Open Thread – Wed 10 Jan 2024


Duomo Milan, Robert Fisano, early 2000s

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Cassie of Sydney
January 12, 2024 6:44 am

“rugbyskier
Jan 12, 2024 6:08 AM”

Correct. The bigger concern we should have with Woolworths Oz is that, along with many companies, one of its biggest shareholders is now……

Blackstone.

Rosie
Rosie
January 12, 2024 6:47 am

In recognising the horrific experiences of Israeli women, we also need to manifestly acknowledge that Palestinian women and girls are victims and survivors of gender-based violence.

But not at the hands of Jewish men. Right?
These bob each way jokers can’t help themselves, but it the truth, under Sharia law getting away with assault is a given.
In some islamic states rape victims are imprisoned or even put to death
for adultery.

Farmer Gez
Farmer Gez
January 12, 2024 6:56 am

The senior management of the big supermarkets is full of Poms.
Little feel for the nation they’re in and badly out of touch with an unsubsidised farm supply system unlike the EU.
Pommy shop stewards were a disaster and Pommy shop mangers are no better.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
January 12, 2024 6:59 am

Green hurts.

Hertz Begins Dumping 20,000 EVs In Shift Back To Petrol Cars (12 Jan)

Hertz Chief Executive Stephen Scherr told investors on a third-quarter earnings call that the company would start reducing its EV fleet because of high repair costs compared to the rest of the fleet, which has hurt its bottom line. “EV’s will be slower than our prior expectations,” he said.

In late October, Scherr told CNBC’s Jim Cramer that EVs are seeing more damage than combustion engine cars, and the cost to repair them is much higher.

According to Bloomberg, Hertz began dumping 20,000 EVs on the used car market last month and will be a seller through 2024. The sales are expected to record a non-cash charge in the fourth quarter of $245 million related to incremental net depreciation expense.

“The company expects to reinvest a portion of the proceeds from the sale of EVs into the purchase of internal combustion engine vehicles to meet customer demand,” Hertz said, adding

Ouch! EV sales numbers are going to be even worse since about 75% have been fleet sales. If Hertz is feeling brave enough to defy the Left like this then other companies will probably do so too.

MatrixTransform
January 12, 2024 7:04 am

Some backroads needed thru Barnadown to avoid the flooding round Rochester

we came back from Riverina on Monday
got diverted by the Polis away from taking the Axedale road which goes south after Elmore
but I figured that would happen and wasn’t prepared to chance it anyway
plus we had a nice heads up from somebody else that went through it on Sunday
they said don’t even think about doing it

went through Rochester without issue

got stopped again 500m from Heathcote
all the little cars, including a Tesla, got turned around
fortunately the Polis were ok with larger 4WD(-ish) vehicles punching through the spills which were concerning and on the edge of being too deep and too fast
nonetheless we made it through and got to stop for a sausage roll and a pee

entrance to the Hume was blocked at Kilmore and had to chance the roads toward Whittlesea …Donnybrook Rd and others
much water over roads but it was only pooling and not spilling

The missus hasn’t stopped talking about Land Cruisers since.

johanna
johanna
January 12, 2024 7:12 am

My local Coles (Queanbeyan) never did the pro Voice thing, even though we are right next to Canberra. Same goes for Dan Murphys.

Seems they did a bit of research at the micro level, even if they got the aggregate wrong.

The local Islanders, Indians and the substantial Eastern European remnants of the Snowy Scheme and their offspring were less than thrilled about Da Voice.

Pretty cynical – apparently they just chose the message according to the demographics.

Rosie
Rosie
January 12, 2024 7:20 am

I thought EVs were cheaper to repair than ICE vehicles?

Rosie
Rosie
January 12, 2024 7:23 am

The small amount of Australia day merchandise at one local Coles is hiding up the back of the store on an end not prominently displayed near the registers with the back to school items so yeah nah Coles.

johanna
johanna
January 12, 2024 7:26 am

TheirABC and the BOM are unrepentant:

shatterzzz
January 12, 2024 7:26 am

The UN, once again, fellating itself .. nothing better to do with their votes .. LOL!
I had no idea the Houthis were a UN member state .. I, actually, thought they were a terrorist group .. you live & learn …….. FFS!
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-11/un-security-council-votes-on-houthi-attacks/103308756

johanna
johanna
January 12, 2024 7:33 am

Blockquote fail.

Here it is.

According to resident alarmist and failed soothsayer Saunders:

Humidity has been at unbearable levels across eastern Australia so far this year, not only fuelling rain and thunderstorms but also making it feel significantly warmer than the temperature suggests.

Most suburbs of Sydney were forecast to reach from 29C to 31C on Thursday, however, humidity levels around 70 to 80 per cent at midday made it feel as warm as 36C, similar to the level of discomfort typically observed in Darwin.

Brisbane was also suffering through a humid Thursday — the city was a relatively cool 27C at midday but felt five degrees warmer.

‘Unbearable’ to someone who pontificates about the weather from an airconditioned office, I dare say.

What a clown show.

Crossie
Crossie
January 12, 2024 7:33 am

DrBeauGan
Jan 12, 2024 5:46 AM
Johannes Leak is a bloody genius — his cartoon today is an absolute corker.

I don’t expect much from ceos of large companies. They are driven by whackos in the HR Departments these days.

What makes you think they are not whackos themselves? They are in charge and have the last word, they earn the big bucks and should wear the responsibility for the backlash of their poor decisions.

Why do I have this feeling that all our corporations are run by clones of the erstwhile Optus CEO?

Boambee John
Boambee John
January 12, 2024 7:38 am

Muddy
Jan 11, 2024 9:52 PM
People of Colour.

In pre-Civil War days in the American south, the polite term for blacks was “Coloured people”. Then it became “Negroes”, then “African-Americans”, then “Blacks”, then “Blaks”, now, more than 150 years later it has become “People of Colour”.

Thus does civilisation advance.

calli
calli
January 12, 2024 7:44 am

Woolworths, Aldi, and, to a certain extent, Coles misread the Australian sentiment leading up to the referendum.

Merchandise lead times means that their orders for Aust Day stuff would have to be in by late September, if not earlier. Regardless of whether their withdrew their “endorsement” of Yes earlier in the piece, the dumbdumbs in merchandising persisted in their mistake.

Australia Day approaches…what to do, what to do? So they raise the tawdry, well-worn reason – division, upset, colonisation, aren’t we nice and woke, no merchandise this year. When the real reason is far simpler.

They employ stupid people.

Boambee John
Boambee John
January 12, 2024 7:45 am

cohenite

Also Coldly Denies Defense When They Request Delay Due to Melania Trump’s Mother’s Death

Is there video of this? If there is, it would make a powerful campaign ad, highlighting the arrogance and cruelty of the DemonRats and their acolytes.

calli
calli
January 12, 2024 7:49 am

And, if Coles has a little bit of stuff on a back shelf in the “do not look” department, all they’ve done is scrape out last year’s excess stock from a back room in the warehouse that they hadn’t forwarded on to the dollar shops at knockdown prices in Feb last year.

It would be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic.

Peter Greagg
Peter Greagg
January 12, 2024 7:50 am

Henry Ergas making the (obvious to us Cats at least) point that the trouble with Islam is with Islam itsself, rather than the “radical fringes of Islam”

HENRY ERGAS
henry ergasAnti-Semitic sermons underline how Islam has changed

Had even the lowliest of parish priests called Muslims “descendants of pigs and monkeys”, keffiyeh-clad crowds would have stormed the premises within moments. And well before the Prime Minister had added his voice to the outcry, the church hierarchy would have issued torrents of heartfelt apologies.

But the fact that Australia’s leading Muslim organisations have steadfastly refused to condemn the vilely anti-Semitic sermons being preached in Sydney mosques should not be viewed as just one more confirmation that when it comes to racism, Jews don’t count. Rather, it points to ­issues that go to the heart of ­contemporary Islam.

At the origin of those issues is the dramatic unravelling of the Islamic world that occurred in the second half of the 19th century. The Ottoman Empire’s progressive disintegration after the Greek War of Independence that began in 1821; the consolidation of European rule in North Africa and ­Islamic East Asia; and the calamitous failure of the Indian Mutiny in 1857, which precipitated the end of the Mughal empire: together, those seemingly apocalyptic changes triggered a pervasive crisis, as Muslims suddenly faced European dominance.

While the response took many forms, the belief that the crisis was primarily a crisis of faith provided a common refrain. As Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1838–1897), who played a crucial role in the subsequent redefinition of Islam, put it, “if someone asks, why are the Muslims in such a condition? I answer: when they were truly Muslims, they were what they were and the world bears witness to their excellence”.

The remedy was therefore seen as lying in a return to an ­unadulterated form of Islam, through a “re-form” that combined “tajdid”, restoration, with “islah”, repair.

There had, of course, been earlier moves in that direction, most notably those associated with the 18th century cleric Muhammad al-Wahhab, who advocated reverting to the path of the “salaf” or “pious predecessors”. But Salafism was almost entirely confined to the Arabian peninsula. In contrast, far-reaching improvements in transport and communications ensured that the process that got under way in the late 19th century swept, and eventually reshaped, Islam worldwide, gaining impetus as it merged with a ferocious reaction against the West.

That the changes began in India is readily explained. While the Mughal empire’s sophisticated Muslim elite retained its Persian-Turkic heritage, the practical realities of ruling a largely Hindu country had forged an anomalous, highly syncretic version of Islam that accepted inter-marriage and celebrated Hindu festivals. Reacting, once the empire had collapsed, against that “corruption” of the true faith, the Deobandi movement, established in 1866, sought to “cleanse” Islam of “impurities” and ensure Muslims avoided the “contamination” that came from mixing with “pagans”.

Although the Deobandi movement was originally pietistic rather than political, the rapid diffusion of its outlook had two momentous consequences. To begin with, the emphasis on ridding Islam of “impurities” set off unprecedented attacks on supposed heretics, especially the Bahais and Ahmadis, who were later subjected to often murderous persecution in Islamic lands.

At the same time, Muslims became increasingly hostile to non-Muslims, to the extent that Rafiauddin Ahmed, in his study of late 19th century Bengal, concludes that by 1905, communal relations had been so severely damaged that long-term co-existence between Muslims and Hindus was impossible.

Those features – internal persecution and external hostility – became only more pronounced as Deobandi’s many successors pursued its program of taking Islam back to its roots. That Islam’s “purification” would go hand in hand with greater intolerance was predictable. As Remi Brague, emeritus professor of Arabic and religious philosophy at the Sorbonne, argues in On Islam (2023), Islam’s defining components – the Koran, the Hadith or “statements of the prophet”, and the “good example” (as it is referred to in Islamic theology) set by the deeds of Muhammad – are, when read strictly, permeated by hatred and calls to violence that go far beyond anything that can be found in Islam’s Abrahamic predecessors.

And they are, Brague shows, particularly marked by venomous attacks on Jews, who, because they are inherently “treach­erous”, “ungrateful” and “stubborn”, can – in a well-known Arabic phrase an Israeli minister recently hurled back at Hamas – be legitimately regarded “as animals” or (if the purpose is to extract their alleged wealth) even tortured to death.

It is undoubtedly true that there are incendiary statements in the Jewish and Christian bibles too. But because the Koran is viewed not as the work of men but as the perfectly transcribed word of God, Islam has, since the comprehensive defeat of the Mutazilite school of Islamic theology at the end of the 9th century AD, imposed far stricter limits on scriptural interpretation than ­Judaism and Christianity.

The great Muslim scholar Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406) put it well when he wrote that in Islam, interpretation’s principle purpose is simply “to refute innovators who deviate from Muslim orthodoxy”.

The veil provides an obvious example of the harm that has done to doctrinal modernisation. That women must be veiled is mentioned twice in the Koran (XXIV, 31 et XXXIII, 59); it is, however, also specified in 1 Corinthians 11, 3-16.

