Open Thread – Weekend 27 Jan 2024


Path Leading Through Long Grass, Auguste Renoir, 1877

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Nelson_Kidd-Players
January 27, 2024 12:16 am

Should I have deflated my Australian-flag beachball at sunset?

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
January 27, 2024 12:34 am

Plenty of people celebrating and looking at the fireworks in feraldton tonight.

Suck it Lydia and all the other prune twatted fauxboriginal ” worriers” and their media/political catamites

JC
JC
January 27, 2024 1:06 am

DUBAI, Jan 26 (Reuters) – Chinese officials have asked their Iranian counterparts to help rein in attacks on ships in the Red Sea by the Iran-backed Houthis, or risk harming business relations with Beijing, four Iranian sources and a diplomat familiar with the matter said.
The discussions about the attacks and trade between China and Iran took place at several recent meetings in Beijing and Tehran, the Iranian sources said, declining to provide details about when they took place or who attended.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/china-presses-iran-rein-houthi-attacks-red-sea-sources-say-2024-01-26/

Rosie
Rosie
January 27, 2024 1:28 am

I thought most Chinese owned shipping companies had rerouted out of the red sea weeks ago.
They certainly announced that they had.
certainly makes this more economically viable

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
January 27, 2024 3:07 am

A few heads worthy of a punch in this episode. All should be deported. That bloke in hoodie and mask…wack!

Security Goons Try To Ban The Music…And FAIL!

Tom
Tom
January 27, 2024 4:00 am
Tom
Tom
January 27, 2024 4:01 am
Tom
Tom
January 27, 2024 4:02 am
Tom
Tom
January 27, 2024 4:03 am
Tom
Tom
January 27, 2024 4:04 am
Tom
Tom
January 27, 2024 4:05 am
Tom
Tom
January 27, 2024 4:06 am
Tom
Tom
January 27, 2024 4:07 am
Tom
Tom
January 27, 2024 4:08 am
Tom
Tom
January 27, 2024 4:09 am
Tom
Tom
January 27, 2024 4:10 am
Tom
Tom
January 27, 2024 4:11 am
Beertruk
Beertruk
January 27, 2024 4:26 am

No. XVIII

Bungonia Bee
Bungonia Bee
January 27, 2024 5:11 am

Nine News demonstrates its prowess in news gathering and expertise in the English language:
“King Charles III admitted to hospital for prostrate treatment.”

Bungonia Bee
Bungonia Bee
January 27, 2024 5:13 am

Ouch again from Leak.

Katzenjammer
Katzenjammer
January 27, 2024 5:23 am

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day

The lessons of the Holocaust have become public property, with an emphasis on universalization that often results in the erasing of the unique experience of Jews. . . . Dr. Elana Heideman, Executive Director of The Israel Forever Foundation, explores the misappropriation of Holocaust history and imagery and discusses what we can do to change the current trends.

The Universalization and Contemporary Abuse of Holocaust History

Removal of or deemphasising the specific genocide of Jews has become the contemporary form of ‘Holocaust Denial’.

Morsie
Morsie
January 27, 2024 6:03 am

According to Ace,Gillette making another 1 billion dollar write down.
Maybe they will stop paying Captain Climate.

Siltstone
Siltstone
January 27, 2024 6:18 am

Leak is very good, he draws spittle from the Albosleazy gob. A master.

feelthebern
feelthebern
January 27, 2024 6:23 am

Trouble makers on their way to the city en masse.
Police intercept.
Police give key people “exclusion orders” so they can’t be in the city for 24 hours.

Trouble makers on their way to suburbs with high Jewish populations, specifically for that reason, to intimidate.
Police do not intercept.
Police do not give “exclusion orders” & say there is nothing they can do.

Do people still “back the Blue” ?

Bungonia Bee
Bungonia Bee
January 27, 2024 6:24 am

Two articles today that emphasize the dangerous year facing the USA.
Jim Watkins has the lead article at American Thinker: Is Biden Poison-Pilling Trump? The wreckage inflicted on America by the corrupt regime is extreme, and it’s arguable that even if elected Trump will have a hard time righting the ship.
Wayne Root at Gateway Pundit is also pessimistic, and sees the invasion across the southern border getting worse before it gets better, with the added risk of a blow-up between the armed forces involved in Eagle Pass, Texas. “This is the most dangerous moment.”
The MSM everywhere remains obsessed with bad-mouthing Trump and failing to do their job.

feelthebern
feelthebern
January 27, 2024 6:28 am

I think NSW has a decent structure in place when it comes to protests.
You apply for a permit.
If/when approved, you pay the insurance.
You stick the approved time, place, route.
It’s a workable middle ground between free speech & protecting property rights (and general convenience to taxpayers/ratepayers).

The problem is when a certain group don’t adhere to a pretty loose structure.
And it’s even worse when NSW plod reward a certain group by not enforcing the rules.
It encourages them.

calli
calli
January 27, 2024 7:11 am

Katz, it’s more Holocaust appropriation. Inevitable with an English word. I note the false comparisons with the Covid lockdowns and other trappings of the fauxdemic.

The Hebrew “Shoah” leaves nothing to be re-interpreted or pinched.

Cassie of Sydney
January 27, 2024 7:17 am

Do people still “back the Blue” ?

No, after the events of 9 October 2023 (and it has only gotten worse), hear this………

I despise ‘the Blue’.

calli
calli
January 27, 2024 7:17 am

Do people still “back the Blue” ?

I would still call the police if I found myself in strife. These are the local plod, not Sydney metropolitan.

That being said, they pussyfoot around a certain demographic that holidays here, as do the local rangers. Not that long ago, when a valid complaint was made, the complainant was accused of racism.

Min
Min
January 27, 2024 7:18 am

Leak brilliant again if we weren’t laughing we would be crying.

miltonf
miltonf
January 27, 2024 7:24 am

Former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean claimed Thursday on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” that former President Donald Trump had “never given a damn about the United States of America.”-Another tired old turd

Cassie of Sydney
January 27, 2024 7:27 am

I highly recommend people read Brendan O’Neal’s piece in today’s Oz. He eviscerates the Lattosh affair. The essence of O’Neal’s piece?

Well, it has been clear for years now that we now live in a society where the progressive left see racism in everything, even asking someone where they’re from is deemed ‘racist’ by the progressive left.

Yet oddly, when a feverish and frothing mob stands in front of the Sydney Opera House, only forty-eight hours after the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust, when the corpses of dead Jewish men, women and children are still warm, and a frothing mob screams, screeches, and shouts “kill the Jews” and “gas the Jews”, some on the left, such as the verminous Lattosh, try to disprove that act of racism.

Here’s another example of this hypocrisy, from our very own Nazi party, the Greens. That putrid fat maggot, Mehreen Faruqi is suing Pauline Hanson over a tweet where Hanson wrote “piss off back to Pakistan”. Yet, only two months ago the same maggot Faruqi was pictured smiling in front of a placard that had a figure placing an Israeli flag into a garbage bin alongside the words…..”keep the world clean.”

Methinks Goebbels would approve of Faruqi, Lattosh and all the other useful scum on the left.

Fair Shake
Fair Shake
January 27, 2024 7:29 am

Off topic for a minute. If you were a fan of WWII based Band of Brothers there is a new show dropping on Apple TV called Masters of the Air this weekend. (Speilberg, Hanks producers). Just listened to interview with John Orloff who wrote much of MotA and also 3 episodes of BoBs. Sound extraordinary. He makes the point its not BoBs in the Air.
He talks about ‘scale’. The amount of weaponry brought to bare over Europe.
Also one squadron of USAF had 36 bombers x 10 crew in 1943. 12 weeks later only 2 of those original 36 were still around. The odds of surviving were awful.
Anyway I will try to track down and watch. (9 episodes).

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
January 27, 2024 7:32 am

Not sure if this has been put up yet, but on the off chance…

Bill Ackman has a tweet including:

Please read the below letter. I find the
@FBI
agents’ message irrefutable and extremely concerning.

It is shocking that
@POTUS
is fighting Texas’ attempt to protect our southern border.

Why aren’t Federal agents protecting our border rather than fighting to keep the border open to millions of unaccountable masses entering illegally at a time of great geopolitical uncertainty and heightened terrorism risk?

Beneath is a copy of the letter signed by 10 people most of whom are of Assistant Director status and addressed to, inter alia, Mike Johnson and Chuck Shumer.

I imagine they are telling Johnson because he might do something, but Schumer because they want to be able to show he knew when he does nothing.

Will Mike Johnson be right?

In the replies to the tweet one person asks how he can reconcile this with being a Democrat when this is Democrat policy. He replies that he no longer identifies as a Democrat. I assume this means that is it still on their books as a paid member or something.

It would be odd to retain the obfuscatory language of identity politics considering the Claudine Gay fracas.

Beertruk
Beertruk
January 27, 2024 7:37 am

The Paywallion:

Bowen’s approach to renewables that of a ‘degenerate gambler’

With less than a year now until 2025, financial relief should be on the horizon for every Australian. What could go wrong?

By THE MOCKER
18 Jan 2024

Nearly three weeks have passed since January 1, but the exuberance I felt as revellers hailed the new year remains. Normally I could not be bothered staying awake for the occasion, but this year the excitement was such that I could not sleep. For it is less than a year now until 2025, and that means financial relief for every Australian. The annual household energy bill will fall by an average of $275, an assessment based on 2021 energy prices.

That was the solemn undertaking Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Energy Minister Chris Bowen gave us in 2021, just six months before Labor assumed office. Gesturing to the horizon majestically, they spoke of a national energy market comprising 82 per cent renewables by 2030. It will ensure not just a 43 per cent reduction of CO2 emissions by the end of the decade but also result in 604,000 new jobs. Yay!

As of the December quarter, the renewables tally stands at only 40.4 per cent, but you need not worry about progress. We know the government’s forecasts are sound because of the modelling, you see. As Albanese said during his historic announcement, it was “the most comprehensive modelling ever done for any policy by any opposition in Australia’s history since Federation”.

Inexplicably, many doubt the government’s ability to realise this vision, particularly the aspect of energy prices falling dramatically by 2025. Based on the current trajectory, they say renewables will at best comprise 60 to 64 per cent by 2030. Far from falling, the annual household power bill has risen by 45 per cent in the last two years.

Unkindly, the naysayers also cast aspersions on Bowen’s competence merely because he has made an absolute hash of every cabinet portfolio he has previously held. They refuse to acknowledge he is a man who follows not only the modelling but also the science.

Take for example his enthusiasm for offshore wind turbines. When he announced in 2022 six proposed regions to house these giant structures, he declared the areas had “world-class offshore wind energy potential”.

But what of the consequences for wetland creatures and marine life, particularly the effect on fisheries? Asked about this last August in an interview with 2GB host Chris O’Keefe, Bowen drew on the science to inform his audience.

“I can tell you – a lot of people will tell you actually fish life is attracted to wind turbines around the world,” he told an incredulous O’Keefe. “It’s true,” he insisted repeatedly. “That’s what the evidence shows.”

There you have it. The science has spoken. Bowen did not elaborate on the source of this evidence, but undoubtedly it is a respected institution. You know, the think tank known as the Pulled out of the Proverbial Institute. Come to think of it, is that not where the minister gets most of the information that formulate his policies?

Unfortunately for Bowen, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek was not swayed by his scientific theory that offshore turbines could double as a Walley World theme park for millions of fish. As this masthead reported last fortnight, she has vetoed the Victorian government’s proposed hub for offshore wind farm construction at the Port of Hastings, south-east of Melbourne. The planned drilling and dredging would likely “cause irreversible damage to the habitat of waterbirds and migratory birds and marine invertebrates and fish” in what are globally recognised wetlands, she found.

So confident had Bowen been of approval that he told the APAC Offshore Wind and Green Hydrogen Summit last August that Australia was “firmly on track to have all six [offshore wind] areas declared by the first half of next year”. He also boasted he had given the industry “certainty about the immediate path ahead.”

