music.
Earlier in the year the ABC’s political editor, Andrew Probyn, was pushed out too.
The independent-minded journalist, who had survived a push to remove him under the previous ABC chair, was swiftly hired by Nine.
The new chair will be named before Buttrose departs in March – probably in late January or early February.
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland told Radio National earlier this month that the government would have more to say “in the near future”.
Doogue will be a part of the ABC’s digital transition.
This past weekend she hosted her last edition of the Saturday Extra international politics and business show.
In the new year she will host a new show, Global Roaming, that will air at three different timeslots on RN and via the ABC’s apps.
It is a strategy that would have been unthinkable in the old days of the broadcaster.
But she knows the toll that the pace of digital changes the ABC is undertaking has taken on her colleagues around the institution.
“It’s not ideal, it’s not,” Doogue says. “There’s no pretence, it’s odd, but it has happened to other venerable organisations. You just have to hang on tight for the ride.”
It means some units of IDF are shooting surrendering hamas.
Understand the mindset but not good because this was always going to happen.
K-jammer should ask Hindu Indians about Muslims.
Same MO buddy.
Quote fail.
Blogging while harvesting lupines.
Lupins!!
A downthumb for a panty joke!?
There’s no hope for this sad sack.
I don’t care to listen to Possumlady’s motherhood questions to Fiona. What I DO want to hear is Whybrow’s cross examination. Are we going to see this stuff or have to rely on Fake News to give us their version?
There was no ‘fierce-fighting’ going on and that is evidenced by the report and the circumstances. As for being better advised to remain hidden, how does that represent a less dangerous scenario? It’s hard to identify whether their unarmed, etc. compared with leaving cover so that you can be observed in the open, hands up, etc. that you are visibly not a threat. BTW, I hope you don’t find this too much the case of me unhistorically philosophizing. I am trying.
What did you say you were harvesting? 😀
And on that vein, I’m wondering. Did “bring the party back to PH” include a little sniffing of substances? It would account for much…much evasiveness. And other physical “difficulties”.
Old Ozzie – Please cease quoting anything from “Lord Bebo”.
He’s an antisemitic Nazi.
Correct, Cassie (as Calli observes).
The barbarians among us — religious lunatics and #metoo idiots jumping on a fashion bandwagon –are counting on your fear because they think you are as weak as they, needing the anonymity of a crowd beying for murder.
They are few and we are many.
One of many videos appearing where people speculate what happen once AGI is achieved.
Maher: “It’s Hard To Negotiate When The Other Side’s Position Is – You All Die And Disappear”
Comedian Bill Maher discussed the Israel-Hamas conflict on Friday, suggesting that Palestinians get used to the fact that Israel isn’t going anywhere, and there’s no way for Israel to negotiate with Palestine in good faith when the other side’s position is “you all die and disappear.”
“Things change. Countries, boundaries, empires,” said Maher, citing various historical instances where other groups of people accepted regional defeat and moved on. “In 1950, the little town of Bethlehem was 86 percent Christian, now it’s overwhelmingly Muslim.”
While failing to address international calls for Israel to dial back civilian deaths in dealing with Hamas (out of optics, not genuine concern – we assure you), Maher’s position is essentially – deal with it.
“After World War II, 12 million ethnic Germans got shoved out of Russia, and Poland, and Czechoslovakia because being German had become kind of unpopular,” Maher continued.
“People get moved, and yes, colonized.
Nobody was a bigger colonizer than the Muslim army that swept out of the Arabian desert and took over much of the world in a single century.”
He also noted that there were several missed opportunities for deals with Israel in years past.
“There were deals on the table to share the land called Palestine… And East Jerusalem could have been the capital of a Palestinian state that today might look more like Dubai than Gaza,” Maher pointed out, noting that “Arafat was offered 95 percent of the West Bank, and said no.”
Maher then used a map to show how the slogan “from the river to the sea” is a call for either the death of all Jews, or at minimum – to move all of them out.
Yes. It was always going to happen – as I said in a post a couple of days ago.
I would hate to be those IDFs who shot the hostages. Reservists, I think I read. (Read of suicides incoming!)
It’s Hamas’ modus operandi to set the IDF up at every given opportunity. Mission accomplished.
Using ‘digital’ as the bike-shedded USP which ABC needs to fix or else. When anyone walking down any street in Oz could tell them ABC is disconnected from Australians, especially the regions, and unable to present a fair view of issues.
Albonia. Apologies if anyone else has already used that.
Facebook diversity chief’s scam captures spirit of the DEI racket
By Post Editorial Board
Guess what? Turns out when you hire people to work as part of a huge scam, like corporate Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs, they act as though they’re part of a huge scam.
Witness the case of Barbara Furlow-Smiles, who led Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts at Facebook from 2017 to 2021.
Turns out she was promoting inclusion — of Facebook monies into her own hands and those of her friends and family.
She linked corporate credit cards to payment platforms like Venmo, then used those accounts to hand cash to pals in exchange for nonexistent services, with kickbacks to her.
Furlow-Smiles then backfilled fake expense reports to cover the theft.
She also pushed the social network to steer biz to buddies, who then sent the company fake or inflated invoices, which Furlow-Smiles purportedly OK’d in exchange for kickbacks.
All in all, this felonious “champion of the marginalized” stole more than $4 million.
In short, Meta fell hard for DEI nonsense and is now paying the price in public embarrassment.
