You can take a man out of the ABC but you can’t take the ABC out of a man. Sydney…
Open Thread – Weekend 3 Feb 2024
- Bumtree #16
- Open Thread – Mon 20 May 2024
- Guest Post: Wally Dali- Archibald Prize predictions
- TULIP versus ruinous Labor
- Open Thread – Weekend 18 May 2024
Man of the people! Rishi Sunak rides wife’s family fortune past King on The Sunday Times Rich List (20 May)…
That’s how you get electricity too cheap to meter.
Who could forget that photo of poor Julia as Cinderella being dragged to safety by the Keystone Cops.
It’s no Ozemail.
Pogria
Feb 3, 2024 4:38 PM
Calli,
not Plovers! I love Plovers.
They’ll sign up for a dive bombing mission. It’s their raison d’être.
Just think brave lads in the Battle of Britain. ?
Plovers are nearly as smart as magpies.
They build their nests in the middle of the fairway on the golf course. Safest place on earth.
The Guardian can’t help itself, can it?
then later, they admit he’s actually libertarian.
What a bunch of plonkers
Roger at 5:59
Bayswater, Guildford and bits of North Perth are like being in a time warp. Feels like you are in some wheatbelt town that time forgot. Not quite sure why. Heading towards the coast Subiaco and surrounds have been gentrified to within an inch of their lives.
I love that shop, but damn you are so right; the stock needs a fire and a front end loader.
BUT I got Tolkein’s ‘Farmer Giles of Ham’. I got Steiglitz’ ‘Camera Work: The Complete Photographs’ from Taschen. A decent 1980s NIV study bible with few embarrazzing notes by the previous owner. A couple of Dorothy Dunnets.
No good references on pre-1800 artillery. No ‘Silent Travellers’. No Greg Egan SF (but quite a bit of some other good authors).
If you want militaria and military history the Elizabeth’s warehouse in Queen Victoria St Freo is very good. I got a good history of pre-1800 artillery, ‘Riflemen Form: A history of the volunteer movement’ and a few other fun things. Chiang Yee’s ‘Chinese Calligraphy’, an Oxford reprint of the 1937 edition was a FIND. I am a fan of the Professor.
And more recently I discovered Paraquad’s bookshop in Shenton Park. A giant, well laid out library discard bookstore. HUUUGE. Got a history of the Army Legal Corps for a member I know. Travel, art, crafts, histroy, its a great used bookshop.
And right next to it their op shop in which I found a book of Australian passenger shipping history by Peter Plowman. I snapped that up for a maritime author friend!
Very well put.
I blame Swan Districts. Three Premierships in the early 1960s then nothing.
Hey Calli,
I wasn’t accusing you of anything. 😀
With the facebook parents thing, I know parents who joined so they could keep track of what their teenage kids were doing. It was a few years before they realised the kids had TWO accounts. One to keep mum and dad sweet, and one for their own nefarious activities. Lol.
“Far-right president”
then later, they admit he’s actually libertarian.
A gruinaid reporter – today, colourised.
Quaintarse delayed another 40 minutes. It was never like this when Alan was in charge. Cough, cough.
I’m not buying the idea that the NSW plod love the muzzles so much they are providing cover for them with a language expertologist no less.
It has to be either that they received instructions from the Liars to go easy on them because of the vote herd in the west , or that by going easy they may mitigate a muz loon from committing a horror. They know Jews would never do such a thing.
It’s likely to be a combo of all three, but love of muzzle? Nope.”
I would agree with this assessment, which makes it worse. It means that the NSWaqf Police now kowtow and acquiesce to ideological demands made by the current Labor government under Pretty Boy Minns. They’ve asked the Plod to go easy on their voters in Labor Muslim electorates. It is beyond disgraceful. It is selective policing according to politics. It also means we Jews are not safe. I no longer trust the NSWaqf police. We Jews have a Jewish community security organisation that is currently working overtime.
I’ve spent a day discussing this with my mother and sister, and without a doubt screaming “where’s the Jews” is worse, far worse than screeching “gas the Jews” (as repulsive as that is). That night of 9 October 2023, Muslims and leftists were on a mission to hunt down Jews, enabled by the NSWaqf Police.
I note that the Daily Telegraph has today named and shamed one of the leaders of this country’s ‘neo Nazi movement. Good, but I want leftist and Muslim scum named and shamed too. I want a picture of Will Simmons, staffer in Plibershit’s office, pictured on the front page of the Daily Telegraph.
At every rally I’ve attended (and I’ve attended almost all of them) for Israel and the hostages, at the end of the rally the organisers stand up and say “thank you to the NSW Police”. Others have noticed the look on my face when this happens, I get sudden onset bells palsy, caused by fury and anger. I refuse to thank the NSW Plod. As far as I’m concerned they are doing their jobs, they should be looking after the Jewish community but every time I think back to the night of 9 October 2023 when they stood back whilst a frenzied frothing mob of Jew haters bayed for Jewish blood.
Last night my friend rang me last night, and she’s always polite with everyone, but she said to me “Cassie, you’re right not to thank them, because they don’t deserve it”.
NO, they don’t. As I’ve said earlier, I spit on them.
With the discussion about Bundaberg Rum over, have any of you blokes tried this?
Cassowaries: protected in Australia, but I saw a show of Al McGlashian’s today in PNG where they caught and eaten. Nasty and aggressive. Not candidates for ads on SBS.
Apropos of nothing, a magificent one hit wonder by Scot. Edwyn Collins;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oqJ0JpMj6I
‘I never saw a girl like you before …’
Great arrangement and instrumentals. A one off.
Like every second hand bookshop I’ve ever been in, in Australia at least.
Like panning for gold.
Check out “Bill Campbell Books” on High Street – he’s also got quite a range of militaria.
