Mike Pompeo@mikepompeoIn Ukraine, the Biden-Harris administration stumbled into war through weakness. President Trump would introduce peace through strength. Here’s what…
Open Thread – Weekend 20 Jan 2024
- Madame Cackle and her media mates
- Open Thread – Weekend 27 July 2024
- Open Thread – Thurs 25 July 2024
- Open Thread – Mon 22 July 2024
- All the drivel fit to print
Tax cuts and income splitting. Simple.
It would be rough if he said it, but he didn’t.
Not at all surprising.
Desperation. The sugar high is wearing off.
Me? Lurking?
First time on today, second position…
Fird?
I dedicate this to the Gods of I-can’t-be-buggered-typing-this-again.
Cash!
—-
woof bark growl:
Cash 2.0 Great Dane at the Simi Valley Fall Street Fair 2023 (7 of 14)
Jupes
Carried over to the weekend thread.
Grace Karskens in her Rocks studies is one historian who has captured the thinking style of that era at the dawn of the enlightenment, among our part illiterate forbears. I learned a lot of this also from studies of early colonian court case researched by Paula Byrne.
John H
Carried over to the weekend thread.
Wrong. There is no evolutionary transition. There’s an earnest attempt to enforce a political transition by generating a societal conflict between concepts of biological sex against sex based cultural practices under the guise of an academic ideology of “gender” as though it’s some sort of soul-like inner essence of us all. With all their internal disputes and conflicts, the purpose of LTGBT/etc/etc is to politically displace heterosexuality as the normal procreative mode of our species.
Alter kacker, Yiddish for an elderly farter, or more, is a nice affectionate term. At 96 before death my mother thought it was a valid descriptive term watching a helpful attendent clean up for her.
Top 10! I dedicate my achievement to raising awareness of under privileged ex Vic Premiers forced into a life of company partnerships with Chinese persons. These Belt and Road initiatives wont kick back themselves!
Johannes Leak.
Brett Lethbridge.
Peter Broelman.
Andy Davey.
Michael Ramirez.
A.F. Branco.
Al Goodwyn.
Chip Bok.
Tom Stiglich.
Matt Margolis.
Gary Varvel.
Ben Garrison.
Leak – f#ck he’s good. Bill would be proud.
Quarter to Five in the morning. Still night, early morning sounds carry.
Dominant sound: Vehicles starting as people go to work.
Specifically, the electric start sound of a light diesel “wahwawawa” a minute or so of idling, then the motor engaged in a steady reversing out a driveway, followed by a pickup of revs as forward gears are engaged.
These are the mechanical trades, driving a service vehicle: Toyota Landcruisers, Nissan Patrols, etc.
Petrol engines are the building trades, painters, plumbers, carpenters & the like.
It’s like this until about half past Five, then it goes quiet.
This is pleasant on the ear, an economy on the move is always an inspiring sound.
If not for the reign of Scomo the Great, followed by Anal the Trot, there’d have been twice as much such sound here at this time of day.
Innovative treatment helps family severely burned when Hamas set their home on fire
Warren Mundine in the Oz.
IMO, too important to be left on the old thread.
Bruce of WA, spinal degenerative changes alone are not an indication for surgery. There has to be compression of a nerve root, the spinal cord or something like spondylolisthesis to warrant an operation. A lot of back pain is muscular in origin. Hydrotherapy and exercise physiology are good options.
Interesting detailed article of the attack on alternate speech
Year of Troubles: The Hatchets Come Out for Substack and Simplicius
SIMPLICIUS THE THINKER
19 JAN 2024
Year of troubles, season of hatchetmen.
As of several weeks back, Substack has been under a massive seemingly coordinated attack from subversive forces seeking to create a viral exodus from the site by reputationally damaging it. Unfortunately, it seems the program is of such wide scope as to even target individual high volume accounts, of which I appear to be one—as I too have now come under the hatchetmen’s blade of deplatformization.
First, a brief background:
Substack, as most people know, is a fairly young business. Though the company opened doors in 2017, it didn’t really begin gaining widespread appeal until around 2020, when a host of dissident voices found it to be the only non-censorial pulpit from which to shout the truth surrounding the unprecedented fraud of the 2020 election:
I remember myself first hearing of it somewhere around that time, from the likes of big-reach Twitter influencers like Mike Cernovich and his conservative milieu. After that, and the subsequent Covid “pandemic”, Substack naturally took its place as an oasis from the censorship and deplatformization found virtually everywhere else, rising to new heights in the process.
As soon as that happened, Substack predictably became a target for all the most detestable hallmonitor organizations seeking to gatekeep the truth via their corporate brand of ‘fact-checking’ and censorship. It culminated in a high-visibility attack from the ADL itself early last year:
This is the main reason I’m writing this piece: because there are so many other writers on here I respect for whom I want to leave this as public testament and instructive warning to know what we are dealing with. These ‘systems’ take us for granted and couldn’t care less about our [compulsory] ‘patronage’. In reality, Stripe makes money from us, not the other way around—yet they treated me like I was the unclean vagrant begging for table scraps. If only we had a choice, I would have long made the switch, but apparently Substack is locked into an exclusivity deal in the same way all the tech monopolies today force everyone into their digital ‘walled gardens’.
Substack: if you’re listening, please consider alternative payment merchant options. I predict with this coming historical year, things will come to a head on this count. This may be just the beginning of a mass suppression campaign.
For the record, Substack was the only service to even respond semi-reassuringly to my urgent alert about a mass attack on my accounts. They at least offered a customer-forward and friendly reassurance that the matter had been escalated to appropriate channels, who would be watching for future attacks.
Twitter on the other hand found “no violations” with the mass open-call to attack me:
Sports Illustrated Went Woke, Now They’ve Gone Broke
What could have possibly caused this financial turmoil at a sports news outlet that was once the cream of the crop?
There was a time when you couldn’t walk into a bathroom in America without seeing an SI issue sitting beside the toilet. Their famous swimsuit editions sold millions of copies over the decades, becoming the pinnacle of the brand’s exposure. Those days are long gone, though, and I’ve got a pretty good idea of what ended them.
In 2020, Sports Illustrated decided to showcase a “transgender model” who embodied the “well-rounded woman” in the swimsuit edition. In 2023, the outlet went even further, putting another “transgender model” on the cover.
Yes, a sports news outlet famous for producing swimsuit editions for an audience made up almost exclusively of men decided it’d be a great idea to push transgenderism. Less than a year later, they appear to be facing financial ruin.
Who could have possibly seen this coming?
This is what happens when news outlets decide effecting societal change is more important than just giving their readers what they want.
Sports Illustrated is a sports magazine. Instead of acting like one, the outlet’s editors and writers decided they’d rather cosplay as culture warriors.
Men want news on football and baseball. They don’t want transgender models shoved into their faces and lectures about abortion.
It’s sad that such an iconic brand may be no more, but Sports Illustrated’s downfall is deserved. Ultimately, that overrides nostalgia.
Gaia hates steel mills.
Tata Steel closure: UK ‘only G20 nation’ unable to make steel as Port Talbot dealt blow (19 Jan)
End of a era. Maybe the Royal Navy can go back to building ships from wood. There is no way that “green steel business” will ever eventuate, it’s just as mythical as green hydrogen – which is what you have to have to produce green steel.