Yet Furlow-Smiles was ultimately stealing from Meta’s shareholders, among them huge swathes of average Joes.
Thing is, all corporate DEI efforts are a racket, and ultimately as poisonous as the ones in academia.
Pay us, diversity consultants and VPs of inclusion argue, and stave off accusations of racism, misogyny, sexism, transphobia, fatphobia. Otherwise . . .
This adds zero value to businesses and distracts from core missions (little things like providing goods and services in exchange for money).
After this summer’s landmark Supreme Court victory against racism in college admissions, corporate America’s getting justly nervous about its own sins on this front.
And backlash is growing against the idea that any company should spend a nickel on this morally backward nonsense.
The case of Barbara Furlow-Smiles just puts a face on what a con DEI’s always been.
An invented scenario for shooting the three Israelis.
A contingent of two to four snipers were hidden waiting where Hamas were known to be in a building, or thought to be there. Three came out. The snipers didn’t know if the three were decoys to flush out IDF with more still inside ready to ambush them. Should the snipers reveal and tie themselves up off the battle field taking the prisoners back to their base. You’ve got one second to run all those options and more through your mind.
There. I said it. Panties.
At least there was no mention of moist.
That would have been unseemly.
Unprofessional idiot:
Calls are mounting for a Prahran High School teacher to face disciplinary action after he praised Hamas at a pro-Palestine rally.
Jason Wong, who is a VCE science and biology teacher at the school, told a crowd of thousands of protesters in Melbourne’s CBD on Sunday that “Hamas was doing exactly what they have to do”.
The Herald Sun has been told Jewish teachers and students at Prahran High School have felt “unsafe” amid Mr Wong’s controversial comments and behaviour.
“The school has several Jewish students and teachers and this has been very distressing for them,” one source said.
“He has been wearing a keffiyeh to school and preaching his pro-Palestine views in the classroom.
“His serious actions warrant him to lose his job or be suspended,” they added.
Herald-Sun
Bruce of Newcastle
Dec 18, 2023 4:51 PM
OldOzzie
Dec 18, 2023 1:41 PM
Old Ozzie – Please cease quoting anything from “Lord Bebo”.
He’s an antisemitic Nazi.
BON,
The Link was https://askeptic.substack.com/p/war-reports-2023-12-17, who metioned whoever Lord Bebo is – Personally never heard of him, but happy to delete reference to him, if I ever post anything with his name in it.
at the bottom of that segment
Thus, the number of Patriot air defense systems destroyed in Ukraine has increased to four.
— source yurasumy, militarist and slavyngrad
Top Ender
Dec 15, 2023 2:23 PM
Cassie: we live in a dangerously stupid country…
Yesterday heard of a friend’s work Christmas party this week. They had two supervisors appointed to monitor people’s behaviour, alcohol intake, and so on. And yes, they are all – supposedly – adults.
Reminds me of BHP Newnan with of a couple plump out chicks handing out mini mars bars.
I was sorting out chains
This would be the only one in Palestine in the hundred years before the Mandate period. And when order was returned, the Ottomans, rightly, hanged the leaders. That doesn’t rise to the level of pathology. If things were that bad in the late 19th Century Jews would not have been moving to Ottoman Syria, and in particular Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem, if their circumstances were that perilous.
Biden the car wreck:
Horrified Joe Biden looks on as car smashes into his motorcade: President is bundled away by Secret Service as agents draw guns on driver outside Delaware campaign HQ
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12875433/Car-smashes-Joe-Bidens-motorcade-leaving-president-looking-stunned-secret-service-agents-draw-weapons-driver-outside-campaign-HQ-Delaware.html
Too late to save the ALPBC? Like the RBA, you don’t hold out hope for Albo’s Army. Mind you SloMo’s appointment lived up to expectations.
Yes Dover it suggests that the IDF are operating in extremely difficult circumstances, that there is no trick that hamas won’t try and as a consequence some IDF (who are as young as 19) are shoot first ask questions later.
I was reading about one terrorist on a motor bike with his two daughters firing at the IDF, of terrorists carrying children (probably not their own) while engaging with the IDF.
And has never stopped bleating that there was push-back some 200 years later.
Transport minister quietly triples Turkish Airlines’ air rights
Ayesha de Kretser – Senior reporter
Transport Minister Catherine King has signed off on a five-fold increase in flights to Turkey despite denying a request from Qatar Airways to double its capacity earlier this year and describing it as an “unprecedented” expansion.
The new agreements, understood to have been signed off at the International Commission for Air Negotiations in Saudi Arabia last week, mean Turkish Airlines can fly 21 flights per week with immediate effect.
That will increase to 28 by October 2024 and 35 by the following year, overtaking Qatar Airways which has 28 flights a week to major airports.
The agreement adds 21 dedicated cargo services each week for Australian and Turkish airlines in a significant boost for international trade, according to an email from Department of Transport assistant secretary Jim Wolfe, seen by The Australian Financial Review.
The additional capacity comes more than a year after Turkish Airlines – a top 10 airline globally both by revenue and kilometres flown – first wrote to the Australian government seeking permission to expand.
It would give Australians an alternative flight path to southern European cities and rival Middle Eastern airlines like Qatar, Emirates and Etihad.
Turkish Airlines signed off on an order of 220 aircraft from Airbus last week, including 15 A350-1000s.
In June, Turkish Airlines chairman Ahmet Bolat told the Financial Review the airline would consider flying these planes non-stop from Melbourne and Sydney to Istanbul in a move that would rival Qantas’ plans to launch non-stop services to London.
