I wondered what happened to the Net Nanny apps.
Open Thread – Mon 5 Feb 2024
- Open Thread – Thurs 14 Nov 2024
- Open Thread – Remembrance Day 2024
- The Sweetest Victory
- Open Thread – Weekend 9 November 2024
- Open Thread – Thurs 7 Nov 2024
Naaa yes. Plastic ran with the numbers and you did also, with no qualification.I would have thought saying, How far…
Trump’s appointments to lead his government will be like Uber arriving to the horror of the taxi industry It will…
That’s a bit rich, he’d be happy to blow you for a table spoon of lard.
Leave the dog alone, stop trying to pretend you’re my friend.
Rome wasn’t built in a day.
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).
Oh..the hippocampus. A few years before Covid – when the big Drought was causing angst for us all in the west, I came back to Sydney to watch grandson play rugby. At the match daughter told me I was to prepare a Year 10 lesson on the causes of the Vietnam War to deliver to grandson the next morning. I might add – I am an Ancient Historian, not a Modern one. But who am I to argue with daughter? So, on returning home I madly researched & constructed appropriate lesson plan with sources, summaries …..the lot.
Next morning, had usual coffee at beach & can recall nothing more for several hours. Reentered the world at RNS after having a Cat Scan I couldn’t remember. Then had MRI. Senior neurologist came to bedside & inquired if I had any particular stress lately! Oh yes – said I. No problem with any of the tests – he said “You have a beautiful brain” to which I replied, “You would say that to all the ladies”! No doubt it is standard for all concerned patients.
And there it was – he explained that hippocampus stores short term memory & can have hiccups under extreme stress – or, interestingly, if you dive into very cold water!
And how was the lesson? Grandson said it was good, but “Mardi” repeated herself a lot!
I wonder if there is a selection pressure where the more violent men obtain more partners and produce more offspring. Yes the warrior gene hypothesis is suspect but that doesn’t exclude other possible genes. Fallon argues that genes are one leg of the psychopathy stool. Social theorists generally seem to ignore the potential long term genetic consequences for behavior in some societies. Fortunately you are not a social theorist!
How the ‘AK-47 of Tehran’ changed warfare and set fire to the Middle East
This was no ordinary plane: this was the Shahed, a deadly long-range drone that would wreak havoc across the Middle East and beyond
James Rothwell, BERLIN CORRESPONDENT ; Nataliya Vasilyeva, MIDDLE EAST CORRESPONDENT and Joe Barnes, BRUSSELS CORRESPONDENT
In the summer of September 2013, a handful of journalists with close ties to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard were summoned to a secretive ceremony in an aircraft hangar.
Waiting for them in the hangar on a pea-green floor, which looked a bit like a repurposed school gymnasium, were two brand new aircraft in white and blue livery, marked with the number “129”.
To the journalists charged with taking photographs of that new kit, ahead of a big announcement by the Revolutionary Guard, it may have felt like just another routine assignment.
But this was no ordinary plane: this was the Shahed [Witness in Persian], a deadly long-range drone that in the decade to come would wreak havoc across the Middle East and beyond.
‘Iran’s most strategic unmanned plane’
“Our scientists, through scientific struggle, have built Iran’s most strategic unmanned plane,” declared General Mohammad Ali Jafari, then the commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guard. “This smart technology can do the job of thousands of soldiers, military posts and border guards… and protect the security of the borders.”
It was a bold claim for a regime with a reputation for building dubious imitations of superior Western drones; in 2011, the Iranians had also managed to capture a US RQ-170 Sentinal drone which, Iran’s military said on Dec 4 2011, shot down a US Reconnaissance drone in eastern Iran, which was reverse engineered some years later to make another drone in the Iranian fleet, the Simorgh.
This time, however, General Jafari was proven right, as the Shahed became what one expert has called the “AK-47” of Tehran: cheap, mass produced and ready to be exported worldwide to conflict zones where the regime has a vested interest.
The menace of the Shahed was underlined this week after it was, according to US officials, unleashed on their desert outpost of Tower 22 in Jordan.
Emitting its distinctive, lawnmower-like whirr, the drone was launched by an Iranian-backed militia group in Iraq and somehow evaded US air defences before crashing into the barracks, killing three US soldiers and injuring a further 25.
The next day, US TV screens were broadcasting the names, ranks, ages and photographs of the slain troops – Specialist Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23, Specialist Kennedy Ladon Sanders, 24, and Sergeant William Jerome Rivers, 46 – as they did during the darker days of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns. It was the moment that the latest war in the Middle East was brought home to America.
‘Most deadly attack since Oct 17’
US officials called it the “the most deadly attack since Oct 17”, the date when armed groups across the Middle East started attacking US forces in retaliation for Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas.
It was also, they said, an “an escalation of significance” – raising the spectre of direct conflict with Iran.
The Shahed had been used many times by Iranian proxies before in the Middle East, notably by Houthi militia groups who relied on it against the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, and more recently in a string of attacks on Western commercial ships in the Red Sea.
The Syrian regime’s drone fleet is also reported to include Shaheds.
A Shahed-136 drone was, according to US officials, used in the notorious July 2021 drone attack by Iran on the Mercer Street vessel in the Red Sea, which killed a Romanian sailor and a British security guard.
Perhaps most significantly, it is being exported en masse to Russia for use in Vladimir Putin’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine as part of a shadowy new security alliance with Moscow.
In Ukraine, the sound of a Shahed grumbling through the skies signals an imminent explosion and, frequently, civilian casualties.
Fitted with warheads of up to 50kg and with a range of up to 2,000 kilometres, the Russians have mainly been relying on Shaheds to attack energy grids and grain storehouses.
A September 2023 report by Airwars, a British investigative news website, found that nearly 2,000 Shaheds have been launched at Ukraine from Russia since that month.
Iranian drones attractive to Russia
Ulrike Franke, a drone expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said Iranian drones like the Shahed were particularly attractive to Russia because they were already battle-tested in the Middle East and easy to ship in huge quantities.
“Iran has a long history of building these smaller and less sophisticated drones and testing them around the world,” she said. “What is surprising is the sheer numbers, they are giving out hundreds and hundreds which were either quickly produced or already in their arsenal.”
Experts like Dr Franke stress that drones are not strategic weapons, in the sense of being able to decide the overall outcome of the war in Ukraine. However, “they bring an element of surprise that other elements cannot – they are a nuisance to the point it can become a new problem.”
They are also a drain on the enemy’s resources, she added: “The munition used to shoot them down tends to be more expensive than the drone itself.”
Ukrainian forces have also been hard at work developing EV [electronic warfare] solutions to incoming drones, such as jamming their GPS so they cannot reach their target. Then there are the old fashioned, and sometimes most effective, methods – such as putting up huge nets around a base to block small aircraft.
As for the attack in Jordan on US troops, some reports suggest this was more a case of a US security failure than an Iranian triumph; staff on the base may have mistaken the Shahed for a US drone and allowed it to pass.
While the Iranian regime admits to sending the drones to Russia – after initial denials – Russia continues to brand them as a domestic “Geran” drone model.
Russia ran out of Shahed drones just a few months after Iran began the supplies in spring 2022, prompting the Kremlin to look for ways to ramp up production and, if possible, set up the manufacturing locally.
Roped into building drones in Russia
Russian media outlet Razvorot last year reported that several hundred undergraduate students had been roped into assembling Shaheds at a production line in Alabuga in the region of Tatarstan about 1,000 kilometres east from Moscow.
Internal memos and email exchanges with Iranian partners showed that the factory floor at Alabuga is planned to be expanded from 40,000 sq. metres to 100,00 sq. metres in the next two years. Production figures were not revealed.
Unnamed students of a technical school affiliated with a local university said several hundreds of their peers, mostly underage, had been coerced into working at the factory as an extracurricular activity.
Those who tried to refuse working on the drone assembly line were reportedly threatened that they would be expelled from school and would also have to pay back the scholarship they had been given.
Students were reportedly paid around 40,000 rubles (£350) a month for assembling the drones.
As early as October 2022, Tehran reportedly sent members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to Crimea to help Russian forces use the one-way attack drones Moscow provided.
The widespread Russian use of the drones in Ukraine “provides Iran opportunities to learn valuable lessons that can be used to refine their drone designs and better employ them,” according to Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
He added: “We see some of those same types of drones being used against American forces in the Middle East. Iranian drones are not just a problem for Ukrainians. They are a problem for Israel, the United States, and its Arab partners, too.”
Mr Bowman said: “The Shahed 136 is not exactly the most advanced drone in the world.
But that’s the point, you can accomplish very significant things on the battlefield with low technology, low cost systems, especially if you can employ them in large quantities.”
“The broader implication here is that we have Iranian weapons being used in Ukraine to kill men, women and children in their homes, and then the same Iranian weapons are being used to try to kill American forces in the Middle East.”
“America’s four leading nation state adversaries are increasingly aligned and increasingly coordinating with one another to undermine us and our allies.”
“Russia and China are closer than they have been for decades.
We see Chinese money flowing into Iran.
That Chinese money is going to help immunise Iran to some degree against Western, US-led sanctions pressure, making it even less likely that Tehran will ever negotiate in good faith about its nuclear program.”
By the time that the Shahed was placed in Russian stockpiles, various Iranian drone models were already well integrated into the arsenals of Iran’s proxies, a vast network across the Middle East of militia groups that receive funding and expertise from Tehran.