This sounds like fun.
There’s a second hand bookshop in decrepit building in Brisbane’s CBD that advertises itself as having over a million books. I believe them. Alas, none but the valuable ones are catalogued.
I’m sure it’s the one started by a Hungarian lawyer back in the 1980s (who’s name I forget, but quite a character) when he couldn’t ply his trade here.
I’m think some of his original stock is still there too.
RFK is thinking of standing in the Libertarian Party of the U S of A.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. mulls running for president as Libertarian as he struggles with ballot access (29 Jan)
Head explosions! And popcorn.
The Save the Children sale at UWA is a bit of an institution. I’ve never been but people get there pretty early. The various street library boxes are more dust than diamonds but I’ve snaffled a couple over the years.
“Like every second hand bookshop I’ve ever been in, in Australia at least.”
There are good second hand bookshops in London and also, unsurprisingly, in Israel. I like Ampersand second hand bookshop here in Sydney, in Darlinghurst, and also across the road there is Berkelouw bookshop which sells new and second hand books. Last month I browsed Ampersand and discovered a cache of old National Geographics, in pristine condition, that were dated 1967, 1968 and 1978. Ampersand were giving them away free! I used to love National Geographic, but like everything, it went woke and is now broke. Sad. Anyway, one of these ancient National Geographics, from 1967, has a section devoted to the Shah Reza Pahlavi’s coronation in Iran. A vanished world, a world of optimism and a world of hope in man and what man can do.
The Bear, augmenting his definitive Tim Winton Collection, whatever it takes.
Totally. Zuckerberg means “Sugar Mountain.” They are taking the pi55 as usual.
Here’s another for Cohenite’s list: Sugar boy is spawn of the late ghoul David Rockefeller.
They needed some ugly geek to make it all look legit, hence Schmuckerberg. “I invented Fecesbook in my college dorm, so students could share information”. ROFL
Used to be a great second hand bookshop near me called the Merchant of Fairness.
India starting to dismantle England.
I read to my surprise that there was an ODI at the G yesterday.
Who knew?
There’s a 1963 edition of National Geographic magazine that featured Australia.
Very poignant.
London bookshops in general – I have been dragged out of Foyles, on Charing Cross Road, and Hatchards of Piccadilly…
Every so often you’re innocently looking at dumb stuff on the internet, and you come across something that is so hideous, so bizarre, so idiotic…that you just have to share it.
I’ll see myself out.
“Rabz
Feb 3, 2024 7:18 PM
I’ve snaffled a couple over the years
The Bear, augmenting his definitive Tim Winton Collection, whatever it takes.”
bwahahahaha!
Edition? Issue, of course.
Boobooks Armidale.
A treasure house for titles that you read once on loan, returned them because you are a good friend, and then wish you’d obeyed your evil self and kept.
Great shop.
Will do! Closed when I was there.
Hey Cats!
A new radio show thread is up … 🙂
Trivia – the lead character in the BBC series “Foyle’s War”, played by Michael Kitchen, was named after Foyle’s Bookshop.
Further to Shah Reza Pahlavi, there is hope for Iran and that hope is found in his son, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi.
Apparently, despite being in exile since 1979 and living in the US, Crown Prince Reza is the most popular person in Iran.
Rabz, you wicked boy.
Winton has his own definitive collection, no need for anyone else to collect his works. Every book filled with bookmarks – his tickets on himself.
His brother though – top man.
Sacré bleu! 🙁
Outstanding explanation.
Decolonisation, Campus Culture Wars and the Decline of the West
That would be Archives Fine Books in Charlotte Street, right near the 24-hour pancake restaurant (housed in a former church & has been there longer than the bookshop – I think)
Impossible to enter that bookshop & not leave without at lest 3 or 4 books.
Chris:
I agree with the general thrust of your argument – up to a point.
Someone who stands up to mob of attackers and fights with a firearm will be at least arrested for some infraction, even if they fight off the attacker. They will then be put in gaol. There will be no protection for them. This is forced enfeeblement by government diktat.
Even a mob of 20 terrorists will be thinking twice about attacking someone if there is a 20% casualty rate.
It’s not the mobs of 50 that are the concern, it’s the extended family of 10 that are the danger from gangs and others.
The knowledge that any victim they choose is likely to be unarmed, is spur to their aggressive intent.
Figures from the US show that nearly all mass shootings happen in ‘gun free zones.’
Disarming the proles only benefits the armed enemy.
As I wrote here recently, I think the Mullahs are not long for this world.
15-minute cities are being built in Russia
The Prejudice of Dr. Reiner Füllmich, An Analysis of The Case Against Him
That’s it…I’m sure that was the original name from the ’80s.
Darn it, I can’t remember the original owners name though, possibly a Hungarian of Jewish background?
Thanks, Sal.
Copium.
So much copium.
Are they high, retarded or need ever increasing amounts of the potent drug, copium?
https://www.salon.com/2024/02/02/joe-bidens-economy-is-roaring-back-against-right-wing-sabotage/
Cats – the MC5 film clip above has three distinct parts, separated by big stupid ozzie product commercials – do not let the latter put you off, I advises ya! 🙂
Didn’t India give Bill Gates the death penalty? Whatever happened there?
I think the Mullahs are not long for this world.
We must pray for this.
Roger, there’s a very good book on the days leading to the fall of the Shah. It’s called ‘The Fall of Heaven’. It’s very good, and somewhat sad. It is a sympathetic appraisal of the last shah and his wife and what they hoped to accomplish. It isn’t without criticism. But they were unfairly maligned. It’s particularly interesting because it looks at the intimate relationship between the left and the clerics and how this unholy alliance brought down the shah.
In 2024 we are witnessing a similar phenomenon, a sinister alliance between the left and Islam.