The AFR View
Economic policy warnings can no longer be ignored
The IMF could not be any more explicit about Australia’s need to reform taxation and unleash productivity growth.
Letting things slide is no longer an option.
The International Monetary Fund’s 101-page review of the Australian economy should be uncomfortable reading for the Albanese government.
In a pre-election year, with voters spooked about the stubbornly high cost of living and declining real incomes, Treasurer Jim Chalmers is preparing a package of handouts for the vulnerable in the May budget that he will doubtless assure are affordable and targeted, and won’t derail the Reserve Bank’s efforts to get inflation under control.
The bad news for the government from the Washington-based fund is that it is even more tightening that’s needed, not more freebies, if inflation is to be tamed.
Interest rates may need to go up again and government spending should certainly be reduced.
But even that’s only the start.
Far more important than gimmicky handouts is getting the broad settings of the economy right: the policy environment that will encourage Australians to work, invest and save.
Australia has a small but productive industry in thoroughly researched official reports and reviews telling governments exactly how they can achieve all that.
Yet the latest IMF report is another silent rebuke for how little courage Australian politicians have shown over the last two decades in doing so.
Inflation has likely peaked, but the IMF projects that it will not fall into the Reserve Bank’s 2 per cent to 3 per cent target range until 2026, beyond the official timetable of late 2025.
Even the Reserve Bank’s gradual forecast return to target would risk unanchoring medium-term inflation expectations as residential rents climb, service sector labour shortages persist, and state governments pump money into new infrastructure.
IMF sees need for more tightening
Productivity has fallen alarmingly in absolute terms, so labour costs per unit of production are rising faster than nominal wage increases.
That puts all the burden on monetary policy to curb demand, and pushes out the point at which rates can come down again.
And some of the big handouts made in the pandemic are still sitting in household savings, blunting the impact of the Reserve Bank’s interest rate rises in slowing spending and the economy.
The IMF prescription: don’t let up yet, tighten rates further, and stop adding to spending as federal and state government budgets loosen while inflation is still high.
But the IMF says Australian governments also need to spend better.
They need to prioritise what will lift productivity and reduce carbon emissions, rather than spending on projects that just add to demand the economy is already struggling to meet.
Underneath everything is Australia’s dismal rate of productivity, which the country shares with many other advanced nations.
What is unique to Australia is how the tax system exacerbates the problem.
The IMF could not be more explicit in saying that tax reform is “indispensable” to productivity reform.
Australia relies more than its peers on excessive taxing of workers’ incomes.
That kills incentive and slows growth.
But it is additionally “amplifying” the pressures of Australia’s ageing society as we depend on fewer workers to support more pensioners, says the report.
That will happen through the stealth tax of bracket creep.
Tax reform is a priority
Here is the IMF telling us that there is now no way out of reforming the tax system, moving more of the burden onto indirect taxes such as the GST. If there are regressive effects, they can be dealt with through compensation.
The government has made a minor start on reform by cutting superannuation tax breaks for rich retirees. Yet it is relying on a far greater intergenerational unfairness on young workers to deal with the wider population of retirees.
It is not all bad news, of course. People still want to come to Australia. There were 500,000 catch-up arrivals last year as the border reopened, and an astonishing one in three workers is now overseas born. Labor has mostly resisted populist pressure to curb them.
The quality of migration is high, with far more tertiary-educated arrivals than the OECD average. They will buffer our productivity numbers in the years after they settle – while, the IMF says, historically not adding to inflation.
Migration does add to pressure on housing and rents. But the shortage of housing is, like so many things in this report, a result of Australia’s own poor policy choices, or perhaps no choices at all – governments happy, as with the tax system, to just let things slide along.
Reports like this one are now becoming flashing red lights that can no longer be ignored.
The makings of anthem, son.
FT – The Big Read US-Iran tensions
What does Iran want?
The Islamic republic’s direct strikes in Iraq, Syria and Pakistan in recent days suggest not a change of strategy but a change of tactics
The first sign that Iran felt the need to flex its muscles more directly after months of tension and hostility across the Middle East came when its naval forces last week dropped from a helicopter to seize an oil tanker off the coast of Oman.
Days later, it was the turn of the elite Revolutionary Guards to deliver a glimpse of their military capabilities. The guards lit up the night sky over Erbil in northern Iraq after launching a barrage of ballistic missiles at what Iran described as an Israeli “espionage centre”.
The Biden administration condemned the attack — which reportedly rattled the nearby US consulate — as “reckless”.
However, in Tehran, these actions were interpreted as part of the Islamic republic’s calculated response to Israel’s more than 100-day offensive in Gaza.
The display of force was intended to send a warning message to the US, Israel and other regional powers, but conducted in a targeted manner, far from the front lines of the Israel-Hamas war.
“The series of attacks are definitely related to the war on Gaza and are Iran’s show of power as the sole and leading military power standing against Israel,” says Saeed Laylaz, an Iranian analyst.
The assaults were the first time Iran has directly unleashed its military since Hamas’s October 7 attack triggered the war with Israel, sending shockwaves across the Middle East.
From the outset, there were concerns in Israel, its western allies and among Arab states about how Iran and the myriad militant groups it backs might respond.
Days after Hamas’s attack, US President Joe Biden warned Iran “to be careful”, before dispatching two carrier strike groups to the region as a deterrent.
In the months since, Iran’s leaders have chastised Israel and expressed support for Hamas, but have publicly stated their desire to avoid a regional conflict, and kept their forces out of the fray.
The regime was content for its so-called Axis of Resistance, which includes militant groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, to lead the military response, launching missile, drone and rocket attacks against Israel, US forces in the region and global shipping.
Yet a series of hostile acts over the past three weeks, directed at Iranians as well as senior leaders of the republic’s proxies, appear to have compelled Iran to up the ante.
The first was an Israeli air strike in Syria that killed a senior Revolutionary Guards commander at the end of December.
The following week, another Israeli strike killed Saleh al-Arouri, Hamas’s deputy political leader, in southern Beirut, a stronghold of Hizbollah, the Lebanese Shia militant movement that is Iran’s most powerful proxy.
On January 3, the next day, two suicide bombers killed almost 100 Iranians who had gathered in the southern city of Kerman to mark the anniversary of the US’s assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the republic’s most powerful commander.
Sunni jihadist group Isis claimed responsibility for the attack, but only after Revolutionary Guards commanders suggested Israel was to blame.
Next, a US strike in Baghdad killed a senior commander of an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia, dealing another blow to the Axis of Resistance.
It was then that Iran began striking out directly.
The guards described its attack on Erbil as a response to the “recent atrocities of the Zionist regime” as well as the killing of commanders of the guards and “resistance”.
Iran simultaneously launched missiles against Isis targets in Syria, in retaliation for the suicide bombings in Kerman.
This week, it mounted a rare strike in Pakistan, targeting Jaish ul-Adl, another Sunni militant group. Islamabad responded with missile attacks against Pakistani separatists in Iran.
An Iranian official says Iran’s strikes do not represent a change in strategy but a change in tactics to make the US and Israel aware of the threat it could pose as long as the war in Gaza continues.