Hezbollah has mixed ‘family’ of drones
The Houthis have relied on Shahed and Samad drones (the latter reputedly of Iranian origin) throughout the Yemen civil war, while various Iranian-backed factions in Iraq and Syria hold an unknown number of Shaheds. Israeli officials say that Hezbollah in southern Lebanon has a mixed “family” of drones, likely including models such as the Shahed.
Hamas in the Gaza Strip has a drone fleet of sorts, but it is less clear whether it contains Iranian-made models. Hamas has sporadically launched crude, possibly homemade drones in recent years, and may have used them to carry out surveillance of southern Israel prior to the Oct 7 massacre.
In all cases, however, experts say it is clear that Iranian expertise has likely supported these programmes across the Middle East.
And Iran’s drone production programme seems to be gaining pace. In August 2023, Tehran revealed a new model of the Mohajer [Immigrant in Persian], fitted with a 200 kilogram warhead, which it claimed was capable of bombing Israel “into the Stone Age.”
For Seth J. Frantzman, a Middle East security analyst and the author of Drone Wars, the mass export of these Iranian models is “already looking like nascent stages of the AK-47 trafficking of the Soviet Union.”
The Shahed itself is also starting to become a symbol of sorts for the anti-Israel factions, added Mr Frantzman. “We’re starting to see that these groups are, more and more, embracing the drone and discussing it in propaganda than they had done a few years ago.”
Long-running intelligence debate
There has been a long-running debate in intelligence circles over how much control Iran maintains over its drones, and how they are used, once they arrive in the hands of their proxies.
Mr Frantzman pointed to the assassination of Qassim Soleimani, the revered Iranian IRGC leader who was killed by the Trump Administration, as a clear sign that Tehran coordinates very closely with its proxies.
“Remember that Soleimani was killed in Baghdad airport – he was driving with the head of Kataib Hezbollah [an Iranian-backed group led by Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis], so it’s clear they were seen planning operations together,” he said.
Iran is yet to face any severe military consequences for arming the Russians and its various proxies, though a major retaliation from President Joe Biden over the attack in Jordan is expected to take place in the near future.
It will most likely take the form of an attack on Iranian or Iranian-backed forces inside Iraq, as bombing Iran itself would risk a tremendous escalation in the conflict.
Those with a more hawkish view on Iran have increased calls for direct action against the regime.
They argue that for too long the West has allowed Tehran and its proxies to operate in the shadows across the Middle East with impunity – though the regime is subject to crippling sanctions over human rights abuses and its nuclear programme.
“In killing US soldiers, the regime in Iran has greatly overreached itself.
It must now be put back into place,” wrote Kasra Aarabi, director of IRGC research at United Against Nuclear Iran, in a recent op-ed for the Telegraph. “This must now be remedied. Weakness emboldens the Iranian regime; strength cows it.”
A decade on from that portentous ceremony in September 2013, where the Shahed was unveiled, it has become a terror of the skies over two continents.
It could also be argued that the story of the Shahed mirrors Iran’s expanding influence across the Middle East and Europe: secretive, low-cost, and more geared towards disruption than mass-destruction.
As for General Jafari, he is now quietly retired in Iran, where he lives under US and UK sanctions – but the legacy of his “scientific struggle” drones on.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm………………
The person was on the path to radicalisation long before we became involved, long before Victoria Police became involved,” he said.
So he was ‘on the path’, any actual proof of this ‘path’?
Then lead him for 71 days?
‘an AFP agent initiated extremist discussions with him over 71 days’
Good work AFP Commissioner McFatso.
dotty, moslems are radicalised in the womb.
The Wall Street Journal
Opinion | Israel’s Untold Gaza Progress
Opinion by The Editorial Page
You may have missed it amid the media defeatism, but Israel is winning its war in Gaza. Hamas’s losses are mounting, and support for the Israeli war effort has endured around the world longer than Hamas expected.
The war is far from over, but Hamas’s southern stronghold of Khan Younis is falling. Civilians have streamed out and Hamas’s remaining forces in the city’s west are encircled. They face an Israeli advance on all sides, and Israel is now fighting below ground in force.
Biden Administration restrictions and Israeli caution have slowed the war, but consider that the 2016-17 battle of Mosul against ISIS took nine months. “Mosul,” writes John Spencer, chief of urban warfare studies at West Point’s Modern War Institute, “was one battle, in one city against 3 to 5k militants with limited defenses. Israel is fighting multiple battles in 7 cities against 30k militants with military grade underground cities built under civilian areas.”
Israel needs time to achieve victory, and Hamas is counting on Western powers to deny it that time. The 2009 Gaza war was brought to an end after three weeks, the 2014 war after six weeks.
The “CNN strategy” of using human shields to gain media sympathy has worked every time for Hamas.
So far not this time. Oct. 7 was too brutal. This war has passed 120 days, and the U.S. and Europe refuse to call for a cease-fire.
Israel says it has killed, incapacitated or arrested some 20,000 of Hamas’s 30,000 men and dismantled 17 of Hamas’s 24 Gaza combat battalions.
The losses have prevented Hamas from mounting military maneuvers and quieted its rocket fire, down more than 95% from the war’s early days.
Israel has freed 110 hostages, but its leaders are under pressure at home while 132 are still captive.
The Biden Administration is using that domestic pressure as diplomatic leverage to promote a hostage deal and long pause in the war that it hopes will become a cease-fire.
Never mind that leaving Hamas in control of territory is the definition of Israeli defeat.
No matter the length of the pause, Israel would likely have to resume fighting afterward.
That may be why Hamas has resisted the U.S. pause and hostage-deal proposal and instead demands a cease-fire guarantee that Israel can’t give.
Recall that Hamas consented to the first hostage deal after Israel took Gaza City faster than anticipated.
An Israeli advance now could push the terrorists to Rafah, Hamas’s last major refuge, at the edge of Gaza.
Once Hamas’s last brigades are defeated, it will take time to sweep Gaza for terrorist cells and infrastructure.
Israel is clearing urban terrain and tunnels at a “historic pace,” Mr. Spencer writes, but the tunnels are vast and soldiers find munitions in home after home.
Israel’s task for 2024 is to finish the job, but will U.S. political support hold?
The Biden Administration, despite its second-guessing, continues to provide munitions and diplomatic cover that it would have a hard time withdrawing.
The latest Harvard CAPS-Harris poll finds that large majorities of Americans support Israel and its war aims.
Europe’s elected leaders are also holding the line, and no Arab state has quit the Abraham Accords.
Only Iran, which has escalated its regional war against the U.S., applies pressure.
Even the United Nations International Court of Justice balked at ordering a cease-fire.
Winning the war doesn’t guarantee winning the peace afterward, but it is essential for a secure Israel and a chance for Palestinians to have a normal life in Gaza.
In some depressed patients the chronic stress shrinks the hippocampus and there is an ongoing debate as to whether or not the instantiation of neurogenesis is fundamental to recovery. Many years ago a neuroscientist advised stress management is critical for preserving gray matter. Meditation is can be useful, it does help us manage the stress response axis. I hate meditating.
Caveat: the hippocampal shrinkage may only occur in those who suffered chronic childhood stress(old study from Nature Neuroscience).
Molestradamus prediction..
Every single one of the 4 turdlets involved in the stabbing of the old lady will have an extensive list of priors – and have never spent any serious time in jail…
/spooky music
Mr Page’s name is a perfect fit for the newspaper industry.
Yes, but it can provide an opportunity for a “stitch in time” chat with the power hog, asking him what he will do when the monster bill comes.
With a none-too-subtle hint that mummy and daddy aren’t picking up the tab.
Neuro-biology of trans-sexuality : Prof. Robert Sapolsky
Popped up in my feed. Remarkable finding.
China is certainly acting like an enemy that is prepared to do some business with us for the time being. I can see where pissing off our only strong ally is the way to go to appease the thugs in the CCP.
Yea! I have been thinking that my unreliable memory is a sure sign of approaching doddery.
I’m the opposite for the past 12 years (since Cancer win) my memory has improved out of sight .. I can remember most of my life from 5 onwards quite vividly ( not alwayz a welcome event .. LOL) .. Never been great at folk’s names but never forget faces or dates ….
Define “unnecessarily”, what practical actions does it imply? Get on board with Belt and Road”? Don’t annoy China by trying to outbid them for the dubious loyalties of Pacific Island leaders? Refuse US ship visits? Cancel all joint training with the US, replacing it with joint training with India?
Moving beyond foreign policy, should we develop our own nuclear deterrent? Form a universal militia force to “discourage” a land invasion? Replace ships and aircraft with drones and missiles?
You need to get into specifics.
John H
I’m not going to argue with Prof. Salopsky.
Trans might be 0.1% of the population. Yet 3% or so of the population will declare that Salopsky’s lecture is 100% about them.
That’s the problem, along with pre-majority surgery and even secretive treatment, kept away from parents.
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.
The “plenty wrong” thorough vetting of 1200 Gazans overnight seems to be the template used for all the gummint intake these dayz ……
You’re probably not far off given awful stuff like Farfour and Neehoul but this is too grimdank for me. Every neonatal child has an even chance if not for their parents.