If you seek old and rare military books, I would recommend a mail order business – “Imprimatur Books” – it’s run by a former officer of Special Forces.
Is there no end to the Pute’s monstrous attempts to enslave the many peoples of Eastern Yerp, I asks ya! 😕
I was once told about a secondhand record shop in Londan that sported a sign on the door: “No riff-raff”.
Well done.
I love…love…..The Folio Society books.
John Anderson. The full interview
Motherhood, Transhumanism and the Case for Being Normal | Mary Harrington
Thanks, Cassie.
I see Amazon (apply holy water!) have it on Kindle.
I’ve severely cut back on buying physical books on account of complaints from the domestic authority as to how much space they take up and what she’ll do with them when I shuffle off this mortal coil 😀
The case for normality is a roughly 40% lower self minecrafting rate.
Once he lands The Booker we’ll see who’s laughing then.
I suffered withdrawal symptoms when I stopped buying them!
For those who want to show Christian feeling towards Jewish friends.
You have to register to foil attempts by Hamas operatives to be disruptive.
If the Earth is a globe, wouldn’t ‘far right’* at some point come back around and hip-bump ‘far left’?
* Because far right is infinite in its farness.
The Garudain cannee ‘elp itself, can it?
“Far-right President”
Then later, they admit through gritted rotting teeth he’s actually libertarian …
Roger, my bookshelves continue to groan. I have culled, to no avail. All I do is replace the duds with good stuff.
I’m currently in the market for some Anthony Price books. Excellent Spy vs. Spy genre. All the market bookstalls seem to have is tatty bodice rippers.
There was a great secondhand bookshop in Bath. But, sadly, the airline tickket didn’t allow for a crate.
Malone and another chap wrote ‘Simmo.’ Grab a copy if there’s any still available.
It did allow for an extra “k” though. 🙂
Helen, your beautiful writing is much missed here. Thanks for the reminiscence re Bundy back in the day.
As for it being the boundary riders’ friend, you have to realise it was medicine. Hard workers out in the Australian bush on their lonesome drank it like mother’s milk to a babe. It took all pain and boredom away and replaced it with a gentle satisfaction about life. Later, at night, it helped weary bones to sleep well and dream of home.
It was nation building. 🙂
Note to self:
“Do not use laser pointer in front of lace curtains, while cat is watching.”
It acted in the same way for sailors.
And the early Australian colony in Sydney ran on it.
Wind energy racket exposed at last
Yeah, heh! Pronouncing a death sentence & effecting an arrest are, on the scale of difficulty, at opposite ends.
(or: Talk is cheap)
Once he lands The Booker we’ll see who’s laughing then.
Is “the Booker” what he calls the turd thats kept him chronically constipated for the last few decades.?
Judging from his various publicity shots I think its terminal.
As do mine, calli.
And then there’s the sealed plastic boxes in the shed that my wife discovered this week.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Feb 3, 2024 7:54 PM
Thanks Lizzie.
The problem with deporting all the illegals (that they can find) who have poured into the US is knowing where to deport them to.
If it is the southern border, every one of them came from Mexico…
I’ve got my copy, thank you. Malone is writing his autobiography – “Two Ranks on the Road.”
Mole – hopefully they’ll give it to him one year just to make him stop.
and didn’t our illustrious Vik opposition leader Pesutto argue during the week that Moira Deeming defamed herself?
this is the retarded world we live in right now
the judiciary and the executive are captured and the polis are effectively brown-shirts
this crap isn’t going anywhere good
Goose Morristeen used to waffle on endlessly looking and sounding like he was experiencing an Elvis type non bowel voiding situation.
I … am … an … imbecile… I tells … the Ozzie … peoples …!
I’m sure a rick ribbed conservative is downticking my comments, such as the one noting that troons have a 41% self deletion rate.
Yep. A regular Phyllis Schlafly.
My grandma once confessed to me that when grandpa was away fighting the Japs and my infant father was proving a bit of a handful, she’d put a teaspoon of rum in his bottle.
Chuckle.
Gawd…what an insufferable upcountry punt.
I never felt the urge to play the part of Ian Smith in a film decrying pre Mugabe Zimbabwe either.
rock ribbed
This is insufferable.
I thought a lot were coming from much less well off countries in Central America, hence the growth in MS-13 etc.
I think Phyllis Schlafly was right about a lot of things.
err, Rog, various pundits have been saying this for decades.
Yet their long overdue demise remains “imminently imminent”.
My uncle “went droving” out of Alice Springs, in 1947, before becoming a station manager in the Kimberly’s. He said the old timers all drank rum, which you could drink at any temperature short of boiling. The new arrivals drank beer, because the refrigeration was on hand.
Well, they were wrong, obviously.
I think it was Mick Malone who also authored/edited the visual history of the Australian SASR. I used to have a copy, but no longer I suspect. Published maybe 20+ years ago, I think it preceded [Horner’s?] history of the same, after which, every man and his wombat tried to get in on the act.
Masters of the Air: We’re now three episodes in.
I hope it gets better.
It’s spiritual, Rabz.
Eschatological.
Their time is up, they just don’t realise it yet.
Or, perhaps they do? Hence the acting up/out.
When they’re not imminently immanentizing the eschatone, Rog.
Predictions being difficult enough as they are without having to make them about the future.
Quite correct.
Fancy that: the drone the iranians used to bomb the yanks which killed 3 soldiers and injured dozens more could not be detected because it was a yank drone left in afghanistan by that dead pustule biden when he slimed out of that shit-hole.
Masters of the Air: We’re now three episodes in.
I hope it gets better.
It is better than I thought it would be.
Our heroes are now stuck on what seems to be an abandoned airfield in the back blocks of Algeria with a bunch of shot up B-17s.