Certainty? Tell that to Victorian Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio. She too deserves censure for committing her state to a renewable energy target of 95 per cent by 2035, but she has a point when she slammed Bowen for failing to co-ordinate nationally the development of offshore wind farms. It would not “magically sort itself out,” she said following Plibersek’s decision.

Neither will the many concerns about the viability and impact of offshore wind farms. A report last September by the European Union’s external auditors warned their expansion “could be detrimental to the marine environment, both below and above sea level,” saying the EU “has not estimated its potential environmental effects”.

It also found the EU’s then target of 61GW offshore renewables by 2030 was “ambitious” and would require a massive €800 billion in addition to the €16.7 billion already invested. But such an injection would be utterly foolhardy given the authors caution the technology “yields ambiguous results” and “the socio-economic implications of offshore renewables development have not been studied in sufficient depth”.

This cannot but have relevance for Australia. At the very least, these findings warrant a suspension of offshore wind farm development in this country pending an informed assessment of the implications. Instead Bowen’s approach is that of a degenerate gambler. As the Sydney Morning Herald reported last week, he “has called on all levels of Australian government to speed up planning decisions for new energy projects and transmissions lines to meet renewable targets set for 2030”.

This is lunacy. The transition to renewables, even if one accepts is viable for argument’s sake, has already proved chaotic, piecemeal, and driven by ideology rather than practicality. Bowen’s refusal even to consider the option of nuclear energy is both petulant and obtuse. Instead of reassessing the 2030 target, he still insists on this folly. Only this time he wants to up the pace and circumvent the normal approval processes. Aside from Australia looking like North Korea at night, what could go wrong?

For Bowen, your money is no object if it means saving his ministerial career. Last November he announced a fivefold expansion of the Capacity Investment Scheme to incentivise companies to increase their investment in renewables. We mugs will underwrite these investments through so-called “contract for differences”, but Bowen has refused to detail the cost of this program, which is estimated to be in the billions. Should we just assume its modelling is the most comprehensive ever done for any government in Australia’s history since Federation?

As for Bowen’s beloved offshore wind turbines, they perfectly encapsulate his ministerial achievements. All at sea and in a furious spin.

THE MOCKER

Diogenes
Diogenes
January 27, 2024 7:38 am

Shake,
It is already on channel BitTorrent, otherwise Apple Tv. Only 2 episodes have been released so far.

The first was slow to start as it was establishing characters, but a tension filled ending. About to start on ep2.

calli
calli
January 27, 2024 7:41 am

Fair Shake, the trouble with all these streaming services is the cost. I’d love to watch it but simply cannot justify a subscription to several services for “entertainment”.

The one treat I allow myself is Netflix, which still has a reasonable line-up amongst the array of woke crapola. I’d never touch Disney, but might look at streaming Britbox for a season. I mentioned the Professor and the Madman yesterday. Worth a look.

Last night, due to the tumbleweeds infesting FTA, I reacquainted myself with LA Confidential. What an excellent movie it is.

Beertruk
Beertruk
January 27, 2024 7:47 am

Two for the price of one at the Paywallion:

Anthony Albanese acts when the factions change their mind

The Mocker
25 Jan 2024

Having watched the Prime Minister address the National Press Club on Thursday, I just want to say as an Australian that I feel much respected by his government. You too undoubtedly feel much respected. All of us feel much respected because Anthony Albanese constantly tells us how much he respects everyone. As he said during his election night speech in 2022: “I can promise all Australians this — no matter how you voted today, the government I lead will respect every one of you every day.”

For this career politician, politics is not about self-advancement but instead self-sacrifice for the good of the country. These were the principles he espoused during his first parliamentary speech as the country’s new leader. “My colleagues and I want to treat every day in this job in this place in government as an opportunity to deliver for the people of Australia, to fulfil our promises and to prove worthy of the trust that the Australian people have placed in us,” he said.

We should remind ourselves frequently how fortunate we are to have a leader who respects us. One need only contrast Honest Albo with his immediate predecessor to see what happens when we have a leader who disrespects us by telling fibs. As Albanese said of Scott Morrison in 2021, he was “a leader whose words have become meaningless”.

That is what happens when you abuse trust, as the then opposition leader reiterated. Morrison was “a prime minister who has no regard for what he said yesterday, so you should have no regard for what he says today,” said Albanese. “Having already shown Australians and the premiers and the media and his colleagues and the parliament and France and the United States that he can’t be trusted, Scott Morrison has now reached a point where he can’t even trust himself.”

You might remember it was on this day in 2022 that Albanese addressed the National Press Club and was asked by then ABC political editor Andrew Probyn: “Who is Anthony Albanese?” Following the lengthy standard spiel about his humble origins, Albanese invited the audience to read his biography written by journalist Karen Middleton.

Its title reflected “the way I engage in politics,” said Albanese. “I tell it straight.”

He told it straight during the election campaign. “We’ve no intention of making any super changes,” he said, a promise he kept for a whole nine months. “One of the things that we’re doing in this campaign is we’re making all of our policies clear.”

Like Albanese, Treasurer Dr Jim Chalmers is someone who tells it straight. Announcing in 2021 that Labor would honour the Morrison government’s stage three tax cuts, he and Albanese stressed the party was doing so to ensure “certainty” for Australians.

But as we learned this week, the government, citing a cost-of-living crisis, intends significantly curtailing tax cuts for those with taxable incomes above $150,000, instead announcing it would direct the moneys to lower and middle-income earners.

This backflip can only be explained by a remarkable and recent change of circumstances. Asked repeatedly two weeks ago by ABC News Breakfast presenter Michael Rowland whether Labor’s promise was still good, a testy Albanese accused him of playing “word games”, saying “nothing has changed” and “the government has exactly the same position”. This was the same Albanese who declared just days before the election that he wanted to “change the way that politics operates in this country” by “actually answering questions”.

I admit to being puzzled about the contrast between what Albanese told Rowland as opposed to what he told us on Thursday, but given he always plays it straight and respects us, I have concluded this cost-of-living crisis arose only after that interview.

And nothing says fair and equitable like government taking from a minority to ingratiate itself with the majority. As Phillip Coorey observed in the Fin Review on Wednesday: “the government anticipates little sympathy for the so-called wealthy for not receiving all they were promised”. I am not sure how Labor’s divide and conquer tactics sit with Albanese’s assurances in 2022 that he wants to “bring Australians together” to “promote unity” and “not division”, but no matter.

We should accept what Chalmers told ABC’s 7.30 on Wednesday, when he claimed this change was “not about politics”. It is just a coincidence that the Dunkley by-election is only a few weeks away.

It was less than a year ago that the Treasurer caused consternation when he repeatedly refused during a television interview to categorically rule out targeting the capital gains tax exemption for the family home. Fortunately Albanese refuted this, saying “it was a bad idea”. We can rest easy knowing Labor, as the party formally announced in 2021, will leave CGT exemptions and negative gearing alone. To do otherwise would be disrespecting us, you see, and Albanese has made it very clear he eschews such behaviour.

Sadly though many conservative commentators and users on social media impugn the motives of the government in up-ending the stage 3 changes, even insisting that Labor always intended doing so despite its assurances otherwise. This criticism is unacceptable. It serves an example of why it is essential the government’s draft Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation Bill becomes law. We cannot have false information circulating that this amounts to a broken promise, or that Albanese is shifty and lacks integrity, or that he is an out-and-out liar.

Albanese would have you believe his recent actions are those of a strong and resolute leader. “When economic circumstances change, the right thing to do is change your economic policy,” he said on Thursday. It is a version of that famous quote apocryphally attributed to economist John Maynard Keynes: “When the facts change, I change my mind”.

Or in Albanese’s case, when the factions change their mind.

THE MOCKER

132andBush
132andBush
January 27, 2024 7:47 am

Obvious now that the walking corpse is a suicide bomber. The open border, of all things, is aimed at doing irreparable damage to the fabric of the US, that along with energy policy.

I still get an uneasy feeling over why the Dems want Trump to run against so badly.

Thankfully Trump is finally up over the corpse in the latest polls. The thing is, the corpse won’t make it to the election.

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
January 27, 2024 7:50 am

I reacquainted myself with LA Confidential. What an excellent movie it is.

I found it strange that it was presented as a Kevin Spacey movie when Russell Crowe’s and Guy Pierce’s characters were far more central to the movie – but I suppose at the time those two were relatively unknown in the US whereas Kevin was a bankable A-Lister.

Bet the producer looks back on that now with a twinge of regret.

calli
calli
January 27, 2024 7:51 am

Thanks Beertruk. All summed up thusly…

For Bowen [insert any pollie name here], your money is no object if it means saving his ministerial career.

Robert Sewell
January 27, 2024 7:54 am

Great.
A pissing contest between two men – one who is doing his job and another who is incontinent and not doing his.

Johnny Rotten
January 27, 2024 7:55 am

Australia Day Farmer’s Big Effort –

https://twitter.com/i/status/1750676481842532612

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
January 27, 2024 7:58 am

Like plod the denizens of Hollywood also no longer merit trust or loyalty:

Nolte: Pirate Streaming Sites Cost Hollywood $30 Billion Annually (26 Jan)

Listen, I’m not into pirating. Can you imagine what would happen if a Breitbart guy was caught doing something illegal? Even without something of a public profile, I probably wouldn’t imbibe. Tech stuff drives me crazy, and at my advanced age, I have no desire to complicate my life with something that could get me in trouble. Then there’s the fact it is stealing.

However, I do understand the impulse. The people who make this content hate us. Who wants to fund that? Hollywood also lives off of our tax dollars with all that corporate welfare, and what do we get in thanks for all that money? Insulted and overcharged.

As a former streaming subscriber, I get it… You constantly feel cheated by how awful and politically obnoxious streaming content is, how you are constantly attacked for who you are. It’s exhausting. No one wants to feel cheated.

Another attraction to these pirated sites is finding all the good stuff in one place. Instead of subscribing to five streaming outlets to see all the content you like, you subscribe to one, and it’s all right there.

That’s the problem. The amoral Left don’t like to pay for anything so are quite happy to use pirate sites. The moral Right on the other hand has been insulted and pilloried and attacked by Hollywood so much that they are losing their inhibitions, or can’t be bothered to watch obnoxiously woke content. So the media companies have shot themselves in both feet.

Tom
Tom
January 27, 2024 8:00 am

I still get an uneasy feeling over why the Dems want Trump to run against so badly.

Because they know they can rely on local party poll cheats to stop the count late on the night of November 5 this year and insert as many mail-in ballots as they need to defeat Trump in the swing states — just like they did in 2020.

132andBush
132andBush
January 27, 2024 8:02 am

Australia Day Farmer’s Big Effort –

Well done that man.
Great application of GPS guidance tech.
Using an Aussie made K-Line Speed Tiller as well, the best in the business.

132andBush
132andBush
January 27, 2024 8:06 am

Because they know they can rely on local party poll cheats to stop the count late on the night of November 5 this year and insert as many mail-in ballots as they need to defeat Trump in the swing states — just like they did in 2020.

So what processes are the GOP putting into place to combat this?

johanna
johanna
January 27, 2024 8:06 am

I reacquainted myself with LA Confidential. What an excellent movie it is.

Yes it is.

But the book is even better – the movie is necessarily a slimmed down version minus several characters and sub-plots.

That and American Tabloid are Ellroy’s best books, IMHO.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
January 27, 2024 8:07 am

When you’ve lost PvO…

Labor’s word is shown to be utterly worthless (Paywallian)
PETER VAN ONSELEN
Contributing Editor

If Labor is rewarded for breaking its word on the stage three tax cuts, the lesson for future generations of politicians will be that lying works.

Red pills are being scoffed in increasing numbers lately.

132andBush
132andBush
January 27, 2024 8:08 am

Or are they all going to just mope around like a mob of Eeyores with their heads down saying “woe is us, they cheated”?

