Open Thread – Weekend 17 Feb 2024


Pond in an Old Park, Ivan Shishkin, 1897

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Zafiro
Zafiro
February 18, 2024 1:23 pm

1-2% of people are still wearing masks.

Yes Dot I have noticed. Hypochondriac nuffies who are stoked mask wearing went mainstream and validated.

Roger
Roger
February 18, 2024 1:23 pm

1-2% of people are still wearing masks.

Look, if you want to wear a mask, wear a mask; just don’t tell me I have to.

I was in town this week stopped at traffic lights and I saw a bloke in his car wearing a mask. He was driving a Tesla…now that’s taking a risk with your life.

Zafiro
Zafiro
February 18, 2024 1:24 pm

I was in town this week stopped at traffic lights and I saw a bloke in his car wearing a mask. He was driving a Tesla…now that’s taking a risk with your life.

Funny as. They are among us.

Bespoke
Bespoke
February 18, 2024 1:28 pm

You are like Bush wonce was Gabor. He hated Woodstock cans now he loves the stuff more then me. Takes a bath it every night he does.

cohenite
February 18, 2024 1:29 pm

Fani the whore has been committed to a disqualification hearing this Thursday. Trump has said he will be attending. We don’t deserve this guy.

Louis Litt
February 18, 2024 1:34 pm

Rufus 17:2 @ 13:44
Agreed – bang on for me
Esp with the revolting dems

Gabor
Gabor
February 18, 2024 1:37 pm

Bespoke
Feb 18, 2024 1:28 PM

You are like Bush wonce was Gabor. He hated Woodstock cans now he loves the stuff more then me. Takes a bath it every night he does.

I have to confess Bespoke, I never had a taste of Woodstock or any mixed drink in my life, strange as it may sound for a bloke in midlife. I don’t have a clue what’s in it or what it tastes like.

I like my drinks straight.
Prefer beer or dry red wine, if the food demands a different beverage I avoid it.

Dot
Dot
February 18, 2024 1:40 pm

espoke
Feb 18, 2024 1:19 PM

1-2% of people are still wearing masks.

Most of them boomers.

Oh no.

The BDF will be deploying soon.

Dot
Dot
February 18, 2024 1:41 pm

I was in town this week stopped at traffic lights and I saw a bloke in his car wearing a mask. He was driving a Tesla…now that’s taking a risk with your life.

Just your regular soyience enjoyer.

johanna
johanna
February 18, 2024 1:46 pm

Bespoke
Feb 18, 2024 1:19 PM

1-2% of people are still wearing masks.

Most of them boomers.

Mostly Chinese in my neck of the woods. A lot of them were wearing masks pre-COVID. Must be cultural, as the air here is as good as you’d find anywhere.

There is a residium of hypochondriacs of all ages, sexes and nationalities. Wearing masks just confirmed all of their fears. They are the ones that you see wearing a mask driving alone in their cars. Neurotics.

Avoid. 🙂

JC
JC
February 18, 2024 1:46 pm

You can’t be certain that all these people wearing masks in stores are doing it for self protection. Some my be afflicted with cold & Flu, or even COVID, but don’t want to spread it. Those wearing them outside etc are just nutballs.

Gabor
Gabor
February 18, 2024 1:49 pm

Gabor
Feb 18, 2024 1:37 PM

Ps, Coke makes me physically ill, I don’t know what’s the ingredient in it that does it.

I tried all the other fake Cokes, same result, not that I’m missing it, just a random remark.

Indolent
Indolent
February 18, 2024 1:49 pm
JC
JC
February 18, 2024 1:59 pm

Gabor, maybe you were snorting cheapo quality.

Bourne1879
Bourne1879
February 18, 2024 2:00 pm

So basically let countries like Phillipines and Vietnam take on China by themselves. That policy would have been much appreciated by Germany in late 30’s.

“No, my basic point is let the various parties to that dispute settle it themselves”

John Brumble
John Brumble
February 18, 2024 2:00 pm

Roger- we might need a proper Bill of Rights, but any attempt to get one now may not only result in us not getting one, but also result in us getting the exact opposite of ond with no chance of ever getting a proper one in the future.

You’re unfortunately in “open borders before getting rid of the welfare state” territory.

Bespoke
Bespoke
February 18, 2024 2:01 pm

The BDF will be deploying soon.

With its Mobile infantry . I’m not afraid unless traped in a Bunnings car park.

Zafiro
Zafiro
February 18, 2024 2:02 pm

soyience

That needs to be in the Oxford or Brittanica.

John Brumble
John Brumble
February 18, 2024 2:04 pm

Dot –
Don’t be naive. The 1988 changes were aimed squarely at private school funding, with a couple of easily-dodged fluffs thrown in. There was a reason it was so soundky defeated.

Should have been called the “indoctrination for all” amendment.

Zafiro
Zafiro
February 18, 2024 2:08 pm

They are the ones that you see wearing a mask driving alone in their cars. Neurotics.

Avoid. ?

Naturally.

Bourne1879
Bourne1879
February 18, 2024 2:14 pm

From Courier Mail. It will be the Meanjin games no matter what.

“Mr Liveris said work was underway to recruit three paid First Nations interns to support the development of its brand and emblems before the team turns its attention to the sports program.

“All this work – and more – has taken place before an Organising Committee is traditionally stood up, seven years out from a Games,” he said.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
February 18, 2024 2:23 pm

Daily Mail.

Double standards of Anthony Albanese critic who called out the PM over his $4million property empire

Greens exposed over investment property portfolio
Max Chandler-Mather called out Anthony Albanese over properties

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
February 18, 2024 2:26 pm

Housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather lashed the Prime Minister this week for owning investment properties, despite a number of the Griffith MP’s colleagues being in the same boat.

Labor sources say it’s hypocritical for the Greens to demand the government take action on tax cuts and concessions so many of the minor party themselves enjoy.

According to parliament’s register of interests, four of the 15 Greens members and senators own multiple properties.

Senators Mehreen Faruqi and Nick McKim own four properties each, while senator Penny Allman-Payne owns two.

Brisbane-based Ryan MP Elizabeth Watson-Brown owns three, including an investment property in Brisbane and a holiday house in Hastings Point that is used only by her, her family and friends despite the town’s vacancy rate being less than one per cent.

Dot
Dot
February 18, 2024 2:30 pm

Wow.

We should not have programmed them to feel pain.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/12/waymo-car-fire-san-francisco

“Driverless taxi vandalized and set on fire in San Francisco’s Chinatown”

Dot
Dot
February 18, 2024 2:38 pm

The 1988 changes were aimed squarely at private school funding, with a couple of easily-dodged fluffs thrown in. There was a reason it was so soundky defeated.

Explain why school vouchers wouldn’t have worked legally or please inform me if Hawke ever tried to screw over private schools before or after this.

Once again, we should have voted YES.

We would have been forced to have Charter Schools (or public schools would have become charter schools by default). No government would want to Goulburn School Strikes repeated.

The rest wasn’t “fluff”. It would have stopped the basis of the idiotic prosecution of Tony Maddox.

It would have stopped the takeover of Calvary Hospital.

“Fluff” my foot.

Bespoke
Bespoke
February 18, 2024 2:43 pm

Actually, we think in a true capitalist society you’d pick out the goods you need, take them to the register, and exchange money for them. That hasn’t been happening in a lot of cities, and more and more stores are either just closing or locking everything behind plexiglass. It’s called shoplifting.

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
February 18, 2024 2:49 pm

Double standards of Anthony Albanese critic who called out the PM over his $4million property empire

I’d volunteer for self-castration with a potato peeler before defending Handsome Boy on anything but, in the current environment, $4 million doesn’t buy much of a “property empire” in Australia.

Diogenes
Diogenes
February 18, 2024 2:53 pm

After all, every banana republic and other kind of dictatorship has a Constitution brimming over with platitudes about all the things the regime is against. Doesn’t mean a thing.

Including the People’s Democratic Republics of Victoria and Queensland, which have enshrined the UN Declaration of the Rights of Man. How did that work for our us during Covid?

Dr Faustus
Dr Faustus
February 18, 2024 2:56 pm

“Driverless taxi vandalized and set on fire in San Francisco’s Chinatown”

On bad behaviour. It’s always occurred to me that users of driverless taxis risk hopping in and finding a partially digested kebab and several pints of XXXX honk – and then having to have an argument with TaxiCo about who and when.

Zatara
Zatara
February 18, 2024 2:57 pm

1-2% of people are still wearing masks.

From by observations I’d think the percentage is actually higher than that and for the most part has nothing to do with health considerations.

It is a not so secret recognition signal worn with pride amongst the ultra-left and the terminally woke. It’s a deniable and socially acceptable swastika armband, hooded white cloak, secret society ring, you get the idea.

Perfidious Albino
Perfidious Albino
February 18, 2024 2:58 pm

Timely topic. I caught a bus into the city (Melbourne) during last week. Bus was only about half full in morning peak hour and there were 4 mask wearers (Agree, have at it if you choose, just don’t try and force anyone else to). Of the 4, 2 were Chinese- which I excuse for cultural reasons ie: it was common pre Covid following the Asian bird flu. One looked like a ‘Mong from Kooyong’ voting middle aged lady. The 4th was a surprise – young fit chap in a suit. Chose to stand in the aisle glaring down the bus at people even though there were free seats. Assume he was a chairman Dan acolyte or maybe had a newborn at home.

2dogs
2dogs
February 18, 2024 3:05 pm

After all, every banana republic and other kind of dictatorship has a Constitution brimming over with platitudes about all the things the regime is against. Doesn’t mean a thing.

The only effective terms in a constitution are those which divide up power. Clauses which purport to guarantee rights end up being read down into oblivion.

Rosie
Rosie
February 18, 2024 3:07 pm

The downside of the overnight ferry Cagliara to Palermo is a 5 am arrival time.
I thought everyone would be getting up at 4.30 but no, there are PA announcements at 3.30 then they start knocking at people’s doors.
I’ve tried to listen to the English repeats but mostly unintelligible to me. Still figured out it was rise, no shine.
Lots of dogs taking the ferry, I suppose that makes sense with so many crossing with their cars. Could do with less barking though.
I’ve organised an early entry to my accommodation, thank goodness.