“Involving Pakistan and Erbil sends a message directly to the Israelis and the Americans, and the message is ‘don’t mess with Iran, and finish the war in Gaza’,” the official says.
“Iran doesn’t want a direct war with Israel and the US. But we want to be seen and felt by the Americans — and show how nasty we could be.”
The strategy isn’t without risk, the official adds, but hardliners inside Iran believe the damage can be controlled.
“From their perspective, a limited, calculated engagement could [also] give the message to Iran’s proxies that in hard times we are supporting them.”
Since its devastating 1980s war with Iraq, the Islamic regime has made proxies and asymmetrical warfare an integral part of its national security strategy, cognisant that it lacks the conventional weapons to match the US or Israel.
That network, which began with the birth of Hizbollah in the 1980s, has expanded over the past two decades as the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and the tumult triggered by the 2011 Arab uprisings reshaped the region’s dynamics.
United by an anti-US, anti-Israel ideology, the grouping has come to incorporate powerful Shia factions in Iraq; militias in Syria, where Iran intervened to back the Assad regime in that country’s civil conflict; Hamas; and Houthi rebels in Yemen, which have fought a nine-year war against an Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia, Iran’s regional rival.
Each has responded militarily to Israel’s offensive in Gaza: Hizbollah has been locked in daily cross-border clashes with Israel; the Houthis have launched more than 30 attacks against merchant ships in the Red Sea, as well as drones and missiles at the Israeli port of Eilat; and Iraqi militants have fired more than 140 missiles and drones against US forces in Iraq and Syria.
Tehran publicly insists the militants are acting independently, but by opening multiple fronts, their actions have enabled Iranian leaders to project power and hostility to Israel, while distancing the republic itself from direct combat and reducing the risks of it being sucked into a broader conflict.
US officials, meanwhile, accuse the Iranians of being “deeply involved” in planning the Houthis’ assaults against shipping, saying they have provided drones and “tactical intelligence” to the group.
Iran has long provided financial and military support to militants from Hizbollah and to Iraqi factions collectively grouped under the umbrella of the Popular Mobilisation Forces, or Hashd al-Shaabi.
“Iran is the head of the octopus and you see its tentacles all around from the Houthis to Hizbollah to Hamas,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters in Tel Aviv on Thursday.
Hamid-Reza Taraghi, a hardline Iranian politician, boasts that the post-October 7 hostilities have provided a “good military drill” for the axis.
“There is today more unity and co-ordination between the different groups of the Axis of Resistance and they help each other, putting their lives at risk to defend their co-fighters in different places,” he says. “The reason is they all follow one leader, Ayatollah [Ali] Khamenei.”
Khamenei himself, Iran’s supreme leader, said this month the “resistance must keep its strength up and be ready, not falling for the enemy’s tricks, and, God willing, wherever possible, deliver a blow”.
Yet the groups within the axis are not homogenous, and each has their own national agenda.
Hizbollah and the leaders of the Shia Iraqi factions have the strongest ties to Tehran. Hamas is a Sunni Islamist movement, while the Houthis, members of the Zaydi Shia sect, are less ideologically aligned with Iran than other groups.
But their relationship with the republic has deepened after years fighting the Saudi-led coalition from their base in northern Yemen.
In recent months, the Houthis have been one of the most active members of the network, displaying their strategic value to Iran as they have severely disrupted global trade through the Red Sea and drawn the US and UK into combat.
But the true extent of Iranian influence over the group is often debated.
Indeed, some in western capitals question how effectively Iran is navigating the crisis.
“Iran hasn’t been the brilliant mastermind some perceive that is operating with a clear strategy, concrete objectives and clever manoeuvring,” says Ali Vaez, an Iran expert at Crisis Group.
“A lot of its actions seem reactive, scrambling, short-sighted and impetuous.”
Contrary to what Iranian leaders say, he adds, the strikes against commanders in the guards, Hizbollah and the Iraqi militia have diminished Iran’s efforts to project regional deterrence through the axis, and put it “on the back foot”.
His concern is that Tehran will turn to another avenue to up the stakes with the US — its nuclear programme.
Before the Israel-Hamas war broke out, there were tentative signs of movement in the west’s stand-off with Iran over its nuclear ambitions.
In September, the Biden administration and the republic agreed to a prisoner swap, which involved Washington unfreezing $6bn of Iran’s oil money. Alongside that deal, the parties discussed unwritten de-escalatory measures, including Tehran putting a cap on its aggressive nuclear expansion as it enriched uranium close to weapons grade. There had been signs that Iran was slowing the pace at which it was producing highly enriched uranium.
But the conflict dashed hopes of progress.
Instead, a December report by the International Atomic Energy Agency said Tehran had increased its rate of production of uranium enriched up to 60 per cent purity — close to weapons grade — to levels reported in the first half of 2023. “I’m afraid Iran’s nuclear calculus could change, and in very problematic ways,” Vaez says.
The Iranian official says the increased enrichment was a message to the Biden administration after Washington informed Tehran that it would not discuss the nuclear issue until after the US election.
“If America wants to wait, they should suffer the consequences, and the consequences are going to be increasing enrichment,” the official says.
A consequence neither side wants, however, is military escalation.
The US and Iran are relying on back channels through states such as Qatar to try to prevent that outcome.
Biden has also publicly stated he has sent warnings to Tehran, most recently cautioning it not to aid the Houthis.
Sanam Vakil, Middle East programme director at Chatham House, believes the regime will continue to be restrained because of its ultimate goal: self-preservation.
“Iran’s number one priority is Iran, and we should never forget that. Iran will not mobilise its own forces unless it is directly hit,” she says.
“It isn’t this sort of mammoth, behemoth puppet master behind the scene, but actually also tactical and it has weaknesses — and the ability to be deterred.”
Instead, it will continue to rely on its proxy network to project power. “It has a forward defence strategy that it has put into place and has tried to push its perceived threats far away from its borders,” Vakil says.
“But it’s important not to oversell Iran’s position in the region or its investments in the Axis of Resistance.”
A critical question, however, is whether the calculus in Tehran changes if a full-blown war erupts between Israel and Hizbollah — the proxy it has invested most heavily in, and which some see as indispensable to its patron.
“Hizbollah is not Hamas — Hizbollah is the Islamic Republic of Iran,” says the Iranian official.
For Dot,
Russia is building fourth gen liquid lead cooled fast reactor.
I went searching for la Grenouillere one Sunday afternoon. The little round walled island is no longer in the river. It is about ten meters on shore but still recognisable. I was surprised that it wasn’t fenced off and signed given how many times it was painted.
I found it to be quite emotional to be there.
Katzenjammer
Jan 20, 2024 1:20 AM
Well said.
Thanks for the piece on the burns treatment innovation, Rosie.
I believe, if some people are so dead set against Israel and the Jews, they should enquire before any medical treatment as to its provenance. If it is a Jewish invention, they should refuse treatment and require a different product, thus avoiding being tainted with the terrible infection.
But then, they would have to eschew clothing sewn by machine also.
And go back to hand stitched. To be sure, to be sure.
As for listening to soothing music as they recover, the field would be narrowed considerably.
And many thanks for the Mundine column. So many nails, so perfectly struck, he could have been a floorer by trade.