Min
Min
January 27, 2024 8:09 am

What damage has been done to the renewables in FNQ we hear about lines being down but nothing about turbines and solar panels .

lotocoti
lotocoti
January 27, 2024 8:11 am

The first was slow to start as it was establishing characters, but a tension filled ending. About to start on ep2.

Keeping track of who’s who isn’t helped by the necessity
of having the cast all masked up for the good bits.

Cassie of Sydney
January 27, 2024 8:11 am

Despite the good efforts of Dr Jill, who’s enjoying the perks, I still reckon the DNC will forcibly put the Sniffer out to pasture and insert Newsom.

WolfmanOz
January 27, 2024 8:14 am

calli
Jan 27, 2024 7:41 AM

Last night, due to the tumbleweeds infesting FTA, I reacquainted myself with LA Confidential. What an excellent movie it is.

One of the best films of the 1990s – a superb ensemble neo-crime drama and one of my favourites.

I hope to do a review of it in the coming months.

miltonf
miltonf
January 27, 2024 8:14 am

Unless Dr Jill has enough dirt on possible replacements for the old perv

132andBush
132andBush
January 27, 2024 8:16 am

I hope it is Newsome.

Indolent
Indolent
January 27, 2024 8:19 am

Looks like I wasn’t the only one to notice. As I said, what a bitch.

Dutch Queen Máxima’s popularity dwindles as she markets Digital IDs and CBDCs

Robert Sewell
January 27, 2024 8:19 am

Mother Lode
Jan 27, 2024 7:32 AM
Not sure if this has been put up yet, but on the off chance…

What you are looking at, MotherLoad, is the Democrat excuse for calling a State of Emergency, and cancelling the next election.
You can bet your nuggets that the FBI has already infiltrated the gangs to create mayhem to order.

Boambee John
Boambee John
January 27, 2024 8:20 am

“Nelson_Kidd-Players
Jan 27, 2024 12:16 AM
Should I have deflated my Australian-flag beachball at sunset?”

Not necessary if you keep it illuminated all night.

132andBush
132andBush
January 27, 2024 8:22 am

Newsom

calli
calli
January 27, 2024 8:24 am

There were three Aussies in LA Confidential making their tinseltown debut. Although Crowe is really a Kiwi.

Simon Baker went on to do several movies and a long-running tv series.

He only had a small part in Confidential, but a real presence as the tragic aspiring actor.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
January 27, 2024 8:26 am

BoN, you are correct about stealing from torrent sites. That said, I wanted to gey Foxtel, but being of Scottish descent and having short arms and deep pockets refused to pay at the time $100 bucks a month for the few things I actually wanted to watch.

Boambee John
Boambee John
January 27, 2024 8:30 am

“miltonf
Jan 27, 2024 7:24 AM
Former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean claimed Thursday on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” that former President Donald Trump had “never given a damn about the United States of America.”-”

That might just possibly have been true while he was a DemonRat, but definitely not after he switched.

Crossie
Crossie
January 27, 2024 8:34 am

miltonf
Jan 27, 2024 7:24 AM
Former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean claimed Thursday on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” that former President Donald Trump had “never given a damn about the United States of America.”-Another tired old turd

All they have is projection but a mighty big screen on which to display it.

Indolent
Indolent
January 27, 2024 8:37 am
Roger
Roger
January 27, 2024 8:39 am

Shocking moment boat full of migrants arrives at San Diego’s famed La Jolla Beach

Migrants, you say…with visas in hand?

lotocoti
lotocoti
January 27, 2024 8:40 am

Should I have deflated my Australian-flag beachball at sunset?

If you stick a Boatswain’s Call in the blowing up thingy,
it can pipe its own Still*.
*For non-nauticals, the Still is the STFU note played
when raising and lowering national flags and ensigns.

Indolent
Indolent
January 27, 2024 8:42 am

They’re more than woke. They’re ruthless, lawless political activists.

How the FBI and CIA went woke

Tom
Tom
January 27, 2024 8:43 am

So what processes are the GOP putting into place to combat this?

Haven’t heard a word from Trump or the GOP about what they’re doing about election integrity.

I hope they have a plan but, because of the size of Trump’s ego, I fear he is just going to do the same as he did in 2020 hoping for a different result.

Remember that the GOP establishment loathes Trump more than it loves power — because he’s a threat to the hegemony of the two-party establishment.

They’ll never buy into Trump’s Mr Smith Goes To Washington platform because they know he is a corruption buster and will eventually come after the party elders like Mitch McConnell, who’s making billions in corrupt kickbacks.

Gandalf The Grey (Only)
Gandalf The Grey (Only)
January 27, 2024 8:44 am

Paul List finds deep Catholic theology infused in Tolkien. He sees Tom Bombadil and his Elvin lady as central to the story whereas I was fascinated by this character but knew not what to make of him.

This fellow is interesting on many levels and no just for the Tolkien fan. But we need to discuss how we are to live after the collapse.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fxnC_uy7em0&pp=ygUP4oCcUGF1bCBMaXN04oCd

Crossie
Crossie
January 27, 2024 8:47 am

132andBush
Jan 27, 2024 7:47 AM
I still get an uneasy feeling over why the Dems want Trump to run against so badly.
Thankfully Trump is finally up over the corpse in the latest polls. The thing is, the corpse won’t make it to the election.

So what if Biden doesn’t make it to the election, whoever replaces him will follow the same policies. Do you really see any Democrat arguing to close the border?

shatterzzz
January 27, 2024 8:51 am

A day late but I’m giving this Oz Day meme 10/10 .. LOL!
https://ibb.co/y5Wqj3R

Roger
Roger
January 27, 2024 8:53 am

I see the South Africans have failed to prove their case against Israel at the ICJ.

As a consolation, perhaps they might consider taking Australia to the ICJ for the failure of our authorities to punish those who publicly called for the genocide of “the Jews” at the Sydney Opera House.

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948), which Australia has signed and ratified, binds our authorities to take action.

What about it, Saffies?

Crossie
Crossie
January 27, 2024 8:57 am

Bruce of Newcastle
Jan 27, 2024 7:58 AM
Like plod the denizens of Hollywood also no longer merit trust or loyalty:
Nolte: Pirate Streaming Sites Cost Hollywood $30 Billion

I wouldn’t indulge in piracy but seeing as who is losing from it I can’t condemn the pirates. Why should I care for people who despise me and all people like me.

Hollywood will eventually die and be replaced by indie producers who will use common streaming cites like YouTube. I expect pay for play to become common on that platform or some other such streaming service.

Indolent
Indolent
January 27, 2024 8:59 am
Cassie of Sydney
January 27, 2024 9:02 am

“Haven’t heard a word from Trump or the GOP about what they’re doing about election integrity.

I hope they have a plan but, because of the size of Trump’s ego, I fear he is just going to do the same as he did in 2020 hoping for a different result.

Remember that the GOP establishment loathes Trump more than it loves power — because he’s a threat to the hegemony of the two-party establishment.

Correct. The GOP and Trump were warned about mail in ballots and election integrity in early 2020, yet they did nothing. Okay, you can argue they were distracted by Covid and the summer of love caused by the killing of Georgina Floydina but they should have been one step ahead of the Demonrats. This apathy and laziness meant they (and America) paid a terrible price in November 2020 and in the Georgia senate run off in January 2021.

In order to win in November 2024 Donald Trump will need independents to come out and vote for him, without them he will not win. There’s no/nada/zilcho evidence that independents have moved on from their dislike and loathing of him.

Yes, Trump motivates the GOP base, but he needs to motivate more than the base.

Anyway, we shall see, I hope I’m wrong and Trump storms through and wins the federal election however I reckon that they’ll put him in prison before November 2024.

Crossie
Crossie
January 27, 2024 9:02 am

132andBush
Jan 27, 2024 8:06 AM
Because they know they can rely on local party poll cheats to stop the count late on the night of November 5 this year and insert as many mail-in ballots as they need to defeat Trump in the swing states — just like they did in 2020.
So what processes are the GOP putting into place to combat this?

As far as I know RNC is not doing anything, their chairwoman is too busy have face lifts. I expect Trump has learned from the last time and is having measures put in place but not publicising it to avoid interference. If he doesn’t then he deserves to lose to fraudulent Democrat manoeuvres.

shatterzzz
January 27, 2024 9:09 am

I wouldn’t indulge in piracy but seeing as who is losing from it I can’t condemn the pirates. Why should I care for people who despise me and all people like me.

Being a “houso” I pirate everything I watch (have dun for years) except “fitba” .. even tho I pay for Paramount to watch the fitba I still pirate the normal shows they have out of habit ,, LOL!

And on the “fitba” .. watched Victory-Syndney game last night and amazed at the ref sending off a bloke for nuttin’ .. overturned the VAR “nuttin’ to see ‘ere” and showed the red card .. two blokes go for the same ball and one ends up on the ground giving an Oscar worthy performance and the ref falsl for it .. fitba gotta luv it .. LOL!

Roger
Roger
January 27, 2024 9:11 am

Yes, Trump motivates the GOP base, but he needs to motivate more than the base.

Early days, but…

Latest Reuters/Ipsos poll has Trump ahead of Biden by 6 points.

Crossie
Crossie
January 27, 2024 9:12 am

Love the banner under The Five on Fox at the moment.

Texas AG to Biden over razor wire: Come and take it.

Very Spartan.

Cassie of Sydney
January 27, 2024 9:13 am

Piracy is a crime. As for those who trivialise it I suspect if it was your product being pirated you would not be very happy.

shatterzzz
January 27, 2024 9:14 am

Bloody ‘ell! .. early in the morning … Syndney should have been Smurfs & falsl = falls ..
Why is it I never see these things until after I press the button …… duuuuuuuh!

Crossie
Crossie
January 27, 2024 9:19 am

Indolent
Jan 27, 2024 8:59 AM
Boeing goes boing: 757 loses a wheel while taxiing down the runway

What can you expect when your female engineers do a dance routine for TikTok a la the UK nurses during covid lockdowns? Engineering perfection is not their ultimate goal.

Crossie
Crossie
January 27, 2024 9:21 am

Cassie of Sydney
Jan 27, 2024 9:13 AM
Piracy is a crime. As for those who trivialise it I suspect if it was your product being pirated you would not be very happy.

True but I can still indulge in some schadenfreude.

Roger
Roger
January 27, 2024 9:23 am

I wouldn’t indulge in piracy but seeing as who is losing from it I can’t condemn the pirates. Why should I care for people who despise me and all people like me.

It’s not about caring or not caring for people, it’s about upholding a principle that should apply to all of us, no matter how apparently trivial an instance of disregarding that principle is.

Cassie of Sydney
January 27, 2024 9:26 am

Actually, I’ll be blunt….

Piracy is theft.

WolfmanOz
January 27, 2024 9:30 am

Cassie of Sydney
Jan 27, 2024 7:17 AM
Do people still “back the Blue” ?

No, after the events of 9 October 2023 (and it has only gotten worse), hear this………

I despise ‘the Blue’.

Likewise here in Victoria.

After what they did during COVID I regard VICPOL as nothing more than scum.

Katzenjammer
Katzenjammer
January 27, 2024 9:36 am

Holocaust appropriation

Appropriation sounds like it’s been copied and used elsewhere.
Denial of Jewish specificity is Denial, not Appropriation.

calli
calli
January 27, 2024 9:44 am

Katz, the “more” was meant as “extra” not “more like”.

Every irritating flea wants to hop on the Holocaust dog. So they appropriate the word in an attempt to prove what happened to them is just as bad. And in so doing diminish the systematic and virtual eradication of an entire race/religion. I was agreeing with the author.

That’s why I prefer the Hebrew word. No chance of infesting it.

Miltonf
Miltonf
January 27, 2024 9:47 am

Yep vicpol has degenerated to just an alp goon squad.