Currently on the Shinkansen heading back to Tokyo after a rewarding time in Kyoto, including catching up with a very old friend that I have not seen since we started high school. He was a very gracious and informative guide around the temple complex on Mt Hiei. Having lived in Japan for almost 30 years, he was a font of local knowledge.
It is cold but not rainy. There is snow next to the tracks but only here and there.
I have fallen in love with Japan. The deep sense of history and reverence among the Japanese resonates with me, as well as the constant politeness. Senior Baby Bird is now 90% of the way to marrying a Japanese woman and moving permanently.
And the food is fantastic. The shochu I could probably live without, tasting as it does like slightly sweet vodka.
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.
You have to be careful with this.
It sounds great in theory & some US states have had this in place since the late 80s.
The problem is it allows dodgy DAs & police departments to use paid informants to entrap groups of individuals.
Then they give the paid informant a plea deal.
At a federal level the FBI has weaponised this since Sept 11.
Bringing it back to Australia, would you trust NSW plod & Vic plod to not weaponise laws like this against groups they were targeting ?
At the same time, not use the laws against “protected” groups?
I wouldn’t.
Many years ago a neuroscientist advised stress management is critical for preserving gray matter. Meditation is can be useful, it does help us manage the stress response axis. I hate meditating.
I also hate meditating, and don’t find it effective, anyway.
During the stressful Covid years I discovered a strange little technique which is very popular in the USA and also, I understand, in Europe. It is called “Tapping”.
Very briefly, it involves tapping on known acupressure points, coupled with affirmations. Out of casual interest, I tried it – & damn it – such a stupidly simple thing actually works with stress. It requires only a simple, short exercise every day. I showed it to grand oddaughter doing her HSC – & we practiced together. Towards the end, she started smiling, then snatched my iPad (with which we were watching the technique) & copied it in a milli second onto her phone. I told her to teach it to her 21 year old brother who still suffers PTSD after the broken jaw &, blow me down, he is using it.
BTW one of the most perfidious aspects of the lockdowns and repressive government policies during those years has been the avalanche in mild to serious anxiety in adults and kids alike.
A couple of years ago I read an interesting article by a psychologist wherein he tracked the rise of the current trans issue with social media influence. There is an important difference. The trans issue is now much more about women transitioning, historically it was mostly about men.
I take your point, the current situation is perverse. We would need to look at the studies he is referencing. Hopefully, and probably, the bods had enough rigour to eliminate the fakes.
I’m the opposite for the past 12 years
How long have you been off the booze for?
There’s a straight line between a drop off in sugar intake & brain function.
Vicki I have a vague memory about that. I use a Hindu trick to help me sleep. Focus on a point at the centre of the forrid, just above the eyes.
I was even more perplexed by EMDR until I learned it has an input on vagus nerve activity. Vagus nerve stimulation is being used for depression treatment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_movement_desensitization_and_reprocessing
So I had to check for a correlation and sure enough …
https://www.redkitemeditations.com/blog/2021/8/14/tuning-forks-vagus-nerve-anxiety
BTW Yogic breathing(diaphragmic) also stimulates the vagus nerve. Hence “breath deeply” when having a panic attack.
This doesn’t mean that trannies aren’t nuts, it does go some way to explaining the nuttiness. Their brain is telling them lies by way of a neural anomaly.
I’m not suggesting we should stop being kind to them. I am very doubtful about treating their delusion as reality. The elevation of the subjective over the objective is a cultural perversion. Explaining to them that there is something wrong with their brains seems to me the kindest thing to do, and it has the merit of being true.
And the food is fantastic.
I had lunch (again) at Sushi Hotaru in the sub-basement of the QVB.
Best sushi train in the CBD.
I had a Virginia ham roll, with beetroot, green tomato relish, avocado & cucumber for lunch.
Helluva lot better for the intended purpose (fuelling up) than Sushi.
Which is why we need a strong military.
We can never have a strong military with 89,000 members (including reservists) and no nukes or serious weapons or delivery systems of deterrence.
Take it further down the non strong military list when we don’t have the design, manufacturing or resource base to acquire missiles, aircraft, artillery, smart mines, torpedoes. We are losing all metal smelting and refining capability. We sell more uranium than any country on earth but can’t refine it ourselves. We can’t even manufacture tyres for vehicles in this country. We have insufficient home grown fuel supply. Israel, with a skerrick of our resources, land mass, GDP or population does 1000 times more than us in this space…
Burshtein on the Stage 3 Tax Cut broken promise in the OZ.
This guy is usually pretty ‘sound’ on matter economic and other public policy issues.
If you read this, also keep in mind that the Liars voted for the original package when the expected deficit was going to be $56 B. It is now expected to be just $1 B.
Bruce,
If your mother really does more than that in a year then she’s got the window open, or running around naked in the house with the aircon on too to take the heat down.
It isn’t about appeasing China. I didn’t propose dropping the US to hook-up with China. Rather, I want a line which minmaxes of both relationships while remaining non-aligned with either.
PM, Premier join Abdallah and Sakr families for memorial garden opening
By Monica Doumit – February 5, 2024
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and NSW Premier Chris Minns were among the distinguished guests who joined Danny and Leila Abdallah, Bridget Sakr and Craig Mackenzie, their extended family and friends, for the blessing of the memorial to Antony, Angelina, Sienna and Veronique.
Concluding the event and capturing the spirit of the afternoon was former prime minister and friend of the Abdallah and Sakr families, Scott Morrison.
Rather, I want a line which minmaxes of both relationships while remaining non-aligned with either.
Since the subs deal, Australia is a client state of the US.
Any stoushes over strategic policy are pure theatre.
For example, not sending ships to the middle east was because they didn’t have the drone defences needed, not because “Albo stood up to the US” as initially reported on the ABC.
P
Apparently the bloke speaks with the kids killer every month as well.
He a deadset legend as far as forgiveness goes.
Brains don’t lie, we do. It doesn’t go anyway to explaining mental illness. We don’t even know what the BNST does. Why would inhibitory projections to the hypo make that difference? At best, that is projects to the hypothalamus, is consistent with the general view that the hypothalamus is a regulatory region for many basic functions. Mental illness is often associated with frontal lobe and striatal dysregulated interactions, not the BNST or hypothalamus(excluding the PVN, which is part of the stress response axis).
They know there is something wrong with them. They know they have psychological issues. They don’t need us to lecture them about that. What this finding demonstrates is that sexual orientation is not in the groin, as if that needed to be demonstrated.
The question is whether or not they should undergo transitioning. We’ve discussed this before and I presented findings showing that overall there is a distinct benefit for them. However I am very skeptical about psychological results because having invested so much in the transition they are much less likely to say it was a mistake. That’s just human behavior, the more we invest in something, we less we are inclined to view that investment as a mistake. The real test is the immediate responses but the responses 4-10 years post transition.
I can’t answer the question of utility, I don’t think the question can even be answered in any general sense. Each case on its merits. Europe is certainly limiting the transition issue for teenagers, it is stupid countries like here and the USA that has opened that pandora’s box.
I was even more perplexed by EMDR until I learned it has an input on vagus nerve activity.
Thanks for all that, John H. Always interesting what others find effective, and why.
Stop fighting WW2, Private!
One can get exactly the same nutritional inputs from sushi as from a ham roll.
Sushi is only a style of serving food.
The ingredients are limited only by your imgination and creativ…
Oh, I see the problem now.
As you were.
Can you identify, even broadly, that line?
Keep selling coal to China, while hosting US forces? Or no coal, and no US forces? Buy Chinese warships, but stick with US aircraft and missiles? Leave the Pacific islands to Belt and Road, but seek more investment from the US?
And where do India and Indonesia fit into your vision?
Dover, lots of “Database Connection” messages today, but it refreshes pretty quickly.
FYI, on one refresh, I scrolled to bottom to see latest comments and it showed page numbers as follows:-
1,2,3 … 142.
Like it has merged a whole bunch of stuff into a yuuuge 142 page thread or something.
+1
LOL
Processed meats are possibly the worst thing you can devour.
It isn’t about appeasing China. I didn’t propose dropping the US to hook-up with China. Rather, I want a line which minmaxes of both relationships while remaining non-aligned with either.
After reading Clive Hamilton’s book(s) on China & Peter Hartscher’s Red Zone (& his many newspaper articles), I can’t see any joy in playing two-step with China. They are way, way ahead of us in such manoeuvres.
Although they play the long game, the stats on their aging population and stalling economy imply that we are not entirely at their mercy. Despite cries of woes, we did manage to survive their embargoes after Morrison pointed a finger over the origin of Covid.
They tend to think that we are slothful (at least the urban Aussie), sun lovers wedded to the good life. I would like to think we are capable of showing them that we still have the sterner stuff that made Australia a formidable agricultural and mining nation. Now if we could revive our manufacturing sector ……….
I’m sure there’s interesting neuro-biology behind serial killers and pedophiles. So what, it doesn’t excuse their deviancy or the danger to society of such people.
You give me general questions I give you general answers. To the above, I can be more specific. What ‘unnecessarily’ means in this or that circumstance will depend on Australia’s goals. If those are having an independent, non-aligned foreign policy, then it will mean joint training is off the table, but I don’t see why ship visits would be. ‘Belt and Road’ may or may not be on the table, would all depend on what was being offered and if it was to our mutual advantage. As for competing with China in the Pacific, I don’t see why that would have to end given the above goals.