But in line with the allegorical approaches to scripture pioneered by Clement (ca. 156-215) and Origen (ca. 185-254), Saint Paul’s statement was soon reinterpreted as merely mandating modesty.

In Islam, on the other hand, the extensive theological commentary on the Quranic injunction almost always took the veil for granted, limiting itself to trivial questions such as its allowed length or colour – with the result that just a few days ago, Roya Heshmati was whipped 74 times while chained to an iron frame for defying Iran’s veiling laws.

Ebrahim Moosa, professor of Islamic Studies at Indiana’s University of Notre Dame, is surely right that many “religiously literate contemporary Muslims” have their “sensibility shaken” when they witness such barbaric acts or hear horrifying sermons; but he is also right that what they are seeing is “genuine” Islam at work.

And far from being surprised at the appalling silence of Australia’s leading Islamic organisations, the late Muhammad Shahrur, a prominent Syrian public intellectual, would have seen it as yet another confirmation that “the ulama’s (clerical establishment) interpretations (of Islam) are not in fact too different from those of the Islamists”. Islam’s problem, he insis­ted, was not solely or mainly unchecked ext­re­mism at its fringe; it was the en­trenched extremism of its main­stream, which instead of under­mining the fringe, gave it legitimacy.

Exactly a century ago, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk abolished the califate and closed the madrasahs, or religious schools, later moving to outlaw the tariqas (Sufi orders) and dervish lodges, which had violently resisted the changes he had announced.

Determined to bring “the people of the Turkish Republic into a state of society entirely modern in spirit and form”, Ataturk was convinced Islam, left to its own devices, would ultimately stand in “the way of civilisation”. Whatever one may think of his methods, history has not proven him wrong.

calli
calli
January 12, 2024 7:52 am

It’s also a window into what the big retail bugman’s vision for Australia would be had Yes got up.

Ordinary, voting Australians got it right, and good on them.

Boambee John
Boambee John
January 12, 2024 7:58 am

At St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney on Wednesday, Archbishop Fisher said: “Following a media, political and police witch hunt, cardinal Pell was tried and im­prisoned for crimes he did not commit. Even after he was unanimously exonerated by the High Court he continued to be demonised by some.”

Take a bow, mUnty the fat, fascist, bigoted, fool

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
January 12, 2024 7:58 am

Pommy shop stewards were a disaster and Pommy shop mangers are no better

Pom contribution to this wide brown land, encapsulated:

Mind mah tea!

Cassie of Sydney
January 12, 2024 7:59 am

It’s also a window into what the big retail bugman’s vision for Australia would be had Yes got up.

Ordinary, voting Australians got it right, and good on them.

Yep, I was thinking that last night.

132andBush
132andBush
January 12, 2024 8:07 am

Latest Ag weather update

In the first five minutes he touches briefly on how far out the BOM was with it’s predictions.
Which led to this dross from the ABC.

Such value from our publicly funded organs.

Barking Toad
Barking Toad
January 12, 2024 8:09 am

Thanks for posting Peter Greagg @ 07:50am.

Excellent article by Henry Ergas in the Oz.

Bungonia Bee
Bungonia Bee
January 12, 2024 8:09 am

Sky highlighted Pocock’s view on the International Wanker Court case. Who cares what Pocock thinks about anything beyond football?

johanna
johanna
January 12, 2024 8:10 am

Yep, calli. Big Retail and other Big parts of the economy have apparently given their marketing/PR departments to either cokehead ponytails and/or Greens.

Indeed, the whole marketing/PR industry seems to have been taken over.

Look at the ads on TV. They are American ads with dubbing – but even in the US, blacks are about 13.5% of the population. A visitor from Mars would think that they are more than 50% judging from the ads. In Australia, visibly black people are a tiny percentage.

It’s going to end in tears, I hope.

Boambee John
Boambee John
January 12, 2024 8:11 am

johanna

‘Unbearable’ to someone who pontificates about the weather from an airconditioned office, I dare say.

Also lives in an air-conditioned house, and travels in an air-conditioned car, which is parked in an underground garage during the day.

Winston Smith
January 12, 2024 8:16 am

Cohenite/Johanna:
cohenite

Jan 11, 2024 9:09 PM
Boys, while I know that while you are definitely not gay, the subject of bottoms and poo apparently fascinates you. You just can’t help talking and ‘joking’ about it.

Fuking oath. Arses are the stuff of life.

Look at any modelling magazine and what are the sheilas displaying? Their bums, followed by tits.

alwaysright
alwaysright
January 12, 2024 8:16 am

Branco’s cartoon was the pick of the bunch for me.

alwaysright
alwaysright
January 12, 2024 8:24 am

So 30C is unbearable.

What then is the hottest day evah?

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
January 12, 2024 8:24 am

Ladies of the Cat:

I present David Sharaz as the perfect boyfriend. He is all-caring, responsive, at your beck and call 24/7, will put the bins out and kill spiders, and most of all he cares about you and your welfare, making you the best version of you possible.

With David it’s not about your money, whether it be your rich Mum and Dad or money coming your way via other means. It’s not about what you wear, not about what you may have done in the past, and not about your rapidly-expanding derriere. It’s about you. The person inside.

Oh. Wait (the Hun):

Brittany Higgins’ partner David Sharaz discussed going after the “Liberal Party machine” in his initial pitch to journalist Lisa Wilkinson.

More than 100 documents containing emails and text exchanges between the Network Ten star, executives, and producers were released by the court on Thursday evening, pulling back the curtain on how the 2021 report about Ms Higgins was put together.

And:

The initial email with the subject line ‘MeToo, Liberal Party, Project Pitch’, was sent by Mr Sharaz to Ms Wilkinson on the morning of January 18.

And:

“I’ve got a sensitive story surrounding a sexual assault at Parliament House,” Mr Sharaz wrote. “She’s asked me to be the one to get the story told this year.

“The girl has been through a lot, and I’m deeply protective of making sure this is done right, given going after the Liberal Party machine is no easy feat.”

See? He’s protective.

He said his experience, as a former Sky News employee, gave him “insight” Ms Higgins would “only get one pull of the trigger before they try and discredit and shut the story down”.

Pull of the trigger. A hopeless romantic, surely. Sharaz must be the Hugh Grant of Canberra.

Cassie of Sydney
January 12, 2024 8:25 am

Under Ergas’ excellent piece in today’s Oz, I have posted the following comment. It is still pending, and probably won’t be published as I’m on an Oz blacklist.

Henry has nailed it. Bravo.

I should remind people that here in Sydney, on Sunday night 8 October 2023, a group of young Muslims took to the streets of Western Sydney, and the cleric in attendance spoke about he ‘elated’ he was at the news coming in from Israel. The butchered corpses strewn across Southern Israel were still warm, and we were all seeing the pictures of the bloodied and raped Israeli women being forcibly taken into Gaza.

Now, some here might say that the cleric in question that night was of the ‘fringe’. That might well be true however I am still waiting for mainstream Muslim organisations to both distance themselves and to denounce what that ‘fringe’ cleric said that night, along with distancing themselves and denouncing what happened less than twenty-four later, again here in Sydney, on the steps of the Sydney Opera House.

Instead there has been silence from mainstream Muslim organisations. Telling, very telling.

Peter Greagg
Peter Greagg
January 12, 2024 8:30 am

Cassie of Sydney
Jan 12, 2024 8:25 AM
Under Ergas’ excellent piece in today’s Oz, I have posted the following comment. It is still pending, and probably won’t be published as I’m on an Oz blacklist.

Henry has nailed it. Bravo.

I should remind people that here in Sydney, on Sunday night 8 October 2023, a group of young Muslims took to the streets of Western Sydney, and the cleric in attendance spoke about he ‘elated’ he was at the news coming in from Israel. The butchered corpses strewn across Southern Israel were still warm, and we were all seeing the pictures of the bloodied and raped Israeli women being forcibly taken into Gaza.

Now, some here might say that the cleric in question that night was of the ‘fringe’. That might well be true however I am still waiting for mainstream Muslim organisations to both distance themselves and to denounce what that ‘fringe’ cleric said that night, along with distancing themselves and denouncing what happened less than twenty-four later, again here in Sydney, on the steps of the Sydney Opera House.

Instead there has been silence from mainstream Muslim organisations. Telling, very telling.

times 1000 from me.

Vagabond
Vagabond
January 12, 2024 8:30 am

DrBeauGan
Jan 12, 2024 5:46 AM
Johannes Leak is a bloody genius — his cartoon today is an absolute corker.

Absolutely. He’s a treasure.

I’m hoping he will have a bit of fun with a Hamarse float when the Mardi Gras comes around. Masked characters in spangled palli coloured budgie smugglers throwing gold mankini clad dummies off model buildings should do nicely.

Tom
Tom
January 12, 2024 8:32 am

Who cares what Pocock thinks about anything beyond football?

Australians should know that senate voting is a planned gerrymander in which tiny numbers of voters in tiny states and territories can elect political fruitloops who represent microscopic minorities in political fringe lala land — like David Pocock.

Crossie
Crossie
January 12, 2024 8:34 am

Boambee John
Jan 12, 2024 7:45 AM
cohenite

Also Coldly Denies Defense When They Request Delay Due to Melania Trump’s Mother’s Death

Is there video of this? If there is, it would make a powerful campaign ad, highlighting the arrogance and cruelty of the DemonRats and their acolytes.

Democrats are now denying even humanity to their political opponents. They have retreated to their pre-American civil war attitudes they held about the black slaves, only those like themselves are people, all other are subhuman. No wonder they have such an affinity with Islam.

Crossie
Crossie
January 12, 2024 8:37 am

BOM is the way it is because they have lost the skills their staff once had. This started about 25 years ago when the only research topics gaining funding were about climate change. Once it became profitable to follow that line of inquiry all others were dropped and the skills were lost. It’s not that the current BOM will not make correct forecasts, they don’t know how.

flyingduk
flyingduk
January 12, 2024 8:40 am

Ergas in the Oz: Anti-Semitic sermons underline how Islam has changed
……

No, it underlines how it hasn’t…

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
January 12, 2024 8:41 am

You are right Johanna. No matter what branch of the arts the best are usually tortured figures. They see things that the general populace don’t. Whether the beauty or the grotesque they expose a part of us we fail to see. Sometimes a hyperaccurate or distorted view but when we see it we recognise it, accepting this is us or rejecting for fear others may see us in this manner. I’m not talking about the present load of rubbish being served up as art or music. There are exceptions of course.

johanna
johanna
January 12, 2024 8:44 am

Exactly a century ago, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk abolished the califate and closed the madrasahs, or religious schools, later moving to outlaw the tariqas (Sufi orders) and dervish lodges, which had violently resisted the changes he had announced.

Determined to bring “the people of the Turkish Republic into a state of society entirely modern i
n spirit and form”, Ataturk was convinced Islam, left to its own devices, would ultimately stand in “the way of civilisation”. Whatever one may think of his methods, history has not proven him wrong.

I read a weighty bio of Ataturk years ago – as in many hundreds of pages. It was worthy of the length, because he was a remarkable man with a very interesting life.

Ataturk (whose statues and memorials have been removed by Erdogan) tried to achieve the almost impossible tasks of (a) unifying Turkey and (b) breaking the power of the tribal leaders and imams who ran the place.

One of his main approaches was to replace religious law with secular law, which was of course bitterly opposed by the previous incumbents. It was a political struggle of massive proportions, and it went on for many years

He was an extraordinary man, who left his country on the brink of joining Western prosperity.

Now we have Erdogan, who seems to be determined to drag the country back to Muslim tribalism and poverty. (Inflation rate through the roof).

It is surely the will of Allah.

Crossie
Crossie
January 12, 2024 8:47 am

Pull of the trigger. A hopeless romantic, surely. Sharaz must be the Hugh Grant of Canberra.