Dot
Dot
January 27, 2024 9:53 am

Piracy in the context of DRM, manipulation & censorship of digital media, not recognising prior ownership of physical media and third-line forcing is a bit of a joke, also when Disney has ownership of IP extended for the life of the author plus seventy years?

Harry Potter could reasonably have IP protection for another 120 years..even 132 years if J K Rowling lives to 100.For something written and published from 1997 to 2007.

149 years of IP protection is “probably not reasonable”, especially when it has been parodied so many times.

On the other hand, plant breeder rights last 20 – 25 years – is Norman Bourlag’s work only 1/6th as valuable as a story about flying Ford Anglias?

Piracy is a way around censorship. As for out-of-print books, what’s the alternative?

IP is a good thing, but it needs to be done differently.

alwaysright
alwaysright
January 27, 2024 9:55 am

just an alp goon squad

+1

What is the difference between the goon squad and morphed BLF thugs?

Indolent
Indolent
January 27, 2024 9:57 am

Raheem.
@RaheemKassam

It cannot be stressed enough.

– She alleged a rape in a public place 30 years ago but provided no evidence

– Her story was remarkably similar to a plot line of a show she binge watched

– The dress she claimed to be wearing hadn’t even been designed at that point

– She’s sex obsessed and continues to talk about how “sexy” rape is

– Her case was thought up by George Conway at Molly Jong Fast’s house party

– Her case was funded by Democrat Jeff Epstein buddy Reid Hoffman who also backed Nikki Haley

– Her “reputation expert” admitted to having no experience in reputation repair during cross examination. She was also found to be a Democrat donor

And honestly? That’s just scratching the surface of this debacle.

And Trump’s defence was prevented from showing the jury her own tweets and now he’s been ordered to pay her $83.3m. for defamation!

Justice in America is turning into one big joke.

Roger
Roger
January 27, 2024 9:57 am

Yep vicpol has degenerated to just an alp goon squad.

‘Uphold the Left.’

(a play on the VicPol motto)

Indolent
Indolent
January 27, 2024 10:00 am
Roger
Roger
January 27, 2024 10:01 am

IP is a good thing, but it needs to be done differently.

There’s certainly a case to be made for reform, I don’t think anyone would disagree with that…except possibly IP authors and their heirs 😀

Indolent
Indolent
January 27, 2024 10:03 am
Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
January 27, 2024 10:03 am

Crossie

Jan 27, 2024 9:19 AM

Indolent
Jan 27, 2024 8:59 AM
Boeing goes boing: 757 loses a wheel while taxiing down the runway

What can you expect when your female engineers do a dance routine for TikTok a la the UK nurses during covid lockdowns? Engineering perfection is not their ultimate goal.

Boeing deserves a whack for many things, but this is not one of them.
The 757 has been out of production for 20 years.
This one is down to Delta maintenance.

Crossie
Crossie
January 27, 2024 10:06 am

Roger
Jan 27, 2024 9:23 AM

It’s not about caring or not caring for people, it’s about upholding a principle that should apply to all of us, no matter how apparently trivial an instance of disregarding that principle is.

When Hollywood starts adhering to that principle then I will care.

Dot
Dot
January 27, 2024 10:08 am

Mexico author IP is already apparently at life +100 years. Maybe they want to see a rush of undocumented economic migrants come through Baja California, fleeing from shit-splattered streets in West Hollywood, seeking freedom and lower taxes.

Senor Speilbergo, muy bueneo!

Wow. 35% top tax bracket. Competition with the US is healthy. What’s our top rate in Australia again?

https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/mexico/individual/taxes-on-personal-income

I don’t trust the power sockets though. Or the wiring. Or the electrical tape. Or the neutral-to-earth wiring. Or the RCDs/RCBOs.

Dot
Dot
January 27, 2024 10:14 am

– The dress she claimed to be wearing hadn’t even been designed at that point

Trump has to stop hiring lawyers on how hot they are…seriously no more lookers!

This should have been an easy out for the Donald.

He actually needs to hire a “shrill feminist attorney”.

Roger
Roger
January 27, 2024 10:16 am

When Hollywood starts adhering to that principle then I will care.

Read what I wrote again, Crossie; I’m not asking you to care one way or the other.

Morsie
Morsie
January 27, 2024 10:16 am

GOP will be screwed again.As PowerPoint states the Dems will again run on abortion and coupled with Dem cheating and GOP ineptitude there is no way they will hold the House and win the Senate.
Even if Trump wins he will be faced with at best a hostile Congress.

Figures
Figures
January 27, 2024 10:16 am

If Trump wins he had better imprison two groups of people – Democrats who used lawfare against him and nutless conservatives preaching forgiveness.

Roger
Roger
January 27, 2024 10:20 am

BOM carefully ‘curating’ their Cyclone Kirrily narrative.

Now describing it as a ‘wind event rather than a rain event’, despite forecasting up to 300mm of rainfall.

I guess the media ghouls have packed up and headed back south by now.

Nelson_Kidd-Players
January 27, 2024 10:25 am

Tom
Jan 27, 2024 4:00 AM

Johannes Leak.

Oh, that is brilliant!

Dot
Dot
January 27, 2024 10:30 am

Crazy shit from an envious ultra Karen.

https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/ultra-millionaire-tax

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
January 27, 2024 10:33 am

Toxic smoke warning after Brisbane home destroyed in massive Australia Day blaze

A two-storey home in Brisbane’s south-east has been destroyed by a massive fire with investigators on the scene amid unconfirmed reports the blaze was sparked by an e-scooter battery.

A fire has destroyed a family home in Brisbane’s southeast on Friday night and prompted a police warning to nearby residents to stay inside as toxic smoke billows across the area.

Queensland Fire and Emergency Services crews rushed to the two-storey home on Sirius St in the inner suburb of Coorparoo about 7pm on Australia Day.

Ten fire trucks battled to bring the blaze under control before the roof of the house partially collapsed about 8:10pm.

Firefighters battled the flames externally as they could not get inside the home.

However, all persons who lived in the home are accounted for.

Two cars were also damaged.

Fire crews remained at the scene throughout the night and into Saturday morning as potentially toxic smoke blanketed the neighbourhood.

Channel Nine reported the blaze may have been started by a lithium battery in an e-scooter.

But a QFES spokesperson told SkyNews.com.au there was currently no confirmed cause for the fire.

Fire investigators will arrive on Saturday to inspect the destroyed home, while police warned nearby residents to stay inside due to concerns of toxic smoke.

“Residents on Sirius Street and surrounding areas are advised to shut windows and remain inside due to a house fire that has produced toxic smoke,” Queensland Police said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday night.

“Emergency services are on scene and urge the public to stay away from the area during this time.”

Dot
Dot
January 27, 2024 10:36 am

a 40% “exit tax” on the net worth above $50 million of any U.S. citizen who renounces their citizenship; and systematic third-party reporting that builds on existing tax information exchange agreements adopted after the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act.

WTF are they going to do if the assets are held overseas? Why does India care if an American with dual New Zealand citizenship renounces their US citizenship, stays in New Zealand and continues to earn dividends in their hundreds of small mustard oil-crushing plants operating in India sir?

Wolff and Reich are just as insufferable. There’s efficiency but this is just dumb people being envious and immoral.

H B Bear
H B Bear
January 27, 2024 10:39 am

Bruce of Newcastle at 8:07

When you’ve lost PvO…

The Liars have certainly rolled the dice on this one. Well, no government in the last couple of decades could run on its record of achievement.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
January 27, 2024 10:41 am

Anthony Albanese’s broken promise on stage three tax cuts has damaged his integrity ‘almost certainly beyond repair’, will ultimately seal his fate at the ballot box

The Prime Minister’s tax backflip this week has eroded the semblance of authenticity that clinched him the 2022 election to a point where it can never be recovered, writes Nick Cater. – SkyNews.com.au Contributor and Political Commentator</strong

At the last election, 61 per cent of Australians judged Anthony Albanese to be honest and 57 per cent considered him trustworthy.

The numbers seldom get much better than that in the Australian Election Survey, which has been polling large samples of voters at federal elections for 35 years.

Albanese’s battle with Scott Morrison was largely a contest over character.

His small-target strategy kept the spotlight away from Labor’s slapdash policies.

This week’s broken promise on tax cuts has damaged the PM’s integrity, which is now almost certainly beyond repair.

The semblance of authenticity that clinched the 2022 election can never be recovered.

The PM’s character, which was the difference between winning and losing, is a dead weight hanging from Labor’s shoulders.

The perception of dishonesty is not a fatal flaw in a leader.

John Howard won convincingly in 2001 despite being seen as honest by fewer people (59 per cent) than his rival Kim Beazley (66 per cent).

Howard’s greatest asset was that he was a leader of conviction, a virtue untested in the AES survey, but crucial to political longevity.

He was perceived as a man of granite principles who wouldn’t bend in the wind.

Political survival requires pragmatism and trade-offs – and Howard made plenty of those over the course of a decade in office.

But as Montesquieu once said, the deterioration of a government begins almost always with the decay of its principles.

Albanese is the antithesis of a principled leader.

It isn’t easy to discern for what he stands beyond retaining the privileges of office.

We know he wants to remain Prime Minister for at least two terms because that’s what he told Neil Mitchell last year in a lengthy and revealing podcast interview.

It was revealing in the sense that it exposed Albanese as a leader who prefers to stand in the shallow end of the conviction pool, untroubled about what might be good for the country, thoroughly fixated on the good of his tribe.

If that sounds a little harsh, let’s replay the PM’s answer to Mitchell’s softball question: “What do you want to achieve in the next five years?”

“Oh, gee, in five years,” he began. “If you could fix the housing crisis, everyone has the security of a roof over their head, that would be good.

“If we could cure cancer, that would be pretty good.

“If we could fix climate change so that we weren’t dealing with the impact of increased frequency and intensity of natural disasters.

All of those things would be good if you could do that in five years.”

This week, we learned the PM also thinks that taking inflationary pressure off families also would be pretty good.

But he denied promised tax cuts to anyone earning more than $150,000 a year, which is below the median income of working families in mortgage belt suburbs like Kellyville in north-west Sydney, the people who have been hit hardest by soaring interest rates.

This week the PM declared he was on the side of the importance of long-term security and the benefits to the whole community of aspiration.

Yet reneging on the stage three tax cuts will punish the families who aspire to those battlers, promising to take on supermarkets for so-called price gouging.

Yet supermarket bills are only part of the problem for a family with an average-sized Sydney mortgage paying $70,000 a year from after-tax income to avoid defaulting.

Albanese told Mitchell one of the wisest things he did in his early years was to take his mum’s advice to get on the housing ladder.

Presumably, he understands the importance of home ownership to the thrifty, hardworking people who Robert Menzies recognised as the backbone of the country.

Turning his back on the Forgotten People, on Howard’s battlers and Tony’s tradies, will ultimately seal Albanese’s fate.

This week’s backflip guarantees the reckoning will be sooner rather than later.

His legacy will not be fixing the housing crisis, ending climate change or curing cancer.

It will be a legacy that befits a leader of low ambition unable to stand by his word.

Roger
Roger
January 27, 2024 10:41 am

What did they decide?

Judgment still to be written up, but essentially Israel should do everything in its power to prevent genocide, but no order issued to cease military action in Gaza.

Bluey
Bluey
January 27, 2024 10:47 am

Miltonf
Jan 27, 2024 9:47 AM
Yep vicpol has degenerated to just an alp goon squad.

The armed wing of the Labor party.

Zafiro
Zafiro
January 27, 2024 10:50 am

EV battery in a scooter decided to suddenly combust in the garage of a house in Brisbane. Cooked the whole house down swiftly and violently. The residents ran for their lives with just the clothes on their backs.

Fire brigade/Cops etc evacuated some neighbours because of the toxicity of the smoke.