The Transport Minister has also given Turkish Airlines the ability to operate “fifth freedom” traffic rights at two intermediate points of choice in South Asia, South-East Asia and/or the Middle East.
The highly coveted fifth freedoms mean Turkish Airlines can sell tickets to passengers wanting to go only to Singapore or another Middle Eastern or South Asian port from Australia.
Typically, airlines are only allowed to sell flights to their own “hub” city from Australia, which for Turkish Airlines is Istanbul.
In June, Mr Bolat said he was waiting for permission to expand the bilateral from seven flights to 14 flights per week – allowing it to fly a daily service to Melbourne and a daily service to Sydney.
The government has also agreed to increase the number of flights available to Vietnam from 42 to 56 with immediate effect, swelling to 70 by October 2024 and 84 by the end of 2025.
Low-cost Vietnamese carrier Vietjet’s vice president of commercial Jay L Lingeswara told a conference earlier this year the low-cost carrier was keen to expand but had hit the limits of its bilateral air rights agreement.
The Turkish and Vietnamese agreements both include the yet-to-open Western Sydney International Airport alongside the more restricted “main” airports of Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth.
While Sydney Airport has called for consistency around the rules that apply to its new competitor, the under-construction Western Sydney is understood to have asked the government to classify it as a secondary airport, where less onerous restrictions would help it attract flights where bilaterals were constrained.
In its submission to the government’s green paper, Western Sydney notes “unlimited access” at secondary airports means they are “not hampered by the status of the air services arrangements at a point in time or the need to undertake negotiations.”
A spokeswoman for Ms King did not respond to questions regarding why Western Sydney was included in the new agreements, which were updated on December 15 to include new deals for Canada, France and Papua New Guinea.
In its submission to Ms King’s aviation green paper, Virgin Australia called for more “transparency, consultation and certainty” around the awarding of air rights, after a request by its strategic partner Qatar Airways was rebuffed with no plausible explanation.
“In particular, a clearer focus on the impact of bilateral decisions on competition in international and domestic aviation markets, as well as the industries that depend on these services,” Virgin’s submission said.
Seena Sarram, a lawyer who has worked for both Qantas and Qatar and is now an academic at UNSW’s school of aviation, said the decision to grant Turkish Airlines such a large volume of air rights without any explanation of how its application was different from Qatar Airways showed a lack of respect for the public.
“It’s clearly highly political and obvious that this is a political issue, nonetheless we being the flying public should do our best to take the politics out of it and ask the rational questions and ask why the policy isn’t being applied consistently,” Mr Sarram said.
“The fact that Qantas did not object to the Turkish application was likely to be a factor.”
One Wiki article doesn’t include everything that ever happpened there. Damascus was in the same Ottoman province of Syria. There was no province called Palestine.
Katz,
No
(Given evidence as reported)
The three were stripped down so no threat.
Other members of the unit were in the area.
Snipers could’ve and should have remained silent.
Given the nature of hamas I’m surprised this is the first instance.
This would be the only one in Palestine in the hundred years before the Mandate period”
No, it was not the only one. There were numerous pogroms across the region over hundreds of years. In 1517, in Hebron and Safed, there was a murderous pogrom against Jews. Expulsions were common and Jews (and Christians) were forced to pay the Dhimmi tax, which was a great burden on communities.
During the middle ages, Jews in the area lived in abject poverty. They were a despised and persecuted minority.
Should that be “lived down to expectations”?
the last idf soldier to have shot an unarmed terrorist was sent to prison.
Lee said the livestream would be delayed.
How much of a delay ?
Easy to say, but possibly IDF forces could just ask them in Hebrew who they were. Or just ask them to lie down and not move while sending a drone to take some pics? War is chaotic hell but, as mentioned, this failure to observe a surrender ought to be investigated.
The unbridled joy on social media over the IDF killing the 3 hostages is sickening.
I haven’t seen anything like it.
sophie scamps is the independent member for Mackellar. She is an alarmist loon.
She is against carbon capture because it will allow gas exploration to continue. These people are stark raving bonkers.
“Easy to say, but possibly IDF forces could just ask them in Hebrew who they were.”
What an idiotic thing to say. Many Gazans are fluent in Hebrew.
I didn’t see that bit but, yes, the testimony is simultaneously “10/10 schoolies wasted” but peppered with pejorative language like “he led me”, “he decided to xxx”.
So she is so hammered she can’t remember anything … except stuff which damages Lehrmann.
The pro Hamas ghouls are pro Hamas at any cost.
On the Hoggins Leeringman case
Id assume the delay is so if the witness breaks down they can remove or cease the stream to allow her at least some dignity.
I do have a feeling the defence team may regret calling for her.
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:
Global coal demand expected to decline in coming years
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.
The IEA has been predicting the end of coal for years. Back in 2017 the IEA was telling us China would move away from coal, because by 2025-2030 “solar would be cheaper than coal”. Instead, China’s burning more coal than ever before and the quarterly reporting season was a bloodbath for the solar and wind industries as projects get cancelled because their costs are rising.
In 2023 China uses more than half of the total coal on the planet — an extraordinary 4.5 billion tons of that 8.5 billion ton total.