They’re on the wrong side of God.
Not a good place to be in regard to your future, whether temporal or eternal.
Who the buggery is Phyllis Schlafly? Some meja approved person?
A few years ago here in France a pharmacist was reluctant to sell me a Ventolin without a prescription. Yesterday in Corte I was able to purchase both Ventilon and Seretide over the counter without prescription, apparently because I was Australian not South African, because Rugby.
My asthma is somewhat out of control even with increased dosages so last night I racked my brain for what the next option back home was, on the rare occasion those drugs weren’t sufficient and remembered prednisolone.
I ventured into the pharmacy this morning and explained my predicament, expecting to be told to see a doctor but no, the pharmacist was happy to sell me the French branded equivalent over the counter, and advise the correct dosages, all for €3.93.
I don’t know whether it was because I’m a tourist or it’s now much easier to get medication over the counter in France
No coffee for five days though.
Hopefully that does the trick.
I’m somewhat over it.
Amusing rip off of EVs by Julia Louis-Dreyfus:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=200452841739689
A womanage that struck back against the US abortion industry, Milt.
For starters, milt, not to be mentioned in the same sentence as buggery.
Your .. er.. comment is lacking baseline data.
Why men don’t live as long as women. 😀
Although, I must confess, I have done similar, a looooong time ago. lol
Sorry you are not well, Rosie. Anything breathing related is not pleasant, and let’s hope the steroids work. I doubt you could buy them over the counter in Oz.
My nose is still sore post-anaesthetic and streaming clear fluid in occasional bursts. My specialist says this is not an allergy but due to excessive O2 during the procedure; she’s seen it before and it can last for days or even weeks to settle down. I’m still inclined to go for allergy and will take some anti-histamine for it tonight. Nothing like self-medication.
Your .. er.. comment is lacking baseline data.
I think I said I gave Ep1 two minutes and gave up. Went back to it a couple of days later and watched Ep 1 + 2. Probably 6/10.
Allergy to the oral anaesthetic spray they used, that is. Nearly two weeks ago now.
Must have made me hypersensitive to air con as that seems to set it off.
What sort of douche cares about the exact mix of O,C ang H someone else has?
Lotta people need to have a good, long, hard look at why pretentiousness about bio-chemistry is any different to pretentiousness about any other position.
There was a show on TV late night last week (insomnia) about a Texas 7 member on death row. (He ended up being reprieved). I hadn’t heard of the Texas 7.
It was seven prisoners who escaped from maximum security in 2000. How they did it was military precision the SAS would wank over.
Ringleader/genius George Rivas should be Hollywood or up on stage being a candidate for the GOP. Instead Texas pumped Phenobarbital into his veins, and now he is dead. That was his fate.
It is a strange world.
Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?
In the meantime, here’s some recently memory holed footage from the ALPBC archives … 😕
Phyllis Schlafly was right about abortion, she was right about the importance of family, she was right about the destructiveness and depravities of feminism, pornography and the sexual revolution.
In fact, Schlafly, long derided and long the but of jokes, was the forerunner of Louise Perry, Mary Harrington and other new wave female thought leaders who are now openly echoing what Schlafly said about abortion, the importance of family, feminism, pornography and how the sexual revolution has affected women, to our detriment.
Just browsing on YT, came across this trailer.
SH?GUN Final Trailer (24 Jan 2024)
It’s James Clavell’s novel Sh?gun made into a series on Hulu, Disney+ and FX. Give whoever thought to do it an elephant stamp, it’s a seriously excellent story. If on a flight to the UK I didn’t have LOTR to read I’d read Sh?gun. A vast sweep of a novel.
Premier date appears to be 27 Feb.
Gee, what a surprise …:?
Especially when she revealed her middle leg 😕
Fair call.
The brief review I wrote here on the 27th Jan – I’d prolly give it a bit more depth & a bit more downtick were I to write another today.
When the so-called “progressives” have lost Elaine and the Veep …
Flight cancelled, not getting home till tomorrow.
Parents told me that if was born a girl, name would have been Fleur.
If my daughter was born a boy, name was gonna be Derek. Badass or what?
Dot
Feb 3, 2024 8:18 PM
If it is the southern border, every one of them came from Mexico…
I thought a lot were coming from much less well off countries in Central America, hence the growth in MS-13 etc.
That might be where they started but every one of them entered the US from Mexico. Just send them back there and let them sort it. They let them through their country.
I have been deliberately not trying to compare to BoB and The Pacific, and have been enjoying it for what it is. Thankfully no woke crap in any of the series.
In BoB we could easily form a bond with Easy Company and especially the Mortar Platoon.
In the Pacific the story focussed on 3 or 4 characters.
In MoftA the focus is on Buck and Bucky, with the barfing navigator as the narrator. Unlike BoB these characters appeared fully formed as they were rushing to get to the story.
Zafiro
Feb 3, 2024 7:19 PM
There is absolutely no doubt that Fecesbook is a alphabet agency honeypot.
Totally. Zuckerberg means “Sugar Mountain.” They are taking the pi55 as usual.
Zafiro,
I prefer Rock Follies “Sugar Mountain” – Cats Ladies this is your song
These days the telling of the past is almost as hard as predicting the future.
Sorry Cat Ladies Rock Follies Good Behaviour (2000 Digital Remaster) is your Anthem
All Rock Follies Songs – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzGKrX3yZdw&list=OLAK5uy_mqmkaH9ajH-H9EJ9MebdwDfRAVFPeVooM
PS I am a Julie Covington Groupie – Rock Follies Blueberry Hill
The past is merely an anvil on which future tools are shaped.
(It has no value other than as a weight).
If you downticked this, you need a kick in the slats.
