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Open Thread – Wed 27 Dec 2023
- The more you gets the less you eats
- Open Thread – Weekend 23 Nov 2024
- Open Thread – Thurs 21 Nov 2024
- Open Thread – Mon 18 Nov 2024
- From darkness to the promise of light
One for Calli: The book for this hour (22 Nov) Sixty-one years ago today, after a quiet day of correspondence,…
Damon November 24, 2024 9:42 amIs there any point in the ABC persisting with the Narm/Melbourne nonsense? No-one knows or cares…
I remember a time when billionaires entertained themselves with fast cars, starlets and models and left the world alone.
Bret Weinstein – How the Deep State Maintains Control
Where is everybody?
Close but no cigar.
It’s alright for you all to go to sleep, you don’t have neighbours who are having a party with doof doof music.
Re: the artwork, only Michelangelo could get away with painting anatomy pictures on a church ceiling.
Who is the cross-eyed chick(?) God has his left arm around? And what sort of thing is He riding in? It all looks very weird.
Close to 4 million camels on the books they say in OZ … who knows for sure?
Johannes Leak.
Mark Knight.
Mark Knight #2.
Brett Lethbridge.
Michael Ramirez.
Tom Stiglich.
Al Goodwyn.
Ah, Toto Pizza in Lygon Street. Remember it well. I lived and worked in Carlton in 1973, and my workmates liked it, so patronised it a fair bit.
Didn’t think much of the pizzas, though, it was mainly novelty value. There was much better Grik, Australian and Lebanese food on offer.
In those days, Lygon Street still had tiny Grik and Italian coffee shops, where the old men would sit outside sipping away while arguing endlessly about politics and sport. Upstairs were card games and possibly the odd shot of unofficial grappa, ouzo or whatever for those so inclined. Around the corner from my work was a Lebanese takeaway run by a middle aged Maronite couple (crucifix on the wall).
A different and better time for Carlton and Lygon Street.
First XIV
Ooops…should have been : XV
Today’s Tele:
WE MUST BE VERY WARY OF WHAT BEIJING HAS TO
SAY
MAURICE NEWMAN
27 Dec 2023
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin feared that unless the world became communist, his own revolution would fail. So he recruited dedicated foot soldiers to push his brand of socialism globally. ‘Useful idiots’ would subvert democratic processes, use envy to divide societies, infiltrate schools and universities and organise disruptive strikes and protests.
Moscow bought power through the employment of influencers and persuasive propaganda.
Lenin and his precious Soviet Union are no more.
Had he lived, he would have witnessed economic stagnation, widespread corruption and the consistent out-performance of Western capitalist economies, the combination of which contributed to the Soviet’s demise in 1991.
But Lenin’s ideology had taken root in China where, under the brutal dictatorship of Mao Zedong, 40 million people died from the effects of his ‘Great Leap Forward’ experiment.
Subsequent market-based reforms introduced by Paramount Leader Deng Xiaoping set China’s entrepreneurial class on an inevitable collision course with the Party’s leadership.
Heeding Lenin’s warning that “the Communist Party will only be able to fulfil its role if it is organised in a totally centralised fashion, if its iron discipline is as rigorous as that of any army and if its central organisation has sweeping powers to allow it to exert uncontested authority…”, in 2013, Party leaders turned to Xi Jinping. Faithful to Lenin’s playbook, Xi quickly consolidated his authority. Through multiple purges he made it clear no-one is safe.
Like Lenin, Xi knew that unless the world became communist, the CCP was at risk. So he embarked on a quest for global hegemony.
Chinese investments in major foreign infrastructure and business enterprises assumed a more politically strategic tone.
Influential foreign nationals were recruited to well-paid Chinese company and government advisory boards. Massive donations to political parties, along with lavish entertainment and travel junkets for journalists, academics and others, were dispensed.
More than 500 Confucius Institutes were established globally to recruit Manchurian Candidates to help undermine capitalism.
President Xi’s quest proved particularly effective within the United Nations, which he has influenced to suit his own authoritarian predilections. In particular he has weaponised climate change where the UN fires his bullets.
Meanwhile, China astutely holds on to its ‘developing nation’ status.
This, despite President Xi’s claim of “complete victory in (China’s) fight against poverty”, it boasting the world’s second largest economy, the most billionaires, the third largest fleet of nuclear power plants, the biggest standing army and a Mars and three Lunar landings to its credit.
Being a ‘developing nation’ allows China to burn, unhindered, more than half the total coal consumed on the planet.
No one talks the talk better than Beijing. At the conclusion of the COP28 conference, it dutifully wanted “to see agreement to substitute renewables for fossil fuels”.
Yet while endorsing a threefold increase in renewable energy by 2030, Beijing declined to walk the walk. After all, ideologically quarantined from Leftist criticism, the world’s biggest consumer of coal and the largest wind turbine, solar panel and electric vehicle manufacturer is able to walk both sides of the street with impunity.
At least obedient Australia signed up. Already importing 90 per cent of its solar panels, 60 pervcent of its wind turbines and 86 pervcent of its EVs from China, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen will look to it increasingly as he lifts the nation’s renewable energy share from 36 pervcent to 82 pervcent by 2030.
Such folly will put Australia’s national security even more firmly into colonialist China’s hands. This is especially foolhardy given that China, a proven perfidious actor, can remotely control solar inverters.
Just as reckless is Australia’s intention to phase out cheap, reliable fossil fuels while maintaining bans on base load, cost-competitive, emissions-free nuclear energy. That China sees a competitive advantage triggers no introspection.
Complicit in the recklessness are 2.43 million unaccountable federal, state and municipal public servants.
Despite the perils of risk concentration and the unaffordable economic and social costs of predictable deindustrialisation, they use fear to bully people into accepting their futile climate control conceit.
If living standards fall, it is for the planet’s collective good. Empirical evidence is out, ‘Alternative Facts’ are in. Welcome to Lenin’s dystopian world. We are ignoring the reality that surrendering power to those who crave it usually ends badly. It’s why Australia’s living standards are falling and today’s generations are taught to disrespect their inheritance and forget the freedoms their valiant forefathers fought to protect.
Whether conspiracy theory or coincidence; just like a cancer, what started as a mild irritation has become an existential threat to our democracy and China’s fingerprints are everywhere. Beijing is not our friend. When Canberra called for an international inquiry into China’s handling of the coronavirus, a petulant Beijing resorted to bullying and denial of ministerial access.
Bans were placed on valuable Australian exports.
Now, reminiscent of ancient times and vassal states, a contrite Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been rewarded with the lifting of trade bans and references to him as “that handsome boy from Australia”.
Canberra’s equivocal Israel stance and its refusal to send a naval ship to the Red Sea earned patronising head pats.
The message is clear. So long as you kowtow, all will be well.
This is unacceptable and makes it urgent and vital for all freedom-loving Australians to resist the debilitating actions of power-hungry elites by demanding the re-establishment of national sovereignty and dignity, the return of stolen freedoms and the restoration of economic sanity.
Well, the place looks kind of empty, but I can see enormous potential.
The “cross-eyed” chick is Eve, waiting in eternity for her time to appear. I see she already has her eyes on Adam!
God isn’t riding anything, or if it is something, it’s like a cloak. The artist must have wondered how he would depict not the created heavens but something quite outside them. The most interesting thing about the painting, and the feature that is so often repeated is the position of the hands. God’s hand is stretching out purposefully towards Adam, yet Adam’s hand has dropped away, almost languidly.
It’s a metaphor for what is to come.
Like all good Hobbitses, today is Second Christmas. First Christmas was for the Sydney family, now time for my local family. Yesterday I glazed the ham and got everything else ready for rapid assembly come lunchtime.
Out come the crackers, the dumb jokes, and hopefully some hungry people. First one without Dad, but determined not to be maudlin. Just not on, not on at all.
Adam does not have much to offer
And, to make a third since no one’s here, Leak’s Albo just gets funnier. I see he has a new t-shirt, new slogan and a tawdry keffiyeh around his neck.
And that hat keeps getting bigger. 😀
Something rotten in the state of Queensland…via today’s Paywallion:
Callide coal catastrophe delays demand an explanation
NICK EVANS
It is well past the time that Queensland voters were told what caused the catastrophic explosion at the Callide C power station in May 2021.
Queensland Energy Minister Mick de Brenni told The Australian on Friday that an independent review of the causes of the failure will be finalised “soon”. It cannot come soon enough.