The three largest coal producers in the world are China, India and Indonesia which account for a blockbuster 70% of global production. The IEA is convinced coal use will decline any day now, but China’s growth rate in coal use was 5% in 2023, and India’s was 8%. These are hardly signs of the plateau before the fall.
https://joannenova.com.au/2023/12/more-coal-burned-on-earth-in-2023-than-ever-before-in-human-history/#comments
At the start of precedings today the judge ordered google to give the details of a channel that breached his orders.
There’s a lot of content on TikTok that must go close as well.
But they aren’t anonymous so who knows if they have already been notified.
Yes, I am depressed…but worse than depressed, I feel such incredible apprehension.
Cassie, like others I am at a loss to know what to say. We all feel your pain to some extent – although few, if any of us, has ever experienced the sort of fear that these events have generated for Jews. Yes – some may have experienced the sort of domestic violence (& threat of it) that numbs and and creates terrible mental anguish.
All I can say is…that the vast majority of Australians are aghast at the spectre of anti-Semitism that we have seen here since 7 October. I know that the government (state & federal) response has been completely inadequate. All of them are tiptoeing through the red hot issues. But I think that they must deal with the issue of these continual gatherings of the supporters of ratbag and potentially dangerous Palestinian militants in the city. What Jew would feel safe while these continue?
I realise that the question of freedom of speech and the right to protest are in question. But civil unrest and the promotion of hatred must become the most important issue here. I feel we should all be all sending messages to NSW MPs demanding that action should be taken against these protesters where legally possible – if necessary, in retrospect.
You have quoted Lord Bebo and Armchair Warlord, another antisemite, many times in context with the Ukraine war. For which they are prominent Russophile bloggers. I can respect opinions that differ from mine but I will not respect antisemites like Bebo. Antisemitism is an instant disqualifier for any consideration as far as I’m concerned, and a justification for being treated with contempt.
Lies about Civilian Casualties
Ask names to make some checks via the IDF communications network. Maybe think it through before responding so fast …
The unbridled joy on social media over the IDF killing the 3 hostages is sickening.
Yep; and it’s wrapped in it’s all so terrible handwringing with no mention of the 1400 Israelis raped, tortured and butchered . It’s all it must stop; 18000 pallis have died and the rest are homeless as supplied by hamas via the BBC so it must be true. This deadshit was bemoaning the plight of the pallis via the dreadful Israelis killing their own hostages all afternoon.
Probably true. But the victim lottery running in court of public opinion might be neutralized on viewing a defence witness in tears also.
Transport Minister Catherine King has signed off on a five-fold increase in flights to Turkey despite denying a request from Qatar Airways to double its capacity earlier this year and describing it as an “unprecedented” expansion.
I am not opposed to that. Rather Turkish airline than the airline of the Muslim Brotherhood state of Qatar. Only degrees of difference, I know.
They’re snipers. They’re not supposed to reveal themselves.
Surely everyone has woken up to this charade by now. The government’s fiscal policies deliberately drive inflation while the RBA is left holding the can with monetary policy. ??’? ??? ??? ????? screams the government which continues to exacerbate the problem and transfer the hardship to home buyers via interest rates and industrial relations policies that in inflate building costs. Not to mention immigration policies that inflate land prices. ??? ??? ??????.
Covid pretty convincingly put the lie to that idea.
Doesn’t this site accept UNIcode?
should be careful around that wood lathe
They were unconnected to IDF becos snipers and unable to request drone footage or other intervention?
Unfortunately this failure will be used to demonstrate the errors of IDF fighting close contact war with civilians nearby.
URL encoding just in case
Cheers. For some the bleeding obvious needs to be said.
Might add the area in which the three hostages was shot was as far as the IDF knew devoid of civilians.
Alamak,
I don’t mean to be rude but you’re making a “day out” in Gaza sound like elevensies at Lords…
“Oh, I’m sorry dear chap, do you think one could possibly proffer one’s name?”
Hamas lovers will feast on it.
The Islamic Jihad rocket that misfired on the hospital shows it’s equally an error for them to fight with civilians nearby. Ooops, I forgot. These rules only apply to Israel.
Vicki, Turkey is no better. As Qatar became too hot for the Hamas leadership they are rumoured to have fled to Turkey.
for sure, and the pore man slips up on occasion, and who who would deny hizzoner a wee drap after a good marnin’s work?
The world was well-lubricated by alcohol in his day and mine.
We still managed to cope. Alcohol nannyism is a curse.
Why I even imbibe myself. Keeping a steady eye on the plimsoll line, natch.
I drive sans alcohol these days, but not in my yoof. We were careful, that’s all.
Meet it halfway like the Beloved did, running at the @rsehole with the axe, in a mist of tear gas. Run at it swearing your head off, arms flailing, making yourself look ten times bigger than you really are. Be strong and very courageous.
Calli, I don’t want to diminish the circumstances you describe with my analogy – but I will use my own minor experience.
I was once walking in a paddock amongst our cattle. A “teenage” bull decided he would challenge me with much pawing of the ground & snorting. I was a long way from the fenceline, so I decided I must have a defence of sorts. Consequently, I shouted obscenities, & flailed my arms, and ran straight at him. He took off in the opposite direction! I have since resorted to the same defence when challenged years later by the head cow – with the same result.
These days my remaining herd regard me as the “head boss” (I fantasise – but I think with accompanying affection) , so such antics are not necessary. But I do think they apply to many situations amongst many species – including our own.
being a civilian with Hamas nearby is worse than that
and being hostage is even worserer
this whole shake-hands-and-make-up bullschist is ridiculous
I don’t think its unreasonable to make some checks on bare-chested men holding a white flag before killing them – given the presence of hostages in Gaza.
