Creeping into Capetown harbour with the fog siren going once a minute. Pilot on board. Port closed. Pilot eventually says…
Open Thread – New Year’s Day 2024
- Guest Post: Wally Dali- Archibald Prize predictions
- TULIP versus ruinous Labor
- Open Thread – Weekend 18 May 2024
- Bumtree #15
- Bumtree #14
Wow, I’ll be in Melbourne in Tuesday before heading up to the Goulburn Valley for a week but in and…
Christianity isn’t as straightforward as I once thought it was. Ignorance is bliss they say. I am not sure about…
The resident of a motel room in Queanbeyan is looking for attention. I think she needs help.
And a bishop of Barf. Not your ordinary bishop. I’ve just been reading about the Fire Priest Jón Steingrimsson. Fine…
One would have thought that by now just a single one of the nation’s sporting journos would have got hold of the original piece’s author (or the subbie) and provided some accurate advice about how many BGs a player gets, and/or when they may be replaced.
The protocol has not changed. People are going to go around thinking players have wardrobes full of them.
GRAPHIC WARNING: South Korea opposition leader stabbed in the neck | REUTERS
Indolent, the news services say that all the passengers were evacuated from that JAL flight.
Just on that incredible suppressed incest figure in the UK “sub communidee”: isolated, rural white Australia had a problem with incest at the turn of the 20th century. Was recognised by authorities and wiped out by punishment. Australian authorities know there is still a problem with incest in some communidees, but have sat on their hands for forty years. Sensitivities, stigma apparently.
Following all the recent rains and very cool temperatures, the countryside is astonishingly green, like winter, but with oaks, claret ash and golden elms; all the summer trees. In the middle month of summer!
I suspect that this is a trial for farmers – having to deal with weeds and early germination of paddock grasses – but it is beautiful to drive through. More importantly, it doesn’t burn easily… until, of course,it all dries out.
makes a point
mUnty is a girl??
Faith in Healthcare Attacked by Canberra’s Autocrats
Remember they took in the black family who were refs from Katrina? The black dude never left. He just stayed on living off Larry.
Yes! I love this..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub2Eryok-k8&t=4s
On the cricket talk, what are the West Indies about to deploy? If they could get Nicholas Pooran and Shimron Hetmyer on board, that would improve things.
About three times in my life I have been close to events which attracted a reasonably intense level of media attention (including one Three Corners episode which was months in the making).
Every single time they got fundamental facts arse about.
It got me wondering about the rest of the stuff they churn out.
Get wondering cobber,
Sancho
Bunnings-Cougar said something about that.
Shit that was funny.
He just occupied the pool house or something and drifted in and out of the main house, helping himself and dispensing free advice.
Larry and his wife, being typical Californians, were shit scared of turfing him out, for fear of being labelled racists.
If Metaverse characters can’t have sex…
The Daily Mail says police are investigating what it says is the first case of “rape” in the metaverse after a girl under the age of 16 was “attacked” in a virtual reality video game. The paper says the girl did not suffer any injuries as there was no physical attack but say she experienced emotional trauma.
So I guess any cartoons of anyone having their way with barnyard animals are also rape AND bestiality?
The real conclusion is the Metaverse is lame.
Barking Toad
Jan 2, 2024 8:55 PM
Far fetched I know, but could it be someone(s) from the other blogs being spiteful for leaving? I remember Delta used to post there with others as well.
Also punishment for unkind remarks about said blogs?
Just musing, probably a stupid idea, could the ticking be also automated?
I don’t know, I can’t even uptick the same post twice.
About which, BJ?
“Stolen” cricket bag, for crying out loud! “Alleged stolen cricket bag”, and who gives a shit for this twerp, especially those who have had to put up with airline baggage handling “mishaps” and done so without running to mamma media.
They have meaning too, apparently.
Hahahahaha Leon Black and he’s black.
Just ask Wodney. He’ll show you how it’s done.
The UK Police & CPS organisations are basically supporting the idea that unwanted “cybersex” isn’t sexual harassment (or less), that it is sexual assault.
This is going to get very weird and very stupid if they try this seriously and persistently given their pre existing laws.
Is declaring you will put a spell on someone (who finds you repulsive) that they will fall in love with you and have wild passionate sex with you rape and blasphemy? Or is it blasphemy if you do not selectively leave the religious and magically inclined cybersex offenders alone?
Christ almighty this cannot be the basis of sensible laws.
Let’s say someone gets accused of serious offending including producing child abuse material and it proceeds to a trial.
Can the police, prosecutors, judge, defence lawyers, juries, sheriffs and court workers all claim they were abused as well?
Outcomes based justice must take priority over emotionally based justice.
JC
Jan 2, 2024 10:01 PM
No thanks, not my style, I show my appreciation when I like a post and that’s about it.
billie
Jan 2, 2024 8:07 PM
I don’t have a solution, but I can see what’s going on and I don’t think it’s going to end well.
Cassie of Sydney
Jan 2, 2024 7:22 PM
What brought him down was a whirlwind created by an unholy and unseemly coalition of Shia religious clerics
Thanks for the reference Cassie.
The Shah did not control the mosques. All around Iran the mosques were spreading discontent and organising. The Hajj was a convenient meeting place.
The solution is found in what other countries do to contain it. Yes. Saudi Arabia. All the imams must be government approved and registered. And they are closely monitored.
We can simply do this here to, at least, stem the tide.
But I am sure now that Catherine Burn, former Head of the Counter-Terrorism Unit, is in ASIO, they are working on this. Everything you need to know about Australia’s monumental ignorance of Islam is found on that day in December 2014. Nothing has changed.
Calli, my sister-in-law and two of my late husband’s other siblings all bought plots next to each other. As you said it is very practical in terms of bringing flowers and candles.