Power in the national electricity market has been more expensive, and the grid less stable, ever since Callide C left the grid – one way or another, we have all been paying a price for its failure.
It is now just over 30 months since forensic engineer Sean Brady was appointed to conduct a review of the causes of the explosion, which was followed 18 months later by the collapse of a cooling tower at the same power station, operated by the Queensland government’s CS Energy.
Commissioned in 2001, Callide is one of the youngest of Australia’s coal-fired power plants and experts across the power industry agree on at least one thing – two incidents of this type should simply not happen at a modern power plant.
The causes of the twin incidents may well be complicated.
But a 30-month investigation is beyond a joke – the 2017 Banking Royal Commission took less time to report its findings.
That is not intended as a criticism of Dr Brady, an expert in his field. But, if there was sufficient political will to find out the causes of an explosion that took such a significant generator out of the Queensland energy system, Dr Brady should have been given the resources and powers necessary.
Deloitte is now taking offers for the sale of the privately-owned half of the power plant, after a disagreement between its owners, Czech power investor Sev.en and China Huaneng Group and Guangdong Energy Group, sent their jointly-owned holding company into administration.
As The Australian revealed on Saturday, Sev.en is now seeking to push the issue, heading to the Federal Court to seek the appointment of a special purpose administrator to pursue a separate investigation into the causes of the twin incidents.
Their fear is that CS Energy could buy the other half of Callide C on the cheap, and that the sale conditions could come with a release preventing private investors in the power station from pursuing legal action against the operator if the explosion was caused by negligence or maladministration.
That claim, they say, is a source of significant value to the holding company, IG Power Callide (IGPC), and Deloitte should be as angry as IGPC shareholders that answers are not available 30 months after Dr Brady’s appointment.
Deloitte will oppose this push, arguing the appointment of special purpose administrators will delay a sale and therefore a return to all creditors – not just Sev.en. They are also likely to argue that Sev.en’s legal case is little more than an attempt to acquire leverage to extract some sort of financial settlement from the Queensland government.
What is clear, from the public record, is that Callide C was a cash cow for all parties.
In the 2019 and 2020 financial years CS Energy paid a total of $239m in dividends to the Queensland government which came, in part, from the profits made by the Callide C power station. In 2019 and 2019 IGPC paid $94.7m in dividends to its parent company.
Did the operators skimp on maintenance works, or cut corners elsewhere to keep the cash flowing?
Or were the twin catastrophes at Callide simply a matter of bad luck?
At the heart of the matter is whether Queensland’s state-owned enterprises have been a competent and effective steward of the state’s power generation assets.
We will not know the answer to that until Dr Brady reports, or until another external investigation is conducted.
Curiously enough, however, CS Energy’s last annual report says the government-owned company last year hired a second group of consultants – Advisian, where current CS Energy chairman Adam Aspinall used to work – to conduct “an independent assessment of the condition of the plant and equipment at all of our power stations and review the effectiveness of our asset management systems”.
That report has never been made public either, although CS Energy says it is working with Advisian to implement the report’s recommendations.
If Mr de Brenni is right, and Dr Brady’s report is imminent, it should be released before Deloitte closes the sale of IGPC’s half of Callide C. If it is delivered after that point, it will be all too easy to dismiss the matter as a thing of the past, and let it go to quietly gather dust on a shelf somewhere.
But Queensland households have been paying the price for the failures at Callide C. They have the right to know what caused the catastrophes.
NICK EVANS RESOURCE WRITER
‘…owners, Czech power investor Sev.en and China Huaneng Group and Guangdong Energy Group…’
Chicoms. Again.
Arn’t there any Australian companies capable of building and owning a bloody powerstation?
Same size hat calli, its Luigi thats diminishing before the stupid voters eyes. Its only the perennial stupid that vote for labor.
Doing a “between the lines” read of Maurice Newman’s piece from the Tele (reproduced above) there is only one inevitable conclusion…we have the most corrupt Australian government ever, and the media class is not far behind them.
Even anti-China pieces have to be viewed as controlled opposition, so deep are their tentacles into every aspect of our lives, and the tiniest departure from the script earns severe punishment. It’s interesting to examine the steps of how we got here, but how the hell do we get out?
Drag queens will now be telling us bed-time stories about the climate crisis.
Grist: LGBTQ+ Outreach Therapy Might Help Climate Deniers (26 Dec)
This stuff is amusing since not once in my memory has a catastropharian beaten a climate sceptic in a debate. And the climate sceptic is usually armed with scientific facts – often from official sources like NOAA the IPCC. But maybe getting trannies to work through our conflicted feelings will persuade us.
Thanks Beertruk.
An excellent article by Maurice Newman.
In this fight I’ve become increasingly aware of the dominance of China in the transition plan and know directly as a farmer how China uses capricious trade bans to bring undone those who are foolish enough to put too much business in Chinese hands and find themselves undone by a country who willingly leverages trade as punishment in pursuit of a global political agenda.
Energy policy, driven by ideology and political vanity, will leave us as a cargo cult country relying on our CCP master’s ships for our survival.
Coal dust being highly explosive needs an ignition point which explains poor maintenance unless the conspiracy theorists suggest a small explosive device which is just as possible with the forensic investigation being sidelined. The political mutleys* of Queensland are just as likely decided to shut down evil coal. * note to BJ, I can see ‘mutley’ becoming common usage for the perennially stupid. After all we are governed by the perennially stupid.
Bon your argument may be more convincing had you been wearing a chiffon blouse, pleated skirt, low heels and black rimmed glasses for added gravitas. I’m here to help out. Fine, which way did I come in.
Quite right Gez. Dealing with the Chinese on the surface may appear the high prices paid come at a higher price to the producers when they screw you later getting all their money back. Mind you this applies to anything when you put your eggs all in one basket.
110mm here from this El Niño rain event.
Comedy gold BoM.
Judith Sloan from today’s Paywallion.
Too good not to post here:
Treasury’s 2023 report card leaves little to boast about
JUDITH SLOAN
27 Dec 2023
What were the defining events for the Australian economy in 2023? Needless to say, the year has been a challenging one for many Australians, particularly those with large mortgages.
The Reserve Bank of Australia lifted the cash rate on five occasions, taking the cash rate to 4.35 per cent. This figure is still low compared with most developed economies. Note also that our cash rate is lower than the current inflation rate, which is 5.4 per cent – another international point of difference.
Notwithstanding the restrictive action of the RBA, there was no recorded recession affecting the Australian economy, defined as consecutive quarters of negative growth.
Having said this, there were three quarters of negative per capita GDP growth, which in turn reflected the relative anaemic growth in combination with strong population growth. Real retail sales also have been sluggish, recording three quarters of negative growth.
The extraordinarily high growth in the population, spurred almost entirely by migration, was a key element of economic developments this year. Annual net overseas migration to the year ending in June exceeded 500,000, with the net result being a population growth rate of 2.4 per cent. The actual NOM exceeded Treasury’s revised estimate by more than 100,000.
Parallels have been drawn with the post-war years of “populate or perish”, in particular the large migrant intakes that occurred during the 1950s. The truth is there is really no comparison because all the migrants in that earlier period were permanent and many of them initially were settled in already built migrant hostels. The vast bulk of these migrants were from Britain and Europe.
Most of the migrant intake now is made up of temporary entrants, mainly international students. The most common source countries are China and India, but recent rapid growth has come from Nepal, The Philippines and Colombia. The most common courses undertaken by international students are business and IT.
The failure of Treasury to anticipate this surge in the population is unforgivable. After the hiatus of the pandemic, there was always going to be a catch-up, with migrant arrivals vastly exceeding migrant departures. The modelling should have picked this up.
The pressures on the housing sector, in particular, and other infrastructure were easy to predict.
It was incumbent on Treasury to recommend action to ensure the migrant intake was manageable. Its ideological adherence to a big Australia and the supposed fiscal and demographic benefits of a large migrant intake seemingly prevented officials from offering this sage advice.
The fact is that Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil dithered about the stance of migration policy for most of the year, swinging from endorsing the historically high migrant intake to finally taking some very modest measures to rein in arrivals. In particular, the delay in ditching the Covid visa was inexcusable.
One defining feature of the Australian economy during the year has been the strength and resilience of the labour market. By every measure – the unemployment rate, the rate of underemployment, the employment-to-population ratio, the participation rate – the labour market was extraordinarily buoyant.