Top Ender
Top Ender
February 18, 2024 3:08 pm

Paul Hogan’s grandson has been convicted of two separate stealing offences after being caught shoplifting at Coles and Myer.

Jake Paul Hogan, 34, whose dad is one of five children shared by the Crocodile Dundee star and his first wife Noelene Hogan, was arrested twice within three days in Sydney’s CBD earlier this month.

He was convicted of larceny in his absence in the Downing Centre Local Court on Monday.

The carpenter was first arrested on February 5 after a Coles worker spotted him stealing two Dare Iced Coffees without paying at Coles World Square.

‘The accused opened [a] 500ml [Dare] and began consuming the beverage while walking to another aisle,’ court documents stated.

‘[Hogan] then placed the larger 750ml bottle inside his bum bag, the accused exited the store without making any attempt to pay for the items.’

According to court documents, Hogan told the witness he was homeless and didn’t have any money, and claimed to police he hadn’t eaten in a couple of days.

He also claimed to police he paid $380 rent per week from a weekly income of $500 from carpentry work and about $500 in Centrelink benefits.

Hogan was charged with shoplifting and released on bail with strict conditions, but three days later was caught stealing from Myer on George Street.

On February 8 police were called after Myer security ‘strongly suspected’ Hogan of removing security tags from clothing items.

According to court documents police found a black Puma cap, a black KSCY T-shirt, a black Nena & Pasadena T-shirt and one pair of green KSCY cargo shorts, with a total value of $259.97.

Police informed him he was under arrest for shoplifting and for breaching his bail conditions, and issued him with an official police caution.

Jake was arrested at Coles World Square earlier this month for stealing two Dare Iced coffees after claiming to be homeless

Jake was arrested at Coles World Square earlier this month for stealing two Dare Iced coffees after claiming to be homeless

Court documents state that Hogan is a ‘recidivist property offender, which supports his illicit drug habit’.

He has 12 prior charges in the state of New South Wales and is due to front court in March.

Daily Mail

Dot
Dot
February 18, 2024 3:10 pm

The carpenter was first arrested on February 5 after a Coles worker spotted him stealing two Dare Iced Coffees without paying at Coles World Square.

A brilliant marketing opportunity.

Rosie
Rosie
February 18, 2024 3:12 pm

I ran into an acquaintance at the pharmacy shortly before I left Australia. Asked him why he was wearing a mask. He explained both he and his wife wore them whenever they went out because they frequently visited his very frail mother in aged care and didn’t want to pass anything on.
Mask wearing in Italy is extremely rare (I think I’ve seen one) but people still assiduously use hand sanitiser before receiving holy communion.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
February 18, 2024 3:12 pm

All right, own up, you lot. How many of you have had a snooze, coffee and a ride home?

The Age

PoliticsVictoriaCity life

Thousands avoid arrest – and instead enjoy a snooze, a coffee and a ride home
Kieran Rooney
By Kieran Rooney
February 17, 2024 — 7.25pm

Listen to this article
6 min

Victoria’s new public intoxication services assisted 256 people a week during its first three months of operation, with support vans now regularly patrolling the state’s nightlife and entertainment districts, offering coffees or a lift home.

New figures released by the Allan government show specialist outreach teams helped more than 3100 people between November 7 – the day public drunkenness was decriminalised – and January 31.

Of these, more than 230 people were taken to sobering-up centres in St Kilda and Collingwood.

Before the changes, introduced on Melbourne Cup Day, police and paramedics were the first port of call when attending to drunk people. In the year ending June 2022, there were 3181 public drunkenness offences recorded across the state – but this charge no longer exists.

Danny Jeffcote, who oversees cohealth’s Melbourne outreach service including its Collingwood sobering-up centre, said about 80 per cent of the people they interacted with only needed to get home, talk to someone or drink some water.

“It’s only for the minority who don’t have a place to go to, don’t have someone who can make sure they’re OK or don’t have access to transport that we say, well, actually we’ve got a sobering centre,” he said.

Cohealth operates a 24-hour service in Melbourne, but most of its 100-strong staff work over the weekend when demand surges.

A separate service provides help to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, with the Melbourne team running a sobering-up centre in St Kilda.

The intoxication reform was legislated in 2021 following the death of Yorta Yorta woman Tanya Day, who suffered a fall while in custody.

When police, paramedics and venue staff encounter someone who is intoxicated and may need help, they call a hotline that dispatches crews to provide assistance. Members of the public can call triple zero, which will connect them to the same hotline.

Support vans also patrol transport hubs and nightlife hotspots – including Brunswick Street in Fitzroy and Chapel Street in South Yarra – and pull over if they see someone in need.

“We check that we first have consent to engage, and then it’s ‘Hi, I’m Danny, do you mind if we have a quick chat?’” Jeffcote said.

“Is there someone we can call? Is there going to be someone that could be there?

“If not, then we have to make an assessment about their safety, and is it going to be safe for you to keep on going? Or do we really need to insist that you consider coming with us.”

Rosie
Rosie
February 18, 2024 3:17 pm

Sounds like the drunk thing in Melbourne is working well.

Crossie
Crossie
February 18, 2024 3:21 pm

I read the transcript of Tucker Carlson’s interview with Mike Benz and realised that now it makes sense that Euros would go along with blowing up Nordstream gas pipeline to spite Putin. The American Deep State is now so deep that it owns the Europeans. It also now makes sense that the Dutch government is forcing their farmers to scale down food production, very likely directed by the Deep State or simply WEF for short, they are the same people. It may sound conspiracy theory like but these days anything is possible.

Should Trump somehow manage to defeat the electoral fraud and win the election he will have to clean every department and agency and defund every NGO. The top 10% of staff in each must be fired. Having all these department and agencies come to a halt would be less harmful than the damage they are inflicting now.

thefrollickingmole
thefrollickingmole
February 18, 2024 3:35 pm

Feraldton weather report.
Warm, with a slight chance of spontaneous combustion by 3:00.

48.
At 12:00.

Missus has just taken a shot to send to mum in Vietnam.

Vicki
Vicki
February 18, 2024 3:38 pm

I read the transcript of Tucker Carlson’s interview with Mike Benz and realised that now it makes sense that Euros would go along with blowing up Nordstream gas pipeline to spite Putin. The American Deep State is now so deep that it owns the Europeans. It also now makes sense that the Dutch government is forcing their farmers to scale down food production, very likely directed by the Deep State or simply WEF for short, they are the same people. It may sound conspiracy theory like but these days anything is possible.

I agree, Crossie. I don’t need to tell people here that the medical profession has been cowered into submission on many fronts. While there are fabulous practitioners – particularly the surgeons – I find it difficult to trust them after Covid. Big Pharma is SO pervasive now – there is even a report that research projects and follow up reports in medical journals are suspect. It is quite concerning when GPs are referring so many medications and requiring multiple testing.

On the farming front – it is only a matter of time before mRNA technology is prescribed in the vaccination of beef and dairy cattle. That is – if the cattle industry is allowed to continue by climate change bureaucrats.

Bespoke
Bespoke
February 18, 2024 3:41 pm
GreyRanga
GreyRanga
February 18, 2024 3:56 pm

Crossie, the applies in Australia to the APS. All they know is how to further their own careers.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
February 18, 2024 4:09 pm

Prominent ABC journalists show double standards in coverage of Barnaby Joyce’s drunken fall

By james madden
Media Editor
and sophie elsworth
Media Writer
3:39PM February 18, 2024
12 Comments

The conga line of female ABC staffers slamming Nationals MP and former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce for disgracing himself late at night on a Canberra footpath was quite something.

As Joyce himself admits, gibbering down the phone while horizontal on a concrete slab at bedtime wasn’t one of his finest moments. And it certainly warranted news coverage and commentary from the ABC and other media outlets.

But the ABC’s double standard regarding Joyce’s misstep was, well, hard to miss.

Cast your mind back to last April, when Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe was filmed screaming profanities at a group of men outside a Melbourne strip club.

Can’t remember it? You must have been watching ABC TV at the time, because the national broadcaster didn’t think it was worth reporting that a left-wing politician had disgraced themselves in public in an alcohol-fuelled incident.

Even ABC Media Watch host Paul Barry labelled the taxpayer-funded broadcaster’s almost non-existent coverage of Thorpe’s nocturnal blow-up as “pathetic”. Fair call, Paul.

But back to the ABC’s Barnaby pile-on.

First up, we had 7.30 chief political correspondent and ABC board member Laura Tingle.

“The images that people have generally seen of this are pretty astonishing for a former deputy prime minister and somebody who is now being paid by taxpayers to sit on the Opposition front bench, she told ABC Late Night Live host and Weekend Australian Magazine columnist Phillip Adams last week.

“I find it absolutely astonishing, frankly, that instead of people saying, ‘this is just not good enough’, everybody is saying ‘we’re worried about his welfare’, or ‘gee this isn’t good’ or whatever.”

Tingle told Adams that Joyce had made “a complete goose of himself”, and “nobody (in the media) is saying ‘enough, no further’.” (That is patently untrue, of course. Plenty of commentators took a big swing at Joyce. But we digress.)

Tingle went on to lament the “various sanctimonious treatment that’s handed out to other politicians and even other women in public life”.

Over on The Party Room podcast with ABC Radio National breakfast host Patricia Karvelas and Fran Kelly, the topic was also chewing up plenty of airtime.

“As we’ve seen over the years he’s (Joyce’s) got a stronghold of supporters who see him as a larrikin, a maverick, all of these words that are used and has incredible cut-through and he is often forgiven,” Karvelas said. (Often forgiven? Except for the time when he, ah, lost the leadership of his party because of a personal relationship. But again, we digress.)

At least Kelly recognised the double standard in relation to Joyce versus Thorpe … or did she?

“I think his (Joyce’s) behaviour that was captured on video for everyone to see also raised questions for double standards in parliament,” Kelly said.

“When Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe was caught on camera during an early-morning incident outside a strip club, she was swearing at a group of men, the Prime Minister (Anthony Albanese) and (Opposition Leader) Peter Dutton were quick to condemn her actions and calling for her to get help and support, she saw that as dog whistling about her mental health.

“The initial response to Barnaby Joyce video from our political leaders was much more muted, much less strident.

“I’m sure, PK, if this video was of a female MP the reaction now would be really different.”