The long lost son of one of the ouens has made contact, after over twenty years. Said ouen had discovered he’s a grandfather, five times over…….
‘We turn everything on we can’: households cash in on solar boom
Angela Macdonald-Smith – Senior resources writer
Mark Campbell was paid $22 on Sunday to charge his Tesla and use his dishwasher and clothes dryer.
This remarkable transaction came about because bumper generation from rooftop solar drove demand for grid power to a record low in Victoria and sent prices below zero.
Mr Campbell, who has neither rooftop solar panels nor a household battery, used 377 per cent of his average daily consumption on December 31, as he and other customers of Amber Electric, a retailer that passes wholesale prices directly through to customers, cashed in.
“We see people moaning and groaning about their power bills … but that’s not what we are seeing, we are seeing completely the opposite,” said Mr Campbell, chief executive of clean water technology company Water Source Australia, who says negative spot prices are becoming increasingly frequent.
“You turn everything on you can – although I don’t think that’s in the spirit of what we’re trying to achieve.”
But the record low demand for grid power grid is causing headaches for the Australian Energy Market Operator, which considered intervening to keep the system stable.
Demand for power from the grid must stay above a certain level to maintain what AEMO describes as “a secure operating state” and to reduce the risk of blackouts, but high rooftop solar generation elbows out grid-scale generators, leaving the market short of essential system services such as frequency control, voltage management and inertia.
AEMO might have mulled curtailing rooftop solar generation to boost demand on the grid, said Dylan McConnell, an energy systems analyst at the University of NSW, noting, however, that no measures appeared to have been taken in the end.
Record lows for so-called operational demand on the grid – which excludes demand met by rooftop solar – fell 18 per cent in Victoria to 1564 megawatts and, for the first time, sank below zero in South Australia to -26 MW on December 31, an AEMO spokesman said, citing mild temperatures and clear skies driving high rooftop solar generation.
“At the time, rooftop solar contributed two-thirds of Victoria’s and more than [101.7 per cent] South Australia’s total energy needs – the first time rooftop solar exceeded total demand in any region of the National Electricity Market,” he said. The spokesman confirmed no intervention was required.
That sent the average wholesale price on the last day of 2023 down to -$66.54 per megawatt-hour in South Australia and -$73.02/MWh in Victoria, AEMO said.
Rooftop solar squeezed out almost all other forms of generation, including large-scale solar farms and most wind farms, according to specialist electricity market news service WattClarity.
Victoria’s eight coal power units, which have limited flexibility to turn down generation, were forced to slash production to levels likely to be close to their minimum stable output, it said.
EnergyAustralia, which ramps down its Yallourn coal generator in the Latrobe Valley during periods of oversupply to minimise the hit from negative prices, elected to delay the restart of one unit there after scheduled maintenance because of the low demand, a spokesman said.
AGL Energy is understood to have run the three units it had online at its Loy Yang A plant at a minimum level through the middle of the day.
The record lows came just two days after Queensland came close to setting a fresh high for maximum power demand amid a bout of extreme heat in the south-east, an extraordinary development given subdued business use of power during the holiday period and several major power outages due to storms.
Dr McConnell described the Queensland peaks as “quite incredible”, noting it was well beyond what is usually seen at this time of year and “gigawatts” above the past few years.
He said the low demand in Victoria was not so unexpected but, together with the Queensland situation, highlights some of the challenges faced by the power system.
“As the energy transition accelerates, we’re going to be increasingly moving into an environment of boom-then-bust-then-boom-again, and what we saw in terms of demand highs and lows over a couple of days stretched from Queensland to Victoria and South Australia is just one example of that,” agreed Paul McArdle, co-founder of analysis firm Global-Roam, which publishes WattClarity.
He said the trend would require “quite different mental models” to understand it all, and new business models to tackle the risks and opportunities.
AEMO advised in November it faced a possible “challenging summer”, given the forecast for hot and dry El Nino conditions which increase the risk of bushfires and extreme heat and could stretch demand for electricity to one-in-10-year highs.
It also pointed to likely low demand periods during weekends and public holidays that could test historical minimum levels that typically occur in shoulder seasons. NSW, Victoria and South Australia all experienced record minimum operational demand in the September quarter, as did the NEM as a whole, according to AEMO, which noted that rooftop solar output jumped 31 per cent in the quarter compared to a year earlier to a record.
“While it may seem good to have less power coming from the grid and supplying our own electricity – both for our own use and to feed back into the system – as demand drops, it can create serious challenges like voltage fluctuations on the grid,” says the Australian Energy Council, which represents major electricity suppliers.
“There are threshold limits for demand to maintain the stability of the overall grid for a region,” the AEC noted. “If minimum demand levels continue to fall it will become increasingly necessary to take action to avoid blackouts.”
At Amber, co-CEO Chris Thompson said some customers were paid over $30 for using power when prices were negative on December 31, by charging their electric cars or home batteries, or doing everyday chores such as washing or drying.
“It was certainly a fascinating final day of 2023 in the energy market, but also likely a preview of the future that we’re rapidly heading towards,” he said.
Amber customers can also be exposed to spiking wholesale prices, however, with Mr Campbell noting he once paid as much as $16 a kilowatt-hour for power and once $14/kWh – compared with Victoria’s benchmark default tariff of about 28¢/kWh.
Part of those costs was covered by insurance from the retailer.
“So you can get in trouble, but we haven’t seen that for ages,” he said. “And they know that’s coming, so they send you text messages and all sort of things to warn you in advance to turn everything off and stop using power.”
Disney will lose copyright over Mickey Mouse this year. Expect permanent collapse of global capitalism soon thereafter.