Critics of the campaign will say that IDF is not under orders to rescue hostages as a priority but rather to kill all Gazans regardless of risks to captured Israelis.
Vicki, Turkey is no better. As Qatar became too hot for the Hamas leadership they are rumoured to have fled to Turkey.
Crossie, you are right. I despise Erdogan & am not too fond of Turks. But I know of “Lefties” who think nothing of flying Qatar, because it is “good value”. I confess to having flown Turkish Airlines, but I draw the line at Qatar.
That’s what my Mil does, Vicki.
Can you fly like her?
What a different America it was in 1977.
The ACLU (the American Civil Liberties Union) and closely tied with Jewish Americans did this in 1977.
https://reason.com/2020/12/20/would-the-aclu-still-defend-nazis-right-to-march-in-skokie/
Alimak,
Hamas had duty of care for their hostages
letting them run around bare-chested with white-flags in a war zone
what were they thinking?
ffs
Evidently Alamaz, it aint easy.
And I’m pretty sure no IDF officer wants hostages dead, especially of their own hands
Stossel: Fighting the climate change boogeyman
The UN has called an emergency meeting to reprimand Hamas for this breach of war protocol.
Alamak!
(Alamaz is my imaginary friend)
They really want WWIII
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Is Building A Massive Doomsday Bunker.
LOL! And chuckle.
A disappointing end to today’s FCA session.
Relatively boring testimonies from second-level witnesses..
Agree with all the sharp and accurate Cat comments.
Meakin was deaf but sharp prior to the break, then more argumentative and unfocused post his (probably) liquid lunch.
Still miles better than those two imbeciles Angus and Bunions.
Clearly, Channel 10 are pressing on, maybe hoping for an appeal ?to a multi-judge FCA hearing? Eye-watering legal fees maybe just a drop in the bucket for the Ozzie tax-write-off enterprise of their US owners.
Surprising decision by Lee about the Brown testimony.
At first, made an impassioned speech about equality for all witnesses, in the service of open justice etc..
Then caves to some BS claims of extreme mental suffering by Brown. Limiting public access to the live stream.
Yes, Brown, the ministerial CoS who was filling in at the time of the Brucie-Hoggins tryst, that was so mentally fragile that she kept her position in the hellish shark-infested PH environment until AFTER Scomo was booted, three (!!) years later.
And Lee fell for it.
His first stumble in an otherwise magnificent performance.
No live stream.. maybe tomorrow we’ll know more, but that horse has bolted.
Concern trolling of the most toxic type.
They are basking in these poor men’s deaths while others mourn and ask all the right questions.
Like HOW DID THEY HAPPEN TO BE IN GAZA IN THE FIRST PLACE?
Whoops! Sorry for shouting.
Time to tone it down.
It’s only accomplished if the Western media play ball with it.
Journalism has lost all skepticism when it comes to Hamas.
It is far too easy to draw conclusions when isolated from the combat context and without any understanding of what the attacking unit had gone through, but the killing of the hostages appears prima facie, to have been a terrible command and control failure.
The initiation of action by a sniper without direction, when the force was not engaged appears to be inexplicable. Stress maybe, confusion possibly, intense distrust caused by Hamas’s previous behaviour is probable, but the IDF are a professional Western Army, this is a leadership failure that should not have happened.
I upticked that because a joke is a joke is a joke.
Poker-faced Grundyism tends not to see anything as lighthearted these days.
I didn’t grow up in that miserable world and I won’t die in it either.
It seemed their captors had fled or been killed. Lets hope the IDF investigation can clarify on this tragic event.
Perfectly sensible (and logical!) question but I see the towndicker is at it.
Dr. Tess Lawrie on WHO power
Argentina’s Javier Milei Unveils His ‘Austerity Budget’ to Crush Inflation and Crony Capitalism
Harvard Early Admissions Applications Plunge 17 Percent
We’re not lefties but we booked Qatar well before 7th Oct in part in protest against the Qantas attitude to more Qatar flights and in part to ‘try them out’. We booked Royal Jordanian then too, simply out of interest to see Doha. Seen it now; it is shit, but full of US money.
At present we’re not prepared to fly on any Middle Eastern airline, even Emirates where we hold many flyer points from a while back. Last Emirates flight wasn’t so good, unruly Islamic kids running amok, so haven’t used them since around 2014.
Hunter Biden, DOJ Stonewalling, and Joe’s Stunning Mistake
since yr so concerned Alimak, how about some prophylactic captor remediation then?
like maybe rub the feckers out before they create more problems because clearly they arent even able to care properly for the hostages they already have
love the way you pretend that you have a sober and realistic over view of how things really work
… you complete retard
ooops, Doha is Qatar, Royal Jordanian airport was Aaman.
Mixing up me Middle Easties.
Aaman Airport was very Islamic and very busy, even at 2am.
Business Lounge huge and like Westfields.
Journalist Exposes Climate Activist Elites In Incredible Hypocrisy
Malcolm Roberts
Australia’s Infrastructure Death by Labor’s Secretive Cuts
If you’re getting called as a witness and have to go into the CBD why not meet someone for lunch and make a day of it?
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
This call was a subject of a couple of pages in NewCat a while back and I couldn’t remember the last two words.
So I was was just hoping the line would trigger a memory.
