This is almost too funny.
Open Thread – Mon 29 Jan 2024
- Hydrocarbons are not dispensable
- Open Thread – Weekend 7 Sept 2024
- Open Thread – Thurs 5 Sept 2024
- Report on Russia and Ukraine
- Open Thread – Mon 2 Sept 2024
All Bruce wanted to do was enjoy a little snow time and get his end wet. It is a tragedy.
A gift, most likely, to be returned unopened … duuuuh!
Tongue. Eeeew
A journey in numbers FOUR months away… TWENTY-THREE countries: Mauritius, South Africa, Namibia, Cape Verde, Las Palmas, Greece, Tunisia, Malta,…
Just a reminder.
47% tax rate in Australia.
Mexico has a top rate of 35%.
Australia.
Mexico.
That is all.
“What a sick b@stard Biden is”
His behaviour with young girls makes my skin crawl, and it’s not old age. It’s abnormal.
I don’t think this is the case at all. The only people running this line in the media are neocons thirsty for war with Iran no matter what the cost, who for the last two years promoted the Ukrainian catastrophe. The actual people that do the planning, etc. at the pointy end see that the costs of escalation are very high.
Asking for a Friend
CO2 Lover
January 30, 2024 at 2:32 am · Reply
“Invasion Day” 26 Jan
“That’s not an invasion – these are some real invasions”
and their invaders
Top 10 Conquerors
#10: Hernán Cortés
(1485 – 1547)
#9: Charlemagne
(c. 742 – 814)
#8: Julius Caesar
(100 – 44 BC)
”
#7: Adolf Hitler
(1889 – 1945)
#6: Tamerlane
(1336 – 1405)
#5: Napoleon Bonaparte
(1769 – 1821)
#4: Attila the Hun
(? – 453)
#3: Cyrus the Great
(c. 600 – 530 BC)
#2: Genghis Khan
(1162 – 1227)
#1: Alexander the Great
(356 – 323 BC)
Report Suggests Boeing 737 Max Left Factory Without Door Plug Bolts
by Tyler Durden – Monday, Jan 29, 2024 – 10:55 PM
As Alaska Airlines and United Airlines have resumed flying Boeing 737 Max 9 jetliners in recent days, a new report from The Wall Street Journal finds that the incident involving a door plug being blown off an Alaska Airlines flight over Portland earlier in the month was probably caused by the lack of bolts.
This issue dates back to when the aircraft was manufactured.
According to people familiar with the matter, what’s becoming apparent is that the most likely scenario is that Boeing employees failed to reinstall plug door bolts at the factory after opening or removing them during production.
hey pointed to the absence of markings on the door plug that would instruct factory workers to double-check if the bolts were in place and lapses in paperwork surrounding the factory’s work on the doors.
When Spirit AeroSystems delivers the 737 fuselage to Boeing’s Renton, Wash., factory for final assembly, the door plugs are installed. During the assembly process, the door plugs are removed and reinstalled.
Boeing has yet to reveal how many factory workers handled the door plug.
It’s important to note that Spirit’s factory in Malaysia makes the door.
But at least their female workers got to do a dance routine for TikTok.
Not sure I want to fly in an aircraft whose parts were made in Malaysia.
For military Cats – I’ve posted the whole article.
Boeing Boeing Gone !
Here’s one of the comments Astronaut Alan Shepard supposedly made before he crawled into his space capsule for the first trip into outer space by an American: “Just think, the contract on this thing went to the lowest bidder.”
#6: Tamerlane
(1336 – 1405)
Pffffft, diversity hire if I ever saw one. Cripple, and a darkie to boot. Outside top 20 IRL
The Wall Street Journal
Biden, Iran and Three Dead Americans
Opinion by The WSJ Editorial Board
It was bound to happen eventually, as President Biden was warned repeatedly. A drone or missile launched by Iran’s militia proxies would elude U.S. defenses and kill American soldiers. That’s what happened Sunday as three Americans were killed and 25 wounded at a U.S. base in Jordan near the Syrian border.
The question now is what will the Commander in Chief do about it?
Mr. Biden issued a statement Sunday that “America’s heart is heavy” at the death of patriots who are the “best of our nation.” That sentiment is nice, and no doubt sincere, but at this point it is inadequate and infuriating.
The sorry truth is that these casualties are the result of the President’s policy choices.
Mr. Biden has tolerated more than 150 Iranian proxy attacks on U.S. forces in the Middle East since October.
Only occasionally has he or the Administration registered more than rhetorical displeasure by retaliating militarily, and only then with limited airstrikes.
The President refused to change course even after U.S. troops suffered traumatic brain injuries.
A Christmas Day proxy attack in Iraq left a U.S. Army pilot in a coma.
Last week, more than a month later, Chief Warrant Officer 4 Garrett Illerbrunn was finally “sitting up in the chair for the first time for most of the day,” and “alert with both eyes opened and following,” his family’s medical blog says.
Mr. Biden vowed Sunday to “hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner our choosing,” though that stock line rings increasingly hollow.
He has no choice now other than to approve strikes in retaliation, but targeting the responsible militia is insufficient.
Mr. Biden and the Pentagon are playing Mideast Whac-a-Mole.
Everyone knows that the real orchestrator of these attacks is Iran.
But the President has put his anxieties about upsetting Iran and risking escalation above his duty to defend U.S. soldiers abroad.
It would have been more honest (if a sign of weakness) to withdraw American troops from the region, rather than consign them to catching Iranian drones for months.
The irony of Mr. Biden’s strategy—avoid escalation with Iran above all else—is that he’ll now have to strike back harder than if he had responded with devastating force the first time U.S. forces were hit, and every time since.
That probably includes hitting Iranian military or commercial assets.
There are certainly risks of escalation from doing so.
But Iran and its proxies are already escalating, and they have no incentive to stop unless they know their own forces are at risk.
Here’s one idea: Put the Iranian spy ship that has been prowling the Red Sea on the ocean floor.
The alternative is a growing American body count. Iran’s clients in Yemen are continuing to fire at U.S. warships in the Red Sea while holding a vital shipping lane hostage.
U.S. destroyers have managed to intercept Houthi volleys in a testament to American weapons technology and military professionalism.
But eventually a drone or missile could elude U.S. defenses and sink a U.S. warship.
One thing to watch is whether the Administration will react to this attack by putting more pressure on Israel to stop its campaign against Hamas.
This would validate the claim of the militias that they are merely targeting the U.S. because it supports Israel.
And it would tell Iran that its militia drone and missile campaign has succeeded in easing pressure on Hamas.
But it is how this Administration thinks.
Mr. Biden has spent months fretting about a broader regional war without confronting the reality that the U.S. is already in one.
The result is that U.S. deterrence has collapsed in the region, and Americans are dying. Mr. Biden’s repeated displays of weakness are inviting more attacks.
In the 1970s, Iran helped to ruin Jimmy Carter’s Presidency by seizing hostages. Mr. Biden should worry that it will also take down his Presidency if he won’t respond with enough force that the mullahs get the message.
Crossie, it doesn’t matter where the parts are made if the people fitting then don’t put the bolts in to hold it to the rest of the plane.
Not sure I want to fly in an aircraft whose parts were made in Malaysia.
Understood, but doesn’t everyone these days manufacture by global distribution?
Exactly to distribute influence and also to keep costs lower.
Except here, making 80% of a vehicle, due to Trade Union requirements in Australia, was outrageous and eventually killed the industry, thanks Labor and the trade unions!
**I still am amazed the trade unions got away with the multi hundred million $ retraining schemes for the car industry workers .. they must have been as dumb as bags of bricks!
None of the requirements for vehicles went away after the demise of the industry and it continues to choke the local after market industry here.
All the big importers successfully lobbied the Liberal government at the time to keep all the protections in place and a few more added or “improved”.
You used to be able to import old cars, historicles that were 25+ years old, now it is 30+ years. Thanks Liberal party.
The imported vehicles markeups are said to be amongst the highest in the world. Look at car prices in other contries compared to Australia, eye watering differences.
USA Corvette 2LT Stingray US$75,400, in Australia the same car is A$175,000
Boeing’s factory in North Charleston, South Carolina, one of two plants that produces the 787 Dreamliner, has faced problems with production and oversight that create a safety threat, a report said.
The New York Times cited a review of internal emails, corporate documents and federal records, as well as interviews with more than a dozen current and former employees.
Faulty parts have been installed in some of the planes, and metal shavings were often left inside the jets.
A technician at the plant, Joseph Clayton, said he routinely found debris dangerously close to wiring beneath cockpits.
Here’s one idea: Put the Iranian spy ship that has been prowling the Red Sea on the ocean floor.
So next time NATO sends an AWACS over the Black Sea to direct Uke drone strikes etc it is fair game for the Russians?
Terrible WSJ editorial board piece. One trick ponies.
Pardon the metaphors, but I’ll go out on a limb on this and suggest the Iranian regime is on its last legs. It’s an outlier in the larger, developing scheme of things in the ME and that explains their present irascibility. Carefully applied pressure, both military and political, rather than a direct confrontation, is the best way to deal with them for now.
Any more shark tales?
I know a guy (one of my friend’s fathers) who knows a guy who knew a guy funding a treasure hunting operation miles out from North and South Heads. The fourth hand party died from cancer a few years ago though.
Exciting stuff, swashbuckling, Spanish treasure, gold lust, man eating beasts, oh my.
What are the odds Khan will suggest closing Jewish markets?
Tom Cartoon for you – Desreves Wall of Honour!
“Reality Bites”
Regarding making stuff here, I watched a ewwchube vid on the Avon Sabre a couple of days ago. While we did end up with a very nice Sabre it was arguably obsolescent by the time we got it fully in service and cost three times what simply buying the latest model from North American would have.
Save the whales!
To Infinifat and Beyond (28 Jan)
Sorry for the wall of text, it is just so weirdly fascinating. I’ve given the Instapundit link since there’s much more fun, but the Washington Free Beacon article seems unpaywalled and is a joy to read. On the other hand if the Babylon Bee had wrote such an article it would’ve been identical. Satire is dead, killed by what now passes for reality.
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Jan 30, 2024 10:00 AM
For military Cats – I’ve posted the whole article.
Mates killed in Vietnam six decades ago to be awarded new medals
How could anyone down thumb that? Sick stuff.
Dont the Houthis know the only countries who can use navel blockades are the ‘freedom loving’ west?..theres rules ya know…
The Australian Sabre, with the Rolls Royce Avon engine was 20% more powerful then the American version, and, with two 30mm Aden cannon, considerably better armed.
b
Billie
The Australian Design Rules devote more than few pages laying out regulations for lavatories in vehicles. Keeps lotsapublic servants building up flextime and achieves nothing else
Meanwhile, the states can’t even agree on what should street legal
A few years back I wanted to buy a grinnall scorpion from a bloke in Queensland
Could not get a straight answer from VicRoads about its standing in Danistan
The full list, in case you were wondering (it’s not all bad; Lord Sumption gets a guernsey for example).