It is a rare occurrence, but these things would be declared dangerous and unsafe product;s; if there wasn’t an agenda involved.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
January 27, 2024 11:00 am

https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/ultra-millionaire-tax

And what a howling sucess it was when the British Labor Government announced that “the rich would be taxed until their eyes bled!!”

calli
calli
January 27, 2024 11:04 am

It’s only a matter of time before insurers will deny insurance. Once the fires proliferate as batteries reach end of life (some going with a bang not a whimper).

There may be exceptions for detached garages and storage sheds.

It may well be that our own money will be used to subsidise insurance companies to keep the battery dream alive, while potentially killing the golden goose (the taxpayer) in his bed.

Dot
Dot
January 27, 2024 11:04 am

1st wave feminism – we want to be equal to men.

2nd wave feminism – we don’t need men.

3rd wave feminism – we are men.

4th wave feminism – we are “women”.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
January 27, 2024 11:05 am

EV battery in a scooter decided to suddenly combust in the garage of a house in Brisbane. Cooked the whole house

Another bus:

Third Electric Bus Fire In London This Month (26 Jan)

Fortunately the depot didn’t burn down.

Vagabond
Vagabond
January 27, 2024 11:06 am

What did they decide?

Judgment still to be written up, but essentially Israel should do everything in its power to prevent genocide, but no order issued to cease military action in Gaza.

I haven’t read the “judgement” but if what is discussed in this video is true then the media coverage, especially the ALPBC and Spencer Street Soviet is more disgusting than ever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehPMMeD6gng

Roger
Roger
January 27, 2024 11:07 am

The PM’s character, which was the difference between winning and losing, is a dead weight hanging from Labor’s shoulders.

Nick, he never had any “character” to begin with.

A nearly 60 year old man doesn’t fundamentally change his character or personality in the space of 18 months or so unless there’s disease or some catastrophic life event to account for it.

calli
calli
January 27, 2024 11:08 am

May I make an amendment?

1st wave feminism – we want to be legally equal to men.

And that’s where it should have ended.

Katzenjammer
Katzenjammer
January 27, 2024 11:09 am

Judgment still to be written up, but essentially Israel should do everything in its power to prevent genocide, but no order issued to cease military action in Gaza.

Israel is in Gaza to prevent genocide of Israelis.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
January 27, 2024 11:09 am

4th wave feminism – we are “women”.

5th wave feminism – we are all commies.

The Daily Chart: Socialist Majors | Power Line (26 Jan)

Chaser—the ideological gender gap between young men and young women looks to be an international phenomena: graph.

(If the second link doesn’t work see the bottom graph in the article. It’s terrifying.)

Dot
Dot
January 27, 2024 11:09 am
OldOzzie
OldOzzie
January 27, 2024 11:13 am

Is the 25-year-old rape charge a new pension system for women of a certain age?

I’m thinking about E Jean Carroll’s prosecutions of Donald Trump and the sixty mostly middle-aged women who came out of the woodwork to accuse Bill Cosby of sex crimes

STEPHANIE GUTMANN – 27 JAN 2024

As I write this, the latest iteration of writer E Jean Carroll’s attempt to pry money out of….er…lawsuit against Donald J. Trump over an incident alleged to have occurred nearly 30 years ago drags on. The legal tic-toc has grown incredibly convoluted, not least because Carroll first sued Trump in 2019—and then there have been a dizzying round of appeals, motions to dismiss, added charges, counter suits and so on. If you want to attempt to make some sense of why E Jean’s still at it in 2024, I’ve found a pretty good explainer in the New York Times.

But the facts pertinent to my New-Pension-System-for-Women-of-a-Certain-Age theory are these:

But by 2019, here was a new E Jean excreting rage from every pore and capable of writing:

“The whole female sex seems to agree that men are becoming a nuisance with their lying, cheating, robbing, perjuring, assaulting, murdering, voting debauchers onto the Supreme Court, threatening one another with intercontinental ballistic nuclear warheads, and so on.”

So there’s that, but I still believe that the first law suit was propelled by the later-life-pension-system-for-single-women-who’ve-lost-their-looks-and-now-find-themselves- a-little-skint syndrome.

And in fact, in court testimony, Carroll admitted that in 2018, or shortly before publishing a memoir basically casting what sounded like any man she’d ever dallied with as rapists, cuts in advertising and magazine budgets had reduced her yearly income to $60,000.

One lesson here is ya gotta prepare for old age—so you’re not bitter and poor and willing to recast ambivalent sexual encounters as actionable crimes or torts.

One time-honored way women prepared for the decline in sexual marketability was to marry a guy and stick with him so that when he died you inherited, at the very least, a life insurance payout but in many cases his pension as well.

The bottom line: If you were married to a good man, and you performed your wifely duties, you might not end up a rich widow but you would go into middle age in not-terrible shape. (Desperate and scared is a baaad look and there’s no room in the budget or Botox.) If he doesn’t croak on you, you’re still in better shape than if you’d been single. (That’s a joke. I think marriage is a great institution even, or especially, when people marry “just” because they are in love.)

But E Jean grew up in the era of “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.” She was twice married and twice divorced at the time she launched her suit and living, as she puts it in her Amazon Books bio (in advance of Hideous Men), “in a little cabin on an island (it’s about the size of a mattress) in upstate New York.”

I’m speculating there are a lot of women finding themselves similarly situated: losing their looks, poor, and alone because they bought into the marriage-is-slavery catechisms of the sixties and seventies.

For instance, I suspect that if one dug a bit we’d find that many of the sixty women in the Bill Cosby pile-on fit that desperate and bitter profile.

Anyway, sisters (as if they’re listening…hah!) Life is really hard…for everybody.

Aging is really hard…for everybody.

Aging is actually not a conspiracy of the patriarchy.

And trying to work the I’ve-just-realized-I-was-raped-thirty-years-ago play ultimately just makes the world worse.

Roger
Roger
January 27, 2024 11:14 am

It may well be that our own money will be used to subsidise insurance companies to keep the battery dream alive, while potentially killing the golden goose (the taxpayer) in his bed.

In all seriousness, it wouldn’t be the first time a government program has killed people.

Of course, Kevin Rudd denied all responsibility.

Cassie of Sydney
January 27, 2024 11:14 am

There is NO genocide in Gaza.

There was an attempted genocide in Israel on 7 October 2023.

Cassie of Sydney
January 27, 2024 11:15 am

I have some time for 2nd wave feminism.

Salvatore, Iron Publican
January 27, 2024 11:16 am

calli Jan 27, 2024 11:04 AM
It’s only a matter of time before insurers will deny insurance.

Perhaps the insurance companies will do as they do regards bushfire & flood insurance.

Raise premiums for all.

Floods is a little trickier than bushfires for them to get away with socialising the cost, however the bare-faced effrontery of insurance companies in the wake of the 2018 Roma (Qld) floods reveals they’ll be up front about raising non-risk premiums to cover those at risk, if necessary.

Zatara
Zatara
January 27, 2024 11:17 am

The federal government is openly and blatantly ignoring the Constitution.

It goes farther than that. Biden’s actions are a gross violation of existing federal law.

When it is said that the states must comply with federal law, that means statutory law, not the whims of the executive branch. Biden’s policy is not federal law. Federal law, which the president refuses to faithfully execute, calls for detention. As I have explained before, Biden’s actions are in gross violation of the law.

Andrew McCarthy

Regarding the Supreme Court ruling – unlike the interpretation of the result the media is attempting to promote, the Supreme Court order does not forbid Governor Abbott and Texas from preventing the feds from cutting their wire. Governor Abbott has given Biden the finger and so far 25 states have declared they will back him with personnel and material support.

Illegal Immigration is certainly in the top 2-3 key issues of the 2024 US presidential election and polling shows that it’s a total loser for the Dems at all levels.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
January 27, 2024 11:18 am

Consumer Reports Absolutely Shreds New Chevy Blazer EV In Negative Review

In a new review video, Consumer Reports rips into the new Chevy Blazer EV in one of the most negative reviews we have ever seen from any respectable publication.

Watch the video yourself to see how the CR team picks apart a $60,000 five-passenger crossover in a negative way that we rarely see from the motor press

Keep in mind that the Blazer has been pulled off the market via a “stop-sale” by GM. Other publications, including EV-advocacy publications, have also panned the new Chevy Blazer, but none so harshly as CR has done.

Roger
Roger
January 27, 2024 11:19 am

There is NO genocide in Gaza.

Absent more detail, I’m assuming that’s what the court determined.

Roger
Roger
January 27, 2024 11:21 am

5th wave feminism- spinsters demanding the right to marry their cats.

I’ll see myself out.

Top Ender
Top Ender
January 27, 2024 11:22 am

Also one squadron of USAF had 36 bombers x 10 crew in 1943.

Brian Winspear. still going at 102 in Hobart, was a gunner in Hudson bombers in WWII. He talks of his squadron being wiped out to a 300% level.

He still has a long roll of paper on which is printed all the names of the RAAF blokes who died.

JC
JC
January 27, 2024 11:24 am

Perhaps the resident insurance risk manager can explain how insurance risk pooling works and how a pool, which is by definition resource limited, can ensure there’s enough to cover potential losses and eke out a profit.

Perhaps this financial genius pouring imaginary beers in ann imaginary pub can explain all this to us mere mortals. Perhaps not.

Cassie of Sydney
January 27, 2024 11:26 am

I think rape crisis centres, domestic violence shelters, equal pay, women being able to get bank loans and so on are ALL positives of feminism.

Black Ball
Black Ball
January 27, 2024 11:28 am

Love is love. Daily Telegraph:

A young married couple are accused of using animals on their south coast property for sexual pleasure and filming the disturbing intimate interactions.

Police will allege they were confronted with images of bestiality involving a 17-year-old mare called Gemma and a 14-month old border collie called Ekko.

Joel Kerim first came to the attention of police when his wife Mickayla Kerim handed in footage she filmed of him allegedly assaulting the mare while he stood on a chair near their hay shed.

Gee whiz

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
January 27, 2024 11:31 am

Is the Electoral Fix Already In?

The 2024 presidential race increasingly looks like it will be decided by lawyers, not voters, as Democrats unveil plans for America’s first lawfare election

MATT TAIBBI – 27 JAN 2024

The fix is in. To “protect democracy,” democracy is already being canceled. We just haven’t admitted the implications of this to ourselves yet.

On Sunday, January 14th, NBC News ran an eye-catching story: “Fears grow that Trump will use the military in ‘dictatorial ways’ if he returns to the White House.” It described “a loose-knit network of public interest groups and lawmakers” that is “quietly” making plans to “foil any efforts to expand presidential power” on the part of Donald Trump.

The piece quoted an array of former high-ranking officials, all insisting Trump will misuse the Department of Defense to execute civilian political aims.

Since Joe Biden’s team “leaked” a strategy memo in late December listing “Trump is an existential threat to democracy” as Campaign 2024’s central talking point, surrogates have worked overtime to insert existential or democracy in quotes.

This was no different:

“We’re about 30 seconds away from the Armageddon clock when it comes to democracy,” said Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Defense, William Cohen, adding that Trump is “a clear and present danger to our democracy.” Skye Perryman of Democracy Forward, one of the advocacy groups organizing the “loose” coalition, said, “We believe this is an existential moment for American democracy.” Declared former CIA and defense chief Leon Panetta: “Like any good dictator, he’s going to try to use the military to basically perform his will.”

Former Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security at the U.S. Department of Justice and current visiting Georgetown law professor Mary McCord was one of the few coalition participants quoted by name. She said:

We’re already starting to put together a team to think through the most damaging types of things that he [Trump] might do so that we’re ready to bring lawsuits if we have to.

The group was formed by at least two organizations that have been hyperactive in filing lawsuits against Trump and Trump-related figures over the years:

the aforementioned Democracy Forward, chaired by former Perkins Coie and Hillary Clinton campaign attorney Marc Elias, and Protect Democracy, a ubiquitous non-profit run by a phalanx of former Obama administration lawyers like Ian Bassin, and funded at least in part by LinkedIn magnate Reid Hoffman.