No to nuclear weapons, but yes to nuclear power. I would beef up our IRS, invest in AD, anti-ship, ballistic and cruise missiles, drones, and maintain a highly mobile light infantry. How ships and aircraft fit into this strategy I’m not sure, but I’d prefer our offensive naval capability being carried by our subs.
Not really JC. The studies showed that the highest consumption created a risk. Highest quintile IIRC. Difficult to tease all that out but generally if people are big consumers of a specific food type it can indicate poor dietary choices overall. Apart from that I accept McCloskey’s advice that when looking at these studies p<.05 is hopeless, results needs what she calls "Oomph!". That is, very large effect.
Already on it.
How long have you been off the booze for?
There’s a straight line between a drop off in sugar intake & brain function.
August, 1980 after being diagnosed with Cirrhosis of the Liver following 10 years as an alcoholic ……
Coming to a mountain near you:
Ben Fordham has lashed out at the cost to stop tourists from climbing a ‘stunningly beautiful’ mountain after it was closed out of respect to the Indigenous community.
Mount Warning, in the Northern Rivers region of NSW, once welcomed more than 120,000 visitors every year, but it has been off limits since 2020, despite an argument between Indigenous elders about its cultural significance.
From April to October last year, private security guards were hired to keep people off Mt Warning at a cost of about $7,000 per week.
Overall, nearly $200,000 was spent securing the mountain and security is still brought in on occasions such as New Year’s Eve and Australia Day.
Fordham labelled the costs ‘nuts’ questioning why thousands of dollars was being spent on security guards to stop tourists from climbing the mountain.
Daily Mail
OldOzzie
Feb 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.
Outstanding.
John H
Processed meats are loaded with preservatives, surely that’s not a good thing.
Of course it doesn’t. If anything it points to the exact opposite. These people are beyond redemption and must be forever kept away from society. I don’t know why people slip into the irrational syllogism that because behavior is biologically mediated the person is not accountable. The biology is integral to the person. It is a brute fact that biology has a huge influence on behavior, the evidence for that is overwhelming. People who think we should not restrain psychopaths might want to consider that by their logic we should not restrain ourselves from walking in front of buses.
There was a fascinating experiment with psychopaths. Some probably rather idealistic psychologists thought intensive psychotherapy would cure the psychopaths. One was released and within hours killed. Others remarked that the psychologists had taught them how to better manipulate people.
Yes. No. Buy the most cost-effective weapons we can get that we can maintain, repair, and resupply. Possibly.
Some may, some do not. Some are convinced that their feelings define reality. It’s a common delusion, particularly among women.
” My feelings don’t care about your facts”
(Titania McGrath)
Ingredients in sushi are limited only by imagination & creativity.
Sure.
A flat circle of dough, slathered with tomato paste, then ham, olives, anchovy, mushroom, capsicum & pineapple. Topped with shredded mozzarella & oregano.
That’s one helluva sushi.
Or how about 300grammes of Wagyu eye fillet, seared & sizzled, then topped with red wine jus & English mustard. (perhaps a shake of salt) accompanied by deep friend hand-cut potato chips.
You’re right, Sushi is amazing when imagination & creativity are used.
You must be Len Evans.
Pedo’s need to be studied.
Like lab rats.
For life, with zero chance of ever being released.
With zero access to the outside world.
There’s a straight line between a drop off in sugar intake & brain function.
Wow! I’m going to try to cut sugar intake. Another Cat tried to persuade me of this some time ago – but I find it hard. Fats – no problem.
Unfukingbelievable: the vomitous abc reports the arrest of the scum who stabbed the grannie and makes the core of the article about potential racist revenge attacks against the africans.
This Israel/Ukraine/border bill is an abomination.
Its progress will say more about November expectations than any polling will.
Okay let’s run with extreme absurdity. It always makes sense.
Not being sarcastic DB but I find the concept of “cost-effective weapons” funny. A modern USA made hypersonic is 100 million plus. An F35 is ~75 million and costs $35,000 US an hour flight time. It takes a decade to produce a good fighter pilot and costs many millions.
I don’t see how Australia can defend itself. Our population and economic bases are too small.
China grabs another bargaining chip..
Australian academic Yang Hengjun given suspended death sentence by Chinese court
Australia’s foreign minister said the government was ‘appalled’ by the sentence, which could mean life in prison for Yang
Given some of the crimes against lycra getting around Cottesloe this summer he has my vote. Definite need for some licensing or quality control. Dot?
Nearly a million folks without power in Californi-ay:
https://poweroutage.us/area/state/california
I wonder why that is?
Dover
.
You started with a fairly general comment:
I responded with an equally general question, not wanting to put words into your mouth (or my ideas into your head):
Your responses so far have been quite generic, with no specific proposals. I have responded with suggestions, trying to draw you out, so far with no actual success. However, I am happy to withdraw all of my general questions, can you provide specific ideas for Australian actions to reach your desired position, please?
John H, Australia is a long way away from everywhere. Wouldn’t an over abundance of attack subs be the big part of the solution.
As I have previously stated: the most appropriate acronym in biomedicine is AGE. Advanced glycation end products: sugar coating of various proteins. There is even a receptor for those products with a remarkably accurate acronym: RAGE, because occupation of that receptor by AGE ps induces a raging inflammatory response.
Benfotiamine, a synthetic form of thiamine but with a much longer half life, is often touted as being very important. A peripheral neuropathology expert argues that it but not thiamine controls AGE generation.
Another neglected critical cofactor in sugar regulation: chromium.
I don’t agree on high fat diets. Too many studies pointing to hypothalamic inflammation. Additionally lipid peroxidation is a big danger signal to the immune system that initiates inflammation. I have long told people have thiamine rich foods \benfotiamine with carb laden meals.
A critical issue is the blood sugar spike post eating. Insulin is not stored, it has to be created so it can take quite a few hours to bring blood sugar down to a good level.
Over 50 everyone should be reducing carb\sugar intake because mitochondrial function begins to decline. Another important reason is that inflammatory mediating immune cells invoke glycolysis(sugar dependent energy creation) as an additional energy source.
Our bodies will always produce enough sugar via glucogenesis in the liver. Brains love sugar, especially human brains, but balance is the key.
The big issue is nutrient intake per calorie.
Time restricted eating does appear to have some benefits, possibly because it reduces the number of sugar spikes and promotes some fat burning.
Grandpa, what did you do in the polony wars?
Frankly, I’m shocked. I would never have believed in a 1,000 years Daniel would support broken promises.
A true independent.
Maybe, bear with me here, US weapons aren’t the most cost-effective on the market.
Pay peanuts and you end up with monkeys. The US is the largest military equipment exporter in the world. China has very few “clients” for its military hardware.
Rand Paul wanting to have an auditor appointed to the original Ukraine bill should have been the first step.
All spending bills over a certain amount should have the equivalent of a special counsel appointed to oversee the spend.
It would be the slightest of taps on the brakes.
One of those random comment days but I’ve just read, and never realised, that Engels proposed that marriage was a product of a capitalist society which needed to be “broken down” to allow for different types of marriages, polygamy etc…
He truly was a libertarian.
“A true independent.”
Worse than that, a true Teal. Didn’t these skanks talk a lot about truth, integrity and transparency before the May 2022 election?
If the Liberals don’t hold these Teals accountable for their duplicity and lies then they don’t deserve to win back any of those electorates lost to the Teals in May 2022.
I suspect the lying skank of Goldstein is gone anyway. Just a feeling. I think the Curtin slag is gone too.
The Eurofighter is more expensive than the F35. The European meteor missile is currently the best air to air missile but we’ll need F35, Eurofighter, Rafale, or Gripen for those. The Rafale has sold surprisingly well and is possibly the best 4++ gen fighter. Here’s stupid for us: when Howard signed onto the F 35 deal the Dassault representative was here promoting the Rafale and didn’t even get a hearing.
An interesting possibility is South Korea. Poland has gone big on SK hardware. Excellent main battle tank, missile capability, and the light attack fighter the FA 50, just going into production, might be worth a look but I think its range and payload capacity will be too limited for our purposes.
We are considering joining a trial sponsored by the Department (yeah I know) using donkeys for anti-dog protection. The same role as alpacas in civilised country but donks are more suited to the harsh Gregory environment.
There is a lot more to learn as yet but it sounds encouraging. We don’t allow horses because of the risk of stakes and snakes, but apparently donks don’t consider snakes to be any kind of a challenge.
Anything that helps control the current explosion in dog numbers would help. We are facing the difficult and expensive prospect of having to muster in cows with calves.
The biggest risk to the program would be the lady manager turning the donks into pets. She would feed ants if she could get away with it.
In effect the only defence we need is 6 Columbia subs. Blanket statement, any country attacks us you will cease to exist. A coastguard to protect sea borders and no legal standing for illegal immigrants, claims for refugee status only made outside of country.
BJ, I have a specific question for you. Which ally of the US would you like us to emulate?
Wow Bons… you’d never believe it (and I can’t “dox” myself) but I’ve had quite the career dealing with wild dogs!/dingoes!
Your skills would be in demand up our way. Might even be a beer in it.
I gave you specific answers at 3.39 and 3.47pm.
They will never sell us those subs. The Brits might sell us the Astute class but no-one is going to sell us the nuke missiles. France? Well ya know there was a little argument a few years back … .