Diary respectfully disagrees. The reaction may well be “really different” through the lens of the ABC, but most others across the political or media class wouldn’t see gender as the central issue of the story.

If The Daily Mail can rip into Joyce and Thorpe in equal measure, surely the ABC can manage it, too?

Kelly, of course, didn’t offer a view on why the ABC ran dead on Thorpe’s boozy indiscretion, but went bonkers on Barnaby’s bad behaviour on the Braddon bitumen.

But she was of the view Joyce should be punished.

“There should be consequences for Barnaby Joyce,” Kelly said.

We await the ABC’s commentary on the drunken performance of Nationals deputy leader Perin Davey during a parliamentary committee hearing last week.

Harlequin Decline
February 18, 2024 4:13 pm

We visited my partner’s village on Thursday(I’m up in SE Asia at the moment). Whilst there I did a 30km bike ride over to one of the local waterfalls. Uneventful as it turned out.

Then in the local news we read that on Friday afternoon a tiger emerged from the jungle near the waterfall, ate one of the villagers pigs then took a casual stroll down the road, the same road I rode on the day before. Apparently the tiger only has one eye so perhaps it was feeling peckish and decided village pigs were an easier catch.

I was thinking if I was unlucky enough to run across it the local news headlines might read ‘Foreigner Eaten by One Eyed Tiger on a Bike’

Wally Dali
Wally Dali
February 18, 2024 4:19 pm

Vicki, it seems to me that the cattle industry is rather being favoured by the Lizard People. Eg, see how live export sheep out of WA has been outlawed, yet live export cattle from north and east have the full lobbying support of the federal ah minister.
Also, cows seem to be the crux of the “regenerative agriculture” cult which is sweeping media and academia- there’s see.ingly no place in it for sheep, goats, pigs, or chikins.
What the end game is, I don’t know. Is it simply that cattle are big, hard to hide, and therefore just easier to blackmail the farmers?
Is there a sneaky switch, where the welfare or climate change paperwork provisions will become so onerous that landholders are nudged into becoming mere agisters for the likes of Twiggy Forrest and Twi Xi Follest?
Or- tinfoil hats, activate!- is it a final quarter where our last viable animal protein is subject to biowarfare, or arbitrarily culled, Xhosa style?

Wally Dali
Wally Dali
February 18, 2024 4:29 pm

Sunday factoid-
“Blackmail” is literally cattle seized by non-stakeholders.
ME “White Maille” is payment, in silver, by tenant farmers to their landlords. The beasts taken by the local hoods were studiously ignored by the gentry as a small price to pay to smooth the relationship between farmers and the roughnecks in the landscape.

Delta A
Delta A
February 18, 2024 4:31 pm

‘Foreigner Eaten by One Eyed Tiger on a Bike’

This is why we need the upticks to return.

Well done, HD.

Vicki
Vicki
February 18, 2024 4:33 pm

Or- tinfoil hats, activate!- is it a final quarter where our last viable animal protein is subject to biowarfare, or arbitrarily culled, Xhosa style?

They’ve got “Buckleys” of either mRNA vaccinating or eliminating my girls (and boys).

Vicki
Vicki
February 18, 2024 4:41 pm

BTW we will no doubt soon hear bleats from the Climate Change fanatics about the “wet” period not predicted by BOM, which was sure it was to be an El Nino reversion.

They will be assisted by the inevitable bush fires (especially grass fires) when all this growth dies off. Grass has been waist high in our area and a lightning strike has already started a fire – even in the “green conditions”. Those who understand our country know that fires will be the inevitable outcome.

But watch as the Green brigade claim that “climate extremes” are causing the disasters.

H B Bear
H B Bear
February 18, 2024 4:50 pm

James Allan argues strongly against a Bill of Rights.

Think you have problems with parliament and elected representatives? Try the courts and unelected judges. See the European Court of Human Rights for some real Alice in Wonderland stuff.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
February 18, 2024 4:51 pm

“Dark Emu Exposed.”

Australian Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi was born in Pakistan in 1963 and fled to Australia in 1992 with her husband and small son to escape “the corruption pervading every level of politics and decision-making…” (Source).

They came to Australia, once again because of the influence of Faruqi’s father, who had studied at the University of NSW in the 1950s under the Colombo Plan, a Commonwealth foreign aid scheme that was established on 1 July 1951 by the United Kingdom and its former colonies Australia, Canada, India, Pakistan, New Zealand and Sri Lanka. It has since expanded to 28 member states. (Source) .

Faruqi has been a vocal critic of the British Crown and colonialism and its legacy in modern Australia. (Source)

She also has a keen interest in critiquing negatively the history of British colonialism and Australia’s colonial past.

Senator Faruqi thus appears to fit the example of a modern-day ‘virtue signaller’ railing against so-called past injustices such as British colonialism and Australian racism, while seemingly ignoring the real, present-day slavery that affects her home country of birth, Pakistan in Southern Asia, the largest slave region in the modern world (Figure 6).

Vicki
Vicki
February 18, 2024 4:52 pm

It may have already been posted, but Jo Nova has a very good analysis of why top asset managers like Blackrock have announced a withdrawal from their Climate Change actions amongst the companies they influence. It seems some USA state legislatures are challenging them under cartel laws.

https://joannenova.com.au/2024/02/esg-comes-undone-blackrock-jp-morgan-abandon-climate-action-100/

Maybe there is change in the air.

Davey Boy
Davey Boy
February 18, 2024 4:53 pm

Attended a church wedding ceremony yesterday, Sydney’s inner-West.

Uniting Church, hence – woman minister (anglo), who commenced the ceremony with acknowledgement of country (& elders etc).

All attendees were of Asian heritage, except two (both whitey, one being me) so I guess the Ack of Count was directed at us two. Lol.

Father Son Holy Spirit got a guernsey in the very last minute of the service.

Priorities, people.

CharlieP
CharlieP
February 18, 2024 5:00 pm

Visited Melbourne CBD today. Very crowded, lots of sequins and sparkles so many ‘Swifties’ shopping like mad. Never mind that lots of places are boarded up, heaps of ‘renovating’ going on, including in almost new developments.
The distressing thing was what seemed like huge numbers of Palestinian flag carriers and their hangers-on. Drums beating, lots of shouting and then hordes of black-and -white scarf wearers, mostly young men, and women with their faces covered moving through the CBD from the bottom of Swanston Street. Trams disrupted, access to Flinders St Station difficult through the crowds.
This movement seems to be gaining momentum and it has become a regular event every Sunday. It made me feel sick to my stomach. The participants seemed buoyant, excited, proud of themselves – and assuming all the passers-by to be supporters. Their cause is evil and ignorant and yet they seem so innocuous. Allowing it to continue must be very dangerous.
Where does it lead from here? I am scared. And I am not Jewish. What have we let into our country?

H B Bear
H B Bear
February 18, 2024 5:00 pm

While violating a number of my personal beliefs, it might be time for a ban on people with double barreled surnames in Parliament.

Bespoke
Bespoke
February 18, 2024 5:02 pm

Haven’t had the opertunty yet but asking them to name those “elders” seems an appropriate response, Davey Boy.

miltonf
miltonf
February 18, 2024 5:08 pm

‘elder’ sounds like a very anglo-saxon word methinks.

miltonf
miltonf
February 18, 2024 5:09 pm

This whole aboriginal cult is almost like the Victorian romanticism regarding Scottish clans and tartans but with a sinister marxist intent.

Johnny Rotten
February 18, 2024 5:15 pm

The Fallout from The Extreme Left’s Judge Engoron Destroying NY City

“Justice Arthur F. Engoron represents the vile, disgusting degree of the completely out-of-control judicial system in New York City. It has been people like him throughout history that spark revolutions. I have warned that New York is the most unconstitutional judicial system on the face of the earth, and it really should be shut down and all judges dismissed or imprisoned. They genuinely think they are above the law and have such ABSOLUTE IMMUNITY that they can do anything they desire. This judgment against Trump of nearly half a billion dollars is so outrageous it violates the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, which was intended to prevent the action of judges like this.

What this outrageous judge has done to Trump can be done now to any company in New York City. Because of that, the risk of owning shares in a New York domicled company must be considered to be a political high-risk. This factor now needs to be addressed in asset allocation in the same way as Country Risk – now we have City & State Risk. Miami is rapidly replacing New York as the new Wall Street. This decision will only accelerate that move to Florida ASAP. Only a fool would now remain in New York City. This judgment was intentionally designed to bankrupt Trump and his companies. It is indistinguishable from a country like Iran just nationalizing private assets.

I cannot believe the reaction I am hearing worldwide and domestically. Truckers are starting to band together to refuse to transport anything to New York City. If the truckers band together to show the world that New York City will no longer be tolerated, at best, they will have seven days’ worth of food supply before New York begins to slide into chaos.

Internationally, I am hearing many institutions are starting to talk the same game. They are looking to boycott any securities domiciled in New York City that could be destroyed on the whim of a judge. This is a direct assault on Democracy and is intended to interfere in the 2024 election and deprive 50% of the nation of the right to vote. This judge should be arrested forthwith for violating the civil rights of half the nation.”

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/rule-of-law/the-fallout-from-the-extreme-lefts-judge-engoron-destroying-ny-city/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=RSS

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
February 18, 2024 5:16 pm

Centrelink heiress living in squalid suburb faces fresh blow after being blocked from her wealthy father’s $12million inheritance

Heiress Clare Brown lives on welfare in Mount Druitt
Private schoolgirl’s $12m inheritance still blocked as she doesn’t work
Her wife has been caught drug driving an unregistered vehicle
READ MORE: Centrelink heiress says she’s a victim of discrimination

A condition of the inheritance is that she finds a job…..seems work is far too difficult….

DrBeauGan
DrBeauGan
February 18, 2024 5:17 pm

‘elder’ sounds like a very anglo-saxon word methinks.

I believe that if you translate the word ‘elder’ into many aboriginal languages, and then back into English, it comes back as ‘doddery old fart’.