The Indian Youth Bulge And Demand For Gold
When a country starts to develop economically, a few things tend to happen:
the death rate falls,
workers become more productive,
consumers consume more,
and birth rates normally fall.
During this period, countries experiencing such changes have a relatively small number of retirees and a small share of the population composed of children.
This means that a large share of the population is economically productive, working either formally or informally.
This phenomenon is known as the demographic dividend.
In contrast to the rapidly aging populations of East Asia, North America, Europe, and parts of Latin America, India boasts a large and comparatively young population.
In just over a decade, about a quarter of a billion Indians are expected to reach adulthood and join the workforce, a development economists expect to be beneficial for Indian economic growth.
Methinks Warren Mundine nails it.
Nikki Haley and the Never-Trumpers couldn’t be more wrong about the Don
No, Trump is not a loser and has not harmed the Republican Party; he has given it a backbone, and his policies are popular because they were very successful.
It is a true shame that Nikki Haley and other Republicans say President Trump can’t win elections and that he causes chaos.
The chaos has been caused by relentless lies about Trump and political prosecutions.
What was Trump supposed to do? Just shut up and take it?
Thank goodness he is very intelligent and fights back, unlike his RINO counterparts.
Here are facts about elections under Obama and Trump.
Hint: Trump did much better for the GOP than Obama did for the Democrat party, who was a disaster.
Summary:
It is an absolute shame that Haley and other Republicans say Trump has been a loser for the Republican Party.
As far as I am concerned, Trump and Reagan are the two best presidents in my lifetime because they (stood) stand up for the people, and rarely cave.
Most others seem to want to be loved by the media and other Democrats, including Mitt Romney and Mitch McConnell.
Predictions are worthless, facts are important, and in 2022, the fact is Republicans did not lose.
As one who wants her cake to both have and to eat, I ticked and now comment. 😀
In other news and as I mentioned glorious sewing machines a comment ago, I have been using this season of grief productively. Rather than going into a decline and gazing out the window in misery, fourteen little quilts will now go off to the paediatric ward at John Hunter. Bright and cheerful, full of funny animals and birds and insects and rockets and spacemen for the little ones to wrap themselves in and take home.
Even did a couple of more sophisticated ones for the odd teenager who finds themselves in the ward, as they sometimes do.
All lots of fun and very therapeutic.
Half of all Australians are nuts.
These Are The Countries Trusting The Government Most (And Least) (19 Jan)
Literally half, since 50% trust our government in 2023. It’s amazing and depressing both, that so many people are this naive.
We have heard of ‘leaks’ from the SCOTUS regarding their pending ruling on the Colorado election interference gambit to keep Trump off the ballot.
But when are they going officially to hand it down. I am always suspicious of leaks – they are done for a purpose.
The interesting one is the UK, down 7 points.
I can’t imagine how Australia’s “trust” went up, given the Albo Trot and his band of merry marauders.
Sal, I think Scomo the Great is too flattering. How about Scomo the Faint, or even Feint. Since he lost his nerve, while saying one thing and doing another.
Warren Mundine is a champion.
He copes so much abuse on X for his ongoing support of Israel but he is not cowed into submission.
History Legends goes to Rio.
Turns out Tropa de Elite was a documentary.
Neil Oliver directly addressed this very thing in this clip from the old thread.
Neil Oliver: The Davos 3-pronged attack on our freedom!
it’s one of his best.
Malcolm Roberts – terrifying.
A Triad of Tyranny
Warren Mundine is a champion.
He copes so much abuse on X for his ongoing support of Israel but he is not cowed into submission.
Yep. And remember that prior to 14 October 2023, Warren Mundine copped much personal vitriol and abuse on X because of his campaigning against da Voice.
The vitriol and abuse, be over Israel or the Voice, comes from the same oh so tolerant progressive scum. They are such hypocrites.
In 1961, a total of 1,250 Commonwealth Scholarships were awarded to Australian students. Of these, 175 were awarded to students from New South Wales. The recipients of the scholarships came from a wide range of backgrounds, and they studied a variety of subjects at universities across Australia.
My Teacher wanted me to repeat the year as I was 16 when I started Engineering at Sydney Uni – however I was one of the 175 in NSW – He was probably right!
We have a very tamed media, its tendrils stretching far in and around various press offices. It is a saprophytic creature, a symbiosis where the MSM is no longer capable of independent life. Our media might slag off an individual, may rail against a party, but in the long run those people and parties are forced out.
Most people’s knowledge of anything is from the MSM. As long as the MSM covers for government they will assume all is OK.
Ozzie, it’s hard to believe, but at 16 you left school with a more sophisticated knowledge of mathematics and arithmetic than those in Uni now.
And probably a better grasp of grammar, literature, history, geography and the sciences.
Engineering at SU was quite a different breed to the broader campus, became more so as the 70’s began and all the demmos and drug culture took hold.
As part of the recent U.K. parliamentary debate Miriam Cates MP, in two and a half minutes, covered the most dangerous and insidious part of the Covid response – lockdowns and the circumstances surrounding them.
Excess Deaths in the UK
DEI Destroys Excellence, Military Cohesion at Service Academies
It’s wonderful that you can turn your skills and grief to something very generous to kids in hospital, Calli. Your rugs will make the stay there seem much more personal and homely.
When we picked up Attapuss from his rescue-cat setting some kind woman (must have been a woman) had knitted a little blanket that came with him. He slept on it for much of his kittenhood; it did seem to offer him a sense of security. It was also signal to the fact that someone was thinking of little lost things and encouraging those people who took them on.
I’d suggest government trust is comparative, rather than absolute.
Progressive scum and now also muslim trolls, many many accounts created in October 2023.
Catturd ™
@catturd2
Go Woke – Go broke.
Sports Illustrated’s entire staff told they are getting laid off
Official Theme of 2024 WEF is TRUMP! TRUMP! TRUMP!
Canada seems to be the new Soviet Union.
Jordan Peterson throws down, warns ‘the war has barely started’ after Canadian court affirms he must undergo ‘re-education’
Nikki Haley BANS Daily Mail from all her future campaign events after publishing report on resurfaced allegations she cheated on her husband with her communications consultant and a married lobbyist
I got mine at the ‘mature age’ of 21 in 1964, Old Ozzie. We are now the remains of that generation. I will never forget the awe with which I accepted my Comm Schol. University had always seemed so far beyond my ken, and now I was going to go there.
An expert on islam who posts on X
don’t ask muslims to explain islam to you, they will lie
A short obituary for Davos:
– Joel Kotkin
FARMERS REVOLT: Protests sweep across Germany against ‘unfair’ tax changes
calli
Jan 20, 2024 8:19 AM
Ozzie, it’s hard to believe, but at 16 you left school with a more sophisticated knowledge of mathematics and arithmetic than those in Uni now.
And probably a better grasp of grammar, literature, history, geography and the sciences.
Engineering at SU was quite a different breed to the broader campus, became more so as the 70’s began and all the demmos and drug culture took hold.