Ooh, very good. Brought to mind Hugh Grant’s prime minister in Love Actually where he is snogging the chunky Natalie at his sister’s children’s “nativity” play.

calli
calli
January 12, 2024 8:48 am

flyingduk
Jan 12, 2024 8:40 AM
Ergas in the Oz: Anti-Semitic sermons underline how Islam has changed
……

No, it underlines how it hasn’t…

Our supine governments, at all levels, have simply allowed them to flip the taqiyya switch to boldness.

No need for subterfuge any longer. They may say overtly what is said behind closed doors with impunity. And use our now clearly aligned law enforcers to do their bidding.

Example – man who threatens Parramatta mosque after the post Oct 7 intimidations gets pinged. The mosque that preached hate, geed up a teenager and gave him a gun, which he then used to murder Curtis Cheng.

Roger
Roger
January 12, 2024 8:53 am

ABC News headline:

‘Simmering waters leading to oppressive humidity over eastern Australia’

Simmering!

Let’s hope they’re kept below boiling point or we’re all gonna die.

Black Ball
Black Ball
January 12, 2024 8:54 am

FMD. Samantha Maiden:

Punching down has long been a nasty feature of politics but punching up to relieve cost of living anger by blaming the big supermarkets is so 2024.

Confronted by concerns he hasn’t done enough to tackle cost of living concerns, Anthony Albanese has started punching up in a big way.

Big supermarkets are in his sights and he’s deputised former Labor frontbencher Craig Emerson to take a long hard look at what is apparently wads of cash in Woolies’ and Coles’ trolleys.

Although can anyone really afford to exclusively shop there now we are grappling with interest rates and petrol prices and everything in between?

Surely, it’s increasingly Aldi or bust?

As an aside, if the government really wanted to improve my quality of life they would do something about that $1 you’re expected to carry around for the sole purpose of obtaining an actual supermarket trolley to put your groceries in.

Which routinely drives me absolutely mental. But that’s another story.

It’s a nice sentiment blaming it all on the greedy supermarkets.

But it won’t mean much unless prices actually come down. And given that Craig Emerson won’t even report until July, nothing is going to happen anytime soon.

The only real hope is the vibe. Perhaps it will prompt big retailers to keep prices lower less they incur the wrath of a raging Prime Minister looking for someone to blame.

This week, the latest inflation figures suggested an easing of prices growth led by big price falls in supermarket lamb chops.

But it’s about the vibe you see. Facts are complicated.

Coles adeptly responded to the vibe by announcing price cuts for the next three months on 300 items including meat, seafood, dishwashing tablets and tea bags. Which will quite possibly be more useful than Labor’s “inquiry”.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister simply slammed “out of sync” supermarkets and warned the government “will act” if costs increase at the checkout.

“We want to make sure that every single reduction in cost to the big supermarkets gets passed on to the customers. They have a responsibility to do so and we will act,” Mr Albanese said.

“We know that at a time when people are doing it tough, the big supermarket chains have been making record profits and we know that there’s something out of sync there.

“We say to all of the supermarkets and to big business, they have a responsibility to look after customers and my government is prepared to take whatever action is necessary.”

Remember Kevin Rudd’s FuelWatch? The scheme that internal advice warned could increase petrol prices in the bush, confuse consumers and dampen competition among retailers? Let’s hope it is not like that.

Meanwhile Peter Dutton got into the supermarket game by uniting politics and the cost of living with a values debate, the holy scripture of Liberal Party politics.

He called for Australians to boycott Woolworths for refusing to stock Australia Day merchandise, declaring it was “against the national interest”.

The Woolworths Group and Kmart no longer stock Australia Day merchandise due to a “gradual decline in demand”.

“It’s up to customers whether they want to go in and buy the product or not. If they don’t want to celebrate Australia Day, that’s a decision for them,” Mr Dutton told 2GB.

“For Woolworths to start taking political positions to oppose Australia Day is against the national interest, the national spirit.

“I think people should boycott Woolworths. I would advise very strongly to take your business elsewhere.”

In other words, Peter Dutton is in a froth to demand retailers stock more crap that nobody wants to buy.

It’s as dumb-as-hell and it can’t possibly send prices down.

If that’s the Liberals’ big idea for cost of living, God help us all.

Ms Maiden seems confused. The stocking of Australia Day merchandise won’t send prices down. Just to have it there to show you aren’t dabbling in the annual hate fest the Left employs on this day is what it’s about Sam.
But Woolworths caved in to the mob and rightly deserve a good lashing.

Winston Smith
January 12, 2024 8:57 am

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare

Jan 11, 2024 11:08 PM
I’m not offended by my comment being downvoted, I would like to know why though

Happens to me all the time, Dot. There are often 3 or 4 which can rise up to 6, just because it’s me I think, not because of what I say.

Curious behaviour.

It happens because there are no guidelines as to what the approve disapprove ticks are for. Are they Because you approve of the poster? Is it because you approve of the post itself? How about you like one part but don’t like the conclusion? How about you approve of the post but intensely dislike misspellings of crudities like “The poster is a Kunt.”
There’s nothing wrong with a bit of weeding, DB. If you don’t have time, allow a Hall Monitor to do the job.

Indolent
Indolent
January 12, 2024 8:57 am

This is from the WSJ and paywalled.

Cancer Is Striking More Young People, and Doctors Are Alarmed and Baffled

Yes, they’re baffled.

Roger
Roger
January 12, 2024 8:58 am

Most people are kind and decent except when they are frightened. The rest are religious.

“Religious people” aren’t kind and decent?

Winston Smith
January 12, 2024 9:00 am

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare

Jan 11, 2024 11:20 PM
I was 14. I got by and still do.

Same as me.

Left school, left home, got a job, grew up.

Ditto. Quite a shock. Society was something that we got exposed to only on the periphery.

Cassie of Sydney
January 12, 2024 9:02 am

The Oz activist moderators have rejected my entirely reasonable, polite and accurate comment.

Indolent
Indolent
January 12, 2024 9:03 am

I’m sure it found its way into all the right back pockets.

U.S. Military Aid to Ukraine Was Poorly Tracked, Pentagon Report Concludes

Zatara
Zatara
January 12, 2024 9:05 am

At Least 132 Catholic Clergy and Nuns Arrested, Kidnapped, Murdered in 2023

The number is likely way higher. Catholic persecution is still rising around the world, especially in Africa.

The number went up from 124 in 2022. Arrests increased, but kidnappings and murders went down…but not by much.

86 clergy arrested (55 in 2022)
33 kidnapped (54 in 2022)
14 murders (18 in 2022)
42 of the arrested are still in custody

Terrorists slaughtered almost 200 Catholics across Nigeria and destroyed villages, leaving tens of thousands homeless from December 23-26.

These are not coincidences.

Crossie
Crossie
January 12, 2024 9:14 am

Ms Maiden seems confused. The stocking of Australia Day merchandise won’t send prices down. Just to have it there to show you aren’t dabbling in the annual hate fest the Left employs on this day is what it’s about Sam.

BB, you could have stopped at “Ms Maiden seems confused”. She certainly is not the sharpest tool in the box, she is just a tool.

Salvatore, Iron Publican
January 12, 2024 9:20 am

Steve trickler Jan 12, 2024 1:53 AM
… GOV requires the beef stake on your plate to be injected with all sorts of shit.

It would be helpful if you could list that which the Gov requires beef to be injected with.

alwaysright
alwaysright
January 12, 2024 9:21 am

I received the following from my Viktoristan MP.
Does anyone want to help tearing this to pieces?

All-electric homes cost less to run and cooking using induction cooktops is also safer and cleaner. Residents of a new, all-electric detached home (without solar) will spend around $2,600 a year on energy bills, compared with around $3,600 per year for a dual-fuel home. That means going all-electric puts around $1,000 per year back in the pockets of new-home owners. Savings can increase to over $2,200 a year with solar installed.

Modern, energy efficient electric appliances require far less energy to run then gas alternatives – a multi-split air conditioning system is at least five times more efficient than gas ducted heating.

That means not only lower emissions now but lower power bills too.

Built today, a new, all-electric home has 16% lower emissions than a new dual fuel home and over a 10-year period a new, all-electric home has 29% lower emissions than a new dual fuel home.

Salvatore, Iron Publican
January 12, 2024 9:22 am

Gabor Jan 12, 2024 3:38 AM
His views on human nature are encapsulated in a poignant observation: “If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man.”

Mark Twain is spot on.
Anyone who employs people may vouch for the accuracy of his statement.
As will any industrial inspector, WH&S officer, & the like.

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
January 12, 2024 9:23 am

Ponds institute, licking the dung encrusted toes of the government by supporting a new tax..

Finally, new research from the Australia Institute shows that an EU-style tax on plastic in Australia could raise up to $1.5bn each year. Their research found that the government could raise $1,300 per tonne of “virgin” or un-recycled plastic through a levy on businesses that import or manufacture plastic packaging. Voters polled by the institute showed strong support for the measure, with 85% saying they support legislated waste reduction targets.

Bluey
Bluey
January 12, 2024 9:26 am

alwaysright
Jan 12, 2024 9:21 AM
I received the following from my Viktoristan MP.
Does anyone want to help tearing this to pieces?

All-electric homes cost less to run and cooking using induction cooktops is also safer and cleaner. Residents of a new, all-electric detached home (without solar) will spend around $2,600 a year on energy bills, compared with around $3,600 per year for a dual-fuel home. That means going all-electric puts around $1,000 per year back in the pockets of new-home owners. Savings can increase to over $2,200 a year with solar installed.

Modern, energy efficient electric appliances require far less energy to run then gas alternatives – a multi-split air conditioning system is at least five times more efficient than gas ducted heating.

That means not only lower emissions now but lower power bills too.

Built today, a new, all-electric home has 16% lower emissions than a new dual fuel home and over a 10-year period a new, all-electric home has 29% lower emissions than a new dual fuel home.

Is this before or after the tax they’ll be leveling for having gas connected?

Crossie
Crossie
January 12, 2024 9:28 am

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine vetoed a bill that sought to prohibit gender-affirming care for minors and to restrict transgender athletes’ participation in girls and women’s sports.

The Ohio House on Wednesday overrode DeWine’s veto.

He’s either not very good at numbers or he just wanted his moment in the media sun for being a progressive. On the other hand he may be term limited and just doesn’t give a damn about his voters or his state. Luckily the voters had the sense to vote in a veto-proof House.

Katzenjammer
Katzenjammer
January 12, 2024 9:31 am

Ergas in the Oz: Anti-Semitic sermons underline how Islam has changed
……
No, it underlines how it hasn’t…

highlight how Islam has blossomed in Australia

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
January 12, 2024 9:31 am

My favorite couple of Twain tales (from a biography).

His intended wifes family wasnt keen on him, having heard he was dissolute and of low character.
So Twain had his pastor come to reassure them he was ok.
Instead the Pastor pretty well confirmed everything theyd heard and advised not to let them marry.
He did marry her in the end though.

One of his old letters might show why.
From memory.
“Can you send me 40 of those rubber frangers, the unscented ones, Ill put the stink on them myself”…

calli
calli
January 12, 2024 9:33 am

All-electric homes cost less to run and cooking using induction cooktops is also safer and cleaner.

Stop right there. Matrix might have a better idea than me, but my old induction cooktop chewed through power like nothing on earth. It also turned to expensive junk after five years.

But try getting comparisons by Google. You are “curated” through to green sites. No need to question why.

Also “safer” and “cleaner”. Huh? No cooktop is self cleaning and safer than what?

Roger
Roger
January 12, 2024 9:33 am

Modern, energy efficient electric appliances require far less energy to run then gas alternatives…

Given our abundant gas reserves, it would be germane to ask, ‘What is the role of government in rising gas prices over recent decades?’

Colonel Crispin Berka
Colonel Crispin Berka
January 12, 2024 9:34 am

I don’t expect much from ceos of large companies. They are driven by whackos in the HR Departments these days.

