Australian bowlers are unhappy with soft pink balls…?

Probably moisturiser.

That is Victorian air coming through.
You’re welcome.

You mean it is pre-breathed? Not fresh and new?

bons
Jan 26, 2024 12:08 PM

JC.

How much is the annual payment to your building Super?

I’m interested to see the extent of change since I lived there in the dark ages.

I think he earns about 100K a year salary. He also lives rent free in an apartment in the building provided for him, and *Christmas bonus would be about 30 plus by my estimate. He’s on a decent wicket when you add it up.

*35 floors X 3 apartments handing out 300 bucks on average for the Christmas bonus

Regarding shenanigans in North Sydney – about an hour ago there was something like a dozen police cars tearing along Spit Rd, sirens wailing, toward The Spit – heading to Northern Beaches.

It looked like a pursuit, sure enough.

No idea what they were racing to, but I wonder if it is at least connected to what happened at the station.

Go the West Indies! The woke Ozzie team is now 4 for 24.

Regarding shenanigans in North Sydney – about an hour ago there was something like a dozen police cars tearing along Spit Rd, sirens wailing, toward The Spit – heading to Northern Beaches.

The Palestinian mob have apparently gone to Manly. Why Manly I don’t know.

There will be no decapitation, and the only result of any such attempt will be further degradation of the US’s position in the region.

We shall see.

The Homeless Industrial Complex

Now I hear that there was trouble at North Sydney, then a brawl at Manly. No details.

Bons

There was a huge scandal back in the 90s when one of the big managing agents were found to be taking kickbacks etc. I think it was Brown Harris and some of the employees may have got jail time. Fuzzy memory.

I don’t know if this constitutes a bribe, but it’s pretty damned close. We paid the super a bonus, when we did renos and the contractor had to as well. It was never demanded, but it’s the practice. That’s how things roll there and there’s no use whining about it.

Oh, one thing I left out was the possibility of kick backs to the super. I’d forgotten that one. 🙂

There was/is some sort of community pool and athletic on E92 that our kids used to go to. Can’t recall the name.

I was in Melbourne CBD today. No Australian flags in Fed Square area nor Bourke St Mall. Absolute disgrace but not unexpected from a marxist city council. Suburbs have flags in most streets and glad to see several along the Monash Fwy. Strange times indeed.

Knuckle Dragger

Jan 26, 2024 4:59 PM

4/24.

Green dollies it up to mid-off. The Green at 4 and Smith opening gambit (to please Smith) is having its tits torn open and thrown over the fence.

Mmmyes.
Burnt specialist openers to acquiesce to Cryon De Telli’s cynical attempt to prolong his career by picking up cheap runs against the Windies.
The most prominent of those openers being Cameron Bancroft who told the truth about Captain Climate. That is, that he and the bowlers knew about the sandpaper stunt.

Immediately followed by Travis Head nicking off down the leg side for a golden blob.

A soft, lazy shot to follow Green shelling one to mid-off in a fashion which cost Damien Martyn a looong career holiday.

The selectors would have sphincters going five-cent fifty-cent at present.

Quite so.
They have painted themselves into a corner with this one.

I’m not mindreading, JC.

You were before but let’s leave that aside.

The Houthis are engaging in a political campaign in the Red Sea. They are putting pressure on the US’s support for Israel through a blockade. You’re trying to ease the failure by saying this is only minimally economically impactful on the US. No one believed or has argued otherwise. They aren’t the principal targets.

The Tootsie position is unclear as it’s been from the beginning. One day, they’re claiming the Red Sea is being molested because of Saudi behavior and the next day they saying it’s about Israel.
They’ve said they will punish any shipping from Israel friendly countries. What happens to a Chinese ship moving cargo from Germany to China?

Does it indicate that the Houthis have successful established a high barrier for continued traffic in the Red Sea?

Who knows?

The MSM has a credibility problem, but I don’t think that in this case there’s a problem because it appears to be simple reporting. There’s also a byline with the reporters name attached.

Who are these anonymous fcks on Twitter suddenly showing up as experts?