Unless Sonny Bono and the lawyers from Big Rodent were making a mountain out of a molehill all those times they lobbied for extensions to copyright terms? 🙂
Small railway footbridge takes longer to build than Empire State Building
Network Rail’s construction of the bridge at Theale station is more than 10 years overdue and ‘a case study in British (Australian?) inefficiency’
Gordon Rayner,
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
When the new bridge does finally open, it will be the first time wheelchair users will be able to catch trains from the station since it opened in 1847.
Funding for the upgrade to Theale station, which is the nearest station to Carole and Michael Middleton’s home in Bucklebury, Berkshire, was first announced in December 2011, with the budget set at £1.25 million.
A new ticket office was built in 2014 but is yet to open because of delays to the footbridge. In the meantime, the budget has rocketed to £9.5 million – coincidentally the same amount the Empire State Building cost to build.
The 13 years it will have taken for the village station to undergo its refresh – assuming there are no further delays – is the same length of time it took to build Big Ben or, according to the Bible, King Solomon’s Palace.
In the meantime, passengers access the platforms via steps down from a road bridge, which means there is no disabled access.
Sir Alok told The Telegraph: “The redevelopment of Theale station is a classic case study in just how slowly even relatively small infrastructure projects are delivered in our country, with resultant cost increases having to be picked up by the taxpayer.
“We have to get much better at untangling the stifling bureaucracy and red tape in our system which holds back the time-efficient and cost effective delivery of infrastructure.”
Construction comparison
Empire State Building
Cost: £9.5 million (£500m allowing for inflation)
Construction dates: March 17, 1930 – April 11, 1931
Height: 1,454ft (443.2 metres)
Floors: 102
Location: 350 Fifth Avenue, New York
Main contractor: Starrett Brothers and Eken
?Theale station footbridge
Cost: £9.5 million (including improvement works to car park and ticket office)
Construction dates: January 2023 – spring 2024 (estimated)
Height: 27ft (8.2 metres)
Floors: One
Location: Theale railway station, Berkshire
Main contractor: AmcoGiffen
David Sidebottom, director at the independent watchdog Transport Focus, said: “Investment in accessibility improvements at Theale station is a welcome move to help passengers with disabilities travel with greater confidence, however the delays have been frustrating and disappointing.
“Passengers will want assurances that there will be no further delays and for the station to have step-free access as soon as possible.”
Caroline Stickland, chief executive of Transport for All, said any improvements to disabled access were welcome but “the pace of change must increase”.
She said the latest research found that almost half of disabled people report issues with lifts and a lack of step-free access at railway stations.
A Network Rail spokesman said: “Plans to build a new footbridge with lifts at Theale station, part of the Department for Transport’s Access for All programme, were approved in January 2013 alongside a range of improvements including a new ticket office and expanded car park. At this time, funding was only provided for the ticket office and to progress design work for the footbridge.
“A new ticket office was built by Great Western Railway. In 2021, £9.5 million funding was awarded for Network Rail to build a footbridge and lifts. The new facilities are set to open to the public in spring 2024. Great Western Railway will then begin work to expand the car park.”
How a bar room romance put a Scot on the throne of Denmark
The romance between Crown Prince Frederik and his Scottish-Australian wife Mary has finally reached its fairytale ending…
Ed Cumming
Margrethe II, the 83-year-old queen of Denmark, saved the biggest surprise of the year for last. Hours before 2023 came to an end, on a live television broadcast, she announced her abdication.
“In 14 days, I will have been Denmark’s queen for 52 years,” she said in an address to the nation, wearing a regal purple dress. “Time takes its toll, and ailments increase. One no longer manages the same things as before.” A back operation last February, she confessed, had made her ponder “whether it was time to pass on the responsibility to the next generation”.
It was a bombshell to make her subjects drop their Lego and put down their bacon sandwiches.
As the longest-serving monarch in Europe and the only ruling queen in the world, Margrethe is a matriarch who has presided over half a century of peace and prosperity with a relaxed and inclusive style. She chain-smokes and has been known to do her own supermarket shopping. Journalist Tine Gøtzsche noted that the departing queen “is to us what Queen Elizabeth was to you”.
The void that she leaves will be filled by Crown Prince Frederik and his Scottish-Australian wife, Mary – a woman whose passage to the throne so echoes that of our own Princess of Wales that they have been described as “royal sisters”.
Every indicator suggests Frederik will continue with his mother’s laid-back approach. He has had time enough to prepare for the job, albeit not as long as our own King Charles. Princes of Denmark have been known to tend towards gloominess, but Frederik is a warm, popular figure, with a salt-and-pepper beard and a refreshing lack of airs and graces.
“He is already a star among many Danes,” says Gitte Redder, the co-author of Frederik: Crown Prince of Denmark, a biography of the incoming king. “By nature he is open-minded, curious and down to earth. With Crown Princess Mary he has already set the agenda on sustainability, medicine and human rights, and the royal couple has ambitions that the monarchy should also be relevant, useful and have value for young generations in the future.
“Even before becoming king, he has been nicknamed the Frogman King, the Rock ’n’ Roll King, the Sportsman King and the Green King,” she adds. In an interview for her book, Frederik told Redder that he and Mary, “don’t just want to be driven around waving nicely to the crowds from a carriage.” He added that “the bottom line is that we must never stop developing and the royal house must continue to be a meaningful institution that the Danes are proud of and support.”
He has not always looked cut out for the gig. Born in Copenhagen on May 26 1968, the eldest of two sons of Margrethe and her husband, Prince Henrik, who died in 2018, Frederik was just three when he became Crown Prince, when his mother ascended the throne in 1972.
Privately educated in France and Denmark, as a teenager he had a reputation for enjoying the high life, resenting his parents for their absence on royal duties and consoling himself with fast cars and hanging out with celebrities in nightclubs. Princes Andrew and Harry might empathise.