The New York Sun EDITORIALS
Will Our War With Iran Be Declared?
Or will we have a new senator boasting, like John Kerry once did, that he voted for our military appropriation before he voted against it?
While Americans wait for President Biden to figure out whether he wants to go to war with Iran in the wake of its attack on our base in Jordan, we invite our readers to take a look at two documents.
One is the Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq, which passed into law in October 2002.
The other is the December 8, 1941, Declaration of War against the Empire of Japan. We have marked this contrast before, but rarely at such a moment.
The authorization for military force against Iraq is close to 2,000 words long.
It emerged from a good bit of wrangling in the Congress. Plus, too, President George W. Bush had already assembled a coalition of countries to go in with us.
The authorization includes 1,300 or more words of predicates beginning with “whereas,” until it finally gets to the business about “Now, therefore, be it resolved . . .”
One of the things it resolves is that the “President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to (1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and (2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.” It goes on to comprise an epic list of caveats and limitations and caviling.
One requires the president, “prior to such exercise or as soon thereafter as may be feasible, but no later than 48 hours after exercising such authority,” to make available to the Speaker of the House and the President pro tempore of the Senate the President’s “determination” that reliance on “diplomatic or other peaceful means alone” would not “adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq.”
Then there is the part about how, “consistent with Section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution, the Congress declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution.”
Then comes the business about how the president would have to submit a report “on matters relevant to this joint resolution” — blah blah blah — including “section 7 of the Iraq Liberation Act.”
Thunder and lightning — it’s a wonder the joint chiefs didn’t throw their medals at the Congress and stalk off the battlefield.
All the more so given the comparison with the war declaration Congress issued in respect of Japan.
That was voted on December 8, 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor.
The glorious parchment is 165 words long, including its title and a single “whereas” about the Imperial Government of Japan having attacked us.
After stating that war is declared, the resolution goes on to say, “the President is hereby authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources of the Government to carry on war against the Imperial Government of Japan.”
Then the famous words — ”and, to bring the conflict to a successful termination, all the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States.” End it. Full stop.
We have written about this in these columns a number of times.
What keeps us coming back to it is what it says not only to our enemy but to the mothers of America.
It says “we are not going to do what we did in Vietnam.” Or Iraq. Or Afghanistan. In not only authorizing the president to use “the entire naval and military forces of the United States” but directing him to do so, we are making an imperishable commitment.
It’s not that we’re against responding to Iran.
It’s that if we go to war we want to bind the Congress.
That is, to declare that there will be no Kerryism allowed — meaning, no summer soldiers like John Kerry mocking our allies and treating with the enemy in Paris, as was done by the future senator during Vietnam.
Or, as was done, during Iraq, by Senator Kerry, boasting of having voted for a military appropriation before having voted against it.
President Biden might seek no further authority than the authorization to use military force issued by Congress a week after 9/11.
That resolution, though, stated that it was not lifting the restrictions on the president in the War Powers Resolution of 1973, when Congress sought to curb the president’s ability to act without legislative micromanaging.
In any event, the differentiating feature of the declaration on which we went to war with Japan is this — we won.
Just a reminder.
47% tax rate in Australia.
Peanuts. Have a look at some of these past top tax rates –
https://atotaxrates.info/individual-tax-rates-resident/historical-pre-2010-tax-rates/#Tax_Rates_1975-1976_Year_Residents
65 cents in the dollar for the 1975 to 1976 tax year…………………………………
Off to Japan tomorrow, Cats and Kittehs, for a ten day trip with Senior Baby Bird.
Tickets and accommodation have come in at just on $1600. I guess ‘frugal’ might just be my middle name. ‘Cheap’ has such terrible connotations for a woman….
My son speaks reasonable Japanese (self-taught from anime and manga) and has visited Japan twice before. He graciously offered to be my personal tour guide around Kyoto and Tokyo for the entirety of my trip. He will be staying on for a further three weeks driving a campervan around various parts of Japan.
I have visited a few Asian countries over the years but this will be my first real trip to Japan. I don’t think 24 hours in Fukuoka in 1998 to renew my South Korean visa really counts. Funnily enough, I was pregnant with SBB at the time. Perhaps that’s where his affinity with Japan springs from?
Johnny Rotten
Jan 30, 2024 11:01 AM
Just a reminder.
47% tax rate in Australia.
Peanuts. Have a look at some of these past top tax rates –
https://atotaxrates.info/individual-tax-rates-resident/historical-pre-2010-tax-rates/#Tax_Rates_1975-1976_Year_Residents
65 cents in the dollar for the 1975 to 1976 tax year…………………………………
Johnny,
Who would buy an investment property in Sicktoria – and Tenants wonder why their
Weekly Rent is going up!
Victorian General Land Tax Rates
General Land Tax Rates applies to individual owners, companies, and joint owners of taxable land, excluding primary residences and other exempt categories.
Total taxable value of land holdings Land tax payable
< $50,000 Nil
$50,000 to < $100,000 $500
$100,000 to < $300,000 $975
$300,000 to $300,000
$600,000 to $600,000
$1,000,000 to $1,000,000
$1,800,000 to $1,800,000
$3,000,000 and over $31,650 plus 2.65% of amount > $3,000,000
The General Land Tax Rates 2024 can be found on the State Revenue Office (SRO) website via this link.
I know, but we have no right to be snarky about ‘da poor Mexicans’.
Prospect magazine named her one of “the world’s 50 top thinkers” in 2019 alongside Ta-Nehisi Coates, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Greta Thunberg.
ROTFLMAO!
Who is the miserable cnut that gave a down thumb to the wonderful story about Dasher Wheatley.
Fkuing ABC watcher.
$300,000 to $300,000 – $1350 plus 0.3% of amount > $300,000
$600,000 to $600,000 – $2250 plus 0.6% of amount > $600,000
$1,000,000 to $1,000,000 – $4650 plus 0.9% of amount > $1,000,000
$1,800,000 to $1,800,000 – $11,850 plus 1.65% of amount > $1,800,000
Andrew’s land tax regime is so brutal.
The consequences of which in a downturn are going to be absolutely dire.
It will crush medium and large businesses and some will relocate and not come back.
It will hurt large stalwarts like GrainCorp and deprecate their profitability and capital improvements elsewhere.
He was such a bad Premier the whole country suffered directly, indirectly and reputationally.
The abandoned Commonwealth Games come to mind.
Plod being plod.
‘I was gobsmacked’: Couple say they were threatened with arrest in Melbourne for celebrating Australia Day with Aussie flags (30 Jan)
Outrage as Met Officer tells singer she ‘can’t sing religious songs outside church’ (29 Jan)
I, for one, welcome our new fascist masters!
Ok, no I don’t, not really, but there’s definitely a trend going on with this stuff.
The “reward” of taking over a project that has severely gone off the rails and bringing it back on track is that you get given another one.
Hope all Cats have entered 2024 safe and sound but my posting will be light for a few weeks!….
Ugh…
‘Politics is a lagging indicator. Culture eventually makes politics.’
– Robert H. Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah
The Australian Sabre, with the Rolls Royce Avon engine was 20% more powerful then the American version, and, with two 30mm Aden cannon, considerably better armed.
Correct Zulu, but while we were still messing about re-designing the fuselage to take the Avon the Americans were putting the F-86H model into service. Better thrust to weight, better thrust, 4 x 20mm cannon. Apparently would beat an F-100 or F-105 in aerial combat in all parts of the envelope except nose down, full power.
The Americans used these as MiG -17 substitutes to train the guys flying F-4’s etc before going to Vietnam. I gather it was a little embarrassing for the other types.
Once had a American guy, Capt. Bill Charney to dinner along with young Army helicopter pilot friend and wife. Much aviation talk. Bill had flown B-57A, F-84F, F-100 (not so Super Sabre as he called it) a whole lot of different piston and jet airliners and the F-86H. I asked him what he thought of the F-86H and he just sighed and said he could have flown them for the rest of his life.
Bill died a few years ago. Met him because he was on a round the world Odyssey in his Beech 17 Staggerwing and dropped in on a fly-in in Toowoomba.
He used to start his pre landing passenger briefing by calling himself Captain Biff Windsock to get the passengers’ attention. Actually heard this in a United 747 to LA in 1996. Must have been one of his last flights before retirement.
Five word letter in the Oz today:
Albanese. Big hat. No Cattle.
Bye bye Sandfire.
Your quarterly reports are now full of ESG crap and photos of little bints playing dress ups in front of mining equipment.
Hit the sell button.
Stupid frigging Liberals news.
Coalition backs Minns government crackdown on neo-Nazi protesters (Sky mainpage headline, 30 Jan)
Wrong answer, idiot. What you should’ve done is declare that you would introduce legislation to ban all fascist and anti-Jewish agitation, including marches, gestures and inflammatory language from Hamas supporters.
Enjoy your decline into Stockholm Syndrome irrelevance Lib guys, girls and yxes. We won’t be voting for the moral vacuum you represent.
\
No good (project) deed goes unpunished in the corporate world.
That Prospect Magazine list of world thinkers has to be a pisstake, surely.
Yeah cool.
Maybe just stay out of the identity politics beloved of the Leprechaun.
What is now to come for the Future Fund?
Jim Chalmers says the Future Fund’s purpose and independence is safe. But it is difficult to be reassured without more concrete guardrails.
The AFR View Editorial
Greg Combet is a capable and upright former ACTU secretary who has chaired a big industry superannuation fund body and who has served as an industry and climate minister in a previous Labor government.
And it is no bad thing for union officials and Labor politicians to take responsibility for maximising returns to the retirement capital of ordinary Australians.
But surely, it is stretching the point for Jim Chalmers to portray Mr Combet as the “perfect candidate” to “renew and refresh” the federal government’s $212 billion Future Fund.
Surely, a perfect candidate would demonstrate world-leading skills in understanding global investment markets and in maximising the returns for Australia’s form of sovereign wealth fund.
Unless, that is, the purpose of the Future Fund’s “renewal” and “fresh thinking” includes unlocking some of the taxpayers’ money invested in the fund to spend on Labor’s priorities of the green energy transition and more affordable housing.
As chairman of the government’s new Net Zero Economy Agency, Mr Combet has backed the unlocking of capital from Australia’s compulsory superannuation funds to invest in the green economy.
In announcing the successor to outgoing Future Fund chairman, former Liberal treasurer Peter Costello, Dr Chalmers said the government would not mess with the fund’s independence and commercial objectives.
Yet, it is difficult to be reassured by the political talking points without more concrete governance guardrails.