Bruce of Newcastle
Bruce of Newcastle
February 18, 2024 5:20 pm

This movement seems to be gaining momentum and it has become a regular event every Sunday. It made me feel sick to my stomach. The participants seemed buoyant, excited, proud of themselves

America of the 1930s saw thousands of people become Nazi (2020)

General Chronology of Nazi Violence | Sciences Po (2008)

1931: Reinhard Heydrich created the Sicherheitsdienst, which was the intelligence service of the SS (Schutzstaffel, an elite Nazi paramilitary organization). A discreet campaign began to recruit young literature, humanities and social science graduates; it picked up speed in the following years, peaking between 1933 and 1936. From 1933 on, the SD was used as a “Brain Trust” for all of the Third Reich’s repression policies (Aronson, 1967; Herbert, 1996; Wildt, 2002).

Interesting that the same types – literature, humanities and social science grads – were the brains trust then and are again the brains trust now. As Twain said: history rhymes.

DrBeauGan
DrBeauGan
February 18, 2024 5:28 pm

Interesting that the same types – literature, humanities and social science grads –

Fluffy thinking conformists; intellectuals sans intellect. The kind of fatheads who buy into the current fad no matter how loony.

DrBeauGan
DrBeauGan
February 18, 2024 5:33 pm

My watch and phone agree that it’s currently 41° in Crawley. Am outside, smoking havanas and drinking cold cocobella.

Eyrie
Eyrie
February 18, 2024 5:48 pm

RT:
https://www.rt.com/news/592605-zelensky-invites-trump-frontline/

Where they can shoot or blow him up. I doubt he’s that stupid.

Damon
Damon
February 18, 2024 5:49 pm

“My watch and phone agree that it’s currently 41° in Crawley.”

If my memory’s correct, 41 was a warm summer day.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
February 18, 2024 5:51 pm

I believe that if you translate the word ‘elder’ into many aboriginal languages, and then back into English, it comes back as ‘doddery old fart’.

“Elderly pizzwreck, totally ignored by the younger generation.”

Eyrie
Eyrie
February 18, 2024 5:54 pm

How to instantly crash Australia’s electrical power system.
Wait for a bright sunny day in the weekdays and turn off your home solar panels for an hour.

Eyrie
Eyrie
February 18, 2024 5:55 pm

We could express our displeasure with Bowen this way.

Bespoke
Bespoke
February 18, 2024 5:59 pm
Delta A
Delta A
February 18, 2024 6:00 pm

Father Son Holy Spirit got a guernsey in the very last minute of the service.

I’m happy to say that our little country church is almost as traditional as I remember churches 70 years ago. No welcome to country, no women’s ordination (although it is being (hotly) debated.) Father, Son and Holy Spirit included in the opening words of the service. All centering on love, forgiveness and service to our community.

Today was Harvest Sunday, one of my favourites as a child. The big display at the front of the church included sauces, jams and preserves, food staples and supermarket items, along with home and farm grown produce. Proud to say that we contributed our cucumbers and zucchinis which, with everything else, will be sent to the ‘Pantry Club’, where it will be distributed to needy families.

I recall (vaguely) that Harvest Sunday when I was a young child (seven decades ago,) concluded with a communal lunch made from the items on display. This was one of the many church activities which formed the basis of our social lives. I also recall that food was sent to the aborigines who had a camp on the outskirts of town.

Nowadays, our church is more open and community concerned. (Daughter returned from service today with 10 kg of corned beef which she will cook tomorrow to serve with all the trimmings to the disadvantaged in our lovely town.) When the offerings are taken to Pastor after the sermon, the steward also presents a basket filled with food items, again, for our doing-it-tough townsfolk.

Winston Smith
February 18, 2024 6:04 pm

Dr Faustus

Feb 18, 2024 2:56 PM
“Driverless taxi vandalized and set on fire in San Francisco’s Chinatown”

On bad behaviour. It’s always occurred to me that users of driverless taxis risk hopping in and finding a partially digested kebab and several pints of XXXX honk – and then having to have an argument with TaxiCo about who and when.

So it’s OK if it’s white wine, or Heineken?
I detect a beerist comment.

Eyrie
Eyrie
February 18, 2024 6:04 pm

Simultaneously at 1 pm. Bet TPTB never thought of that.

Makka
Makka
February 18, 2024 6:09 pm

What TF is going on here?

Catholic Arena
@CatholicArena
NEW YORK

Far Left trans activists scream and chant to drown out a hymn during controversial funeral in St. Patrick’s Cathedral this week

There are increasing calls for the Vatican to revoke Fiducia Supplicans as a result of this scandal

https://twitter.com/CatholicArena/status/1758918279354089809

Winston Smith
February 18, 2024 6:10 pm

Crossie:

Should Trump somehow manage to defeat the electoral fraud and win the election he will have to clean every department and agency and defund every NGO. The top 10% of staff in each must be fired. Having all these department and agencies come to a halt would be less harmful than the damage they are inflicting now.

Apparently that’s Collective Punishment and not allowed.
Although I’m the only one getting called out for it.

DrBeauGan
DrBeauGan
February 18, 2024 6:10 pm

If my memory’s correct, 41 was a warm summer day.

No, the rule is: 0 is phukn phreezing, 10 is cold, 20 is cool, 25 is ideal, 30 is warm, 40 or more is hot to hottish.

But rather to be expected in February. You just need to relax and make sure you are thoroughly hydrated. Happens regularly over the years. Cheers me up to reassure me I’m in Australia still.

Tom
Tom
February 18, 2024 6:16 pm

(Daughter returned from service today with 10 kg of corned beef which she will cook tomorrow to serve with all the trimmings to the disadvantaged in our lovely town.)

Yummo, Delta. Boiled corned beef is a lost art that few under 40 know how to cook. They’re too busy buying expensive, fashionable foods that make it impossible for them to save for their first home.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
February 18, 2024 6:23 pm

But rather to be expected in February.

It’s known as “Fiery February” for a reason.

Harlequin Decline
February 18, 2024 6:24 pm

Delta A
Feb 18, 2024 4:31 PM

Thanks, back in the (probably tiger free) Northern Beaches Monday.

Damon
Damon
February 18, 2024 6:25 pm

DrBeauGan, I lived in Perth (Claremont) and worked at Crawley for about 20 years. Don’t come the raw prawn.

Makka
Makka
February 18, 2024 6:27 pm

Gender affirming care offered to kids aged three in Melbourne

Child abuse.

Muddy
Muddy
February 18, 2024 6:29 pm

Diogenes
Feb 18, 2024 2:53 PM

Including the People’s Democratic Republics of Victoria and Queensland, which have enshrined the UN Declaration of the Rights of Man. How did that work for our us during Covid?

I can tell you: Queensland Health admitted, in writing, that they were breaching my (and others’) human rights, but such breaches were justified by the need to protect blah blah …
The Public Service Tribunal, the Human Rights Commission, you name it; they all accepted that the stripping of normal rights and abandonment of dissenters was JUSTIFIED.

All bow to TGG. The Greater Good is the new deity.

Rabz
February 18, 2024 6:31 pm

So it’s OK if it’s white wine, or Heineken?

err, possibly not?

BTW, I’m imbibing one right now …

Rabz
February 18, 2024 6:34 pm
Winston Smith
February 18, 2024 6:34 pm

Eyrie

Feb 18, 2024 5:54 PM
How to instantly crash Australia’s electrical power system.
Wait for a bright sunny day in the weekdays and turn off your home solar panels for an hour.

Name the day.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
February 18, 2024 6:38 pm

Smallgoodsery activities done for the day.

The hotel bar beckons. Inspiration was gained by the mention of Heineken just now.

Noting – after just a cursory scan – of today’s commentary, I can only reiterate my earlier position which is that the Ukraine is a pub mole who has been playing two six foot three blokes off against each other for too long, and who is now lying in the car park bleeding after getting in the way when the two said blokes decided to throw hands over her.

Tom
Tom
February 18, 2024 6:39 pm

As a journalist, there is more i(culinary) information and interest for me in watching Michel Roux’s pretentious French cooking show on SBS Food while I’m waiting for the Seven News sports report to come on at 6.45pm.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
February 18, 2024 6:39 pm

Haunted by execution, lawyer who fought to end 200 years of the guillotine
Peter Conradi, Paris
Saturday February 17 2024, 6.00pm GMT, The Sunday Times
Europe
Law
AFP
Share

Robert Badinter did not actually see his client being guillotined on November 28, 1972, but from behind a closed door in Paris’s La Santé prison he could hear the unmistakable “sharp snap” of the falling blade. The sound would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Moments earlier the lawyer had watched the condemned man smoke a last cigarette and take the glass of cognac proffered to him by his executioner, which he downed in one, praising its quality. His arms tied and the top of the back of his shirt cut away, he was led to the courtyard where death awaited him.

Less than a decade later, on October 9, 1981, thanks in large part to the efforts of Badinter, who was by then justice minister, France belatedly joined the rest of western Europe in outlawing the death penalty, consigning the guillotine to the history books.

Last week, as President Emmanuel Macron led commemorations of the death of Badinter, aged 95, France was again reminded of the almost two centuries in which the state routinely executed its citizens, using a highly efficient killing machine originally intended as a humane alternative to the more brutal earlier methods.
The guillotine had first been used in April 1792 on a highwayman, and the following year on the deposed Louis XVI and his queen, Marie Antoinette, above

Roger Bontems, who died at 5.13am that dark November day, was not the last man to face the guillotine, but his death –— and Badinter’s horror at his failure to prevent it — was to play a key role in its demise.

Born in 1936 into a farming family in Aydoilles, a village in the Vosges in southeast France, Bontems, had a normal enough upbringing but went off the rails after serving in the French army during the Algerian war.

“As a young man, he was kind and hard-working. He helped his father on the family farm,” an elderly neighbour who still remembered Bontems told a journalist from a local paper who set out a decade ago to retell his story. “Algeria probably shook him up. He saw too many things there, torture and all that.”

Jailed for the first time in 1960 for stealing a car, Bontems committed several more offences before he was given 20 years in 1965 for robbery and assault, after injuring a taxi driver, stealing his cab and holding up a bistro with a fake gun.

It was in the summer of 1971, when Bontems was serving his sentence in Clairvaux high-security prison in eastern France, that he became notorious: he had already tried and failed to escape three times, but decided to try one more time, together with his cellmate, Claude Buffet, a veteran of the Foreign Legion, who was serving a life sentence for killing a doctor’s wife, among many other violent crimes.