Frederik started to settle down when he went to Aarhus University for a degree in political science, as part of which he spent a year at Harvard. He enrolled in the US college under a fake name, Frederik Henriksen, in an attempt to avoid the limelight. It was at university that he developed his interest in green causes, a helpful thing for a royal to have on his CV in eco-conscious Denmark.
He is also made for PE. Like many British royals have, Frederik found meaning and purpose in a military career after he graduated – he trained in all three branches of the Danish armed forces.
On a navy diving exercise he once found his wetsuit filled up with water, forcing him to waddle like a penguin and earning him the nickname “Pingo”.
He was a competitive sailor, racing Finn and Dragon boats, and is fond of a physical challenge.
He was the first Danish royal to complete an Iron Man triathlon – a 2.4-mile swim followed by a 112-mile cycle and then a marathon.
Perhaps most arduously, in 2000 Frederik took part in a four-month, 2,175-mile skiing challenge.
He has been hospitalised by scooter and sledding accidents, and in 2016 he broke his back trampolining with his son.
Since 2018 he has organised the Royal Run, an annual running event across the country, akin to if Prince Charles were the master of Parkrun.
None of this is to say that Frederik lost his taste for the good life.
The same year as his skiing odyssey, during the 2000 Olympics he met his wife, Mary Donaldson, at the Slip Inn, a pub in Sydney. Frederik was with his younger brother, Joachim, his cousin Prince Nikolaos of Greece and Denmark, and Princess Martha of Norway.
A report from the Sydney Morning Herald says the group fell into conversation about chest hair. “We were allowed to touch Prince Frederik and Prince Nikolaos,”
Donaldson’s friend Beatrice Tarnawski was quoted as saying. “I liked Prince Frederik best because he was so smooth. Prince Nikolaos had a lot of hair and that really wasn’t my type.”
Donaldson, then 28, the daughter of two Scottish academics who emigrated to Australia for work, had no idea the group were so blue-blooded.
“The first time we met, we shook hands and I didn’t know he was the crown prince of Denmark,” she said in an interview in 2003, when she and Frederik got engaged. “An hour or so later someone came up to me and said, ‘Do you know who these people are?’”
They were married in 2004, after a romance that began in secrecy. Frederik would make clandestine trips to Australia to see Donaldson; the relationship only came to light in 2001, after they had been together for several months.
When it did, the press was smitten with the fairy tale of a royal marrying a commoner. In turn, the future queen of Denmark endeared herself to the people by learning Danish.
Donaldson and Frederik have four children: Christian, Isabella, Vincent and Josephine, who have mostly been educated at public schools.
Sebastian Olden-Jørgensen, a historian, told AFP that Frederik and Mary are “modern, woke, lovers of pop music, modern art and sports”.
Frederik’s reputation for uxoriousness took a hit last year, however. In October, paparazzi photographed him on a night out in Madrid, taking in an art exhibition, dinner and a flamenco show with the jauntily named Mexican socialite Genoveva Casanova, sparking rumours of an affair.
Casanova stridently denied the accusation, posting a letter on Instagram criticising what she called “malicious” reports.
Like other monarchies, the Danish royal family has made efforts to modernise. In 2022, Margrethe shocked the country – not to mention her family – when she stripped Joachim’s four children of their royal titles, downgrading them from princes and princesses to counts and countesses.
She said the move was vital to streamline the royal family and “future-proof” the institution, but it came as a shock to Joachim and his wife Marie, who were only given a few days’ notice. In an interview, Marie described their relationship with Margrethe as “complicated”.
Margrethe said in a statement, “I have made my decision as queen, mother and grandmother, but, as a mother and grandmother, I have underestimated the extent to which much my younger son and his family feel affected.
It is my duty and my desire as queen to ensure that the monarchy always shapes itself in keeping with the times.
Sometimes, this means that difficult decisions must be made.” In 2016, she had said that of Frederik’s four children, only the eldest, Christian, who will become the new heir, will draw an annuity from the Danish state.
She has now made another difficult decision with her abdication.
In a 2022 speech marking Margrethe’s half-century on the throne, Frederik paid tribute to his mother. “When the time comes, I will guide the ship,” he said.
Now he has been handed the tiller sooner than he might have expected.
Even as he aims to keep it “relevant”, Frederik, the master yachtsman, must now show that he can sail the ship of state smoothly too.
Russell Crowe & Pavlova – Where are You?
No, in many ways a fairly normal chap. Mum wasn’t an ugly old person. They both believed in spiritualism though, so they shared an interest in the contacting ‘the other side’. Not my sort of interest at all, but mum was brought up to it, as my grandmother (an eminently sensible person in my memory) was a Welsh ‘spirit medium’, who read tea leaves, was a ‘wise’ village woman who birthed babies and laid out the dead. She was also, as was mum, firmly C of E. Her beau was rather lonely, and dropped by twice a week for her to cook for him, even though she wasn’t much of a cook. They mostly ate take away Chinese. lol.
Go figure.
Good plan, Cassie. My motto has always been that what other people think of me is none of my business. A click of the button on a screen is not how they get their jollies, it’s your reaction that does that.
Ignore, and ignore again. For as long as it takes. The losers are well out-numbered by the interesting, the generous and the clever.
Don’t give up meat, it’s better for your health than you think
Sorting the good meat from the bad is far more important than giving it up altogether, say scientists
Hattie Garlick
Is the scent of a delicious roast dinner currently wafting from your oven, making you salivate? Will you feel just a smidge guilty as you tuck in?
Never mind the people trying Veganuary this month, all of us have been told that eating meat is bad.
Not only for the planet, but for our health.