Many who couldn’t stand Trump, would never vote for him, and have been willing consumers of the awesome amount of propaganda published on the Trump subject, now need to face the fact that they’ve been had.

Transformed into the avatar of all bad things — a crude domestic combo platter of Saddam, Milosevic, Assad, and Putin — this vision of the über-villain, Trump, has been used to distract mass audiences from the erosion of “norms” at home. “Protecting democracy” in the Trump context will be remembered as having served the same purpose as Saddam’s mythical WMDs, the shots fired in the Gulf of Tonkin, or Gaddafi’s fictional Viagra-enhanced army.

Those were carefully crafted political lies, used to rally the public behind illegal campaigns of preemption.

Voters, by voting, “protect democracy.” A politician who claims to be doing the job for us is up to something.

The group in the current White House is trying to steal for themselves a word that belongs to you. Don’t let them.

Cassie of Sydney
January 27, 2024 11:31 am

I think some of the early feminists, names such as Germaine Greer, Phyllis Chesler, Kate Millet, Janice Reymond and others did care about women. I have a lot of time for Julie Bindel. You don’t have to agree with these women about everything but these women look at 4th and 5th wave feminism, with its celebration of such things as pornography and transperverts, as obscenities that are destroying women’s rights.

Top Ender
Top Ender
January 27, 2024 11:33 am

Foxtel…refused to pay at the time $100 bucks a month for the few things I actually wanted to watch.

We gave up on Foxtel for the same reason. Netflix has a few good offerings but we pay for the top subscription to give three family members access to the sub too.

Have Britbox too, but might run out of stuff on it sooner than later.

Zatara
Zatara
January 27, 2024 11:37 am

Illegal Immigration is certainly in the top 2-3 key issues of the 2024 US presidential election and polling shows that it’s a total loser for the Dems at all levels.

So why do the Dems keep doing it? Two reasons come to mind.

The first is bureaucratic inertia, as in it’s difficult to turn a ship around which has been running at full blast in one direction for a decade plus without your base exploding on you.

The second is that they are purposefully creating a massive domestic crisis for Trump to have to deal with when he is inevitably elected this Nov.

If I had to chose the primary one it would be the second.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
January 27, 2024 11:38 am

Oh noes!

Analysis finds Victoria’s public schools underfunded by $1.7 billion across 2023 (Sky News, 27 Jan)

Public schools in Victoria were underfunded by more than $1.7 billion in 2023.

That sounds awful. I wonder who did the analysis?

Analysis by Nine Papers and the Australian Education Union has revealed state school funding shortfalls are close to 15 percent in all jurisdictions, except in the ACT.

ROFLMAO!!! Lefties want more money, news at 6 (on the Nein Network).

Education Minister Jason Clare is vowing to fix the gap.

That is at least some good news. Jason Clare could fix anything in a pink fit. He’s spent his entire 14 year ministerial career doing nothing that anyone can remember.

Tom
Tom
January 27, 2024 11:43 am

Roger
Jan 27, 2024 11:21 AM
5th wave feminism- spinsters demanding the right to marry their cat

You don’t have to see yourself out, Roger.

A splendid belly laugh to finish the morning.

H B Bear
H B Bear
January 27, 2024 11:43 am

Albo and SloMo were each others greatest political strengths. SloMo was so utterly reviled that Albo, with an almost unequalled record of non-achievement in the ALP, defeated him in a general election with barely 1/3 of the primary vote. It’s hard to remember Australian politics at a lower ebb.

Salvatore, Iron Publican
January 27, 2024 11:45 am

Britbox is available with an Amazon Prime subscription. Unsure how much extra you pay.
Amazon Prime’s library is superior to Netflix, particularly for viewability.

Netflix does have plenty of edge-of-your-seat two dimensional 6 to 8 episode thriller series’, sort of an audio-visual version of Fleetway Thrillers (always a good read in the cane cutter’s quarters)

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
January 27, 2024 11:46 am

Opinion: Can Boeing’s Misguided Leaders Be Stopped?

Can anything save Boeing from its management? The recent high-profile near-disaster involving an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-9 MAX is just another small step in Boeing’s downward spiral, and it is far from clear what will arrest it.

The safety concerns and manufacturing errors plaguing the company’s jetliner unit are just part of the problem.

The production ramp-up has been a series of disappointments that will only worsen as regulators and customers scrutinize manufacturing and inspection processes.

The company is also quickly losing market share.

CEO Dave Calhoun’s November 2022 announcement that there would be no new Boeing jetliner this decade had a predictable result: a record 1,300 Airbus A321neo orders in 2023.

Boeing will be very lucky to retain 40% of the market by decade’s end. Given relentless cost-cutting and the demographics of the engineering workforce, it will be quite difficult for the company to create a new jetliner in the 2030s.

The situation may be worse on the defense side. Billions of dollars have been lost due to poor execution and ill-advised fixed-price contracts—over $2 billion in 2022 alone.

While an E-7 procurement program may help, these losses will not stop anytime soon. Worse, it is unlikely that the Pentagon will trust Boeing with the next-generation platforms—NGAD and F/A-XX—being decided in the next few years.

For years, Boeing management was accused of focusing on money rather than products, performance or people.

Between 2014 and 2018, it gave away $53 billion in dividends and buybacks.

But that shareholder focus no longer works.

Boeing is the only large-cap aerospace company in the world with a flat share price throughout the remarkable demand surge the industry has seen over the last three years.

As 2023 ended, the company’s strategy department was abolished.

Unit strategy functions were also reduced.

The company no longer wants a plan for company-wide new technology development, new product development or, most crucial, restoring the links between the people who design and build aircraft and the people who manage the company.

There are also no plans to promote technical people to senior management positions.

Stephanie Pope’s recent appointment as chief operating officer means another finance person has been made Calhoun’s heir apparent.

The future, if it can be called that, is simply to run the company for cash—deliver legacy jets, try to make existing defense programs profitable, and resume converting cash flow into shareholder returns.

Management may also try to sell off parts of the company—or perhaps all of it.

The implications of this for the U.S. aerospace industry, defense industrial base and even the broader economy are potentially enormous.

What can change the company’s path? Strangely, there have been no indications that either activist investors or the company’s own board will act.

H B Bear
H B Bear
January 27, 2024 11:50 am

Roger at 11:21

5th wave feminism- spinsters demanding the right to marry their cats.

Only a cat would put up with that – if it was being fed.

JC
JC
January 27, 2024 11:51 am

Zat

I think there’s a third option. Outright corruption with payoffs.

Black Ball
Black Ball
January 27, 2024 11:51 am

Albo and SloMo were each others greatest political strengths

Cue Jerry Maguire.
“You complete me…”

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
January 27, 2024 11:54 am

Zatara
Jan 27, 2024 11:37 AM

Illegal Immigration is certainly in the top 2-3 key issues of the 2024 US presidential election and polling shows that it’s a total loser for the Dems at all levels.

So why do the Dems keep doing it? Two reasons come to mind.

The first is bureaucratic inertia, as in it’s difficult to turn a ship around which has been running at full blast in one direction for a decade plus without your base exploding on you.

The second is that they are purposefully creating a massive domestic crisis for Trump to have to deal with when he is inevitably elected this Nov.

If I had to chose the primary one it would be the second.

Zatara,

American Thinker agree with you – Is Biden Poison-Pilling Trump?

The lesson I learned was that even your friends can screw you. I also learned that people like to create failure for their opposition when they know they are going to lose.

Joe Biden is doing this right now, and what he is doing will most assuredly ail Trump if/when he wins the 2024 election. Biden knows that Trump has a good shot at winning, so the president is using his time left and deliberately pouring syrup into the engine of the White House.

Within less than eleven months, and if nothing else goes wrong, Trump, as the newly (re-)elected president, will inherit no less than three wars, a flailing economy, a 34-trillion-dollar federal deficit, high crime rates across the country, a broken Southern border that has spilled at least nine million new people into the country without being vetted, and a Deep State that doesn’t want him to succeed. If that isn’t pancake syrup gutting up an engine, then I don’t know what is.

I might even question Trump’s sanity — or his courage — to want to get anywhere near this calamitous effort of trying to fix what Biden has broken.

Biden is a disgrace. No other president in history has done more to cripple a country than the former senator from Delaware:

Can the Damage Be Repaired?

We call in the expert surgeon, Donald Trump, and expect him to work the miracle of reviving the patient. We hope his surgical team is equally supportive of his desire to save the patient, but one cannot be too sure. Sometimes you can be handed the wrong scalpel, the patient might lose oxygen, or perhaps your assistant despises you and will deliberately sabotage you just to make you look bad, just like the guy who poured syrup down my dad’s gas tank.

This is Trump’s reality. He must not only prepare for the worst, but also be mindful that he is likely surrounded by people who want him to fail.

First Priorities

The Deep State are the people who have permanent government jobs, and who would never allow an elected executive to come in and dictate their careers. And it is the largesse of the Deep State that has made our government inefficient; it is why the taxpayers are 33 trillion dollars in debt, a debt that will eventually destroy the U.S. economy. Trump needs to bring a machete.

Next are reforms in the judicial and intelligence departments. This is the slimy liquid that slowly creeps into the crevices of human life and rips away our constitutionally protected right to be left alone. Biden and Obama have weaponized our justice and intelligence agencies to go after political opponents — even the American people who protest.

calli
calli
January 27, 2024 11:55 am

Some of those things are covered in legal equality, Cassie.

The others could have been supplied by charities rather than the public purse. Homeless shelters, crisis centres and the like are all supported by volunteers. The fact that they also draw government funding is due partially to the tax churn.

People pay taxes which go to these things. Why should they also give money that the taxman graciously leaves them?

Johnny Rotten
January 27, 2024 11:55 am

A taxi cab picks up a nun. The nun enters the cab and notices that the VERY handsome cab driver won’t stop staring.

The nun asks him why he is staring.

He replies: “I have a question to ask, but I don’t want to offend you”.

“My son, you cannot offend me. When you’re as old as I am and have been a nun as long as I have, you get a chance to see and hear just about everything. I’m sure that there’s nothing you could say or ask that I would find offensive.”

“Well, I’ve always had a fantasy of having a nun kiss me.

“Well, let’s see what we can do about that: #1, you have to be single and #2, you must be Catholic.”

The cab driver is very excited and says, “Yes, I’m single and Catholic!

“OK” the nun says. “Pull into the next alley.”

The nun fulfills his fantasy with a kiss that would make a hooker blush.

But when they get back on the road, the cab driver starts weeping in sorrow.

“My dear child,” said the nun, “Why are you crying?”

“Forgive me but I’ve sinned. I lied and I must confess; I’m married and I’m a Protestant.”

The nun says, “That’s OK! My name is Kevin and I’m on my way to a Halloween party!’’

Muddy
Muddy
January 27, 2024 11:56 am

Top Ender
Jan 27, 2024 11:22 AM

Brian Winspear. still going at 102 in Hobart, was a gunner in Hudson bombers in WWII. He talks of his squadron being wiped out to a 300% level.

Lacking anything resembling a social life, I spend some of my time reading National Archives of Australia files online, and what I find impressive is the effort devoted to searching for missing (WWII) servicemen. The RAAF Searcher Parties in particular faced a multitude of challenges, especially when the aircraft was thought to have gone missing over the sea, or a wide area with few details to work with.

The body of Sgt. John Lyon, for example, who was a WAG in Flt. Lt. Newton V.C.’s Boston which ditched after being hit over Salamaua, was found in 1948, buried in a shallow grave near the Lae waterfront. Newton’s remains – minus the skull, which was never located to my knowledge – were discovered at Salamaua in late 1943. The other occupant of the aircraft, Sgt. Eastwood, went down with it in Bayern Bay, without visual distance of the Japanese naval area on the Salamaua Isthmus.