Engineering 2 at Sydney Uni – 45 Hours a week Lectures/Tutorials/Pracs with 3 hour session down at Sydney Tech for Hands On Mech Engineering
Cheesed at Arts Studesnts only 10 hours a week – hence they had time for demmos and drug culture – no so much in early 60s but they were definitely different to Engineering Students
The grounding I got at Sydney Tech in 1963 in their Day Matric full-time course was absolutely eye-opening for me. I’d left a good job in advertising to pursue this course (which I had to pay for myself and support myself while doing it) so I wanted to get the best from it; and the best was on offer. Such excellent teaching, committed teachers for the last two years of 5 years of high school condensed into one year. Also a great group of friends, immediately made. They gave me a twenty-first birthday party and insisted on the card they were always told to ‘respect their elders’, such a rissoling, as was their way. They were mostly eighteen, doing the Leaving Certificate for a second go at it. I sit here now, eyes prickling, remembering them all so fondly in those far off days.
University was far beyond most Australians well into at least the 1970s.
Only .02 percent of all Australians attended in 1939.
I’m not sure the modern everyone and their dog going is wonderful as all get out though.
My aunt attended as a young novice in the 1930s, too brilliant to have her talents hidden under a bushel and her qualifications put to great use for many decades as a teacher in circumstances no modern teacher would contemplate.
As I have mentioned before, sack and fine these people the same as a farmer loses each time a dud prediction occurs, James Wagstaff in the Hun:
As a Kerang resident I can assure this is correct. We’ve had a flood and maybe another coming up after the rain of the New Year, which was supposed to never happen according to ‘Perfesser’ Flannery.
Won’t be as bad as 14 months ago however.
But the climate porn needs to be front and centre for cockfaces like Bowen and Teh ABC to justify their taxpayer funded miserable lives. Rabz doctrine required.
Me too a couple of years later. Maths at Sydney Uni in engineering was boring compared to high school honours maths.
James Wagstaff is the Weekly Times editor I should add.
Acid bath. We were told it works a treat and there’s nothing left. 38 bodies gone without a trace.
Pigs.
Just get a lot of them.
h/t Brick Top.
What that survey doesn’t tell you is that it’s is down from 65% in 2008 (OECD figures).
Standards have had to be lowered considerably to accommodate the masses.
Not a single word about government mandates and overall pressure.
HUGE NEWS! Ford & GM SHOCKED As They CAN’T Sell EVs!
Thanks. Don’t know how that managed to find the right words after a bit too much ouzo.
Indubitably – and deliberately.
DEI/CRT do not stop racism, they cause it
And Vikki Campion on ‘Environmantal Defenders’:
An excellent article Ms Campion.
Are these the same people who fund the idiocy up north to shut down Santos?
Like all projects of the left, Davos assumed that people were too stupid to see what was really going on.
And so global communism’s latest attempt to infiltrate and subvert the capitalist free market and its think tanks has become a farcical self-parody.
There was nowhere else for it to go after Davos staged a “cleansing” ceremony by fake witchdoctors and expected us not to laugh out loud.
Katzenjammer
Jan 20, 2024 8:49 AM
My Teacher wanted me to repeat the year as I was 16 when I started Engineering at Sydney Uni – however I was one of the 175 in NSW
Me too a couple of years later. Maths at Sydney Uni in engineering was boring compared to high school honours maths.
Katzenjammer,
also did Honours Maths for Leaving Certificate – catching bus from Marist Mosman down to Manly High, for after school coaching with ex-pupil of my Marist Mosman Maths Teacher who was Manly High School Honours Maths Teacher
You did not do Distinction Pure & Applied Maths 1 at Sydney Uni?
I wonder if any of them ever come here. They wouldn’t know me as Elizabeth Beare, but they can guess, and contact me via Dover if they wish.
I did once run into very nice chap, a medical specialist, who did the same Day Matric course that I did but a couple of years later. Part of an alumni worth belonging to, we both agreed.
Calli, good point.
How about; Slomo the Feint.
Seems apt.
Whoops lopsided quotes
Steve Inman:
Non-essential Commentary Weekly Highlights
I almost feel sorry for the midwit tasked with the job of re-educating Jordan Peterson.
https://twitter.com/GuyDealership/status/1748413415897378876
Sports Illustrated going under, sacking all its staff? JC can you confirm?
“No sugar thanks Turkish, I’m sweet enough already.”
And before I away, Pogria thought Ace Of Spades has a way with words like Tim Blair. I think Ace is very risque. Headline:
Yes, it is they.
Lying to witnesses, coaching witnesses to lie to the court, etc.
I think Johannes might agree that Bill had a wicked twist in his work that was his own, and being really good cannot replace.
“Yair righto. What’s his name?”
Going to get worse too.
EV’s Are Useless In Winter, Admits AA (19 Jan)
Just don’t use a toaster to warm up your EV’s battery like the guy in Denmark, who tried than and accidentally set his EV on fire.
Meanwhile Ford has put out some more guidance overnight.
Ford Prepares To Cut F-150 Lightning Electric Truck Production (20 Jan)
I predict even more production cuts, between the cratering demand, the increasing publicizing of the cold weather issue, and a general winding back of subsidies. The solar panel installation market in California is about to crash dramatically, for example, as subsidies are due to be cut in April by the skint Cali government.
BB, how do I know? I suppose the January edition they historically published with hot gals, which subsequently morphed into the fat chicks and trannie edition will be their last? How sweet.
The dialogue and banter in Snatch and Lock Stock is unsurpassed. Guy Ritchie’s genius. But it doesn’t translate so well across the Atlantic. US doesn’t do banter quite as well.
Re the pigs vs acid debate, I had a rather lovely colleague whose family run cray boats.
For such cases, she favours the continental shelf.
Based on the heartbreakingly poor results of another former acquaintance, I must say that inshore marine disposal operations must be very carefully thought out.
Only Pilots who have used THIS can tell the reason why JAL516 pilots couldn’t see the plane – 6 mins 11 secs
BB, wifey is from there.
https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/1748314208616206501
– ABC News
The AFP reports 340 instances of human trafficking related to forced marriage in 2022/23 (an increase of 13% over the previous 12 months).
I suspect that’s the tip of the iceberg.
John Gorton was from Kerang
TV is saying Roger Rogerson is on his death bed. The green light is dimming.
When you think about the steal in 2020, outrageous is an understatement. That people like Howard are obviously comfortable with it speaks volumes about such persons.
An engineering degree is quite different these days. Massive year cohorts, at last half have English as a Second language which makes things interesting with the (much favoured by lecturers) group assignments, most see lectures on line, about 20 contact hours counting tutes, and you have the privilege of learning the science behind the mysteries of welding without ever doing an actual weld yourself.
A knowledge of Solidworks is more important than actually building the actual thing.
I’ll bet their family names don’t resemble names such as Smith, Johnson or McIntosh.
cripes, I have nephews and nieces who wanted to and got married before they were 23, two of them still teenagers. Must report these rural fundy types for reeducation on the grounds of not conforming to expectations.
Shamanic ritual at World Economic Forum: ‘What spirit rules in Davos?’ priest asks
Chief Puttany of the Yawanawa tribe performed a shamanic ritual at the World Economic Forum 2024 in Davos, Switzerland.
That people like Howard are obviously comfortable with it speaks volumes about such persons.
Howard is just incredibly poorly read.
Always has been.