Mind you, the “Tits Out” was a gratuitous mammary line.
I’ll blame Calli.
It’s the sort of thing she’d say – along with ‘panties’.
I’m roaring laughing at university academic Greg Barton, who the left has wheeled out to defend the Elbow regime’s impending release of terrorist Abdul Nacer Benbrika from detention who, Barton informs us, has been successfully deradicalised.
FMD.
The one thing you can take to the bank is that Labor governments make daily life in Australia unsafe — every time — because of the mad radical leftwing ideology that guides policy.
I guess its putting yourself into the same frame of mind that was common on the night of the alleged event. Perhaps we could re-enact the event up till both entered the offices and see what new insights the whole court could come up with. In Vino Veritas and all that …
Don’t you dare you bugger!
I am innocent. Sort of.
Quite.
Brown needed to have some courage under fire. Squibbing it doesn’t bode well.
I’m so tired of Canberra “specials”.
Please don’t start the daily round of abuse hurling so early. And I never go full ‘tard.
/IANJC
Disappointed that Justice Lee stopped the livestream of the Davis examination.
I accept she’s mentally fragile but why would the presence of a livefeed worry her if she was prepared to give evidence?
I was looking forward to her testimony as she had contemporaneous notes of what went on in meetings and phone calls with Knickerless something sans-cottontails didn’t have.
… anything at all, regardless of the claim’s veracity, because by the time the accused is able to present a defense, the media has moved on, and the claim remains ‘uncontested’ according to the majority who saw/heard/read ONLY the initial allegation. Repeat ad nauseam and you instill a perception of a pattern.
Not at all, Dover. I think re this tragic situation you are trying to formulate what happened situationally, which is what I was doing too – suggesting what may have happened. I don’t know and nor do you. We are only forming rough opinions about carelessness (you) and exploring possibilities for mistaken identity (me), both on too few facts. An enquiry will follow to pass a judgement, as it would in any trained army.
Bill Maher gets most of it right.
Gotta wonder if Luigi’s gummint really has a clue about international relationships? ..
Knocks back Hamas Air on extra flights in/out of Oz then grants lotz more additional flights to another of the “dubious” mid-east mob .. TurkeyAir …… even tho the odds are that the Hamas terror “brass” have deserted Dohar for Istanbul ………
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-18/king-approves-turkish-airways-expansion-after-qatar-rejection/103243376
It hasn’t been suggested, calli, or even intimated.
Davis is spelt “Brown”
Yes. Me too. 🙂
That’s where my confusion lies, BT. What or who got into Lee J’s usually impeccably sensible head?
I thought long and hard about my commentary regarding speaking of firearms in a loose and irresponsible manner.
I have always been a civilian , but to the extent I know anything of weapons of deadly force… I Have known men who have had to resort to such extremes …
My firearms training has been mostly in America and then by Ex Military Men … Men of good character and honour…
Sure they show me how to fail to miss a barn door …
But they also tought me the imminence responsibility of having the machinery to make such a decision …
They told me it is never easy … But if you think it is a light hearted matter …. even a matter of fun … something you may look into ..
No. Curious isn’t it? Like both sides know but don’t dare say.
Chrissie greetings to all from Luigi .. LOL!
https://ibb.co/NYzsvk3
Tom I found your comments about Darwin very interesting. Only been once but liked it a lot more than I was expecting too. Great Botanic Gardens, interesting to see the start of the first undersea telegraph from Aust to Java. Yes spectacular storms. Also I remember mango farms with trees trimmed into hedges. It would be exciting if the oil and gas industry could really take off.
If you ever want to build a nuclear weapon Mark, I maybe able to help.
The internationally recognised SI unit for neutron absorption cross section is called the Barn.
Named after the element boron which a guy said has the absorption cross section of a barn door. True story.
Amazing how cocaine hasn’t been raised by anyone covering the case.
It’s simply what I would do in such an uncertain situation, Dover. It stood young people on Oct 7th in good stead to simply wait and hide rather than expose themselves. For these hostages, the regular soldiers following the snipers would have been more able to see their vulnerability and check on them. But I wasn’t there and I haven’t seen the footage of this friendly-fire incident so I can’t, and won’t, say more.
fine, point taken
I will retract the retard bit and leave the rest of your logic wobbling as it stands
how do you manage to be both the victim and occupy the higher ground at the same time ?
you poor thing
Australia has become an Albomination.
Turkey Air got the nod because they can accelerate the import of Albanese and the Commo Dyke’s preferred anti-Western Jew hating future Western Suburbs Labor voters.
Amazing how cocaine hasn’t been raised by anyone covering the case.
Sydney silks – be surprised if there was one who hadn’t snorted the marching powder.
to be honest
one of my own pet theses is that your type is actually much more pernicious
the road to hell is paved with good intention
Greg Sheridan beclowns himself yet again on Sky. He just said Albo is a decent sort of bloke. Does he ever wonder how he got the Albosleazy nickname?
Supercalifragicisticexpialbodacous!
Bother. It’s “fragilistic”.
The typo was my own.
Brown didn’t suffer a random mental health episode- she had mental trauma inflicted upon her by a backstabbing demon on prime time, widescreen. So I don’t think it’s out of the ordinary that she could remain in employment, or that a justice could find a way to keep her countenance off the screens.
Since when did expecting everyday access to televised court proceedings become the rigger, anyway?
Why Are Young People So Frightened?