Also share price. The DEI considerations seem to have overwhelmed the share price considerations lately.

Katzenjammer
Katzenjammer
January 12, 2024 9:37 am

Biden has his fat, grubby hands in all four sham indictments against his top political enemy…

Biden’s hands are spliced on Obama’s arms.

Roger
Roger
January 12, 2024 9:39 am

Ergas in the Oz: Anti-Semitic sermons underline how Islam has changed…

Oh, Henry!

JC
JC
January 12, 2024 9:39 am

Mark Twain is spot on.

Bullshit.

H B Bear
H B Bear
January 12, 2024 9:41 am

thefrollickingmole at 9:23

Ponds institute, licking the dung encrusted toes of the government by supporting a new tax..

The Ponds Institute has never met a tax it doesn’t like.

Black Ball
Black Ball
January 12, 2024 9:45 am

The salty tears cascading down the crimson cheeks, the muffled sniffs. Might give one pause to think about their plight. I for one give zero flying fornications.

Roger
Roger
January 12, 2024 9:47 am

You are “curated” through to green sites. No need to question why.

Curated…now there’s a once harmless word that’s taken on ominous overtones lately.

bons
bons
January 12, 2024 9:51 am

I admit to being amazed by Dutton’s call for a boycott of Woolworths. He is acting like a leader and is circumventing the parliamentary and media filters by talking directly to the people – as a ‘conservative’ leader does by tradition.

Could it be that we have found the longed for light bringer?

Unfortunately no, he has no mechanism for purging the Party of the Moderate crony traitors, or Turnbullite behind the scenes plotters, or anybody from SA, or people like Canavan who simply refuse to commit to the fight.

A good man but a dead man walking. Advance Australia is the only unencumbered conservative organisation capable of, and willing to fight. Donate! Unlike the IPA they don’t spend their money on cocktail parties, nor focus on the elite.

I burst out laughing at an ABC comment that Dutton’s call was a “disaster for the Coalition” because – reasons. They had simply dusted off their trope that the Voice victory was a disaster for Dutton. In their fevered minds it is not possible that Dutton actually reflects the will of the people.

Black Ball
Black Ball
January 12, 2024 9:53 am

Get a load of this:

The rules set by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will take effect in 2024. When posing the question to Dreyfuss, Firing Line host Margaret Hoover said, “Starting in 2024, films will be required to meet new inclusion standards to be eligible for the Academy Awards for Best Picture. They’ll have to have a certain percentage of actors or crew from under-represented racial or ethnic groups.”

From an interview with Richard Dreyfuss. This is from Ace Of Spades. Where the question is asked and I paraphrase, what if you were doing a film on Auschwitz? On Caesar’s conquests? The great European explorers? Do you need say 20% of the cast as black or Asian or Latino?
Rather spew worthy and which means Hollywood is circling the drain with increasing velocity.

Roger
Roger
January 12, 2024 9:54 am

The Oz activist moderators have rejected my entirely reasonable, polite and accurate comment.

They now regard themselves as “curators” of public opinion.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
January 12, 2024 9:55 am

In some islamic states rape victims are imprisoned or even put to death
for adultery.

The sexual violence that was done to Jewish women on October 7th indicates just how readily ‘ordinary Palestinian men’ can turn to brutalising women; they get plenty of practice and even religious encouragement of that at home.

To do such horrific things to women as we saw in their proudly taken video selfies indicates a mindset capable of hideous imaginings about women that they then put into practice. There seems to be little or no real respect for women in these cultures.

flyingduk
flyingduk
January 12, 2024 10:00 am

Free dental will cost government $11.6 billion each year, report finds

sounds like it isnt free then?

Winston Smith
January 12, 2024 10:00 am

Tinta:

Australia’s leading Catholic cleric has declared that the late cardinal George Pell’s wrongful conviction and imprisonment was a result of “the corrupt Victorian legal system” following a media, political and police witch hunt.

The Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher, marked the first anniversary of Pell’s death in Rome of a heart attack after hip surgery with the strongest church statements yet about the cardinal’s charges, conviction and imprisonment on sexual abuse charges and his later “unanimous High Court exoneration”.

What it comes down to Tinta, is that some people thrive on Hate in the same way that a plant thrives on sunshine.
Their lives would have no meaning if they couldn’t hate, hate hate.

“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained”

? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

H B Bear
H B Bear
January 12, 2024 10:02 am

A good man but a dead man walking

I’m not so sure. I doubt Chrissy Pyne would be getting the rails run he enjoyed during the Waffleworth years were he around today. I suspect the wets are going to have a more difficult time of it in the broad church, although there is still no sign of it on renewable energy.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
January 12, 2024 10:04 am

Stephen J. Morris
Pilger’s ‘truth’ was as a propagandist for terrorists, dictators

5:00AM January 12, 2024
67 Comments

John Pilger, who died in London on December 30, loved to be described as a “courageous journalist,” and as someone “who spoke truth to power”. It was an image that was carefully cultivated by him, and by legions of people who believed what he wrote, while he vilified the governments of the US, the UK (where he resided for most of his life)and Australia, the country where he was born.

Yet in contrast with this mythical image, Pilger was in fact a man who spent most of his life telling lies for dictators in power. Even after his death few journalists were willing to admit this.

John Simpson, the BBC’s world affairs editor, said that although he disagreed with Pilger over the years, “I admired the force of his writing, even when I often didn’t support what he wrote, and he was always warm when we met”.
Australian journalist John Pilger dies aged 84

The Guardian assigned a film and television critic to write Pilger’s obituary. Instead of dealing with the extensive list of charges brought forward by reasonable critics of Pilger, Anthony Hayward ignored their details. Hayward’s only comment on the many charges was a non-sequitur: “The ferocity of right-wing criticism of his views indicated the effectiveness of his journalism.”

The Sydney Morning Herald’s Amy Ripley introduced her obituary with: “The crusading Australian journalist John Pilger, who died on December 30 aged 84, made it his lifetime’s work to speak truth to power and stand up for the vulnerable, marginalised and dispossessed, often in hidden, unfashionable corners of the world such as East Timor, Vietnam and Palestine.” Ripley’s words could have been ghostwritten by Pilger himself, were he not deceased. Later, in mentioning dissent during the David Dimbleby award ceremony for Pilger in 1991, Ripley never mentioned the substance of the criticism of his work.

Former ABC journalist Quentin Dempster wrote on X: “Pilger exposed atrocity, war crimes, abuse of power, dispossession, hypocrisy and dirty tricks around the world in a life of fearless truth telling. May he rest in peace.”

Broadcaster and ABC Late Night Live host Phillip Adams wrote: “Vale John Pilger. Friend of mine, of Julian Assange and of the truth. A sad end to a bad year.” Pilger? Friend of the truth?

Pilger was throughout his life, a devoted servant of the Vietnamese Communist Party. The main victims of this commitment were the people of Cambodia. During the terrible years of Khmer Rouge rule in Cambodia, Pilger was not bothered to denounce the radical hyper-Maoist regime led by Pol Pot, because the Vietnamese communists did not do so.

It was only after the falling out between the two neighbouring regimes in December 1977, resulting in Vietnam invading Cambodia at the end of 1978, that Pilger became suddenly concerned about the mass killings and general tyranny of the regime led by Pol Pot. This resulted in Pilger producing a television documentary, Cambodia Year Zero, in 1979. The documentary was very successful, though most viewers could not discern its reflection of the Hanoi regime’s perspective.

Pilger’s task during the war from 1979 to 1989 was to spin the war as one between a liberating Vietnamese army and its Cambodian proxies on one side, and a rump Khmer Rouge backed by China and the West on the other.

In fact, the Chinese and the Western nations led by the US were only interested in creating a political solution that did not include Vietnamese control of Cambodia. The Western democracies wanted to see only a non-communist government in power, and dutifully began arming and training the non-communist resistance.

In order to subvert the plans of the West, Pilger was willing to lie in support of Hanoi. On different occasions he accused the US and the British SAS of arming and training the Khmer Rouge, when in fact they were arming and training non-communist forces. As a result, Pilger and Central Television were sued for libel – a case they lost and for which they were forced to pay considerable damages to the SAS agents whom Pilger defamed. Yet Pilger’s lies won him journalistic awards. For the next 30 years Pilger was an active supporter of the Hanoi-installed dictator, and unrepentant former Khmer Rouge, Hun Sen.

This was the pattern of Pilger’s journalismall over the world. Wherever there was a serious conflict between the Western democracies and foreign dictators, Pilger was spinning his narrative in support of the foreign dictators, and lying about the facts.

During the George W. Bush administration, Pilger stated in a column that he was saddened by the collapse of the Soviet Union. He saw Russian tyrant and mass murder Vladimir Putin as the honourable successor to the Soviet leaders. In a 2014 article for The Guardian, Pilger wrote that Putin was “the only leader to condemn the rise of fascism in 21st-century Europe”.

In 2018, when former Russian KGB operative Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were poisoned in Salisbury, England, by Russian military intelligence agents, Pilger claimed the allegations were bogus. He told the Putin-controlled Russia Today channel: “This is a carefully constructed drama as part of the propaganda campaign that has been building now for several years in order to justify the actions of NATO, Britain and the United States towards Russia. That’s a fact.”

In February 2022, Russia, unprovoked,launched an all-out invasion of Ukraine. Pilger rushed to support the aggressor and denigrate the victim. Yet this time there was some pushback from some of his followers. Pilger pulled back a little, given the intensity of criticism from people he thought were in his pocket. But he continued to spread Russian lies about Ukraine being controlled by neo-Nazis.

Over the years Pilger has also been an apologist for Islamist terrorism – first by al-Qa’ida in the US and London – and later a supporter of Iranian-sponsored terrorists in the Middle East. On October 8, 24 hours after Hamas invaded Israel and began a horrific massacre, Pilger tweeted: “The Palestinians are again fighting for their lives, refusing to live in the prison known as Gaza, controlled and policed by Israel with Palestinians killed and maimed, unreported, day after day. Now their resistance, to which they have a right, is called ‘unprovoked’.”

So Hamas according to Pilger had a right to massacre 1200 unarmed Jewish civilians – men, women and children. Hamas had a right to gang-rape Jewish women and teenage girls, before shooting them in the back of the head.

John Pilger was not a journalist in any meaningful sense of the word. Like his mentor, Wilfred Burchett, Pilger was a political hack and propagandist for some of the world’s most odious regimes. He brought the profession that he pretended to be a part of into disrepute.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
January 12, 2024 10:06 am

A good man but a dead man walking. Advance Australia is the only unencumbered conservative organisation capable of, and willing to fight. Donate! Unlike the IPA they don’t spend their money on cocktail parties, nor focus on the elite.

I agree about donating to Advance Australia. I think Hairy already does.

However we are both impressed with the work that the IPA has done and reported in their latest magazine issue. We’ve kept up our subscription. They did good work on the Voice. I used to toss their magazine though as it was often full of very simplistic pieces, but the last one has kept both me and Hairy (who fiercely guards his reading time and choices) reading every article, as they report in it some very useful research. A welcome change to add to our other subs.

Cocktail parties are also fund-raisers bringing in the money as well as the faithful. Worth bearing that in mind. They are also accompanied by good speakers.

Salvatore, Iron Publican
January 12, 2024 10:07 am

Farmer Gez Jan 12, 2024 6:56 AM
The senior management of the big supermarkets is full of Poms.
Little feel for the nation they’re in and badly out of touch with an unsubsidised farm supply system unlike the EU.

A commendably charitable viewpoint of the character of those running Big Supermarket

Warwick
January 12, 2024 10:08 am

flyingduk
Jan 12, 2024 10:00 AM
Free dental will cost government $11.6 billion each year, report finds

sounds like it isnt free then?

If they think it will cost 11.6 bill in Year 1, it will actually cost 20.0 billion, and soon enough hit 30 bill a year.

