Open Thread – Mon 5 Feb 2024


Lower Manhattan (Broad Street and Wall Street), Childe Hassam, 1907

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Digger
Digger
February 5, 2024 12:07 am

Boo…

Harlequin Decline
February 5, 2024 12:17 am

Two

Bruce in WA
February 5, 2024 12:27 am

Sometimes it’s good to be King …

Pogria
Pogria
February 5, 2024 12:45 am

Quattro.

Gabor
Gabor
February 5, 2024 1:22 am

A question to those more politically astute.

How come one party states (openly stated communist in the constitution) survive so long? Cuba came up in a convo, they have elections and over 70 % turned out to vote.

Now, given you can only vote for the candidate the party puts up, why bother?
There must be a sizable portion of the population who are happy with the status quo, and get something out of the system.

Only Cuba was mentioned because there does not seem to be open oppression, or is there, and we just don’t know.

Dr BG?

There are other countries of course where dictatorships exists but that is in the open.
Even Venezuela lets people emigrate, I think the more go the happier the government is.

Tom
Tom
February 5, 2024 4:00 am
Tom
Tom
February 5, 2024 4:02 am
Tom
Tom
February 5, 2024 4:03 am
Tom
Tom
February 5, 2024 4:04 am
Tom
Tom
February 5, 2024 4:07 am
Tom
Tom
February 5, 2024 4:08 am
Tom
Tom
February 5, 2024 4:10 am
Tom
Tom
February 5, 2024 4:11 am
Tom
Tom
February 5, 2024 4:12 am
Tom
Tom
February 5, 2024 4:13 am
Tom
Tom
February 5, 2024 4:14 am
Tom
Tom
February 5, 2024 4:15 am
Johnny Rotten
Johnny Rotten
February 5, 2024 4:30 am

Thanks Tom.

Black Ball
Black Ball
February 5, 2024 4:48 am

Geez they are really ramming it down your throat. Even after people voted against the shit at a referendum. Started with Ayers Rock and will continue creeping in. Herald Sun:

Town Hall’s plan to prioritise prominent women and Indigenous names for places and roads within the City of Melbourne has hit a speed bump – most people surveyed about the plan don’t want it to happen.

The plan would have given “priority to Aboriginal language names and the recognition of historically significant women” for the “naming or renaming of roads, council buildings and facilities, features and localities.”

However, the council’s own report into community views on the proposal found that 61.3 per cent of survey respondents did not support those priorities for place naming within the City of Melbourne.

The report found only 33.2 per cent of respondents did support it, while 5.5 per cent were unsure.

Council Watch president Dean Hurlston said Melburnians supported equality and a fair go but wanted local government to focus on issues that matter most to the community.

“This result is no surprise. Councils need to get back to the basics and get them right first,” he said.

Feedback from the community found that no particularly culture, gender or demographic group should be prioritised and the strength of the connection to the local area should be a key factor in any naming decision.

One community member, who was surveyed, said: “we need to support all cultures – to support our multicultural community. Prioritising one is exclusionary to all the other many diverse cultures in Melbourne.”

Another community member said: “priority should not be based on political factors like gender and race. Rather, priority should be given to persons and events who have made significant contributions to society and culture.”

The report also found strong support for locals to be able to vote on new name options, with 74 per cent of respondents saying they would participate in a poll for a proposed name within the City of Melbourne.

A City of Melbourne spokesperson said the council wanted Melburnians to have a greater say in naming new roads and public places.

“We’re grateful to everyone who had their say on our draft Place and Road Naming Policy, and will now consider and incorporate their feedback,” the spokesperson said.

The report – which will be considered at the council meeting on Tuesday – recommends councillors vote for a plan to create “an updated Place and Road Naming Policy” by June.

If approved, the new plan would balance “the prioritisation of Aboriginal language and women in history … with enabling the ability to consider and progress names that tell local Melbourne stories”.

The community engagement report, prepared by the City of Melbourne, included responses from 205 community members – mostly using online methods.

The City of Melbourne is responsible for creating or changing the names of places and roads in the municipality. Any proposed name must comply with the naming rules for places in Victoria – which are set by the State Government.

Telling local Melbourne stories. Really?
So tell old mate from Texas what Naarm means, take the whole of 5 seconds and guessing a shrug of the shoulders and a “cool story partner” response.
The stories of the streets of the CBD however, the people who built Melbourne, I would think are more interesting. And important. Lonsdale, Collins, the many tributes to John Batman. That’s the history and must be maintained.
Sally Capp, fark orf.

Figures
Figures
February 5, 2024 4:52 am

John H

Remdesivir came long after the pandemic started.

Note the dishonesty. It was Remdesivir and ventilators but you conveniently ignored the ventilators because that destroys your narrative John.

And every time we get sick the symptoms and severity are different to the previous time we got sick. People supposedly with covid didn’t all get identical symptoms nor severity as each other so your point about individual observations is worthless.

The fact is that there were zero challenge dechallenge rechallenge events involving the “virus” and illness so there is therefore zero evidence the “virus” caused harm.

miltonf
miltonf
February 5, 2024 4:57 am

Andy Crapp is the face of the decaying, dirty Melbourne CBD. Marxism before clean streets and prosperity.

feelthebern
feelthebern
February 5, 2024 4:58 am

Rich Baris The People’s Pundit
@Peoples_Pundit

RE: a Democratic candidate’s ability to win the Electoral College, the bottom for non-college whites is ~34%.

That’s when it gets real shaky.

Our final 2016 had Hillary at 32%. Biden improved to 38% in 2020 final.

Biden is now at 29%. He cannot win the EC with that number.

When/how the DNC pull the switcheroo, it will be a wonder to behold.

miltonf
miltonf
February 5, 2024 4:59 am

Private skool gal. Of course.

Rosie
Rosie
February 5, 2024 5:06 am
Rosie
Rosie
February 5, 2024 5:09 am

Renaming costs a fortune.
Every single person, legal entity has a 101 important documents that would have to be changed.
Iirc a Sydney council tried to rename a street for the Ukraine war but backed off after the nonconsulted residents said no.

Black Ball
Black Ball
February 5, 2024 5:42 am

ABC continuing their prolonged, er, moronicity:

The ABC’s review into the way it handles racism is yet to start consultations with staff, despite the ­inquiry being announced as a top priority nine months ago.

The review was announced in May after an outcry over Stan Grant’s contentious comments on the ABC’s coverage of the King’s coronation and his subsequent claims that the media organisation failed to adequately support him when he was targeted with online abuse.

At the time, the ABC said it would “investigate and make recommendations about the ABC’s racism affecting staff”.

Five months later, Indigenous lawyer Terri Janke was appointed to head the review, but last week ABC boss David Anderson was forced to concede consultations with staff still had not started.

Indigenous businessman Warren Mundine said on Sunday that it should have taken only a “few weeks” to get the review up and running.

“It’s not good enough, it’s something which should have been done (by now) and yet they wait months before anything is done,” he said.

Indigenous senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price said the long time to start consultations was “disappointing but not surprising”.

“Just another reason fewer and fewer Australians are trusting the activist ABC,” she said.

The issue of internal racism flared again in December after the sacking of fill-in radio host ­Antoinette Lattouf, who is of Lebanese descent.

She alleges ABC staff who identify as “people of colour” are treated poorly within the media organisation, and has lodged a claim of unfair dismissal in the Fair Work Commission, saying she was dumped because of her race.

Grant, a Wiradjuri, Gurrawin and Dharawal man, left the ABC in August after 40 years in journalism and was critical of the ABC ­before his departure, hitting out at management and colleagues in a column for failing to support him.

“I am writing this because no one at the ABC – whose producers invited me onto their coronation coverage as a guest – has uttered one word of public support,” he wrote.

Grant also said news director Justin Stevens was “trying to change an organisation that has its own legacy of racism”.

Grant was contacted for comment last week but did not ­respond.

The ABC’s racism review was suggested by the chair and deputy chair of the Bonner Committee, the ABC’s primary advisory and representative body on matters ­relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff, and it was approved by Mr Anderson.

It is chaired by Indigenous journalist Dan Bourchier who headed up the ABC’s voice coverage. Last year, Bourchier revealed his personal battles with racism inside the ABC.

He said on Insiders last year that he was reluctant to go on programs, including political shows such as Insiders, because he felt that he received invitations to ­appear only because he was a ­“diversity pick.”

In a radio interview on the ABC last week, Mr Anderson said there was still a lot of work to be done on the review.

“There’s the Dr Terri Janke ­review that is under way at the ­moment and consultations will start in February and March,” he said.

“That is to look at what support we provide people who might ­experience racism at any level, ­because we need to stamp that out.”

Dr Janke, a Wuthathi, Yadhaighana and Meriam woman, was a strong advocate for the Yes vote in last year’s failed referendum, posting numerous images of herself on social media wearing a “Vote Yes” T-shirt while holding a sign­ ­“history is calling, vote YES for a First Nations Voice”.

An ABC spokesman said: “Dr Janke is widely respected and the ABC is grateful to have a leader of her calibre, knowledge and experience leading the independent ­review into ABC systems and processes in support of staff who ­experience racism.

The Australian contacted Dr Janke about her social media posts and within hours her X and Instagram accounts were closed to the public.

She has since deleted her posts about the voice and did not ­respond to questions.

Has a whiff of the Hawthorn rubbish that is still ongoing.
But this appointment of ‘Dr’ Janke intrigues me. A prominent Yes voter, influencer one might say. Obvious diversiteee hire, a massage to her ego that the ABC consider her view important. You are just that Janke. The ABC don’t give a fat rat’s clacker about you. Or any other Australian not in the clique.
And why would she delete all posts related to Teh Voice? Thinking there might be a slew of strong anti Coalition/No voter/anti Price sentiment in there.

Miltonf
Miltonf
February 5, 2024 6:01 am

Another ‘dr’. Yuk.

Beertruk
February 5, 2024 6:25 am

Tim Blair in today’s Tele:

Tim Blair: Where is the logic in anti-Jewish hate speech?

Australia’s pro-Palestine movement is so riddled with intellectual hallucinations and fantasy beliefs that it tries to convince itself that massive self-inflicted failures are actually triumphs, writes Tim Blair.

5 Feb 2024

An old journalist colleague was once warned about his drinking, which had become a daily enhancement of his working life.

His editors in particular insisted, given that our mate was routinely unproductive during afternoons, that he stop drinking at lunch.

With his job on the line, the colleague agreed. And then, the very next day, he turned up at the office after lunch reeking of booze.

Challenged by his bosses, the miscreant presented what he thought was an unbeatable defence. He hadn’t been drinking constantly throughout the entire break, he said. He’d only “had a couple”.

Denial isn’t only a feature of alcoholic rationalising.

Australia’s pro-Palestine movement is so riddled with intellectual hallucinations and fantasy beliefs that it also tries to convince itself that massive self-inflicted failures are actually triumphs.

That’s why Palestinian activists and their supporters were running delirious victory laps all weekend on social media.

They were inspired to do so after NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Mal Lanyon announced on Friday that anti-Jewish mobs at the Sydney Opera House back in October did not, in fact, chant “gas the Jews”.

Lanyon revealed that an “eminent expert” from the National Centre of Biometric Science, no less, had “made an examination of the audio and visual files taken from outside the Opera House on that occasion”.

His finding? “The expert has concluded with overwhelming certainty that the phrase chanted during that protest, as recorded on the audio and visual files, was ‘where’s the Jews?’, not another phrase as otherwise widely reported.”

Well, hooray for that. The Jew-hating mob clearly chanted “f… the Jews”, as police confirm, but they didn’t say “gas the Jews”.

They merely asked where the Jews were, as they raucously celebrated Hamas’s rape, torture, slaughter, animalistic defilement and abduction of more than 1000 Jews just a day or so earlier.

How completely innocent and reassuring. Not.

“Where are the Jews?” was repeatedly asked by Nazi SS officers as they searched Warsaw’s ghetto during World War II. Discovery meant death.

The same terrifying question was asked more recently by anti-Jewish gangs in Europe. CNN’s political correspondent Dana Bash reported: “Sunday, October 29 in southern Russia, barely three weeks after the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, an angry mob stormed the tarmac and rushed to the plane that had just arrived from Tel Aviv. They were hunting for Jews.”

“They weren’t saying give us the Israelis, which would have been terrible anyway,” Deborah Lipstadt, the US Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism, told the network. Instead, the hunters asked: “Where are the Jews? Where are the Jews?”

Remarkably, however, claims that Sydney’s Jew-hating Opera House crowd chanted “where’s the Jews” were presented by activist and dumped ABC stand-in host Antoinette Lattouf as a complete personal vindication.

“It took 100+ days, but NSW police can now confirm there’s no evidence ‘gas the Jews’ was chanted outside the Opera House,” Lattouf posted on X. “(Online reporter) Cameron Wilson and I investigated the authenticity of the AJA (Australian Jewish Association) edited and distributed video. Then I was savagely targeted for doing accurate journalism.

“I look forward to receiving apologies from The Australian, Sky News, Australian Jewish Association, Executive Council for Australian Jewry and at least a couple of WhatsApp groups.”

Lattouf, currently taking legal action against the ABC, is perhaps a little optimistic on that front. Her “accurate journalism” mostly speculated in a doubt-inducing way about the origin and editing of the videos in question.

But Deputy Commissioner Lanyon confirmed the videos “have not been doctored”. Interestingly, Lattouf also apparently heard “gas” rather than “where’s”, writing with her co-author that the videos appeared “to show pro-Palestinian protesters chanting ‘gas the Jews’.”

All the police investigation did was propose an alternative word to “gas”, resulting in a different phrase still loaded with anti-Jewish hatred and menace.

Everything else – the torching of Israeli flags, the “f… the Jews” chant, the October 7 triumphalism, the Hamas cheerleading and the authenticity of the videos distributed by the AJA – is either clearly documented or supported by police examination. Both Lattouf and Wilson acknowledged that other anti-Jewish chants were made.

Still, “don’t hold your breath waiting for retractions and apologises (sic) from those in the business of propaganda in service of genocide,” wrote another Australian activist, Randa Abdel-Fattah, who on Friday said she was having “flashbacks to being grilled about the doctored video” by Sky’s Erin Molan.

In that October 13 “grilling”, Molan reasonably enough invited Abdel-Fattah to watch and listen to the Opera House videos.

“They say ‘eff the Jews’ and ‘gas the Jews’,” host Molan pointed out following the clip.

In response Abdel-Fattah took matters beyond even the level of biometric science. “I didn’t hear anything,” she said.

Someone call NSW Police. We need an expert ruling on this. And, personally, several daytime drinks.

Tim Blair
Journalist

Zatara
Zatara
February 5, 2024 6:42 am

Palestinians Claim Big Ben is Their Property and They Want it Back

The claim is that Big Ben originated as the Jerusalem clock which was installed in the Hebron Gate Tower in Jerusalem in 1909. It goes on to state that the clock was removed by the British in 1920 and eventually ended up in the ‘British Museum in London’ (as compared to being mounted in the clock tower of the Palace of Westminster).

What the claim doesn’t explain is how Big Ben, which was originally installed in 1859, somehow made the trip to Palestine and resided there for 11 years with no Londoner noticing it was missing. Or how it somehow became Palestinian property in the process.

As Daniel Greenfield states in his article:

But the story of the “Palestinian clock” is also the story of the entire myth of “Palestine”.

When you believe that the Jerusalem of King David and King Solomon was originally yours, you can just as easily believe that London’s Big Ben was originally the property of “Palestine”.

The “Palestinian clock” is as real as “Palestine”. The myth of a “Palestinian” people propounded by Fatah which has spent decades killing over it is also the story of the “Palestinian clock”.

When your entire history is fake, you can believe anything.

Beertruk
February 5, 2024 6:44 am

A real ‘winner’/sarc here:

LINGERIE CLAD DRIVER CHARGED WITH DUI
TAMARYN MCGREGOR
5 Feb 2024

A woman who was arrested wearing black leather lingerie after an e-bike rider was left in a critical condition when he was hit by a car has been charged with drink driving.

The 29-year-old cyclist was found unconscious by ambulance crews on the road in South Dowling Street in Moore Park at around 3.45 yesterday morning.

He was treated at the site by paramedics before being transported to St Vincent’s Hospital in a critical condition.

The 27-year-old woman allegedly driving the black Subaru was wearing only black leather lingerie and glasses at the time.

She returned a positive roadside breath test and a secondary test at the police station returned a reading of 0.095.