Tonight – 3 courses Chez Maurice & Linda – Food Superb – Serrat Chardonnay & Serrat Shiraz Viogner – Note 3 Courses $82.20 now
Having eaten at Chez Mauriec & Linda, Wllioughby, Mosman, Seaforth BYO and still the same menu excellent food
Relaxing Night with my Wife
domestic authority as to how much space they take up and what she’ll do with them when I shuffle off this mortal coil ?
Cheap funeral pyre
Daily Mail
Marginally better than this
WSJ – Low on Ammo, Ukraine Tries to Build a Million Explosive Drones
KYIV, Ukraine—At the end of a bare concrete hallway, in a building that sat empty until a few months ago, a dozen men hunched over desks assembling pieces of black carbon fiber and soldering on computer chips.
A gyroscope whirred, testing the final product: an explosive attack drone.
This workshop in western Ukraine is one of dozens of startups producing cheap weapons that are helping Ukrainian troops against the Russians. Short on ammunition with additional military aid from the U.S. stalled, Ukraine is trying to compensate by producing an army of a million explosive FPV, or first-person-view, drones.
The country lacks a modern arms industry that can sustain the war effort, and it would take years—and billions of dollars—before Kyiv could produce the kind of artillery and missile systems it needs on a large scale.
But drones—which can be assembled from parts available on the commercial market and cost just a few hundred dollars each—are comparatively cheap and easy to produce.
Makeshift factories are now popping up all over Ukraine and churning out thousands of FPV drones each month.
The drones are then delivered to the front, where s
oldiers attach explosives and fly them into Russian trenches and armored vehicles. They are guided by an operator using a controller and wearing goggles that let him see what the drone’s camera sees.
“With our economy, we cannot make tanks,” said Mykola Havryluk, chief executive of Sparrow Avia, a drone-production company. “Our solution is to make drones.”
With Ukraine now on the defensive, after last summer’s counteroffensive failed to make a substantial breakthrough, FPV drones have become crucial in Kyiv’s efforts to hold the Russians back.
The drones can’t do as much damage as artillery shells or mortar bombs, which are now in short supply.
But Ukrainian forces are using drones to strike armored vehicles at their weak points to immobilize them, and targeting Russian trucks and even soldiers on foot, making it hard for Moscow to move men and supplies toward Ukrainian trenches.
Ukraine pioneered the use of drones on the battlefield early in the war, using store-bought quadcopters to spot Russian positions.
But in the almost two years since, Moscow has made a huge investment in drones of all kinds, and is converting shopping malls in central Russia into drone factories, according to local activists.
Because of frequent Russian missile strikes, Ukrainian drone producers are keeping their operations smaller, with a few dozen employees in one building, a few dozen more in another, in hopes of keeping their work hidden.
Still, they are aiming to produce on a mass scale.
Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation, said the country is on pace to meet the goal President Volodymyr Zelensky set late last year of producing at least a million drones this year, an increase of more than 100 times from 2022.
Ukraine now makes 62 different kinds of drones, and drone producers are working on new models that can fly farther, carry heavier munitions and evade Russian electronic jammers, which cut off contact between the drone and the pilot.
The Wall Street Journal visited one of Sparrow’s three facilities, which collectively make about 3,000 FPV drones a month. Havryluk and his partner invested roughly $500,000 to get the company off the ground, with the goal of eventually producing 10,000 drones a month.
Late last year, the company moved into an empty building in western Ukraine, installed some ventilation tubes, and turned it into an FPV factory.
The company purchases some parts—like carbon fiber, cameras and engines—but manufactures most parts and designs the drones in-house.
In one room, a 20-year-old engineer looked at models of the drones on screens, tweaking his design.
Behind him, several 3-D printers cranked plastic parts.
In the next room, workers welded together battery packs, with different sizes for different drone models, then covered them in black plastic.
The drones themselves were assembled at the end of the hall.
Workers sat in pairs at desks, where they screwed, glued and welded parts together.
The room was packed so tightly—with hundreds of drones in various states of assembly stacked around them on shelves and on the floor—that the employees risked knocking something over every time they stood up from their desk.
There wasn’t yet a ventilation system in the room, and the welders covered their noses with scarves.
The finished drones look bare-bones compared with ones available online: a thin carbon-fiber body, with four sets of propellers and a battery pack strapped to the top.
“The biggest issue is getting parts from China, and the logistics of getting them here,” Havryluk said, noting that protests by truckers in Poland had slowed the flow of commercial goods into Ukraine in recent months.
He said the company is spending roughly $14,000 on parts a month: “It sounds like a big sum, but for the army, it’s a small expense.”
The Ukrainian government buys about half the drones each month, Havryluk said. Volunteers and local governments buy up the rest and deliver them to military units.
Fedorov, the minister of digital transformation, said the government has offered a series of incentives for drone companies to scale up, including tax reductions and the elimination of import duties.
“The role of the state is more like coordination and creating opportunities,” he said, adding that the government was “offering big contracts for producers to scale up.”
So far, Sparrow has only 70 employees, all but three of them men. Havryluk said they planned to add 130 over the next two months.
He hires only friends and relatives of current employees, wary of the danger each new staff member brings.
If anyone betrays the factory’s location to the Russians, it will likely be targeted with missiles.
Havryluk said employees have an unofficial exemption from conscription, a significant perk when the Ukrainian military is planning to add up to 500,000 new soldiers.
“Not everyone can fight or wants to fight, but this is a way I can still be useful and help the army,” said Serhiy Khluhonets, a 35-year-old former construction worker who joined Sparrow two months ago and now works as a welder.
Out of each batch of 30 drones, one is taken for a test run at a nearby range.
On a cold, cloudless January day, a test pilot slipped on the FPV goggles.
He guided a 10-inch FPV drone off the snow into the air, and then zipped it back and forth above the tree line at 80 miles an hour.