That September, hoping to win their freedom, the pair, armed with knives, took three hostages in the prison sick bay. France followed the siege for hours on live television, but at 3.45 the next morning police stormed the building and captured the two criminals.

They were too late to save Guy Giradot, 25, a warden, and Nicole Comte, 35, a nurse, whose throats had been slit by Buffet with an 8in blade made for him by a fellow inmate.

The court in Troyes accepted that Bontems had not wielded the knife himself, but, to Badinter’s dismay, sentenced him to die alongside Buffet. The lawyer was even more shocked when Georges Pompidou, the president, upheld the sentence: Badinter had assured his client it would be commuted.

The next day, Bontems was guillotined. Buffet, put to death seven minutes later, never denied his own guilt. During his trial he shouted “Bravo” after a prosecutor demanded the death penalty. To make sure, he wrote to Pompidou saying that, if released, he would kill again.

For Badinter, who the following year wrote a book about the case, L’Exécution, it was a turning point in his career. “As I left the courtyard of La Santé at dawn that morning, I swore to myself I would fight the death penalty for the rest of my life,” he said later.

Winston Smith
February 18, 2024 6:39 pm

Bespoke
Feb 18, 2024 5:59 PM
Harlem, New York 1930s in color, [60fps, Remastered] w/sound design added
Via instapundit OT.

So what happened?
Comments please.

mareeS
mareeS
February 18, 2024 6:41 pm

Why is it assumed that Putin had Navalny offed?

He’s in an election year, and lay-down misere to win.

Who benefits by Navalny’s demise? It only disrupts the politics in Russia, so not Putin.

My money is on the lunatics behind the Ukraine mess and the re-ordering of the Western world.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
February 18, 2024 6:43 pm

No fishing tonight as its too windy. Last night very good with 4 trout. Hopefully the wind is supposed to drop on Tuesday. Otherwise its a long drive to some sheltered spots.

Winston Smith
February 18, 2024 6:44 pm

Bespoke
Feb 18, 2024 5:59 PM
Harlem, New York 1930s in color, [60fps, Remastered] w/sound design added
Via instapundit OT.

So what happened to New York in the last hundred years?
Comments please.

Rabz
February 18, 2024 6:45 pm

Almost my entire music collection is now on my phone

Thanks to the Jerbs, who is now very dead, I can’t update the music library on my favourite ol’ i-pod, because as soon as it gets plugged in, its entire contents will be wiped.

Since switching to 5G it can no longer be “backed up” either.

Consequently, I have a collection of Ipods that are veritable time capsules.

This concept, covered beautifully in this clip – a waitress who stood by her man

cohenite
February 18, 2024 6:46 pm

Indolent
Feb 18, 2024 1:55 PM
Alvin Bragg Is Trying To Punish Trump for Something That Is Not a Crime

The 9th Circuit found this hush agreement was not illegal and awarded Trump $300k in costs from Stormy. Payment of that would require a lot of rooting by stormy. The Federal Election Commission also ruled against any legal pursuit of Trump for contravening campaign laws based on the Stormy payment.

Yet, once again we have a fat black pig chasing Trump.

Bespoke
Bespoke
February 18, 2024 6:46 pm

Thomas Sowell has written allot on the subject Winston.

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
February 18, 2024 6:48 pm

Winston, JC wasn’t living in NYC then. Ha!

Winston Smith
February 18, 2024 6:49 pm

Knuckle Dragger

Feb 18, 2024 6:38 PM
Noting – after just a cursory scan – of today’s commentary, I can only reiterate my earlier position which is that the Ukraine is a pub mole who has been playing two six foot three blokes off against each other for too long, and who is now lying in the car park bleeding after getting in the way when the two said blokes decided to throw hands over her.

That’s a very accurate summation of the situation, KD.

Rabz
February 18, 2024 6:54 pm

Thomas Sowell

The only economist I’m aware of who is not cursed by the Golden Rule of Economists, that being there are two very distinct types:

Those that are wrong about everything 93.1% of the time
and
Those that are wrong about everything all the time

Like to think I’m of the former, Cats! 🙂

Rabz
February 18, 2024 6:56 pm

93.1%

Sacré bleu – that was meant to be 91.3% of the time … 😕

GreyRanga
GreyRanga
February 18, 2024 6:59 pm

Rabz, why will it be wiped when you plug it in to your computer?

DrBeauGan
DrBeauGan
February 18, 2024 7:00 pm

DrBeauGan, I lived in Perth (Claremont) and worked at Crawley for about 20 years. Don’t come the raw prawn.

Dunno what you’re on about, damon. These days, everything between Broadway and the river, including Broadway Fair and UWA is in Crawley. The other side of Broadway is Nedlands. Crawley is currently under the City of Perth.

Rabz
February 18, 2024 7:03 pm

Let’s have some unrepentant Rock ‘n’ Roll, Cats!

Iggy and the Stooges – Your aesthetically pleasing li’l face will be resident in Hades, I tells ya!

Winston Smith
February 18, 2024 7:04 pm

Bespoke

Feb 18, 2024 6:46 PM
Thomas Sowell has written allot on the subject Winston.

Just watching the decline and suicide by the West is depressing. I’ve been a Conservative for 45 years, fought the good fight, but watching the young idiots throw away 300 years of social advancement for the bright and shiny toys of socialism, with no idea of the fact the only thing that socialism makes is piles of skulls, is finally getting me down.
It’s like watching a three year old run around the room sticking a fork in every power point they can find and declaring “It’s all OK, mummy – I’m doing it the right way this time.” while the parents stand aside held back from intervention by actors who want the power points to be live.
Learning – the Hard Way, or the Other Hard Way.

Dot
Dot
February 18, 2024 7:05 pm

Why is it assumed that Putin had Navalny offed?

He’s in an election year, and lay-down misere to win.

Who benefits by Navalny’s demise? It only disrupts the politics in Russia, so not Putin.

My money is on the lunatics behind the Ukraine mess and the re-ordering of the Western world.

Jesus Christ, you guys are serious.

Maybe Trump was doing all of the Arkanciding too?

Rabz
February 18, 2024 7:07 pm

why will it be wiped when you plug it in to your computer?

An automatic process, Ranga – do not try it with any of your ol’ I-pods that have lots of music on them.

That’s a salutary warning from first hand experience. 🙁

Wally Dali
Wally Dali
February 18, 2024 7:08 pm

Rabz…. get yer music on wax. Lasts forever*, pirate proof, artist gets paid.
(*sort of)

Wally Dali
Wally Dali
February 18, 2024 7:13 pm

…and The Kids dig it

Crossie
Crossie
February 18, 2024 7:15 pm

The top 10% of staff in each must be fired. Having all these department and agencies come to a halt would be less harmful than the damage they are inflicting now.

Apparently that’s Collective Punishment and not allowed.
Although I’m the only one getting called out for it.

It’s not collective punishment if you declare that you want your own people in these positions. I understand Clinton fired all lawyers from DOJ at the beginning of his administration and used that reason for doing so.

Winston Smith
February 18, 2024 7:16 pm

Rabz
Feb 18, 2024 7:07 PM
why will it be wiped when you plug it in to your computer?

An automatic process, Ranga – do not try it with any of your ol’ I-pods that have lots of music on them.

That’s a salutary warning from first hand experience. ?

Isn’t that the ‘synchronise’ function?
It should be able to be turned off, shouldn’t it?

DrBeauGan
DrBeauGan
February 18, 2024 7:17 pm

…and The Kids dig it

Not a compelling argument.

Rabz
February 18, 2024 7:18 pm

Grate – I’ve just had a very profound comment vanish into the ether for no apparent reason.

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
February 18, 2024 7:24 pm

This hot weather is pissing me off! Of to the pool.

The weather is fu@ked at the moment.

Rabz
February 18, 2024 7:25 pm

Poor ol’ Tim Fer’son – he’s been stroogling with MS and is a shadow of his former self.

I wouldn’t wish MS on my worst enemy – a mate of mine who had it is now underground.

Anyway, here’s DAAS, belting out our unofficial National Anthem, “Throw your arms around me” on the ALPBC back in the nineties … 🙂

DrBeauGan
DrBeauGan
February 18, 2024 7:28 pm

I had the first iphone and the itunes software that linked it to my computer ran when I was asleep, and made all my music files unplayable. I’d carefully copied them onto the computer from CDs.

I’ve hated Apple ever since. I’ve also come to hate Microsoft. And I’m not too fond of Google.

Rabz
February 18, 2024 7:34 pm

The weather is forked at the moment.

Sydney’s weather this “summer” has been all over the place.

Not like the last few La Nina summers and not in any way like an El Nino.

I’m going with BoN’s Tongan Volcano hypothesis, especially given the colourful sunsets.

Rabz
February 18, 2024 7:35 pm

While just waitin’ on a friend … 🙂

Wally Dali
Wally Dali
February 18, 2024 7:36 pm

Fair enough, Dr BG. But it goes to show, the kids are alright.
Big diff with vinyl is that it amplifies so much better. Even a dusty fifty year old bit of psych on a 45 fills up this wooden love shack, with my two bit amp only up to 4. CDs sound hideous and metallic at volume. Streaming digi-muzak is even more worse.

Rabz
February 18, 2024 7:37 pm

I’ve hated Apple ever since. I’ve also come to hate Microsoft. And I’m not too fond of Google.

You are not alone, my good friend.

Rabz
February 18, 2024 7:40 pm

Bloody hippies, I tells ya! 🙂

Rabz
February 18, 2024 7:46 pm

Isn’t that the ‘synchronise’ function?
It should be able to be turned off, shouldn’t it?

Bobby – plug your favourite Ipod into your computer and attempt to carry out the steps above.

If you can’t, which you will not be able to, don’t blame me.

Roger
Roger
February 18, 2024 7:51 pm

Almost my entire music collection is now on my phone

But is it your music collection, or have you just paid a license fee to listen to it?

And when the technology is updated, will you still have access to it?

Or will you be charged again?

It’s a business model.

cohenite
February 18, 2024 7:52 pm
Rabz
February 18, 2024 7:54 pm

It’s a business model

Or possibly, theft of theft …

cohenite
February 18, 2024 7:55 pm

Correction Tulsi is amongst them.