The Liverpool woman was charged with mid-range drink driving but has not been charged over the collision with the cyclist.

She is due to appear at Downing Centre Local Court on March 14.

A crime scene was established and specialist officers from the Crash Investigation Unit examined the site of the crash.

Witnesses or anyone with dashcam footage are urged to contact Crime Stoppers.

Beertruk
February 5, 2024 6:48 am

When your entire history is fake, you can believe anything.

Bruce Pascoe srings to mind.

Beertruk
February 5, 2024 6:49 am

Grrrr…:

springs

Cassie of Sydney
February 5, 2024 6:59 am

England has fallen. In Englandstan the very woke partisan plod will knock on your door to arrest you for a tweet, the very woke plod will arrest you for standing in silent prayer, the very woke plod will arrest you for singing gospel songs on the street, and the very woke plod will arrest you for speaking the truth about the reality of biology, that there are only two sexes. And of course Tommy Robinson, a hero in my eyes, is arrested for even turning up in London to try and participate in a rally against Jew hatred.

But participate at a pro-Palestinian protest, call Jews dogs and shout in praise of Adolf Hitler, why, there’s nothing to see here. Those people will not be arrested by the UK plod.

Palestinian Activist PRAISES Hitler In London

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMSNv5STzvo

Vale the land of Churchill, of Bomber Harris, of Dad’s Army, of Montgomery, of Dunkirk.

Dunno why they bothered.

We shouldn’t gloat here in Oz, because here’s a truth, we’re not far behind.

Beertruk
February 5, 2024 7:00 am

All the police investigation did was propose an alternative word to “gas”, resulting in a different phrase still loaded with anti-Jewish hatred and menace.

Joseph Goebbels who is unavailable for comment is residing in the deepest recesses of hell.

Katzenjammer
Katzenjammer
February 5, 2024 7:09 am

I’d be surprised if Hamas accept a temporary ceasefire given the situation in the region.

An extended pause of six weeks could give time within Israel to unseat Netanyahu.

Dot
Dot
February 5, 2024 7:14 am

An extended pause of six weeks could give time within Israel to unseat Netanyahu.

Really? His popularity hasn’t gone up?

PeterM
PeterM
February 5, 2024 7:20 am

Sydney Morning Herald
Sydney Morning Herald
Biden wins first Democratic primary in landslide

FMD

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
February 5, 2024 7:22 am

Just checking my accounts, brought some stuff out of china, goods coming from china, payment made to account in US. How to get money out of china?

Cassie of Sydney
February 5, 2024 7:23 am

An extended pause of six weeks could give time within Israel to unseat Netanyahu.

The Israeli left want that. Not sure it’s gonna happen though.

Beertruk
February 5, 2024 7:29 am

Anti-Israel groups split over number of white people in charge

Anti-Israel activists have fallen out bitterly over claims there are too many white people advocating for Gaza in a peak lobby group and that the use of a former Israeli soldier to back the Palestinian cause is wrong.

Block the Dock Melbourne, which targets Israeli shipping interests, has savaged Free Palestine Melbourne, claiming the umbrella campaigning group has been overrun by white ­people who do not speak for the people directly affected by the Middle East conflict.

The groups are two of the highest profile pro-Palestinian groups in Australia, often campaigning together to highlight their opposition to Israel’s ­response to the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel last October.

But the groups are at odds, with Block the Dock declaring publicly it was opposed to the lack of Palestinian people involved in FPM’s campaigning and against using a former ­Israeli soldier to promote their cause on ­behalf of those opposed to the Jewish state.

“What an embarrassment to the Palestinian community,’’ Block the Dock posted on social media. “We don’t need Palestinian killers in our community.

“90% of FPM is run by white people. White people do not speak for all Palestinians.’’

Israel ­lobbying sector, with some ­calling for it to be taken down and others stridently backing it.

The division came as Greens leader Adam Bandt ­declared at a Melbourne rally that the Albanese government should change course on its position on Israel, flagging his party would move a motion for such a change.

He said it was beyond doubt that the “far right-wing cabinet of (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu’s is intent on slaughter and dispossession’’.

“And it is time for Labor to change course,’’ he said.

Block the Dock is a radical left-wing group that has been camped at the Melbourne port, an engine room of the national economy, to try to disrupt Israeli-owned boats.

Israel’s ZIM is a global shipping line that activists accuse of helping the pro-Israel military cause.

The group has had only scattered success, but has received favourable coverage in some foreign media backing Gazans.

The entry to the dock has been defaced with anti-Semitic stickers, one declaring a picture of a Jew saying: “If I don’t steal it someone else will.’’

It was printed by the anti-Israel group @freepalestineprinting, which also has played a key role in the campaign against Israel and Jewish interests in Australia.

THEAUSTRALIAN.COM.AU04:25
‘Disgraceful’: Pro-Palestine protest in London facing backlash
Sky News host Rowan Dean has slammed a “disgraceful” pro-Palestine rally held in London over the weekend. It was the first march in London since the International Court of Justice handed down its verdict after South Africa’s accusations of genocide. The Metropolitan Police said it made several arrests after one More
The anti-Israel groups have ­relied heavily on social media to further their cause, with Sunday’s rally in Melbourne live-streamed.

The Block the Dock post provoked a mixed reaction, with one woman saying the campaigns should be run by Palestinians.

‘’I think it’s only a problem if whites are running the organisations, we can be involved as ­allies,’’ she wrote.

“Palestinians should be the main people running the cause, with other groups as allies – ­especially First Nations as they’ve suffered similar.’’

Another respondent defended FPM: “They do have Palestinians in their organisation. I know them. And like all good and decent ­organisations in Australia it is an inclusive and multicultural space for activist who support Palestine. It is not closed to anyone.’’

Melbourne’s pro-Palestinian rallies are heavily backing First Nations causes, with Aboriginal activist Robbie Thorpe a lead speaker at the Melbourne rally.

He has set up camp near Melbourne’s botanic gardens and intends to remain for months or until the parkland area is returned to the Indigenous community.

Mr Thorpe, the uncle of Independent senator Lidia Thorpe, wants the land to be given back to the people of the Kulin nation.

The area is a burial ground for the dozens of Aboriginal people repatriated by the Museum of ­Victoria in 1985.

Block the Dock and FPM did not respond to requests for comment.

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Beertruk
February 5, 2024 7:30 am

FFs.

Dot
Dot
February 5, 2024 7:33 am

I will repost each word wall I see from now on.

You have been warned.

Cassie of Sydney
February 5, 2024 7:37 am

Beertruk, when you post pieces, you need to edit them.

Beertruk
February 5, 2024 7:37 am

What I MEANT to post:

Leftards eating their own…

Paywallion:

Anti-Israel groups split over number of white people in charge

EXCLUSIVE
By JOHN FERGUSON
ASSOCIATE EDITOR

5 Feb 2024

Anti-Israel activists have fallen out bitterly over claims there are too many white people advocating for Gaza in a peak lobby group and that the use of a former Israeli soldier to back the Palestinian cause is wrong.

Block the Dock Melbourne, which targets Israeli shipping interests, has savaged Free Palestine Melbourne, claiming the umbrella campaigning group has been overrun by white ­people who do not speak for the people directly affected by the Middle East conflict.

The groups are two of the highest profile pro-Palestinian groups in Australia, often campaigning together to highlight their opposition to Israel’s ­response to the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel last October.

But the groups are at odds, with Block the Dock declaring publicly it was opposed to the lack of Palestinian people involved in FPM’s campaigning and against using a former ­Israeli soldier to promote their cause on ­behalf of those opposed to the Jewish state.

“What an embarrassment to the Palestinian community,’’ Block the Dock posted on social media. “We don’t need Palestinian killers in our community.

“90% of FPM is run by white people. White people do not speak for all Palestinians.’’

The weekend post by Block the Dock provoked a strong ­response across the anti-Israel ­lobbying sector, with some ­calling for it to be taken down and others stridently backing it.

The division came as Greens leader Adam Bandt ­declared at a Melbourne rally that the Albanese government should change course on its position on Israel, flagging his party would move a motion for such a change.

He said it was beyond doubt that the “far right-wing cabinet of (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu’s is intent on slaughter and dispossession’’.

“And it is time for Labor to change course,’’ he said.

Block the Dock is a radical left-wing group that has been camped at the Melbourne port, an engine room of the national economy, to try to disrupt Israeli-owned boats.

Israel’s ZIM is a global shipping line that activists accuse of helping the pro-Israel military cause.

The group has had only scattered success, but has received favourable coverage in some foreign media backing Gazans.

The entry to the dock has been defaced with anti-Semitic stickers, one declaring a picture of a Jew saying: “If I don’t steal it someone else will.’’

It was printed by the anti-Israel group @freepalestineprinting, which also has played a key role in the campaign against Israel and Jewish interests in Australia.

The anti-Israel groups have ­relied heavily on social media to further their cause, with Sunday’s rally in Melbourne live-streamed.

The Block the Dock post provoked a mixed reaction, with one woman saying the campaigns should be run by Palestinians.

‘’I think it’s only a problem if whites are running the organisations, we can be involved as ­allies,’’ she wrote.

“Palestinians should be the main people running the cause, with other groups as allies – ­especially First Nations as they’ve suffered similar.’’

Another respondent defended FPM: “They do have Palestinians in their organisation. I know them. And like all good and decent ­organisations in Australia it is an inclusive and multicultural space for activist who support Palestine. It is not closed to anyone.’’

Melbourne’s pro-Palestinian rallies are heavily backing First Nations causes, with Aboriginal activist Robbie Thorpe a lead speaker at the Melbourne rally.

He has set up camp near Melbourne’s botanic gardens and intends to remain for months or until the parkland area is returned to the Indigenous community.

Mr Thorpe, the uncle of Independent senator Lidia Thorpe, wants the land to be given back to the people of the Kulin nation.

The area is a burial ground for the dozens of Aboriginal people repatriated by the Museum of ­Victoria in 1985.

Block the Dock and FPM did not respond to requests for comment.

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
February 5, 2024 7:39 am

How come one party states (openly stated communist in the constitution) survive so long?

Reminds me to remind those who might be interested that The Death of Stalin hits Netflix on Friday.

Mak Siccar
Mak Siccar
February 5, 2024 7:43 am

For Cassie and others, the always excellent Chris Mitchell in the Oz.

CHRIS MITCHELL

Australian media fails to understand history of the Middle East, and its coverage of the war is puerile

9:30PM FEBRUARY 4, 2024

Israel was once the darling of the international left, its kibbutz commune movement lauded as practical socialism in action.

The Australian Labor Party was a staunch ally of Israeli Labor. Former prime minister Bob Hawke was a hero in the Jewish homeland for his role in negotiating the right of return for thousands of Jewish refuseniks from Russia in the 1980s.

Now a dumbed down media and international humanitarian law infected by the politics of identity are inverting history to support puerile allegations of genocide against the only nation on Earth that truly understands genocide. This against a democracy where Jews, Muslims, Christians and Druze can all vote.

A couple of prominent Jews in media here, Louise Adler and Antony Loewenstein, have been at the forefront of criticism of Israel. Loewenstein believes Israel’s Jews could thrive in a single state including all of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.

This one-state idea is just as naive as continued faith in a two-state solution in the face of Palestinian statements advocating the murder of Jews.

The truth is Israelis who once supported a two-state solution now have a clear understanding of what a Palestinian state would look like: Gaza.

When then Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon pulled out of Gaza in August 2005, removing Israel Defence Forces troops and forcing Israeli settlers to leave, he in effect created the first ever Palestinian state. That state voted in 2006 for Hamas – an Islamist terror organisation formally committed in its 1989 charter to the destruction of Israel.

Yet as The Australian’s columnist “Jack the Insider” wrote on Thursday, the Western left sides with this cousin of ISIS that executes gays, bans abortion and accepts child marriage for Palestinian women. Too many journalists in Australia ignore the protection that women and gays enjoy in Israel, which decided in 2022 to give refuge to persecuted Palestinian gays from the West Bank and Gaza.

What is happening here? Too much media coverage is informed by the idea Israel is a colonial European power even though more than half its Jews are descended from people who never left the Middle East when the Romans expelled them in 19AD.

Israel’s critics use the language of black oppression borrowed from the US, especially after the Black Lives Matter movement. Intersectionality says all systems exist to oppress non-white people. It is therefore the responsibility of moral people to oppose whiteness – giving Israel’s critics the opportunity to criticise Jews by racialising them as white. Yet most Jews in Israel are Mizrahi and look pretty much the same as most Palestinians.

This ideology attributes the success of Jewish society to white privilege. It infantilises Palestinians and absolves their leaders from responsibility for their people.

Young journalists interested in the truth should read a January 28 Newsweek piece by West Bank-based Palestinian human rights activist Bassem Eid.

“This truth must be told: it is Israel – and the Zionist Jewish community preceding independence – that consistently offered compromise, dialogue and a two-state solution. And it is Palestinian demagogues valuing personal power over the good of their people who have rejected these open-handed offers,” he wrote.

This column has previously traced the failures of Palestinian leadership since 1947. Eid goes back to 1922 and the League of Nations vote to establish a Jewish state and a separate Palestinian state comprising all the West Bank, Gaza and all of what is now Jordan. Arab leaders rejected the idea.

In 1937, the British Peel Commission proposed a partition giving Jews a tiny Israeli state while Palestinians (called Arabs at the time) were to receive the rest of the British Mandate Palestine as a Muslim state. Palestinian leader Haj Amin el-Husseini rejected the idea and as this column outlined on October 14 went on to collaborate with Adolf Hitler and Germany’s Nazi Party.

Also collaborating with the Nazis at the time were Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, which gave birth to Hamas. This is the background of groups the left media is now supporting.

So how did the left come to see Israel, attacked by its Arab neighbours in 1948, 1967 and 1973, as the real aggressor?

Tablet magazine on December 6 published an analysis by historian and columnist Gadi Taub, under the headline: “Why Israel is the #1 target of the global left”.

“Anti-Semitism has evolved through a breathtaking dialectical leap: it is now conveyed through the (language) of human rights. This is how a host of liberals and progressives – many of them Jews – have been seduced into supporting NGOs that claim to promote human rights, but are in fact promoting a racist view of Jewish people,” he wrote.

How can the idea of universal human rights be so distorted as “to yield an argument for the targeting and exclusion of Jews” from the right to self-determination?

NGOs portray Israel as a violator of human rights but say little about China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and most of Israel’s neighbours.

Taub discusses the preference of the UN and other NGOs for channelling a rights agenda through global institutions that undermine national democracies.

“As a nation state sworn to protect the rights of its citizens, Israel must protect itself from anti-democratic influences while respecting the choice of Jews in the diaspora to live their own versions of their Jewish identities,” Taub concluded.

Israel has started fighting back against these NGOs. Last week it formally complained about the involvement of 12 UN workers paid by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees in the terrorist attacks in southern Israel on October 7. Some journalists here criticised Western countries that suspended aid to UNRWA.

Yet the relationship between UNRWA and Hamas has allowed aid meant for ordinary Palestinians to be siphoned to Hamas, including materials used for the building of tunnels that had been donated by Western countries for building houses. Australia has given UNRWA $200m, the Adelaide Advertiser reported last week.

Revelations last week by Canadian lawyer and human rights advocate Hillel Neuer on CNN and on Sky News Australia’s Sharri Markson program of an UNRWA Telegram social media group of 3000 that celebrated the October 7 massacre are consistent with UNRWA’s track record.

One freed Israeli hostage has revealed she was kept in the home of a UNRWA health worker inside Gaza.

As far back as 2014, UNRWA was forced to apologise for the placement of Hamas rockets inside UN schools.

Israeli intelligence last week passed details to the US showing 23 per cent of all male UNRWA staff are Hamas members compared with 15 per cent of all male Gazans.

Israel’s leftwing Haaretz newspaper on December 12 published an article by journalist Ronny Linder detailing the celebration of terrorist “martyrs” in Palestinian school text books.

Linder asks why the UNRWA – set up in 1949 to deal with 700,000 Palestinians – is still active?

Why does UNRWA class Palestinians, who have settled in Jordan and are Jordanian citizens, as Palestinian refugees, Linder asks?

With 30,000 employees and a budget of more than $US1bn a year, isn’t the self interest of UNRWA – like that of Hamas – in keeping Palestinians poor?

Journalists, even from the ABC, need to ask such questions.

Beertruk
February 5, 2024 7:45 am

Cassie of Sydney
Feb 5, 2024 7:37 AM
Beertruk, when you post pieces, you need to edit them.