This is what I’ve been recently responding to:

Your delusional here, JC. If this is ‘good’ for the US wtf are they even doing in the Red Sea then? Rather than admit the obvious you’re giving us this alternate reality.

US interests in the Red Sea appears to be mostly altruistic.

Fair Shake

Jan 26, 2024 5:57 PM

Why are we getting cricket updates? The Cricket Aus and Captain Aus can go F themselves.

The updates are driven by the unbridled joy at watching Captain Carbon and the Climateers copping it up the arse.

Old Dog playing on Twitter.

$in¢lair Davidson
@SincDavidson
·
51m
Late entrant for Australian of the Year.
Quote
Sky News Australia
@SkyNewsAust
·
1h
Victoria Police have released video footage of a masked tradie armed with a hammer and spray paint attacking a speed camera car as part of an appeal for information into the act of vandalism.

https://skynews.com.au/australia-news/crime/police-release-footage-of-man-smashing-speed-camera-car-with-hammer-and-jumping-on-its-roof-in-appeal-for-information-into-sunbury-vandalism/news-story/6fd63507fe628cf5710d0c53eeef2c9e

Very early in the morning Milton.
I’m anticipating clouds retreating and blue skies.

The wannabe revolution is a fascist anti-democratic revolution and will fail in Australia as long as the fascists can’t rig the vote.

Happy Australia Day, Cats.

Tom, most revolutions are anti-democratic and always instigated by elites who think they deserve more power.

It’s been clear from the outset. They declared they’re targeting the Israelis and that the blockade will end with a ceasefire.

That’s rather naive of you Dover.

Barking Toad

Jan 26, 2024 6:25 PM

Why are we getting cricket updates? The Cricket Aus and Captain Aus can go F themselves.

Because of the chortling factor after a fair lash on Australia Day

Yes.
I apologise if I gave the impression that I was anything but ecstatic that Captain Carbon and the Climateers were copping a pasting after dispensing free advice about Australia Day.

When they go to the Supreme court for the right to remove razer wire at the southern border, there’s no doubt whatsoever that it’s being deliberately engineered.

Cultural Replacement: Why The Immigration Crisis Is Being Deliberately Engineered

Rabz

Jan 26, 2024 7:03 PM

With a bit o’ “chin muzak” hurled in for good measure … ?

Captain Climate now in and copping a bit of that.
Except it isn’t muzak.
It is definitely heavy metal.

It’s been clear from the outset. They declared they’re targeting the Israelis and that the blockade will end with a ceasefire. Chinese ships get safe passage. As do most other ships that abide by certain conditions, like not hiding their info.

It’s not clear at all. Firstly, they’ve attacked shipping that logistically had no connection to their accusation. A Panamanian ship bound for Italy, which they said they believed was dropping off in Israel, was actually bound for Italy. Then there’s the example I brought up: what happens to a Chinese ship with German cargo bound for China? Germany, like many other Euros, is considered an Israeli pal. They’ve also stated hostility because of Saudi behavior and are attempting to exert pressure on the international community with respect to their Saudi dispute.

The numbers tell the story.

Yeah, the rerouting around Africa.

Is Sal M anonymous? Pilkington? No. Etc.

Sal M sounds like someone’s blog name here who pretends he’s a pub owner. Pilkington who?

Sure. Their current failure is having no substantive impact on their prestige, and so on. Next you’ll be telling me they are in Iraq and Syria (but not much longer) for altruistic reasons.

The US has been getting out of skirmishes since Korea, and every time we’re told US prestige is going to be hurt, until the next time.

There are 2,500 military personnel in Iraq and about 900 in Syria. Neither are there as a fighting force. It’s there to train and keep an eye on things.

US interest in the Mid East has been waning since it became energy independent and will continue to do so except to try and keep sea lanes open for the rest of the world. To suggest the US has lost against the Tootsies is based more on hope than anything else.

whoops , should read.

A Panamanian ship bound, which they said they believed was dropping off in Israel, was actually bound for Italy.

Dinner at Nambucca Heads RSL, with Australian flag themed decorations (banners, staff dress). Each child given a small Australian flag on a stick.