John Gorton was from Kerang
Our library is named in his honour.
A southern state refusing to acknowledge federal jurisdiction…My oh my!
Will the AFP go so far as to say that it’s girls in the Islamic “community” who are primarily at risk of this newfangled forced marriage?
Will the boys in blue go to Islamic schools to remind Principals about notifying them when girls mysteriously drop out?
…don’t hold your breath.
Fresh update on Hunter’s art dealings.
How can any serious person not see this for what it is.
Hunter’s Painting Foray Had All The Classic Earmarks Of A Biden Family Influence-Peddling Operation
https://thefederalist.com/2024/01/19/hunters-painting-foray-had-all-the-classic-earmarks-of-a-biden-family-influence-peddling-operation/
Putting transvestites and beluga whales in bikinis on your sports magazine cover turns off sports fans.
Who woulda thought?
And an industrial steam press?
For the jeans?
But they weren’t forced into it, were they?
She had one of those too though not sure how industrial it was. I’m not familiar with the steam iron sector.
Alec Baldwin Indicted on Two Counts Including Manslaughter in Rust Shooting
About time justice got around to it. He faces 18 month in prison if convicted.
It’s also an issue among Africans of sub-Saharan origin in Australia, who tend to be Christian.
I recently posted about a 10c (excluding postage) capacitor suddenly identifying as a firecracker, thus transforming a barely used $1500 LG SmartTV into a useless, 30Kg piece of non-degradable junk.
For comparison, older Samsung and Sanyo boxes, with more use and abuse, are still working faultlessly.
After a considered, barely adequate amount of cursing and checking for a cheaper replacement at Hardly Normal and JB, I removed the 46 screws holding the back cover in place, tested the power board and found a blown fuse which, hopefully, saved the rest of the circuit from further damage.
For there was zero chance of me competently finding other blown bits in the 200+ component board.
I ordered the replacement parts on eBay, practiced the finer arts of soldering and desoldering and, after receiving the replacement bits, soldered them on the SMPS board yesterday.
Amazingly, nothing exploded after connecting to the mains.
The damned ex-piece of junk worked again.
I even watched a great French movie to test the new, miniscule capacitor under heat stress.
A damn fine movie.. À la folie… pas du tout (He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not) with Audrey Tautou. Highly recommended to discerning Cats.
Oh, and unless you want to practice swearing or improving your electronic sleuthing, don’t ever buy an LG TV.
I think there was a trannie was an unshaven face look. Like what gal doesn’t sport a 5 o’clock shadow.
And then the lard pics. Lord almighty.
It’s also an issue among Africans of sub-Saharan origin in Australia, who tend to be Christian.
I’m sure you’re right Roger. It seems all these peoples have one thing in common. I wonder if the AFP or any other Plod force has twigged to it. Or the media for that matter. Quite the mystery.
BOM forecasted “mainly sunny” for today in my neck of the woods.
It’s overcast and showering, with a thunderstorm now predicted.
Can’t even get it right one day out.
Ford and GM will have trouble selling EVs, ordinary people buys cars from Ford and GM for utilitarian purposes. Ev owners buy them for status and feel good reasons but usually have a fall back position. Ordinary people can’t afford that or have practical reasons why evs won’t work.
Just like windmills, this tech is not really new and as a society we already know the drawbacks.
Aha!
You neatly sidestep the question of the ironed jeans.
I am onto something.
Good $10 per Month Spend
With 7 People in the House – 4 Streaming TVs, no 7 eldest grandson moving to new iPad for High School & next grandson moving to iPad in yr 5 (7 yr Old just plays Flight Simulator, Farming 22, & Lego and other X Box Series X Games on my big screen 65in OLED TV & Sony Playstation)- Daughter & SIL working from home a couple of day week.
Having looked at aussiebroadband NBN plans, decided to move from
Super-Fast – 250/25
Unlimited Minimum/Maximum Monthly Charge $119
Typical Evening Download Speeds (7pm – 11pm) – 243Mbps
Typical Evening Upload Speeds (7pm – 11pm) – 21Mbps
Ultra-Fast – 1000/50
Unlimited Minimum/Maximum Monthly Charge $129
Typical Evening Download Speeds (7pm – 11pm) – 600Mbps
Typical Evening Upload Speeds (7pm – 11pm) – 42Mbps
Current Speed Test seeing 560Mbps Download – 47.2Mbps Upload
Happy!
Didn’t he hail from the small satellite town by the lake just outside?
I remember Bettina Gorton talking about coming from the US to live a Mystic Park. Both heavy smokers iirc but then so many of that generation did smoke. Makes me old.
Yes Mystic Park JC but I recall he was on Kerang council. A duck shooter too.
I have personal experience on the African front with a family at church, but it is also a well-known cultural practice…well, if you care to look into it, that is.
It’s illustrative of the idiocy of our immigration policies and the people who devise and administer them that the authorities are surprised by this.
Still making hay outa that one, sanchez. Wifey was away, so I took my washing to mum’s and had everything returned nicely pressed. Socks, underwear, the whole kit, and jeans with a “nice” pleat down the middle.
As KD says, some things never get old. 🙂
As an 8 year old I remember the ABC News started one night with Gorton walking up the parliament house front stairs smoking a ciggie
I thought it was Glad Sad? They would get on famously.
Ah Yeah, Mystic Park. A country town with the only business was the pub. I think that’s all there is on the “commercial shopping strip”.
Them vs. U.S.
The Two Americas and How the Nation’s Elite Is
Out of Touch with Average Americans
Milt
I recall wifey saying her uncle was in the airforce with Gordon and both served together somewhere for a time .
Black Ball
Jan 20, 2024 8:48 AM
As I have mentioned before, sack and fine these people the same as a farmer loses each time a dud prediction occurs, James Wagstaff in the Hun:
Forget backyard cricket, farmers have found a new summer sport to embrace: laying a boot into the tail of the Bureau of Meteorology.
This is why a lot of Farmers and others that rely on accurate weather forecasting are signing up to David Burton –
https://inigojoneslongtermweatherforecaster.com/
The big global warming scam
There’s a reason why W.D. Gann and Inigo Jones went back to studying 1000s of years of data. It was to study cycles in commodities back all the way to 1259 A.D and for sunspots/weather cycles back to 800 B.C to get the long-term trends and that’s why you need to have long term data. The main driver of weather (not the environment) is the sun and the planetary cycles working their vibrations in “Inverse square law”. The longer-term cycles are the precession of the equinoxes and movement around the “Barycentre”.
The BoM doesn’t do this but they do spend around $1m of Taxpayer money a day getting it wrong.
New Footage Shows Secret Service Let Group of Children Walk Past ‘Pipe Bomb’ Planted Ahead of J6
I saw something when the site was down and didn’t end up posting it about the fact that the pipe bomb they “found” looked exactly like the ones used by the FBI in training.
I think pretty much everyone is a midwit (or worse) next to JP.
Hello?!?!
JC at 10:18.
That actually happened?
I always thought it was a jibe invented by Infidel Tiger.
“You’d be the type to iron creases in your jeans.”
Was “tasseled loafers” his value-add to the story?
As if Israel hasn’t agreed to compromise multiple times. They aren’t the ones blocking a two state solution.