I know Cassie.
I was tryng to edit it but somehow it got away on me.
Think I should just put it all into word, edit it there, and then copy and past.
For some reason when I try to copy from the original it will race through and copy everything instead of just what I want.
Then in trying to go back and edit and fix it, somehow I have managed to ‘post comment’ in trying to fix said piece by mistake.
Bloody annoying.
And embarrassing.

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
February 5, 2024 7:54 am

Indigenous senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price said the long time to start consultations was “disappointing but not surprising”.

“Just another reason fewer and fewer Australians are trusting the activist ABC,” she said.

The ABC often touts results of (their own) surveys to declare that most Australians trust them, but the ratings tell us most people don’t watch it. There is a sort of mental inertia the ABC rides on among Australians who learned at some early age that the ABC was a trustworthy organisation and they have not watched it since to disabuse themselves – so like a spanner thrown in space where it encounters no other forces it just continues along the same path neither deviating nor slowing.

It might be why the ABC is so content to have such a tiny audience – if they aroused more curiosity in their programming and people watched then their reputation would be in the toilet.

Hell, I suspect half their audience only tune in to watch BBC period dramas and series about eccentric but brilliant detectives set in remote English towns – locations where the actual poison of the BBC (and ABC) has not yet leached through the soil.

calli
calli
February 5, 2024 7:55 am

On the Elizabeth Tower and the clock therein.

Apart from the obvious lie that the clock itself belongs to “Palestine”, they might like to know that “Big Ben” is the name of the bell, not the mechanism.

Brought to you by Pedants ‘R’ Us.

Cassie of Sydney
February 5, 2024 8:01 am

Watching the footage of the smirking NSW copper speaking on Friday morning on the findings of the ‘audio expert’, I scratched my head because I was reminded me of someone and that someone is…….Bull Connor.

Boambee John
Boambee John
February 5, 2024 8:02 am

The review was announced in May after an outcry over Stan Grant’s contentious comments on the ABC’s coverage of the King’s coronation and his subsequent claims that the media organisation failed to adequately support him when he was targeted with online abuse.

At the time, the ABC said it would “investigate and make recommendations about the ABC’s racism affecting staff”.

Assuming that the quote is accurate, Their ABC seems to acknowledge that it has in internal racism problem.

Dot
Dot
February 5, 2024 8:03 am

Looks like the COVID vaccines are dysgenic.

Beertruk
February 5, 2024 8:06 am

Apart from the obvious lie that the clock itself belongs to “Palestine”, they might like to know that “Big Ben” is the name of the bell, not the mechanism.

Often comes up in quizz shows.

Indolent
Indolent
February 5, 2024 8:07 am

Dr. John Campbell

Covid vaccines are safe

Dot
Dot
February 5, 2024 8:09 am

The complete dropping off of da boosters in Australia is hilarious and makes out what an absolute joke all of the coercion and health measures were all along.

I think the uptake rate is about 4% for 18 – 29 year olds, which is basically all graduate and mostly unmarried nurses etc.

It makes me laugh but it also angers me that I was coerced (to a less worse alternative) anyway, as soon as I got double vaxxxxed for my health, everyone literally stopped caring because of boom boom time in New Iraq and Greater Tartaria.

It’s annoying that I get angry because I promised to forgive people regarding COVID. However, I reserve the right to think of them as retarded children who ought to be income managed and on the NDIS.

calli
calli
February 5, 2024 8:10 am

Cass, I was thinking of this smug sack of sh*t.

A disgrace to his uniform.

But what else would you expect in Khan’s London?

Tolkien would have seen a similarity with his renegade Shiriffs who lorded it over the bewildered Hobbits.

Dot
Dot
February 5, 2024 8:13 am

I don’t get it.

Netanyahu wins a war more or less and his popularity drops to 15%?

Seems rather odd or the confluence of a left wing media in Israel trying to BS their way into a permanently “elected” leftist government.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
February 5, 2024 8:17 am

The irony is they can’t compete with Chinese manufacturers because renewables have made EU electricity so expensive. The Chinese of course rely on cheap coal.

EU mulls emergency aid for collapsing solar producers (4 Feb)

BRUSSELS — The European Commission is in early-stage talks on emergency measures to buoy drowning EU solar manufacturers who say Chinese subsidies are suffocating the industry, according to two people familiar with the matter.

On Monday, the Commission will make a statement on the teetering sector at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, while MEPs are also expected to debate ideas to prop up the industry.

The European car industry will soon be in similar straits.

Makka
Makka
February 5, 2024 8:18 am

US Jews should abandon the DemoRATS completely.

zerohedge
@zerohedge
·
16h
Progressive Dems In Congress Move To Block Funding For Israeli Weapons

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
February 5, 2024 8:20 am

His finding?… ‘where’s the Jews?’, not another phrase as otherwise widely reported.”

“It took 100+ days, but NSW police can now confirm there’s no evidence ‘gas the Jews’ was chanted outside the Opera House,” Lattouf posted on X.

Needless to say that ‘Where is the Jews’ is grammatically incorrect and, while I will willingly concede that we are not talking about people with much grammatical finesse, something as fundamental as singular/plural is pretty difficult to mess up. Out of sheer repetition in daily life that gets ironed out pretty early and only a handful of the people there would have been capable of the error. And it became a chant. Unless there was a reason to cling to the error you would expect crowd to unthinkingly repeat the correct form.

But it is lovely to see that Lattouf has such faith in anyone merely labelled an ‘expert’ without even for a moment pondering whether he really is credible. Must be. “Expert”.

She and the ABC live by their experts: Climate experts, Covid experts, vaccine experts, gender experts, race experts (these last two are usually academics although race could mean a 1/16 Aborigine who has memorised a tragic but fictitious history).

It must have been dizzying experience for her to question the expertise of the person in authority at the ABC who told her she had overstepped ABC guidelines and fired herself.

calli
calli
February 5, 2024 8:24 am

It’s annoying that I get angry because I promised to forgive people regarding COVID.

Quite.

Vestiges remain. RATs and masks (because, somehow neither works so must be used together) in nursing homes here are still demanded. Not so in most of Sydney where you’d think the “danger” would be greater.

Also, you can only forgive if forgiveness is asked. The only viable, non-blood pressure raising way is to ignore. I spent the better part of two years incandescent over what happened to Dad. AZ triggered a life altering auto-immune response that was also documented in the very young who had been injected . It wasn’t just an “old age” thing as someone here dismissed it as. It ruined what turned out to be the last precious years of his life.

He never caught Covid. Neither did Mum, my brother, his partner, the Beloved or myself. As a family, we seem to be immune to the thing, we didn’t even catch a cold in the entire time, and still haven’t.

This can’t possibly be because of the “vaccines”, as any bogus protection would have worn off over a year ago, and supposedly people in the Bay are still getting it, even a cluster at church a few weeks ago.

But getting back to forgiveness, I watched the Abdullah family unveil the memorial for their dead children at Oatlands last night. That mother’s face is a shining example of what inner beauty and peace expresses externally. She is lovely.

Crossie
Crossie
February 5, 2024 8:30 am

Block the Dock is a radical left-wing group that has been camped at the Melbourne port, an engine room of the national economy, to try to disrupt Israeli-owned boats.

The entry to the dock has been defaced with anti-Semitic stickers, one declaring a picture of a Jew saying: “If I don’t steal it someone else will.’’

But I thought they liked George Soros.

Beertruk
February 5, 2024 8:35 am

Hope this works properly.

Paywallion:

Why some Australians still need convincing the future lies in renewable energy

NICK CATER
5 Feb 2024

People in the regions have experienced the rapacious demand for land required to generate a moderately respectable amount of power from wind and solar. Picture: Dean Marzolla

Some Australians still need convincing the country’s future lies in renewable energy.
Last year, the Energy Minister asked the Energy Infrastructure Commissioner to investigate regional pockets of stubborn resistance and recommend ways of getting the doubters onside.

Andrew Dyer’s Community Engagement Review Report makes the bold assumption that Chris Bowen’s renewable energy plan can be put back on track, that his target of installing a 7MW wind turbine every 18 hours and 22,000 solar panels a day until 2030 is not as fanciful as it sounds. Opposition in the regions can be overcome by “ongoing excellence in community engagement and, more broadly, excellence in the execution of the energy transition”.

Engagement is a weasel word much loved by technocrats. It implies a two-way conversation, an exercise in exchanging information on the assumption that those in charge don’t possess the perfect knowledge needed to make perfect decisions.
In the minds of those who write these kinds of reports, however, engagement means no such thing. Engagement is the dissemination of a top-down plan, designed by people in the know.

Dyer says the government should develop a narrative “articulating why there is an urgent need for new renewable energy and transmission infrastructure”. He says opposition is often driven by “misinformation” and recommends the government establish one-stop information shops to help opponents get their facts straight.

He cites previous campaigns for efficient water use, cancer awareness and drink-driving as models of what could be achieved by appointing “an eminent, respected and independent spokesperson to engage the nation and be the ongoing champion of the energy transition”. Wisely, he steers clear of putting names to his proposal. The authority of most of those once considered national living treasures has been eroded by their endorsement of the voice referendum.

Dyer reflects on the role played by Sir John Monash in championing Victoria’s energy transition in the 1920s. This begs the question: Would Monash, the engineer who developed Victoria’s brown coal as a source of cheap and abundant energy, be prepared to champion wind and solar power today? Will wind and solar be powering the nation in a century’s time, the lifespan Monash anticipated for lignite?

General Sir John Monash

The transition to renewable energy will reverse the progress made by Australia between the wars. Cheap energy attracted productive capital from Britain and the US. The increase in domestic manufacturing was driven by the perceived need for power and industrial self-sufficiency after the experience of WWI. Expensive and unreliable energy is driving companies offshore. It is barely 10 months since the Albanese government announced a $15bn scheme to attract manufacturing jobs and avoid a repeat of the shortages of essential goods experienced during the Covid-19 panic. The fund has yet to accept a single application, and Australia has fallen to 93rd in the Harvard Growth Lab’s rankings for economic complexity, sandwiched between Uganda and Pakistan.

Nowhere is the cost of the renewable energy transition more keenly felt than in the regions. They know first-hand the pressures on small and medium businesses from rising energy prices. They have discovered the dirty secrets the inner city prefers to ignore. They have experienced the rapacious demand for land required to generate a moderately respectable amount of power from wind and solar. They have seen and heard the scale of the civil engineering works required to build endless access roads and level platforms for turbines and cranes, often in remote and rugged terrain. They have been disturbed by the aviation warning lights on top of the turbines that compete with the natural beauty of a night sky away from the city lights.

Their roads have been churned by hundreds of truck movements transporting blades, steel and concrete. They know what it is like to be patronised by know-nothing community relations agents with newly minted degrees in strategic communication from UTS.
A community survey conducted for the commissioner’s review shows the extent of their unease. Nine out of 10 (92 per cent) were dissatisfied with the standard of community engagement by developers. Explanations in response to questions were considered unsatisfactory by 85 per cent. Only 11 per cent considered explanations relevant to their questions, and 85 per cent thought their explanations were not addressed promptly.

The conclusion the commissioner painfully avoids presenting to the Energy Minister is that any chance of gaining the social licence he desires has long since been lost. The haughtiness, equivocation and condescension of some developers have trashed the industry’s reputation. Governments that are supposed to control the excesses of the free market have instead acted as their facilitators. MPs, supposed to stand up for their constituents, have been nervous about taking up their concerns, fearing being labelled as climate deniers.

The idea an official information campaign will put these people straight is fanciful. The arrival of broadband means rural Australians have abundant information about the limits of renewable energy. They can follow the news from the US and Europe, where appetite and investment for wind and solar are diminishing and governments are reaching for other ways to reduce emissions, such as nuclear.

The internet has brought together communities blighted by renewable development from Tasmania to the edge of Cape York. In the past year, individuals overwhelmed by fighting their own lonely battle against cashed-up corporations have coalesced into a fledging national movement, Reckless Renewables; remarkably, without professional support or funding.

On Tuesday, the protest goes to Canberra with a rally at Parliament House. The renewable energy lobby has already fired warning shots. GetUp, which received $80,000 in donations last year from Mike Cannon-Brookes, is promising to pepper Canberra with posters. Renew Economy, the renewable sector’s version of Pravda, has tried to belittle the participants, mocking the support they have received from MPs Barnaby Joyce and Pauline Hanson.

Bowen is unlikely to break his habit of entering parliament through the basement ministerial carpark and instead turn up at the front door. Put that down as a lost opportunity. His reception would have told him more about the country’s mood than any number of engagement reviews.

Nick Cater is senior fellow at Menzies Research Centre
NICK CATER
COLUMNIST

Johnny Rotten
Johnny Rotten
February 5, 2024 8:38 am

Indolent
Feb 5, 2024 8:07 AM
Dr. John Campbell

Covid vaccines are safe

The UK PM got it wrong.

They are safe AND effective according to the Feral Guv’ment here………../sarc

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
February 5, 2024 8:38 am

REPORT THIS AD

Indolent
Indolent
February 5, 2024 8:40 am

I have seen one example of this personally. A friend with a cancer which was dormant for decades but has suddenly come back aggressively. Plus a lot of people serious medical issues.

The covid booster cancer time bomb

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
February 5, 2024 8:46 am

The exact reason Elbow’s Voice blew up in his face (the Hun):

A staunch advocate for Aboriginal land and water rights says Victoria’s cultural heritage laws have been “hijacked” by individuals who use “standover tactics’’ to funnel money into some Aboriginal corporations.

Binjali-Ngarket-Ngintait man Darren Perry helped the state government draft cultural heritage laws in the early 2000s, but says in the decades since they have increasingly become exploited by “gangster-like” figures who are tarnishing their predecessors’ work for financial gain.

And:

Mr Perry, who was involved in consultations during the creation of the Cultural Heritage Act 2006, said the legislation must protect Aboriginal land rights but should not be used as a “gravy train” to line individuals’ pockets.

“The Act was not meant to extort money out of developers,” he said. “This is extortion. I know what standover tactics are, and that’s what’s going on.”

And also:

Mr Perry raised allegations of criminals cottoning on to the money-making laws, saying they had linked up with some Indigenous families to game the system.

“It’s a cartel. We have black gangsters, too,” Mr Perry said.

And here Mr Perry is bang on the money:

“A good measure of how wealth is being distributed is whether Aboriginal kids are in school, whether they have food on the table?” he said.

“All this money and we’re still failing at the grassroots.”

Perry also claims organised crime is getting its hooks into the extremely lucrative indig industry, and he’s right.

132andBush
132andBush
February 5, 2024 8:47 am

Out of sheer repetition in daily life that gets ironed out pretty early and only a handful of the people there would have been capable of the error. And it became a chant. Unless there was a reason to cling to the error you would expect crowd to unthinkingly repeat the correct form.

I noted this the other day and for the same reason.
I am, however, 50/50 on whether they actually would say “Wheres* the Jews” or the like in their everyday conversations.

Like I said in my earlier comment, it wouldn’t surprise given the demographic.

calli
calli
February 5, 2024 8:48 am

Further to the Big Ben nonsense, here is the story of the casting, testing and re-casting of the great bell.

It did not travel very far from its birthplace, as it turns out.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
February 5, 2024 8:55 am

Factoid for Lizzie.
Working on the most expensive electric heater at 2.1 kWh consumption and an electricity cost of 30 cents per kWh (which is high) you would have to run a heater 24/7 for two years to rack up $10k in usage bills.
Time for a more in-depth interrogation of the “boy” in my opinion.

Natural Instinct
Natural Instinct
February 5, 2024 8:57 am

A small glimmer of hope than black tape is breaking. Now forn the red and green tape.

In one video, an islander points to Cape Fourcroy – the westernmost tip of Bathurst island – and said it was the location of where Crocodile man entered the sea: seven km from the planned Santos pipeline. The islander is not told that at this point in history, Cape Fourcroy doesn’t yet exist in its current form.

“At that time [of the last Ice Age – 26,000-20,000 years ago] the shoreline lay well seaward of where it is today,” Justice Charlesworth said.

“The land masses now known as the Tiwi Islands did not exist as islands but rather formed a part of the mainland. The shoreline was located well north of the modern mainland shoreline, approximately 60 km south of the centre of what is now the Barossa Field.”

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 5, 2024 8:58 am

Labor puts carbon cap on new cars, industry revives ute fears

Phillip Coorey – Political editor

Utes, four-wheel drives and other light commercial vehicles could be phased or priced out of the market before there are genuine low-emission or electric alternatives, motoring groups have warned.