Reflecting in part the financial pressures many households encountered, there was a leap in the first half of the year in the number of multiple jobholders. In September, 6.6 per cent of employed people were multiple jobholders, higher than the long-term average of between 5 and 6 per cent.
Another defining economic event of 2023 was the ongoing slump in productivity. It hasn’t been simply a case of slow growth; there have been actual falls in observed labour and multifactor productivity. In the year ending in the September quarter, for instance, labour productivity fell by 2 per cent across the year.
We are now back to levels of productivity experienced well before the pandemic.
The point is often made that poor productivity is an international phenomenon, with global factors the likely explanation. The remarkable growth in work from home often is cited as a common reason. The reality is more complex, with the US, in particular, experiencing quite strong growth in productivity whereas Australia has gone backwards.
According to research undertaken by the Reserve Bank, labour productivity in the US this year was nearly 5 per cent higher than in December 2019, whereas in Australia it was 3 per cent lower.
Indeed, the only other country to experience such poor productivity performance was Canada, which incidentally has a similar large migrant intake and rapid population growth.
The argument is that the influx of relatively unskilled migrants, given the dominance of international students, has allowed businesses to take on available staff rather than make labour-saving investments. Weak business investment seems to be a key factor holding back productivity in both countries.
Another defining event of the year was the blowout in the cost of major infrastructure projects, with higher labour and material costs putting paid to the original estimates.
This has been a significant issue in Victoria with the cost of the government’s so-called Big Build program increasing by between 30 and 50 per cent from the initial estimates. Just one project, the North East Link, has gone from its original cost estimate of $10bn to $26bn.
The Snowy 2.0 pumped-hydro project also has been dogged by huge cost overruns and delays. The same applies to the construction of the transmission lines that are needed to connect this project to the main grid.
This development has significant implications for the economy as well as the energy grid. It’s now clear that the proposed timeline for new renewable energy projects and transmission lines is way behind schedule and the costs have exploded.
Given the tight labour market, the completion of these enormously expensive infrastructure projects is draining workers from the more prosaic task of building new homes that are needed to accommodate the expanding population courtesy of migration.
Simply setting targets for new home completions as the Albanese government has done – 1.2 million new homes across five years – achieves nothing much by itself.
Towards the end of the year there were some emerging signs of slight economic weakness, including sluggish retail sales and home approvals as well as subdued consumer sentiment. While commodity prices eased somewhat, the terms of trade remained at historically high levels through the year.
Given ongoing strong population growth, it seems likely that Australia will avoid a technical recession. But the collapse in real household disposable income, which takes into account tax and mortgage payments, means many Australians have felt worse off during the year.
A central issue is now the speed at which inflation declines, paving the way for lower interest rates. In the US and Britain, inflation has fallen sharply and, in both cases, is within their target range.
The fear here is that services sector inflation may prove sticky, which would prevent us following suit. At this point it’s premature to predict cuts to interest rates next year, particularly given some of the damaging developments noted in this column.
JUDITH SLOAN CONTRIBUTING ECONOMICS EDITOR
I’m also amazed at the hand wringing of government and media when it rains a lot.
We are the driest continent on earth and bountiful rain is nearly always a blessing.
It doesn’t come in the way we may like but it always enriches every place it falls.
I’m as happy as a pig in mud to wet paddocks this time of year.
In my experience climate catastrophists might not come armed with facts, but they are bursting at the seams with scenarios so terrifying that they see the plodding methods of science out of step with their sense of urgency, and view science’s droning prosaic, carefully qualified conclusions with suspicion.
(What to make of “50% chance of 2 degrees assuming ‘x’ amount of cloud, ‘y’ insolation, and a constant ‘z’ coefficient”?)
The time for science is over! The science is settled! We must act now! Read the authorities! Submit to them!
Re the Maurice Newman article & comments by Calli & Gez:
We have ourselves to blame, & it is not just the government. For a generation we have been buying the cheap Chinese produced goods in KMart & Target. So much of our purchases in all areas of life come from China. But, boy, has it come with a price- sorry about the pun.
Stepping back & looking at the trajectory of our nation over those years it was always in the direction of abandoning our own productive economy in favour of cheap goods. Yes – our high wages stood in the way of competition from countries like China. But there was no leadership in debate from our leaders. Or our bloody intellectuals.
Yesterday we returned to the farm via the new tunnel & via the highway that passes by Parramatta. We couldn’t believe the height of the apartment towers in the centre of the town. It was the heights you see in Asian countries. This is the way we are developing. And still we are bringing in migrants – indeed, that is why we are building these monstrosities. Half a million a year. It is transforming our country.
It is done. We are the mine of China & sometimes I think that their internal problems will cause them to see military expansion towards helpless mugs like us may be their preferred option.
On a sunnier note – yes Gez, the rain is very welcome here. Out comes the slasher as the grass grows before our eyes. The cows are disgustingly fat.
All very welcome until February when it all dries off & we start worrying about fires. The joys of the bush – & I wouldn’t change it for the world.
Oh wait, don’t the Liberals have a “wimmin” problem.
From The Oz….
Support for federal Labor has slumped in NSW and Queensland over the past two months while its key advantage over the Coalition among women voters has also evaporated nationally as cost-of-living pressures resonate throughout middle Australian households.
The Albanese government has lost ground in the critical 35 to 49-year-old demographic, considered to be the swing group that decides elections, while Anthony Albanese’s approval ratings have fallen almost universally.
Who else knew that the idea that the Liberals had a ‘women problem’ was a crock of shit? Well, I knew.
Re the discussions surrounding the explosion of foreign owned Callide power station in 2021:
I also recall the catastrophic bushfires in Victoria years ago & the implication of poorly maintained power lines (& the foliage beneath) by the Singaporean owners.
It is with a heavy heart I have learned that Sunday will not be raining in Sydney.
There is a pestilent neighbour behind where I live who loves to throw parties for people who converse at deafening levels, whoop and cackle even louder, and to top it all off seem to need doof-doof music even louder.
I swear his answer to everything, in every field of human endeavour, is “louder”.
I was hoping rain would force him to corral his empty headed herd inside his house where the pounding of sound waves would compromise the supports on his house and bring the roof crashing down on them.
I expect we would also no longer be getting reports of UFO’s since I speculate they only visit the Earth to hover over this turds house and shout “Turn the forking music down! We can hear it three star systems over!”
2 good news stories to finish the year.
disney year of flops
apple watches banned for sale in USA due to patent breaches
both overdue!
links via insty / news sites carry apple story
Yes Vicki
Settled in court and the company fined. You’ll be comforted to know that the compensation for burnt out pproperyies was officially sanctioned to be funded through power bills.
Can’t lose even if you are poor managers.
We have ourselves to blame, & it is not just the government. For a generation we have been buying the cheap Chinese produced goods in KMart & Target. So much of our purchases in all areas of life come from China. But, boy, has it come with a price- sorry about the pun.
It’s not just the price of goods that is cheaper buying Chinese but also postage costs .. Oz parcel postage is thru thre roof yet I often buy direct from Chinese stuff at half the Oz price, free postage & guaranteed delivery date .. Lotza Oz goods (5 thru 20kgs) cost as much again or more just for postage yet take dayz/weeks to traverse short distances ….
So why would you buy Oz (+half the time the Oz marketed stuff isd OS manufacture anyway)
Properties.
Made up a new word with fat fingers and a small screen.
I travelled down to the 12 apostles along The Great Ocean Rd
It was absolutely packed with mainly Chinese and Indian tourists
The car park was full and the over flow car park was too boggy(see farmer Gez above)
There were barriers along the roadside to stop illegal parking
Loch Ard gorge was closed due to unsafe cliffs
And it rained a lot
Vicki, this is also the government’s fault for not checking on the conditions of lease being adhered to. While the regulators are getting paid big bucks to not do their part in the business. I doubt they even have people checking.
You live next door to Bandana and Toad?
Do the exudations of power seep under the fence?
Wonder about the role that increase in crime plays in these numbers. All labor governed states now.
On that note Vicki, when my wife was a public serpent she only ever got contractors to do work that her branch didn’t have the expertise or time to do it. Now as a contractor for the APS she does the work the department can do but won’t and they do nothing while she does it. On her estimation 75% of the APS do nothing productive. Either work not really required or fiddling while Rome burns.