Of the 11 models that Sparrow makes, its 7-inch drone (measured by the size of propellers it can use) is the most popular.
Though it doesn’t fly as far and can only carry about 3 pounds of explosives, it is more maneuverable and, crucially, cheaper, said Andriy Vuhovskiy, head of Sparrow’s FPV department.
“While we’re defending and the Russians are assaulting, [soldiers] don’t need such a long range,” Vuhovskiy said.
Still, Ukraine is developing drones with longer and longer ranges, which its forces have used to strike oil refineries inside Russia this year.
Sparrow has developed a larger strike drone that can carry about 20 pounds of explosives.
The company is also working on models that use artificial intelligence to hit the target, even if Russian electronic jammers cut off contact with the pilot.
“For now, the skills of the pilot are important,” Vuhovskiy said. “In the future, you won’t need as much skill.”
https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-transgender-attempted-suicide-rate-1791504
“We’ll admit it is a 5/6 for truthiness, it’s really 6/6, but we don’t like admitting that trans people have huge problems”
Is Pope Francis Catholic?
Speaker Johnson Says What We Are All Thinking: Joe Biden Isn’t the Guy in Charge
I wonder why.
Devonviews
@devonviews
Rape in England and Wales has risen by 340% in just 10 years.
The Home Office needs to get a grip
San Francisco is hit by another huge blow as RESIDENTIAL property market begins to tank, with investor landlord ditching 459 homes across 12 buildings due to plunging occupancy blamed on crime
Muslim school teacher says she’s victim of racism after being suspended for using ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ as her email signature
Maybe stop feeding them into wind turbines then?
I’m not trying to excuse her conduct, but her work colleagues were allowed to use “Blak Lives Matter?”
http://www.therockfollies.co.uk/songs.html
“In the race between current immigrants waking up and becoming Republicans and new invaders crossing the border for lots of lurvely munni, the latter will win, at least in the short term.”
But the money runs out very quickly, as the ‘sanctuary cities’ are finding out. Americans have been notorious for bad, but popular, ideas for many years now.
Anyway, Sliante.
Pleasant dinner at my local, ruined because the bogans allow their revolting children to run, screaming, through the main lounge……
Watched Credlin give that quisling, slime Turnbull a fcuking hiding.
Then the replay of the Collingwood GF win again.
Been a pleasant evening supported by plonk.
and that’s a metaphor for how we’re being governed
… right?
I am a chef Zulu. Nothing much shits us more than what you just explained. GTFO bogans. Some good luck at my new employ is that a mate who I used to work with at a different venue is coming on board. Restaurant manager. He doesnt take shit.
Ben Cousins? Where have I heard that name before?
County Court ?
Probably nothing (the Hun):
Uh huh.
Lucky for him. Otherwise an ‘independent and eminent expert’ may have decided he was singing Happy Birthday.
Excellent.
Piers Akerman:
Week In Pictures.
WIP – excellent. Thanks Tom.
The Development of French Interwar Bombers Pt 2 – From Mediocrity To Insanity
Did they understand drag?
USA politics and Pakistan politics are becoming indistinguishable from each other in the methodologies employed. Imran Khan and his wife face prison time because they didn’t wait long enough before getting married. Khan’s party is being dismembered.
The BBC is gleefully reporting “widespread protests against the AfD party in Germany”. I didn’t hear much if anything about widespread farmer protests in Germany and France, also previously Holland.
Let’s see how our own media handles the big anti-renewables protest on Tuesday at Parliament House, Canberra. Last time there was a popular conservative gathering there we saw derision and the fitting up of Tony Abbott with that Ditch The Witch sign.
The legacy meja is evil and unreformable. Seems to be dying but taking way too long to do so.
Will eliminating Hamas work? There are terrorist militias all over the ME.
No, but Hamarse deserve elimination and the population that supports them to be living in tents.
George
@BehizyTweets
BREAKING: Legendary Rapper 50 Cent responds to New York City handing $53 million in prepaid credit cards to illegals, “I’m stuck maybe TRUMP’s the answer”
The Trump 2024 Train will be the biggest in world history. Our movement has grown beyond political parties
Kim Dotcom
@KimDotcom
The Deep State formed an alliance with the Democrats to take over America. They import millions of illegals and turn kids into LGBTQ because both groups overwhelmingly vote for Dems. They destroy America to rule America, forever. The civil war has begun and the Dems started it.
I actually think there’s more to it than that. They want to destroy America.
Elon Musk Claims Biden Is Trying To ‘Get As Many Illegals in the Country As Possible’ So He Can Make a ‘One-Party State’
The only thing mentioned on the radio news thiis morning is that there is a pro-renewable rally om today in NSW, quoting some unionist saying they’re the jobs of the fewcha, etc etc.
In other words, the renewables crowd has its talking points everywhere in the media to try to pre-empt the Tuesday anti-renewables rally.
PS: the radio news I get is from a new outfit called Australian Independent Radio (AIR), which is surprisingly balanced and actually tells me stuff I didn’t know, so I await its coverage of the anti-renewables rally as a test of its credibility.
Robby Starbuck
@robbystarbuck
Today we make history on @X by premiering our film “The War On Children” here. Watch the trailer and then help us prove filmmakers don’t need woke studios to succeed by subscribing to watch the full film.
What’s the film about?
Mike Benz
@MikeBenzCyber
DHS had an insane role in J6, an insane role in censoring millions of voices who opposed mail-in ballots for the 2020 election, & an insane role in opening our border to invasion.
When it’s too dirty for the FBI, it’s done by DHS.
Mike Benz
@MikeBenzCyber
In 2020 a leaked zoom call at PayPal showed how they systemically blocked financial payments to conservative activists deemed to be “anti-immigration.”