The point of my meandering comment is that considerable effort was devoted to searching for the missing when the war ended, sometimes in conjunction with war crimes investigations and trials. (Newton V.C.’s executioner was killed in the Philippines, and while Lyon’s killer was identified, I haven’t been able to confirm if he was prosecuted. The man ultimately responsible, the Commander of the 8th Naval Base Force at Lae, Rear Admiral Fujita, hanged himself prior to arrest.

JC
JC
January 27, 2024 11:58 am

Zat

The logic of an open border and making threats to Texas just doesn’t follow a reasoned path.

The demons are losing black and hispanic voters as a consequence and even imperilling any electoral success come November. They know this and see it in the polling. What other possibly reason would there be other than say the Hiden crime family receiving payoffs from the cartels?

Muddy
Muddy
January 27, 2024 11:58 am

WITHIN visual distance…

H B Bear
H B Bear
January 27, 2024 12:01 pm

calli at 11:04

It’s only a matter of time before insurers will deny insurance

Insurance is all about pricing for risk. Every summer Queensland passes the risk of living in cyclone and flood prone areas on to the rest of Australia. People have been getting flooded since the Egyptians because river flats are productive. Batteries and EVs will be the same.

H B Bear
H B Bear
January 27, 2024 12:02 pm

Baz is coming.

Tom
Tom
January 27, 2024 12:03 pm

Stephanie Pope’s recent appointment as chief operating officer means another finance person has been made Calhoun’s heir apparent.

This is poison for an engineering company which 20 years ago moved its corporate HQ away from the main factory in Seattle to Chicago to be nearer America’s corporate movers and shakers.

Until 20 years ago, Boeing promoted its best engineers to lead the company as CEO. Now Boeing CEOs are Chicago finance sharks, with the result that the company’s engineering operations have gone woke — a massive threat to public safety.

Boeing has already surrendered market leadership to Airbus. On its current trajectory, the company will be lucky to exist in 20 years.

Muddy
Muddy
January 27, 2024 12:05 pm

Serious question: Has the definition of ‘genocide’ changed in recent years?

Katzenjammer
Katzenjammer
January 27, 2024 12:06 pm

Absent more detail, I’m assuming that’s what the court determined.

The court didn’t rule on the genocide claim. Their recommendation to avoid genocide is like the “when did you stop bashing your wife” line.

calli
calli
January 27, 2024 12:06 pm

Bear, I pay extra for living in a “bushfire zone”. Perhaps batteries will have to be declared and insurance adjusted accordingly. If a fire is found to be caused by an undeclared battery, the policy might be void.

There are all sorts of ways to get around it.

Dot
Dot
January 27, 2024 12:06 pm

Serious question: Has the definition of ‘genocide’ changed in recent years?

Ditto for “rights”.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
January 27, 2024 12:15 pm

AXIOS – Behind the Curtain: Trump’s exponential power surge

Something shocking — and telling — has unfolded beyond Donald Trump’s onstage, online and courtroom theatrics: He’s running a professional, well-managed, disciplined presidential campaign.

. His 2024 operation is more sophisticated — dare we say traditional — than the slapdash improvisation of his White House and two previous runs.

Why it matters: Trump likely will wrap up the nomination in record time, with almost universal GOP establishment backing.

. If he were to win — and run the White House like he has his campaign — he could reshape America and its government more quickly, and in more lasting ways, than he did during his first term.

Winning the nomination fast and decisively speaks only to his power with the activist GOP. Exit polling showed lots of New Hampshire Republicans won’t vote for him, especially if convicted.

. But his hand is a helluva lot stronger than most expected a year ago.

Between the lines: Many top Republicans assumed that, after the Capitol riot, no one sensible would go near him. The campaign would be fringe and cringe. Instead, Trump has rolled up the party even tighter than he did when he was president.

. Now the GOP’s biggest donors and power brokers not only figure he’ll quickly become the nominee, they assume he’d beat President Biden if the expected rematch comes to pass.

. Trump is the strongest politically that he’s ever been within his party.

Reality check: Trump has surrounded himself with pros, but he’s still Trump — an incendiary and chaotic messenger.

Black Ball
Black Ball
January 27, 2024 12:17 pm

Whatever you think of Sam Smith, this is still beautiful

Zatara
Zatara
January 27, 2024 12:18 pm

I think there’s a third option. Outright corruption with payoffs.

I agree JC. Particularly with the idea of cartel payoffs. I guess I just included that in the inertia option.

The Dems (and quite possibly some RINOs) have been taking the payoffs for years and it’s hard to stop if you want to survive the backlash from the cartel members YOU allowed to flow into the country unchecked and undetected.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
January 27, 2024 12:18 pm

The United States Navy Essentially Lost A Battle At Sea This Week

BY TYLER DURDEN – SATURDAY, JAN 27, 2024 – 10:00 AM

On Wednesday the US Navy attempted to escort two US owned and flagged container carriers through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait into the Red Sea, but they turned around after coming under Houthi ballistic missile fire.

As we detailed earlier, two contradictory narratives soon emerged: namely the Houthis said they scored a direct hit on one of the US ships, while the Pentagon flatly rejected the claim as nonsense. US CENTCOM said the missiles were intercepted, with one falling into the sea.

But this has given rise to many more questions than answers, and some analysts are calling the hostile encounter a clear “loss” for the US Navy and the no less than three well-armed warships attempting to keep the commercial vessels safe.

Below is important commentary from @ArmchairW and raises all of the relevant points, showing that the Pentagon narrative doesn’t fully add up [emphasis ZH]…

Nelson_Kidd-Players
January 27, 2024 12:19 pm

My house is on a hill (and it was a consideration in purchasing) so I’m not particularly keen for my premium to increase to cover those living riverside.

Perhaps the flood component should be levied on local councils. Then have have some skin in the game as they make decisions about where that new subdivision shall be and how to manage their drainage systems.

Salvatore, Iron Publican
January 27, 2024 12:20 pm

H B Bear Jan 27, 2024 12:01 PM
Every summer Queensland passes the risk of living in cyclone and flood prone areas on to the rest of Australia.

I’ll challenge that, in part if not in whole.
A considerable proportion of NQ cannot be insured within Australia.
For the past 15 years I’ve not been able to insure the pub, at any price, within Australia. Because “cyclone risk”. I am not in a cyclone zone, I am not anywhere near a cyclone zone.

I know of no hotel in the north that is able to be insured within Australia.

After cyclone Yasi the insurance industry drew a ‘do not touch’ line across Australia at 25 degrees, or 26 (individual insurance companies varied) This resulted in even Alice Springs not being able to obtain insurance for a dog kennel, coz “cyclone risk”.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
January 27, 2024 12:21 pm

Meanwhile – British Oil Tanker Carrying Russian Naphta On Fire In The Red Sea After Houthi Missile Strike

BY TYLER DURDEN – SATURDAY, JAN 27, 2024 – 09:20 AM

The British fuel tanker operated on behalf of trading giant Trafigura, was on fire after it was struck by a missile as it transited the Red Sea, in the most significant attack yet by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on an oil-carrying vessel.

Yemen’s Houthis said on Friday their naval forces carried out an operation targeting “the British oil tanker Marlin Luanda” in the Gulf of Aden causing a fire to break out. They used “a number of appropriate naval missiles, the strike was direct,” the Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Sarea said in a statement.

Black Ball
Black Ball
January 27, 2024 12:23 pm

FMD

Israel vowed to fight until “total victory” against Hamas after the International Court of Justice did not call for a ceasefire in Gaza despite finding a “plausible” risk of genocide.

No side backed down after the United Nations court in The Hague ordered Israel to take measures to prevent potential acts of genocide, while stopping short of demanding an immediate end to the four-month counteroffensive in Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the UN as “outrageous” and said they would continue the “just war” against Hamas, despite widespread criticism over the country’s relentless bombing of civilians.

South Africa had brought the case accusing Israel of breaching the 1948 UN Genocide Convention that was set up in the ashes of World War II and the Holocaust.

“At this stage, South Africa does not need to prove that Israel is committing genocide,” Juliette McIntyre, a lecturer in international law at the University of South Australia, told AFP before the ruling.

“They simply need to establish that there is a plausible risk of genocide occurring.”

The court ruling against Israel means “there is a plausible risk of genocide — not that there is genocide”, McIntyre adds.

While not achieving its major objective of an immediate ceasefire, South Africa, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas welcomed the ruling as a “decisive victory” in alienating Israel from the world.

“The (International) Court of Justice’s decision is an important development which contributes to isolating Israel and exposing its crimes in Gaza,” Hamas said in a statement.

Israel must report to the court within a month on how it is upholding the order to prevent acts of genocide. While the ruling is legally binding, the court has no enforcement mechanism. Russia, for example, has been ordered to end its war in Ukraine.

The 15 to 2 ruling, which also ordered Israel to “prevent and punish” incitement to genocide, did not consider whether Israelis were committing genocide, which is a process that can take several years.

South Africa had accused Israel of “genocidal” acts and urged the court to order Israel to “immediately suspend” its military operations in Gaza.

South Africa’s Ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement the ICJ’s decision “is a momentous one,” adding it puts other countries “on notice” of the potential risk of genocide.

“This necessarily imposes an obligation on all States to cease funding and facilitating Israel’s military actions, which are plausibly genocidal,” the statement said.

Israel Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said they would not be “lectured on morality” while fighting Hamas in Gaza, saying those seeking justice would not find it in The Hague.

At least 26,083 people have been killed and 64,487 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. The death toll in Israel from the October 7 Hamas attacks stands at 1,139.

Nelson_Kidd-Players
January 27, 2024 12:24 pm

We’re not big subscription TV users but when we do use I tend to subscribe for a month only and tell the family to binge that service. Once that’s over, switch over to another service. Eventually come back round. In the early days that routine even coincided with the “we want you back” free month but it’s been a long time since I was offered one of those – too many others like me. 😛

H B Bear
H B Bear
January 27, 2024 12:24 pm

I’ll challenge that, in part if not in whole.

So we’ll be getting a cheque for any Cth funding received?

feelthebern
feelthebern
January 27, 2024 12:26 pm

Perhaps the flood component should be levied on local councils.

They get paid by developers to build on land prone to flooding.

Salvatore, Iron Publican
January 27, 2024 12:27 pm

So we’ll be getting a cheque for any Cth funding received?

???? Please explain.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
January 27, 2024 12:28 pm

“Michelle, Ma Belle…?”

BY TYLER DURDEN – SATURDAY, JAN 27, 2024 – 08:20 AM

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

“What a train wreck it is for the democrats! What an unholy mess! It is an unmitigated disaster, the sinking of the Titanic multiplied by that plane crash where the soccer players ate each other.”

– Jeff Childers on the Fani Willis case.

As Donald Trump consolidates his election mojo – defying the forces arrayed to destroy him – and more of the country turns against the creepy apparition in the White House purportedly running against him, you hear evermore chatter that a panicked Democratic Party will insert Michelle Obama in a last-minute convention switcheroo next August.

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“Michelle, Ma Belle…?”

BY TYLER DURDEN = SATURDAY, JAN 27, 2024 – 08:20 AM

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

“What a train wreck it is for the democrats! What an unholy mess! It is an unmitigated disaster, the sinking of the Titanic multiplied by that plane crash where the soccer players ate each other.”

– Jeff Childers on the Fani Willis case.

As Donald Trump consolidates his election mojo – defying the forces arrayed to destroy him – and more of the country turns against the creepy apparition in the White House purportedly running against him, you hear evermore chatter that a panicked Democratic Party will insert Michelle Obama in a last-minute convention switcheroo next August.

The explications I hear in the chat media all sound lame one way or another. For starters, how pathetically weak is the party that such a walking fiasco as “Joe Biden” is allowed to even pretend that he can run this race?

His campaign is an obvious sham, a place-holder in hopes that one or another of the half-assed lawfare court cases against Mr. Trump might knock him off the game-board — and that’s not looking so great now since Fulton County DA Fani Willis screwed the pooch in her giant RICO action and Special Counsel Jack Smith is getting smacked around week after week on esoteric points of procedure.