Vicki
Dec 27, 2023 7:30 AM
Yes – our high wages stood in the way of competition from countries like China.
Was talking to a mate on Christmas Day, an Ex RAAFie and EX Ambo (NSW) about the eye watering pay rises they got from the NSW government. He said he was on $45 an hour and had he still been there, it would have been $65 an hour. He was asked if he was considering going back by an ex workmate of his that is still an Ambo and he said no. Not interested.
The other thing he said was that if the government did not ‘cave in and called the union’s bluff,’ then all the Ambos that did not renew their certifications would have not been able to front up to work and would be instantly unemployed. Off to centrelink.
‘Oh dear…how are we going to pay our mortgage payments, rates, credit cards…etc etc..’
Min, Adam is a grower not a shower.
Quickly now, you’ll have to scroll back. You’ve missed some.
Farmer Gez
Dec 27, 2023 7:00 AM
No worries Matey.
Just read of the death of Aussie chef, restauranteur Bill Granger only 54 apparently died of heart failure, he’d had a series of strokes in the 1990s.
Oooops Sorry that was another Bill Granger, not the chef — Bill Granger the cook’s cause of death has not been revealed. Only 54 died on Christmas Day, that is just awful for his wife Lori and their three young girls.
apparently it was this senior hamas person who was killed yesterday
Haha! +100
WRT power and Chinese influence, don’t discount the “pressure” applied via the “bags of cash” method. As well as funding green groups.
I think we have the most corrupt public officials, elected and non elected, in this nations history.
News item heard this morning on the conflict expanding around Israel. Pretty much all points of the compass now.
Some speculation when it all began that the strategy would be to drag the US in bit by bit. Various shadowy groups on both sides including arms manufacturers in the US were eyeing it off. Not sure how deposing Bibi came into it but that was included. It’s like touching the tar baby but you would be naive to think that we’re ever going to arrive at any kind of solution. So many don’t want a solution.
Ooops again his wife is Natalie — bloody hell I’ll just stop — he was so young, such a terrible shame.
It Is Not an Accident
Top Men. Daily Telegraph:
Now I don’t begrudge a CEO of a listed company earning that quid. Public serpents however is a different story.
Meme
Mike Engleman??
@RealHickory
Swatters are the newest form of domestic terrorism from the Left brought to you by the Democrat Party.
Joey Mannarino
@JoeyMannarinoUS
The Leftists swatted both Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Rep. Brandon Williams of New York on Christmas Day.
They swatted @JackPosobiec’s family and @Catturd2 on the 23rd.
They want to get us killed. Literally.
This is who we’re fighting against.
Hasn’t this greatly improved living standards for people on lower incomes?
Most people with young children can’t afford to pay $30 or more per garment for children’s clothes.
I popped in to Adairs to get a couple of new fashwashers for my visiting grandchildren, on ‘sale’ the cheapest was $8.50 each, went to TJ Maxx and got a set of 4 nice ones for $9.95.
It’s great that people have access to affordable necessities.
Travis??
@Travis_in_Flint
Your daily reminder that the FBI tracked down a man from Arkansas who was at J6 with only a picture of his ear, yet they have no clue who is swatting all of these conservatives.
Abolish the FBI for Christmas!
If you want to know how some Australian Jews are thinking, we have seen, since 7 October, how the genie is now out of the bottle and we are now witnessing, in real time, unhinged Jew hatred, almost all of which is emanating from the far and not so far-left, well last night a friend rang to tell me how shocked she was when visiting friends on Christmas Day, a man in attendance, who was in his 60s, casually said that it won’t be long before Labor governments move to appropriate Jewish owned property and businesses*. This friend said she was utterly shocked, to which I replied “I’m not shocked”, and I then asked her if she’d heard how a convoy of Muslim scum, with Pallie Nazi flags flying from their cars, had driven through Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs on Christmas Day, to scare, frighten, and intimidate, and how this same Nazi scum had brazenly stolen an Israeli flag from Woollahra Council? She was silent. I then reminded her that on 9 October 2023 the NSWaffen Police declared Sydney’s CBD ‘Judenfrei’ so I asked her, how long before the NSWaffen Police declare Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs ‘Judenfrei’ in order to placate their new Muslim friend’s rancid, rabid Jew hatred? She was silent, and she agreed.
The NSWaffen now engage in open dhimmitude.
* Please don’t laugh or sneer at that statement. We saw what happened in the ACT, under a Labor/Greens government, with Calvary. The template has been set.
Yes. Parts of Sydney are starting to look like Malaysia. We were simply amazed on our trip there earlier this year at the number of new high rise towers sprouting up everywhere. When the high rise towers get close to each other they are joined together by bridges between the towers near the tops, as fire escapes. I expect we’ll see some of that here soon. Quite a few of them are spec built, and empty, so we were told.
I thank all those who provided me with their suggestions.
I will work my way through them.
WHO urges pandemic accord in 2024 after years of Covid pain
Years of Covid pain which they caused. All they want is the power to inflict this on us whenever and for whatever they want.
Gordon Chang: China Working on Bioweapons Targeting Human Brains
Hezbollah hit a Catholic church in northern Israel, Israel are telling them to back off.
Idf are now mopping up in northern Gaza and targeting four districts in central Gaza where there are about four largely intact groups of hamas terrorists. They’ve done some softening up.
If hamas were really interested in maintaining some infrastructure and a future life for civilians they wouldn’t have tunnels everywhere and made every district a battle ground but they are terror fanatics and that’s how they do.
Federal Judge Sides With Osage Nation, Orders Removal Of 84 Wind Turbines
Cassie we are seeing the fruit of appeasement and it is very bitter.
These marches for Palestine are a disgrace that have been allowed by a craven political caste more interested in their expediency.
How anyone can excuse those actions is beyond me.
I agree. What is even nicer is when you check the labels and see that some quality affordable stuff is now being produced in Indonesia and Bangladesh, especially in clothing. For whitegoods, try Korea. Also the busy countries of South and Central America. Brazil is very good for shoes. Our shops are looking elsewhere for suppliers of cheap goods, and all power to their searching if we can minimise dependence on China.
The main game in dependence is the stupidity of Bowen et all with so-called renewable energy; which needs infrastructure renewal every 20 years and all of it from China. That is the dumbest defense failure ever, to tie up our energy systems to China.
Biden Crime Family’s Defense Over ‘Grifting’ Gets Hammered
Some group in the US calling themselves Doctors against Genocide had planned to hold an anti Israel protest inside the Washington Holocaust museum on the 28th, telling their members to obtain their free entry tickets online.
They got backlashed so badly they’ve called it of.
Despite this social media storming, and you can see how many twitter accounts were created in October 2023, I very much doubt there is overwhelming support for the ‘Palestinian’ cause outside the expected muslim progressive and far right terrorist supporters, just a few morons who’ve convinced themselves that all that matters in this conflict is the numbers of claimed civilian casualties in Gaza
Anyone flesh out this snippet I came across elsewhere .. no additional info just in a summary of wasteful gummint spending …..
Adam Bandt had himself driven from Canberra to Brisbane in a Com Car .. no details of why or when ……..
Easily Fooled Nikki Haley Has a Long History of Pushing BLM Hoaxes
NG: Taylor Swift Busted as Woke Hypocrite on 5 Activist Issues: Climate, LGBTQQIAAP2S+, Feminism
Khan’s London: 43 Knife Crime Incidents Recorded Per Day Amid Gang Violence Surge in British Capital
Porsche, Audi recall plug-in EV chargers over outlet fire risk
Farmer Gez
Dec 27, 2023 7:26 AM
I’m also amazed at the hand wringing of government and media when it rains a lot.
We are the driest continent on earth and bountiful rain is nearly always a blessing.
It doesn’t come in the way we may like but it always enriches every place it falls.
I’m as happy as a pig in mud to wet paddocks this time of year.
And where are those newly built Dams to catch and collect that free water that Mother Nature lets fall from the sky?
Memo to the Feral and State/Territory Guv’ments: The time to build new Dams is yesterday when there is a Drought.
Now, that is Nation Building.
Yes Rosie, it is really great that the evil communists are improving living standards for poor people while they are enslaving us.
Chinese funding of green groups is something our investigative journalists refuse to see. Couldn’t be because they put their view of saving the planet well ahead of the defense of Australia, could it? These blind fools are happy to go along with China encouraging our deindustrialisation, but not any of the same in China.