We might not even get the Virginias.
I was more on the “lobbying” side than the shooting side Bons but (I don’t know where you’re based) but our lobbying was based on what had been done in QLD with the kinda “beehive” approach to fencing… didn’t really work out.
Although I do recall being with a certain Minister many moons ago to look at a dog fence near Kalgoorlie. Now, I don’t mind a beer but even I thought it a bit odd when (out in the middle of nowhere at 9am in the morning) the cockies that came to met us all brought eskies with emu gold.
Now, surely, if you’re going to act like a raging alcholic and drink at 9am, surely, surely!… you’d drink full strength!!! 😛
Cost-effective, JC. Cost-effective. I didn’t say cheap. F-35, for instance, is very much like the Jaguar from what I hear; spends more time at the garage than on the road. BTW, I’m not even sure why people are providing China as the alternative.
Exactly.
I mean, the stuff in commercially processed ham isn’t added post mortem.
It is used to kill the pig.
That is why, if I must have ham, I only eat Jamón Ibérico de Bellota.
It is a frustrating business Lysander. Our district baits intensively which until recently was rather effective, but expensive. Numbers are now on the rise again, and nobody appears to understand why.
The idea of donkeys sounds bizzare, but apparently they hate dogs and are very agressive when they attack. The main downside is that they can be absolute nightmare beasts to deal with when they become a little independent.
Non-aligned is fine if you are in a friendly neighbourhood, we are not. Our size and inability to provide security for the whole continent means that we are sitting ducks without an effective alliance.
Meme I just saw (apologies if posted):
NSW Police have confirmed that Martin Luther King said “I have an ice-cream”
Just checking the “database connection” thingie!
There was some station up in the Pilbara (?) that had donkeys and they got out of control. Like, seriously out of control by way of about 14,000 of them…
Pay peanuts and you end up with monkeys.
Though few have been wrecked, it is interesting to look at the crew survivability between the Ukie Leopards and the Russian open topped/zippo model tanks.
The leopards are able to be disabled and eventually destroyed, but seem to resist the impulse to flip their tops and burn on a hit.
Id imagine the Yank Abrahams would be nearly as good for crews.
Dover, what I have been seeing is “no comments to show”. No comments are showing on r/h/s of page..
An aspiring libertine, actually.
But, sadly for him, the snivelling little rat DNA was always there.
A brilliant clip going viral. I would like to see the “reaction” clip of JK Rowling watching it.
“Teacher Teaches Student to Think About ‘Transphobic’ Attacks on J.K. Rowling”
One more thing Bons is that a good mate of mine, although I actually haven’t seen him for a while, is a CSIRO scientist and his PhD was on wild dogs…
That’s because there’s the prevailing wisdom (that you and I share) and then there are the eco warriors, funding by the uber rich Pocock families of the world who want to preserve the dingo. They say for environmental and ancestral reasons, but we know its because dogs help their station out by killing the kangas (and they have no stock).
Anyway, old mate has shown me some pretty clever felixers and he reckons we’re not that far away from AI-ran bots that go out and shoot these things 24/7. When I say “shoot” I don’t mean with bullets, I mean with 1080.
Lysander
Feb 5, 2024 4:04 PM
Nearly a million folks without power in Californi-ay:
https://poweroutage.us/area/state/california
I wonder why that is?
These videos explain the why –
https://pipelineonline.ca/weekend-watch-juice-power-politics-the-grid-a-must-watch/#/?playlistId=0&videoId=0
JMH
Feb 5, 2024 5:07 PM
They seem to be back now – for the moment!
Picturing the Minister seeing a dog. Using what is to hand, flings it at the dog – and accidentally christens it McGinnis.
When I were yoong tacker I was hitching from Perth to home and got a ride with a retired former head of the Agriculture Protection Board. John Leighton. When he stopped to boil the billy he made me an apricot jam and peanut butter sandwich and told me he learned to make these from American soldiers in WW2 Europe. He had been a gamekeeper in England before the war, then migrated to join the APB about 1949. On his first trip out from Derby his mentor started shooting at a donkey with the .303.
‘You’re missing it!’ he said.
‘Be b*ggered I am’ came the reply.
Turned out he was gut-shooting it so it would wander further from the road before it died, so as not to stink the road up. John put a stop to that.
Another time almost as long ago I was in the pub at Sandstone and chatting with an old bloke who turned out to be a dogger.
‘You have to be really on the ball to even see a dog, never mind get a shot at one’.
‘What you do is shoot a roo from the car, then race up to it as fast is you can, jump out and quickly cut deep with a knife and get the poison into the roo while the blood is still moving, so the poison gets to every part of the animal.
Living on your own in a camper for months on end.
‘Not many can stick the lifestyle’.
I believe him. I saw a job advertised for a dogger later. Didn’t apply.
St Hilliers brown bread.
Oh god, its come to this.
Dick Smith has said something sensible…
20 minutes in
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other/dick-smith-clashes-with-emilie-dye-on-australia-s-immigration-intake/ar-BB1hKmFx?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=01004c9c1c564644a4df5c45694a2701&ei=6
Mike Lee
@BasedMikeLee
Looks like we are codifying the Biden Asylum Rule: you don’t even have to go before an immigration judge to be granted asylum.
https://x.com/BasedMikeLee/status/1754325912508682450?s=20
How can this bill possibly get up?
Kyle Becker
@kylenabecker
Oh by the way, if at any moment Joe Biden doesn’t like the “border emergency” declaration he can end it at will.
That’s actually in the bill, lol
https://x.com/kylenabecker/status/1754338630624014516?s=20
The bill also makes the president an emperor.
And the evidence for my claim is the number of trannies determined to invade female spaces and female sports in particular. People who scream “Trans-women are women” are far from acknowledging that trannies have a psychological problem.
Not like lab rats. Experiments on lab animals are subject to very strict controls in the hope of minimizing pain. Like psychopaths pedos don’t appear curable. I’m sure they have been studied but I’d rather examine them with a baseball bat.
Agree Chris, totally.
When I picture doggers, I think of crusty old men in the middle of nowhere with not much to do but drink while sitting in the back of their ute/4WD waiting for a dog to pass by…
Refer to Sopranos where Tony by the end has figured out the shrink and adapted to survive/thrive.
So he is a more resilient, dangerous criminal than when he started therapy. And she knows it and fears him …
How Anthony Albanese told Aussies he had no intention to change the tax cuts at the same time plans were being drawn to dump them
. Bureaucrats say there were not ‘complicit in a lie’
. Anthony Albanese called out for ‘broken promise’
Senior public servants were working on plans to dump the Stage Three tax cuts even as Anthony Albanese told Aussies he had ‘no plans’ to change them.
The Prime Minister and Treasurer Jim Chalmers repeatedly said there would be no changes to the tax cuts originally legislated by the previous Coalition government – right up until the point that they announced drastic changes in January.
But on Monday, Canberra bureaucrats confirmed at a Senate Inquiry that they were working on plans to dump the Coalition’s version for an updated Labor version before Christmas.
More than 11.5million taxpayers are expected to be better off under Labor’s changes, but an estimated 1.1million people earning more than $150,000 will receive only half the tax cut they would have got if the Coalition was still in power.
Liberal Senator Jane Hume asked the Treasury and Finance officials: ‘How many Australians are going to pay more tax because of this decision?’
The officials said they would have to take the question on notice, meaning they would answer it later, most likely in a written reply.
Ms Hume was not happy, demanding to be told: ‘How can you not know how many more people are going to pay more tax over the medium term in which the government is going to rake in an additional $28billion?’
She put it to the public servants that ‘when the Prime Minister said on the 21st of December, “we are not reconsidering our position” you actually were reconsidering.’
But they said they had not been ‘complicit in a lie’ in doing so.
Anna Harmer from the Department of Finance said it wasn’t clear until January that the government was about to make changes to the Stage Three tax cuts.
Despite having broken repeated promises to proceed with the Coalition version of the tax changes, Mr Albanese insisted on Sunday that he was not being deceptive.
‘I’m an honest person. I am upfront,’ he told the ABC’s Insiders program.
‘What I have done here is be very, very clear. And I’ve listened to people who are all saying to me, “Well, what are you doing about cost of living? What are the measures that you can put in place?”‘
Indeed you can. My last house was open plan downstairs, had lots of glass, and then there was a staircase leading to the bedrooms and main bathroom – a large, cavernous space which actually did not add amenity, but racked up the costs in winter. When the nights get down to -7, and the days struggle to meet 12C in July, heating the living space is expensive.
BTW, a relative had a NSW Housing Commission house of similar design, but bigger. It was in Sydney’s far western suburbs, where it gets quite cold in winter. Heating it was impossibly expensive. It no doubt made some architect happy, but was was a disaster for the low income residents.
That said, having shaved things pretty fine with my energy suppliers, there is no way any of them would have allowed me to run up a $10,000 debt, not even close. And I was a homeowner, not a tenant.
Could it be that Saint Lizzie, that paragon of honesty, has … err … slightly elided the facts?
No, no, no, sorry – perish the thought.
Moooo! 🙂
Refer to Sopranos where Tony by the end has figured out the shrink and adapted to survive/thrive.
So he is a more resilient, dangerous criminal than when he started therapy. And she knows it and fears him …
This is an often missed point of the Soprano’s.
She made he a more efficient gangster.