One of the nicest views on the coast from that place. Looking out on the River with a nice meal approaching sunset is one of life’s simple pleasures.

James Woods
@RealJamesWoods

By the way look up this guy’s other legislation. He’s a beauty.

miltonf

Jan 26, 2024 8:57 PM

Anzac Day fell from favour for a long time but is now bigger than ever.

Yes they’ve been attacking Anzac day most of my life- ‘the one day of the year’, a whole episode of Certain Wimmin dedicated to attacking it, lesbian attacks at the shrine in the 80s etc etc

Yes, there was a group calling itself “Women against rape in war” back in the ’80’s.
Not sure who was for rape in war, but there you have it.

The rule of motorcycling: You are the bullbar.

Here Dot

Big US banks to post largest rise in loan losses since pandemic
Rising interest rates pile pressure on borrowers and commercial real estate losses mount

The largest US banks are this week set to report the biggest jump in loan losses since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, as rising interest rates pile mounting pressure on borrowers across the economy.

The publication of second-quarter results is set to show that banks have benefited from higher interest rates to some degree, by boosting lending and investment income. But after three years of relatively low defaults, in part fuelled by pandemic-era stimulus cash and other government assistance, lenders are also starting to see the negative effects of higher rates and inflation on borrowers.

The nation’s six largest banks — JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley — are predicted to have written off a collective $5bn tied to defaulted loans in the second quarter of this year, according to the average estimates of bank analysts, as compiled by Bloomberg.

The six lenders will set aside an estimated additional $7.6bn to cover loans that could go bad, analysts estimate.

Both figures are nearly double what they were in the same quarter a year ago. However, they remain below the hits big banks took at the beginning of the pandemic when charge-offs and provisions peaked at $6bn and $35bn respectively.

Credit cards are the biggest source of pain for a number of the banks. JPMorgan’s card loan charge-offs totalled $1.1bn in the quarter, analysts estimate, up from $600mn in the same period a year ago. At BofA, credit card loans represent about a quarter of its charge-offs.

Commercial real estate (CRE) loans are also proving a drag on banks’ performance. Property owners face reduced demand for office space as remote and hybrid work arrangements persist even though the pandemic has ended.

Wells Fargo, the biggest CRE lender among the nation’s largest banks, told investors this month that it added $1bn to its loan loss provisions to cover potential losses tied to office buildings and other poor-performing properties.

Investment banking is also likely to hit earnings. Revenues in the banks’ Wall Street and corporate advisory businesses are expected to fall again this quarter owing to a dearth of dealmaking activity that has dragged on for longer than many executives had anticipated.

Trading revenues, which soared in recent years amid volatile financial markets, are expected to slow.

Nonetheless, bank analysts say the benefits of increased interest rates are likely to outweigh the negatives for most of the big banks. On average, analysts expect the six largest US banks to report that earnings per share rose 6 per cent year on year.

The biggest banks “have been a good place for investors to hide amid liquidity concerns for regional banks coupled with concerns regarding increased regulations”, wrote KBW bank analysts Christopher McGratty and David Konrad in a note to clients. “That said, it remains a challenging environment for the universal banks.”

JPMorgan, which will be one of the first to report on Friday, is expected to announce the biggest percentage jump in loan losses from the same period a year ago.

Analysts predict the combined cost of loan charge-offs — losses marked as unrecoverable — and new provisions was $3.8bn in the second three months of the year. That would be up 120 per cent from the $1.8bn in soured loans costs reported at the nation’s largest bank in the same quarter a year ago.

Combined loan losses at Wells Fargo and BofA are expected to have more than doubled in the quarter, with a 70 per cent jump at Goldman and 60 per cent increases at Morgan Stanley and Citi.

Kenneth Leon, a bank analyst at CFRA, predicts that BofA, Citi and JPMorgan will also add to their reserves that cover potential losses in commercial real estate this quarter.

“As lenders, banks can always do loan workouts with problem loans,” he wrote in a note to clients last month, “although certain individual office buildings may be challenging to remedy.”

JPMorgan, Citi and Wells Fargo report earnings on Friday followed by BofA and Morgan Stanley on July 18. Goldman reports on July 19.