Meme
@Farmer Gez:
I guess you would have also noticed the steady “vertical integration” of primary and even secondary industries in Oz. The “model” is Kanaduh; now essentially a wholly Chinese-owned corporate state.
The Oz beef industry has been systematically snapped up, “from paddock to plate”. Large grazing spreads, “pre-market” fattening / conditioning operations, transport companies, meat-works and export shipping.
Traditional “Family” operations have been made “generous” offers by local “cut-outs” who are fronting for “offshore” conglomerates.
This is NOT a mystery event. EVERY level of government, including the pubic serpents, and the churnalists is fully aware of what is going on. Some less-discreet folk might just start asking about the “spillage”.
There is an old political joke, many, in fact; most seem to be infesting the various houses of alleged “representation”; but there is this one:
Q. How can you spot an honest politician?
A. When they are bought, they STAY bought.
Australia is not short of water, it is short of water storage, specifically in dams, but taking other options also, like large tank systems. A decent infrastructure program, which could be easily and far more usefully funded by axing all climate boondoggles, would concentrate on water storage and new power plants (coal and gas OK by me, nuclear only necessary due to the world ideological forces pushing us that way before our grids collapse).
If given this arid land, the Israeli’s would have had it well under human control by now. Especially with the wealth of water in our massive eastern coastal river systems that currently flow wasted to the sea. Leftism and loss of our older capacity to think big have set us on the road to ruin. Our biggest thinking has been Snowy 2, a useless energy-sucking water-wheel driven battery where we pump water upstream first – just contemplate the stupid in that.
Cheap clothing in the US seems to be sourced from South America or Bangladesh.
It doesn’t have to be about communism.
I’m wrong re US, China, then Vietnam, India then Bangladesh for textile imports.
China has a much bigger share of the Australian market
When nations get too many greedy mits in the national till, then productivity falls, the currency collapses, made worse by currency manipulations, and a lot of the people get very much poorer. Hence, Argentina, and a strong man emerges to put it all right, and not by more socialism, the usual further emiserating and corrupting answer, but the wealthier people won’t let him try a proper economic reset. They still want their hands in the till. Civil war, anyone?
Expropriation will be done on the pretext of safety. Synagogues no longer “safe”, so must be closed. See NSW national parks and their closure of multiple climbing trails.
The apparatus is all there.
One of the down sides of cheap abundance is the deluge of “stuff”.
Our cupboards are bursting, toyboxes overflowing, wardrobes groaning. All destined for land fill.
Noticed this at Christmas with the children, and increasingly so with the adults. It’s almost impossible to give them something they don’t already have. So it’s gift cards and, in the children’s case, cold hard cash.
You can’t even give away decent old furniture any more. No one wants it.
My daughter and her husband in Queensland told us at Christmas how they had received their second attempted burglary, once again by young kids. They live in wealthy Kalinga, (part of Woolawin), where gracious old Queenslanders have been extended and renovated to the hilt. These burglaries are endemic in this area; every house in Kalinga has security video now. Only a few nights ago their alarm system woke them to someone tampering with the front door. They called the police, the kid doing it got wind of being noticed and fled before the police arrived, the police kept in phone touch with my daughter’s husband (ex reserve army) who told them which way the kid fled, and he was picked up trying a house a few streets away. He was fourteen years old, and was acting as a front for a group of older men, whom the police knew. Once the police had the kid, they asked then for the videotapes to ID him and thus be able connect him to this older group.
A lovely home, garden, pool, school, in a fashionable area, they are living the Australian dream. With a South African crime flavour.
The population there is woke and what we’d call Teal if in Sydney, but they won’t vote Labor or Green any more due to crime. Wet Libs it will be.
Obvious at our place this Christmas too, and also the flight to Gift Cards, or casho. In future years I will have to put a small Wishing Well box to contain all of these so they don’t get lost in the wrapping paper on the day. Even though I re-used gift bags from last year we still had a heap of paper to clear away, as the thrill for the kids is often in the uncovering. I don’t see an easy end to that.
Porsche reckons with history of forgotten Jewish co-founder
They must be kept away from OnlyFans models in the Middle East at all costs!
They are our woolly, tasty friends and kings of pack animals.
and on day one newly CFMEU anointed Premier Giggles stated his number one priority was increasing emissions targets. So wet libs possibly in coalition with One Nation it will be come next October.
You don’t understand how communist this country is until you read the SEPP and relevant LEP.
You can’t build a basement over 45m^2 if your block is under 1000 m^2 in NSW.
If it is my land, doesn’t affect the neighbours and I pay for it, then what’s the harm? There’s already a floor space ratio rule anyway.
What an incredibly weird and stupid rule.
Briz-Vegas, near northern suburbs.
48 Hr rainfall to 0930K :
51mm
December total, so far:
138.5mm
On top of: November:
123.5mm
And we are in a bit of a rain / storm shadow. The geography tends to break the really “interesting” ones into two or more narrow storms that occasionally wreck entire suburbs, just over the hill from us and all we get is a bit of wind and rain.
It’s a good thing our suburban block is over 90ft above mean sea level. We don’t own a boat.
So wet libs possibly in coalition with One Nation it will be come next October.
That would be the best scenario. PHON and Katter need to hold Christafoolish and his wet liberals honest.
Calli:
“We can vote ourselves into Communism, but we can only shoot ourselves out of it”.
That’s not a death threat either – just a simple statement of a reality that is becoming self evident.
https://twitter.com/RadioGenoa/status/1739675732228395136
And every one of those children will support Islamic terrorism in one form or another.
When the ACT government’s theft of the Catholic hospital was first revealed I signed the petition to stop it. At the same time I expected a huge media blitz by the Catholic Church but all that happened were more emails with nothing much else happening. They were emailing people who were already on their side, what they should have done is organised protests, sit-in etc to raise awareness, as the lefties say, and keep it in the news. as we have seen those work far better than just communicating to like-minded people.
Oh, right.
“Deep canvassing using the outreach method”.
Used to be called gaslighting with extra added threats of isolation and violence.
Summer rain anywhere South of the Tropic of Capricorn in Straya is always welcome.
Losing the odd day of crickit is a minor irritant.
Anyone who believes the sopping wet Qld liberals will do anything about the ‘youth’ (we all know who that means) crime wave is in for one helluva shock.
Alas, that’s the option. Union delegates, or dripping wet liberals. As Cassie says, the only hope for the SFLs is if they need Katter (some common sense) & One Nation (unknown quantity – though likely to be on the side of burgled normies & strident about “lock ’em up!”)
Lizzie said: …they won’t vote Labor or Green any more due to crime…
In the NT the word is that Labor will be dumped in the election in August due to their law and order ineffectiveness.
Trouble is they will exploit the Country Liberal Party’s stance on it as much as they can using race as a card. The CLP once had a “three strikes and you’re in (jail” policy which was used against them. No doubt it will be resurrected. That the CLP also had a re-education policy tacked onto it is left out of the narrative.
It’s almost impossible now in the NT to get anyone under 16 locked up for anything less than the most serious offences.
It seems very much everywhere the Labor stance is to care for the criminal more than the victim.
And one wonders why Australia is Screwed!
– and none of them (probably) actually are at work, but work from home going on the dogs barking & kids screaming when one finally gets onto a human when contacting any Federal/State/Local Govt Entity
Complicit in the recklessness are 2.43 million unaccountable federal, state and municipal public servants.
Beertruk
Dec 27, 2023 6:01 AM
Today’s Tele:
WE MUST BE VERY WARY OF WHAT BEIJING HAS TO
SAY
MAURICE NEWMAN
27 Dec 2023
Indolent Avatar
As much as I’m in favour of the Court decision, the article sounds like an advertisement for the movie “Killers Of The Flower Moon”.
Indolent
Most are migrant males, doing what they were allowed in to do – to terrorise the native population and ethnically cleanse them from London’s streets.
The issue there had nought to do with Singapore power.
It started when a very long span on a SWER line broke and fell into dry stuff.
It was more likely a hangover from the old SEC, where linies were upgraded to “designers”, drawing up plans for new lines.
I worked for an SP contractor for a while and remember talking to one of these blokes who proudly pointed out one of his achievements – another single line running from a pole on the top of a hill to another pole in the valley near Benalla, probably 600-700 metres.
Saves a bit of cash, but when the line is subjected to a gale-force crosswind it becomes the world’s biggest bass guitar string and vibrates until it breaks.