Every bite of that brisket will raise your risk of cancer, heart disease and more. A second helping will send you to an early grave.
But will it?
A growing body of research suggests that meat is a complex beast.
Acres of difference stand between a high welfare, grass-fed sirloin steak and the impact on your body of a highly processed hot dog.
The NHS advises that people who eat 90 grams of processed or red meat a day – equivalent to a couple of rashers of bacon – should cut down to 70 grams.
What’s clear is that, cooked with care and eaten selectively, meat may even boost your health.
A recent report by the University of Edinburgh suggests that without better awareness of alternative sources of nutrients, the targets to reduce meat and dairy consumption by 20 per cent by 2035 might actually raise health risks, inadvertently exacerbating deficiencies in important minerals including selenium, iron and zinc.
But ethics and environment aside, what do we really know about the impact that eating meat has on our health?
Why we shouldn’t give up on meat
Veganism and vegetarianism have become shorthand terms for healthier lifestyles, says Dr Wenpeng You, biomedicine researcher at the University of Adelaide in Australia.
But after he and his team examined the overall health effects of meat consumption in 175 countries, taking into account factors including affluence, obesity and overall calorie consumption, their results, published in the International Journal of General Medicine last year, suggest that meat consumption does not send people to an early grave.
In fact, it extends life expectancy.
Dr You is not hugely surprised. Humans, he suggests, are hardwired to eat animal protein. “Until about 12,000 years ago, there were not many sources of other nutrients that we could digest.”
In fact, meat may become an increasingly useful and convenient source of nutrition as we age, suggests Prof James Goodwin, director of science at the Brain Health Network and author of Supercharge Your Brain. “From middle age onwards, a process called sarcopenia, or muscle loss, progresses at 1-2 per cent a year.” If you want to counter this loss, 30 per cent of your food should be protein, he suggests.
You could, of course, get all this protein from plants. It is just a lot more complicated. Nutritional therapist Lucy Miller says animal proteins are “complete” – meaning they contain all the amino acids our bodies need.
The odd BLT is OK but avoid processed meat when you can
There is strong evidence that processed meat – including ham, bacon, corned beef and some sausages – increases the risk of bowel cancer, says Dr Julie Sharp, head of health information at Cancer Research UK.
“Nitrates and nitrites, which are added to processed meat to keep it fresh for longer, can form chemicals called N-nitroso chemicals (or NOCs) during digestion that can damage the cells in the bowel,” she explains.
Processed meats are also high in blood-pressure-raising sodium, says consultant cardiologist Dr Neil Srinivasan. Eating two servings a week may raise your risk of heart and circulatory diseases by 7 per cent.
The other bad news is that processed meats have also been linked to Type 2 diabetes, while a 2021 observational study correlated the consumption of 25g of processed meat a day to a 44 per cent increase in risk of dementia.
The good news about red meat
“Red meat is one of the best available sources of iron, zinc and B vitamins, in particular vitamin B12,” says Dr Srinivasan. This means it has the potential to do your heart good, because low zinc levels have been linked to conditions including coronary artery disease and angina, while vitamins B6, B9, and B12 may lower the risk of heart disease and stroke.
It is also rich in haem iron, says Miller, a highly absorbable form of the mineral that is only found in animal-based foods, “meaning that if you have a purely plant-based diet, you may not be absorbing high enough levels of iron”.
That haem, however, is controversial. During digestion, it breaks down into cancer-causing chemicals, says Dr Sharp. Plus, “when processed and red meats are cooked at high temperatures, such as grilling or barbecuing, other cancer-causing chemicals are produced, called heterocyclic amines (HCAs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).”
Eating large quantities is therefore considered a likely cause of bowel cancer, although further research is needed to confirm that.
But what about heart disease?
Red meat is higher in cholesterol than poultry or fish – a major reason it has, historically, been demonised.
Yet “a number of studies now suggests it’s the mix of fats, sugar and refined carbohydrates in your diet that influences blood cholesterol, not the amount of cholesterol you eat from food,” says Miller.
In fact, one study that came to this conclusion in 2010 criticised contemporary public health advice that promoted a move away from saturated fats found in animal products.
The study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, said the advice “has spurred a compensatory increase in consumption of refined carbohydrates and added sugars – a dietary shift that may be contributing to the current twin epidemics of obesity and diabetes”.
And dementia?
“There is definitely a relationship between the consumption of unprocessed red meat and dementia,” says Prof Goodwin. “It reduces the risk.”
A 2021 study linked 50g of unprocessed red meat a day to a reduction in the risk of Alzheimer’s.
Not surprising, says Prof Goodwin: “The five most critical nutrients for the brain are all predominantly from animal sources,” he says.
“Vitamin B12, Vitamin D, Omega 3 fatty acid, zinc and magnesium.” Modern Western diets are often low in them all.
How to choose your chicken
“White meat, such as chicken, and fish, are not linked to an increased risk of cancer,” says Sharp.
In fact, good quality chicken is the best source of protein, says Miller, containing around 32g of protein in every 100g, compared to the 10g in the same amount of beans and legumes.
That said, in 2021, Oxford University researchers published a study involving 475,000 people – from voracious meat eaters to vegetarians.
Keren Papier, the lead author, explains that “higher consumption of poultry meat was associated with higher risks of gastro-oesophageal reflux disease, gastritis and duodenitis, diverticular disease, gallbladder disease, and diabetes.”
There is, however, one crucial and familiar addendum. “Most of these positive associations were reduced if body mass index (BMI) was taken into account,” says Papier. “This suggests that regular meat eaters having a higher average body weight could be partly causing these associations.”
Control your weight, and a roast chicken may not be the death of you.