I binged watched the whole thing again last year.
It’s one of the best shows ever.
Thefrolickingmoll:
Grab ten of theirs. Hold them incommunicado, no charges.
Wait for China to double down.
Repeat – make sure the ones we grab are Communist Party members.
We could develop our own Iron and Steel industry.
Meanwhile in the Territory: amusement in court….
A Darwin real estate agent accused of assaulting former Chief Minister Natasha Fyles with a cream crepe will face trial in the Darwin Local Court in July.
Suzi Milgate returned to court on Monday where she stands charged with aggravated assault and using a carriage service to harass following the incident at the Nightcliff markets in September last year.
After previously requesting an adjournment to find legal representation, Milgate asked Chief Judge Elizabeth Morris for more time, saying she had found a lawyer but “he decided, because it’s against government, that he couldn’t do it”.
In setting down the hearing for July 9, Ms Morris also set down a further directions hearing in May so Milgate could update the court about the status of her legal representation.
“It will proceed on that day (in July) so you need to be ready, with a lawyer or without a lawyer,” she said.
“If you have any witnesses that you want to call, they need to be ready and available on that day.
“These are serious charges and I would encourage you to get legal advice in relation to them, and legal representation.”
Milgate also filed some paperwork with the court, which Ms Morris described as “nonsense”.
“Do you understand this? I don’t,” she said.
“It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with these proceedings.”
Milgate replied “Ah, yes it does, maybe you could take it home and read it”.
But after further perusal Ms Morris said she would place it on the file “but it is nonsense”.
As the hearing wrapped up, Milgate also objected to being referred to by her last name, saying “No, it’s Suzanne because Milgate’s my husband’s name”.
“So what’s your surname?” Ms Morris asked, to which Milgate replied “No, my first name is Suzanne”.
“Here it says that your name is Suzanne Lee Milgate, are you saying that is not your name?” Ms Morris asked.
“No, I said it’s my husband’s name, it’s a married name but my name is actually Suzanne or Suzanne Lee,” she replied.
“I prefer to be called Suzanne or Suzanne Lee, not Ms Milgate”.
Speaking outside court Milgate, who has indicated she will plead not guilty, said she was “180 per cent” confident of finding a lawyer to represent her and win the case.
“It’s not a serious allegation, it’s a bit of cream,” she said.
“(I’m) very confident because I’m definitely going to win this, we are expecting a good outcome.”
The CCP release one hostage and then nab another one to hold over us.
Chinese people with an Australian citizenship should have worked it out by now, don’t go back to China. I also have a sneaky little feeling that perhaps the returnees might be in league with the CCP and that includes the journalist who has recently been let go.
Heh. Big old house in a cold climate. Snows sometimes in winter, but even in summer it’s often pretty cool, windy or drizzling.
Bourne1879:
Unfortunately no subtitles which makes it useless for many.
You’re quite right JohnH but I can live in hope.
Bons,
I watched a youtube clip recently on mules. It showed a mule taking down a cougar and killing it. Shook it like a foxy shaking a rat, then stomped it to death. This was a riding mule. A couple were out riding and the wife dismounted to look at something. A cougar was poised to attack. The mule was faster than the husband who was scrabbling to organise his rifle. I will see if I can find it later this evening. Afternoon jobs to do. 😀
I did read an article recently where the farmer had given up on Marremas and had invested in donkeys. Downside is, the bigger the property, the more donkeys you need. Still worth a try I believe. Vicious little bastards though, and the noise!
dover0beach> Have your tech (minor) gods tried using connection pooling? See here for some discussions on options involving php and mysql.
We had connection issues with Java/MySQL setup and connection pooling plus adjusting the allowed number of SQL connections from default of 100 to 700 fixed things.
Don’t sweat it doc. The blowback is already happening and a few loud voices do not represent the whole trans community.
Trans people need to recognize that society mostly caters for the general population. Society can try to accommodate differences but when that results in many more people being discriminated against, in this instance women in changing rooms etc, a line must be drawn. Contrariwise, providing wheelchair access does not discriminate against other people. It is expensive but only as a sunk cost and it doesn’t inconvenience other people. None of us have the right to demand the world be fully accommodating for us. Their intolerance to the wishes of the general population is arrogant and discriminatory.
John H.
Our experience with purchases from France has not been encouraging.
This is an often missed point of the Soprano’s.
She made he a more efficient gangster.
I binged watched the whole thing again last year.
It’s one of the best shows ever.
All true. But the ending is very ambivalent with a hit on the family imminent.
None of them. We have always been in a different group to NATO et al.
OK, they might need a bit of fleshing out.
Took him to lunch today, Sancho, and it did not go well. He ended up walking out saying he was going to collect some butts in the street for a smoke. He is loathe to let us pay into the account and loathe to let us see the bills. Now this may be because he is having one of his hissy fits about being ‘independent’, when he is clearly not capable of it yet, but I smell something fishy, and so very much does Hairy. He did calculations on usage similar to yours Sancho (thanks for those) and said the figure was unbelievable. I think the figure is likely real, accumulated over seven years, he tells me around $6k of it is since he moved into his current place about 2018. Some of it was for a previous public housing place where somehow the electricity was run while he was in prison and he lost the tenancy (thus I’d like to check this with the supplier, and the Housing people). However, I’ve seen him throw his mail in the bin quite often when I’ve been sitting in my car waiting for him. Official looking papers, he ignores them all. Today he airily says if he ‘throws them $20 here and there’ they can’t touch him re the bill. And he’s going to make his fortune in his new (non-existent) media sales job next week, month, etc. (Bipolar is renowned for its unrealistic grandiosity).
He wants us to give him the cash, says Hairy firmly. Drugs again, says Hairy. Yes, he is broke, I know that. Doesn’t seem particularly drug-affected, no signs. Don’t know what to do now. Wait and see, I suspect. Trouble usually comes back home in the end. *sigh*
Thanks all for the concerns and helpful suggestions. Yes, an app controlling usage on his meter is a good suggestion for when all of this sorts out. As I expect it will. He may decide in the end to accept our offer of relief payment as long as we can do the paper trail on it all. I wish to hell he’d see a shrink again – the one whose certificate for Centrelink said he ‘was going in and out of psychosis’ a few years back. He’s not in a good place right now.
I won’t mention number one son’s absolute meltdown over the psychologist he saw. His autism is often quite masked but then he exits and has a meltdown over some trivial thing. I have sorted out a new psychologist for him this arvo, after this lunch.
Lucky I did my dance class this morning. Other may have their own techniques for stress but mine is a good dance to some jungle drums. 🙂
There is, without doubt, some group or entity pulling the strings worldwide. Leaving the “vaccine” aside, you need look no further than “climate change”. And is anyone here prepared to suggest that our government isn’t fully onboard? If so, a few examples would be nice. I can’t think of any.
Explosive Investigation Uncovers a Global Shadow Government’s Secret Control Over “Elected” Governments & Public Health Bodies, Forging a Global Vaccine Regime
Thank you Pogria. I remain a little tentative but the managers, who are much better informed than me, are keen to join the trial.
And yes, stroppy, noisy and stinky.
It always amuses me when you see sweet little playful donks in youtube videos. Bred for trust fund manager’s daughters, no doubt.
I see randy desparate couples hanging around dimly lit parks looking for a bit of swaps action.
Donkeys are assholes.
Never forget at one station coming back at the end of the day to the quarters to find we have been comprehensively ransacked by donkey bastards.
They had forced open the doors and managed to open most of the bags and eaten my 2 packets of CCs I was saving for later on.
Swine.
Collection of twitter videos showing the corpse molesting young girls:
This stuff is just voodoo speculation.
There are and have been many people, high achievers in business or politics or elsewhere, who thrive on levels of stress that most of us would find unendurable. It is meat and drink to them. It energises them.
Generalisations about what is ‘good’ for everyone are bullshit.
One man’s … is another man’s … has many variants. All true.
Theories about the hippocampus are right up there with those colourful photos of the brain that claim to prove something or other about human behaviour.
Just wait till AI gets into the act. Before we know it, ‘mapping’ the human brain will be like Google maps … despite lacking an actual piece of land to compare it to. And as we know, even an actual piece of land doesn’t prevent Google maps from screwing up, big time.
I wonder what Albo would say if someone asked him what a hippocampus is? 🙂
Bing Bong!
Scam alert!
Bing Bong!
Sad to say, but he is trying to stiff you.
Yeah, he might have a sizeable bill, but I reckon he has put some mayo on it (to the tune of a few hundred percent).
My advice would be “Sort it, Mr Independent. I don’t pay what I can’t see”.
thefrollickingmole
Feb 5, 2024 6:08 PM
Donkeys are assholes.
We are a Nation bled by Donkeys. Donkey Albo, Donkey Bowen, Donkey Chalmers and all the other Asses.
Trouble aired is trouble shared, so they say, and I know others here also have their worries, because they’ve said so as well. People expressing their concerns as they experience them does provide here a good survey of some of the trials of contemporary life. This is actually the stuff of politics, so I do think such sharing has a place here.
If I am over-concerned re my two son, then apologies.
To paraphrase Grocho slightly, I do have other worries if these are insufficient. 🙂
Bons,
I have no experience with donkeys, only ever been interested in horses. I can only pass on what I have read or watched. The little I have seen of donkeys in action, I wouldn’t let my dogs anywhere near one.