This practice long pre-dated SP, and was a result of those designing power lines having no understanding of the engineering.
Sure, they would have a ready reckoner for static loads (i.e. weight of the line) but no idea of the dynamic loads in high winds.
Before Insolent unfurls his “Died Suddenly” banner, the Daily Mail is reporting “Died in hospital from a cancer diagnosed earlier this year”.
WaPo headline yesterday:
‘Sinking nation offered an escape route’
“…tiny Tuvalu struck a deal with Australia that would allow 280 people a year to move there.”
Small detail overlooked…as even the ABC acknowledges, Tuvalu is not sinking.
280 unskilled islander migrants per year is the price Australia will pay for a veto over any Tuvaluan military or economic deals with China.
Calli,
I’m not having a go at you, Calli, but I gave away a stack of electrical and lounge gear a little while ago. One of the lounges is decorating a pad in Gladstone, one in Brisbane and one locally. The electrical gear is being used in a couple of not well off families because St Vinnies won’t take them.
There are plenty of working class/young people setting up around here who can use a hand.
(Mind you, thirty years ago, the lounges would have ended up in the back of a ute at the Castrol 6 Hour race, or Bathurst. An honourable and fitting end to worn out lounge suites.) 🙂
A bunch of climate boiling science bastards led by the usual fuktards, mann etc, have written a letter to the corpse biden saying ALL fossils must end otherwise the planet will explode:
https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Scientists-CP2-Letter-Final.pdf
This is a very clever political letter. These people are going to destroy the West.
Dr. Matthew Wielicki: I Refuse to Stay Silent about Climate Change
I can buy an antique piece in good condition (solid timber, dovetail joins, the works) cheaper than I can buy Hardly Normal or Ikea plastic laminate crap with knock-down connectors.
Another win for workers, thanks to the “Fair” Work act & ALP governments.
Five pubs in town. Zero pubs open Boxing Day yesterday.
Christmas Eve: Two pubs opened, both closed shortly after 6pm – when public holiday rates kicked in.
New Year’s Eve expected to be the same, Two pubs open, though they’ll go to about 11pm with Zero pubs open on New Year’s Day.
Those Public Holiday penalty rates have been one helluva win for workers.
This Test Match looks a bit more interesting.
If i remember rightly Porsche made turrets for tanks in WWII.
From the old OT…
There was.
One of Aquinas’s principal goals with his great Summa was to harmonise the teachings of the Western church up until that point.
‘Grinches in government’ are hellbent on ‘destroying’ Australia’s economy
Sky News contributor Gary Hardgrave says the “Grinches in government” headlined by Labor Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen are hellbent on destroying Australia’s economy.
Mr Hardgrave said we are “cursed” by internationalists determined to weaken the West and have invented “a new God” which is climate change.
“There’s plenty of Grinches in government headlined by, I think, that bloke Chris Bowen – he seems hellbent on destroying our economy through higher electricity prices,” Mr Hardgrave said.
“He is a danger to your family, but the Prime Minister’s just letting him get away with it all – any wonder the polls suggest this Prime Minister is now a dud.
“Here’s hoping Chris Bowen is out the door in 2024 or else … next Christmas may well be the one we’re reminiscing about how good this Christmas really was.”
Someone said here the other day that they had never met a Jew.
I think what they meant was they had never met anyone with the overt signs we associate with some orthodox streams of Judaism (e.g. payot sideburn hair or yamulke “skullcap”).
In the case of many Jews, you wooden know unless they told you.
‘Airbrush Albo’ trying to erase history and rewrite his time as prime minister
Sky New contributor Gary Hardgrave says “Airbrush Albo” wants to erase the narrative regarding his time as prime minister.
“The Voice was a perfect example,” Mr Hardgrave said.
“A bloke – prime minister, comfortable in the VIP class travel but out of touch with the voters.
“Many tried to change his mind leading up to the Voice referendum failure, but he wouldn’t listen.
“Now he wants to airbrush history to take out his role in the failure of his referendum which cost taxpayers and frankly shareholders of so many big corporates hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Newspoll reveals voters turning away from Labor government in New South Wales, Queensland amid cost of living crunch
New analysis of the latest Newspoll shows the Labor Albanese government’s grip on voters across key states and age groups is starting to slip after almost two years in power.
Laura Grassby Digital Reporter
Voters across key age groups and states including New South Wales and Queensland are beginning to turn their backs on the Albanese government, according to a Newspoll conducted for The Australian.
The research by Pyxis Polling & Insights polled 3655 voters across Australia online from October to December.
It showed Labor’s primary vote in NSW has tumbled with 37 per cent of participants saying they would vote for the Coalition if a federal election was held today.
In Queensland, support for the Coalition was even stronger at 41 per cent.
The primary vote for Labor in South Australia, Western Australia remains strong, however the two major parties are on equal footing in Victoria.
Meanwhile, support for the Greens remains high.
The research showed the party beating out Pauline Hanson’s One Nation by a few points in each state, commanding 15 per cent of the primary vote in Victoria.
The Coalition is also overtaking the Albanese government across key voter groups including the 50-64 age bracket.
Voters in this group are more likely to own assets and take the largest share of the income tax burden.
About 40 per cent of respondents in the category said they would vote for the Coalition in a federal election held today as opposed to just 33 per cent who said the same about Labor.
It’s also a tight contest between the two major parties among 33-45-year-olds with voter support split evenly.
However, Anthony Albanese still holds a firm lead over Peter Dutton in the preferred prime minister category.
Respondents resoundingly favoured Mr Albanese as the better prime minister in all states except Queensland where Mr Dutton took the lead by one point.
This is because they regard the criminal as the victim of society and the victim, when he is an upstanding member of society, as the perpetrator.
Socialist Criminology 101.
As Blot’s silly season stand in, Hardgrove and that other sheila standing in for Credlin (can’t remember her name) are quite entertaining each night after the MCG test.
Congratulations to Skah for not being a dead loss in the runup to Australia Day.
..
It doesn’t matter which country your slave labour produced cheap goods come from. They’re still Chinese. Once we gave up the industrial base to them, they control it, and they aren’t stupid like us, their overseas investments don’t get pillaged for IP or held hostage:
..
https://fairbd.net/chinese-investment-in-bangladesh-explained/
..
As to the “higher living standards” enjoyed by buying cheap imported crap, I think a wardrobe full of of garbage clothing is outweighed by the parliaments full of crooks, the schools full of propagandists and the suburbs full of leaky hovels requiring an army of tradesmen from distant lands with little knowledge of English and no shits given.
But I guess it’s a matter of taste.
Sure.
Winston, it’s the difference between city and bush.
Here, I can name quite a few newlyweds who would welcome furniture. Never had a problem here. But Sydney was a nightmare, even back when we moved.
But consider:
At the risk of sounding like the Ghost of Christmas Future, a quick review of the survey points to a Labor-Green government in 2025 – with control of the Senate.
Time to consider relocation opportunities in Gaza or Mariupol.
It doesn’t matter which country your slave labour produced cheap goods come from. They’re still Chinese. Once we gave up the industrial base to them, they control it, and they aren’t stupid like us, their overseas investments don’t get pillaged for IP or held hostage:
I am totally with you here, Arky.
One of the last sensible things ASIO did (that we know about) was to repeatedly & publicly warn the Liberal & Labor parties that donations from “Chinese-Australian” businessmen came with political strings attached.
OldOzzie
Dec 27, 2023 11:13 AM
‘Airbrush Albo’ trying to erase history and rewrite his time as prime minister
I can just see it now in the New Year of 2024 –
Airbus/Tennis Elbow’s Memoirs as written by a ‘Ghost Writer’ (AI or similar) and the book will be called “My Years as the Greatest Australian PM Eva’ “………….LOL
Should be a Best Cellar and a good door stopper in hard back. .
Disposal of Dad’s timber stash is going to be tricky. Cedar, rosewood, silky ash…you name it, he had it. Plus his treasure – some carved cedar doors from the old Marble Bar.
When they moved to the new site at the Hilton, the space was not large enough to accommodate all the panels. So some were just put on the pile of discards. Enter Dad, who snaffled them up. On account of their provenance of course. It had nothing to do with the perkily carved maidens adorning them. 😀
They sewing girls call me the “Salvage Queen” (a bit of a pun on selvedge) as I’m always fossicking in the bin for stuff the profligates throw away. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
On Vietnam and textiles. When we visited recently, I struck up a textiles-related conversation with our guide.