H B Bear
H B Bear
January 12, 2024 10:10 am

Zulu, that opinion piece by Morris was particularly robust on a recently deceased person. Well done to Teh< Paywallian.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
January 12, 2024 10:10 am

although there is still no sign of it on renewable energy.

Dutton used an IPA gathering I attended to launch his campaign for an energy mix that included nuclear energy, especially small tailored reactors that can be purchased off the shelf. He noted we were way behind in the waiting line for those and needed to get moving on it immediately. I think they will have a chop at renewables for the next election. Hope so.

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
January 12, 2024 10:11 am

Free dental will cost government $11.6 billion each year, report finds

Javier Milei has just passed a law called Artículo 209.
Government institutions can no longer use the word “free” to promote any state service at municipal, province or state level.
Milei considers the word “free” a lie, because services are paid for with taxes, and citizens shouldn’t be lied to.

And we need a second law, any politician who has referred to a recurrent spending item as “investment” must be trebuchet, on fire, into a pit full of aids users dirty syringes.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
January 12, 2024 10:13 am

Tony
32 minutes ago
Well said. Pilger would have been “courageous” if he had criticised dangerous countries while in dangerous countries, but instead he criticised the west from the comfort of the west. He made a good living out of the international left’s publicity department.

Winston Smith
January 12, 2024 10:14 am

Rosie:
The lack of the condemnation the sexual abuse of Israeli men women and children,* by the Islamic barbarians is noted here for when the same people come after us, as they repeatedly tell us they will.
Also noted is the people who bring these barbarians into our country to carry out their foul works.
* yes – men as well. But they probably deserved it so we won’t bother mentioning it.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
January 12, 2024 10:15 am

OK mouth-breathing down ticker, so you think Islamic rape is great?

Why don’t you have the guts to come out and say so?

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
January 12, 2024 10:15 am

Zulu, that opinion piece by Morris was particularly robust on a recently deceased person. Well done to Teh< Paywallian.

Comparing Pilger to Wilfred Burchett……

cohenite
January 12, 2024 10:18 am

132andBush
Jan 12, 2024 8:07 AM
Latest Ag weather update

In the first five minutes he touches briefly on how far out the BOM was with it’s predictions.
Which led to this dross from the ABC.

Dross:

El Niño reaches ‘strong’ intensity, pointing to a scorching 2024 ahead for the planet
By ABC meteorologist Tom Saunders
Posted Thu 16 Nov 2023 at 5:33amThursday 16 Nov 2023 at 5:33am, updated Thu 16 Nov 2023 at 11:42am

Tom is a fuking idiot/liar. The SOI, the measure of ENSO, whether we are in El Nino or La Nina, is tracking in neutral:

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/soi/

Roger
Roger
January 12, 2024 10:19 am

I suspect the wets are going to have a more difficult time of it in the broad church, although there is still no sign of it on renewable energy.

I don’t know…Dutton would appear to have zero influence on the LNP in QLD.

H B Bear
H B Bear
January 12, 2024 10:19 am

When we did a consulting job for Big(ish) Supermarket the CEO came out of Aldi UK. The Pommy guys were well regarded as they have actual experience of a competitive market. The CFO was an Australian (who shopped at my local non Colesworth supermarket) and the GM of groceries was a 1st generation Italian who liked sportsfishing. Draw your own conclusions.

Winston Smith
January 12, 2024 10:21 am

Cassie of Sydney
Jan 12, 2024 6:44 AM
“rugbyskier

Jan 12, 2024 6:08 AM”
Correct. The bigger concern we should have with Woolworths Oz is that, along with many companies, one of its biggest shareholders is now……

Blackstone.

The 10% who own our parliaments and dictate policy.
“You don’t matter.”

Roger
Roger
January 12, 2024 10:22 am

Tom is a fuking idiot/liar.

Well…he is the ABC’s meteorologist.

I think he’s the chap who wrote the article about “simmering” waters leading to east coast humidity I referenced earlier this morning.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
January 12, 2024 10:28 am

Just came across a quote attributed to Hemingway.

‘Writing is easy. You just sit in front of a typewriter and bleed’.

Hemingway of course carefully chose every word and could spent days on a single sentence. He’s right though. Writing crisp prose can hurt de brain.

Winston Smith
January 12, 2024 10:28 am

Rosie

Jan 12, 2024 7:20 AM
I thought EVs were cheaper to repair than ICE vehicles?

Sure.
Those that cost more are just written off, so they don’t count.
I should have been an accountant, shouldn’t I?

Bourne1879
Bourne1879
January 12, 2024 10:29 am

Imagine if Steven Spielberg was making Schindler’s List now under latest Hollywood guidelines.

Would have to have the appropriate number of blacks, Latinos and Lesbians etc.

Probably a reason why Ridley Scott’s Napoleon featured a black General ahead of other far more well known Generals like Ney, La Salle, Soult etc. Not knocking the black General, Dumas father of the author, who was apparently a good leader. However does not rate compared to many other top Generals of that period.

“Where the question is asked and I paraphrase, what if you were doing a film on Auschwitz? On Caesar’s conquests? The great European explorers? Do you need say 20% of the cast as black or Asian or Latino?”

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
January 12, 2024 10:31 am

It appears that a major escalation is imminent re Yemen. Brits/US have warmed of air strikes, Qatar/ Saudis have opened their air space to them. Iraqi militias have warned of more intense strikes on US military bases if they follow through. Iran and Syria declare their unconditional support for Yemen.

It’s about time the US and allies acted to support world trade and international laws of the seas.

Iran will learn to pull its head in. Yearning for death is not good politics.

Rosie
Rosie
January 12, 2024 10:32 am

Gaza, controlled and policed by Israel with Palestinians killed and maimed, unreported, day after day.

The only Israelis in Gaza, pre 7 October were four or five hostages, 2 supposedly alive, the rest dead, one of whom has been there since the 1980s.
Where are these killings and maimings occurring? At the crossings when Gazans attempt to invade Israel, when Israel invade after their citizens, including children, are kidnapped and murdered?

Meanwhile Hamas except for the occasional ceasefire has been doing its best to kill and maim Israeli citizens since 2006.

Winston Smith
January 12, 2024 10:33 am

Boambee John

Jan 12, 2024 7:45 AM
cohenite

Also Coldly Denies Defense When They Request Delay Due to Melania Trump’s Mother’s Death

Is there video of this? If there is, it would make a powerful campaign ad, highlighting the arrogance and cruelty of the DemonRats and their acolytes.

Add in “If they do this to me, what stops them doing it to you?”

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
January 12, 2024 10:33 am

A warning for Cats who like tumeric.

Chromium found in lead-tainted fruit pouches may explain contamination (10 Jan, via Instapundit)

The Food and Drug Administration has discovered a second metal contaminant—chromium—in the recalled cinnamon applesauce pouches found to contain cinnamon contaminated with extremely high levels of lead. The products have now poisoned nearly 300 young children in 37 states.

In the FDA’s announcement, the agency noted that “The lead-to-chromium ratio in the cinnamon apple puree sample is consistent with that of lead chromate (PbCrO4).” This is a notorious adulterant of spices used to artificially bolster their color and weight.

Lead chromate is a vibrant yellow substance that has frequently turned up in turmeric sourced from India and Bangladesh. In a 2017 study by public health researchers at Boston University, 16 of 32 turmeric products bought in markets in the Boston area had lead levels over the FDA’s allowable lead level for candy (the FDA does not have guidelines for lead levels in spices, specifically). Two samples, the only two samples sourced from Bangladesh, exceeded the allowable lead level by two orders of magnitude. The researchers had conducted the study after a string of lead poisoning cases in US children were linked to contaminated spices, including turmeric. Other studies have also identified spices as a source of lead exposure in US children.

The Chinese famously adulterated baby milk with melamine to boost its nitrogen content (thereby faking protein content tests). So not surprising that a heavy yellow pigment might be used to increase monetary return on the currently very fashionable tumeric powder. Lead and chromate are both rather toxic, as you probably already know.

Roger
Roger
January 12, 2024 10:35 am

It appears that a major escalation is imminent re Yemen. Brits/US have warmed of air strikes…

Wait…I thought they were incapable of acting?

Peter Greagg
Peter Greagg
January 12, 2024 10:36 am

Regarding Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, I was told at his birthday celebrations at the Turkish Embassy in Canberra about 15 years ago, that he “solved” the hijab problem (as he saw it).

Apparently he said, I wont ban the hijab – so anyone may wear one if they so wish.

However, all women prostitutes must wear one on the pain of a long prison sentence.
In no time at all, the wearing of the hijab became quite rare, which accelerated the secularisation of Turkey.

The teller was a young airforce officer. At that time, (so he said), most young army and airforce officers were strongly in support of Attaturk’s vision for a modern secular Turkey.

Sadly, things are different now.

Tintarella di Luna
Tintarella di Luna
January 12, 2024 10:39 am

rugbyskier
Jan 12, 2024 6:08 AM

. thank you for setting me straight rugbyskier — I didn’t ask the right question of Signorina Google

Black Ball
Black Ball
January 12, 2024 10:41 am

Bill Belichick done Bern. This is seismic in US sports, one of the great coaches not only there but worldwide.

Salvatore, Iron Publican
January 12, 2024 10:44 am

H B Bear Jan 12, 2024 10:19 AM
When we did a consulting job for Big(ish) Supermarket the CEO came out of Aldi UK. The Pommy guys were well regarded as they have actual experience of a competitive market. The CFO was an Australian (who shopped at my local non Colesworth supermarket) and the GM of groceries was a 1st generation Italian who liked sportsfishing. Draw your own conclusions.

Not sure what conclusion we’re supposed to draw.
The same one I drew at the Holden plant? (With a car park full of every make of car known to mankind, & neither management nor workers seemed to understand the problem)

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
January 12, 2024 10:49 am

JC last evening

Earlier, I read that competent American airline pilots are quite smart, having estimated IQs of around 120 plus. DEI programs are putting people in cockpits with estimated IQs of 80 to 90. The age of incompetence has reached the point where lives are now in danger.

The phrase I hear a bit is “fake it until you make it”.
Not “learn on the job” but fake it (which means “hide your mistakes”).
Not something I want in safety critical jerbs.

Katzenjammer
Katzenjammer
January 12, 2024 10:54 am

The teller was a young airforce officer. At that time, (so he said), most young army and airforce officers were strongly in support of Attaturk’s vision for a modern secular Turkey.
Sadly, things are different now.

A few times since Attaturk, the government swayed a bit too much towards re-Islamification. The military removed the government and held a free election within about 18 months. For Turkey to join the EU, the EU demanded that power of the military be removed from the constitution.

Thanks to the EU, that’s why Erdogan has been able to wreck his country.

Rosie
Rosie
January 12, 2024 10:55 am
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
January 12, 2024 10:56 am

Most suburbs of Sydney were forecast to reach from 29C to 31C on Thursday, however, humidity levels around 70 to 80 per cent at midday made it feel as warm as 36C, similar to the level of discomfort typically observed in Darwin.

I’ve lived in Sydney for most of my eight decades and now into my ninth. I can recall many sticky wet summers just like this one, and also some very hot and dry summers of drought. It’s summer. It cycles between monsoonal and desert climes. It was just like this on Australia Day 1788. Stormy and sticky hot.

Get over it.

Rosie
Rosie
January 12, 2024 10:58 am
Rosie
Rosie
January 12, 2024 11:00 am
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
January 12, 2024 11:00 am

The teller was a young airforce officer

I read the same anecdote in his biography.

FWIW, until quite recently, it was an offense under Turkish law, to defame the memory of Ataturk, and there were shops in Istanbul selling Ataturk memorabilia.

Winston Smith
January 12, 2024 11:04 am

Hey. What happened to my sarc tag?

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
January 12, 2024 11:04 am

Further to the EV story I put up earlier, this version has some fun comments.