They expressed concern on Sunday after the federal government unveiled details of its long-awaited vehicle efficiency standards, which mandate that all categories of new cars must reduce emissions by more than 60 per cent by the end of the decade.

From January 1 next year, car makers will be forced to sell more electric and fuel-efficient vehicles into the Australian market or face financial penalties.

The standard, which Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen said would bring Australia into line with all other developed nations, would subject manufacturers to an overall emissions cap that their vehicles could collectively produce.

Labor says the new rules will save motorists about $1000 a year in average fuel costs by 2028, but the opposition, while not ruling out supporting the policy, claims it could make utes unaffordable.

The cap will be lowered each year, effectively acting as a carbon price in that it will force the increased manufacture of cleaner vehicles and the phasing out of more polluting petrol and diesel cars.

Under the model to be pursued by the government, passenger vehicles and SUVs, as well as the heavier category of utes, vans and large pick-ups will have to reduce their emissions by more than 60 per cent between 2025 and the end of this decade, at an annual average reduction of more than 12 per cent.

Based on vehicle emissions data for 2023 for the top 10 selling vehicles, emissions from utes and vans will have to fall 10.3 per cent just to reach the 2025 starting point, before dropping another 62 per cent by 2030.

Emissions from lighter cars will have to fall 6 per cent before dropping another 61 per cent.

While the government contends the vehicle emissions standard, which will only apply to new vehicles, will not affect the price or supply of diesel utes and four-wheel drives, for example, the industry fears the changes could be too fast.

It predicts that manufacturers could charge more for the more polluting cars, so they can sell the cleaner cars more cheaply, and that there will soon be fewer petrol and diesel cars on the market, meaning for those who need them for work or lifestyle, they will be more expensive.

There are also significant doubts the January 1, 2025, start date could be met, due to the need to establish a regulator, and the fact the car makers will not have the capacity to alter export patterns so quickly.

“The AAA encourages the government to release its modelling so the millions of Australians to be affected by this change can understand exactly what it means for them,” said Australian Automobile Association chief executive Michael Bradley.

Tony Weber from the Federated Chamber of Automotive Industries was concerned about the steep emission reduction targets and said the government must “ensure the affordability and mobility needs of consumers are considered throughout the consultation period”.

“Most important is that Australian families and businesses can continue to access the style of vehicle that suits their needs for work and recreation,” he said.

“On the surface, the targets seeking a 60 per cent improvement in emissions are very ambitious, and it will be a challenge to see if they are achievable, taking into account the total cost of ownership.”

According to a policy briefing note provided by the government, suppliers can still sell any type of car they choose, but will need to sell more fuel-efficient cars to offset the emissions of the less-efficient models they sell.

For each vehicle a supplier imports that beats the target, the supplier earns credits.

For each vehicle a supplier imports that misses the target, the supplier gets debits.

Credits can be used to offset debits. Net credits can also be traded with other suppliers.

A supplier has two years to use trades to offset any debit or face penalties of $100 per gram of excess emissions.

Australia, Russia are outliers

The standard, which is central to the government’s target of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, as well as the interim targets, will be subject to industry and community consultation before the details are finalised.

But Mr Bowen said only Russia and Australia had not adopted the mechanism, and it was time Australia caught up with the rest of the world.

The plan would result in Australia matching the United States in average vehicle efficiency by 2028.

The standard would not ban any particular model of car and there was no evidence from other countries that it had pushed up the price of less fuel-efficient vehicles.

“In other countries with a new vehicle efficiency standard, 4WDs and utes are still widely available,” the briefing note says.

“Even though the EU market has a stringent standard in place, vehicle models such as the Toyota Hilux and LandCruiser and Ford Rangers continue to be sold.

“The situation is similar in the US, where Ford Rangers, Toyota 4Runners, Tacomas and Tundra utes are available today.”

The opposition said it would assess the policy but warned “Australians’ favourite vehicles could soon be unaffordable if Labor’s fuel efficiency standard fails to strike the correct balance between minimising costs, reducing emissions and maximising choice”.

Mr Bowen said the increased supply of fuel-efficient cars would push down the price of electric vehicles and hybrids.

Currently, in Australia, there were just three models under $40,000 among the almost 100 models available.

There would also be substantial savings over time on petrol costs.

“Take the Mazda CX30,” he said. “The model available in the United Kingdom is 25 per cent more fuel efficient than the model available in Australia. Now, why should Australians be using 25 per cent more petrol than they need to?

“We’re giving Australians more choice to spend less on petrol, by catching up with the US – this will save Australian motorists $100 billion in fuel costs to 2050.

“This is about ensuring Australian families and businesses can choose the latest and most efficient cars and utes, whether they’re petrol and diesel engines, or hybrid, or electric.”

calli
calli
February 5, 2024 9:01 am

Sounds like someone of a horticultural bent has a thriving propagation business nearby.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
February 5, 2024 9:03 am

Beertruck wordwalls are almost a hanging offence, as suitable penance watch ALPBC aka HamarseBC for a week. Then you’ll think hanging was a better choice.

Makka
Makka
February 5, 2024 9:07 am

Perry also claims organised crime is getting its hooks into the extremely lucrative indig industry,

The indig industry IS organised crime.

JohnJJJ
JohnJJJ
February 5, 2024 9:11 am

Just an observation on Universities and Colleges here in Oz. Due the amount of $ from foreign students, they have gradually moved into visa factories. The courses whose aim was to benefit Australia, have now been dumbed down to ensure the foreign students such as Indian, Chinese and Nepalese, can pass.
The desperation for fees had given rise to the new Wellness Centre, staffed by well meaning, but clueless, social workers. The foreign students are way smarter and know that claiming mental issues is vague enough but allows you extra time and consideration. So they can work at the same time and pay off their debts in China or India.

All the lecturers and professors know this. Hence they now need to hire people who wont give the game away and be compromised enough to go with the unspoken corrupt system. The people hired know they are not the best and so form alliances – or little kingdoms of local power as they are promoted.. It is self reinforcing.

That is the next young doctor you go to, the next bridge you walk over and the next bureaucrat you plead with.

It has become a den of thieves where the honest man is the enemy.

Beertruk
February 5, 2024 9:15 am

GreyRanga
Feb 5, 2024 9:03 AM

Do you mean the link to the pics?

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 5, 2024 9:17 am

The Brit who predicted the NDIS disaster a decade ago

Dr Simon Duffy warned a decade ago that the design of the national disability insurance scheme created perverse incentives, leaving it flawed from day one.

Tom Burton – Government editor

The British social policy reformer who warned a decade ago that the design of Australia’s national disability insurance scheme was flawed from the start and would be expensive and unsustainable said his worst fears have come true.

Dr Simon Duffy cautioned in 2013 that the “problems created by the current design are so great that it will force the federal government to redesign the system in a matter of just a few years”.

“I see no evidence that this is a sustainable solution, and the last 10 years rather prove the point to me,” Duffy told The Australian Financial Review last week.

Duffy, who has studied “entitlement” schemes for more than 20 years, warns that the design created perverse incentives that would blow out the scheme costs.

He also predicted the state governments and local providers would pull out – just as he had seen in other countries – leaving the national scheme the only place to get disability support.

“The question of what people need is very, very slippery,” he said.

“If, as a matter of public policy, you create systems that encourage the commodification of need or the creation of need out of difference, then you’re going to have a big headache.”

A decade ago, Duffy, like many, was genuinely excited about the promise of a well-funded, world-leading disability scheme that finally created meaningful rights for the previously neglected disabled community.

But after a study trip to Australia, Duffy expressed deep concern about the scheme’s development.

“The proposed design for NDIS seems to share many of the features of the worst systems and just a few of the features of the best systems,” Duffy wrote back then.

“It is clear that if you design a system in the wrong way, you can invite new levels of demand, generate inflationary expectations and increase costs in ways that seem totally detached from the real level of need in the community. Often, this money goes into services – but does not benefit people.”

He warned the “hyper-centralised” scheme “imposed an unnecessary, expensive and centralised bureaucratic infrastructure” that risked critical community and state-level services being withdrawn.

Duffy accurately predicted that an increasing number of complex, opaque, and constantly changing administrative rules would be needed to control costs. This would lead to endemic confusion and distrust.

“The problems created by the current design are so great that it will force the federal government to redesign the system in a matter of just a few years.”

Duffy returned to Australia last year to co-write another review with NDIS participant Dr Mark Brown for the Disability Advocacy Network Australia. They concluded the system design is “flawed” and “seems unsustainable”.

In Duffy’s mind, no particular group is to blame. “Cost pressures keep increasing as everyone tries to do their best to meet their needs. It is the design of the system, not the behaviour of any particular group, that is causing the current set of interconnected problems.”

This has created what is known as the tragedy of the commons – when individual behaviour works against what is in everyone’s best long-term interest.

A 14-month review confirmed Duffy’s worst fears about the sustainability of the scheme, agreeing with him that “a human right which cannot be sustained is a human right denied”.

A $1.4trn monster unleashed

Modelled on no-fault traffic accident schemes, the path-breaking disability insurance scheme was originally predicted to cost $13.6 billion a year in 2011.

Around 460,000 participants were predicted to join the scheme.

This compared with around the 200,000 people who accessed a hotchpotch of community, state and federal services, costing around $9 billion at the time.

Despite not yet reaching maturity, the NDIS is supporting more than 610,000 people and is on track to cost $42 billion this financial year.

The government’s chief actuary, Guy Thorburn, peer-reviewed the latest sustainability report in October last year.

Thorburn noted every projection had underestimated the cost of the scheme and said that instead of a predicted flattening, the number of child entrants had grown 22 per cent over the 2022-23 period.

The latest NDIS baseline projection is for the scheme to double in size to 1.2 million users at an annual cost of nearly $125 billion by 2034.

That would mean the scheme is close to 3 per cent of GDP, double its current relative size.

Adjusting for last year’s $500 million of budget initiatives to manage the scheme better, the NDIS is still projected to cost $105 billion annually in a decade – well above the $95 billion target the budget and national cabinet projected for the scheme for 2034.

Thorburn’s analysis did not include the further $5 billion in savings the official review is projecting will occur by building community-based alternatives for the NDIS and better assessments.

In any case, these $10 billion of reforms are effectively being paid for by federal GST guarantees, meaning the taxpayer will be on the hook regardless.

As of June 2022, the NDIA predicted the scheme’s lifetime cost to be $1.4 trillion, with an average gross lifetime cost of $2.6 million per participant.

If Thorburn is correct that the reform savings will likely be washed aside by burgeoning child entrants, these eye-watering costs will be even higher.

Illusory results

Many of Australia’s most needy have materially benefited from the scheme’s support, and no one wants to return to the fragmented, poorly designed federal system of support that existed before the NDIS.

However, the official review was brutally honest in finding that the scheme’s key objectives were still far from being met.

For disabled people, health outcomes are nine times worse, school dropout rates are double, and employment levels are around two-thirds of persons without a disability.

A report by leading actuaries Taylor Fry and the Centre for International Economics looked hard to find and quantify benefits but could only identify around $7.6 billion in current benefits, mostly “life satisfaction”.

But with the promise of more concrete benefits as early intervention begins to be effective.

However, with the scheme’s illusory outcomes, the review frankly admitted the mess the much-vaunted scheme is now in.

In perhaps its most damming finding, the review said the NDIS design encourages disabled people to present the “worst of themselves” to get, and retain, ongoing support.

Precisely the opposite of the confident independent participants the scheme founders envisioned.

As Duffy warned, the financial incentive for providers who are paid for each service is to drive up activity rather than quality.

The review found that a scheme meant to give participants meaningful choice and control instead made them victims of complexity and uncertainty – all at a staggering cost.

As a senior official observed, the much-vaunted scheme has become “a monster”.

An ‘implementation’ problem

One of the reviewers, former NDIS chairman Bruce Bonyhady, is in no doubt where the scheme went wrong.

“The reason we’ve ended up where we are was because there were no supports outside the scheme,” said Bonyhady, who was the inaugural chairman of the NDIS.

“I think it largely was an implementation problem; it was never expected that all governments – and all governments did it – would vacate the field outside the NDIS.

And then the moment that happened, of course, you’ve got these enormous pressures on the scheme.”

“A key part of our recommendations is you’ve got to structure and manage the entire ecosystem, and you can’t just focus on one mission, which is individualised support for people with the most significant disabilities.”

Former NDIS chairman Bruce Bonyhady, is in no doubt where the scheme went wrong.

The “oasis in the desert” problem was worsened by the NDIA’s lack of resources to manage the scheme properly and a lack of clear cost accountabilities.

Under flawed agreements, the states had little responsibility or skin in the game for funding any cost overruns.

For Bonyhady, the answer is about restoring balance to the disability system. The states were always formally responsible for early childhood development and educational and other out-of-home supports for children.

Nowhere is the “oasis in the desert” problem more acute than with children with autism or delayed development.

Children with developmental delay were not even counted in the original 2011 Productivity Commission estimates, which focussed on permanent disability.

Disability groups successfully argued many conditions could be reversed if early intervention for developmental delay was funded, saving the NDIS higher costs in later life.

Clinicians and researchers say the evidence is now even more apparent that early diagnosis and intervention dramatically improve the chances of turning around developmental delay and autism.

But the cost of this well-intentioned, but arguably naive, extension of the scheme was never properly calculated nor understood.

And now risks the sustainability of the scheme for the other 500,000 permanently and seriously disabled people.

New entrants with developmental delay and autism account for 70 per cent of total new entrants, the only disability type that has been growing significantly above multiple forecasts.

All other disability types broadly reflect what was initially predicted, except delayed development and autism.

Autism advocate and retired data analyst Bob Buckley said disability officials have never been able to come to grips with delayed development and autism. Or the difference between prevalence and diagnosis.

“When the NDIS started, the actuaries told them that they should expect 9 per cent of participants to be autistic. But it’s now 35 per cent. The autism sector told them at the outset that they had the numbers very wrong.”

Misstep opens the autism ‘floodgates’

Buckley argues that the lack of clinical clarity around the definition of delayed development has opened a Pandora’s Box of claims.

“Developmental delay was introduced in section nine, the definition section of the NDIS Act.”

“It’s not a clinical definition. It’s not in the World Health Organisation [disease classification]. It’s not in the ICD 10 [International Classification of Diseases 10th Revision] nor in the DSM-5 [the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders].”

“It was created for the NDIS Act,” Buckley said.

Other autism advocates agree this was a crucial misstep.

“With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, you can come back now and say, well, that just opened the floodgates to literally any kid who had a little bit of a problem, and that is where we’ve got ourselves in a lot of trouble,” the founder of the Sydney-based Autism Awareness Australia group, Nicole Rogerson said.

“We now have these ridiculous inflated numbers of children in the scheme that have a diagnosis of autism, but who probably just are not.

They need some kind of help, they’re slower at learning, they’re slightly quirky kids, but they’ve all landed in the NDIS, which is a problem.”

Buckley is a retired data analyst and said it is delayed development and not autism that is driving the rapid increase in young children entering the NDIS. He points to data showing autism has almost halved as a proportion of young children entering the NDIS over the last four years. The proportion of developmental delay has doubled in the same period.

Developmental delay often presents as autism in older children and an earlier Taylor Fry report noted scheme exits are a third of what was expected.

This points to a fundamental failure of what is meant to be an early intervention model and to the lurking time bomb in the NDIS costs.

Officials now fear many of the older children with autism currently in the scheme will remain participants in their adult lives, dramatically lifting costs across the 2030 and 2040s.

Noting that one in five children have developmental issues, the review called for a “mainstream” solution. The national cabinet has accepted the need for a significant structural response. Ten billion dollars over 10 years is to be used to gear up a set of foundation supports, offering community alternatives for not just autism, but also other less severe disabilities better treated outside the NDIS.

This foundational policy work, together with the better administration of the scheme and improved assessments and plans, is now being heavily relied on to reduce the baseline assumption that the scheme will double by 2034.

The massive cost of the scheme comes as pressures to better fund a raft of social services, from aged care to mental health, puts enormous stress on a personal tax system that now accounts for 50 per cent of government revenues.

But whatever the NDIS fiscal challenges, polling reveals the scheme is strongly supported across the community.

This, in part, reflects the pervasiveness of various disabilities across the nation. And that for many disabled people, the NDIS is their only lifeboat. Full stop.