No doubt, much of the investment required for Australia’s low carbon transition will yield a commercial return: otherwise we are in big trouble.
Protectionist plan
The Clean Energy Finance Corporation set up by Mr Combet under the previous Labor government appears to have made money.
Yet taxpayers lost hundreds of millions of dollars poured into the previous Labor government’s protectionist “green car” plan partly run by him.
Mr Costello, chairman of Nine Entertainment which publishes The Australian Financial Review, has offered just one piece of advice for his successor: “Resist government intervention.”
The first Future Fund chairman, Commonwealth Bank chief executive David Murray, offers a more pointed version of that advice.
Part of the problem is the lack of agreed purpose for Australia’s sovereign wealth fund, set up in 2006 by then-treasurer Mr Costello with $60.5 billion of surpluses and part of the Telstra privatisation returns.
The ostensible purpose then was to make provision for the unfunded superannuation liabilities of federal public servants amid the projected ageing of the Australian population.
Its chief political economy purpose at the time was to prevent the temporary surpluses from Australia’s resources boom being baked into ongoing increases in government spending, as is happening now.
Ironically perhaps, an even sharper debate has surfaced on the political right.
Last year, the Centre for Independent Studies published a paper by Dimitri Burshtein calling for the Future Fund to be liquidated, with the proceeds to be used to pay down the Commonwealth debt.
Mr Costello has sharply rejected that, portraying the Future Fund as a national asset that can only be spent once.
The question now is whether a Labor government wants to use that asset, not to pay down debt, but to help fund its political priorities.
..
It’s not like IKEA.
If you have bits left over after assembling your jet airliner you can’t just throw them in the bin
And Anthony Albanese’s word is his bond.
It’s not like IKEA.
If you have bits left over after assembling your jet airliner you can’t just throw them in the bin
Found a few spare nuts, bolts and washers in light aircraft and German gliders from the factory. If you drop one inside you are meant to find it before proceeding.
Also added to our spare parts by finding same on the tarmac outside maintenance hangars.
Worthless Gaia chariots news.
Renault slams brakes on listing of Ampere EV division (29 Jan)
Sounds like they’ve finally realised the critter is a vast money pit and won’t ever make a profit, and if listed the shares will sink to nothing. Which would cause embarrassing headlines, and be exquisitely painful for credulous types investing in them.
Why would the KSA be easing relations with Iran via China if this were the case?
It’
FMD. The accumulated brain-power and experience of Qantas management and staff cannot provide so-called advice on “best practice”. Why do we have these managers in place if they are not capable of doing this simple thing.
So QANTAS’s present management can’t manage to get their planes to run on time and have to contract overseas expertise to advise them on it.
Daughter’s flight from Sydney was delayed for three hours on Monday.
I hope they’re not getting bonuses.
Snap, Alamak.
US-Iran tensions
US mistook enemy drone as one of its own in deadly Middle East attack
Washington weighs its response while Iran tries to distance itself from assault that killed three American service members
The US military failed to stop the enemy drone that killed three of its service members after mistaking it for an American drone that approached a base near Jordan’s border with Syria at the same time, a US official said.
The preliminary assessment was disclosed?as the US considers its response to the attack that took place over the weekend, the first to kill US troops since the Israel-Hamas war that began on October 7 triggered a wave of assaults by Iranian-aligned groups against American forces in the region.
The US military was still trying to better understand the incident and how the one-way attack drone was able to cause so many casualties, officials said.
“We are trying to figure out how a one-way attack drone was able to evade our defences,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said.
Sunday’s attack, which US defence officials said also injured at least 40 service members, struck the Tower 22 outpost near Jordan’s border with Syria, which houses 350 US military personnel as part of the coalition against Isis.
The drone struck early in the morning in an area where service members live and were sleeping, part of the reason the casualty rate was so high, officials said.
The US has about 2,500 troops in Iraq and about 900 in Syria, where they are deployed to help prevent a resurgence of the jihadist group.
President Joe Biden was “weighing the options before him”, John Kirby, National Security Council spokesperson, told reporters on Monday.
The president met with his top advisers on Sunday and Monday to discuss Washington’s response to the attack.
US officials said they were still assessing who was responsible for the drone attack but saw links to Iraq-based, Iran-backed militia Kataib Hizbollah.
“It has the footprints of Kataib Hizbollah, but not making a final assessment on that — our teams here are continuing to do the analysis,” Singh said.
Biden had also blamed Iran-backed militias, but Kirby stressed the US did not seek to “escalate” conflict in the Middle East, nor did it seek “war” with Iran.
Kirby would not be drawn on the timing or nature of the US response, but said the administration was “fully cognisant of the fact that these groups backed by Tehran have just taken the lives of American troops”.
Iran has sought to distance itself from the deadly attack, as it and the US appear keen to avoid a further escalation.
Iran’s foreign ministry labelled any accusation that it was involved in the US troops’ deaths as a “baseless” conspiracy by those “interested in dragging the US into a new conflict in the region to intensify the crisis”.
But Singh said on Monday that “Iran bears responsibility because it funds these groups in Iraq and Syria that launch attacks on our service members”.
The US has hit targets linked to Iranian-backed militias across the region following 165 attacks by militants on US troops in Iraq, Syria and Jordan since October, as well as more than 30 strikes on international shipping in the Red Sea.
US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said Washington would “take all necessary actions to defend the US and our troops”.
American forces in Syria and Iraq have come under repeated assault by a newly created group of Iran-backed Iraqi militias known as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which said it was retaliating against Washington’s backing for Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
mUnty?
Man with Glorious voice Joins me Sing Amazing Grace –
Harmonie London
Bruce O’Nuke:
It was as obvious as Hell that she was a Democrat catspaw right from the start. But too many were entranced with her good looks and middle-of-the-roadism.
Tulsi Gabbard is from the same stable.
Firstly, it’s a resumption of the status quo ante, not a new development. As to the rationale – realpolitik, favouring stability over conflict for economic reasons, resolving the Yemen situation, an alliance of convenience against Turkish aspirations in the region. It’s not necessarily a vote of confidence in the long-term future of the Ayatollahs, which is not in Saudi interests.
Lots of Flanneries here just north of Brisvagas. Happy to email some to those regions in need.
Law is a teacher.
Sgt. William Jerome Rivers, Spc. Kennedy Ladon Sanders and Spc. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett were killed Sunday
Except for being anti war machine…
The status quo ante is Iran as regional hegemon.
Most women in the US 18-35 will vote for whoever Taylor Swift tells them to.
I’ve done advisory work for BCG and been on the pointy end for companies that hired Bain & McKinsey to add value. These firms hire smart grads, not respected industry experts, and rely on internal gaps in knowledge and differences between corporate factions to extract $$$ for ‘advice’.
Qantas appears to be flying blind when it comes to ‘How to run an airline 101’. Sucking up to Govt and outsourcing stuff does’nt make operations run faster or better.
World War Three is approaching fast, and too few are willing to admit why
The great danger is that failing autocracies will reason that they have less to lose by starting a conflict
SHERELLE JACOBS
Are we on the brink of a third world war? In the age of “peak apocalypse”, it is easy to laugh off such a question.
After all, we already find ourselves on permanent pandemic-watch, are besieged daily by predictions of ecological collapse, and drip-fed a diet of dystopian drama by crude Netflix algorithms.
But the risk of a global war has surely not been so high since America was locked in an existential battle against the USSR.
Around the world, authoritarian regimes are failing.
In an era of global stagnation, their inability to deliver on promises to provide jobs, tackle poverty and grow their middle classes is coming to a head.
Paranoid about internal dissent, autocrats thus have a growing incentive to bet the farm on shoring up their power by focusing on external enemies, whether via expansionist regional wars or high-risk existential conflicts against the West.
The fast-moving crisis that has erupted following a drone attack on a US base near Jordan’s border with Syria is a perfect example of our frightening new reality.
Although Iran has denied any direct involvement, it is clear that it is deeply implicated in what is merely the latest in a string of Tehran-linked attacks designed to drive the US from the Middle East.
Given the inevitable US response, it begs the question: why would Iran partake in such a reckless escapade in the first place?
The point that is often missed in all the usual observations of Iran as a mad, evil fundamentalist regime is that it is also a failing one.
The decline of Iran is among the most extraordinary stories of modern times.
It was one of the great ancient civilisations, auspiciously situated at the centre of global trade and presiding over some of the world’s largest oil and gas reserves.
But a fossilised and inept theocracy has reduced it to a dumpster fire of a country.
Its infrastructure is comparable with that of a war-torn state, half of the population lives in poverty.
As the scale of the mullahs’ national mutilation becomes impossible to conceal, and protest movements grow, the embattled regime has sought to deflect from its failings by doubling down on long-standing ambitions to establish itself as a regional hegemon, creating a “Shia Crescent” that can function both as a defensive sectarian shield against the Sunni and Western infidels and as a focus of imperialistic pride.
Becoming a nuclear power is, of course, crucial, to such a vision.
Indeed, the real danger may be not that Iran is becoming genuinely more powerful, but that its leaders know that time is not on their side.
True, Tehran is probably only a few years away from building nuclear warheads for ballistic missiles.
But as its economy tanks, the regime may suspect that it will become harder for it to justify the cost of the programme to its restive citizens.
This chimes with a pattern that historians have identified throughout history.
What previous world wars teach us is that it is not confident and successful countries that start wars, but corroded and schizophrenic ones that both suffer from grandiose delusions and mortal dread of the future.
Today this paradox of the fragile aggressor is playing out not only in Iran, but to an even more terrifying extent in Russia.
The Putin regime has spectacularly failed to capitalise on Russia’s inbuilt advantages – not least its embarrassment of natural resources – to raise living standards and create prosperity.
Much of the Russian population lives on the brink of destitution, and the country is stuck in an oil trap usually reserved for third-world nations. State predation, creeping monopolisation, cronyism, and a baroque universe of lies have seen the gains from market reforms in the 1990s squandered.
Putin, in response, is attempting to arrest economic and demographic decline and deflect from his failures at home through conquest. While they call her the bear, post-Soviet Russia is more akin to the jellyfish that continues to release devastating toxins into the water after death, its attack cells firing uncontrollably even after decapitation.
Again, what might make Russia even more dangerous is that its window for “recovery”, as envisaged by Putin, is narrowing.
If current trends continue then Russia will be a geopolitical minnow within just a few decades, inferior in prowess even to rising Africa powers such as Nigeria.
One might even speculate whether gathering clouds in China could see Beijing flirt with a civilisational war with the West.
Xi Jinping’s one-time grand strategy – to maintain exceptional growth rates, largely via a state-engineered investment – has collapsed.
He has responded by shifting China towards a military-autocratic model – from the pursuit of the China Dream to a vision of Greater China.
His new “military-civil fusion” strategy, which aims to make China the most technologically advanced military power in the world, reflects this pivot.
