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.

TheirABC and the BOM are unrepentant:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Thanks for posting Peter Greagg @ 07:50am.

Excellent article by Henry Ergas in the Oz.

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.

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.

So 30C is unbearable.

What then is the hottest day evah?

Sure I look at cp, molest cats and am a 200kg bed bound landwhale, but I’m fighting Nazis on the internet so I’m a good person

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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”…

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.

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.

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

sounds like it isnt free then?

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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?”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

International Law = Might is Right.

“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!’

Dot, that other Bear at 11.23 says it best.

Out in the sunshine is always good.

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.

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.

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?