The US banking sector withstood a crisis in its regional banking system this spring, but stress test results from the Federal Reserve showed the largest banks could suffer billions of dollars in losses and still have more capital than required by regulators.

Unlike many small and midsized banks that have been paying higher savings rates to retain customers, larger institutions are still offering relatively modest interest rates for savers, boosting their profit margins.

However, analysts anticipate that larger banks will eventually have to start offering better rates.

“In the third and fourth quarter the banks got a windfall to net interest income that was way up and above anything that anyone expected. Now you’re going to give some of that back. Nobody knows exactly how much but I don’t think it’ll be the majority,” said Chris Kotowski, research analyst at Oppenheimer.

Do the parents who make their children hold “always was, always will be” signs put two and two together and realise they should therefore, by logic, abdicate possesion of any land they may hold? Or are they just a bit retarded?

In the aftermath of the Mabo judgement, a farmers meeting in the Wheatbelt was hijacked by a Greens activist, who said “Well, you’ll just have to sit down with the tribal elders, and renegotiate the terms under which you hold that land.”

“So, when do you sir down with the tribal elders and renegotiate the terms under which you hold your quarter acre in suburbia?”

“Don’t be stupid – I took out a mortgage and paid for that land.”

Hostages returned to Israel are scarred by pain and guilt

exclusive
By yoni bashan
Margin Call Editor
8:21PM January 26, 2024
9 Comments

On the outside, Ofir Engel appears to be adjusting to normal life since his release from the terror of captivity in Gaza. A basketball enthusiast, the 18-year-old has started training with a coach a few times a week and this month competed in his first local tournament.

But these signals of progress belie a trauma far deeper than the eye can see. For 54 days he was locked in a room, menaced by gunmen, psychologically tormented, and given barely any food. Upon his arrival in Gaza with two other captives, the boy was paraded in front of residents like a trophy capture.

“They tried to tell them Israel doesn’t exist anymore, that Israel didn’t want them back home, and so on and so on, all day from morning to night,” his grandfather, Joseph Engel, aged 78, told The Australian. “They were not allowed to stand, only to sit or to lie down.”

The experience was just as wretched for Adina Moshe, a 72-year-old grandmother whose husband was murdered in front of her on October 7. Abducted to Gaza on the back of a motorbike, she was shown off in the streets of Khan Younis to a baying mob of residents, the terrorists ripping off her earrings, her reading glasses, and tossing them into the crowd.

“She was inside the tunnels the whole time,” her granddaughter, Anat Shoshany, told The Australian. “(Hamas leader) Yahya Sinwar was there and visited them and he was so calm and happy about them being kept there, and she really told us a lot that she wasn’t scared, that she had nothing to lose. This is the one thing that kept her sane.”

Released in November during a humanitarian pause in the conflict, their re-entry to a society already broken by the events of October 7 is one that is fraught by the prolonged ordeal of remaining captives and the survivors guilt of making it out alive — not to mention the trauma they experienced themselves.

In the case of Ms Moshe, her progress is being measured in the tiniest of steps: a daily walk, time in the garden, a sudden outpouring of recollection to her family.

Virtually none of the 105 hostages returned to Israel are back at work. Many are wounded, some with life-threatening injuries. Several appeared in decent health upon their release but are actually in hospital receiving treatment for infections. One woman is thinking of university but can’t bear to be in crowds. There are others who are a mess and won’t leave their homes.

Still, they are the fortunate ones. For the 136 captives still in Gaza the process of repair is likely to be far more challenging, said Professor Ofrit Shapira Berman, a mental health specialist who is rehabilitating one former hostage and other survivors of October 7.

“It’s beyond imagination to understand how scared they were for their lives. They were terrified, and it takes time for all these anxieties to surface out, and I think what we are seeing now is not the worst,” she said.

Hopes of another deal felt weak until a sudden rush of momentum in recent days. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with hostage families on Monday to indicate that Israel did have terms on the table, while denouncing a Hamas proposal as being totally unrealistic.

“There is no genuine proposal by Hamas,” Mr Netanyahu said. “On the other hand, there is our proposal, which I will not detail.”