Top Ender
Top Ender
February 18, 2024 7:56 pm

ABC has started hiring cultural advisers to ensure the taxpayer-funded broadcasters deal with sensitive stories appropriately

The ABC has begun recruiting ­cultural advisers as part of its latest move to help staff, including journalists, deal appropriately with “culturally sensitive stories”.

The new measure to hire cultural guidance advisers was first revealed in the ABC’s Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Plan in July, shortly after the axing of more than 120 jobs at the public broadcaster, including 40 roles in the news division.

Earlier this month, the ABC’s head of Indigenous news Suzanne Dredge announced that journalist Miriam Corowa, a Minyangbal and Bundjalung woman, had been appointed as the senior cultural adviser in the news division.

Ms Dredge said the move to ­introduce cultural advisers was “one of the ways to ensure we ­better reflect social and cultural ­diversity in our workplace and make our content more accessible to more Australians”.

“The remit of the role is to ­provide informed advice and support across the division around awareness of Indigenous and ­diverse cultural issues, protocols and opportunities and support the inclusion of Indigenous and diverse perspectives and cultural issues,” she said.

Ms Corowa, who is based in Sydney, will be the first point of contact for any queries ABC staff have about diversity in content and making sure culturally ­sensitive stories are managed ­appropriately.

Her role will also establish cross-divisional communication on Indigenous and diversity matters and work with other divisions, including the Bonner Committee and staff-led diversity groups.

Just last week the ABC also advertised for a senior cultural adviser of content. The role is only open to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island applicants.

The job has a remuneration of between $117,000 to $129,000 per year, plus 15.4 per cent super­annuation and sets out to provide “advice, support and guidance on Indigenous issues, protocols and opportunities”.

The ABC said in its Belonging Plan that it would hire three ­cultural advisers by June this year, as the taxpayer-funded organisation continues to battle cultural problems internally among its Indigenous staff.

At senate estimates last week, the ABC’s managing director David Anderson was questioned by Greens senator Mehreen ­Faruqi about the culture at the ABC and noted the challenges the broadcaster faced, including when producing content.

“What I’ve done is embrace a culture where the culture we have, the content we have and the people we have reflect the communities we serve,” he said.

“I think the ABC has made great inroads into that,” Mr Anderson said.

“I do accept that culturally we are not without our problems and we are not without the need to ­improve,” he said.

The new cultural adviser job states that staff must be given clear guidance on stories that are culturally sensitive, and even engage communities if necessary.

The adviser, who can be based in Melbourne or Sydney, will work with both Corowa and Dredge.

More if you can stand it from the Oz here.

Rabz
February 18, 2024 7:59 pm

The Ashcroft, marching through the filth that blights western cities* …

Not to mention the legal imbroglio, which took decades to resolve.

*But not Moscow, apparently – the Carlsoni told us so.

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
February 18, 2024 8:01 pm

42 degrees. F*ck bathing in kids piss at the local pool. On to Scarbs

Rabz
February 18, 2024 8:04 pm

Let’s sniff some young womanage hair, fellow warmongers!

Sky’s megaphoning of this monstrous ol’ psychopath is a disgrace.

Gen Buck Keane (Retd) of the Henry Kissinger Peace Academy.

Yet another reason why I strongly object to being referred to as a “conservative”.

Mark Bolton
Mark Bolton
February 18, 2024 8:05 pm

Feb 18, 2024 6:41 PM

Absolutely… I reckon the Old “Chewy Bone Oh” is a good indicator or as Inspector Plod might put it “Clear Motive”… Very few things happen for no reason. Not never, but rarely.

Poor Bugger Navalny wound up blowing out a few fewer birthday candles than He may have hoped for … He did some crazy brave things … Rest In Peace.

I cant see any motivation for Kremlin to “Off” the guy and at this time .. No it makes no sense.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
February 18, 2024 8:05 pm

42 degrees. F*ck bathing in kids piss at the local pool. On to Scarbs

Hottest day on record in Feraldton – 49 degrees.

Wally Dali
Wally Dali
February 18, 2024 8:08 pm

Hiring cultural advisers = paying the rent
..
with all our sweet, sweet, endless taxpayer munni.
I’ll just chip in again, all this nations-treaty-country-knowledge graft is dependent on permanent division and exclusion.
It should be seen as antithetical to our (until now) sensible civilisation.

cohenite
February 18, 2024 8:12 pm

Compare this short video of normal lady Trump supporters expressing their admiration of him with the corpse’s hair sniffing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg91WkKxgZo

Rabz
February 18, 2024 8:12 pm

49 degrees

Mole, just go out there and soak it up. That sort of heat is Gerbil Broiling*! 😕

*Trigger warning – hideously uglee ol’ communist dinobore

Roger
Roger
February 18, 2024 8:14 pm

“What I’ve done is embrace a culture where the culture we have, the content we have and the people we have reflect the communities we serve,” he said

.

This’d be hilarious if it wasn’t our money being spent.

Alamak!
February 18, 2024 8:15 pm

Why is it assumed that Putin had Navalny offed?

He’s in an election year, and lay-down misere to win.

Who benefits by Navalny’s demise? It only disrupts the politics in Russia, so not Putin.

Putin has many enemies inside Russia, many of them within his innner circle.

Not a surprise that actions throwing shade on macho macho man of Russia are happening in the lead up to “elections”.

See also the long list of Putin supporters who take up window jumping in the post-prime years …

hzhousewife
hzhousewife
February 18, 2024 8:19 pm

The new cultural adviser job states that staff must be given clear guidance on stories that are culturally sensitive, and even engage communities if necessary.

At this rate the ABC will end up like an aboriginal tribe: aimless, sit-down pow-wows all day each and every day, no action except for wandering around and lighting a fire now and again, off chasing kangaroos when they get hungry enough. No wheels, no inventiveness, no production. Heading for extinction.

Muddy
Muddy
February 18, 2024 8:24 pm

Anyway, here’s DAAS, belting out our unofficial National Anthem, “Throw your arms around me” on the ALPBC back in the nineties … ?

Post DAAS, Paul McDermot was a feckin twat. On that late night variety show he had for a bit, he spent a great deal of his opening monologue, for months on end, basically saying Pauline Hanson’s name, at which the audience would respond ‘Hur, hur, huuuuurrrr!’ I guess it was the trend at the time to ridicule the sub-pretentious-elite, alienated, largely Anglo voters, who possibly saw in Hanson a voice. I’ve regarded Australian comedians since that period with a degree of loathing, with one or two exceptions.

Alamak!
February 18, 2024 8:24 pm

The ABC said in its Belonging Plan that it would hire three ­cultural advisers by June this year, as the taxpayer-funded organisation continues to battle cultural problems internally among its Indigenous staff

Love to see the ABC commit to hiring real, genuine Bogans for key roles plus multiple Working Class Men & Sheilas as “cultural advisors”.

should be a piece of piss.

Rabz
February 18, 2024 8:29 pm
Roger
Roger
February 18, 2024 8:33 pm

…as the taxpayer-funded organisation continues to battle cultural problems internally among its Indigenous staff

The squeaky hinge gets the oil.

Btw, how many of the ABC’s indigenous staff were raised in a traditional setting on country? (That would include being initiated.)

That would be relevant if they’re going to advise on cultural matters.

Rabz
February 18, 2024 8:37 pm

Sacre bleu! The hottest hausfrau in human history … 🙂

Rabz
February 18, 2024 8:45 pm

I’ve regarded Australian comedians since that period with a degree of loathing

Muds, if it’s ant consolation Timbo does not rate contemporary Ozzie comedy. He is very scathing about it. “Depressing and boring”.

I was trying to explain the concept of DAAS to a young womanage (blessed with very ample boozies) the other day and it was like, “Imagine some collectivists pretending to be extreme right wing nayzees and you’d still barely be scratching the surface”.

“Do you like hippies?
Do you trust hippies?
Do you want them near your kiddees?
Have you ever been a member of the communist pardee?”

This was broadcast on the ALPBC last century circa 1989-92.

H B Bear
H B Bear
February 18, 2024 8:46 pm

42 degrees. F*ck bathing in kids piss at the local pool. On to Scarbs

Scabs on a summer weekend is a world of possibility. Little of it good.

John H.
John H.
February 18, 2024 8:50 pm

I’ve hated Apple ever since. I’ve also come to hate Microsoft. And I’m not too fond of Google.

You could try Linux and you’ll learn to hate that. Most of my reference data is stored on a database that even with Wine won’t run on Linux. I’ve been running w10 and 11 for years. Only once have been forced to do a button operated reboot and that was because of crummy third party software. The resource usage is so low that my cpu never throttles because of heat, albeit with a premium cooler. It is worth learning to examine Task Manager to help detect any programs and processes that might be a problem. Finally Windows update is not confined to single thread!

Diogenes
Diogenes
February 18, 2024 8:54 pm

hat would include being initiated.)

That would be relevant if they’re going to advise on cultural matters.

An acquaintance discovered she was indig aged 45. Somehow in 3 months she became an expert, “ my people this, and my people that”, all of of which translated to to give me money/ stuff.

Louis Litt
February 18, 2024 9:00 pm

ROckdoctor
Wax in Seymour last November on our way back from From Bright tobDalesford.
Yep , in the middle of no where and dry as north of Adelaide and Perth.
Great pie shop, mum and 12 yr old daughter, smiles on their faces. Like happy country people.
The town like you say de lining , although the other towns on the way to Dalesford were re invigorating themselves.
The archecture if those towns was mindblowling.

H B Bear
H B Bear
February 18, 2024 9:04 pm

DrBeauGan at 7:28

I had the first iphone and the itunes software that linked it to my computer ran when I was asleep, and made all my music files unplayable.

I abandoned Apple after the iPhone 4. I’m not sure I ever got iTunes to sync correctly in that time. Still got the CDs around, including a couple not on Spotify which is annoying.

Crossie
Crossie
February 18, 2024 9:05 pm

Rabz
Feb 18, 2024 7:46 PM
Isn’t that the ‘synchronise’ function?
It should be able to be turned off, shouldn’t it?

Bobby – plug your favourite Ipod into your computer and attempt to carry out the steps above.

If you can’t, which you will not be able to, don’t blame me.

That is true however, I can play all my digital music on the phone, and the three iPads I own.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
February 18, 2024 9:07 pm

Btw, how many of the ABC’s indigenous staff were raised in a traditional setting on country? (That would include being initiated.)