EU’s top diplomat: Palestinian state may need to be imposed on Israel from outside
By the way, Times of Israel still seems to be blocking U.S. visitors.
I think it’s more sinister than that. It’s a replacement process underway. Get the Govt benefit voteherd in. Here, and across the Anglicised nations. Look what is happening in the UK and Ireland. Canada and the US too. There is no idiocy behind the strategy. It’s planned and determined. Over time, they plan to replace a large portion of us for their Big Australia project.
“Anything to declare?”
“Don’t go to England.”
Well done, Doctor TV! Surgery successful, patient recovering by indulging in saucy French programs.
A great result.
My next foray into machinery resuscitation involves a Walton Celestial sewing machine, circa 1968. Much beloved, but languishing in Nanna’s cupboard for decades. Hopefully I can get it up and running for Miss almost-Eight, so she can use her other grandmother’s machine. The big problem will be parts and gummy, lint-caked oil on the working bits, particularly the rotary hook.
No soldering, sadly.
Amused by Murdoch press take on the Sports Illustrated debacle.
Entire staff sacked weeks after AI debacle (News.com.au/NY Post, 20 Jan)
I’ve used the News.com.au mainpage headline, since it covers the spin they’re pushing. No mention anywhere in the lengthy article of the words “woke”, “transvestite”, “fat” or “obese”. It’s a complete mystery!
Is there any industry these irredeemable imbeciles aren’t trying to shut down?
Surprise, Surpise in a Labor State Governemnt – Harsh on Grandmothers & Pregnant Women at home, but very lenient of particular types of young criminals
Teen boy, aged 16, was on bail at the time he allegedly murdered loved Melbourne doctor Ash Gordon, 33, in Doncaster
A boy charged with the murder of a young doctor this week was on bail when he allegedly broke into a Melbourne home and stole thousands of dollars worth of personal items before fleeing.
David Wu – Digital Reporter
One of the two teenagers charged with the murder of a beloved and respected doctor was on bail at the time of the alleged crime.
Ashley Gordon, 33, was allegedly stabbed and left to die on a street less than one kilometre from his home in Doncaster last Saturday after chasing down two kids.
Both boys – aged 16 – were arrested four days later on Wednesday by homicide detectives before later being charged with murder, aggravated burglary and theft.
It is alleged they stole a pair of Nike Air Force shoes, headphones, a gaming computer and laptop, a Louis Vuitton wallet, bank cards and keys to a Mitsubishi Triton.
According to The Herald Sun, one of the teens was facing serious criminal charges.
Amid the news, the government is facing calls to not push ahead with plans to overhaul the youth criminal justice system that will keep more young people out of jail.
Devised under former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews, the criminal age of responsibility will be increased from 10 to 12 by the end of 2024 and then to 14 by 2027.
Current leader Jacinta Allan plans to continue with the reforms, telling reporters on Friday “there’s not one simple answer” to fix the youth justice system.
“We know we need to continue to work very hard on prevention,” she said.
“The best way to address youth crime and youth offending is to get in and prevent it in the first place.”
But shadow youth justice minister Brad Battin insists the changes would lead to the relaxing of youth bail laws, which would cause anxiety in the community.
He pointed to the rising statistics in youth crime and demanded the state government pour more funds into rehabilitation and prevention programs.
According to crime statistics published in September, youths aged between 14 to 17 in Victoria were committing more serious and violent crimes.
Offending from that age group jumped 26 per cent over a year to June 2023, with the report showing there were 3,758 assaults, 1,928 burglaries and 1,495 cars thefts.
Crime amongst 10-13-year-olds also rose to 3,187 incidents.
In which case it’ll be the one promise they keep.
Must keep those inner-city greens on side.
Dr. John Campbell in a long form discussion with Professor Angus Dalgleish. Very clear and easy to understand.
Chronic inflammation and cancer
The best way to prevent youth crime is to make the punishments so onerous they act as deterrent. Set up a few prison farms so when they get out at least they have some skills learned that can get them meaningful employment. If they offend again , back inside the Big House at double the time. It’s about time these poliscum looked after the victims and taxpayer interests, not the immigrant fkg voteherds from where these perps come from.
It’s the wholesale forced misdirection of language that causes this. The minute you are not allowed to call something the way it is but use euphemistic language to obscure the reality, people find themselves going along with all sorts of things out of courtesy and not wanting to rock the boat. I’d note the generation that fought WW2 are remembered as brutally blunt with their language, perhaps that is because when you’ve stared down tyranny you recognise it’s precursors more readily?
Indolent
Jan 20, 2024 10:30 AM
As if Israel hasn’t agreed to compromise multiple times. They aren’t the ones blocking a two state solution.
EU’s top diplomat: Palestinian state may need to be imposed on Israel from outside
By the way, Times of Israel still seems to be blocking U.S. visitors.
Indolent,
nope – changed VPN to Los Angeles and loaded Times of Israel Article OK
did slow speed test Download 156.8 Mbps Upload 5.7 Mbps
Huh? What reprisals? What could those soys possibly do?
What are they going to do? It’s not as if they can cancel the live sheep trade a second time, or anything like that.
Suppose they could make endless phone calls, tie up the phone line, saturate the message bank. Telecom has ways of handling that. It’d be a problem for a few days only.
Lizzie, fantastic that you can look down memory lane and not find it empty but full of sweet memories and lovely people
JC, that’s hilarious — wifey is from the Victorian bush, but you hate anything further than 50kms from the GPO with a passion.
PS: my mum was a city nurse posted to a country hospital where she married my father, a member of the local landed gentry.
Sports IIlustrated
Beached Whale Edition 2023
If anyone knows about rigging elections, I suppose it would be Putin.
Where are their $3m payouts for loss of career progression and earnings?
JC – I’d possibly plough that field. If asked nicely.
Seeing reports that 60 French mercs were killed in Kharkov in a single strike.
So untrue Tom. I have an endearing love for all things rural – the Botanical gardens, Hyde and Central Park are just small examples.
Brake cleaner fluid from Supercheap is really handy. Come with a long tube to get at the specific spots, inside and such. Spray and let it soak for a few hours before wash off.
No doubt. I’d imagine it would quite an effort finding your way around though.
Toad
You’d need a compass obviously.
Thats one thing amongst many, to go to the submarine museum in Groton. I’d really prefer to go to Electric Boat but I don’t think they’d let me. Had a fascination with subs since Granddad was engineer on a sub in the WWI.
JC, as a discerning student of the sweet or racy bikini pic I wholeheartedly condemn that purported link. Cute owl fans may be traumatised, and radiant inner beauty is negatively associated with psychotic body image and/or identity fetishes. That humor upgrade is no help, I am sorry to say.
Nightmares from outside the applicable ‘fun zone’ or ‘wife zone’ of the hot/crazy matrix are not suitable for contemplation.
JC,
Thanks for the memories of the old Singer Treadle sewing machine.
We had an Ulna Treadle in a beautiful timber cabinet. When closed it looked like a very nice piece of furniture not recognisable as a sewing machine.
You’d need a compass obviously.
Flour
If I’m not mistaken, QLD spends more than any other state on such programs. We also have the highest number of youth offenders in detention and the highest recidivism rates.