Nor is the notion that China could raise the risks of a new world war by invading Taiwan unthinkable.
Xi knows he may have only limited time to act; while it is believed that, by 2027, Beijing will have military superiority over the US in the Taiwan Strait, given its shrinking population and stagnant economy, it is an open question how long that could last.
The conventional attitude is that, if World War Three arose, it would be by accident.
But we should entertain the possibility that autocratic leaders – tortured by the prospect of death in the event of their fall from power – will be willing to pursue survival strategies that, while irrational to us, appear deeply rational to them.
They may pose a threat to human survival on par with, say, inadequately secure pathogen labs or the uncontrolled evolution of AI.
The risk is amplified in an era when rogue dictators genuinely think that they can win.
As it moves to a “strike-first” nuclear doctrine, Russia is increasingly convinced it has an advantage in the event of nuclear war.
The Iran regime, having weathered a generation of isolation, could well be suffering from “survival arrogance”.
The West, if it is to contain the authoritarian threat, will have to make use of what is a perilous trump card of its own: its own unpredictability, inherent in being democracies.
From the normalisation of relations with China in the 1970s, which blindsided the Soviet Union, to the surprisingly robust response to the invasion of Ukraine, the West is feared by its enemies because they can never quite know what it will do next.
It may have to roll the dice once more to maintain its supremacy.
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Jan 30, 2024 10:00 AM,
OldOzzie
Jan 30, 2024 10:04 AM:
The one constant in both stories is the absolutely disgusting treatment given to our troops by leaders and bureaucracies that deny due recognition of soldiers and their gallantry.
There needs to be “A Great Sorting Out” of these duplicitous and mendacious bastards.
https://www.instagram.com/p/C2pyjfKIZQT/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=embed_video_watch_again
Watch: Met Police special constable tells gospel singer she can’t sing religious songs
Volunteer officer tries to stop gospel singer Harmonie London on Oxford Street – and then sticks out her tongue
A volunteer police officer told a Christian singer that she was forbidden from singing gospel songs “outside of church grounds” before sticking her tongue out at her.
Harmonie London, a gospel singer who has almost 300,000 Instagram followers and more than 320,000 YouTube subscribers, regularly performs worship music on Oxford Street in central London.
In a video posted to her Instagram page on Sunday, Ms London filmed an apparent altercation between herself and a Metropolitan Police special constable – a volunteer role.
In the clip, the female officer tells her: “No, miss, you’re not allowed to sing church songs outside of church grounds, by the way.”
Ms London responds: “You are, you are, you are,” but the officer insists that she cannot sing “outside of church grounds unless you have been authorised by the Church to do these kind of songs”.
Ms London replies: “That’s a load of rubbish, you’re allowed.” The officer then walks away, while another adds: “She’s not saying anything any more, thank you for your time.”
The singer continues: “Are you saying that you don’t care about the Human Rights Act?” She then accuses the officer of “laughing” – and the officer sticks her tongue out at her camera as she films.
Ms London titled the footage: “Unpaid volunteer officer doesn’t like gospel songs”, adding the caption: “Special constables are volunteer police officers who invest their free time to make a real difference to our city. You will get a tremendous amount of pride from giving back to the community.”
Andrea Williams, the chief executive of Christian Concern, said: “One of my favourite things as I commute to work is to hear Harmonie’s beautiful worship.
“She blesses tens of thousands of people in the same way and brings harmony to the streets. We need more of this, not less. It is shocking that she has been treated like this.”
Asked on GB News whether the incident raised questions about the culture and ideology of British policing, Ann Widdecombe, a former minister and MEP, said: “Well, it certainly will if she is not struck off from the voluntary forces tomorrow morning.
“I mean, she really has got the law completely wrong and she was obviously enjoying herself rather too much, trying to boss this woman around, and there is no basis at all for saying that you can’t sing.
I could walk down the street singing Onward Christian Soldiers and I would be committing no offence at all.”
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: “We’re working to understand the context in which these comments were made. We will update as soon as we can.”
Reddit has done well.
A rare exception before it dies a financial death.
https://www.reddit.com/r/redscarepod/comments/1adiu1z/do_swifties_just_live_in_constant_fear_for/
Do Swifties just live in constant fear for Taylor’s life or something? Why are they like this?
Mousey women do be fixated on safety
They’re all vegetarian/vegan, still wear Covid masks, speak in a slight vocal fry, majoring in sociology or economics.
Swifties are living their fantasy of dating their school’s star football player vicariously through Taylor’s relationship.
They just have no life
Yeah obsessing over them is whatever but wtf is the whole “safe” thing?
It’s honestly upsetting how fragile they seem to be
autistic women get frightened very easily
Dog these are either 13 year old girls or women with lukewarm IQs. They have fairy tale books in their brain ARE YOUR REALLY SURPISED?
Why do they talk about her like she’s some homeless junkie who’s getting her life together? They said she felt safe and happy with all the other celeb boyfriends she’s had
Taylor Swift is a CIA PSYOP
The way Swifties will say (and believe) it’s actually a GOOD thing that Travis is huge and dumb, a shill for every corporation/big pharma, a player for an annoying team, acted like an idiot on a trashy dating show etc is actually insane. I’m convinced all of the Reddit Swifties are horse girls who have never had a bf
I feel unsafe reading those comments
Holy flurking schnit how has humanity come to this?
Waiting for the CTE induced murder suicide
Parasocial relationships are so cringe unless theyre with dirtbag left podcast hosts
Her hair looks terrible here
Yep, just like the plot from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series when they “graduate” from High School.
https://thehardtimes.net/music/taylor-swift-tells-swifties-its-almost-time-to-shed-their-physical-bodies-and-ascend/
Taylor Swift Tells Swifties It’s Almost Time to Shed Their Physical Bodies and Ascend
“Mother is feeding us well. We’ve been waiting for this day for years and I’m reading to take my place beside her in our new interdimensional realm where ex-boyfriends do all our bidding,” said Tabitha Knight, a devout Taylor Swift fan since 2006. “I mean, when she appeared on my TV staring straight ahead, without blinking, and her eyes began to multiply so she was basically a biblical angel, I was, like, slay. She can do no wrong. My favorite part was when she jammed her head inside Travis Kelce’s sternum and then he exploded. They look on his face, he didn’t see it coming at all.”
Probably the same in Australia! – Having come from in 50s classes of 50+ in Primary
and 45+ in High School – we just learnt the basics – Reading, Writing, Arithmetic
THE DAILY CHART: PUBLIC SCHOOL BLOAT
Everyone knows generally that the public school bureaucracy has exploded over the last generation, but I have seldom seen the full grotesque dimensions of this displayed so vividly:
We now know what the talking points will be. Lmao.
Hmmmm.
“Context”. Now where have I heard that weasel word before?
You’d think that a spokesmouth would avoid it like the plague after the Ivy League scandal. But that would mean living outside the progressive bubble.
Anyone up for a bet? I have no doubt the future fund will go down with this new head.
Lets say 20 bil a year until the libs return.
London is all but lost.
UNRWA is worse than you think
For far too long this UN agency has provided moral cover to the anti-Semitic haters of Israel.
BRENDAN O’NEILL is Spiked’s chief political writer
I long ago lost faith in the left. But even I wouldn’t have believed it if you’d told me that one day they would spend Holocaust Memorial Day cheering an organisation whose members stand accused of slaughtering Jews.
That as everyone else was lighting candles for the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis, they would be swarming the internet to praise and even fundraise for a group whose staff are suspected of massacring Jews.
That on the very day we remember the worst act of anti-Semitism in history, they’d be heaping love and cash on an organisation whose people allegedly played a part in the worst act of anti-Semitism of the 21st century.
The left is bad, I know, but are they that bad, I’d have wondered?
Now we know the answer to that question. It’s yes. Yes they are.
This is the story of UNRWA – the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
On Friday, it announced that it was investigating allegations that 12 of its employees in Gaza took part in the Hamas pogrom of 7 October. Israel alleges that these UNRWA staff, people literally on the payroll of the UN, carried out acts including abduction, distributing ammunition, coordinating attacks and actual murder. UNRWA says it has dismissed the suspects and is investigating the claims.
In response, some Western nations, including the US, the UK and Australia, have suspended funding to UNRWA.
As well they might.
Who wants their hard-earned tax dollars going to an organisation that reportedly harbours neo-fascists?
Which allegedly counts among its workforce Jew-haters of such a twisted, devoted nature that they’re willing to assist in the worst anti-Semitic rampage since the Holocaust?
Suspending the flow of money to UNRWA while officials figure out whether its staff really did take part in that racist, rapacious onslaught against Jewish men, women and children seems a reasonable decision to me.
The woke left sees it differently. UNRWA is great, they say.
It’s essential to the wellbeing of Palestinians, especially in wartorn Gaza, they cry. And every government that has suspended donations is now complicit in Israel’s ‘genocide’.
These are the murky depths of doublespeak to which the left has now sunk: to express concern about a group’s possible links to genocidal terrorism is ‘genocidal’; to try to keep your money out of the pockets of people who allegedly helped to coordinate the worst act of racist violence of the 21st century is ‘racist’.
War is peace, freedom is slavery, not wanting Jews to be butchered is fascism.
The moral contortionism is painful.
Our Open Border Policy Is Not an Accident
There’s a new strategy in town: If American voters don’t like what you are offering, import better voters.
The unprecedented chaos at the U.S. border and in major American cities that has been caused by the Biden administration’s immigration policies finally seems to have moved to the center of national political debate and public awareness.
Over the past three years, the Biden administration has effectively rewritten U.S. immigration law, creating an entirely new stream of quasi-legal immigration under the rubric of “parole.”
The discretion of the federal government to grant parole or legal residence and work permits to a small number of refugees and other foreign nationals has been used by the Biden administration to rip a hole in America’s southern border in order to invite millions of foreign nationals, most of them from Latin America and Central America and the Caribbean, to travel to the U.S. border, from which they are dispersed across the country and supported chiefly by state and local governments and government-funded NGOs.
As of September 2023, an estimated 3.8 million immigrants entered the U.S. under the Biden administration.
Of these, 2.3 million have been given Notices to Appear (NTAs) before an immigration court—which could allow them to stay in the U.S. in a “twilight status” for years before a court date.
Of the rest, an estimated 1.5 million are illegal immigrants who sneaked across the border or overstayed their visas and remain, with the government having no idea of their whereabouts, and with Democrat-dominated “sanctuary cities” actively thwarting the ability of federal immigration officials to identify and deport them.
Biden’s radical immigration policy represents not only a policy revolution but also a political revolution.
A generation ago in the 1980s and 1990s, factions in favor of more or less immigration were found in both parties.
Labor unions remained traditionally wary of immigrant competition in the workplace and immigration-driven wage suppression, while Republican business interests wanted the government to turn a blind eye to the employment of illegal immigrants.