Only those Aborigines, uncontaminated by European ancestry, can be considered for such a position.

Crossie
Crossie
February 18, 2024 9:10 pm

cohenite
Feb 18, 2024 7:55 PM
Correction Tulsi is amongst them.

It doesn’t matter whether Tulsi is on the VP list or not, Kari Lake is the only one who will be able to carry on with the MAGA agenda when Trump’s term is over. Kari has the commitment, the talent and the aplomb while Tulsi is still an unknown factor even though she resigned from the Democrat party.

Crossie
Crossie
February 18, 2024 9:12 pm

Forgot to mention, Tulsi would be a good cabinet appointment in a Trump admin.

Louis Litt
February 18, 2024 9:18 pm

O come on Bruce of Newcastle
Your debate hasbeen interesting.
Agreed the comment everywhere you turn there are bad seeds, eu, France britan, Russia, the dems , labor here.
Regarding Russian expansion plans with countries with large Russian populations, with ref to the Donbas and the donation made to the Ukraine, wise man salad to me, put a foreign population in one country, they will claim some oppression and call in the dominating power, in this case Russians calling in Russians.
Every great power has done this.

Crossie
Crossie
February 18, 2024 9:20 pm

The new cultural adviser job states that staff must be given clear guidance on stories that are culturally sensitive, and even engage communities if necessary.

The adviser, who can be based in Melbourne or Sydney, will work with both Corowa and Dredge.

More if you can stand it from the Oz here.

The actual job title should be “indigenous censor”. There is no way I would read the whole thing, life is too short to waste on this misuse of our money.

Winston Smith
February 18, 2024 9:20 pm

Crossie

Feb 18, 2024 7:15 PM
The top 10% of staff in each must be fired. Having all these department and agencies come to a halt would be less harmful than the damage they are inflicting now.

Apparently that’s Collective Punishment and not allowed.
Although I’m the only one getting called out for it.

It’s not collective punishment if you declare that you want your own people in these positions. I understand Clinton fired all lawyers from DOJ at the beginning of his administration and used that reason for doing so.

Yes, I understand that – this is the serve I got from Sancho Panzer:

Feb 15, 2024 10:10 AM
Nurse Betty at 8:08.

And yet Bud lite haven’t sacked the entire marketing department which is obviously riddled with woke cancer.

Sacking?
Why not just shoot 1,000 (ensuring the smoke has cleared in time for lunch, of course)?
You’re a big fan of collective punishment, aren’t you?
Some kid who is working on posters of brewery horses for bars should get the arse because someone seven levels above him and half a world away employed a trannie?
Do you drink Busweiser products?
Are you a shareholder?
If not, you are no different to the activists who would never be seen dead in K Mart but scream blue murder if they stock Australian flags in January.

It’s not the message – it’s just another opportunity to slag off at someone.

pete m
pete m
February 18, 2024 9:20 pm

A tad disingenious to poke fun at Aboriginal people for a white mans’ label imposed upon them.

Leaders of their mobs were/are family patriarchs or wise / smart people.

They do not use “elders” except for dealings with us.

They also don’t like to speak of the label “smart” as again it is private honour amongst themselves.

Many Aboriginal folks I’ve met and worked with are the most decent people I’ve met.

I cannot say the same for South Africans, save for the rare exception.

Boambee John
Boambee John
February 18, 2024 9:21 pm

dover0beach
Feb 18, 2024 8:55 PM
They did. The parties to the dispute have tried adjudication, which China signed up to, and it failed, because China won’t accept the decision.

All that arbitration covers is the dispute between China and the Phillipines.

And the adjudication rejected by China leaves a hole in the Nine-Dash-Line, and thus into the whole “territorial waters” claim.

Crossie
Crossie
February 18, 2024 9:25 pm

Paul Murray highlighting on Sky the NRL game between Aboriginals and the M?oris sponsored by Harvey Norman. It all makes sense if you look at it this way, our indigenous destroy their electronics and furnishings and the local M?oris deliver the Harvey Norman supplied replacements. Everybody wins.

(I know, I’m a racists, before anyone else can get in there and accuse me of it.)

Tom
Tom
February 18, 2024 9:25 pm

Forgot to mention, Tulsi would be a good cabinet appointment in a Trump admin.

I like Tulsi Gabbard, but she’s a lefty.

In Trump’s cabinet, she would be a white ant like Mitt Romney. She wouldn’t be able to help herself.

In any return to the White House, Trump would have enough external enemies trying to sink his administration without having them in his cabinet.

Winston Smith
February 18, 2024 9:26 pm

Doc Beaugan:

I’ve hated Apple ever since. I’ve also come to hate Microsoft. And I’m not too fond of Google.

If there is any justice at all, Bill Gates will die, screaming in agony, as he is trapped in a burning lift with the directions written in Braille, and needing a 16 digit password** to let people out.
** Minimum 4 Uppercase, 4 Symbol, and 4 Wingding characters.

Sounds like you’d agree with with my post above…
🙂

Boambee John
Boambee John
February 18, 2024 9:28 pm

Dover

Firstly, where do I say that it should? I said they want the same rights in the disputed area as they have in the undisputed area.

Rights to which they have no entitlement while the area is disputed,

Secondly, I don’t say the claim is definitive because it predates the PRC; I’m merely saying they predate the PRC.

So what is the relevance of the “predate” comment?

Thirdly, no, it’s asking them to try to put foward their best compromise position given their circumstances.

Is there any evidence, at all, that China has offered to compromise? After rejecting the adjudication was their time to do that, apparently they have not done so. China’s compromise position seems to be that possession is theirs and everyone else can go take a flying leap.

Crossie
Crossie
February 18, 2024 9:34 pm

Indolent
Feb 18, 2024 9:24 PM
Moment mayhem erupts in Hague as brawling ‘migrants’ torch cars, trash buildings and hurl bricks at riot cops – turning Dutch city into a WARZONE

The Dutch know what to do when they’ve had enough, deport them.

Winston Smith
February 18, 2024 9:35 pm

Rabz:
Rabz
Feb 18, 2024 7:46 PM

Isn’t that the ‘synchronise’ function?
It should be able to be turned off, shouldn’t it?

Bobby – plug your favourite Ipod into your computer and attempt to carry out the steps above.
If you can’t, which you will not be able to, don’t blame me.

I don’t own an iPod. The sound – especially through those white things stuck in your ears – is rubbish. You’d probably get better reproduction if you stuck them up your arse. I’d rather go without than punish my ears with them.
Kids have NO BLOODY idea just how good and complex music was.

JC
JC
February 18, 2024 9:36 pm

dover0beach
Feb 18, 2024 8:55 PM

They did. The parties to the dispute have tried adjudication, which China signed up to, and it failed, because China won’t accept the decision.

All that arbitration covers is the dispute between China and the Phillipines.

One of the more important neighbors.

There’s nothing to negotiate as it’s open seas and everyone has a right to use it. The S China sea isn’t theirs and have zero claim to it, morally or legally.

Dot
Dot
February 18, 2024 9:39 pm

A problem in modern democracies is that awful heads of government never pay for their incompetence or malice.

We should seriously consider ostracism and banishment for ten to twenty years if one loses office very badly, voluntarily serves too short a term, a supermajority of the electors after a special election regarding banishment after their term is over, loses a recall election or after serving a sentence for a crime committed in office.

The punishment for breaching the term of banishment ought to be 25 years.

I am deadly serious.

Louis Litt
February 18, 2024 9:40 pm

Gabor / Zafiro
What is the reason Serbia was thrown under the bus?

Dot
Dot
February 18, 2024 9:41 pm

25 years imprisonment.

Digger
Digger
February 18, 2024 9:42 pm

This is Trump’s biggest character fault: picking the wrong people:

Can anyone name a single right person that he has selected other than Flynn, who they destroyed anyway…

Alamak!
February 18, 2024 9:43 pm

Is there any evidence, at all, that China has offered to compromise? After rejecting the adjudication was their time to do that, apparently they have not done so. China’s compromise position seems to be that possession is theirs and everyone else can go take a flying leap.

China wishes to “work things out” with each claimant, outside of any legal framework or international jurisdiction. Which amounts to accepting the nine dash line and ignoring all claimants territorial areas under existing law.

Meanwhile, China keeps building and its fleets of boats keep pushing others out of their islands.

As DB says, we can leave those involved to work it out … but any threat to Japans (or Koreas) energy supply lines coming through international waters will not be a matter for soft bullying and diplomatic discussion over time.

JC
JC
February 18, 2024 9:46 pm

mareeS
Feb 18, 2024 6:41 PM

Why is it assumed that Putin had Navalny offed?

Putin had his henchman try to kill him the first time with radio active poison. Why is the assumption that he succeeded this time out of bounds?

A large number of Putin critics are either dead and the rest rotting in prison. The Czar doesn’t seem to like opposition.

Indolent
Indolent
February 18, 2024 9:47 pm

Forgot to mention, Tulsi would be a good cabinet appointment in a Trump admin.

She’s a snake. No principles at all. Gun for hire.

Alamak!
February 18, 2024 9:47 pm

25 years imprisonment

This policy is in place in some places now. Every single ex-prez goes through litigation for their “sins” in the Phils and some end up in jail.

Duterte getting a bit of deferral as a) he has plenty of people with guns b) his family are in the ring fighting for him and his $$$$ c) he is fairly sick anyway.

Crossie
Crossie
February 18, 2024 9:49 pm

I don’t own an iPod. The sound – especially through those white things stuck in your ears – is rubbish. You’d probably get better reproduction if you stuck them up your arse. I’d rather go without than punish my ears with them.
Kids have NO BLOODY idea just how good and complex music was.

I don’t listen to music via the earbuds or the headphones, none of them are good enough. I have the phone synced with my car and play the music through its sound system. Marvellous on long or short trips.

Crossie
Crossie
February 18, 2024 9:54 pm

When I need a pick-me-up I play this piece of music full blast until the car windows vibrate.

Peter Gunn.

Digger
Digger
February 18, 2024 9:57 pm

I like Tulsi Gabbard, but she’s a lefty.

In Trump’s cabinet, she would be a white ant like Mitt Romney. She wouldn’t be able to help herself.

Totally agree. Only a matter of time.