Gen Z perceives the world to be more dangerous than any previous generation in modern history, according to a new study.
have there been any positives at all in universal suffrage??
FMD Sheridan is pathetic twerp.
Mobile phones and exposure to social media. In the past kids watched news at home, usually during family mealtimes, and were assured by parents that media like to hype the news. Now they are prey to all sorts of stupid rumours and alarms via the social media which compound the rot they are taught at school.
With parents stressed with jobs and cost of living they don’t have as much time to devote to their children and to reassure them about outlandish claims.
3m ago
19.16 AEDT
Elias Visontay
Margaret Thatcher.
You make a good point, Wally.
Spectator sport. Legal TikTok.
Unfortunately it has been in the public domain for years. And at the end of the day it’s our money.
* de rigueur since we’re being posh and sophisticamacated. 🙂
Well said, Tom.
It ain’t easy up here on the high moral grounds with not a soul to share the burden of leading those below. One does ones bestest.
My google calendar was a bit out.
Checked my vpn & it’s got me working off a Perth server.
Good speed too.
Is everything better in Perth ?
The Psychology of Identity Politics | Johnathan Haidt
miltonf
Dec 18, 2023 7:19 PM
That is why I neither read or watch the moron.
How so, a bit handsy or somethng?
We will be watching the Crown again tonight. Watched the first of the newly released episodes last nite, with Charles and William at loggerheads over the teenage Wills’ angst about Diana, blaming Charles. It wasn’t too bad as a show about fatherhood and its emotions, even though it probably bears little resemblance to what actually went on in the reality on which this show is loosely based.
Still, it’s a getaway from the world’s current woes.
passive-aggressives are always the best soul counters
but there’s 1400-ish you seem to have missed
There is nothing to be gained by either side in raising the cocaine issue. It means neither wins the PR game. I think both were snorting and it is why BH fell asleep(short hit) because BL had the coke and possibly had a top up before leaving. It is odd that they went in together but then separated. What was BH’s reason for going to PH? Just to accompany BL? Details escape me.
The Elbow regime’s approval of new capacity into Australia of three return flights a day from Turkish Airlines is good news for air fares, even though the Gulf’s best airline, Qatar Airways, is still being prevented from introducing new competition as a result of the protectionism given to Qantas’s Alan Joyce by the Elbow regime.
The number of bums on seats available to Australians determines the fares in the market, not the quality of the carrier. Compared to Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines is a shitbox carrier, but the extra seats will bring the price down for travellers to Europe.
Still haven’t found Cassie’s missing present but some successes. I found $600 in one hundred dollars bills in an envelope amongst my ‘bras, which I had forgotten about, probably given to me by Hairy for safekeeping. It’s mine all mine now. He’d forgotten about it too.
And I found all the books we bought as presents at Harry Hartog’s the other day. I was wandering around exasperated saying how many places could these things hide in an apartment such as ours, and I think Cassie’s present was with them? Answer, many places, and after exploring them all, every cupboard in the place, I found the books in a bag hidden around the back of Attapuss’s scratchy pole and fun house. Cassie’s present not there though.
This wouldn’t have happened to me ten years ago, I wail in despair.
Wanna bet? says Hairy.
Still searching, searching ….
Neil Oliver
‘Either go to the dark place, or stand up against those who take from us’ | Excess COVID deaths rise
I have been unable to locate any authoritative information regarding Milei’s relationship with the Argentine military. It would be safe enough to assume that the colonels would be convening the coup planning group as we speak.
What a screwed up world. Fascist military in bed with nominally commo unions.
One can only hope that he can mobilise the disadvantaged and small business people, but it is doubtful that that will be sufficient with every provincial government, and no doubt police forces, opposing him.
I defend my forecast that he will be gone within three months. Physical violance against him remains a genuine risk. There are far too many vested interests after 60 years of Peronist fascio/communism.
ONS Finally Admits Britain’s Excess Deaths Crisis in Lancet Article.
I have to admit, Qatar were very good on the flight we took, booked before Oct 7. I have never heard anything good about Turkish airlines.
Sheridan’s neocon-ism plus his spite towards Trump is contemptable. Same with hoWARd.
Indolent
Dec 18, 2023 6:08 PM
They really want WWIII
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Is Building A Massive Doomsday Bunker.
Bunkers can also be sealed……. from the outside.
Hairy looking at Argentinian hotels as I read this, Bons. We’ll be setting out late Feb for our Amazon cruise, then Rio and Buenos Ares, so in Argentina sometime in March.
We always seem to be flying into trouble spots. Is that just us, or the world?
was having a great day until that buzzkill comment … see what you made me do?
🙁
Let’s not forget that Sheridan stood by Abbott when he had few other supporters in public life.
He’s also written a decent and best-selling book defending Christianity against its cultured leftist despisers.
His journalism can be hit and miss, but is better than most.
It may be that he feels obliged to be as charitable as possible to Albanese. I don’t share that sentiment but I won’t cancel Sheridan on account of it.
I think the things he said about Trump were enough to finish him. Certainly in my case.
@ Bruce of Newcastle …
I so love the Manhattan Project … The Minds … The romance…. The intelligence !!
What Feynman said about a meeting …. He was amazed the no one needed to repeat themselves to make a point … Well a forgotten Science it seems? … Americans continue to repeat the same point again and again until they bore their interlocutor into a coma …
Many don’t get Trump’s value as a disruptor because they don’t realise how rotten the Establishment is.