In 1994, 62% of Democrats and 64% of Republicans told Pew pollsters that “immigrants are a burden on our country because they take jobs, housing, and health care.”
Only 32% of Democrats agreed that “immigrants strengthen our country because of their hard work and talents.”
By 2019, however, only 11% of Democrats agreed that immigrants are a burden, while 83% agreed with the statement that immigrants strengthen the country.
The bureaucracy is – like any other parasite – making greater and greater demands on the host.
The host is now sickening due to the demands.
This will continue until the parasites demand kills the host.
The parasite will then find another host, or it will die itself.
This is so obvious that I find it hard to understand why it hasn’t been dealt with.
The parasite is incapable of reducing its demands on the host, and the host refuses to restrain the parasite.
There’s only one outcome.
Proportionality . . . Again
You could set your watch by it. Whenever there is an atrocious attack on the United States or Israel, if transnational progressives are not subjecting us to the “escalation” drivel, they are subjecting us to the “proportionality” drivel.
For about the millionth time, the law-of-war concept of proportionality does not hold that a response to an attack has to be on the same scale as the attack itself.
Several Biden supporters are making that case regarding Iran’s killing and wounding of our troops in Jordan (otherwise, you see, there could be . . . escalation).
Think how absurd that is: A rabid enemy aggressor gets both to attack you first and to dictate the scope of your response.
That, of course, is not how proportionality works.
The driving question in a proportionality calculation is: What is the military objective?
If that objective is legitimate (which, under the United States Constitution, we get to decide for ourselves), then the use of force must be reasonably proportionate to what is required to achieve the objective.
If the objective is to end or drastically diminish the aggression of Iran and its proxy forces, then a proportionate use of force would be whatever is necessary to break the enemy’s will to continue (and even escalate) that aggression.
In April 1988, after Iran mined the Persian Gulf to paralyze commerce and security traffic, one of these mines detonated and nearly sank the USS Samuel B. Roberts, a guided-missile frigate, as it was escorting Kuwaiti oil tankers.
President Reagan responded with what became known as Operation Praying Mantis, combined surface-ship and air attacks that destroyed much of Iran’s navy.
As described by retired U.S. Navy captain William Luti in a Christmas Day Wall Street Journal op-ed, the operation remains a case study in effective deterrence.
That operation was textbook proportionality.
Plainly, a proportionate response to Iran’s deadly aggression would be disproportionate to the scope of its aggression. It has to communicate that more of the same will not be tolerated.
The opposite is achieved by tit-for-tat — the Biden notion of proportionality.
It tells the mullahs that they, rather than we, are in control of the extent of our response and therefore that they merely need to keep their aggression at a level they figure Iran can tolerate.
The point of a response is not to even the score. It is to end the contest.
I generally don’t comment on ticks but for the person who down-ticked the posthumous and long overdue award of gallantry medals to Dasher Wheatley and Butch Swanton from Vietnam I spit in your face…
No it isn’t.
It is a total deflection and a racist dog-whistle to raise the Malaysian thing. The door did not fail structurally. In fact it survived a fall of 14,000 feet with almost no damage. The fault lies wholly within the good ole USA, possibly at Spirit in Wichita but most likely in final assembly at Boeing in Renton, Washington for simply not installing the retaining bolts.
Future Fund critics owe Costello an apology
The former Coalition treasurer had to fend off critics when he set the fund up, and is right to defend it now.
Tom Switzer Contributor
Opinion writers and policy wonks make regular criticisms of politicians and governments for their regular blunders
So, let us applaud that rare and wonderful thing, a public policy agenda that has actually worked..
I am referring to the Future Fund, which then-treasurer Peter Costello created in 2006. As Costello steps down as chairman of the fund, it is worth marking his achievement.
At the time, Canberra’s plan to store part of its budget surplus and the proceeds from Telstra’s privatisation into a public servants’ pension fund met scepticism, including from the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page.
The critics all owe an apology to Costello.
The facts now rolling in reveal that the sovereign wealth fund has grown from $60.5 billion in 2006 to $212 billion today. It has earned an average of 8.2 per cent a year. To the extent the earnings rate continues, it will be worth more than $800 billion by 2040. Not a bad return for the Commonwealth’s largest financial asset.
It is against this background that David Murray, one of our nation’s most distinguished figures in the financial community, has written an important new policy paper for the Centre for Independent Studies.
Murray, the fund’s inaugural chairman (2006-12), says it has enormous global credibility and prestige: there should be no government interference with its independence or political direction of its investing.
Opinion varies on whether the Future Fund is worth keeping.
Economist Dimitri Burshtein, writing in a CIS paper last year, made the case for liquidating the fund and using the proceeds to retire debt.
Former federal Labor cabinet minister and columnist for The Australian Financial Review, Craig Emerson, says some fund proceeds should be spent on the energy transition.
But Murray warns that liquidation of the fund would signal a weaker fiscal policy stance and weigh against Australia’s AAA credit standing.
After Costello, as treasurer, had paid off all debt in the mid-2000s, subsequent governments just re-borrowed, which has been fine since Australia has relatively low borrowing levels.
However, if the Future Fund is liquidated to retire some debt, irresponsible leaders are likely to borrow again and again until they run into borrowing limits or servicing difficulties.
“A politician short of money within the vicinity of a honey pot is a very dangerous person,” Costello warns.
If Canberra wants to direct more money into nation-building projects, it should use taxes, not raid the accumulated savings and earnings of past generations.
Otherwise, government would just sacrifice returns and increase risk.
Cashing in on the Future Fund could also give the federal government an easy way out of its debt dilemma.
Cashing in on the Future Fund could also give the federal government an easy way out of its debt dilemma, not to mention any structural reforms designed to boost productivity and private sector investment at a time of an ageing population and intergenerational equity.
The path to true debt relief is to run sustained budget surpluses, or at least to balance the books.
Liquidating the fund would also leave all infrastructure ownership to the union superannuation funds.
My colleague, Peter Tulip, calculates that the Future Fund has saved taxpayers about $90 billion since its inception, relative to the alternative of paying down debt.
This is because the fund essentially borrows at the government bond rate, which has averaged about 3 per cent since 2006, and invests in shares, which have averaged a 7.7 per cent return.
As a result, taxpayers have benefited handsomely from Costello’s brave and somewhat unorthodox initiative.
To be sure, investing in shares is risky. However, a large academic literature finds that the substantial “equity premium” more than compensates for this.
Almost 15 years have passed since Costello left parliament, and yet it is hard not to appreciate his achievements.
It’s not just his long tenure at the Future Fund, which ends this week after having served for 14 years on the board, and the past decade as chairman.
It’s also his long record as treasurer, from 1996 to 2007: under his leadership, Australia’s economy was a model for the rest of the world, with low inflation, low unemployment, low interest rates, and economic growth at nearly 4 per cent.
Australia was able to weather the global financial storm of 2008-09 because it was in an incredibly strong position.
The Howard government had finished off the job of slaying inflation, pursued labour market flexibility, privatised government businesses, implemented income and business tax reforms, and put in place prudent regulatory oversight of the nation’s financial institutions.
By 2007-08, Costello had presided over nine surpluses out of the preceding decade – most before the commodities boom – the net cumulative result being a surplus of more than $100 billion.
Unlike the UK and the US, Australia had no public debt and our banks were well regulated, well capitalised and profitable.
All of this gave Australia considerable padding and insulation against external shocks.
As he departs the Future Fund, we should consider the debt that Australia owes to Costello. In our current straits, we have no one in Canberra to match him.
I’m pleased you down ticked me you germ. I wouldn’t want it any other way. The difference is I am willing to identify myself and stand by what I say…
OldOzzie
Jan 30, 2024 12:30 PM:
Uh huh.
They’re monitoring the situation.
Dot @ 10.37 am
I think I know about this treasure hunt. Did the NSW DPP get involved with the one your referring to when things went a bit pear-shaped ?
There is another version of that when an astronaut was asked how it felt to launch in a Saturn V.
Not sure about this. Costello was definitely an improvement on Howard throughout that period though.
I’m sure there is some sniveling grub, somewhere, who thinks they are making a statement…
London is all but lost.
Londinium is the richest part of Europe. It is not lost. It still knows exactly where it is and has done so for 2,000 years or so. Even Adolph Shitler could not break the place.
“Always remember, your rifle was made by the lowest bidder…”
God, I love Ace.
“Georgia Senate Approves Special Investigatory Committee to Find Out What the Hell Is Going on With Fani Willis’ Pustular Snootch
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Hear, hear.
We need to declare that filthy pit a Superfund Site and bring millions in federal resources to contain it, cap it, and clean it up.
For the next generation, you understand. I don’t want children being born with hairlips or becoming developmentally delayed just because they grew up within three miles of Fani Willis’ toxic minge.”
He reminds me of IT. 😀
H B Bear
Jan 30, 2024 1:22 PM
Future Fund critics owe Costello an apology
Costello was also a great Treasurer. Much better than Bleating Keating the ‘Show Pony’.
But how long can the Future Fund last before the ‘Pollies’ raid it?
“Well, you are sitting 350 feet in the air in a vehicle containing 800,000 gallons of fuel and constructed from 300,000 components, all supplied by the cheapest contractor. How do you think it feels?”
I feel like a Tooheys or two……………………………..
Uh huh.
They’re monitoring the situation.
Just like Vic Plod and NSW Plod here. Monitoring at the desk sitting on your fat arse looking at a computer screen is a lot easier than doing the beat. And a lot less risky.
Wow!
I’ll have to ask around, this is fascinating stuff.
[Much better than freaking out over Nimarata’s latest hair tint. 🙁 … ]
“Uh huh.
They’re monitoring the situation.”
Yep. They don’t care what is right or wrong, legal or illegal, only what is easiest for them to do to “de-escalate” the situation.
So if there are 1,000 “protestors” raping, looting and pillaging, and a single “counter-protestor” doing nothing wrong at all, they will arrest the singleton and allow the raping, looting and pillaging to continue – then they can say they “acted” to “reduce tensions”.
At the time, Canberra’s plan to store part of its budget surplus and the proceeds from Telstra’s privatisation
And as I have always argued, the old Telecom was owned by the Australian Taxpayer. Everyone in Australia who had helped Telecom going and surviving should have got free shares. They owned it and not the Feral Guv’ment. At least the old NRMA did the right thing by giving shares to the owners when they privatised. Not so a greedy Feral Guv’ment selling off the Family Silver and making themselves look like ‘Brillo’ Financial Managers. More like a load of Robber Barons.
But at least Costello and his/her mates have invested wisely. Something that a Guv’ment could never ever do.
Consultants mean you no longer have to be a meritocracy.
No it isn’t.