One has to conclude that the programs aren’t working.
Why?
Sounds like a real collapse is unfolding.
They both are.
Ditto early TVs & radiograms.
(Boyhood memories of visits to grandparents.)
50 kms?
Wut?
He gets a nosebleed and a migraine if he goes East of Glenferrie Rd or North of the River.
Not to mention the Western suburbs.
Wow.
“There was no getting around Queen Margaret – or at least, it was a long walk.”
– Tolkein, ‘Farmer Giles of Ham’
More on EVs (yes that’s a play on words).
EV Sales Run Out of Juice in Europe as Germans Tighten Belts (19 Jan)
Subsidies are bleeding government budgets white, but as soon as they stop the sales stop. Those are brutal sales numbers. I tried to see what the ICE sales numbers were like but the original article is paywalled. From the look of the numbers though I suspect ICE car sales weren’t much affected.
I post all these EV articles because the clash between the elites trying to socially engineer us and the actions of the ordinary people is one of the most fascinating cultural wars I’ve seen for quite a while.
In 1961, a total of 1,250 Commonwealth Scholarships were awarded to Australian students. Of these, 175 were awarded to students from New South Wales. The recipients of the scholarships came from a wide range of backgrounds, and they studied a variety of subjects at universities across Australia.
Yep. I obtained a Commonwealth Scholarship in 1965 to enter Sydney University & went on to do a BA.Hons degree in Ancient History. These were very difficult to obtain in those days because of the financial examination of the income of parents. My parents had “lost everything” through the collapse of their farming enterprise, & I was able to qualify.
The rain that will never fall again. NT News:
It’s actually 600km between Mataranka and Three Ways (junction of the north/south Stuart Highway and the Barkly, running east to Quenthland).
Three Ways is 20km north of Tennant Creek. Word this morning is that the Stuart Highway has also been closed from the Tennant Creek Railway Station (on its’ southern side) to the Devil’s Marbles, another 110km south.
Seven hundred kilometres of the sole artery between D-Town and the rest of the world is down. It’s not just ‘water over the road’ either, and it is most certainly not too much bureaucracy. From personal experience, most of this is quick-flowing water from one side to the other, and sometimes swirling in the middle of broken, underwater roadways where the surface has been torn apart.
Last year in January I managed to get the length of the NT on the same road, and it was nothing short of a miracle. On reflection I would never, ever attempt that again.
There is nobody out there. There is no reception. There is no drinking water. There are no roadhouses for up to 500km at a time, and that’s if they’re open. Nobody is coming to get you.
BTW I also obtained a post-grad scholarship to do a PhD after the bachelor degree. I was very lucky. I hope I repaid the nation through my years of teaching of adult students. I think I did as many of my students went on to further education. One of them is currently a deputy director of an Australian museum! I am very proud.
We talked about RN minesweepers recently. Looks like they’re not doing so well:
Given the apalling weather in Betlin this time of year, the German farmers are displaying serious determination.
But, even given German proclivities for neatness the number of sparkling new tractors is startling. EU subsidies.
While I support their protests, there is no disguising the reality that EU farming is a racket used by the German Empire to bully other countries and damage other economies.
For example: the ban on glyphosate is no more than an attack on broad acre farming. The fake sttack on GM was a blatant baseless attack on efficient agricultural practice. It suits the EU to lock their farmers into medevial farming practice and make them dependent and compliant through subsidies.
Sounds like a voice over for a slasher film.
Vicki, well done.
By the time I started uni in 1976, the numbers were greatly increasing. So many of us wasted years in misguided ‘you can do anything you want’ courses. Failing out of Architecture or Engineering in first or second year was quite usual, and the cost was not understood.
Wins the day. Fanatical idiots.
World of difference between choosing to marrying young to being sold to a foreign national who wants an Australian passport or married off to a cousin in a chain immigration scheme.
Nothing much is happening, other than PBI on both sides suffering. Some slight gains, of a kilometer of two, near Avdiivka but the Russians still haven’t managed to cut off the place despite months and months of trying.
The Russian Army is very short of manpower, but they can’t do another draft until after the Presidential election in March. It’ll be interesting what actions they take then. Meanwhile there’ve been conniptions in the internal Stans (who’ve been doing a lot of the heavy lifting) and from some other unhappy peoples. That may colour whatever recruitment options they do.
Sure, give em short sentences, but give them hard labour. No weights as they shouldn’t have enough energy to do so. Hard, hard labour. Dog holes and fill em again. Over and over.
Guaranteed to cure ingratitude.
Well, dog holes sorta works. Dogs don’t use em, so just as pointless as digging holes, which is kinda the point.
Brick Top continued his magnificence as Alan the Homeopathist in the inimitable sitcom, Toast of London.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q_564rrtVg
I was leading a Speechcraft course at a law firm in Central Park tower. Young Sikh girl told us she was about to travel to Kenya to meet potential husbands. I mentioned a Christian Indian girl I knew who was going to Singapore to meet a husband, who said she trusts her family to find her someone good. This got some agreement from her, and I said “You must be quite a catch, with your law degree!”
“Actually that’s nothing. Its my Australian passport that they want.”
Is there anything left standing in Gaza?
https://twitter.com/MOSSADil/status/1748012325288734814
Met a young Russian chap in NZ who was bar tending.
Anecdotal, but according to him the war is only popular among Putin’s generation.
Last year in January I managed to get the length of the NT on the same road, and it was nothing short of a miracle. On reflection I would never, ever attempt that again.
Not in January, though many supply vehicles need to. Our travel up there has only ever been in winter months.
Bruce, correct me if I’m wrong, but to me warmer waters creates more rain, and as we know from experience, creates cooler weather.
Alarmists are still using the discredited “runaway global warming” under different names such as “positive reinforcing”.
To me it’s as clear as day that warming is net negative, being an effective regulator.
I suspect the biggest threat to actual surface temperatures in continental drift, which in the long run changes ocean currents. Fortunately, this takes millions of years, but that doesn’t satiate our generational hubris.
Just for interest, I had a girlfriend at uni, who’s father was on the hmas Australia. He assisted gorton out of the drink when his plane went down during ww2.
Christian terrorism news.
EXPOSED: Biden’s Monstrous ‘Anti-Terror’ Plan to Censor Christians, Conservatives Before 2024 Election (18 Jan)
Oddly I can’t recall a demonstration at the Opera House by Christians shouting “kill the Jews!” Weird, that. My memory must be faulty.
JC
Jan 20, 2024 10:48 AM
Sports IIlustrated
Beached Whale Edition 2023
You bastard. A beautiful cute owl to restore normality and sanity.
Not this time. Road trains, although they can get through pretty ordinary conditions are shut down as well.
Both this and last year are the result of tropical lows moving back and forth across the highway along that 700km+ length. Last year, when I got through but shouldn’t have, it was just me and road trains. Nothing else.
This year it’s not even that, and as of last night water was still rising.
If Mizz Knickerless, a very junior nobody, got $3m for loss of career and other matters, Hicks should get at least ten times as much.
Anthony Albanese on the frontline to fast-track defence fix.
Well that’s it for our defence forces they are doomed!
They’re running scared.
And obviously not confident they can pull off large scale voter fraud again.