Hertz will sell a third of its EV fleet to buy gasoline cars instead (11 Jan)

Somebody once told me of showing up at an Cali airport and needing a car rental. Got there and he had his pick of the remaining cars, all EV. Asked the attendant if that’s all they had and was told that the gas fueled vehicles always go first.

Problem is that you have to return the EV with an 85% charge or you get hit with an overpriced recharging fee (you know, like the $9.99 gal gas if you don’t fill the tank).

There you go, the real reason that Hertz is selling off their EVs is they’re like the black jelly beans in a packet. No one wants them if they can get anything else.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
January 12, 2024 11:07 am

US, UK begin strikes against Yemen rebels
Anne Barrowclough
Anne Barrowclough

A Tomahawk cruise missile is launched from the nuclear-powered attack submarine USS LA JOLLA (SSN-701) on the Pacific Missile Test Center (PMTC) range.

US and British military have begun launching strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen, according to reports reports.

NBC quoted two US officials saying multiple locations had been targeted with fighter jets and Tomahawks. while Israel media reports attacks on the capital, Sana’a.

Arab and Israeli media report houthi training facilities had been hit in up to a dozen locations while the city of Hodeidah has also been hit.

They targeted multiple locations with fighter jets and Tomahawks fired from Navy ships.

Mak Siccar
Mak Siccar
January 12, 2024 11:08 am

As ever, yet another excellent article in Quadrant Online. Extracts follow.

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2023/11/who-owns-the-earth/

The premise of original ownership is typically invoked as the legal basis of land rights on behalf of tribal communities which enjoyed exclusive occupation of the land in question prior to European colonisation. I contest this premise on the grounds of logical consistency, as it implicitly affirms superior ownership rights stemming from the common human ancestry that predates any subsequent colonisation. While I focus on the claims of original ownership applicable to Australia, the argument extends to all continents and regions.

If original ownership is a valid principle then every claim of exclusive tribal ownership is pre-dated by the rights of our common ancestors, on account of their earliest exclusive and uncontested possession of the entire Earth, including the present-day continent of Australia. All living humans are descendants of the same ancestors and are thus entitled to partake in the earliest possible claim of original ownership. Consequently, the argument of original ownership is at best moot, trivially applicable to all of humanity and in relation to every place.

There is something even more fishy about racial flattery of Aboriginal Australians. The fact that “white people” with a trace of Aboriginal ancestry can identify as Aboriginal and are instantly recognised as such, but “black people” with a trace of non-Aboriginal ancestry are never identified as “white”, suggests that nativism is only a cover for the conceptual erasure of the Aboriginal race, diluting it with “whiteness” to the point where indigeneity is transformed into a token of corporate privilege that is commensurate with the lack of integrity of those who choose to adopt it. This is not reconciliation but racial commodification.

We acknowledge the Original Owners of the Earth on which we are standing, the Human kind of which we are all representatives. We all share the same ancient ancestors. We are all related. Reason unites us.

H B Bear
H B Bear
January 12, 2024 11:09 am

The teller was a young airforce officer

Unlike Australia where our Statesman was a young teller.

Winston Smith
January 12, 2024 11:11 am

Lizzie:

It’s about time the US and allies acted to support world trade and international laws of the seas.
Iran will learn to pull its head in. Yearning for death is not good politics.

What have the Arabs done for World Trade apart from sitting on their arses, demanding everyone does something about the problems their people are causing?

Dot
Dot
January 12, 2024 11:16 am

I’ve eased up on the Reddit mind rot.

I did get into an argument with a female neck beard YouTube creator-sperg that WarHammer is (obviously) a luxury.

WARHAMMER DOLLS ARE A HUMAN RIGHT, I TELLS YAS!

These people needed to be hit more by their parents. Discontinue the lithium.

“Cheetohs, Mtn Dew, Ozempic, gender reassignment surgery, sex workers, AD&D and WarHammers are human rights, you fascist pigs, give me money now!”

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
January 12, 2024 11:17 am

I’m not offended by my comment being downvoted, I would like to know why though

Happens to me all the time, Dot. There are often 3 or 4 which can rise up to 6, just because it’s me I think, not because of what I say.

Curious behaviour.

7 11

QED.

Eleven dunderheads.

More to come, but I won’t go back to see.

That would be pointless. Just like them.

Roger
Roger
January 12, 2024 11:18 am

As ever, yet another excellent article in Quadrant Online. Extracts follow.

Australia was claimed by Britain according to the international law of the day.

End of story.

Dot
Dot
January 12, 2024 11:18 am

It’s a luxury, you utter clown.

DO THEY PLAY WITH WARHAMMER DOLLS IN SIERRA LEONE?

LOL!

H B Bear
H B Bear
January 12, 2024 11:21 am

Australia was claimed by Britain according to the international law of the day.

This is why you are not on the High Court.

H B Bear
H B Bear
January 12, 2024 11:23 am

Dot! Go and play outside. Too much internet for you.

rugbyskier
rugbyskier
January 12, 2024 11:24 am

No worries Tinta, I can see how the two companies can get mixed up with the South African company being Woolworths Holdings Limited and having Australian subsidiaries, and the Australian company being Woolworths Limited.

Mak Siccar
Mak Siccar
January 12, 2024 11:29 am

Australia was claimed by Britain according to the international law of the day.

Was there in existence at the time such “international law” – actually agreed to by many nations – or was it really just customary practice that was informally accepted?

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
January 12, 2024 11:35 am

The kiddies are unhappy.

US Embassy in Iraq bombed – report (JPost, 20 minutes ago)

Attacks on US bases in Iraq may be underway as well. Hopefully the local commanders ignore the idiot in the White House and carry out the requirements of their command. Semper fi.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
January 12, 2024 11:36 am

If supermarkets priced food in the same manner as government has in taxes, levies, compliance costs, red tape, green tape, duties, paying the same rates as the useless APS and DEI, have I forgotten anything, we would be dead from starvation.

rugbyskier
rugbyskier
January 12, 2024 11:37 am

I see that Mother Lode earlier brought up the Aldi cliches about cheap knock-offs and from his post it looks like he hasn’t shopped there.

I know several people who own food and grocery businesses and they supply all the supermarket chains, they have their own brand for Colesworth and IGA and have an Aldi brand for the same products. I recall that a TV show was doing a segment on Smiths Crisps and on a tour of the factory you could see in the background that the chips were being put into ‘Sprinters’ (the Aldi brand) packaging.

I asked them how they found each of the supermarket chains were to deal with and they all said that they had the best business relationship with Aldi, they are the fastest payer of invoices and are the most reasonable in negotiations.

I started shopping at Aldi when a new store opened nearby and I’ve found the quality of their products to be equal or better than Colesworth, particularly the fruit and vegetables although I do regularly go to the Fyshwick Markets to get meat and fruit/veg. I now do 70% of my grocery shopping at Aldi, 20% at the markets and 10% at the local Woolworths.

132andBush
132andBush
January 12, 2024 11:37 am

QED.

Eleven dunderheads.

More to come, but I won’t go back to see.

That would be pointless. Just like them.

It’s infantile behavior.

I also think the calli downthumber would make a worthy subject of a Psych PhD thesis.

Or maybe it’s someone here who has an extremely high opinion of themselves indulging in a little experiment.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
January 12, 2024 11:38 am

International Law = Might is Right.

dopey
dopey
January 12, 2024 11:39 am

Take a few eggs down to Bondi. Simmer for 8 minutes while you swim and there’s a healthy breakfast done.

H B Bear
H B Bear
January 12, 2024 11:39 am

Mak – not to answer your question but the Mabo judgement is quite readable, not filled with much legal stuff at all. That might be why it was wrongly decided in my view, at least as far as mainland Australia.

Roger
Roger
January 12, 2024 11:40 am

Was there in existence at the time such “international law” – actually agreed to by many nations – or was it really just customary practice that was informally accepted?

European law, which was, for all intents and purposes, the international law at the time.

This is why you are not on the High Court.

To the extent that the HC has acknowledged any jurisdiction over this matter, it determined that Australia was legally settled by the British.

Beertruk
January 12, 2024 11:40 am

Vicki
Jan 11, 2024 2:19 PM
Jo Nova has a fascinating article on a counter narrative of the source of fossil fuels:

Vicki, I watched this vid about 12 to 18 months ago:

Fletcher Prouty Explains Invention and Use of Term “Fossil Fuels”

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
January 12, 2024 11:42 am

KD last night.

So he wants taxpayer cash for Lattouf, taxpayer cash for him, and for Big Nose to get her job back.

Her on-air job back?
She was a short term fill in over Christmas. This is a ploy to force Aunty to give her a full time presenter role which she didn’t have before.
Or pay big compo if they can’t squeeze her in.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
January 12, 2024 11:42 am

I’ve eased up on the Reddit mind rot.

It’s easy to OD on the internet, Dot. People are not themselves on fight sites and there are too many loonies having episodes. Good idea to give it a rest and do something else. There’s heaps of choice.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
January 12, 2024 11:45 am

“Can you send me 40 of those rubber frangers, the unscented ones, Ill put the stink on them myself”…

Family Guy later presented an homage to this by Cleveland:

‘Shut the window! Yer letting all the stank out!’

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
January 12, 2024 11:47 am

Sounds great, lets do it.

Govt accuses Dutton of stirring up ‘culture war’ over Australia Day merch stoush (Sky mainpage headline, 12 Jan)

Maybe Woolies can sell those cut down Voice tank tops Albo has been wearing lately in Leak’s cartoons. GWGB chaps.

H B Bear
H B Bear
January 12, 2024 11:47 am
johanna
johanna
January 12, 2024 11:48 am

H B Bear
Jan 12, 2024 10:19 AM

When we did a consulting job for Big(ish) Supermarket the CEO came out of Aldi UK. The Pommy guys were well regarded as they have actual experience of a competitive market. The CFO was an Australian (who shopped at my local non Colesworth supermarket) and the GM of groceries was a 1st generation Italian who liked sportsfishing. Draw your own conclusions.

Nice story, but the only conclusion that matters is – were they making a profit?

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
January 12, 2024 11:49 am

Dot, that other Bear at 11.23 says it best.

Out in the sunshine is always good.

Dot
Dot
January 12, 2024 11:52 am

It’s actually pretty funny.

Now the neckbeards are brigading me for saying WarHammer dolls are not a human right.

It’s times like these you see why KiwiFarms emerged.

Bungonia Bee
Bungonia Bee
January 12, 2024 11:54 am

A judgement based on Mabo (or other islands) is false for the mainland. Different culture altogether. Island culture had cultivated plots, Mainland had (in most instances) walkabouts.

Roger
Roger
January 12, 2024 11:55 am

Someone will surely raise terra nullius, so before I go, I’ll quickly mention that it didn’t mean unoccupied land but land not subject to a claim by any state and not settled by that state. I believe this is behind the quest of indigenous activists to claim that various “nations” existed prior to European settlement and treaty, reparations, etc..

Beertruk
January 12, 2024 11:55 am

Someone mentioned Tommahawks.

Paywallion:

US approves deal for Tomahawk missile supports

By BEN PACKHAM
FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND DEFENCE CORRESPONDENT
11 Jan 2024

Australia has moved a step closer to obtaining potent US-made Tomahawk missiles, getting the green light from the Biden administration to purchase $372m in support systems to enable the ADF to operate the weapons.

The US Defence Co-operation Agency said the systems would enable the Australian Defence Force to precisely aim the missiles, which have a range of more than 1500km.

The US approved the sale of 220 Tomahawks to Australia in March at a cost of more than $1.3bn, but there is no word yet on when they will be delivered and be made operational.

Australia will have to get in line behind the US military and potentially Japan, which has ordered 400 of the missiles and would be more likely to use them in any war with China over Taiwan.

The weapons will be fitted to Australia’s air warfare destroyers and potentially the Collins-class submarines.