It is a total deflection and a racist dog-whistle to raise the Malaysian thing. The door did not fail structurally. In fact it survived a fall of 14,000 feet with almost no damage. The fault lies wholly within the good ole USA, possibly at Spirit in Wichita but most likely in final assembly at Boeing in Renton, Washington for simply not installing the retaining bolts.
I don’t always agree with Mrs Stencho Pantyhose (and she not with me), however, I agree 100% on this one.
Quality control and rigorous inspection is paramount with engineering and building anything. Safety first and always.
Boeing have lost the plot Big Time.
Farmer Gez,
toy shop place – as Single-post Hero Hoist. 1.8m lift. 2500kg. Fully portable! | Auto Expert John Cadogan
Could use as welding bench just stick in a 12mm sheet of steel
https://www.herohoists.com.au/download/hhoists-1-post_ret-price-july-2021-.pdf
https://www.herohoists.com.au/pricing.html
Tickety-boob is back.
That was uplifting OldOzzie.
I am getting an image of a Venn diagram in my head. Two circles: One labelled “Intelligent females” and the other “Swifties”.
There is no overlap.
I see the media and politicians still bleating about the neo Nazi clowns who as far as I know have not harmed anybody. Admittedly they could scare if they popped up on your public transport. However the other far larger group far more scary and their public speach far more provocative.
Somebody yesterday mentioned Jihad Dibs son. Am I correct that he was one of the ones outside the Opera house on 9 October. Then we have his wife, a teacher, featuring prominently in the Zoom meeting of pro Palestinian teachers that was reported on by Sharri Markson.
Jihad Dib is in NSW cabinet as Emergency Services Minister. I stand to be corrected but wasn’t he previously Education spokesman? I first heard of him a few years ago in the sense that he was a “moderate” Muslim and voice of reason.
However has any journalist made the point or asked him about the activities of his wife and son.
Any action by NSW Education in response to Markson reporting on the pro Palestinian teachers.
I wonder if unwra was knowingly participating in ‘pay for slay’
unwra terrorists contracts cancelled
haha,
Rip Curl has gone “step two” Bud Light. They have deleted all references to the bloke in the ads. They are even deleting comments.
“Step three”, still to come, is the “Sorry, not Sorry, you are all too stupid to understand” apology. 😀
Jihad Dib was an active supporter of the non Assad side in the early days of the Syrian Civil war. Please don’t tell me he wasn’t aware that that side was jihadi.
Ample evidence that ‘Australians doing humanitarian work” killed there in 2013 were there for the jihad.
Berns piece over the page is well worth a read.
https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/poland-and-the-demon-in-democracy?publication_id=330796&utm_campaign=email-post-title&r=734t
An excellent look at the managerial dictatorships emerging all at once.
And more NSW Plod here –
Just touching, perfectly. Taylor Swift is very intelligent, so there is exactly one (1) intelligent female Swifty.
She has been navigating the rocks and shoals of woke vs unwoke with rather deft ability. Currently she’s under a lot of pressure to say nice things about Creepy Joe and nasty things about Bad Orange Man. It will be entertaining to see if she can slip past these latest political challenges.
Generally Ms Swift has been saying lefty things, but without much emphasis. I think she knows her audience very well indeed, since young wymminses are progressive these days. She does just enough to keep them sweet without overstepping into Bud Light-style controversy minefields. Good luck to her, it’s a perilous road she’s navigating.
Below from Daily Mail. It was always a mystery to me how the business could survive selling vacuums. Just not something people need to buy regularly.
“Godfreys: Iconic vacuum cleaner business collapses into administration after 100 years of operation”
Jihad Dib was an active supporter of the non Assad side in the early days of the Syrian Civil war. Please don’t tell me he wasn’t aware that that side was jihadi.
Ample evidence that ‘Australians doing humanitarian work” killed there in
Its only called the Middle East by the look from the West. I wonder what India and China will call the West in 100 years time.? A Colony?
The feral who poured milk over women enjoying a lunch on a Go-boat a couple of days ago, is whining that life is coming at him hard. “it was only a prank!” waaaah.
This time it was milk, years ago it was slabs of concrete with reo sticking out of it. I hope the whiny little turd gets everything coming to him. It will be well deserved.
Bourne1879
Jan 30, 2024 2:31 PM
Below from Daily Mail. It was always a mystery to me how the business could survive selling vacuums. Just not something people need to buy regularly.
“Godfreys: Iconic vacuum cleaner business collapses into administration after 100 years of operation”
With those crappy adverts that they did, they should have been banned years ago.
Another interesting piece.
True-dopes party is going to be butchered at the next election.
The quango nexus was used as a repressive organ throughout his tenure.
Let’s put it this way, if Canada were a state, it would be poorer than West Virginia or Mississippi, despite being the second-largest country, with abundant natural resources, in the world, blessed with a highly educated populace.
I’d state a highly miseducated elite…
https://the-pipeline.org/canadas-laurentian-elite-cry-uncle/
Bourne 1879,
I liked Godfreys. They were always helpful and would go out of their way to find you a part. They also had the best washing powder I have used and it came in bulk, so a real bargain. It’s a shame, but not surprising they went under. sad.
Farmer Gez
Jan 30, 2024 2:12 PM
Tickety-boob is back.
Now this is a boob or two –
Pogria
Jan 30, 2024 2:46 PM
Maybe they should have got into more washing powder then.
Johnny Rotten
Jan 30, 2024 1:28 PM
Look at who is the one to take the place of Costello.
“It’s gone”.
The Nation will be the proud owners of a new round of water desalinator plants, charging stations that will never have enough electricity because Net Zero, VFTs to nowhere, and dams that will never fill because siting will be due to political considerations not geographical ones.
Farmer Gez
Jan 30, 2024 2:15 PM
That was uplifting OldOzzie.
I do so like a play on words.
The UN’s Terrorism Teachers
Robert Sewell
Jan 30, 2024 2:49 PM
Johnny Rotten
Jan 30, 2024 1:28 PM
But how long can the Future Fund last before the ‘Pollies’ raid it?
Look at who is the one to take the place of Costello.
I agree and they will raid the honey pot. When the Feral Liars are 1.8 trillion south pacific pesos in debt and there is a Future Fund along with over 3 trillion in superannuation money, what will they do?
There goes your moneeeeeeeeeeeee.
No doubt about it: the COVID vaccines CAUSE dementia
BoN,
Possibly Taylor Swift could pop a little humility alongside her intelligence and realise she is a singer, not a moral authority?
Anthony Hopkins said it best. If he is just an actor, then she is just a singer. Overexposed, overhyped to be sure. But just a singer nonetheless.
Disclaimer: I don’t rate Taylor Swift’s music. I am exposed to it on a daily basis on the radio at work and it is lightweight and all sounds remarkably similar.
In major breaking news at the Daily Telegraph well known Muslim and hard core Palestinian supporter Sonny Bill Williams cried as his sons went school for first time.
Seriously, this is the state of mainstream media today.
Perhaps they forgot to ask about UNWRA staff participating in 7 October or even the concept of All Lives Matter relative to that date.
Tucker Carlson
@TuckerCarlson
Ep. 69 War with Iran? Yes. We’re already in it. Joe Kent did 11 combat tours in the U.S. Army. His wife Shannon was killed serving in Syria. Here’s his informed view of what that war will mean.
Strange correlation with this –
US ‘committed’ to deal releasing $6 billion, Iran claims
Report on my heart attack friend’s wife.
She’s had hairline fractures to the C 3-4 vertebrae and similar on C7 from the car accident.
In a neck brace and they’re going to get her up tomorrow and check if she has full feeling and movement.
Any more force in that crash and we all know what the result would be. Hopefully it’s just time in a brace and natural healing will repair the cracks.
We’re trying to hear through the local grapevine what the cops are finding out about the idiot who hit her.
My wife arranged a big bunch of flowers for her room. They share a love of gardening and lots of blooms.
Serious question, how does the Future Fund save us money?Are there outflows from the fund to retiring public servants?I understand it was established to fund pensions etc in the PS.
If no outflow , what is the endgame?Does it just keep growing till time immemorial?
What am I missing?As usual, probably quite a bit.
Preach it, brother. Story of the latter part of my working life.
It’s satisfying, but you have to step on a lot of influential toes.
I vividly remember going to my boss with proof that the IT contractor had been charging twice for the same thing, and for things that never happened. We got the money (six figures) back. But, since the leader of this morass was a blue-eyed boy among senior management, my demonstration that he was no such thing did not go down well, as it reflected on their judgement.
Fortunately I’ve never been too worried about other people’s opinions, so it didn’t bother me personally. But he got promoted and I didn’t.
It’s the way of the world. 🙂
Well I watched the first two episodes of Masters of the Air and have to say it is a lot better than I first thought. The CGI isn’t bad in most places and the sheer horror of what the crews faced comes across very well. Not sure how our airsick navigator made it through training but I’ll keep watching.
Luzu – She does just enough to get by. All performers these days are required by the Left to abase themselves by means of purity rituals. If the fail they get cancelled, like James Woods.
Taylor Swift has been threading the needle on this with remarkable adroitness. She has to be a bit lefty to get by but so far hasn’t done anything egregious enough to force the Right to boycott her.
By doing this she maximizes her audience. I think it is an admirable talent and evinces rather impressive understanding of the political landscape. Her music isn’t the music I like, as you know well from Saturday nights.
I don’t know what Ms Swift’s real politics are. She’s too careful to let that aspect slip out.
Luzu
Jan 30, 2024 2:59 PM
BoN,
Possibly Taylor Swift could pop a little humility alongside her intelligence and realise she is a singer, not a moral authority?
Anthony Hopkins said it best. If he is just an actor, then she is just a singer. Overexposed, overhyped to be sure. But just a singer nonetheless.
Disclaimer: I don’t rate Taylor Swift’s music. I am exposed to it on a daily basis on the radio at work and it is lightweight and all sounds remarkably similar.
I’ll keep it simple. Her music is sh*t.
I’ll keep it simple. Her music is sh*t.
She can sing and the songs are melodious but the “I got screwed over by my last boyfriend, I’m a poor, poor little rich girl” schtick gets old quickly.
Morsie – Costello had embarrassingly large surpluses. And almost zero Commonwealth debt, since he’d paid it all off. The screeching to waste the surplus on stuff was earsplitting at the time.
Instead he stuck it into the Future Fund to offset the unfunded liabilities for public serpents’ pensions. That way he managed to reduce future imposts in a way which was politically doable, since the far-left public serpent class fell over themselves to support it. Or at very least they couldn’t not support it since the money was coming to them. That wedged the ALP since the serpents are a large and powerful caucus within that particular snake pit.
Without the Future Fund we’d be paying for the serpents’ retirement out of current taxation, not those surpluses (plus investment returns since then).