I didn’t for a while.
Must admit I was pretty shocked at how rotten it’s turned out to be. By ‘it’ I mean the political-media class in most western countries.
@Bruce of Newcastle ..
we box on with the gloves we are given … i know enough about Mathematics to understand (in a vague way) how much the fire rose when Feynman gave his lectures… I knew kinda what it pointed to and kinda why … I sort of followed the reasoning …
But for Me a Glimpse is as good as Heaven … I am not pissed off that I am too stupid to take on the took box as my own … I am just honored that The Almighty chose to give me a glimpse …. and I chose not to blink …
Malcolm Roberts
The Labor-Green-Teal Coalition Con
Those oriented toward the good can often be blinded to evil.
Something charming for a change.
Funny Face (1957) – “Funny Face” Song – Audrey Hepburn & Fred Astaire
Hahaha. On Sky News, nuclear milkman Stephen Conroy — the inventor of the NBN at at a mates’ dinner on the back of a napkin — says the implosion of the ABC’s radio audience is a result of attacks on the ABC by the far-right and the LNP.
Nothing to do with what people want to listen to — it’s the public’s fault.
Conroy is the archetypal sneaky leftard subversive who thinks ordinary people are the enemy — not surprising when the ALP now represents just 8% of the union workforce outside the public service.
youse sure do like to be seen to be seen don’t ya?
like Madonna doing the Vogue, youse like to contort and posture and preen with all the highest order relativistic gibber you can muster
right up to the point when somebody focuses on you then it’s all, “omfg, don’t look at me … and stop oppressing me”
who knew, Alimak has a soul-detector and everybody else’s is faulty.
Conroy- economics at the ANUs then ‘advisor’ to Barry Bones and the Plastic Pirahna then local gubmint, union apparatchik then Evans’ senate spot. You’d almost think that politics is not open normal people with real jobs.
OK Fellow Old Farts … remember when you got a haircut and put on a tie .. ??
https://youtu.be/6Qtwerl2i4s
12m ago
19.52 AEDT
Elias Visontay
The Guardian
you’re too kind. the mean MT is the real one …
/SEEWHATYOUSEMADEMEDOO
I read Manufacturing Consent(1988) and various other texts of similar argument. Many books were written about the risk, the problem being people relied on the media to inform them about what books to read. Doh!
Vicki
As I mentioned this morning, a complaint of hate speech should be made to the ‘Ooman Rites Commission. It should come from one or more prominent people, perhaps the senior Sydney and the man Cassie mentioned this morning, who has a Jewish mother, but is an Anglican (??) priest.
The Commission will bend over backwards to reject or simply ignore the complaint, but must eventually act, or destroy the concept of hate speech (and the farce of Islamophobia with it, and its own credibility).
Attack.
… senior Sydney Rabbi …
Greg Barton from the Deakin CAE (on Sky) assures us that “‘don’t you worry about that” the Government is doing good work to thawte Mussie crazies. We will ensure that they have no receptive audience for their extremeism, he intones.
Oh and Benbrika is a reformed lad who just needs a bit of casual oversight.
Can we have a law that bans broadcast organisations from interviewing academics.
Trump nails it:
President Trump at Rally in Durham, New Hampshire: “Joe Biden, He is Truly The Worst and Most Incompetent and Most Corrupt President in the History of Our Country”
But look at what he is up against:
DEEP DIVE: Dishonorable Judge Beryl Howell EXPOSED IN DETAIL! Why the January 6th Judge That Presided Over Rudy Giuliani’s Trial MUST BE IMPEACHED “Trump-Hating Judge Shredded The Constitution”
The kunt is typical.
Yes. But make sure you go to the beach before the sea breeze comes in, otherwise it’s quite unpleasant.
Good cop:
Poetic Justice
From The Times’, and the killing of the three hostages, in Gaza.
But I never bent ? (well not entirely) Did you ?
P, is this still being live streamed somewhere?
South Africa in a nutshell.
Will have to ask our young Saffie Christmas guest what he thinks.
He’s a privileged white liberal and an optimist and one the few of his class who could but hasn’t emigrated.
@ Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
People I believe to be Truthfull have told me horrific remembrances of their experiences in War … One thing they all had in Common ?
Lest We Forget …
and you’re just another passive-aggressive fool who’s deluding themselves that you have special insight and the correct dosage of proper-think
look at you here now complaining about insults while at the same time pretending your own limp-dicked slaps are anything but
bit of a hypocrite
how’s kumbayah working for you mate?
I’ve stated previously that I believe Trump is not a warrior king, but a Berserker, in the Scandinavian mythic sense (though it turns out I may be misunderstanding the meaning of ‘Berserker’). I see the former POTUS as one who holds the enemy hordes at bay at a strategic position – a bridge or ravine in the literal sense – thus providing time for the hard-pressed survivors to catch their breath, gather their wits, and seek an alternate plan for survival. This ‘holding back the tide’ is temporary, and the Berserker generally pays with his life, but his intentional sacrifice allows a few of his fellows to escape and live another day.
I like this metaphor because it places a responsibility on others (in the warrior band) to execute the outcome, rather than betting everything on the warrior king, with whose death dies everyone and everything.
Though I try my best to avoid generalisations, I fear that conservatives place far too much reliance on the magical emergence of a saviour, a ‘warrior king’ who will single-handedly slay every enemy without the gold-class-seating front row audience being spattered with anything more distasteful than sweat.