Like Medicare, the NDIS already has a special spot in the community.

Being seen to be pulling back on support would be political dynamite, meaning the scheme, in whatever form, is here to stay.

Eyrie
Eyrie
February 5, 2024 9:21 am

Remdesivir came long after the pandemic started

Remdesivir had been around for quite awhile. It was trialed for at least two uses, one of which was Ebola and abandoned because it was ineffective and highly toxic to the kidneys.
Yes, almost the entire medical profession fell down on the job. Maybe not a conspiracy but a confluence of interests. Utter bastards, my trust in them has been destroyed.

John H.
John H.
February 5, 2024 9:23 am

Figures
Feb 5, 2024 4:52 AM
John H

Remdesivir came long after the pandemic started.

Note the dishonesty. It was Remdesivir and ventilators but you conveniently ignored the ventilators because that destroys your narrative John.

And every time we get sick the symptoms and severity are different to the previous time we got sick. People supposedly with covid didn’t all get identical symptoms nor severity as each other so your point about individual observations is worthless.

The fact is that there were zero challenge dechallenge rechallenge events involving the “virus” and illness so there is therefore zero evidence the “virus” caused harm.

Normally I don’t bother with you as you have accused me of dishonesty.

The ventilators constitute a tiny proportion of people infected with covid. Minuscule in relation to the total number of people infected. Silly argument.

Of course we have different symptom presentation. Analysis of multiple physiological processes elucidate why that happens. In this context, to be brief and hopefully avoid boring people, the adaptive immune response mediated via multiple immune cells will adjust our physiological response to subsequent exposures. Unfortunately I no longer keep up with the relevant literature but in relation to the declining immunity against COVID I have received a fascinating study pointing to the possibility that it is caused by a specific subset of Tregs inducing apoptosis a dedicated CD 8 cells. However if you wish to learn something fascinating about the relationship to IGa and COVID a few years ago Dover Beach posted a wonderful talk with Professor Clancy on that subject.

Who should I trust? Professor Clancy and his ilk with decades of experience in studying immunology or some anonymous commentator who claims to be an expert in a subject? Oh look as Professor Farnsworth remarked, I knew it, I found the answer on Youtube.

I appreciate in some circles it is not fashionable to rely on experts, the irony being many of those same people make claim to being experts in their particular field. I’ve just woken up, haven’t even sipped my coffee, and have more important matters to address like why the HDR function on my monitor appears to be messing with a cold boot recognition of the same.

Have a nice day.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 5, 2024 9:24 am

The AFR View

NDIS entitlement flawed from the start

The scheme has operated as a honey pot that has predictably attracted too many participants.

The explanation for one of Australia’s most out-of-control social policies provided by The Australian Financial Review government editor Tom Burton on today’s features page shows the political class can’t say it was not warned the National Disability Insurance Scheme was flawed from the start.

In 2013, British social policy expert Dr Simon Duffy predicted that the proposed design of the NDIS as an open-ended entitlement program would create perverse behavioural incentives that would drive up unsustainable levels of demand detached from real levels of need, foster inflationary expectations and increased costs, and quickly necessitate a substantial redesign of the rules.

The policy failures included neglecting to define “development delay”, which opened the door to the explosion in childhood autism diagnoses that explains why nearly one-in-eight boys aged between five and seven is receiving NDIS funding.

The whole disaster is further underscored by the federal government actuary’s alarming projections, revealed by Burton last week, that the NDIS could cost almost a third more than the $95 billion current budget forecast and blow out to more than $125 billion a year by 2034.

Yet even as the official number-crunchers warn the number of participants could more than double to 1.2 million people, there has been no genuine robo-debt style accountability or remedial action for what’s gone wrong with a scheme that began with the worthy goal of giving life-changing support to those with the most permanent and severe disability but which has morphed into an open-ended entitlement program for less severe disabilities.

The latest forecast should prompt a genuine national conversation to recalibrate public expectations.

The Labor-commissioned review by scheme architect Professor Bruce Bonyhady – who once claimed it would largely pay for itself by helping the disabled find work – and former public servant Lisa Paul failed to grapple with the fundamental question of how the basic design of the NDIS has led to the explosion in its size and cost that is now so politically difficult to rein in.

What needs to be faced up to is that the NDIS has operated as a honey pot that has predictably encouraged hundreds of thousands of more people to enter the scheme than forecast.

Labor’s plan to limit NDIS annual growth from 11 per cent to 8 per cent by mid-2026 by diverting children with mild developmental conditions into new federal-state-funded services partly admits but inadequately responds to the basic problem.

The latest forecast of an escalating cost and participant explosion should prompt a genuine national conversation to recalibrate public expectations of what the NDIS can do, and for whom, regardless of how politically challenging taking entitlements away from people is.

Mr Shorten’s political focus at yesterday’s National Press Club appearance was on cracking down on waste, fraud, and business models of “millionaire” NDIS service providers.

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
February 5, 2024 9:28 am

I am, however, 50/50 on whether they actually would say “Wheres* the Jews” or the like in their everyday conversations.

Not that phrase necessarily but things like “Where are the kids?”, and “There are some people in outside”, and “Black Muslims are like animals to us.”

Little things like “I want that ones” is ambiguous: Is the person asking for ‘those ones’ or ‘that one’ and so the correct form becomes ingrained for convenience.

When I was learning Japanese I never got the hang of whether to use the ‘-ba’ or ‘-tara’ form of conditional. They are largely interchangeable but Japanese people would tell me one sounded more natural than the other. There was no insurmountable ambiguity so to this day… On the other hand I soon became incapable of confusing ‘migi’ (right) and ‘hidari’ (left), or ‘koko’ (here), ‘soko’ (near you) or ‘asoko’ (over there) because an error required a clarifying the distinctions in my mind and re-inforcing the lesson.

Asks any Japaneses.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 5, 2024 9:30 am

Aussie Original: The First Ute

By: Dr John Wright, Photography by: Ford, Unique Cars archives

Date: 09.03.2019

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
February 5, 2024 9:31 am

calli

Feb 5, 2024 9:01 AM

Sounds like someone of a horticultural bent has a thriving propagation business nearby.

That’s what I’m thinkin’.
If he is reading the bill correctly, that is.
By Lizzie’s own admission he is easily confused, and power bills have a lot of numbers. Has he mis-construed, say, a meter reading as the amount owing?
In any case, getting their hands on the current bill will tell Lizzie and Hairy something. That is, is this a monster (and implausible) consumption issue, or a slower accumulation of charges with no payment?
The power company will provide copies of past bills too on request.

Digger
Digger
February 5, 2024 9:38 am

Remdesivir came long after the pandemic started.

Remdesivir is arguably the biggest cause of Covid deaths, followed by ventilators. It was provisionally approved in Australia before it was in the US.

This is from the Australian government…

COVID-19 treatment: Gilead Sciences Pty Ltd, remdesivir (VEKLURY)

On 10 July 2020 the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) granted provisional approval to remdesivir (“Veklury”, Gilead Sciences Pty Ltd) as the first treatment option for COVID-19.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 5, 2024 9:42 am

For Cat Melburnians

ALL YOU CAN EAT PORK RIBS IS BACK!

Every Wednesday night during February & March.

Could you & your mates eat 2kg each? 3kg? FOUR???

Squires Loft – Albert Park

1 Queens Road
Melbourne South, VIC 3004
PH: 98637700

$72 per person including unlimited sides.

We are also running a promotion for you and 5 friends to enjoy AYCE Ribs for FREE. Entry details on our socials.

BOOK NOW

Terms & Conditions:

– Must mention “ALL YOU CAN EAT PORK RIBS” when booking
– No sharing, no take away
– Pork ribs served 1kg at a time
– Valid only for Monday and Tuesday dinner service
– Standard dinner time limits apply
– All people at the table must participate

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
February 5, 2024 9:43 am

The other thing Lizzie and Hairy can do, if tropical boy has a smart meter, is download an app to monitor usage.
Doesn’t solve the $10k problem, but it can help stop a repeat (if it is silly consumption levels).

Zatara
Zatara
February 5, 2024 9:46 am

Sounds like someone of a horticultural bent has a thriving propagation business nearby.

Or an ASIC miner seeking bitcoin?

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 5, 2024 9:49 am

Israel’s Long War for the West

The common thread weaving Hamas, Hezbollah and the Shia militias together is the significant funding and support each receives from Iran, which has in turn received it from the Obama and Biden administrations.

When the Biden administration came in, Iran had $6 billion of reserves; it now has, according to former US Army Gen. Jack Keane, more than $100 billion– which is presumably what it used to finance its proxies and its nuclear program.

. The Biden administration now appears about to compound the problem with another catastrophic retreat: there are reported to be discussions about the US pulling its troops out of oil-rich Iraq – just as the Iranian regime has been trying to force the US to do since Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979.

. “Israel didn’t start this war. Israel didn’t want this war…. In fighting Hamas and the Iranian axis of terror, Israel is fighting the enemies of civilization itself…. While Israel is doing everything to get Palestinian civilians out of harm’s way, Hamas is doing everything to keep Palestinian civilians in harm’s way. Israel urges Palestinian civilians to leave the areas of armed conflict, while Hamas prevents those civilians from leaving those areas at gunpoint.” — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Wall Street Journal.

. Iran’s former Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi recently confirmed that the “the confrontation between Iran and Israel will continue as long as [Israel] exists… even if a Palestinian state is established.”

Israel is actually well on its way to winning. The least we can do is to enable it to have whatever it needs to complete its mission, and the time in which to do it.

. As the journalist Daniel Greenfield pointed out, did anyone ever ask during World War II if there were too many German casualties, and if there were, that the fighting should stop?

. The Biden administration would probably prefer to work with an Israeli prime minister, who was more compliant, one who would be happy to see a Palestinian state next to Israel, and not worry so much if it was genocidal; a prime minister who would be happy to see an Iran armed with nuclear weapons, and not get all squeamish every time the mullahs called for “Death to Israel” and said Israel is a “one-bomb” nation. The Biden administration might even be wondering, “Why can’t there be a reasonable Israeli prime minister who would just sign off on these plans without giving everyone such a hard time?”

. “Iran wants to erase the Jewish state from the map, but the main obstacle Mr. Blinken sees to his plan is Israel.” — Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal, January 24, 2024.

. Others have mentioned that if this is what Iran is doing without a nuclear weapon, just think of what it will do with one.

. Not all wars are “forever” or “pointless,” or the United States would not be here.

Regrettably, there seems to be… a commitment to losing.

MatrixTransform
February 5, 2024 9:49 am

“On the surface, the targets seeking a 60 per cent improvement in emissions are very ambitious…”

more like fictitious

coal powered cars are not an answer

calli
calli
February 5, 2024 9:52 am

I remembered Bull Connor from the Civil Rights movement, so I looked him up.

It’s only Wiki, but Cassie’s likening to the NSWaffenPlod is a good one.

Connor intentionally let the Klansmen beat the Riders for 15 minutes with no police intervention. He publicly blamed the violence on many factors, saying that “No policemen were in sight as the buses arrived, because they were visiting their mothers on Mother’s Day”. He insisted that the violence came from out-of-town meddlers and that police had rushed to the scene “as quickly as possible.” The violence was covered by national media.

He made excuses and lied about why the police did not protect the Freedom Riders, and actively allowed the Klan to attack them. Later, some children were burned to death in a church.

You are right on the money with that one.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 5, 2024 9:54 am

strong>Germany’s Energy Sources Are Running Out As Biden Stops LNG Projects

By P Gosselin on 4. February 2024

Germany’s energy crisis deepens further due to Biden’s halt of U.S. LNG projects. Germany is backed into a corner after over-reliance on green energy.

Germany has dug itself into an energy hole

Due to the environmental and climate hysteria over the past decades, Germany has steadily moved to shut down its vast fleet of nuclear reactors, coal power plants, and even natural gas supplies (a major supply line from Russia got blown up).

Moreover, Germany is moving to ban fossil fuel heating systems for homes, and mandating electric cars by 2035.

Now in an energy crunch

Since the supply of natural gas from Russia got cut off, it became necessary to find an alternative source quickly – from USA in the form of imported LNG. The German government approved the construction an LNG terminal at the north German coast in record time.

This would help secure Germany’s energy supply.

Surely the USA could be viewed as a reliable partner.

That was the plan – until President Joe Biden unexpectedly put a stop to further LNG projects.

Now, Germany suddenly risks finding itself in energy isolation.

It’s panic time in Berlin.

“Devastating energy crisis”

“Germany is facing a devastating energy crisis that seriously threatens its security of supply,” reports Germany’s Blackout News.

“Biden’s decision now has far-reaching consequences that could pose serious problems for German energy policy.”

The USA is the world’s largest exporter of LNG, but because of climate protection, Biden bowed to pressure from climate radicals and stopped plans to build new export terminals.

This development has sent shockwaves through energy-starved Germany.

According to US government officials, four U.S. terminal projects are directly affected Biden’s decision.

Berlin has backed itself into a corner with its years of misguided green energy policy.

Now the chickens are coming home to roost.

Top Ender
Top Ender
February 5, 2024 9:56 am

The BOM predicts here in the Bubble known as Canberra:

Possible rainfall: 9 to 45 mm
Chance of any rain: 100%

So far 1mm.

Makka
Makka
February 5, 2024 9:59 am

David Sacks

@DavidSacks
According to famed reporter Seymour Hersh, CIA Director Burns had to warn Zelensky to stop stealing so much money. Also Zelensky’s subordinates were upset that he was taking too large a cut of the spoils. Something to keep in mind as the political crisis plays out in Kiev.

https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/1753874392491438308

Spoils. USG aid from US taxpayers are “spoils”. And who exactly are receiving a cut of the spoils? How much ends up in the Biden family’s pockets? Money laundering on a massive scale.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 5, 2024 10:02 am

Schumer And McConnell Want Senators To Pass Their $106B Border Bill Without Reading It? Hell No

BY: MIKE LEE

Under no circumstances should this bill — which would make massive, permanent changes to immigration law — be passed next week.

Yesterday, a reporter standing outside the Senate chamber told me that after four months of secrecy, The Firm™? plans to release the text of the $106 billion supplemental aid/border-security package — possibly as soon as today.

Wasting no time, she then asked, “If you get the bill by tomorrow, will you be ready to vote on it by Tuesday?”

The words “hell no” escaped my mouth before I could stop them. Those are strong words where I come from. (Sorry, Mom.)

The reporter immediately understood that my frustration was not directed at her. Rather, it was directed at the Law Firm of Schumer & McConnell (The Firm™?), which is perpetually trying to normalize a corrupt approach to legislating, in which The Firm™?:

1. Spends months drafting legislation in complete secrecy

2. Aggressively markets that legislation based not on its details and practical implications (good and bad), but only on its broadest, least-controversial objectives

3. Lets members see bill text for the first time only a few days (sometimes a few hours) before an arbitrary deadline imposed by The Firm™? itself, always with a contrived sense of urgency

4. Forces a vote on the legislation on or before that deadline, denying senators any real opportunity to read, digest, and debate the measure on its merits, much less introduce, consider, and vote on amendments to fix any perceived problems with the bill or otherwise improve it.

Whenever The Firm™? engages in this practice, it largely excludes nearly every senator from the constitutionally prescribed process in which all senators are supposed to participate.

By so doing, The Firm™? effectively disenfranchises hundreds of millions of Americans — at least for purposes relevant to the legislation at hand — and that’s tragic. It’s also un-American, uncivil, uncollegial, and really uncool.

So why does The Firm™? do it?

Every time The Firm™? utilizes this approach and the bill passes — and it nearly always does — The Firm™? becomes more powerful.

The high success rate is largely attributable to the fact that The Firm™? has become very adept at (a) enlisting the help of the (freakishly cooperative) corporate media, (b) exerting peer pressure in a way that makes what you experienced in middle school look mild by comparison, and (c) rewarding those who consistently vote with The Firm™? with various privileges that The Firm™? is uniquely capable of offering, such as committee assignments, help with campaign fundraising, and a whole host of other widely coveted things that The Firm™? is free to distribute in any manner it pleases.

It’s through this process that The Firm™? passes most major spending legislation. And it’s through this process that The Firm™? likely intends to pass the still-secret, $106 billion supplemental aid/border-security package, which The Firm™? has spent four months negotiating with the luxury of obsessing over every sentence, word, period, and comma.

I still don’t know exactly what’s in this bill, although I have serious concerns with it based on the few details The Firm™? has been willing to share.