I was told that stitchers from the countryside came into the cities for work in the factories. They were housed in barracks-like accommodation with very strict rules and hours.
It seemed to me that dark satanic mills had simply transferred from the Midlands to Vietnam, minus the religious cant.
Oh, I forgot to add – all the factories were Chinese owned and managed.
There is resentment there, but also acceptance born of necessity.
Amnesia Albo.
Necessity, you say
Communism didn’t work then?
Hello…
‘Chinese-Australian businessman Sunny Duong found guilty of seeking to influence former minister Alan Tudge’
– ABC News Tue 19 Dec 2023
Price of admission to the halls of power was a mere $37,450.
EBay that for some good coin.
Porsche, Audi recall plug-in EV chargers over outlet fire risk
Porsche and Audi issued recalls for more than 130,000 battery-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles to address two unrelated fire risks.
The larger of the two campaigns is actually directed not at the cars themselves, but at the charging cables that were sold with them.
This recall covers all vehicles sold with the company’s 40-amp, 220/240V “industrial” charging cable designed to fit a NEMA 14-50 outlet.
Parent company Volkswagen says Porsche and Audi were made aware of instances where the cable could overheat due to a poor-quality, outdated or defective home electrical setup, potentially leading to a house fire.
VW said the issue was discovered because over time, an overheating wall socket can damage the charging cable itself, leading to increased electrical resistance in the wiring.
When those same charging cables are later used at public charging stations, the higher temperatures resulting from the increased resistance can trigger fault codes in the chargers, potentially leaving motorists stranded.
The company said a similar fault at home without the redundancies of a public charging station could lead to equipment damage and even fire.
Because the recalled units are merely charging cables and not hard-wired boxes, they have only basic safeguards against misuse.
The recalled cables will be replaced by new units with more robust thermal overload protection.
If you own an Audi or Porsche with a 220/240V, 40-amp charging cable, VW says the first sign of trouble is excess heat in the cable itself.
We’re hard-pressed to find any PHEV or BEV models sold by either brand that doesn’t appear in this recall; the full list is at the end of the article for reference.
The second recall announced
Just 205 Taycans are being recalled due to the potential for fire caused by battery overcharging.
Bother. It was “silky oak” not ash.
I am enjoying a nourishing glass of bubbly before the guests arrive (been running around like a blue bottomed fly). So I’ll blame that.
Fun fact…do you know that different timbers exude different scents as well as present different textures. You could have blindfolded Dad and given him a piece of milled stuff and he’d tell you straight off. And now I’m missing him again.
A bit like warning pre-teens about the dangers of false friends. They know it doesn’t apply to them and don’t want to listen.
Vicki
Dec 27, 2023 7:40 AM
Re the discussions surrounding the explosion of foreign owned Callide power station in 2021:
I also recall the catastrophic bushfires in Victoria years ago & the implication of poorly maintained power lines (& the foliage beneath) by the Singaporean owners.
The issue there had nought to do with Singapore power.
It started when a very long span on a SWER line broke and fell into dry stuff.
It was more likely a hangover from the old SEC, where linies were upgraded to “designers”, drawing up plans for new lines.
Thanks for that Sancho. It is rare that we hear the actual facts after the event. The only fire inducing catastrophe I do know the affirmed facts about was the fire started in the NSW Southern Highlands by a wind turbine. The farmer whose property was burnt is a friend of my daughter’s. He actually sued the company successfully.
Happy to be corrected, but didn’t Porsche produce a variety of the “Tiger?”
As the decades proceed, those who remember that we once could produce every sort of thing we needed and who remember the old society, head for the grave. A larger and larger portion only know a world of imported goods; failed government projects; a mostly useless and unproductive population; an economy that splutters into stagnation without hundreds of thousands of yearly migrants; and a constant background noise of ideological badgering.
Wow.
Lumber is hard to get. The recycled place in Canbra is absurd for their prices, but then again, cui apendo?
Grevillea robusta; native, more or less, to these parts where you can still see many specimens on a drive about the countryside.
Unlike vegans.
Nice to see Paul Reiffel officiating.
Chuckle.
‘How do you know someone is a vegan?’
‘Don’t worry…they’ll tell you.’
At least ten times, in the first five minutes after you meet them…
Indeed. Great rant. We are cooked.
calli
Dec 27, 2023 11:44 AM
Disposal of Dad’s timber stash is going to be tricky. Cedar, rosewood, silky a
Ring an antique repair place. They will pay for the second hand timber. They have to match the timber on the antiques. Red cedar ( the real one) is hard to find.
We don’t even let people build decent-sized basements here and you need development consent often to knock down a tree with little to no proven ecological value.
We never had a chance. If it wasn’t China, it would be India or the EU, or maybe Russia, the USA or Brazil.
I’ve noticed over the last year shops operate with half-lit or unlit showrooms and chippos sell cans from tiny fridges.
You’re not going to produce anything at a modern inudstrial scale without cheap electricity. Furthermore, you’re not going to do on-demand manufacturing.
If only we had a credible Navy before 2070. 🙂 Money well spent. I remember when the Dept. Defence put out a cover band for the launch of a Collins Class sub, the band played and sang “Perfect” by Fairground Attraction.
The Royal Australian Navy march, played in D major.
As the decades proceed, those who remember that we once could produce every sort of thing we needed and who remember the old society, head for the grave. A larger and larger portion only know a world of imported goods; failed government projects; a mostly useless and unproductive population; an economy that splutters into stagnation without hundreds of thousands of yearly migrants; and a constant background noise of ideological badgering.
Right again, Arky. I still am confounded by how few people see the obvious signs of a failing society.
Hmmmph! Vegans!
You out there making a difference Arky or just bellie aching.
Never mind how the referendum went, you’ll get a “Voice” whether you vote for one, or not!
So am I, actually. China is predatory. However … I’d still prefer to buy Bangladeshi or Brazilian than straight China-made stuff. Also, Arky acts as though we have choice over the bigger matter – stopping China wanting to rule the world. No-one finds buying quality Australian Made goods competitive even if you can find them in the way you used to, which mostly you can’t. It simply seems narky going without, doing so just because China is a monster investor everywhere. That’s living a poor quality of life to no useful purpose. We are all part of a larger system in which if China is to be controlled it will take combined international political will and a lot of interference in world trade. These are problems to which I don’t have the answers.
I hope this is the timber you have – it is beautiful. We have a bed and a dressing table made from silky oak and the wood is lovely to look at.
Silky Oak is a medium density hardwood from far North Queensland and is often referred to as ?Lacewood? in the USA. Northern Silky Oak (Cardwellia Sublimis) is often confused with Southern Silky Oak (Grevillia Robusta) from South East QLD. While they do have similarities, Northern Silky Oak is considered the timber of choice for use in fine furniture applications and we only use the Northern variety in our pieces.
Depending on the cut, Silky Oak has textures ranging from fine to medium & coarse. Its natural colour can vary from pale to medium brown, with some pink toning.
If New Zealanders & Argentinians can vote to dig themselves out of a socialist hole so can we.
Things will likely have to get much worse before we do, though.
Just wait until millenials can’t afford the new iPhone.
My mum rarely bought anything new and would scrounge around the Brotherhood and various op-shops foe hpurs hinting for treasure. There were 8 secondhand Sunbeam electric frypans found stashed away when we were cleaning up before selling the house.
But there was also the chunky solid Sterling engraved Victorian block bead fob necklace she picked up for $1 at the church jumble sale and a gorgeous green and gold art Deco designer piece she uncovered at Vinnes for 50c.
I laughed at her back then but now I, too, am always on the lookout for the discarded or forgotten bits and pieces that can be renewed, restored, recycled or repurposed and I silently apogise to her for my scorn.
The horror!
Nice to see Paul Reiffel officiating…..yes Bruce, perfect temperament for an umpire, even though a former bowler and Victorian.
Miltonf
Dec 27, 2023 12:24 PM
You out there making a difference Arky or just bellie aching.
There is a lot of “belly aching” on this blog, as you would expect. Some of us are still out there, trying “to make a difference”. But, in reality, in most cases our time has past. And – don’t ever forget – most of us DID make a difference when we were “in the thick of it”. But those with their hands “on the levers” have more power, now, than we have. This is the reality.