But here’s the rub. Around 95 per cent of chicken consumed in the UK is factory-farmed, says Miller, making it liable to be less nutritionally dense, and also higher in fat. In other words, we’re being sold chicken that makes it harder to get the health benefits without the health risks.
Why the quality and cut matters
Choose meat from factory farms, where animals are confined and fed a grain-based diet, and the nutritional content of your meat will diminish, says Miller, citing a review spanning three decades which found that grass-fed beef not only had more healthy carotenoids, vitamin E and other antioxidants, but also contained less fat, of unhealthier sorts.
“Grass-fed beef has more Omega 3 fatty acids than grain-fed beef,” agrees Prof Goodwin. “On organic [beef], the jury is out.
Few studies show, unequivocally, that its nutrient levels are better, just that there are no pesticides in it.”
The cut counts too.
“Unprocessed, lean meats and cuts are healthier for your heart,” says Dr Srinivasan. “So ask your butcher for a lean cut and, if buying pre-packed meat, check the nutrition label to see how much fat it contains and compare products.”
The healthy way to eat meat – and how much
Back in 1996, a study was published that examined the health outcomes of 11,000 “health conscious” Brits, some vegetarian, others omnivore, recruited from places such as health food shops.
After 17 years, both camps had half the death rate compared with the average population.
The key influence appeared not to be whether or not they ate meat, but whether or not they ate lots of fresh fruit and raw salad.
“In the West, an estimated 75 per cent of all our calories comes from just five animals and 12 plants – a woefully narrow diet,” says Prof Goodwin. It is this narrowness that lies at the root of many health problems, he suggests. So, “ask yourself the following question: have I eaten 30 types of plant and more than five types of animal food this week?”
The answer, he suggests, may not be to exclude meat altogether but “to eat a better quality, more balanced and diverse diet”.
Meat: the good and the bad for your health
1. Steak filet
Good: a source of iron, zinc and B vitamins
2. Chicken breast
Good: but avoid factory farmed chicken, which is higher in fat
3. Sausage
Bad: processed meat raises your risk of bowel cancer
4. Lamb chops
Bad: avoid barbecuing, as meat can become carcinogenic
5. Venison steak
Good: lower in fat than any other red meat
6. Bacon rasher
Bad: buy nitrate-free bacon to lower the cancer risk
7. Slice of turkey
Good: an excellent source of selenium, a mineral that can help prevent certain cancers
8. Parma ham
Good: free of additives, this is one of the healthiest ham options
From one of OldOzzie’s links above:
(Finish the following sentence):
I don’t understand why the ATSB is conducting a ‘no blame’ investigation of the helo collision – is that normal? I would have thought they were attempting to determine the cause/s and if that ends up finding someone at fault, it is what it is?
Does it just mean they then leave it to some other entity to take action on the findings?
more chuckles
Can technology’s ‘zoomers’ outrun the ‘doomers’?
There may be a case for optimism in AI’s transformation of scientific discovery but it’s too early to be sure
JOHN THORNHILL
A few years ago, the Oxford physicist David Deutsch came up with a simple and beguiling theory, which he called the principle of optimism.
In his view, all knowledge that does not contradict the rules of physics is attainable through the application of science and reason.
The only variable is how long it takes us to acquire it. “All evils are caused by lack of knowledge,” he added, making the case for the accelerated pursuit of scientific inquiry to create a better world.
That is certainly a hopeful thought in a dark time.
But it may also be widely dismissed as a naive one.
The current horrors of Ukraine and Gaza are not the result of a lack of scientific knowledge.
Our collective failure to combat global warming more effectively is not due to a lack of technological capability so much as political will.
Surveying the state of the modern world and the possibility of a third world war, many might conclude we are more likely to rerun the Dark Ages than the Enlightenment.
Yet, if anything, the case for optimism is growing stronger as the latest technologies open up further possibilities for scientific discovery.
Machines are finding new pathways for research and adding millions of tireless automated researchers to our scientific workforce.
Artificial intelligence may yet deliver a much-needed boost to economic productivity, which could ease so many societal strains.
In a lecture at University College London in November, Demis Hassabis, co-founder of Google DeepMind, declared that we were entering a new era of “science at digital speed”, thanks to AI.
“We are in the renaissance of scientific discovery,” he said. “AI has incredible potential to help with humanity’s greatest challenges. It will be one of the most transformative and beneficial technologies we will ever invent.”
Hassabis pointed to the example of AlphaFold, DeepMind’s machine-learning system that had predicted the structures of 200mn proteins, creating an invaluable resource for medical researchers.
Previously, it had taken one PhD student up to five years to model just one protein structure.
DeepMind calculated that AlphaFold had therefore saved the equivalent of almost 1bn years of research time.
DeepMind, and others, are also using AI to create new materials, discover new drugs, solve mathematical conjectures, forecast the weather more accurately and improve the efficiency of experimental nuclear fusion reactors.
Researchers have been using AI to expand emerging scientific fields, such as bioacoustics, that could one day enable us to understand and communicate with other species, such as whales, elephants and bats.
But AI does not just open up new avenues of discovery; it also enables us to use existing technology more effectively.
One of the most inspiring interviews I had last year was with Lloyd Minor, the dean of Stanford’s medical school and an enthusiast for the adoption of AI in almost every field of healthcare.
His contention was that whereas the internet had enabled us to disseminate information, AI was now helping us assimilate knowledge.
This faith in the future has acquired strong ideological overtones in Silicon Valley.
The effective accelerationist — or e/acc — movement has been making the case for racing ahead with technological development at full speed.
One of the most effusive evangelists of the creed is Marc Andreessen, co-founder of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, who posted his Techno-Optimist Manifesto last year.
Such “zoomers” berate the “doomers” for needlessly slowing down progress by worrying about the collateral harms of new technology, such as disinformation, discrimination and labour-market disruption.