But under no circumstances should this bill — which would fund military operations in three distant parts of the world and make massive, permanent changes to immigration law — be passed next week.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 5, 2024 10:07 am

From Instapundit

IT’S A WINNING SLOGAN: ‘Deport every illegal’

: Sky News host proposes new DEI slogan.

cohenite
February 5, 2024 10:09 am

From the last thread:

2dogs
Feb 4, 2024 11:08 PM
So why can’t people sue the commonwealth for importing people who attack you? Duty of care sort of thing.

Under section 54 of the ASIO act 1979, a security assessment is only justiciable if it is a “no”, not if it is a “yes”.

The general principle of mal and nonfeasance may over-ride that. You generally can’t sue government/bureaucracy for nonfeasance, that is not repairing or rectifying something which causes damage ie a pothole. But you can sue them for malfeasance ie repairing the pothole and making it worse. Bringing in black/muzzie bastards who stab or bash or blow you up could be construed as malfeasance.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 5, 2024 10:12 am

Biden Brags of “Blowout” in South Carolina With 4% Turnout

Can’t you just feel the feverish enthusiasm?

And 96% (the current estimate) does sound like a lot. But it’s 96% of what? As it turns out, it’s 96% of 4%.

South Carolina saw only 4% voter turnout statewide with 131,870 ballots cast, the lowest turnout in the past three Democratic presidential preference primaries. In 2020, the state saw roughly 16% voter turnout and 12.6% turnout in 2016.

Upstate counties saw a turnout of around 2-3%

About 126,000 people (so far) cast their ballots for Joe Biden out of the 150,000 plus people who showed up.

Can’t you just feel the feverish enthusiasm?

And it wouldn’t be a Biden campaign event without indecipherable gibberish

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
February 5, 2024 10:16 am

Beertruck if you mean the link to the Australian, which is useless unless you have a subscription or the link to the photo of General Sir John Monash, most likely the greatest Australian I can think of. I don’t really know what you mean.

Pogria
Pogria
February 5, 2024 10:17 am

Top Ender,
I am ninety minutes away from you and it started pouring in the early hours of the morning. Lots of Donner und Blitzen. It was so dark at 7am I thought I had gotten up too early. Power went out around 8.30. Thank God for smart Yanks, generator kicks in in under ten seconds. Power still out.

I don’t know how much rain, have yet to buy a gauge, but I didn’t have to fill the blue shells I use for the ducks and geese. Filled overnight to overflowing, so lots. Still raining gently.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 5, 2024 10:18 am

Q-ships: Masters of Deception:

. Origin and Purpose: Q-ships, also known as mystery ships or decoy ships, were heavily armed merchant ships specifically designed to lure and destroy German U-boats. Their codename likely originated from their association with Queenstown (now Cobh) in Ireland, where many were based.

. Deception Tactics: To appear like unarmed merchant vessels, Q-ships employed elaborate disguises. They had hidden guns disguised as cargo crates, fake lifeboats, and even crew members trained to act out panic as if abandoning ship. Once a U-boat surfaced for an attack, the Q-ship would reveal its true firepower, often inflicting significant damage or even sinking the submarine.

. Impact on U-boat Warfare: While not responsible for sinking a large number of U-boats, Q-ships had a significant psychological impact. The fear of encountering a disguised warship instilled caution in U-boat crews, forcing them to spend less time on the surface and hindering their attacks on merchant shipping. Their success ultimately contributed to the Germans abandoning cruiser rules and adopting unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917.

. Famous Q-ships: Several Q-ships became famous for their exploits, including:

. HMS Qship: The first operational Q-ship, credited with sinking the U-boat U-9 in 1915.
. HMS Mary Rose: One of the most successful Q-ships, credited with sinking or damaging several U-boats.
. USS Decoy: An American Q-ship that operated in the Atlantic, credited with sinking U-boat UC-58 in 1918.

Additional Resources:

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q-ship
Historic UK: https://www.naval-history.net/WW1NavyBritishQships.htm

MatrixTransform
February 5, 2024 10:20 am

“Take the Mazda CX30,” he said. “The model available in the United Kingdom is 25 per cent more fuel efficient than the model available in Australia.

Mr Bowen’s lips are moving again, “These aren’t lies” he said, “in a climate emergency you just can’t compare apples with apples”

apparently the UK doesn’t get the 2.5L petrol for a CX-30

what they do is plant the 2.0L in it and run compression ratios of 15

anyway the 25% is pure unadulterated bulltish

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
February 5, 2024 10:20 am

The ground is hardly wet here TE.

Zippster
Zippster
February 5, 2024 10:25 am
Crossie
Crossie
February 5, 2024 10:25 am

OldOzzie
Feb 5, 2024 9:49 AM
Israel’s Long War for the West
The common thread weaving Hamas, Hezbollah and the Shia militias together is the significant funding and support each receives from Iran, which has in turn received it from the Obama and Biden administrations.

Americans know how to stop this, vote out Biden and Obama’s staffers that own this admin.

Pogria
Pogria
February 5, 2024 10:30 am
Indolent
Indolent
February 5, 2024 10:32 am

Remdesivir is arguably the biggest cause of Covid deaths, followed by ventilators. It was provisionally approved in Australia before it was in the US.

Don’t forget Midazolam.

Pogria
Pogria
February 5, 2024 10:39 am

It seems the Monkees who murdered Vyleen White, have persuaded the under age member of their tribe to hand himself in to the coppers. For obvious reasons. The car they were seen exiting in the cctv footage was the car they had stolen from Mrs White. I wonder how long before junior Monkee is released to his family under “strict” bail conditions? arrgh

lotocoti
lotocoti
February 5, 2024 10:44 am

Possible rainfall: 9 to 45 mm

That’s a courageously narrow range
compared to the 3 to 100mm they forecast for here,
last Sunday.
Came close to making the minimum too.

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
February 5, 2024 10:49 am

I see rat boy Bowen has been in the news again.

“Im helping”!! he cries as he bans another product popular with people so we “choose” the right one.
Mr Bowen said the increased supply of fuel-efficient cars would push down the price of electric vehicles and hybrids.

It would effectively ban alternatives you lying medicant fresh water mong.

amortiser
amortiser
February 5, 2024 10:50 am

Perry also claims organised crime is getting its hooks into the extremely lucrative indig industry, and he’s right.

This honey pot has grown to $30 billion over the last 50 years. There is virtually no accountability. The siphoning off is obvious given the fact that nominated outcomes have not eventuated.

A few days ago someone posted 268 pages of grants that had been paid out in the previous 12 months. That is mind boggling. There are hundreds of public servants supposedly overseeing this largesse as well as the Auditor General yet there is no visible improvement on the ground. 50 f…n years of this sh.t!!

When there is a honey pot like this available it’s naive to think that it wouldn’t be skimmed let alone looted.

All parties have behaved like the 3 monkeys fearing they would be called racists if they ever questioned what is going on.

Dot
Dot
February 5, 2024 10:52 am

what they do is plant the 2.0L in it and run compression ratios of 15

Um…this is not generally recommended!

Beertruk
February 5, 2024 10:53 am

GreyRanga
Feb 5, 2024 10:16 AM

Ahh…

I opened the images from the article in a ‘new tab’ hoping that it would work as a separate link to the Paywallion so eveyone without a subscription could see them.
It sadly it did not work.

I am thinking it did not work for the Tele article post on this LINGERIE CLAD DRIVER CHARGED WITH DUI by TAMARYN MCGREGOR 5 Feb 2024 either.

I sort of put it down as getting some marks on the maths test for ‘show the working out to get the answer’ but getting not getting full marks because my answer was incorrect.
More than likely ‘not carrying the one.’ 🙂

Pogria
Pogria
February 5, 2024 10:55 am
OldOzzie

Just a Reminder of the Lying Labor Prime Minister Albosleezy & The Lying Labor Party on Tax cuts

from jo nova blog

Bruce of Newcastle

Jan 31, 2024 10:10 AM

Albo challenged Dutton on the tax cuts

The frustrating thing is Albo allowed the low and middle income tax offset (LMITO) to expire without renewal, then a year or so later announces “tax cuts” for low income people – which are less than the tax offset was.

So he’s taken the money out of their pockets and is now giving some of it back to them and is saying “aren’t we generous?” Breathtaking arrogance and mendacity.

And that’s ignoring the 37% bracket that they lied about removing.

No one in the media is reporting any of this, not even Sky News as far as I know.

BON,

as a Self Funded Retiree I noticed it.

I cannot believe the SFL’s & National Party are not shouting this from the Roof tops!

Dot
Dot
February 5, 2024 10:58 am

Speaking of the ‘tisms:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/feb/03/australian-undercover-police-autistic-13-year-old-fixation-islamic-state

Apropos of anyone mentioning unserious people and unserious nations –

13 year old autist with a 71 IQ

Parents tell Victoria Police he ‘likes IS’ – whatever the f$&@ that means

Police – hey 13 year old autist kid, wanna blow up the AFP?

The first (police) persona introduced Thomas to the second, more extreme persona, who encouraged him to make a bomb or kill an AFP member.

Police then delay charging until after he turned 14, to preclude defence that a child is not criminally responsible for their actions.

—————-

Now, that agent provocateur action took a lot of class.

Pogria
Pogria
February 5, 2024 10:58 am

Beertruk,
go to Daily Mail. I posted a link to that story yesterday. The Mail is always easier to post links to. There are also pictures, if you are interested. 😀

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 5, 2024 11:04 am

This is a Teacher I would want in my Grandkids Schools – Watch the Full 4 mins 30 secs especially the end – Priceless!

There should be more of this. That is all.

Lee Harris
@addicted2newz

This is utterly brilliant. A student accuses @jk_rowling
of being transphobic. This teacher skilfully dissects the claim and challenges it by asking questions.

He teaches not what to think, but how to think critically.

Watch until the end.!
You see the epiphany in real-time.

Chris
Chris
February 5, 2024 11:07 am

Dot I sat up and growled at your article about the AFP setting up the slow kid as a terrorist.
But when I went to give it a thumbs up, my finger wouldn’t click; I was afraid my own gizzards would leap out and strangle me if I upticked a Guardian article!

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 5, 2024 11:09 am

Vyleen White: Major development in manhunt after Redbank Plains grandmother was stabbed to death in front of her her granddaughter, 6, at the shops

. Ms White fatally stabbed on Saturday night
. Police released image of four persons of interest
. One boy, 15, has been charged

Police last night released footage of four ‘persons of interest’ they wished to speak to over Ms White’s death.

Video showed the group exiting Ms White’s car and walking calmly down a suburban street.

One of these boys, a 15-year-old from Ripley, turned himself into the Ipswich Police Station at about 9.30pm on Sunday.

He has been charged with one count of unlawful use of a motor vehicle in relation to the allegedly stolen car.

He is expected to appear at Ipswich Children’s Court on Monday.

The three others captured in the footage remain on the run and investigations are continuing.

The group is described as possibly a mix of adult and juvenile males who appear to be of African appearance.

Beertruk
February 5, 2024 11:09 am

Pogria
Feb 5, 2024 10:58 AM

Progaria, probably more pics than what were in the Tele.
I’m off to have a look at the Daily Mail…purely for research reasons.
Ta Matey. lol 🙂

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
February 5, 2024 11:12 am

Mr Bowen said the increased supply of fuel-efficient cars would push down the price of electric vehicles and hybrids.

Mr Bowen, you can pry my ICE car out of my cold dead hands. I wonder if we could get some Cuban mechanics to emigrate here?

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 5, 2024 11:15 am

More Tax Slugging by Labor Prime Minister Albosleezy

Alcohol tax rise to push up the cost of booze: Here’s how much extra you’ll be paying for a pint

. Aussies to pay more in alcohol alcohol tax
. $25 of a carton of full-strength beer to be tax

Aussies will be paying more for beer, wine, spirits and pre-mixed drinks as the federal taxes on alcohol are hiked yet again.

The excise tax on alcohol increases automatically twice yearly in line with the Consumer Price Index (CPI), with the tax expected to bring in $7.8 billion for the government his financial year.

Under the changes, one litre of pure spirits will now be subject to $101.85 cents of excise – up from $100.05 – a rise of 1.8 per cent.

Meanwhile, the beer tax will rise from $59.06 to $60.12 per litre of pure alcohol.

In practice, buying a 1litre $60 bottle of gin would see 63 per cent of that cost going straight to the taxman.

A pint is expected to increase by about 90c, while a slab will be roughly $20 more expensive, according to the Brewer’s Association.

Brewer’s Association CEO, John Preston, said Australia’s tax hikes had become out of control and was in need of government help.

‘The increase on Monday means that you will pay $20 in excise on a slab of beer.

‘About half the price of a $55 slab will be tax. We’ve now got the third highest tax on beer in the world, behind Norway and Finland.

‘We don’t believe these increases are now actually raising any more money for the government, they are just hurting beer drinkers and our pubs and clubs,’ he said.

‘While the treasurer inherited these automatic half-yearly beer tax increases, we’re calling on the government to step in and take some action before a trip to the pub or a dinner out with the family becomes an unaffordable luxury for most Australians.’

He called on the government to ‘step in’ and freeze increases in the beer tax as they had already been increased 20 times by the previous Coalition government.

Australians now pay the third largest alcohol tax rate in the world, only beat by Norway and Finland.

Labor Party – Destroying Australia one tax at a time.

And Don’t Forget The Labor Party – Tax breaks ‘four-fifths of bugger all’ as petrol tax increase looms

“As we know, so often the prime minister has talked about how the focus is on cost-of-living,” Mr Murray said.

“We know that has resulted in the main reason, why he says, he needs to break his promise when it comes to tax cuts.

“Four-fifths of bugger all, is what people are going to end up (with).

“Let’s imagine $15 a week was the solution to cost-of-living – the very same government that is giving with one hand has found a way to take with the other – there is a plan to increase petrol taxes and it will start on Monday.”

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
February 5, 2024 11:23 am

as a Self Funded Retiree I noticed it.

Not sure why you repeated it OldOzzie but it’s clear even the Paywallian has been hoodwinked.

Albanese’s tax cuts hit sweet spot but fail to deliver dividend (Oz, paywalled)
By SIMON BENSON

The great tax reset has failed to deliver the political prize that Labor and Albanese may have been expecting.

That’s based on Newpoll. numbers this morning. The swiftie of taking back the tax offset then returning part of it again a year later will go down as one of the most brilliant and nasty Labor political tactics this century.

The problem these days is no one seems to be able to remember anything for more than about a week. I don’t know why that is. Maybe it’s a side effect of mobile phones or something.

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
February 5, 2024 11:24 am

‘About half the price of a $55 slab will be tax. We’ve now got the third highest tax on beer in the world, behind Norway and Finland.

We will not rest until we have taxed this so high we return to prohibition era “bathtub gin” and further entrench criminal cartels! We have a worlds best practice in this, refined and implemented in the form of tobacco excise.

A government spokesmong – yesterday – probably.

Dot
Dot
February 5, 2024 11:33 am

Pall Mall ciggies are already $63 a pack for 40s at Coles.

Cocaine imbibing middle class public serpents being the enemy of the only joy that the poor can afford.

Absolute upcountry puntery.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 5, 2024 11:36 am

Bruce of Newcastle
Feb 5, 2024 11:23 AM

as a Self Funded Retiree I noticed it.

Not sure why you repeated it OldOzzie but it’s clear even the Paywallian has been hoodwinked.

BON,

I repeated it because it was a Huge Tax Loss and Sleight of Hand by the Labor Party and it needs to be brought up by mainstream press

and kept in people’s memories

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
February 5, 2024 11:40 am

We’ve now got the third highest tax on beer in the world

Given the rise and rise of the black market in ciggies I wonder when some enterprising chap will order a beer canning machine from China and start selling tax-free home brew?

I suppose not. A lot of such black market things these days seem linked to certain demographics in Western Sydney who aren’t allowed booze.

Zatara
Zatara
February 5, 2024 11:47 am

BBC strikes again.

BBC editor who is paid to help 15 Somalian criminals stay in the UK quits the Beeb after shocking Mail exposé

A BBC editor was hired as an expert witness to help at least 15 Somalian criminals fight deportation – including a vile offender who sexually attacked a deaf teenage girl.

Last year, The Mail on Sunday exposed how Mary Harper, Africa Editor for the World Service, was paid to give expert witness evidence for Somali gang rapist Yaqub Ahmed during his five-year legal battle to stay in the UK.