The announcement comes less than a month after Australia declined to send a warship to join a US-led coalition in the Red Sea, and follows US congress approval of AUKUS-enabling legislation.

Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy said the approval of technical support for Australia’s Tomahawks was “an essential step forward for Australia’s development of advanced military capabilities”.

“This program will enhance the lethality of our navy’s surface combatant fleet and increase interchangeability with the United States Navy, improving the effectiveness of our joint warfighting capabilities and providing an increased deterrent effect,” Mr Conroy said.

Former Defence deputy secretary Peter Jennings said the latest spending was “vital” to ensure the missiles were able to hit their targets.

But he said Labor had fallen into the Coalition’s trap of “failing to appreciate the need for speed” in Defence procurement.

“In the best of all worlds, we would be licensing the production of Tomahawks in Australia,” he said. “But I’m sure we haven’t done that and probably won’t do it.”

He said the Defence Department was “utterly disconnected from the strategic outlook”, and “failing to get ministerial or prime ministerial leadership” it needed to respond to growing strategic threats.

Greens senator David Shoebridge said the missile support purchase was “a very expensive admission from the ADF that we don’t have an independent capacity to target this incredibly expensive weapons system”.

“This is confirmation of what many observers have already suspected, that none of the ADF’s Tomahawk missiles can be effectively targeted or deployed without the express consent and co-operation of the US,” he said.

BEN PACKHAM FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND DEFENCE CORRESPONDENT

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
January 12, 2024 11:55 am

Chippy is excited about this story…

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12953055/Seven-Texas-men-filmed-gang-raping-two-toddlers-bathroom-Houstons-Galleria-Mall-ringleader-worked-cops-say.html
Horrifying videos have surfaced of a gang of at least seven men sexually abusing toddlers inside the restroom of a Texas mall, cops say.

Arthur Hector Fernandez, 29, a kiosk worker at the Galleria mall in Houston, is charged with assaulting the toddlers and then posting the videos online.

Two friends of Fernandez sometimes left their children, two 2-year-olds, in his care while they worked at the mall, according to police.

H B Bear
H B Bear
January 12, 2024 11:56 am

Nice story, but the only conclusion that matters is – were they making a profit?

Yep but got swallowed by you Eastern Staters though. Not many WA listed industrials of any scale left any more. Twiggy and Gina taking all the action private. Not many scraps for consultants I suspect.

Bungonia Bee
Bungonia Bee
January 12, 2024 12:00 pm

A few times since Attaturk, the government swayed a bit too much towards re-Islamification. The military removed the government and held a free election within about 18 months. For Turkey to join the EU, the EU demanded that power of the military be removed from the constitution.

Thanks to the EU, that’s why Erdogan has been able to wreck his country.

Very fishy. It was on the cards that Erdogan would want to kneecap the military, just as those pulling Biden’s strings want to – and have done much to denature the US military.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
January 12, 2024 12:01 pm

Science!

Chasing the light: Study finds new clues about warming in the Arctic (Phys.org, 11 Jan)

The Arctic, Earth’s icy crown, is experiencing a climate crisis like no other. It’s heating up at a furious pace—four times faster than the rest of our planet.

Um, guys, there’s just one tiny problem with that…

New Publication: Pause In Arctic Sea Ice Loss Now Extends To 17 Years, Defying IPCC, NSIDC Predictions (9 Jan)

No, Arctic Sea Ice Isn’t Shrinking (11 Jan)

The Arctic climate crisis is so dire and horrific that nothing much is happening.

Beertruk
January 12, 2024 12:15 pm

Still at the Paywallion:

George Pell a victim of Victoria’s ‘corrupt legal system’, says Archbishop Anthony Fisher

By DENNIS SHANAHAN
NATIONAL EDITOR
12 Jan 2024

Australia’s leading Catholic cleric has declared that the late cardinal George Pell’s wrongful conviction and imprisonment was a result of “the corrupt Victorian legal system” following a media, political and police witch hunt.

The Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher, marked the first anniversary of Pell’s death in Rome of a heart attack after hip surgery with the strongest church statements yet about the cardinal’s charges, conviction and imprisonment on sexual abuse charges and his later “unanimous High Court exoneration”.

At St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney on Wednesday, Archbishop Fisher said: “Following a media, political and police witch hunt, cardinal Pell was tried and im­prisoned for crimes he did not commit. Even after he was unanimously exonerated by the High Court he continued to be demonised by some.”

Archbishop Fisher said Pell had been “a soldier for Christ in the culture wars” and a “martyr of the corrupt Victorian legal system”.

On Thursday, Archbishop Fisher told The Australian: “The Pell case was a serious miscarriage of justice. So far there has been no inquiry into the actions of the police or how the legal system managed to get this so wrong.

“Perhaps worst of all, there seems to be no mood in Victoria for a serious inquiry into the justice system.”

He also said cardinal Pell’s promotion of morality and religion showed him the “downsides of wokery” and earned him enemies.

The strongest statements yet from the archbishop follow the conviction of Pell’s arch nemesis at the Vatican opposed to his financial reforms, Cardinal Angelo Becciu, for fraud, money-laundering and the perversion of witnesses, and come amid growing calls for further investigation into the circumstances of the charges brought against Pell.

Former High Court justice ­Michael Kirby has described a new edition of Gerard Henderson’s book, Cardinal Pell, The Media Pile On & Collective Guilt, as “an important contribution to the efforts to establish a Criminal Cases Review Commission” in Australia.

Mr Kirby said basic evidence in the case showed “a very serious doubt was raised as to cardinal Pell’s guilt”, adding: “Effective protections against miscarriages of justice must be there for all serious cases, even for a cardinal.”

Cardinal Pell had always maintained his innocence of charges of sexual assault of a chorister in Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral after mass on a Sunday morning and alleged that corrupt forces within the Vatican had sought to stop his work in reforming the Catholic Church’s finances.

The cardinal was jailed after a jury found him guilty in 2018 of historical sexual abuse, and the Victorian Court of Appeal upheld the conviction in August 2019.

But the convictions were quashed in April 2020 by the High Court in a unanimous ruling, with the judgment stating: “There is a significant possibility … an innocent person has been convicted.”

Pell believed the criminal charges and court proceedings in Victoria during his trials and appeals had been adversely affected by corrupt forces within the Vatican based on a “mystery” $2.3m Becciu sent to Melbourne during 2016 and 2017 during the investigations and trials.

Becciu, who was convicted of fraud in December, has always denied adversely affecting Pell’s criminal proceedings.

Pell made it clear before his death last year that he believed Becciu had not been afforded due process in his fraud trial. However, he also issued a statement months before he died describing Becciu’s evidence to the court as incomplete, and he mocked Becciu’s “spirited defence of his blameless subordinate role in the Vatican’s finances”.

Archbishop Fisher included in his Wednesday service comments from Pope Francis, made since the conviction of Becciu, that Pell “understood better than most what was needed about Vatican financial reforms”.

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

Before Victorian police charges truncated Pell’s appointment in 2017, his phone had been bugged and a car was torched outside the apartment of a close aide.

A separate telephone tap has also revealed a conversation in which one person tells another “the highway is open to you” after Pell was charged.

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

DENNIS SHANAHAN NATIONAL EDITOR

Bourne1879
Bourne1879
January 12, 2024 12:15 pm

Hopefully some are familiar with the work of independent journalist Rebekah Barnett who goes by the name Dystopian Down Under on Twitter. She has done some very good articles in relation to Covid vaccines and mandates etc in past few years. In particular some of her articles about what happened in WA with vaccine rollout have gained attention as the rollout happened before the virus took off in WA.

A couple of days ago on her Substack she did a good article about how big Pharma creates the news to promote their vaccines. She gives a specific reference to Pfizer commissioned research last month and how that then becomes a press release which the mainstream media then dutifully write up as news which then spreads around multiple publications.

Her Substack and Twitter well worth following.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
January 12, 2024 12:20 pm

Wouldn’t ignoring the commander-in-chief be the opposite of Semper fi?

Why would ignoring the orders of a Chinese and Ukrainian agent be unpatriotic?

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
January 12, 2024 12:27 pm

Setting that aside, the Iraqi president and, earlier, the Parliament, asked the US to leave. Should they just be ignored?

If it serves US interests, yes. From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli. (That’s in Libya by the way.) The US is, within restrictions of Congressionally ratified treaties, attempting to assist the Kurds and Yasidis. Leaving Iraq would abandon them. Also ISIS is still around, you want to give them a free kick?

ISIS Kills At Least 14 Syrian Soldiers In Palmyra Bus Attack (11 Jan)

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
January 12, 2024 12:29 pm

I believe this is behind the quest of indigenous activists to claim that various “nations” existed prior to European settlement and treaty, reparations, etc..

None of those “nations” were capable of defending their citizens – isn’t that the first duty of any “nation” to it’s citizens?”

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
January 12, 2024 12:30 pm

Good news everyone!

Libertarians WA
@LibertariansWAU
We are registered for Federal elections.

If you live in WA and want to help us register here,sign up now so that we can contest the next election.

https://libertarians.org.au/wareg2023

Lysander
Lysander
January 12, 2024 12:31 pm

The Poopies are reporting that they’ve struck a US ship in the Red Sea… dunno if its propaganda or not…

John H.
John H.
January 12, 2024 12:32 pm

johanna
Jan 12, 2024 6:39 AM
We’re a pathetic species. And on average, too stupid to survive.

So why are we at the top of the tree, BG? And surviving pretty well?

Either it is because all other species are even less able to adhere to your standards of perfection, or because there is a God that favours us.

Which do you prefer?

There’s more to unpack there and it is fascinating that creativity in all realms is associated with mental illness.

I take exception to the blanket term ‘mental illness.’ Was Picasso mentally ill? Mozart? Michelangelo?

OK, a lot of great writers were big drinkers, but the vast majority of big drinkers were not great writers.

It is true that artists tend to have a different perspective on things, and have messy personal lives.

What I object to is the medicalisation of their lives as being due to ‘mental illness.’ The implication is that anyone who has unconventional perspectives or lifestyles is mentally ill. That includes genuine hermits and people who prefer to stay on the move with no fixed address, for example.

A lot of artists are nutcases by Catallaxy standards, as we often highlight, but the medical profession’s and the State’s widening of the term ‘mentally ill’ should always be treated with extreme caution.

There is eccentric and then there is mentally ill. Literary creativity can come at a cost. Hence the high rates of suicide and drug addiction. Consider Jim Morrison of The Doors fame. Brilliant, was doing graduate level work after finishing high school. He was referencing books the teachers had to go to the library confirm existed. Huge alcoholic and drug issues, committed suicide. Possibly undiagnosed PTSD from sexual abuse as child. Just different?

Why do so many musicians like drugs, especially cannabis? Knoefler was once asked if there were times when he wasn’t stoned. He replied I have to sleep. Could it be because the endocannabinoid network plays a fundamental role in alleviating stress? Or it might be because as anyone who has tried it knows listening to music while stoned can be a very interesting experience.

Twain was not of our era. Your argument is not relevant to him. He almost committed suicide. Just different?

Stephen Fry almost committed suicide. Bipolar, meds saved him, didn’t destroy his creativity.

Godel’s wife died and so did he shortly thereafter, died of starvation because he would not eat anything unless prepared by his wife. Just different?

John Forbes Nash. Obviously schizophrenic, and an asshole. Have a look at the work of John Karlsson and the relationship between mathematical ability and being a little kooky.

Feynman was once described as being like Dirac but human.

The Unabomber was brilliant, top the range mathematician.

When TS Eliot wrote, “I read much of the night, and go south in the winter”, he probably was referring to Seasonal Affective Disorder.

There is some interesting ideas floating around about this. Arousal, high dopamine activity, reduced inhibitory activity. We don’t know but we do know that exceptional creativity does correlate with higher rates of mental illness than with mere mortals. The old cliche about madness and genius is an example of where intuition got it right.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
January 12, 2024 12:32 pm

Oh and isn’t attacking a formally accredited US Embassy a war crime?
So far the Iraqi government has done squat about such things.
Let me know when they want to be treated like a civilized nation.