Zoomers tend to have a near-religious faith that technological progress can most often itself solve the problems that technology creates (just as spam filters have purged junk emails).
But this philosophy is rejected by many politicians.
“We cannot embrace that with AI. It’s too dangerous,” Gina Raimondo, the US commerce secretary, has said, explaining the establishment of an AI Safety Institute.
Whether the zoomers are right will depend on another of Deutsch’s principles: that the good guys tend to innovate faster than the bad guys.
“The enemies of civilisation all necessarily have one thing in common: they are wrong.
They fear error correction and truth and that’s why they resist changes in their ideas, which makes them less creative and slower to innovate,” he said.
The principle of optimism is a comforting theory, albeit a largely unprovable one, to carry into the new year.
Gladiator is one of the great fillums. Are you not entertained?
Fake and gay.
The eating of sheep is a disgraceful and deplorable habit. There can be no redemption.
Trucks vs trains news (the Courier-Mail):
‘Occasional truck driving work’ seems like code for ‘when he feels up for it.’
75 year old man. Living in a caravan park. Cancer patient. An ideal candidate for piloting a road train. Or not.
Told youse. A cantankerous ‘I know boats’ type who refuses to believe his skills have slipped.
Here we go. Long-haul road train work is not, by the way, a ‘short assignment’, especially when he’s living in a poxy SA caravan park while his wife’s back in Quenthland.
Once again. Elderly people with multiple medical conditions should not be driving 60 metre, 130 tonne road trains.
Luckiest bloke in Australia. Unlike one of the people he killed, who left behind a missus of 29 years, five kids and five grandkids.
This is not ‘too much bureaucracy’. This is not ‘but roadworks made him take risks’.
This is a bloke who if he had any sense at all should have realised he was not fit to drive a Hyundai Getz, let alone a road train.
The trucking company gets a smack, but this is squarely on this old man wracked with medical complaints, and who still thought it was a good idea to go around and drive giant road trains without any consideration whatsoever for the people who he may stack into.
Hey!
Dot
Jan 2, 2024 11:04 PM
3. Sausage
Bad: processed meat raises your risk of bowel cancer
4. Lamb chops
Bad: avoid barbecuing, as meat can become carcinogenic
Fake and gay.
Dot,
agreed – 2 sausages & 1 lamb chop for dinner tonight, after returning from Manly Beach Sitting over Xmas/New Year with Woolies 4 bags of chocolate peanuts only to to eat over 4 days – This evenings meal Chased with 2 glasses of Penfolds 2000 Bin 28 Shiraz
PS Dropped 3Kgs but will probably put it back on.
Dot, you, and apparently similarly pejorative others, have got entirely the wrong message from what I have written. It happens far too much here, and I don’t think the fault is in my writing.
It wasn’t just a personal insult that my grandson didn’t reply to my texts asking if he was on his way re his absence from a lunch he had previously insisted he was attending, after failing to turn up at several other invitations, including his half-brother’s early Christmas party, and thus deeply offending that boy’s mother. While it did hurt me deeply, as I have been in many ways more a mother to him than a grandmother, it was also an insult to many others who were expecting him to be there. He could have at least let us know. That was my main complaint, the discourtesy.
He is young and has the ways of youth still. But being told he’d been discourteous didn’t hurt him. In fact, it made him reflect on some things more than he had done in the past. That’s part of growing up.
I get quite sick at heart here sometimes, and have no need to suffer this.
Rabz
Jan 2, 2024 8:08 PM
Hey, Ticklers – this is the true American Dream …
The kids knocked it out of the park.
American Beauty
It shouldn’t be normal, but they are tip-toeing around something.
Of course, the traces of coke from the autopsy grab the headlines, which is a little disappointing. The key thing about that is not direct impairment, but did he have a yuuuge NYE on the nose candy (about 36 hours earlier) and was fatigued on the afternoon of 2nd January?
The failure to test the surviving pilot is a massive cock up, along with the fact that flights from the days immediately before showed the arrival and departure tracks intersecting dangerously, until they finally and tragically synced up on timing.
It starts me wondering if regulators have something to hide. Did they have previous complaints about the operator and didn’t act?
I’ve heard a rumour that summer is going to break out in southeast Australia sometime before the end of February. I’d be obliged if knowledgeable Cats could check out the rumour as I would hate to be distracted by disinformation.
I can confirm the lack of heat here in Tasmania this year. Our hay cut this year was only 40% of what we normally expect. We simply couldn’t get heat into the ground throughout spring and because we are dry land farmers the grass stopped growing early and started to die off so to rescue something we needed to bale over 3 weeks early… lack of rain didn’t help either.
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Jan 2, 2024 11:09 PM
4. Lamb chops
Bad: avoid barbecuing, as meat can become carcinogenic
The eating of sheep is a disgraceful and deplorable habit. There can be no redemption.
On a Station in Western NSW late 50s – string the sheep by front feet – cut its throat – use bowl to catch blood – don’t wate anything – then skin, cut and save entrails and allow to age for a day or so protected from external – then butchered and put in Coolgardie Safe
Meat BBQ’d was excellent
Kevin Pearson?
That doesn’t sound very Indian to me.
Has the sneaky curry muncher changed his name?
Oh. Sorry. I went back to the piece and had another look.
His name is Kevin Pearsingh. He’s got another couple of court beefs coming up for overcharging people for fuel, 200ml at a time.
Bacon now!
Save our sausages!
Lamb chops good!
Now awaiting terry towelling-hatted glider ‘pilots’ to drop by and explain how vectoring (and possibly thermals) could have saved the train drivers.