Well, all right, considering the party has really got no one else.

Gavin Newsom is a California train wreck, despite the fabulous teeth and hair, Oprah can’t seem to make up her mind, and Taylor Swift will not be old enough to qualify for the office until December.

The leading plan for the Dems goes like this:

“JB” is offered a deal – step aside for Michelle to run in August…

“JB” can make whatever face-saving excuses necessary, health, low energy, whatever…

…but he can serve out his term to the bitter end, and then sometime before noon January 20, 2025, he can pardon himself, son Hunter, brothers Jim and Frank, and a few other family members implicated in money-laundering all the bribes they scared-up over the years.

That is, assuming “Joe Biden” does not get impeached before August, in which case he might not be convicted in a Dem majority Senate trial, BUT, the mainstream media could not ignore the proceeding, and the public — including the wokest Woke partisans — would finally see the voluminous bank records authenticating the Biden Family bribery operations — the “proof” they have been forever and snidely calling for. Bad “optics” for the party.

A late August kickoff for Michelle Obama would minimize her public exposure until, really, the last two months of the race.

(She reportedly hates being on display.)

In theory, the vast electorate of suburban Democratic women across the land would bury the MAGA vote and enjoy months of orgasm awaiting the installation of a black, (first) female president, their final blow against the odious patriarchy of white supremacist rapists.

And best of all, under President Michelle, the blob could continue all its clandestine blobulations without fear of payback, assuring that our democracy will be defended by any means necessary, including the suppression and persecution of anyone who complains about it.

Now that’s a plan!

Except for one thing: none of the people chattering about this (James Rickards, Dan Bongino. . .) have mentioned that the Michelle plan actually represents a fourth term for Barack Obama.

I mean. . . really . . . do you suppose that Barack will spend the next four years upstairs in the White House “residence” with an apron on, baking red velvet cakes and sweet potato pies while Michelle presides in the Situation Room, directing drone strikes against various people of the Koran? In the immortal words of Homey D. Clown:

“I don’t think so!”

feelthebern
feelthebern
January 27, 2024 12:28 pm

RNC Shut Down 75 Percent of Its Hispanic Outreach Centers, Claims Money Isn’t the Issue

https://redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2024/01/25/rnc-shut-down-75-percent-of-its-hispanic-outreach-centers-claims-money-isnt-the-issue-n2169193

Who needs to DNC when you have the big wigs at the GOP sabotaging your efforts.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
January 27, 2024 12:29 pm

oops apologies missed the garbage above – hmm did not see it when reviewing?

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
January 27, 2024 12:31 pm

janet albrechtsen janet albrechtsen
How identity politics destroyed Rochelle Hicks’ world

theaustralian.com.au03:52
‘I shouldn’t be killed for doing my job’

12:00AM January 27, 2024

When Chris Minns was elected NSW Premier last year, many of us thought the man had promise. He seemed remarkably normal for a politician, let alone one who had climbed the greasy pole to the Labor leadership. Here was an opportunity for NSW Labor to rid itself of its recent rotten past, where bad men like Eddie Obeid took his puppets in the party, along with the state, down a dark political road.

Minns, a fresh face despite his long history in the Labor movement, appeared to be a thoroughly modern man, staying at home to look after his kids when his wife set up a business.

Best of all, Minns was regarded by many as more in the model of an (early) Paul Keating than a (late) Gough Whitlam – meaning he was pragmatic, sensible. He had run-ins with unions. In his inaugural speech, Minns recognised that union control of the party was not healthy. Some union leaders said they would never support him. One said Minns would be better “having a crack at leadership of the Liberal Party”.

Minns’s win meant an electoral wipeout across mainland Australia for the Liberal Party. This was a tribute to Minns but it does signal a significant risk to the kind of competitive federalism that brings ­innovation in governance. Still, Minns seemed worth a shot.

Introducing the new NSW Premier-elect that March evening, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese lauded Minns’ “vision, compassion, and integrity”. Almost a year later, Minns has a chance to demonstrate each quality – along with that other important trait: leadership.

In one fell swoop, the NSW Labor Premier could make a lasting mark on the country. He could use his new leadership role to signal that identity politics is for fools and that workplace claims must be dealt with according to proper processes. Only then is there some hope of stopping the rot embedded in all kinds of institutions in this country, including sections of the media.

The Labor government’s handling of the Rochelle Hicks matter has revealed what happens when identity politics merges with Labor’s old-style brute politics. As one lawyer told me this week, that political merger has turned into a highway to hell.

That’s the road the successful and highly regarded senior executive within Transport for NSW has been forced down. Hicks had project managed the Coffs Harbour Bypass, a $2.2bn infrastructure project. Her performance reviews were excellent. Her career was headed in one direction – up.

That was until her world came crashing down after bureaucrats above her refused to take seriously a death threat made against her made by Indigenous man Ian Brown. Hicks wanted Brown removed for the safety of her workplace, given he had made threats against her and others. In other workplaces, a bad joke could get you tossed out.

Instead, at Transport for NSW, according to its own internal documents, senior bureaucrats decided they should take no action against Brown because he was an influential Indigenous man and a “cultural knowledge holder”. Instead, they tried to get rid of Hicks.

If ever we needed reminding of the wretched influence of identity politics, of its dire and unfair outcomes, here it is. The first reaction of Transport bureaucrats was to ­effectively side with an Indigenous man who threatened to kill a white woman. They wanted to have the white woman removed. Hicks was forced to stay at home to protect her safety.

Senior public servants in the NSW Transport Department allocated a higher rung in the hierarchy of victimhood to the Indigenous man and perpetrator of the death threat. The white woman who was the subject of a death threat was treated by the public servants as expendable.

So much for the NSW Transport Department’s promise to end gendered violence and to make all workplaces safe for women.

The rot is so deep that when The Australian exposed this scandal, department bureaucrats organised professional psychological support, not for Rochelle Hicks, but for other public servants who may have been upset at our coverage of the debacle.

This baloney should be the stuff of comedy … except there is nothing remotely funny about the mistreatment of Rochelle Hicks.

A mother of two young children, Hicks should be lauded by her bosses as a role model for other women to consider successful and rewarding careers in the male-dominated infrastructure industry. And an example should have been made of the man who made a death threat against her. His swift removal would have signified that the department took violence, and threats of violence, against women very seriously. Instead, Hicks has been forced to engage lawyers; her career is on hold as she fights to be fairly compensated for the end of her successful career.

If departmental heads within Transport are flinching, they have only themselves to blame. It’s their fault that this matter has now entered the political arena.

Now that politicians are involved, Minns has a chance to show the sort of leadership that has been absent throughout this debacle. But, sadly, so far the reaction of the NSW Labor government suggests Minns is just another Labor hack who favours brute politics over doing the right thing.

When National MP Sam Farraway brought a motion to release internal department documents in response to our coverage in November, the Minns government blocked the motion. So much for leadership.

As The Australian reported, one Labor ministerial staffer even tried to smear Hicks to a crossbencher as mentally unstable to avoid internal documents being released. So much for integrity and compassion.

Hicks was delivered another blow when those other political hypocrites, the Greens, sided with Labor. We should never again take seriously the words of NSW Greens MPs about wanting to to protect women against violence.

Release of the documents supported Hicks’ version of events and revealed Transport bureaucrats behaving very badly indeed. The Greens should be in uproar. Instead, they are silent, pathetic ­patsies to identity politics. These tossers apparently believe all women – except when a black man threatens violence against a white woman.

It was never in anyone’s interest to follow the bone-headed mantra of the left that we “believe-all-women”. Minns need look no further than to the Prime Minister to understand the dangers of that ­approach.

The Albanese government’s handling of Brittany Higgins’s workplace complaint is the high water mark of maniacal devotion to that inherently flawed ideology. Proper processes were not followed. Higgins’ complaints against her former Liberal bosses were not tested. Some of Australia’s most senior lawyers who have read the Deed of Settlement in Higgins’ favour have laughed out loud at the utter legal crookedness of Labor paying $2.4m to Higgins to inflict political damage on senators Linda Reynolds and Michaelia Cash, and senior Liberal staffer Fiona Brown.

The Higgins matter was patently not handled on its merits by the Albanese government or the Finance Department.

If, from the start, the Hicks matter had been handled on its merits by her bosses, rather than through the war­ped filter of identity politics, Transport bureaucrats wouldn’t look like a bunch of overpaid muppets.

If the Minns government had dealt with the Hicks saga on its merits from the start, rather than choosing brute politics, it wouldn’t be knee-deep in this mess either.

If political leaders don’t do the right thing from the start, why would bureaucrats?

It’s not too late. Minns should demand that any public servants who have mishandled, lied or been misleading in this matter should be removed from their positions. The public deserves to have competent people in senior roles paid from the public purse.

Maybe the scourge of identity politics is best confronted by a Labor leader. That applies equally to the trainwreck of workplace claims that has defined the Albanese government’s approach to Higgins. Maybe then the left-wing media in this country will sit up and take note.

Consider this. The axis of left-wing media has shown no interest in a scandal that unfolded after a department failed to act when an Indigenous man working on one of its major infrastructure projects threatened to kill a senior and highly successful white woman ­responsible for the project. Hello ABC, The Guardian and Nine Newspapers – where are you? The conspicuous silence of these media outlets suggests they think it is perfectly fine for an Indigenous man to make credible death threats against a woman. They seem to be saying, as does the Minns government, that we are committed to ending violence against women unless it is committed by influential Indigenous men. Their silence effectively says all workplaces should be safe for women unless the threat comes from Indigenous “cultural knowledge holders”.

The silence of the left-wing axis of media influence is not only hypocritical in the extreme but unprofessional. Their decision that this story is not newsworthy means their readers are denied an important story that reveals the rot of identity politics. If these media outlets are not interested in reporting this story, it follows they are not interested in knowing or reporting on how often this warped hierarchy of Indigenous favouritism is responsible for misidentifying ­victims in other workplaces in this country.

Finally, it is worth noting that this dismal spectacle of senior NSW public servants creating different rules for different people is a potent reminder of what Australian workplaces may have become if the voice had been enshrined in our Constitution. Though readers didn’t learn it from reading the Nine papers, or The Guardian or the ABC, we would very likely have been forced to endure identity politics on constitutional steroids. We don’t know how often the workplace injustice suffered by Hicks is happening already in other workplaces but it’s a safe bet that the voice would have led to many, many more.

Minns should remember the good sense of the average voter.

shatterzzz
January 27, 2024 12:32 pm

all it could do is remind Israel of its obligations under the Convention.

Has anyone ever seen an actual copy of the “Convention” relating to the “obligations” to be followed whilst in the process of destroying a terrorist organization ..?

H B Bear
H B Bear
January 27, 2024 12:33 pm

Sounds like the insurance industry has already overreacted. Probably with the help of Big Actuary.

Zatara
Zatara
January 27, 2024 12:35 pm

U.S. Halts Funding to UN Agency Following Allegations of Employee Involvement in Oct 7 Israel Massacre

And suddenly UNRWA is interested in ferreting out Hamas members…

U.N. to Investigate Claim That Employees Participated in Oct. 7 Attack

“The Israeli Authorities have provided UNRWA with information about the alleged involvement of several UNRWA employees in the horrific attacks on Israel on 7 October.

“To protect the Agency’s ability to deliver humanitarian assistance, I have taken the decision to immediately terminate the contracts of these staff members and launch an investigation in order to establish the truth without delay. Any UNRWA employee who was involved in acts of terror will be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution.

“UNRWA reiterates its condemnation in the strongest possible terms of the abhorrent attacks of 7 October and calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all Israeli hostages and their safe return to their families.”

Entirely coincidental of course.

H B Bear
H B Bear
January 27, 2024 12:36 pm

???? Please explain

From the ALPBC is free school of economics.

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  2. It’s pretty clear, isn’t it, the pervert apologist wants Israel to lose and wants to see more dead Jews. What…

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