How did we get to this point? The law itself is weaponized again ordinary people.
Montana governor defends removal of 14-year-old from parents who opposed gender identity
How much could the farmer protests cost Europe’s economy?
Anti-renewables or pro-renewables – which one will include pally flags.
Black-only swim times, Black-only lounges: The rise of race segregation on Canadian universities
The West’s humiliating electric car climbdown has begun
I mean, what else do they have to worry about?
It begins: Ethiopia set to become first country to ban internal combustion cars
RESIGN! Soros-Funded Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg Issues Public Statement Following the Release of Illegal Immigrants Who Brutally Attacked NYPD Cops — Claims Insufficient Evidence Despite Video Footage
Texas Proves Biden Could Have Stopped Border Crisis: Stats Show Powerful Effect of Real Border Defense
Perfectly believable. Morrison (spit!) was fully onboard. He turned the government into an effective dictatorship and put a General in charge of coercing the public.
US Military has secretly been controlling Australia’s Health Institutions & COVID Vaccine Roll-Out
If Mr Cent and Mr Broadus endorse Trump and Dr Andre Romell Young pushes an anti feminist narrative after his awful divorce, (which will foil the Taylor Grift psy op) then there’s a good chance Trump can win at least the black male vote.
The old ones were good. Now they are all made in China and the quality is rubbish.
Connoisseur vegan plant-based ice cream tub recalled over milk concerns
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/food/food-warnings/connoisseur-vegan-plantbased-ice-cream-tub-recalled-over-milk-concerns/news-story/200a2832899854b7ecbb0269ee029fc5
A couple of weeks ago I was getting the car cleaned at Big Mall & went upstairs to kill time at the shops.
I popped into the ColesWorths and what struck me was how many dairy free “ice creams” there are now.
They wouldn’t be stocked if the punters weren’t buying them.
When the left eventually concocts some horrid crime (such as misgendering someone just coming out of their ‘cutting’ phase, which came after their bulimic phase, which came after their torturing animals phase) to socially delegitimise X, are they going to call it…Elongate?
zerohedge
@zerohedge
All “jobs” added in the past year have been part-time workers
Can some fathers of daughters comment on modern swimsuits? I’m not a prude but they’re scandalous these days.
BBC employee called Jewish people ‘Nazis’ and whites ‘parasites’
It’s a safe wager that she didn’t just start making such comments yesterday. So why was she hired in the first place and why is she still employed? In fact, given UK anti-hate laws, why isn’t she in prison?
More evidence that the legacy meja deserves to die. I gave up on the BBC 20 years ago.
Rubbish like queva are psychotic and evil. Says it all about the modern pommy establishment that it would cossett such poisonous trash.
Ben Cousins is a Yokai.
He’s a human faced drug detection dog.
Looking for a downside here..
I went to Opera in Fed square (Melbourne) yesterday afternoon – a free event on this time each year. Although the venue should be called SBS square as they have their premises and sign there and there is no sign of Aus flags or Federation anywhere.
Twas very hot but as the event only lasted an hour we were prepared to tough it out. To commence proceedings a chap gets up and starts with acknowledgement to first nations …i start moving toward the bar. As I disappeared into the air con the last words I heard were ‘culturally safe’.
I buy a beer and a G&T for my better half. On return she has secured a table in the shade and the music is kicking off.
After such an awful start the event was terrific.
My girls can afford to have bottoms in their swimsuits.
Good swimsuit lycra is expensive.
He’s taking Biden on alright;
Muddy, what I actually meant was the left changes history to suit themselves so saying what was in the past is almost as unpredictable as the future.
On the segregated pools, scuttlebutt at the 19th suggested that the local school has an indigenous classroom. Doesn’t surprise me but I would be interested if it’s for permanent use or only periodic for cultural classes.
Will enquire further. If it is a segregated class, it’s yet another education scandal.
I do know that at a state school not too far up the road an amazing transformation has occurred. This year it has twice the indigenous as last year. And you guessed it – more state funding.
It’s rather amusing if it wasn’t so ruinous. We should all identify as indigenous and watch the place explode.
Progressive Seattle lawmaker who’s pro-defund the police and once condoned looting demands recall of Kias and Hyundais to tackle soaring vehicle theft in city
So, it’s the car’s fault they keep getting stolen in the lawless leftist paradise that the ‘progressives’ created. Got it.
A reminder that history doesn’t always repeat,
but sometimes it rhymes.
Maximise the contribution of migrants to their social objectives
reads like something from Yes, Minister.
Why? They hate us. If they want to segregate then fine by me, as long as standards are maintained across the board. I can think of many benefits.
Correct.
Remember, it’s not just the Americam left that wants to import a replacement electorate and turn the country into a one-party state run by the Democrats.
The ALP-Greens regime won’t rest until Australia is full of Arab terrorists and their useful rentacrowd street gangs.
Bern, I don’t like Australian icecream except Connoisseur from the supermarket. Aldi have a kiwi brand that is pretty good. Most supermarket icecream has little cream in it and lots of ice, also vanilla flavouring leaves a lot to be desired.
Separate but equal? How passe.
That one went up in flames in the early 1960s as I recall.
Tom
We should encourage them to form their own “communidies” in a limited number of electorates. Minimise the electoral effect. As Makka noted, “They hate us. If they want to segregate then fine by me”. Let them gather into small, tight knit communidies, and then stay in them.
Ethiopia banning ICE sounds like comedy until you understand that the UN will spend unlimited amounts to implement it and will lie about the outcome.
It is fascinating how crap countries take turns at owning the UN bureaucracy. In the olden days, it was Irish, Greeks and Nigerians. Now Tedros has put his hell hole in charge with Iranian support. He must be a genius.
Of course the Irish are still there.