If they over breed in the good years, you can always shoot them for meat for the working dogs. 😀
This is a youtube of donkeys being used for stock protection.
This is the mule video. This one you have to read as it is mostly photos.
A former ANUs.
Anna Harmer (Bec ’97, LLB ’99) PSM
Ms Harmer has been awarded a Public Service Medal (PSM) for outstanding public service to law reform, and through leading the Office of the Royal Commission into Natural Disaster Arrangements.
Canbra is like the Ancien Regime without the style.
The filthy scrote that stabbed Mrs White, did so AFTER she handed him the keys to her car.
Put them down like the mad dogs they are.
That’s our absolute line, Sancho. No see, no pay. Glad you take that view too.
It sounds tough, but there are times when you have to be so. We are not fools waiting like sheep to be fleeced.
Those who’re about to pop out to purchase some Bundaberg Rum, (or if they’re not concerned for their tastebuds, some Woodstock & Cola) may be interested in current trends.
In my liquor order this week, the largest quantity of pre-mix (i.e. spirit & cola, or the closest thing to battery acid you can get) was Canadian Club & Dry Ginger Ale.
Coming in at half that was Bundy & Cola, and almost level with that was an unexpected entry, Jim Beam Black Label Double Serve & Cola.
In neat spirits, while yeah there was a bit of Bundy, 40% of the order was Grant’s Scotch, in the One-litre bottle. (Unlike all the other stuff, most of this scotch will be sold at the bar & consumed on the spot)
Again unexpectedly, 20% of the neat spirits order was Jim Beam Black Label Extra Aged.
Bundaberg Rum barely rated, alongside those two Kings of the nip pourer.
Contrariwise, providing wheelchair access does not discriminate against other people.
No, and nor should it, but the comparison to cocks in frocks is offensive. Disabled people who require wheelchair access are in NO like perverts, fetishists and autogynephiles.
Have been there, partially I guess. Twice.
The first time was literally a 24/7 job (in politics), jumping onto Lear Jets and having to make some sizeable policy and funding decisions. Love it and thrived in it.
Second time was as a lobbyist. The pay was great, but the hours and workload were atrocious. I failed at it.
The difference? I believed in the first job.
The second was me making more money for very rich people. I’m not a class warrior but I wasn’t going to have a stroke at age 43 for a bunch of people with money who just wanted more.
He must have perceived some ‘disrespect’ or something.
It should be noted that last night there were at least half-a-dozen homes broken into around southside Brisbane, by the same demographic, with violent requests for car keys.
There’s no consequences for the endless violent bashings, burglaries, carpark carjackings, etc.
The robbery with violence of Vyleen White would have barely, if at all, made the news, if she was hospitalised from a beating, with maxillo-facial injuries & ruptured internal organs.
This is on the Qld Court system and the Qld Labor government.
Pogria
Feb 5, 2024 6:40 PM
The filthy scrote that stabbed Mrs White, did so AFTER she handed him the keys to her car.
Put them down like the mad dogs they are.
Correct and no doubt but do you have a link?
Someone was asking for the subtitled version of “teacher/JK Rowling” twitter vid.
The u-tube one does a good job with the subtitles switched on
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIPPpsJY39c
Its nice, the kid gets himself out of group think by actually examining the statements instead of going with majority opinion.
Sal, he did it because he could.
I thought doggers was a term for people who liked walking their dogs.
Until Hairy told me it was a term used in the UK for people who peeped on others having sex in cars. Well, back in Mt. Druitt, when we were discovering at night in cars the various ‘bases’ you could reach in sexual explorations, we called them perverts.
I still do.
Cohenite,
Here.
Traitors, all.
U.S. Senate releases draft of $118 billion bipartisan bill, which would provide $60 billion in military aid to Ukraine, $14 billion to Israel and $20 billion for border security.
One of Cohenites cute owls?
https://twitter.com/SabrinaSmolders/status/1754212954906456467
Huh? I thought it was a job title, for one who is employed, or is self-employed, in catching & dispatching dingoes & wild dogs.
I suspect Grand Theft Auto can be blamed for a lot of this stuff.
Tried it out once, my nephews were playing it. It is a seriously nasty game.
Meditation, breathing exercises lowers cortisol levels.
Elevated cortisol levels for extended periods of time is bad for the body.
Well I thought it was being a snitch. Or letting someone down.
But then I’m old and pre Urban Dictionary.
Thanks. These black bastards need to be executed. But just watch what happens to the scum. Turdball times has already laid own the racist angle that other africans will be targeted
Lizzie,
re dogging, when I lived out Hoxton Park way, it was all dirt roads and dead ends. There would regularly be two cars at the end of the road where people had met for a bit of rumpy pumpy. If I was walking with the dogs, I would giggle loudly and keep walking. When I was riding, I would ride up to the car that was groaning, bang on the roof as hard as I could then gallop away. God it was funny. 😀
Mole, I clicked.
You caught me at a weak, unsuspecting moment.
All I can say is…why? What the hell is wrong with people?
thefrollickingmole
Feb 5, 2024 6:51 PM
One of Cohenites cute owls?
https://twitter.com/SabrinaSmolders/status/1754212954906456467
Don’t be a dickhead. This is a cute owl.
I was illustrating that society can make reasonable adjustments that don’t discriminate against other people. What is offensive is making a sweeping condemnation of a whole class of people. I prefer to assess individuals and am very wary of people who demonise whole classes of people. By your account Eddie Izzard and Cate McGregor are perverts, fetishists, etc.
Yep. Hairy will buy a bottle of this or something similar for when we’re travelling or on a cruise. He will take it neat as a nighcap nip and I will have with with Coca Cola (always available world-wide). Sometimes he buys Captain Morgan Rum instead, which I prefer.
At home we keep stocks of single malt, Glenfiddich and Talisker Storm, which he would not like me to have with a mixer, god fordend with Coca Cola. We both hit it neat. We keep quite a range of alcohol purchased on our travels, some are special stuffs. Mixers for me lately are mainly good gins in G & T’s and Aperol Spritz, but I’m experimenting now with various long cocktail fruity drinks with ice. Coconut Midori in those is working well in the heat as it was such a success in my punch recently. Occasionally with friends we have a Margarita or Martini. In coupe glasses, natch.
People brought up in high stress environments often live their lives in “crisis” mode even without crisis.
It was a big learning for me back when i was servicing the underclass.
Minor setbacks were treated the same way ‘normal” people treat life changing events.
Nearly every decision is short term based.
If there is no “drama” something is wrong and they with generate it to get the “rush” of crisis.
Some extremely self harming behaviour is just adaption to that sort of lifestyle.
I dont know if its a habitual thing altogether or if there are brain changes as well, but i found it extremely common in the under 50’s scallywag community.
1. I heard doctors say chronic cortisol elevation is a strong driver of high blood pressure.
2. In the 60’s it was established that depressed patients exhibited glucocorticoid resistance, the result of sustained cortisol expression.
3. Cortisol is a leading anti-inflammatory mediator.
FTB is you are interested Sapolsky et al wrote a brilliant seminal paper on the issue:
2,500 citations, gives you an idea of important it is.
How Do Glucocorticoids Influence Stress Responses? Integrating Permissive, Suppressive, Stimulatory, and Preparative Actions
https://academic.oup.com/edrv/article/21/1/55/2423840
🙂
That’s how ghost myths about headless horsewomen get started. lol.
“Honest to God, we heard those terrible hoofs thundering in on us, and a loud bang as our whole car shook in the dead of night, and a cackling laugh as she galloped off, her head under her arm with her hair streaming out behind her. I couldn’t get my knickers up fast enough, I tell you, and I said to Jason, never mind yer dick caught in yer zip, just get us out of here before she returns.”
Not bad.
What are we REALLY Fighting Against? – Glenn Beck Chalkboard Breakdown
I was illustrating that society can make reasonable adjustments that don’t discriminate against other people. What is offensive is making a sweeping condemnation of a whole class of people. I prefer to assess individuals and am very wary of people who demonise whole classes of people. By your account Eddie Izzard and Cate McGregor are perverts, fetishists, etc.
Yes, Eddie Izzard is a fetishist. He’s a cross dresser, and has been for decades. Eddie Izzard it NOT a woman. Oh and unlike Cate McGregor, Izzard hasn’t had surgery, unlike McGregor, Izzard doesn’t take hormones, he still got his cock dangling between his legs. Some days Izzard goes out dressed as a man, other days Izzard puts on a frock and says he’s a woman, and he then insists he is no different to me or Calli or Lizzie or Delta or Rosie any other biological female. Well, you wanna know what I say to that? I say bullshit. I say bollocks, oh and further to bollocks, Izzard has bollocks! I don’t have bollocks.
Women do not have to make any adjustments where a biological male thinks he has the right to enter a women’s space such as toilet and changeroom all because he decides to put on a frock, wig and smear some lipstick on his male face.
NO WAY. I don’t want to see any male body, even one smothered in make up, in a female only space.
What is offensive is making a sweeping condemnation of a whole class of people.
Oh dear, does that apply to pedophiles?
Mole at 7.03, some very interesting observations there.
Easily a paper or two, observationally-based, if you wanted to publish.
Excellent observations. Elevated arousal, high cort(principal arousal hormone).