Now an investigation by this newspaper can reveal Ms Harper has given expert witness evidence in a string of other controversial deportation appeals by Somali offenders – including for another three sex attackers, three drug dealers and a career criminal who spent a decade in British jails.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 5, 2024 11:48 am
shatterzzz
February 5, 2024 11:49 am

Oh dear! .. this bike riding/shopping at 76 is gonna kill me one day .. just lugged 14kg in my backpack .. 34C and very muggy, thankfully overcast … the saving was about $20 but wondering if the bloody effort is really worth the money … 45kms round trip …. with the extra weight added around the 28kms mark …… absolutely bugger-ed for the rest of the day, methinx …….

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
February 5, 2024 11:49 am
Boambee John
Boambee John
February 5, 2024 11:52 am

dover0beach
Feb 5, 2024 11:05 AM
Apropos last night’s discussion on US v Iran, this presentation on US v China makes a number of relevant points that undercut many of the real or imagined arguments put forward for US superiority.

You have been making the argument for US decline for a while now. Time for the next step.

What actions do you recommend for Australia, now that (in your opinion) our potential protector is going out of business?

bons
bons
February 5, 2024 11:58 am

I notice that donations to the RNC have fallen off the cliff. Not from the big donors but from the little folks who are refusing to slip the usual $100.00 into an envelope.

Democracy is just such a,……..such a…… it should be bloody well banned.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
February 5, 2024 12:10 pm

I notice that donations to the RNC have fallen off the cliff. Not from the big donors but from the little folks

RNC has been Rino-central for a while, which the base naturally have noticed. The amusing thing is they hit the panic button last week:

Haley told NBC’s Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press” the RNC was “clearly not” acting like an honest broker after the RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel said the GOP should unite behind Trump. Haley’s comments also come after it was reported the RNC was weighing a resolution last week to declare the former president as the “presumptive nominee.”

Nice try Ronna but it won’t work. As I’ve said before the Tea Party base has two enemies: the Dems and the establishment GOP grandees. Until they can wrest control of the Republican Party from insiders like McDaniel and McConnell this war will continue. The best thing is the rich donors are starting to see that they’re wasting money on the likes of Nikki. Good.

Zatara
Zatara
February 5, 2024 12:10 pm

Bons

The RNC donations have been going down for some time now. The punters refuse to fund its operations under the current nepotistic and incompetent management.

Specifically Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, Mitt Romney’s niece, under whose management the party has managed to lose any number of un-losable races.

They have chosen instead to directly fund their desired candidates.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 5, 2024 12:17 pm

Mass migration, for all its virtues, is eroding our ‘connective social tissue’ – it’s time we started talking about it

New Zealand ought to be seriously discussing issues of sustainability after new data revealed a record number of migrants arrived in the country in the past year, writes Nicholas Sheppard. SkyNews.com.au Contributor and Political Commentator

New Zealand welcome a record number of new migrants in the 12 months to November 30, provisional estimates released last week revealed.

Statistics NZ estimated migrant arrivals at 249,500, an increase of 135 per cent compared with November of 2022.

The net migration gains were driven by arrivals from India, the Philippines, China, Fiji and South Africa.

An estimated net 44,978 citizens of India arrived, 34,268 from the Philippines, 16,408 from China, 9854 from Fiji and 8,319 from South Africa.

Departures were also up, by 29 per cent or an estimated 122,100, for an annual net migration gain of 127,400.

The figures are, “provisionally, the highest on record for an annual period”, Stats NZ said.

The net migration loss of 44,500 New Zealand citizens was also provisionally a new annual record.

The overall high numbers of new arrivals were partly the result of lags from previous major events such as the border reopening and worker shortages from 2022, which had prompted greater offshore recruitment.

Many of those immigrants are on visas that would eventually require them to leave, but whether they are in the country provisionally, transitionally, or permanently, they are nonetheless residing for the duration.

In a wider sense, New Zealand, and Auckland in particular, ought to be contending with issues of sustainability and proportionality.

Despite the rapid cultural change, such a reckoning resides outside the discourse.

Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city, accounts for a third of the population, according to the 2018 census.

Those most recent figures revealed the city’s European/ Pakeha population to be just 53 per cent, a number which may eventually, if it hasn’t already, drop below 50 per cent to constitute a plurality.

M?ori accounted for about 11 per cent; Pacific Island peoples 15 per cent, and Asian peoples, the fastest growing demographic, over a quarter of the city’s population, at 28 per cent.

It is reasonable to project, correlating from the present number, and rate of growth, that the latter percentage, recorded in 2018, is now over 30 per cent, and climbing.

The results of the new census will be released in May.

The city is transitioning, or perhaps already transitioned, from a city with a reasonably distinct majority, offset by vibrant cultural diversity, to a mass with less and less social connective tissue, where a massive proportion of the people share simple geographic proximity almost to the extent they share multi-generational collective history, a long-established collective frame of reference, signifiers of accumulated experience and universally recognised affectations, descriptors, slang, spirit, style or tropes.

In fact, in its demographic diversity, Auckland’s overarching, defining characteristic, in the eyes of its own residents, as well as without, is simply its diversity.

I know, having witnessed friends and families from other backgrounds arrive and integrate over decades, that the process of integration, particularly among children, can be astounding rapid.

I’ve also many instances of parents lamenting to their children to just retain a few traditions, and cultural fundamentals of the old life.

The issue is that, even accounting for the preternatural pace of such integration, there is, at any given time, swathes of arrivals undergoing that process.

The wider issue, irrespective of the interesting cultural flavours, is a diminishing socio-cultural centre – asking what an Aucklander’s attitude toward something could mean a hundred different things.

What a city gains from a diversity of identities, it loses, somewhat, in inter-relatability.

The immigrant story is as noble and time honoured as any narrative in the human experience; but when a sizable proportion in a locale are undergoing, or are only a generation on from that circumstance, then that becomes, for many, the main lens of identity, the larger shared experience.

Profound as such family experiences are, the drives that compel families to move from familiarity to a new life in search of opportunities, or political stability – if that experience becomes a prominent part of a city’s collective experience, then much of that city’s identity is in a kind of liminal space.

The latest figures from Stats NZ indicate that New Zealand, and Auckland in particular, is undergoing profound and sizable demographic change, and no debate seems evident, or even culturally permissible, as to whether that change is too rapid, or disproportionate.

Johnny Rotten
Johnny Rotten
February 5, 2024 12:21 pm

Bruce of Newcastle
Feb 5, 2024 11:40 AM
We’ve now got the third highest tax on beer in the world

Given the rise and rise of the black market in ciggies I wonder when some enterprising chap will order a beer canning machine from China and start selling tax-free home brew?

Sales of Home Brew kits were all the rage in the 1980s and Coopers was my favourite home brew. Cost around 30 cents to home brew and fill up a 750 ml VB bottle.

H B Bear
H B Bear
February 5, 2024 12:23 pm

Most local government brain storming sessions end up renaming the streets and changing the street bins. Melbournibad CBD isn’t much different really. Might confuse the junkies and derros for a couple of weeks.

H B Bear
H B Bear
February 5, 2024 12:27 pm

Won’t be hearing any of that nonsense from Baz in the West. He’s got bigger fish to fry.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 5, 2024 12:27 pm

Queensland police released CCTV of four males who they believed could help with inquiries.

The group was described as possibly a mix of adult and juvenile males who appear to be of African appearance.

On Sunday night, a 15-year-old boy presented himself to Ipswich Police Station.

He was charged with one count of unlawful use of a motor vehicle, in relation to the alleged stolen car.

He will appear at Ipswich Children’s Court on Monday.

Probably a Dumb QuestionBut is it possible that the Killing/Knifing was done by an Adult African Male, and they got the 15 year old to hand himself in, as under Woke & Weak Labor QLD Criminal Justice, he will probably be let off with a Slap on the Wrist & told to not to do it again?

Thoughts?

Looking at the Video looks to be an older male getting out of the drivers seat

Vicki
Vicki
February 5, 2024 12:27 pm

Mass migration, for all its virtues, is eroding our ‘connective social tissue’ – it’s time we started talking about it

Back in Sydney for a more extended period, I have been startled at the visible growth in what I might call the “soup” of multi cultural Sydney. And this is in the relative uniformity of the northern suburbs & beaches. I particularly noticed the increase of black Africans ( I doubt if they were American blacks) in the suburbs.

It pains me to say it but the problems of Somali and Sudanese communities in Melbourne – and now a horrible incident in a Queensland suburb – suggests that the violent background of the countries of these immigrants is not conducive to peaceful settlement. There are, of course, exceptions & many adapt via athletic prowess. But the statistics are not encouraging.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
February 5, 2024 12:28 pm

We will not rest until we have taxed this so high we return to prohibition era “bathtub gin” and further entrench criminal cartels! We have a worlds best practice in this, refined and implemented in the form of tobacco excise.

Hopefully QldPlod will police “bathtub gin” as rigorously as they do chop chop and smuggled smokes.

I don’t smoke myself, but I notice the Valley 7-11’s aren’t particularly discreet about their ‘special offer’ tobacco products – and the Sunnybank supermarkets openly sell Chinese cigs by the carton for about $100.

Looking forward to the $25 slabs of XXX.

Australia: taxing itself to anarchy.

Makka
Makka
February 5, 2024 12:31 pm

It pains me to say it but the problems of Somali and Sudanese communities in Melbourne – and now a horrible incident in a Queensland suburb – suggests that the violent background of the countries of these immigrants is not conducive to peaceful settlement.

Somalia and Sudan are broken countries full of broken people. Young males gravitate to violence. I don’t care what that percentage, is we have no business importing fkd up humans from shitholes.

Digger
Digger
February 5, 2024 12:34 pm

What actions do you recommend for Australia, now that (in your opinion) our potential protector is going out of business?

Our only protector. Australia does not have a single viable military capacity without the US. Even the ships we get from elsewhere have US power plants, sensors, weapons, sonars etc.

Vicki
Vicki
February 5, 2024 12:38 pm

The problem these days is no one seems to be able to remember anything for more than about a week. I don’t know why that is. Maybe it’s a side effect of mobile phones or something.

Yea! I have been thinking that my unreliable memory is a sure sign of approaching doddery. My excuse is an “overloaded brain”. Just too much data to process.

I have been pondering the change in acquisition of data for most of us. For a great deal of my life I haunted libraries. Acquiring information then was a laborious process….find the references…search the files…select the source material….read,read,read.

Now – the process has been reduced to pressing a few keys. And there, on the screen, are all the references. A few further presses of keys and you have a variety of sources. Something that might have taken days, is accomplished in minutes.

All that information must be sorely aggravating our neurones! Poor old brain must be frantically rearranging what is important and what is not. I suspect that is the cause of the memory lapses.

Sounds good to me. Wink, wink.

Johnny Rotten
Johnny Rotten
February 5, 2024 12:38 pm

Hey, Blackout Bowen –

“If you are worried about Climate Change, why would you put all your chips on a technology that relies on the weather?

Weather is reliably unreliable”.

– Madi Hilly

Madi Hilly, Director at Campaign for a Green Nuclear Deal

https://standupfornuclear.org/ally-of-the-month/madi-hilly

John H.
John H.
February 5, 2024 12:43 pm

Makka
Feb 5, 2024 12:31 PM
It pains me to say it but the problems of Somali and Sudanese communities in Melbourne – and now a horrible incident in a Queensland suburb – suggests that the violent background of the countries of these immigrants is not conducive to peaceful settlement.

Somalia and Sudan are broken countries full of broken people. Young males gravitate to violence. I don’t care what that percentage, is we have no business importing fkd up humans from shitholes.

Yep, there are persuasive neurodevelopmental models that can help explain that. James Fallon, a self-confessed almost psychopath and expert neuroscientist on the subject, mentions that one of the 3 stool legs for psychopathy is a seriously adverse childhood. That, plus malnutrition, can lead to delayed frontal lobe maturation, the implication is that results in loss of inhibition and a tendency towards impulsive driven stupidity.

If we’re going to allow so many people from troubled societies into the country we need to start vetting them so as to identify the optimal individuals and the potentially dangerous individuals.

Mother Lode
Mother Lode
February 5, 2024 12:44 pm

Mr Bowen said the increased supply of fuel-efficient cars would push down the price of electric vehicles and hybrids.

Dutton should ask for the modelling behind this. Picking apart the assumptions, which I suspect will be rather more heroic than credible, would be a great drinking game.

Bowen has not got a single thing right in his career, and people should be reminded of this, adding that this sort of nonsense is why he keeps cocking up.

I am sure when he orders at a restaurant he is always disappointed because when his order comes out it is not what he wanted – just what he asked for.

Top Ender
Top Ender
February 5, 2024 12:50 pm

Health bosses are in the process of removing all items that are not fixed in place, and can be lifted by a single person, in the Royal Darwin Hospital emergency department waiting area to prevent them from being used as weapons against staff.

The NT News understands the measures have been phased in after a handful of particularly violent episodes that terrified and traumatised staff at the hospital.

NT Health confirmed new safety measures were being implemented on top of those already in place, such as a 24/7 patrolling of the campus by security officers.

“Work is underway to implement additional safety measures to help improve safety for all staff, including an increased security presence in the RDH emergency department and removal of all objects that are not fixed down or can be lifted easily by one person from the waiting area,” a spokeswoman said.

NT News. Since when are hospital grounds “a campus”?

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
February 5, 2024 12:52 pm

Australia: taxing itself to anarchy.

Given the massive profits, and apparently huge volumes of “naughty” unexcised smokes smuggled into Austfailure just how much hard drugs would be coming in as well?

When the state is most corrupt, then laws are most multiplied.
Tacitus

John H.
John H.
February 5, 2024 12:52 pm

Bruce of Newcastle
Feb 5, 2024 11:23 AM
as a Self Funded Retiree I noticed it.

The problem these days is no one seems to be able to remember anything for more than about a week. I don’t know why that is. Maybe it’s a side effect of mobile phones or something.

In relation to current affairs yes. It is also obvious there are people with recall going back decades.

The problem with the information flood today is that there is too little time for memory consolidation. Isolated information is poorly remembered. What consolidates information is the incorporation of a bit into a network of associations. For that to happen we need extended attention to the bit. There is worrying evidence the modern technology is reducing attention span.

Sancho Panzer
Sancho Panzer
February 5, 2024 12:53 pm

H B Bear
Feb 5, 2024 12:23 PM

Most local government brain storming sessions end up renaming the streets and changing the street bins.

This renaming streets thing is a bit fraught.
I mean, “Catch Kony 2012 Avenue” hasn’t aged well.
Best leave them named after long dead white guys.

Salvatore, Iron Publican
February 5, 2024 12:55 pm

OldOzzie Feb 5, 2024 12:27 PM
He was charged with one count of unlawful use of a motor vehicle, in relation to the alleged stolen car.
Looking at the Video looks to be an older male getting out of the drivers seat

OldOzzie, you probably realise this, though some may not.
The getaway car used by the 4 bandits (with clear number plate on CCTV) is the car belonging to the woman they murdered.

Figures
Figures
February 5, 2024 12:56 pm

I would love for anybody to watch this video and come back and explain why women should be allowed to vote.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtDLv4MfKGU

Makka
Makka
February 5, 2024 12:56 pm

If we’re going to allow so many people from troubled societies into the country we need to start vetting them so as to identify the optimal individuals and the potentially dangerous individuals.

Our Govt isn’t any where near that smart. And even if such a process existed, it would be usurped so that the racist aura would be totally neutralised in favour of diversity.

John H.
John H.
February 5, 2024 1:00 pm

Now – the process has been reduced to pressing a few keys. And there, on the screen, are all the references. A few further presses of keys and you have a variety of sources. Something that might have taken days, is accomplished in minutes.

Some of us remember things we see in passing …

Handwriting may boost brain connections more than typing does

I haven’t read this, I’m not going to, and I’m suspicious about the result.

Chris
Chris
February 5, 2024 1:01 pm

The problem with the information flood today is that there is too little time for memory consolidation. Isolated information is poorly remembered. What consolidates information is the incorporation of a bit into a network of associations. For that to happen we need extended attention to the bit. There is worrying evidence the modern technology is reducing attention span.

Today we have to be aware that all information must be placed on a fabric of lies, which you will be punished for contradicting.

Top Ender
Top Ender
February 5, 2024 1:01 pm

Meanwhile in Click Bait News:

Gold Coast g-string bikini ban: Reaction to calls for two-piece swimwear to be barred in public

Controversial calls to outlaw the g-string bikini bottom off the beach on the Gold Coast have been declared a recipe for disaster for the city.
SEE THE REACTION AND HAVE YOUR SAY

Mayor Tom Tate has dismissed controversial calls to outlaw the g-string bottomed-bikini off the beach, saying a ban on the two-piece swimsuit would be a recipe for disaster.