And of course, pay their own way.
The average western grocery store parking lot likely has more ICE vehicles than the entire country of Ethiopia. So they aren’t really “giving up” anything and are likely being well paid off by the UN to pretend to.
Give it a year and when the publicity has blown over what few they have will be back on the road.
Zatara
Feb 4, 2024 9:12 AM
Progressive Seattle lawmaker who’s pro-defund the police and once condoned looting demands recall of Kias and Hyundais to tackle soaring vehicle theft in city
Zatara,
And in the UK – Jaguar Land Rover
Jaguar tells ministers stopping car thefts more important than tax cuts
As JLR reveals highest quarterly profit since 2017, its boss calls for UK to spend more on policing
The boss of Jaguar Land Rover has called on ministers to increase spending on policing to prevent car thefts rather than making tax cuts, after the Range Rover maker was hit by a wave of thefts of its luxury vehicles.
Adrian Mardell, the British carmaker’s chief executive, said: “I would rather funds be put towards this rather than tax cuts next year. This is important to so many people. It goes to the fabric of the society we’re in. We’ve got to sort this out.”
Insurance premiums for JLR’s luxury vehicles have soared, prompting the company to relaunch its own insurance cover last October. Some insurers have refused to cover Range Rovers.
Insurance prices have soared to as much as £30,000 a year for drivers of JLR’s cars — which start from £33,000 for the Jaguar XE and go up to £160,000 for Range Rovers — prompting the company to offer its own insurance cover in an attempt to prevent cancelled orders.
The company, which is owned by the Indian conglomerate Tata, is spending more than £15m updating 450,000 older vehicles with new security software, and has installed it on 80,000 so far.
“The theft rates of those enhanced vehicles are as low as the new vehicles,” Mardell said. “Speed of delivery, that is a problem.
Many of these customers we don’t know because they’re second and third sales.”
Of the 12,800 vehicles of the latest Range Rover sold since its launch two years ago, only 11 have been stolen.
“We’ve got to make it more difficult for gangs and people to operate,” Mardell said. “We’re partly funding police security at the ports because there isn’t enough. The containers are not being checked, and they get out of the country.”
“Should companies have to finance police authorities and security authorities?” asked Mardell. “Look, I think we need a national conversation about that [and] an industry based and a government-based discussion around the reasons for this, the organised crime [and] what we can do to stop it.”
Another Great African Import to Australia
A manhunt is under way after a woman was stabbed to death at a shopping centre
A grandmother was stabbed to death in the carpark of a suburban shopping centre in front of her young granddaughter.
A manhunt is under way after a woman was stabbed to death in front of her six-year-old granddaughter at a suburban shopping centre in what police have called “an abhorrent” attack.
The 70-year-old woman was stabbed in the chest in the underground carpark of at Town Square Redbank Plains Shopping Centre, west of Brisbane, about 6.10pm on Saturday.
Queensland Police Detective Acting Superintendent Heath McQueen said the stabbing appeared to be a robbery turned violent.
“Let’s be clear, this is an abhorrent, cowardly, violent attack on a 70-year-old grandmother in front of her six-year-old granddaughter,” he said.
“This is a very confronting scene.”
Superintendent McQueen appealed to the public for help in finding the attacker.
“This is a 70-year-old grandmother, this is in front of her six-year-old granddaughter, and now is the time to step up and come forward and provide us with information that we need as to who the identity of this offender is,” he said.
Superintendent McQueen said a witness had described the male offender as African in appearance.
I suspect there’s an understory to that one. Ethiopia has just completed a ginormous hydroelectric dam on the Blue Nile. They will want to sell all the extra electricity to a captive market. Furthermore their balance of payments will be helped if they don’t have to import gasoline and diesel for cars. They don’t have much in the way of exports to pay for oil imports.
Will eliminating Hamas work?
It doesn’t matter if it works from a perspective of the overall political/military objective. It definitely works from the perspective of there being a whole lot less sub human barbarians on earth.
Ukraine is going through a crisis in civil-military relations which will have a tremendous impact on how it goes forward regarding the ongoing conflict with Russia.
President Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly summoned the commander of the Ukrainian armed forces, General Valerie Zaluzhny, to a meeting on Monday, January 29, 2024, where he informed his military commander that he was being relived from his position.
According to accounts that have appeared in western media, Zaluzhny refused to step down.
As of Friday, February 2, 2024, the precise status of General Zaluzhny remains uncertain amid a swirl of rumors regarding his imminent dismissal.
The rift between Zelensky and Zaluzhny represents a serious blow to one of the fundamental principles which underpins democratic society—a civil-military relationship predicated on the simple proposition that a democratically elected civilian leadership is the final authority on all matter, including military, and in the case of disputes between the civil and military leadership, civilian authority retains supreme authority.
If the reports of what is tantamount to a refusal to obey the lawful order of his civilian commander in chief are true, General Zaluzhny has opened a pandora’s box which, if left unresolved, could lead to the rapid unravelling of Ukraine’s civilian-controlled government and open the door for the emergence of a government that is either subordinated to the will of the Ukrainian military, or which has been replaced by a military junta.
Neither bodes well either for the sustainment of the notion that Ukraine functions as a democracy along the lines of its European and American allies, or for the prospects of stable governance for Ukraine at a time when it faces unprecedented economic, military, and foreign policy challenges.
Global Resistance Grows: Countries Unite in Farmers Protest Against Green Agenda
That would be fine and they do that, except they don’t stay in them. They use them as bases to terrorise the rest of the punters at large. Aside from the Cronulla ‘riots’ magnificently set out by Mr Thomas in Q Oline recently, all the big southern capitals have significant drama with a variety of ghetto-driven criminals.
The 70 year old nanna mentioned just above is just a tiny microcosm.