Hamas officials have reportedly told mediators of their interest in a significant pause for the release of the remaining civilian women and children, with Qatari mediators central to those negotiations.

Mr Engel said his grandson’s recovery remains an enormous question mark for the family. While the teenager wasn’t physically abused during his 54 days in captivity, he spent the entire ordeal alongside his girlfriend’s father, Yossi Sharabi, who wasn’t included for release in November.

Both were captured when Hamas terrorists stormed Mr Sharabi’s home in Kibbutz Be’eri, murdered the family dog, and corralled the men, women and children onto a street where Mr Sharabi and Ofir were bundled into a car. The women were spared without explanation.

A fortnight ago Mr Sharabi was depicted in an undated Hamas video with two other hostages – Noa Argamani, aged 26, and Itay Svirsky, aged 38 – asking to be brought home. It was a harrowing proof of life, but it ended with a taunting message from Hamas suggesting not all of the trio were alive.

Days later, the terrorist group announced that Mr Sharabi and Mr Svirsky were dead, news that was confirmed by Israeli military officials.

“Ofir was the last one who saw him,” Mr Engel said. Since then, the teenager has barely left his girlfriend’s side, spending the past seven days sitting shiva — the observance of a week long state of mourning — with Mr Sharabi’s family.

Compounding the grief is that Mr Sharabi’s brother, Eli, remains a captive in Gaza, but also that the entire family has already sat shiva for Eli’s wife, Lianne, aged 48, and two daughters, Noiya and Yahel, aged 16 and 13, who were murdered on October 7. Israeli forces recovered their bodies in pieces.

“It’s a very difficult time, and we’re living from one day to the next,” Mr Engel said, adding that his grandson isn’t seeing a psychologist or reporting any physical distress. “He doesn’t want anything – he wants to try to live regularly.”

But the notion of a return to normality for any former captive is an optimistic one, said Professor Berman, especially when almost everyone back from Gaza has a family member still being held in the tunnels, or lost loved ones on October 7.

The fact that some hostages have given television interviews, or appeared at public rallies, is no indication of health or progress, Professor Berman said.

“It has a lot to do with personality, and they feel a lot of obligation for the people who are left behind. They all have people still held in Gaza, and met them before they were freed, and the people who are in Gaza said, ‘Please, please, please don’t give up on us’,” she said.

Ms Moshe’s losses from October 7 are among the steepest of those who survived the massacres: her husband, her home, her community, and every dearly-held attachment, big and small, that she collected across a lifetime.

“Her hairbrush, the most simple things,“ said Ms Shoshany, her granddaughter. ”She had nail scissors she got with her husband on her honeymoon 50 years ago and these are the only scissors she can use.”

Instead of living in a sleepy, rural kibbutz surrounded by familiarity, Ms Moshe is now in an apartment somewhere in frenetic Tel Aviv being cared for by family and bearing almost no desire to return to old habits. Even speaking to folks she knew from her village, Nir Oz, is too hard right now.

“She liked to cook and now she can’t cook. She can’t read books. It’s just not there. It doesn’t feel right. She doesn’t have an interest in that,” Ms Shoshany said. “It doesn’t end once the person is out of Gaza. The journey is only beginning. It has so many aspects, first for her and second for us as a family, so it’s very mixed emotions.”

One coping mechanism has been to talk over and over again with her loved ones about the experience, and to diarise her thoughts in a journal. She tells them of being violently hauled into Gaza on the back of a motorbike, of the baying mob, of being hit by the terrorists and having her earrings ripped out.

In the tunnels she deliberately challenged a gunman standing guard until he lost his temper and pointed an automatic weapon at her. When she told him to pull the trigger he wouldn’t follow through.

“This is the point where she understood that they wanted to keep them alive. They didn’t want to kill them,” Ms Shoshany said.

“In her mind she’s still captive with the people who got left behind. She knows what’s going on there and how hard it is, so she’s struggling to live with that feeling – that there are people in that position.”

Carpet bomb the Gaza Strip to rubble, and drive the Pali’s into the Sinai Desert.

Oh God

Yes my disciple?