The skimpy swimwear is being targeted by long-time community worker Ian Grace, the founder and president of the Youth Music Venture, who says it’s time the skimpy bikinis be barred away from the water.

WHAT DO YOU THINK? HAVE YOUR SAY IN OUR POLL BELOW

The Bulletin revealed on Saturday that Mr Grace, a finalist in the 2023 Gold Coast Australian of the Year Local Hero category and 2022 Gold Coast Volunteer of the Year, had written to the Mayor asking for changes after an encounter at a council function run by Coolangatta councillor Gail O’Neill.

“One young lady in particular was walking on the footpath on the main road and had the tiniest triangle in front and was as close to naked as anyone could be,” he wrote.

“You could see she was looking almost defiantly at people as they approached, almost daring them to say something. There’s something very wrong here.

“While any man would enjoy ‘the view’, I believe women are very much demeaning and cheapening themselves, portraying themselves as sex objects, then decrying it when men see them that way.”

Should bikini bottoms be banned away from our beaches?
Yes, but just bikini bottoms 23 %
Yes, but men should be banned from going shirtless too 6 %
No, if it’s OK for the beach, it’s OK off the beach 14 %
No, if you have a problem with it, you’re the problem 57 %
2479 votes

Daily Tele

Boambee John
Boambee John
February 5, 2024 1:01 pm

, and no debate seems evident, or even culturally permissible, as to whether that change is too rapid, or disproportionate.

And as here, the cultural “overlords” of NZ will resist such a debate to the end, for fear that the masses do not share the overlords’ opinions.

Dot
Dot
February 5, 2024 1:05 pm

WHAT DO YOU THINK? HAVE YOUR SAY IN OUR POLL BELOW

Minimum age, maximum BMI is the way!

Chris
Chris
February 5, 2024 1:07 pm

Ha! Newscorpse:

A major rapper who won three Grammys at today’s awards was soon escorted from the venue in handcuffs by police.
The 2024 Grammy Awards are now underway in Los Angeles, with Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus and Dua Lipa among those up for the night’s major awards.

And it’s already been a night of highs and lows for one artist, with rapper Killer Mike picking up three awards for his song Scientists & Engineers – then getting arrested.

Footage from the event shows him being led out of LA’s Crypto.com Arena in handcuffs by police, shortly after his triple-win.

Rabz
February 5, 2024 1:07 pm

Blackout Bowen said the increased supply of fuel-efficient cars would push down the price of electric vehicles and hybrids

What an idiot. Not going to happen as these ridiculous useless lemons (EVs) will rapidly become uninsurable.

Boambee John
Boambee John
February 5, 2024 1:07 pm

Top Ender

NT News. Since when are hospital grounds “a campus”?

Since pretentions to intellectualism became de rigeur?

amortiser
amortiser
February 5, 2024 1:08 pm

It seems the Monkees who murdered Vyleen White, have persuaded the under age member of their tribe to hand himself in to the coppers. For obvious reasons. The car they were seen exiting in the cctv footage was the car they had stolen from Mrs White. I wonder how long before junior Monkee is released to his family under “strict” bail conditions? arrgh

If a group committing a crime (vehicle theft in this case) and someone is killed in the process, are not all members of the group subject to a murder charge? Murder in company I think it is called.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 5, 2024 1:09 pm

Salvatore, Iron Publican
Feb 5, 2024 12:55 PM
OldOzzie Feb 5, 2024 12:27 PM
He was charged with one count of unlawful use of a motor vehicle, in relation to the alleged stolen car.
Looking at the Video looks to be an older male getting out of the drivers seat

OldOzzie, you probably realise this, though some may not.
The getaway car used by the 4 bandits (with clear number plate on CCTV) is the car belonging to the woman they murdered.

Salvatore,

yes I did, and there was only 1 Driver travelling from the Killing/Knifing scene

That is why I asked the Dumb Question above – it would make more sense that an African Adult Male would be able to drive, hence the comment on the African Male who got out of the divers seat

So the Dumb Question Still stands

Probably a Dumb QuestionBut is it possible that the Killing/Knifing was done by an Adult African Male, and they got the 15 year old to hand himself in, as under Woke & Weak Labor QLD Criminal Justice, he will probably be let off with a Slap on the Wrist & told to not to do it again?

Thoughts?

Looking at the Video looks to be an older male getting out of the drivers seat

Winston Smith
February 5, 2024 1:10 pm

Cassie of Sydney

Feb 5, 2024 8:01 AM
Watching the footage of the smirking NSW copper speaking on Friday morning on the findings of the ‘audio expert’, I scratched my head because I was reminded me of someone and that someone is…….Bull Connor.

Who is Bull Connor?

Morsie
Morsie
February 5, 2024 1:11 pm

Under the felony murder rule all four should be charged with murder.

Boambee John
Boambee John
February 5, 2024 1:11 pm

dover0beach
Feb 5, 2024 1:01 PM
What actions do you recommend for Australia, now that (in your opinion) our potential protector is going out of business?

Adopt a prudent foreign policy that acknowledges our interests, history, and situation in Indo-Pacific.

Can you be more specific, your recommendation is little more than feel-good platitudes.

feelthebern
feelthebern
February 5, 2024 1:11 pm

Also, you can only forgive if forgiveness is asked.

100% calli.

Salvatore, Iron Publican
February 5, 2024 1:17 pm

OldOzzie, my view: All four should be hanged.
The quadruple execution should be carried out no later than Easter.

Zatara
Zatara
February 5, 2024 1:19 pm

A major rapper who won three Grammys at today’s awards was soon escorted from the venue in handcuffs by police.

That rapper is named ‘Killer Mike’. Coincidentally, two day ago he refused to endorse Joe Biden on the “Real Time with Bill Maher” cable TV program, even with Maher essentially begging him to do so.

Related? Who knows but it’s curious.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 5, 2024 1:23 pm

John H.
Feb 5, 2024 1:00 PM
Now – the process has been reduced to pressing a few keys. And there, on the screen, are all the references. A few further presses of keys and you have a variety of sources. Something that might have taken days, is accomplished in minutes.

Some of us remember things we see in passing …

Handwriting may boost brain connections more than typing does

I haven’t read this, I’m not going to, and I’m suspicious about the result.

John H,

I would agree with statement & study

I used to take notes at lectures & tutorials, as writing then re-reading helped absorb the material – no keyboards just pen & slide rule

When later in Business as GM & Managing Director of Companies, I always took copious handwritten notes of meetings and the wrote the Minutes

Minutes are a great way to keep people to their commitments so consider taking on the onus crafting them yourself.

After all, ‘He who writes the Minutes, controls the Meeting.’

And yes, keeping a formal record may seem terribly old-fashioned in today’s world of ultra-short WhatsApp messages.

But it does have its uses.

Especially when things go wrong.

I’ll venture to add it may even save you your job!

Pogria
Pogria
February 5, 2024 1:25 pm

amortiser,
I believe you are most likely correct, but, over the last 15-20 years, how often have our laws been rigorously applied?

MatrixTransform
February 5, 2024 1:28 pm

Um…this is not generally recommended

not diesel either

CR of 15 … in a petrol

you can read it in black and white in the brochure from Mazda UK

Pogria
Pogria
February 5, 2024 1:35 pm

An aussie artist has submitted a painting called, “like taking ashes from a baby”, to the Bald Archies.
It depicts Johnny Bairstows’ dismissal from last years Ashes. hehehehe The usual hair tearing and squealing. Funny painting.

Dot
Dot
February 5, 2024 1:38 pm

Don’t unnecessarily turn Australia into a US outpost and thereby target of its adversaries. It’s adversaries are not necessarily our enemy.

Which is why we need a strong military.

John Brumble
John Brumble
February 5, 2024 1:38 pm

Keeping in mind that there are a lot of vectors for exaggeration, if the lad really has amassed a bill of 10k (or maybe 5k or so over some years and it’s been inflated a couple of times in the telling), then I’ve got three points

1) Smart meter (particularly the very old Vic “smart” meters that have been around for more than a decade) apps aren’t going to do anything. They’ll just show that he uses a lot of electricity and you can get that from the bill. You can’t shut it off, you can’t get an alert at the time (just many hours or days later) , and it doesn’t tell you what the appliance using it was. Don’t get me wrong, the apps are very useful when it comes to saving at the margins by understanding where you can move your load around or better-manage your solar, etc… but we’re not talking the difference between peak and off-peak or whether a battery is needed here, are we?
2) At that level, it’s not “use” that’s the problem, it’s “misuse”.
3) Dollars to doughnuts, he’s got the air-con or heater running while there’s windows open… or the wonderful combo of heater on, but the aircon running to cool down while sleeping.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 5, 2024 1:40 pm

In a development on Monday, detectives confirmed a 15-year-old boy from Ripley was arrested after he presented to Ipswich Police Station about 9.30pm on Sunday.

“He has been charged with one count of unlawful use of a motor vehicle in relation to the alleged stolen car,” police said in a statement.

“He is expected to appear at Ipswich Childrens Court today, February 5.”

The boy has not been charged with murder.

The arrest comes as a manhunt continues for three other suspects who are wanted by police in relation to Ms White’s death.

Police on Sunday released CCTV footage of four persons of interest who Detective Acting Superintendent Heath McQueen described as males of African appearance.

The vision, captured on Saturday night, showed the four men exiting the woman’s vehicle on Bruny Street at Springfield Lakes.

The car was seized by police after it was found, and is currently undergoing forensic analysis.

Police confirmed on Monday three men pictured in the CCTV footage remain outstanding.

Ms White, a retired religion teacher, was found in a critical condition with life-threatening injuries to her chest when emergency services arrived at the scene on Sunday.

Paramedics attempted to revive the 70-year-old, but she died at the scene.

Speaking at a media conference on Sunday, Detective Acting Superintendent McQueen described the attack as “abhorrent and cowardly”.

“This is a very confronting scene we have been faced with this evening,” he told reporters.

“Many seasoned police, including myself, who reviewed the footage are taken aback by the level of violence.

“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.”

John H.
John H.
February 5, 2024 1:43 pm

OldOzzie
Feb 5, 2024 1:23 PM
John H.
Feb 5, 2024 1:00 PM
Now – the process has been reduced to pressing a few keys. And there, on the screen, are all the references. A few further presses of keys and you have a variety of sources. Something that might have taken days, is accomplished in minutes.

Some of us remember things we see in passing …

Handwriting may boost brain connections more than typing does

I haven’t read this, I’m not going to, and I’m suspicious about the result.

John H,

I would agree with statement & study

I had the same experience. When computers came along though I installed a little known free form database program that allowed me to store vast amounts of information without having to index it etc. The software had a very flexible and fast search engine. So I changed my memory strategy. I no longer remembered the paragraph or whatever, I just created memory flags so I could access the database. It saved a lot of time handwriting and memorizing.

That handwriting can consolidates brain connections makes sense because the increased motor activity adds another layer of memory retrieval possibilities. It depends on the individual. I’m very much a visual learner so motor skills aren’t that relevant to me.

More broadly I refrain from using contact lists on my phone and try to use recall instead. I think that is important. Recall is very important for memory consolidation. At one point I had memorized every number relevant to my identity and still remember most phone numbers, even phone numbers I haven’t called in over a decade. I deliberately choose to exercise my memory on a near daily basis. Hint: the key area for developing memories is the hippocampus. It is also the only region in the brain where substantial neurogenesis occurs(the other is the SVZ but I digress). Forcing recall and memorization, may, perhaps, hopefully, sufficiently stimulate hippocampus activity to the extent that neurogenesis is increased. I don’t know, not a neuroscientist, arms waving, hoping to retain some memory function but sadly I notice it has declined though that at present that seems to have arrested or I am now at the point where I no longer have internal referents to assess the decline; the first turning point towards mild cognitive impairment. Oh dear, am I fuxked?

will
will
February 5, 2024 1:47 pm

From the Tele:
MUM’S DEAD AND WE DON’T FEEL SAFE HERE

The distraught family of a grandmother who was stabbed to death in front of her six-year-old granddaughter during a carjacking at a suburban shopping centre have spoken out against rampant crime in Queensland as police issued a plea to help find the killer.

Former religious education teacher Vyleen White’s daughter Danice said there was “a problem” if Queenslanders could not feel safe walking around their own communities after her 70-year-old mother was knifed in the chest before her car was stolen at Redbank Plains, in Ipswich.

Late Sunday, police released CCTV footage of four persons of interest, described as being African males and possibly a mix of adults and juveniles.

The killers dumped Mrs White’s vehicle soon after she was killed in the Town Square Redbank Plains underground carpark on Saturday. Danice revealed her mother was grocery shopping with her six-year-old granddaughter and had planned to return home for bible study when she was set upon.

“I have a very traumatised six year old niece,” she said.

“We are all pretty numb and shaken up.’’

Police believe one person was involved in the stabbing, but four people are linked to the car. Danice said: “We want justice, I don’t want anyone else to ever go through this again. How come they did this to a woman?

“There should be a police beat at every shopping centre and a police presence, or even have a guard dog on site on the police beat.

“If we can’t feel safe walking around, there’s a problem.

“I’m struggling to control my thoughts right now.”

132andBush
132andBush
February 5, 2024 1:47 pm

CR of 15 … in a petrol

Mazda have been developing a compression ignition petrol engine for many years.

It’s a bit of a holy grail wrt ICE.

alwaysright
alwaysright
February 5, 2024 1:49 pm

Gold Coast g-string bikini ban


I agree with this.

I think they should ban the tops as well. Only naked women on the beach!

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
February 5, 2024 1:51 pm

U.S. intelligence estimates Israeli forces have killed about 20 to 30% of Hamas fighters since October

WIA ratio of 2:1 and Hamas is done like a dinner.
Now all that remains is to turn every building into rubble and roll it all flat.
On the other hand it was estimated that 15% of all males in Gaza were members of Hamas, which would come to nearly 200,000 guys. So maybe the IDF has a bit more ammo to expend yet.

OldOzzie
OldOzzie
February 5, 2024 1:53 pm

John H.
Feb 5, 2024 1:43 PM

More broadly I refrain from using contact lists on my phone and try to use recall instead. I think that is important. Recall is very important for memory consolidation.

At one point I had memorized every number relevant to my identity and still remember most phone numbers, even phone numbers I haven’t called in over a decade. I deliberately choose to exercise my memory on a near daily basis.

John H,

I do the same – I don’t use contacts only phone numbers

I even remember our old XY Telephone number

and my Drivers Licence, all Credit Cards and even my Australian Army Regimental Number

Vicki
Vicki
February 5, 2024 1:53 pm

The G string bikinis may be a feast for eyes on the beach, but girlies on buses on the North side need to put the towel that they are carrying around their hindquarters.

On the other hand, young blokes seem to be oblivious. Granddaughter wore one in the pool on Christmas Day. Mate of grandson (about 21) didn’t turn a hair.

JohnJJJ
JohnJJJ
February 5, 2024 1:56 pm

It pains me to say it …
suburb – suggests that the violent background of the countries of these immigrants is not conducive to peaceful settlement..

The Journey to the Jade John Hillaby opened my eyes to this region. Since the 1970s I have worked there. The history of the region is constant violence for 1000s of years. Young men are bred for indescribable violence. To lie, rob, cheat, maim and kill is expected so the family survives. They don’t give this up when they arrive at Tullamarine. Look up the history of the Beja. They are a typical tribe.
Every Australian lefty and public servant should spend a month in the Sudan

Makka
Makka
February 5, 2024 2:01 pm

“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.”

Was he known to plod? What religion is the African?

Plod, ASIO, AFP too busy surveilling those horrible right wing extremists who cause so much death and destruction.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
February 5, 2024 2:02 pm

Keeping in mind that there are a lot of vectors for exaggeration, if the lad really has amassed a bill of 10k

10k is not surprising. My old mum does more than that in a year despite living alone. She has no understanding of money, never has (I do it). In her late eighties she feels the cold. She likes flimsy chic clothing. She’d have three or four 2 kW heaters going 24/7 plus the gas fired central heating.

She’s on the pension, but has enough of a buffer to afford the energy bills. And if her savings run our we kids will step up. I certainly will.

But the message is you can do $10,000 in racked up energy bills easy peasy these days. Especially if you aren’t intellectually on top of things.

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