His father was also one of those disappointed by his son’s no-show at Christmas. His father is a just-diagnosed autistic man who has struggled so hard with life to create with my help and against the odds a loving home for this son. The son’s schizophrenic mother has been useless because for years she on and off wouldn’t take her meds. He hadn’t replied to any of his father’s texts earlier that week.
I’m going to bed now. Dance class tomorrow morning, surrounded by good and kind friends. I’m gathering strength for a busy year, a lot to do in the time left.
And how the helo pilots did everything just fine, right up until they hit each other.
Because roadworks.
And safety-ism.
Like I keep on saying you’ve got to be nice since the family of the gal might be half of his kids’ family. If that’s perjorative Lizzie then you’re far too sensitive.
You can’t crucify a bloke for hating to explain details, running his social diary and double booking himself.
That’s why we need wives. 🙂
I wonder.
Did the trucking company even know he was driving?
Was a regular driver assigned the job, but wanted Christmas off, so drove it 10 kms from the depot and offered Kev most of the net cash earn to take it to Adelaide and back.
The regular driver gets Christmas off and Kev gets a bit of cash in hand which Centrelink doesn’t know about.
Win-win (except for the blokes in the train).
In defence of David Warner:
Warner was forced to replace his original baggy green when it began to disintegrate. He already had a replacement cap after misplacing the first during the Bangladesh tour but that was eventually located by his wife Candice in a bag at home.
So yes, two caps for legitimate reasons.
And yes, I believe the loss/theft is genuine. Precedent informs us that A number of players, including Ricky Ponting, have had their baggy green caps stolen in transit.
Further, Mike Coward, former senior cricket writer with The Australian and author of the soon to be republished book The Baggy Green, said that there have been a number of thefts over the years and few were recovered.
Not the first time, so quite believable.
Additionally, the baggy green is not quite the money earner some would have you believe: Sports memorabilia expert Michael Fahey said that it was difficult to put a price on modern baggy greens as none had come on the market in the past two decades but he estimated it would be worth between $20,000 and $40,000.
(The Oz)
I’d say someone on $1.5 million p.a. plus winning match fees wouldn’t get out of bed for a lousy $20,000 let alone go public with a fake theft story. Now a lowly paid hotel or airline employee….
There is some hardcore coping and seething on CXO and PLS forums on Haute Crapper.
CXO is now 0.27 down from about 1.20 a year ago.
Lithium, we hardly knew ye.
I knew it.
Put the sprinklers on the back lawn this arvo. About ten minutes ago, a feisty little storm cell appeared from nowhere right over the top.
Very active indeed.
Snap and crackle too. Right overhead.
Rescue dog and son and heir’s sausage dog attempting to hide under the golf buggy at the same time.
Jeepers criminy.
Massive hit, just over the back fence. The whole yard went blue for the split second beforehand.
About goddamn time.
There’s a thing called provenance, even with sports memorabilia (ask Ricky Nixon). So the things are worth nothing to a baggage handler unless he just wants to hang it in his man-cave.
Forget his regular earnings.
Him and his skanky missus wouldn’t mind a lazy $20k, plus putting one over CA who “robbed” him of a captaincy job.
Amazing story from Bloomberg.
Please.
It’s not that sort of blog.
Just went inside, wondering why the kitchen light wasn’t working.
Concussion from the big bang mentioned earlier – of which there was quite a bit – appears to have blown the light, along with the fixture, off the ceiling.
The bright blue stuff’s cracking down everywhere.
Question: who is “John Doe 36”?
Answer: it’s The Intern’s Friend, aka “a hard dog to keep on the porch” as described by The Hildebeast.
Former US president Bill Clinton will allegedly be identified as “John Doe 36” in the trove of court documents, which are expected to be released on January 2, given the New Year’s Day public holiday in the US.
Mr Clinton is allegedly mentioned more than 50 times across redacted documents related to a 2015 lawsuit from Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre, according to ABC News in the US.
Prince Andrew will also allegedly be named, according to US reports.
West Australian Supreme Court judge Fiona Seaward
LOL- I’ll phone her up, she’s a ripper for a debriefing after these salty cases.
New OT up.
I have been nice to him, Dot. What makes you think I have not? He knows I am sympathetic to his other relationships with his girlfriend’s people and also to his friends from his band that he, and we, are so proud to see winning competitions.
If anyone’s being crucified, it’s me, here, and I am sick of it.
Too many years of it here, especially over my caring for this child (accused here once of deliberately poisoning him; oh, it’s just a joke, Joyce). Also caring for others in my family, especially when commenting on traffic while doing so during lockdown, was told I was being My Lady Bountiful merely because we live in Vaucluse. I thought I was sharing problems, as many others do, but I was setting myself up for slander. It’s still happening and calling ‘over-sensitivity’ is just another form of attack. And you are one of the nicer people here. There are some really nasty types around.
Over it.
Inaccuracy in MSM reporting, specifically Three Corners, mentioned in your comment two before mine.
It was a joke, referring back to an earlier comment!
There are some really nasty types around.
Over it.
Yep. Agree.
Barking Toad
Jan 2, 2024 8:55 PM
From several weekends ago, I gather the culprit is either known by admin or can be known.
The fact that nothing is being done to stop the practice is disappointing. Because as noted earlier,
In 1993, I was working in Liverpool Hospital. Had just gotten out of the army and moving company delivered with my other furnishings, a box most likely from another discharged service member. Inside it were several items indicating a Man Cave collection. Several Service shields, a grey beret – can’t remember if it had a badge, and multiple other memorabilia.
I contacted the moving company to find out whose they were. I knew they weren’t mine and I was just wondering – a very long shot wonder – if the owner had caught up with what were obviously important mementos.
Why would someone not return a baggy green bag? Money? Bullshit bragging rights at the pub?
People are odd.