A difficult childhood will create elevated arousal and that is very difficult to treat. I know, my childhood was very bad and I have never fully managed the consequences of that. The changes from early life stress has even been tracked down in part to HSD 11, a key enzyme regulating cortisol production(hazy on the details!). It is not unique to humans, any mammal subject to early life stress will demonstrate like physiological, neurological, and behavioral changes.
There are brain changes but all hope is not lost. The bods and clinicians are developing a much better understanding of how to help these people. There is a mountain of literature on this subject. It is both fascinating and despairing to read. Early life stress research has taken off in recent years. Sadly though, recent research suggests the optimal intervention must be before puberty; possibly because puberty sets in train the final neurodevelopmental trajectory. That, incidentally, is why I have argued that trying to save the current adult indigenous people from their behavior is largely a lost cause and the overwhelming emphasis must be on the emergent generation however who is raising them? It is so despairing to have known this stuff for decades and realise so little has changed. Seriously, there are days when I want to retire from the human race.
Special Briefing – October 7th War – Douglas Murray
Good retort, Cassie.
Obviously, a sensible and mild approach is to be kindly and accept people for what they wish to be without pandering to what we may consider to be their delusions (OK, I’ll just say it, to their obvious delusions). But these delusions can edge into perversion. Lines need to be drawn about what we will accept and where. Our current social order hasn’t got near to the right place in drawing these demarcations under the regime of ‘woke’.
” ‘Deport every illegal’: Sky News host proposes new DEI slogan”
https://youtu.be/uXeM9edZ0Hw
Courtesy of ‘another ian’ at the Jo Nova Blog
of a whole class of people.
They arent people…
That happened today in the community centre at Stitch ‘n’ Bitch. A person of indeterminate whatever popped into the loo. The old girls ignored the person.
I suppose it was cowardly, but a mentally fragile individual is to be pitied. If he’d flaunted his d*ck I suspect the rotary cutters and quick unpicks might have come out.
But it was a cubicle only visit.
Further to transperverts and bollocks…..
The Munroe Bergdorf Song (Women Don’t Have B…….!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FVHn3D2jWg
I think that Mrmemmo says it best about transperverts. Transwomen are women? Bollocks!
Well, it certainly does that with regard to sexual development and interest. Our current obsession with halting puberty in confused adolescents is a pathway to neurodevelopmental disaster.
I am more optimistic than you though, John H. Even with such a massive onslaught of discord such as is given to ‘trans’ adolescents, both in psychological imprinting and hormonal buggering up, plenty of young people have de-transitioned into normality (whatever that is in psychological terms, but we can all hazard a guess).
No reason to give up on the essential humanness within all of us, John. It will out.
After the lecture about processed meats, we tucked into a big lump of corned beef for dinner.
I love it.
Went back for seconds and thirds.
And at least it is only salt.
No other nasties.
After the lecture about processed meats, we tucked into a big lump of corned beef for dinner.
I love it.
I love it too. And with the leftovers, make corned beef pasties like my sister does.
It most certainly does because pedophiles and psychopaths damage other people. They must be removed from society but I shouldn’t have used the baseball comment; it arose from a memory of Christian man I knew was preying on State Ward children and I wanted his head on a platter. I reported him but I don’t think it went anywhere but that was way back in the 70’s. He was Mr. Perfect, everyone loved him but children at the State ward home told me about him( I used to help out there). No-one believed them.
Trans people damage themselves. What’s the big deal about people like Izzard? Why do you get so hot under the collar about people with gender dysphoria? They are such a tiny proportion of the population and you continually rant against them as if they are the devil incarnate. Why do people on the right carry on about them as if those few people will tear the world asunder?
Oh.
I see. Mmm hmm. That’s the way it is, is it?
Fine. Just fine.
No no, there’s nothing wrong.
*sobs*
Oh, yum! Corned beef. Simmered forever and baked with a glistening glaze!
Mum used to do it with white sauce. Which I hated with a passion. There are far better things to serve it with. Like caramelised onions.
John H.
Feb 5, 2024 7:20 PM
I thought it was interesting most who hit 50+ seemed to calm down considerably compared to the younger ones.
Wouldnt surprise me if throwing pubertal hormones on top of the other chemical changes you mention exacerbates the issues for people.
Maladaptation example (Ive mentioned before)
Getting preggers at 14/15.
Bad thing for 90% of the population but put yourself in this mindset/situation
Mum and uncle dad are pisswrecks/ extremely dysfunctional
The house is a war zone
You get no money – you are unemployable (legally and because of your appearance/mannerisms)
Your friends are scallywags and no hopers.
No school/boredom
vs:
He lubs me – because he got me pregnant
Parenting payments
House of my own
baby to look after/loves me
Endless drama on tap.
It makes sense, even if outside the stress bubble its a bad thing.
Translated:
‘Mum I want $10,000. It’s for my, err, power bill. Yeah, the power bill. Like the other bills you paid. Give me the cash, I’ll sort it out from there.’
Might try that.
We sometimes make “cowboy pie” which is shepherd’s pie, but with corned beef instead of lamb.
Onion and chopped corned beef in the blender with tomato sauce, chutney, Worcestershire sauce, and whatever liquids you like to get it to the right consistency. Add a bit of pepper and chilli and topped with heaps of mashed potato, with a bit of parmesan on top.
The teacher v transphobia police tot exchange only worked because the student was modest enough to listen, humble enough to take the mental steps offered to him. Sadly I can see that student self-regard, these days, is swamping the possibility of experiences such as this… plus, so many teachers are pinko Marxists, and have no desire to connect students to the wonders of Enlightenment rhetoric.
Trans people damage themselves.
Really? Tell that to the three dead children and three dead teachers at that school in Tennessee that trans shooter Audrey Hale gunned down in cold blood in March of last year.
Oh and remember how closer to home, here in Enmore, a ‘trans person’ by the name of ‘Evie Amati’ decided to damage two others at a service station. HE walked into a service station with an axe and attacked two people in the service station with that axe.
There are of course numerous other examples of trans people damaging others.
Spare me.
Well at least I’m not a sanctimonious windbag.
I’d like to be.
It is not an obsession Lizzie and in Europe they are already calling a halt to it. In Australia there is a huge gap between demand and services. Obviously there has been a treatment overshoot. Eventually we’ll catch up to Europe. There needs to be an adjustment and that is occurring. The far bigger problem is the number of teenagers being drugged by psychiatrists. I won’t get into that. I got sucked into this place today and need to back off.
Sorry for all the long comments people.
I’d like to be.
LOL.
This is one of those trick “on a scale of 1 to 10” questions.
😀
I can be a sanctimonious Old Bag.
But you already knew that.
Cheap, reliable power (the NT News):
And:
21 suburbs across D-Town and its satellite city just went pumph. Not mine, yet.
The last time this happened was a few years back when an entire substation blew up in the northern burbs. The NT Gummint, flush with Federal coin and clueless as to what to do, decided to truck in dozens of diesel gennies that could only just fit on the back of a low loader, and kept them there for months.
It turned out that the substation had been the subject of dozens of warnings by one of the NTG departments that it was obsolete, that maintenance had been neglected for years and that it was a time bomb.
Typically, successive governments went with the Hail Mary option. It would seem that here we are again.
Pot kettle and poor description. I’m never claimed moral superiority. You’re the one that is often judging others, abusing people hither and thither. I’m more information focused. You take every opportunity you can to attack me. You never offer me a supporting comment. Good to know I’m under your skin.
Just caught that comment of yours as I posted the response to Lizzie.
When people ask me why I look younger than my numerous years, I say it’s loyal adherence to the Kerry Packer Diet. Steak and chips, washed down with rich red wine.
You know it makes sense.
Or, possibly, it’s hereditary.
Pot kettle and poor description. I’m never claimed moral superiority. You’re the one that is often judging others, abusing people hither and thither. I’m more information focused. You take every opportunity you can to attack me. You never offer me a supporting comment. Good to know I’m under your skin.
You come here and you frequently sneer and pontificate, posting sneering comments about the “right”……which is odd because this blog is primarily a blog for “right of centre” opinions.
Oh and you flatter yourself, you don’t get under my skin, I find you tedious and I said wrote above, you’re a sanctimonious windbag. But I’m clearly getting under your skin! LOL.
It’s probably time for your bedtime.
1. I heard doctors say chronic cortisol elevation is a strong driver of high blood pressure.
Huberman has spoken a lot about this.
Trans people damage themselves.
Comparisons of official MOJ statistics from March / April 2019 (most recent
official count of transgender prisoners):
76 sex offenders out of 129 transwomen = 58.9%
125 sex offenders out of 3812 women in prison = 3.3%
13234 sex offenders out of 78781 men in prison =
16.8%
Trans lawmaker is charged with stomach-churning child porn offenses ‘after daycare worker girlfriend sent naked photos of toddlers in her care’
Gunman Behind Philly Massacre is BLM Supporter…. and Transgender?
Antifa has a high number of trans persons. It’s now dubbed “Trantifa”.
Oh, great, so now we have a John H. thread derailer to add to the list.
There goes the neighbourhood again.
Not a whinge.
The ‘database error connection’ thing continues to get quite the workout.
It mostly happens after one hits the ‘post’ button.
Mostly.
fleabag
toerag
nosegag
It’s good to see some new & different insults being used on the blog. I added a few more in case windbag doesn’t fit the target well.