Lysander
Lysander
January 12, 2024 12:32 pm

@LibertariansWAU
We are registered for Federal elections.

Lysander Shrugged.

shatterzzz
January 12, 2024 12:34 pm

I know several people who own food and grocery businesses and they supply all the supermarket chains, they have their own brand for Colesworth and IGA and have an Aldi brand for the same products. I recall that a TV show was doing a segment on Smiths Crisps and on a tour of the factory you could see in the background that the chips were being put into ‘Sprinters’ (the Aldi brand) packaging.

For most of the 1980s I worked for Berger Paints, Rhodes and we used to make paint for all the leading hardware (before Bunnings) and bigger retail stores (Big W, Kmart ect) .. regardless of the customer all the various types of paint came out of the same vats .. all that happened was a change of cans/labels during the, on-going, filling process ..
You mix a umpteen thousand litres vat(s) of paint type and then empty it to suit orders .. you don’t make specific minor amounts separately for various customers …!
Berger also owned British Paints and we manufactured a lot of the BP brands and shipped them to BP, Bankstown & interstate using fully tarped semis (so the BP paint brand pallets werent visible when leaving the Berger Rhodes site (before all these closed and curtained semi trailers became the go)..
The only difference between the various paint labels was the end price of the retailer..

Kneel
Kneel
January 12, 2024 12:36 pm

PM puts supermarket giants on notice over mega profits, gouging (11 Jan)

That really is precious.”

If GovCo reduced expenditure, reduced taxes and reduced regulation, there would be significant downward pressure on prices on two fronts: more after tax profit from same pre tax profit numbers; and greater competition from small businesses.

Things ALWAYS turn to shit when GovCo steals more than 20% of GDP, and it’s currently around 25% if I am not mistaken. THAT is the problem, not “Big Business” being greedy, but GovCo being greedy!

Take a smaller slice of the pie and watch the pie get bigger and make your slice out weigh the larger slice you had before. It worked for Thatcher, Raegan, Howard and Trump. It will work again. All you have to do is get out of the way.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
January 12, 2024 12:39 pm

Woolworths is NOT an Australian company — Woolworths International (Australia) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the South African-based, Woolworths Holdings Limited.

Different company.
Woolies supermarkets is ASX listed.

billie
January 12, 2024 12:40 pm

That means going all-electric puts around $1,000 per year back in the pockets of new-home owners. Savings can increase to over $2,200 a year with solar installed.

Wait, so it’s our fault we are in a position we NEED to save?

I thought it was the endless p*ssing away of our money all over the world, the UN, the pacific solutions, 10,000 charities in Australia alone, $50M here, $200M there.

Clearly government wants yet more $$ all the time to employ more public serpents, hand out more $$ to people we the taxepeyers have never heard of, let alone agreed to fund their lifestyles or wild interests.

If the government could stop spending like drunken sailors, reduce taxes and live within our means, that’d be swell.

Katzenjammer
Katzenjammer
January 12, 2024 12:45 pm

Was there in existence at the time such “international law” – actually agreed to by many nations – or was it really just customary practice that was informally accepted?

International law as practiced at the time serves as a large part of the background to this research.

Lying for the Admiralty: Captain Cook’s Endeavour Voyage

Kingsley
Kingsley
January 12, 2024 12:47 pm

A positive development I am seeing is the significant increase in the use of the phrase “diversity hire”. I think that perfectly undermines the DEI crowd if everyone who does indeed pick up a job due to DEI being labelled as exactly that. I think the Claudine Gay fiasco has accelerated this up a notch or two.

Dot
Dot
January 12, 2024 12:51 pm

So the Liberals tried to run us out of politics by objecting to the LDP name and when we go by Libertarian Party the Liberals and Nationals oppose us.

They are absolute plonkers.

billie
January 12, 2024 12:59 pm

ooops .. not 10,000 charities in Australia

from https://www.acnc.gov.au/

In Australia there are about 60,000 registered charities.

actually 61,480.

Australian Charities Report – 8th edition, includes

2020 reporting period – Charities’ revenue was $176 billion

of that, $88 billion was directly from federal government (ahem, taxpayers money)

The charity sector employed 1.38 million people – 10.5% of all employees in Australia.

That was during Covid when revenues were down.

Lysander
Lysander
January 12, 2024 1:02 pm

More reports that a US ship has been hit:

https://x.com/Sprinter99800/status/1745596294716924054?s=20

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
January 12, 2024 1:02 pm

I see that Mother Lode earlier brought up the Aldi cliches about cheap knock-offs and from his post it looks like he hasn’t shopped there.

That was my experience.

But I also wrote it as a tag question (the ones that finish “…isn’t it?” Or “…aren’t they?”) to indicate I was not confident enough in the assessment to be too dogmatic.

My experience was from taking my mother shopping half a dozen times at the Aldi in Orange.

Oh, and once in Mosman where they didn’t have what I wanted anyway.

Rosie
Rosie
January 12, 2024 1:08 pm

Roger just saw Lisa’s book at a discount store 3 for $10. Hardbacks.
Her publisher got the demand for copies rather wrong.

JC
JC
January 12, 2024 1:11 pm

Sanchez

What was the operating margin for supermarkets in the past couple of years. Do you know?

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
January 12, 2024 1:13 pm

Pommy shop stewards were a disaster and Pommy shop managers are no better.

Ain’t that the truth.
Deportations now!

Lysander
Lysander
January 12, 2024 1:13 pm

More reports that a US ship has been hit:

https://x.com/Sprinter99800/status/1745596294716924054?s=20

Ok, so Iranian propaganda (but some of it looks pretty real, only not)

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
January 12, 2024 1:17 pm

It could be a prank. No way would a elevator door collapse like that. If it is real, they are dead.

Non-essential Commentary Compilation

Rosie
Rosie
January 12, 2024 1:17 pm
Bourne1879
Bourne1879
January 12, 2024 1:21 pm

The exact same thing has happened in Australia with Police and military recruiting. For a few years if you were an enthusiastic healthy competent white male good luck getting accepted for police or Army whilst less qualified females and minorities were given priority. Then higher up the command chain less experienced people were getting promoted ahead of you because they ticked a box on for somebody’s DEI quotas. Generals and Commissioners were more concerned about being DEI compliant rather than the actual efficiency of the organisation.

The simple fact is females serve less years and are more likely to get injured. Plus they have a habit of having babies and all the down time and light duties that involves. You will have noted recruitment aimed at women always emphasises the flexibility of the organisation towards their needs. All at the expense of the males who have to cover the absent positions.

Now they suddenly realise they need the biggest recruitment demographic which is the white male.

You even still see media articles lamenting the fact there are not far more women firefighters because some DEI fan demand equity.

From the above posted by Billie:

“The Army’s recruiting of white soldiers in 2023 had dropped almost by half in the last five years, according to a report.

That dramatic decline has coincided with a push by the service to increase recruitment of a more diverse population, according to a report”.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
January 12, 2024 1:22 pm

Ms Maiden seems confused.

Perhaps it was after lunch?

MatrixTransform
January 12, 2024 1:25 pm

All-electric homes cost less to run and cooking using induction cooktops is also safer and cleaner.

Residents of a new, all-electric detached home (without solar) will spend around $2,600 a year on energy bills, compared with around $3,600 per year for a dual-fuel home. That means going all-electric puts around $1,000 per year back in the pockets of new-home owners. Savings can increase to over $2,200 a year with solar installed.

Modern, energy efficient electric appliances require far less energy to run then gas alternatives – a multi-split air conditioning system is at least five times more efficient than gas ducted heating.

That means not only lower emissions now but lower power bills too.

Built today, a new, all-electric home has 16% lower emissions than a new dual fuel home and over a 10-year period a new, all-electric home has 29% lower emissions than a new dual fuel home.

what a crock

1. for starters that depends a lot where you are located in the country
2. much of gas’ bad wrap as a CO2 polluter is built on the un-measurable idea of fugitive emissions and on wasted heat at the point where it used for heating/cooking
3. the dirtiest filthiest emissions come from coal whether it be brown or black … and that aint going away unless we buy nuclear

although all the other talky points raised appear near sensible, its only on face-value
they are really just a veneer to rationalise the the idiotic idea that at some point (any day now) electricity will be cheaper, cleaner and be buttressed by even more wind and solar

none of it includes that the extant gas infrastructure would be a redundant waste that needs to be replaced with alternative distribution
or the reality that the required future elec/ruinable infrastructure must by design, be over built

at least by a factor of 4 or 5
ie 20 get a daily 20WG of energy we will need 100GW nameplate of electrical ruinables … probably more … much more

not even gonna go near the concept of storage because it is of course, pure unadulterated industrial-strength hopium

and not going near recycling either except to say that both solar panels and turbine components are basically land-fill
all we are doing is kicking the can down the road and patting ourselves on the back for a job well done.

Induction cooking … very low waste heat but the truth is they’re barely more efficient than a normal electric cooktop. Maybe 10%

heat-pump efficiency sure … sounds good but honestly, you’d prolly be better off just sealing and insulating yr home

I know of buildings that are seriously considering junking 1.5MW of gas boilers to replace them with heat-pumps
not because it’s clean
not because its cheap
not because they’re saving the planet
because … they get penalized by green oversight orgs and govt
none of it makes sense
even worse, they’ve been sold heat-pumps at a coefficent of performance (COP) of 8.0 but the reality is that running at the temperatures required for Hot Water, the COP is much closer to 1.0
ie. it will cost about 1Watt to move 1Watt.
pointless

I’m all for efficiency and clean … just not CO2 clean because it makes about zero difference to the planet’s temperature

last of all, the really ugly truth is that for all our localised climate vanities, all we have ever done is shift our CO2 emissions off-shore

outta sight outta mind

anyway … it sure does seem that all the best gestures these days are empty ones

drive a Tesla, get a boy-scout badge

PS: cheaper? remember, you’re the farm … somebody has to pay for all that infrastructure

Bourne1879
Bourne1879
January 12, 2024 1:25 pm

Damn it. If only I had known in time for Christmas.
NOT!

“Roger just saw Lisa’s book at a discount store 3 for $10. Hardbacks”.

Rosie
Rosie
January 12, 2024 1:26 pm
will
will
January 12, 2024 1:26 pm

Mak – not to answer your question but the Mabo judgement is quite readable, not filled with much legal stuff at all. That might be why it was wrongly decided in my view, at least as far as mainland Australia.

The Mabo judgement appears reasonable” Mabo had farmed the land, as had his father and father before him, if the claim is to be believed. In the absence of any other claimant, it would be consistent with exiting property law.

However I understand that this precedent was used in Wik and extended to the mainland to whole groups of roaming hunter gatherers, which is absurd. Unfortunately, I doubt if it will ever be reversed.

Rosie
Rosie
January 12, 2024 1:27 pm
Lysander
Lysander
January 12, 2024 1:27 pm

Am I on 2G today or is this site painfully slow today?

Colonel Crispin Berka
Colonel Crispin Berka
January 12, 2024 1:40 pm

any politician who has referred to a recurrent spending item as “investment” must be trebuchet

This is backwards on tech for punishing socialists.
That part of the world has already upgraded to helicopters.

John H.
John H.
January 12, 2024 1:40 pm

Lockheed Martin has built 1,000 F-35s (so let’s bust some myths)

You get what you pay for and the USA certainly pays a fortune for military whizbag. Some argue the USA military is weak and pathetic. Sure … .

John H.
John H.
January 12, 2024 1:43 pm

Inconsistency Turns Up Again for Cosmological Observations

Cosmology sucks. I never understood that given the limitations of the observable universe they argued our observations were representative of the whole universe.

  1. When all the CA votes are counted, the total vote count will be roughly similar to 2020.Kamal-toe sits on about…

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