Mark Bolton
Mark Bolton
February 18, 2024 10:08 pm

@Digger
Feb 18, 2024 9:42 PM

Retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor ? He seemed OK?

John H.
John H.
February 18, 2024 10:08 pm

Winston Smith
Feb 18, 2024 9:35 PM
Rabz:
Rabz
Feb 18, 2024 7:46 PM

Isn’t that the ‘synchronise’ function?
It should be able to be turned off, shouldn’t it?

Bobby – plug your favourite Ipod into your computer and attempt to carry out the steps above.
If you can’t, which you will not be able to, don’t blame me.

I don’t own an iPod. The sound – especially through those white things stuck in your ears – is rubbish. You’d probably get better reproduction if you stuck them up your arse. I’d rather go without than punish my ears with them.
Kids have NO BLOODY idea just how good and complex music was.

They never will because that requires a good sound system. I had an amp and preamp that that had excellent dynamic range and an even response across all frequencies. Only had a volume and balance dial because the more the dials, the more connects, the more distortion. Most today wouldn’t tolerate an amp like that because everything is bass boosted. The turntable and speakers were mounted on sound dampening supports and the monitor speakers had sound absorbing material behind them. Wonderful for classical and instrumental music. When I first set it up I was told it would take weeks for my brain to adjust and fully appreciate the sound. That was true. Unfortunately many people today have restricted musical tastes because of poor hardware and a lack of patience. Their loss. Music events annoyed me no end because of the crowd noise and the shocking sound quality. The price I paid for a good sound system was an inability to enjoy most live music; though obviously not instrumental music in good facilities. Musical events are not about the music, they are tribal events.

BTW, a few hours earlier I read an analysis that Bach’s music contains mathematical structures. No surprises there.

Crossie
Crossie
February 18, 2024 10:12 pm

I have maintained for some time that this piece of music is a classic worthy to be compared to anything Beethoven or Mozart brought to the world. It’s got drama, melody and rhythm.

Pipeline

I have always loved the 60s instrumentals whether by The Shadows, The Ventures or any number of California surf music bands. This sort of music got me through many 3,000 and 5,000 word assignments.

Mark Bolton
Mark Bolton
February 18, 2024 10:13 pm

@Dot
Feb 18, 2024 9:41 PM

“25 years imprisonment.” …. if your political enemies get the upper hand.

As if there wasnt enough disincentive now for people of good will to involve them selves in Public Representation.

Crossie
Crossie
February 18, 2024 10:18 pm

Digger
Feb 18, 2024 9:57 PM
I like Tulsi Gabbard, but she’s a lefty.

In Trump’s cabinet, she would be a white ant like Mitt Romney. She wouldn’t be able to help herself.

Totally agree. Only a matter of time.

Even though a lefty I think Tulsi is probably more moral and has more principles than Mitt Romney. Until Mitt I had a very positive view of Mormons, now I think they are just as bad as he is as they kept him as their elder even after what he did and is doing to conservative Republicans in the US Senate.

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
February 18, 2024 10:20 pm

A new fleet of warships will be the government’s response to a rising China

EXCLUSIVE
By cameron stewart
Chief International Correspondent
and greg brown
Canberra Bureau chief
8:47PM February 18, 2024
28 Comments

A new fleet of small, well-armed warships will form the centrepiece of a sweeping restructure of the navy as the Albanese government seeks to rebut claims that it has been too slow to respond to the threat posed by China.

The long-awaited review of the navy’s surface fleet, to be released on Tuesday, will also retain the troubled $45bn Hunter-class frigate program in Adelaide, but with only six of the anti-submarine ships likely to be ordered rather than the initially planned nine.

It will also seek to shore up Labor votes in South Australia and Western Australia by announcing a plan for continuous naval shipbuilding in both states, despite studies showing substantial savings for buying warships off-the-shelf from overseas.

The decision on the navy’s surface fleet comes as the government is under fire for failing to provide any significant increase in defence funding, regardless of warnings last year that Australia faced the gravest strategic outlook in generations.

Criticism of the government’s national security credentials is expected to force it to approve an increase in defence spending in the May budget to fund a revamped, enlarged surface fleet as well as the AUKUS nuclear submarines.

The navy is in a parlous state, saddled with the oldest ships in its history, a lack of firepower, not enough crew to sail the existing fleet and the country’s biggest new warship project, the Hunter frigates, beset by delays, cost overruns and design problems.

In December, the government was unable to agree to a US navy request to send a warship to the Red Sea because no crew or ship was available for deployment at short notice. The navy has already pulled one Anzac-class frigate from the water because of crew shortages and is looking at mothballing up to two more.

The government is expected on Tuesday to unveil plans for a new fleet of at least eight small warships, either corvette or light patrol frigates, to try to boost the navy’s firepower more quickly in response to a rising China.

The new fleet will increase the total number of the navy’s current 11 surface combatants and will also increase its firepower, which has fallen by 43 per cent since 1995 at a time when the Chinese navy has become the largest in the world, with more than 370 ships and ­submarines.

The move towards smaller so-called tier-2 warships was foreshadowed in last year’s Defence Strategic Review, which called for a navy with a “larger number of smaller surface vessels” to allow more well-armed ships at sea at any one time.

The government has examined a range of options to acquire a fleet of corvettes or light patrol frigates between 3500 and 5000 tonnes from Spain, Germany, Britain, Japan and South Korea. The first few of the new fleet of small warships is likely to be built overseas to accelerate their entry into service, but the rest of the corvette-frigate fleet is likely to be constructed in WA to produce a continuous shipbuilding capacity in that state.

The decisions on the structure of the navy, which contains 18 recommendations, comes in response to an independent analysis of the navy’s surface combatant fleet last year by former US admiral William Hila­rides.

The public version of that report, which was commissioned as part of the DSR, will also be released on Tuesday. The foreword of that report will state that “the independent analysis team (was) concerned with the DSR’s findings that the current and planned surface combatant fleet is not appropriate for the levels of risk we now face and that cost pressures already existed in the program. They noted that the current surface ship fleet is the oldest the navy has operated in its history.”

However, the government has decided to retain the Hunter-class frigate program in Adelaide, despite claims by former admirals that the ships are too heavy and lack sufficient firepower for modern warfare, with only 32 missiles.

The government is expected to reduce the Hunter-class frigate program, which is not expected to deliver its first ship until 2032, from nine ships to six. It is possible it may ask Hunter shipbuilder BAE Systems to replace the three lost ASW ships with three new, better-armed Air Warfare destroyers built from the same hull.

Both the Hunter program and the new corvette/frigate program will be designed to provide an ongoing shipbuilding capacity in critical seats in SA and WA, which the government needs to win the next election.

Australian Strategic Policy Institute director Michael Shoebridge said it was critical the government provided extra funding in its response to the surface fleet review, and a clear timetable on the arrival of ships to replace the fragile Anzac-class frigates.

He said decisive action was needed from the government to head off the “death spiral” facing the navy, given the Hunter frigates will not be operational for nearly a decade.

Mr Shoebridge said it would be better if the Hunter program was dumped altogether and warned of capability gaps in waiting for the new ships, given the fragile condition of the ageing Anzac-class frigates. “A central thing I expect is they’re going to retain the $45bn Hunter frigate program and not get any ship from that enormous and slow program until 2033,” he said.

“If they cut the numbers from nine to six, the cost per ship goes up and we still don’t get anything into the navy fleet for a decade.

“So the path of least resistance is what I expect them to take on the Hunter. I would be delighted to be surprised and hear that they had cancelled the program.”

He said he expected the government to announce a “process” to acquire another fleet of ships to help with the limited capacity of the Anzac-class frigates.

Strategic Analysis Australia director Peter Jennings said lowering the number of Hunter frigates would see “per unit costs rise and we get nothing until the 2030s”.

“It looks as though the navy is finding the Anzacs are worn out. So we lose naval power over the 2020s and into the 30s – precisely the wrong time, given the strategic outlook,” he said.

Mr Jennings said it would be “no loss” if the government cancelled the offshore patrol vessel program.

He declared there was a need for new vessels with “lots of missile vertical launchers”.

Opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie said the government needed to secure more funding for the navy as part of its response to the surface review.

Zafiro
Zafiro
February 18, 2024 10:39 pm

/ Zafiro
What is the reason Serbia was thrown under the bus?

Anti Globalist and pro-Russia.

DrBeauGan
DrBeauGan
February 18, 2024 10:44 pm

You could try Linux and you’ll learn to hate that.

I run Linux on all my machines and I’m reasonably happy with it. I use it mainly for writing, mostly with TeXWorks LaTeX. And Libre Office for making pictures.

I wish I could get a decent os for my phone, but I’m stuck with android.

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
February 18, 2024 10:55 pm

Great. The AC just packed it in. Sleeping on the front lawn tonight. This weather is f*cked!

36.7 degrees still. 43 tomorrow.

JC
JC
February 18, 2024 11:00 pm

How do you know this?

You think it was the Belize president who tried to kill him?

Apparently, Putin tried to poison him with, one of the most deadly chemical nerve agents Novichok (not radioactive) yet he survives.

Yep, it’s possible.

He’s briefly hospitalized, placed in an induced coma, and then medivaced to Berlin. That is curious. The Kremlin wants him dead but this is allowed.

Putin’a murders are always accidental.

He was arrested and dumped in jail as soon and the plane landed on his return.

Mark Bolton
Mark Bolton
February 18, 2024 11:02 pm

Keep an open mind and be aware propaganda is everywhere.

To quote Gilbert and Sullivan

Things are seldom what they seem,
Skim milk masquerades as cream;
Highlows pass as patent leathers;
Jackdaws strut in peacock’s feathers.

“Bellingcat” scarcely Bells the Cat.

So they be,
Frequentlee.

Dare say that Cat wont pass the sniff test. Should you care to subject it to same.

Dot
Dot
February 18, 2024 11:05 pm

As if there wasnt enough disincentive now for people of good will to involve them selves in Public Representation.

There is too much incentive. THEIR good will is usually malice towards you or objective incompetence. Furthermore, power corrupts and it would apply only to the executive.

  1. I think the punters are stirring, getting ansty. Normally letting politics of either persuasion slide by as we just get…

  2. Great stuff from the past. Visuals and audio are great. —— F r. David – Words Don’t Come Easy

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