However, don’t think that this blog does not get attention. And there are many ways we still have to get our opinion across. Don’t expect the current generations to like it. But stop having vocal opinion? No.
Calli, I meant to add, where is the timber located?
“
Thanks Sancho for the update on Bill Granger’s cause of death
Salvatore, Iron Publican
I drove past the main street here Christmas Day, every pub shut, and I thought to myself “Where are all the old single blokes that you can see here any other day of the week, engaging in the only social contact they get, on Christmas Day?”
They’re probably at home drinking by themselves, eyeing off the gun safe.
Someone always downvotes my (quality) lumber bellyaching, I assume there is a deep-cover Chinese Communist Party agent/commissar here with significant investments in the Chinese and Australian softwoods industries…
Yeah, but he died of suddenly cancer. There was an instant before which he had had significant cancer cells and after which he did.
Very, very sudden.
Pretty sudden typo, if you ask me.
Vicky this blog is the best. I get annoyed at the belly achers sometimes who seem to ignore the fact that there are many many productive people out in the real economy doing a fine job. Anal only ‘won’ because he wasn’t summo. The result on 7/10 shows the electorate isn’t as dumb as many here seem to imply. I know enemies of Australia have entrenched themselves especially in Canbra. Just have to keep fighting and working.
Krupp did all the turrets. The so-called Porsche turrets were designed to go on the Porsche equivalent of Tiger.
https://tankhistoria.com/nations/german-tanks/tiger-ii/
Calli, rosewood or rose gum?
…not that I’m gradi g you hard over the oak/ash slip
I understand Bill Granger had some health issues for a while. It’s sad. 54 years old is too young to pass away. He leaves behind a wife and three girls.
Anyway, I have fond memories of Bill’s Cafe in Darlo. When I think about the nineties, I remember the first half of the decade as a time when I used to frequent Dov’s Cafe and Restaurant which served scrumptious Israeli fusion food (well before Ottelinghi appeared on the scene), and the second half when I used to frequent Bill’s Cafe in Darlo for his scrumptious food, particularly his pancakes. Both places were uber trendy, I was trendy then, and it was a time when trendiness wasn’t cliched and ugly like it is now, it was about style and fashion.
Ahhhhh nostalgia. RIP Bill.
Well, yes, Arky. Thanks for the reminder, how it was. Now, the final countdown.
I’m feeling rather down today anyway, reflecting on how 20 year old grandson failed to turn up at Christmas; seems he might have gone to his long-term girlfriend’s parents’ lunch and neglected to tell us of that after saying a few weeks ago he’d be coming here. I’m trying to be fair and comprehend how unimportant we are in his scheme of things, and think back to my concerns when I was twenty. It’s a fairly selfish time of life. But I never forgot my sister and my mother for at least a phone call at Christmas, no matter where they were or where I was. We’ve had a no show, no notice re that, and no call or text – something of an up yours? Other family members brought him good presents, all here and unthanked. My woke second son suggests this grandson is ‘breaking up’ with us because of our politics (which we mostly keep to ourselves). It is certainly the case that the left have their claws well into him.
I spent most of the first five years of this lad’s life flying around Australia rescuing him from his mentally-ill mother, then for the next fourteen years paying for his stuff and accommodation with my son (his father) as nominal guardian and me keeping watch, attending countless court cases and case management meetings for him, attending every school assembly and concert clapping furiously for his achievements, and ensuring he could always come to us in any strife no matter when and in what condition he turned up here. I’ve paid for quite a few holidays for him in Australia and overseas.
I think it best I don’t dwell on it all too much. If you limit expectations then you also limit disappointments. There are things to do yet in life rather than look back. In spite of Arky’s timely reminder. 🙂
Older folks memory test .. LOL!
https://ibb.co/0y8jCTs
If you live in Melbourne consider donating excess stuff to RIMERN.Rotary Inner Melbourne Emergency Relief Network.They want small furniture , white goods , small appliances and household stuff.They provide a package to people who have moved into generally small apartments after getting out of an abusive relationship or gaol or whatever.Started about a year ago and now doing 12 clients a week .
They may be closed at moment but they have a truck.
Sensible words up there, Milton f.
Lots of good people doing good things still in this country.
And thoughtless yoof have always been with us. I was one myself.
We do have to keep some perspective on our personal and political woes.
“Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Dec 27, 2023 12:52 PM”
Lizzie, I’m sorry to hear this. Sad, and yes it is youthful selfishness however he owed you and Hairy a telephone call.
Winston, the Qld Liquor Act mandates that pubs be closed on Christmas Day.
Pubs being closed on Boxing Day & Christmas Eve, is however 100% due to penalty rates.
“We’ve secured $65 an hour shifts for workers on Boxing Day” is a great headline & press conference photo op.
Reality, not so much.
If the outward aspect reflects the inner, there are a lot of damaged souls out there.
I can’t remember a time when fashion was so ugly.
ML – Not out of the question given the findings re mRNA vaccines.
The Rise in Cancers, Autoimmune Diseases: The Role of DNA Contamination (26 Dec)
When you have DNA contamination, mRNA being inserted randomly into the genome via the reverse transcriptase enzyme, and depressed immunity due to the toxic effects upon T-cells of the spike protein expressed by the Covid vaccine mRNA, then you have a very plausible mechanism for rapid onset cancer.
We shall see how things turn out – fortunately cancer treatment has advanced quickly in the last decade or so, and mRNA may be a good therapy for it. It’d be ironic though if mRNA is used to cure cancers caused by mRNA, but you have to take what you can get.
If Labor gets in again they’ll mandate public holiday opening hours to solve this problem.
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Aprox 100 prototype hulls made, but the contract went elsewhere. The hulls and engines etc were made into the “Ferdinand” or “Elephant” specifically to house the
8.8 cm Pak 43/2 L/71
Made its debut in Operation Citadel where it’s superb optics and main gun outranged the Soviet 76mm Anti tank batteries. Doctrinally meant to operate within a shield of Mk IV and V tanks, when separated from their support, it proved vulnerable to Soviet infantry tank hunting teams because of initial lack of MG defences.
A good weapon which when used outside it’s intended role, failed.
I think it behoves us all to address the likely personas of our various downtickers. Not all are plain bog-standard old mouth-breathers. Some have backgrounds and interests. Dot’s onto it. 🙂
Shatterzzz,
picked them all!
Gregory Peck looks as though he is made up for his part in “The Boys From Brazil.”
The other thing that I hope will hasten demise of the Anal Administration is their spite, arrogance and malicious incompetence which they can’t really hide even with the conivence of the meja.
Must give grandson his due; he’s saving for an overseas trip next month and might just have stayed close to a series of triple-time shifts as a bartender by having Christmas with his girlfriend’s olds, who live near where he works part-time.
Wouldn’t hurt him to call us though, and make certain I still reserve the envelope I was going to give him with nice new $100 bills for his trip.
Shatterzzz, I only got David Niven, and a dubious Gregory Peck.
Faces are not my forte. 🙂
Best approach, Lizzie. I’ve always believed that unmet expectations are our biggest source of suffering. I’m sorry it was a dark spot on your Christmas but better to remember the joy of it and keep it close.
I realised this year that none of us know when the last time we do something might be, so we need to be present in those moments we share as much as we possibly can.
..
Maybe:
..
One can only hope that this is the start of an ongoing trend.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/12/26/the-revolt-against-woke-capitalism/
There were some pretty ugly costumes in the eighties. Madonna’s conical boobs spring to mind and then there were the Flock of Seagulls hairstyles wafting all over the place.
Pretty sure the ‘No’ vote repudiated that way overused theme – that what disadvantage there might be can only be fixed by even more government mandated anti-egalitarian special treatment. Looking back a few decades the increasing amount of dysfunction seems directly proportional of government ‘doing something’.
Bruising referendum debate? You know who is bruised and battered? The ‘No’ voters who were being pummelled day in and day out by media, government, and corporations – none of which I might add can lay any credible claim to morality. The ‘No’ others were presented as being troglodytes, racists, selfish misanthropes. They got this constantly and still held onto their principles.
The ‘Yessers’ had all the support that could be mustered up – and price was no object. Their one grievance is that they didn’t get their way.
So tough luck.
Thanks, Cassie and others. Re the downticker, obviously some woke troll who thinks all grandmas should be peremptorily dismissed as part of the obliteration of the family.
Thanks shatterzzz, got em all.
Too many old movies is barely enough! 🙂