As a political equation it was one of the most elegant in Australian political history. Unfortunately though Carbon Combet is now in charge of this giant pot of yummy money, and it’ll be frittered away on green boondoggles.
Somebody yesterday mentioned Jihad Dibs son. Am I correct that he was one of the ones outside the Opera house on 9 October. Then we have his wife, a teacher, featuring prominently in the Zoom meeting of pro Palestinian teachers that was reported on by Sharri Markson.
The NSW Minister’s son outed as attending the rabid, frothing, frenzied Jew hating fest on Monday night 9 October 2023, the one where they screamed “gas the Jews”, was Mark Buttigieg’s son. Who is Mark Buttigieg? He’s the current NSW Parliamentary Secretary for Industrial Relations, Work Health and Safety, and Multiculturalism, and a close friend and political ally of Pretty Boy Minns. Buttigieg senior has also signed a letter condemning the ‘genocide’ in Gaza. We should not be surprised that his son attends Nazi rallies where they scream “gas the Jews”. Apples never fall far from the tree. Also in attendance at that frenzied, frothing Jew hating fest was a staffer from Plibersek’s office by the name of ‘Will Simmons’. Plibersek, a day or two later when it was revealed that one of her staffer’s had attended the rabid, frothing, frenzied Jew hating fest, insisted that Simmons had been counselled and that he was “only twenty-three” or some such thing.
Yet Plibersek yesterday was trying to make political mileage out of the “Nazis at North Sydney” incident, most of whom looked like they were only in their early twenties…..funny that. Someone should remind her that she ought to be more worried about the Nazis in her own electoral office, of which she clearly has one in her employment.
I’m not and have never been one for conspiracy theories but the Nazis on the North Sydney train reeks of a deliberately constructed gaslighting episode. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like Nazis, be they Nazis of the far-right or Nazis of the far and not so far left. But I can smell a stitch up when it happens. The swooping of the NSWaffen Police on the North Sydney Nazis last Friday was comical, meanwhile, even after the grotesque events of 9 October 2023, a few weeks later, in November 2023, our NSWaffen Police provided an escort to a convoy of Muslim and Leftist scum, headed by a particularly unsavoury character by the name of Zakky Mallah, all the way from Auburn and Lakemba through to Sydney’s eastern suburbs where a lot of Jews happen to reside, myself included.
Jihad Dib is in NSW cabinet as Emergency Services Minister. I stand to be corrected but wasn’t he previously Education spokesman? I first heard of him a few years ago in the sense that he was a “moderate” Muslim and voice of reason.
There is no such thing as a “moderate” Muslim and Dib’s loathing for Israel is well known.
As I’ve said before, and I’ll say it again, Pretty Boy Minns is a patsy and a fraud.
Just who does Swift think she is – Bob Dylan?
Disclosure. I actually thought that Dylan was a dope.
Yep Delta Goodrem only wealthier
On Swift…Boomer vs. Zoomer?
😀
Hmm, I’m not sure this is actually how proportionality works. If ‘anything that is necessary’ to break the will of your opponent is proportionate than he rendered the term ‘reasonably proportionate’ meaningless. I’m not sure this is any better than mistaking proportionality for what is merely numerical. And this is leaving aside both his tendentious definition of ‘legitimate’, and ‘aggression’.
Your word for the day, Cats, is a Scottish word – “ramfeezled”.
In colloquial Aussie, it means “stuffed”.
And that’s just how I feel after wrangling my mother’s walker (plus her) to appointments all over the Bay. I now look on my years with babies and toddlers in prams and strollers with great fondness. 🙂
For any other Korean K Drama Watchers on Cat Blog
Whilst Grandkids are playing Games on X Box Series X with Game Pass on LG OLED 65in Signature Wall TV
I am watching Korean TV Shows on iMac 27in 5k Retina in HD
2 Great Sites
https://koreatruly.com/best-funny-korean-dramas/
look at reviews and get a name
https://www.viki.com/videos/1173438v-the-penthouse-episode-20
Search Name and watch series – PS have to use Safari my non-ad blocker browser
LOL!, calli
Mr Dylan is no fool. I saw a doco about Dylan in the sixties. He says the fans tried to crown him and Joan Baez as King and Queen of the protest movement but he said he was just a chronicler of the times and didn’t buy into it.
I think he had artistic integrity and did what he wanted to. Remember how the fans hated it when he went electric?
Taylor Swift is a leftist who supports ‘Palestine”. She endorsed Sniffer Biden in 2020.
Karma sucks.
the car was unlocked with the key left inside
That is an offence in Queensland. You aren’t allowed to be more than 3 meters from an unlocked car.
Lighten up lad, it’s just a prank. 🙂
Cassie – Nice news about Lachlan Murdoch today if you haven’t yet seen the story. It’s a good thing he is doing.
Black Ball
Jan 30, 2024 11:42 AM
As well as strong competition from United Airlines, Qatar Airways and Singapore, Qantas is facing a new threat in the form of Turkish Airlines.
Qantas are well advised to beware Turkish Airlines. I’ve flown with them several times (IST/Moscow; IST/SIN and they are very good (and I was sitting at the back). Staff are attentive, aircraft are new and clean, comfortable seats with adequate pitch, menu selection was good, plenty of audio/movie selections etc. and, we can be sure they will offer some specials to launch their service. Cats should consider Turkish when next they fly.
OldOzzie
Jan 30, 2024 11:13 AM
Johnny Rotten
Jan 30, 2024 11:01 AM
Just a reminder.
47% tax rate in Australia.
Peanuts. Have a look at some of these past top tax rates –
https://atotaxrates.info/individual-tax-rates-resident/historical-pre-2010-tax-rates/#Tax_Rates_1975-1976_Year_Residents
65 cents in the dollar for the 1975 to 1976 tax year…………………………………
Johnny,
Who would buy an investment property in Sicktoria – and Tenants wonder why their
Weekly Rent is going up!
They get a luvverleeeee tax deduction on the property income and a luvverleeeee capital gain deduction on the property if held in superannuation/pension account. If the property is held in the Pension account, then there is NO tax paid on the sale.
I actually recommended this to my Boss in 2016 and he made a killing (tax free) when the NSW Stupid Guv’ment made a purchase on his Commercial Building for a NSW Metro Train Station. And yes, I did get a marvellous bonus. $$$$$$$$$$$$
Papa Meat sees all. He must have a scrying mirror in his attic.
Meat Canyon: Taylor Swift is dumped by Travis Kelce.
I expected more of the goat scream about got more Lovecraftian.
Do the swifties know much about the Great Old Ones? Perhaps it is better to be eaten first!
Teachers who disagree with the activism of the Teachers’ Federation can instead join the Teachers’ Professional Association of Australia. Tell your teacher friends.
AJA & TPAA Joint Media Release
That is an offence in Queensland. You aren’t allowed to be more than 3 meters from an unlocked car.
How would anyone in the world know whether they were within 3 metres (not a meter or a gas meter) of an unlocked anything? Only in QLD where the bananas have to bent the right way. Just like the Coppers and ‘Pollies’.
Grasshopper, that means at the glorious porous veil of kismet, someone is getting blown.
Sources have told The Australian the car was unlocked with the key left inside. When The Australian put this scenario to the court, a spokesman declined to comment.
For the Tax Paying Peasants an Insurance Company would not pay up – for our Victorian Judge, will the Tax Paying Peasnats will just give him another car?
Adolescent pranks can be dangerous. People can be physically and psychologically injured and even worse, die.
Count yourself lucky. In my younger days, you’d have gone into the river, after the milk.
The Putin regime has spectacularly failed to capitalise on Russia’s inbuilt advantages – not least its embarrassment of natural resources – to raise living standards and create prosperity.
Much of the Russian population lives on the brink of destitution, and the country is stuck in an oil trap usually reserved for third-world nations. \\
That was certainly the case when I visited Russia during Perestroika & Glasnot times. But it is far from the case now. Shops that were empty then have been replaced by extensive shopping malls identical to those seen in our suburbs. Every day citizens are well dressed and busily shopping. Mall carparks are full with late model cars. If you dont believe it – have a look at holiday snaps and footage of western travellers in Russian cities.
The law is exactly the same for Victoria & NSW. (Something to keep in mind)
One of the coppers in my town, when transferred to another nearby town, with a promotion to Senior Sergeant, made a name for himself walking around town trying the doors of parked cars.
Any cars he found unlocked – which was nearly all cars, resulted in a ticket. He also measured how far windows were cracked open, any that were more than 5cm (the maximum allowed on a parked car by law) would also be ticketed.
He didn’t go to servos & book everybody who went in to pay for fuel with their keys in the ignition (almost everybody) but he should have, just to round off his reputation.
He was about as popular as a turd in a swimming pool.
Bruce of Newcastle
Jan 30, 2024 4:14 PM
One of Victoria’s most senior judges has become a victim of street crime after thieves stole his taxpayer-funded car
Typical. The thieves have to steal from the long suffering Taxpayer. How about stealing from a Millionaire/Billionaire who has stolen from the Taxpayer……………….Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
So he gets out of the car without the key and then when people would be pushing the remote lock button he does not and just walks away.
Gee, I guess he was lucky it was not his own vehicle as I suspect more likely to be concerned about locking it.
There is more to this story.
“the car was unlocked with the key left inside”.
Pouring milk is still assault.
He did it for social media and is cranky it got uploaded to social media.
Actions have consequences.
‘A liar in the lodge’: Liberal Senator Michaelia Cash unleashes on Anthony Albanese over stage three tax cuts overhaul
Liberal Senator Michaelia Cash has blown up over Labor’s changes to stage three tax cuts, pointing the finger at the Prime Minister for lying to Australians during an animated interview with Sky News.
From the Comments
– The Liar In The Lodge must be flying out on Toto One soon. Surely his tourist visa has expired now that Australian Open has finished. Has he spent a night in Alice Springs yet?
– Once a trotsky alwasy a trotsky.
Chairman Liebanese, the Liar In The Lodge is a failure and a blatant liar with his plethora of broken promises. Bill Shorten likely to be the next PM with ethe rate of failures, broken promises and blatant lies by PM Liebanese.
– PM Liebanese, the Liar In The Lodge has changed the Australian Labor Party to the Socialist Lying Party.
– I’m a pensioner,financially it doesn’t matter to me one way or the other- but I total distain for two faced liars.
Salvatore, Iron Publican
Jan 30, 2024 4:39 PM
That’s the problem when people swallow the rule book. Hopefully, they get constant constipation. R soles.
I won’t fly Turkish, 49% government owned, not as long as they support terrorism.
Nor Qantas, if I can help it, who pack you in like sardines.
terror attack against Catholics in Turkey yesterday
Quite so. He thought he’d be safe from consequences.
In a just world, following a minute or so behind the ladies would have been a boat containing their husbands/boyfriends, who happen to all be concreters.
The men would come ashore & administer to the little turd a few pranks of their own, including but not limited to he & his audio-visual team, (& the audio-visual equipment) ending up in the river.
Ratbags in Hobart:
Police have revealed a young man who drowned in Hobart’s waterfront on Monday night was pushed by someone who tried to steal a woman’s handbag.
Police say the 27-year-old man was sitting with a woman in her 20s at Hobart’s Princess Wharf, when they were approached.
“We had a male and female sitting on the edge of the wharf, enjoying each other’s company and talking, when a person not known to them has pushed them into the water to simply steal a handbag,” Tasmania Police detective inspector David Gill said.
The woman was able to swim to safety, but the man was unable to be saved, despite rescue attempts by two passing members of the public.
“This is a disgraceful, cowardly act which has resulted in a terrible tragedy, a tragedy that will haunt the young female for the rest of her life along with the family and friends of the deceased male,” inspector Gill said.
Inspector Gill said police had made extensive investigations, and deployed divers to survey the area.
“We do believe there were more than one person involved and we’re following a very specific line of inquiry to identify those persons involved,” he said.
“We are treating this as a very serious criminal investigation.”
He urged the people involved to turn themselves in.
“The persons involved know damn well what occurred last night, I implore them to come forward before we find them,” he said.
Hobart Mercury. Not sure why they’d have divers involved, unless they had to recover the poor chap.
apparently Catholics are now polytheistic, I suppose they are referring to the trinity, because the concept of sainthood is not alien to islam, except of course to Wahhabis etc
Just no.
Yes, very much yes.
Rosie
Jan 30, 2024 4:51 PM
I won’t fly Turkish, 49% government owned, not as long as they support terrorism.
Nor Qantas, if I can help it, who pack you in like sardines.
terror attack against Catholics in Turkey yesterday
Well, Fly United then –
I won’t fly Turkish, 49% government owned, not as long as they support terrorism
No, nor will I. Nor will I fly Qatar.
Nor for Kidd, he was immediately issued with a new taxpayer funded car. It is the taxpayer for whom the karma sucks.
Left the car unlocked, keys in it. Such a responsible judicial officer! //sarc//
I remember Peter Kidd, was I just me or did others also think he was revelling in the attention around the Pell lynching?
I thought his decision to broadcast the sentencing was vicious.
Eggselent, I feeeel the farce flowing strongly within you young apprentice!
Health Minister commits to ‘stamping out public menace’ of nicotine addiction as 250,000 vapes seized in government’s first phase of anti-vaping legislation rollout (Sky, 30 Jan)
The problem is the millennials lurve vapes. It’s like weed in the seventies. So Labor going hard against vaping is going to turn vast hordes of millennial voters into righties.
Do please continue Mark, so we can say when Labor is wiped out in the next election that the Butler did it.
Was he one of the Hulls maaaates appointments? The way to the Victorian bench at that time seemed to lead through the Victorian Council for Civil Liberties, which did so much to defend civil liberties during the Kung Flu lockdowns. //sarc//
Have been exposed to her music, written by her and others, for along time and it evinces not one bit of feeling for any of her songs. Even lightweight musci (Abba?) can give you a momentary sense of what the writer was trying to convey.
For Swifty muzak its nada, zilch, zero, absolutely nothing felt at this end …
Chat GPT has some competition when it comes to empty, derivative musical content.
Could Texas Survive as an Independent Nation?
The severity of the migrant crisis may be new to those who do not live on a bordering state. Yet Texas has been grappling with this issue for years, resulting in countless calls for a secession from the United States or “Texit.” How would Texas manage as an independent nation?
Texas would be the 39th largest nation by land mass. Texas encompasses 268,596 sq. miles, roughly the size of France, and is larger than many developed nations including the United Kingdom. Texas had an estimated population of 30,503,301 as of July 2023, making it the second-most populous state in the United States after California. Texas would be the 50st most populous country in the world.
Texas has the second-largest economy in the United States behind California. In 2023, the Texas economy exhibited a mix of trends. While the state’s economic growth slowed in Q4, with job growth falling sharply in October and business activity contracting slightly in November, the real GDP for Texas grew at an annual rate of 4.9% in Q2, outpacing the U.S. growth rate of 2.1%. Its real GDP stood at $2.5 trillion in Q3 of 2023. Therefore, Texas is the world’s 8th largest economy.
For context, Russia’s economy was valued at $1.862 trillion in nominal terms and $5.056 trillion in PPP. Texas has a larger economy than Australia, Spain, Italy, and Mexico, to name a few.
Texas alone boasts one of the best militaries in the world, with over 115,000 active duty troops. The Texas Military Forces, which include the Texas Army National Guard, Texas Air National Guard, and Texas State Guard, have a total size of 23,200 personnel and a budget of $1.851 billion as of 2023. In addition to the state forces, Texas is also home to about 70,000 U.S. Army personnel, 30,000 Air Force troops, and 8,000 Navy and Marines. Texas is home to 15 military bases and installations distributed across the state, with most of them clustered around San Antonio and Corpus Christi.
Texas has two nuclear power plants. The South Texas Project Electric Generating Station, located southwest of Bay City, Texas, has two Westinghouse Pressurized Water Reactors with a total capacity of 2,700 megawatts. The Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant, located south of Fort Worth, Texas, also has two reactors with a total capacity of 2,300 megawatts. These two plants combined have an installed capacity of more than 5,000 megawatts of electricity and contribute to about 10% of Texas’ total energy generation.
While not always reliable, Texas has its own power grid, known as the Texas Interconnection. It is an alternating current (AC) power grid managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), providing power to 90% of the state. Texas Interconnection is one of the three minor grids in the North American power transmission network, and the state has maintained as a separate grid for political reasons. The grid does not cross state lines and is not under federal regulation.
The state features more miles of public roads and freight rail than any other state, with 313,220 miles of public roads and 10,539 miles of freight rail. Additionally, Texas is home to the nation’s top airport for a number of domestic destinations. Texas has a total of 393 airports available for public use, making it the state with the highest number of airports in the United States.
Texas is a major hub for cargo and trade, with its ports moving more cargo than any other state. In 2020, Texas ports handled over 607 million tons of cargo, including 464 million tons of international cargo and 143 million tons of domestic cargo.
Texas could survive as an independent nation. Naturally, the United States would fight tooth and nail to preserve its second-largest economy. Based on the data, Texas has the resources to be an independent nation if permitted to operate independently.
I strongly suspect that the lad with a need to pour milk on young ladies beneath him has a significant sexual problem.
Hopefully this will be explored at length on social media and seen by his friends and schoolmates – if he has any.
FIFY. And the US would lose. It’d be fun to watch the woke Federal armed forces going up against the Texans.
Someone seems to’ve mentioned this to whoever it is who pilots the zombie in the White House, since they’ve backed off from their thought bubble of federalizing the Texas National Guard.
Isn’t he bawling that he’s just been expelled?
@Robert Sewell:
“especially when mixed with shorts, long white socks and brown shoes.”
As I recall, that array was once called “Darwin Formal.
Vicki
Jan 30, 2024 4:36 PM
That was certainly the case when I visited Russia during Perestroika & Glasnot times. But it is far from the case now. Shops that were empty then have been replaced by extensive shopping malls identical to those seen in our suburbs.
Indeed. When I first went in the 90s a few years after the fall of the USSR, it was probably more than I anticipated with weary people living a kind of ‘shell-shocked’ existence. Communism was gone but the supposed riches of non-communism were yet to appear. A great many were doing it tough – which is saying something. Many bemoaned the loss of the all-encompassing State because at least under that system, they could put food on the table and everybody had a job. The new wealthy were sacking staff from factories, paying miserable wages to those who remained and it was ‘survival of the fittest’ in every aspect you can think of. Rows upon rows of Soviet era housing apartment blocks inhabited by disillusioned people.
Today of course and by comparison, it might as well be a different planet. Shops are fully stocked with goods and fresh food, modern new cars are everywhere, new apartment buildings constantly spring up, industry is flourishing, bars and clubs are much more upmarket and are well patronized. As you mentioned, some of the shopping malls would rival anything in this country for style and size. And this is the case despite the current sanctions.
To be fair, there are still pockets of people and areas in a vast land for whom life has not been kind – but this is not unique to Russia. As I have mentioned on the Cat previously, the MSM seems unable to depart from the perception of Russia being filled with sullen people in a gloomy land – but that is just not the reality.
Policespeak, like nails on a blackboard for anyone who appreciates good, clear, grammatical English. Not to mention justice.
I mean – ‘We had’ – who was ‘we’ in this load of gibberish? And so it goes on. If I was defence counsel, I would rip them to shreds.
A lot of it seems to come from top brass watching British TV shows and talking to their spruikers.
I have commented before about their abuse of ‘has’ and ‘had,’ resultimg in ambiguous statements at best.
Among all the millions they spend on useless (at best) ‘diversity advisers’, how about a few bob towards ‘literacy advisers’ so that their public pronouncements are internally consistent, have correct spelling and grammar, and do not contradict things they said previously.
Exactly Cassie.
Naturally, the United States would fight tooth and nail to recapture its second-largest economy.
See Tom Kratman “A State of Disobedience”. Available on Amazon.
If you like Kurt Schlichter’s stuff you might like Kratman. A lot of Kratman is best classified as military SF.
Quite so, Joh.
A man and woman were sitting on the wharf and talking, when a stranger pushed them into the water in an attempted robbery.
Plain speaking.
Speedbox
After you’ve spent the better part of 70 years running a delinquent system. It takes time to see progress. I’m not saying that there wasn’t a better way to exit communism; after all, Yeltsin received terrible advice from those idiot Columbia University professors about stunning the economic system (the shock). To transition away from communism and toward a semi-market economy can’t happen overnight.
via x wsj story on unwramas
What if they give you a reasonable answer as in “by we, I almost entirely mean to be those listening to reconstructed events, that is the general public or the jury, as told to them by the investigators such as myself, who are also included as “we”…”.
My point is, what would you achieve by proving the Detective Sergeant got a C- in Year 10 English?
Academic papers are quite literally written in the same manner of grammar, tonality and personage, yet we get expert pathologists in criminal trials and econ PhDs in market concentration determinations.
Since when do the police get to trot out their PR stuff (policespeak) during a trial anyway?
Poll: Americans are siding with Texas without even knowing about Biden’s war on Texas’s natural gas.
One Life To Live star Amanda Davies dead at 42: Daughter of Daytime Emmy-winning actress Erika Slezak ‘died very suddenly’
Fair enough Indolent.
I expected her to be a ham beast.
I need a Babelfish.
Unauthorised History of the Pacific War’s review ( they are doing a special series of reviews) from a historical perspective…
https://youtu.be/xM2iHgNLjyg?feature=shared