This bloke would have made a damnfine Cat!

More at home at Sydney’s Mardi Gras, I would have thought.

Excellent documentary on Colin Hay.

Find the time to watch it.

1:24:05

Colin Hay: Waiting For My Real Life | Full Music Documentary | The Men At Work Story

This bloke would have made a damnfine Cat!

Hope that’s a (very poor) joke.

Now this is a win.

BREAKING: Trump SMASHES Nikki Haley 924-0 in Missouri…

The workers Gina Rinhart employs might take a less jaundiced view of her success than munty.

She really lifted herself up by her bootstraps from Struggle Street, yep.

Considering the estate she inherited was almost bankrupt, yes she really lifted herself by her bootstraps.

WA’s booming iron ore industry contributed nearly one-fifth of total company tax paid across the whole of Australia last year — about $15 billion

Interesting post, thank you.

Gorilla grip … what?

I suppose ZK2A thinks she would make a damnfine Kitteh.

I watched an American made movie on the life of Lamborghini. It’s pretty so so.
There’s this

Bob Wallace (4 October 1938 – 19 September 2013) was a New Zealand test driver, automotive engineer and mechanic, best known for his role in developing early Lamborghini road cars.

How does a New Zealander end up in Italy in the 1960s developing sports cars

She inherited about 5 mil and a business that was a shambles, she turned the whole thing around you dribbling buffoon

“When Lang Hancock passed away his estate was bankrupt, which is publicly available information.

“In addition, Hancock Prospecting which he’d largely sold out of was in an extremely bad financial situation at time of his death in March 1992 with the few remaining assets under threat of litigation or heavily mortgaged. Tenements to Roy Hill were not in the company when Lang was alive – these were acquired after his death.”

Aboriginal people have no solidarity with these arsehats. Andrew Bolt:

Those stones don’t lie. I stood last week at the exact spot in Jerusalem that proves the activists who’ve hijacked the Melbourne Writers Festival are fools or frauds.

I’m talking about the pro-Palestinian activists who last week made their deputy chairman resign in protest by turning her festival into a hate-Israel circus.

These haters scheduled a session that comes with program notes implying an obscene falsehood: “Aboriginal and Palestinian solidarity has a long history, a relationship that is more vital than ever in the movement to resist colonialism and speak out against atrocities.”

Colonialism? And so the taxpayer-funded writers’ festival now parrots the propaganda of Palestinian extremists – that Palestinians are as indigenous to Israel as Aborigines to Australia, and both face a common white enemy of settlers. Invaders. Colonialists.

In fact, the so-called Palestinian “embassy” in Canberra published a paper which couldn’t be clearer about that: “Israel and Australia were both founded on the destruction of the existing native population, replacing this population with a new, European one.”

But like I said, the stones don’t lie, even if activists do. And they say that linking the Aboriginal and Palestinian causes like that is a hoax, and anti-Semitic.

Where I stood last week was in front of the famous Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall.

It’s the last scrap that remains of the great Second Temple of the Jews, which was destroyed by the Romans in 70AD, nearly 2000 years ago. Jews have prayed there ever since – when they were allowed – because it’s the closest they can get to the Holy of Holies, the room that supposedly once held the Ark of the Covenant, containing the Ten Commandments.

That room was said to be in the First Temple, built at that site probably around 3000 years ago but torn down by Babylonians in 586BC.

But if you’re at the Western Wall, look up. You’ll see what Muslim conquerors from Saudi Arabia built on top of this Jewish site “just” 1300 years ago – the golden-domed al-Aqsa mosque.

The stones tell us Muslim Arabs colonised a Jewish sacred site that was thousands of years older than their imported new religion.

So what came first? The Jewish foundations or the Muslim mosque built on top of them?

A question, then: if Australia’s chic writers really want to support the indigenous people of Israel, why don’t they support the Jews? The answer seems ugly.

A reason why Teh Voice went down quicker than a two dollar hooker (HT 12th Man)
Never a good look to fly Aboriginal flags at a pro Hamas rally. Dumb khunts.

From The Oz:

ACT pays the price for Drumgold’s trial slur against Reynolds
The ACT government has apologised to Linda Reynolds and paid substantial damages over accusations by Shane Drumgold during Bruce Lehrmann’s rape case that the senator had engaged in ‘disturbing conduct’.

FMD, Nicole Flint intones the libs are a broad church in defence of pencil neck birmingham and other busted arse pseudo teals who continually gut the conservative base. Fat faced Kroger agrees with her. Sad. They have no fuking idea.

Marty picks up a cheque from the ACT government. You’d want him on your side. Dave is next.

Despite bringing nothing to the matrimonial asset base, mUnty still subscribing to the class struggle he abandoned some time ago. Sadly all to common on the Left.

Tim Blair:

Whether you’re a one-man mistake machine or a Labor minister hell bent on costing us billions, absence of even basic research is always the problem.

Take popular error generator Peter FitzSimons, for example.

The Sydney Morning Herald columnist probably doesn’t know it, but a significant number of his readers log in simply to enjoy and share the veteran hack’s characteristic blunders.

We’re quite a community. When Fitzy delivers – which is impressively often – phones and laptops light up across the land.

My favourite recent FitzSimons failure occurred during an interview last year with Australian cricket captain Pat Cummins, following Australia’s ODI World Cup victory.

“You’re going to be remembered for your captaincy in the final, for your aggressive tactics,” FitzSimons told hero Pat.

“Ian Chappell always said, ‘When you win the toss, nine times out of 10 you should choose immediately to bat first. On the 10th occasion, you should think about it, and then bat first’. But you decided to bowl first,” FitzSimons said.

Cummins was too polite to correct his interviewer, but Chappell’s bat-first imperative applies only to Test cricket. By contrast, the World Cup is a one-day contest.

The batting sequence in one-dayers isn’t nearly so important, as anyone with an elementary understanding of the game and access to the internet would be aware.

There have been 13 World Cup finals, including last year’s contest between Australia and India. Teams winning the toss have bowled first six times and batted first seven times.

In the very first World Cup final, in 1975, Australia won the toss and bowled. An intriguing historical point unknown to Pete: Australia’s captain in that final was Chappell.

That’s our fact-free Fitzy for you. Long may he entertain us all. Less amusing but likely far more expensive are the research faults committed by Energy Minister Chris Bowen, who is equally caveman-level Fitzian when it comes to information online.

Bowen seems to think that his assertions somehow cancel out not only observable reality, but also undisputed historical facts gleaned from the internet.

Recently he repeated his claim that Australians won’t be denied our big utes once Labor’s vehicle emission standards are introduced.

“Look at the United States. They’ve had these standards since the 1970s,” Bowen told an interviewer last month. “And you can get a pick-up truck, what they call – they call their utes pick-up trucks – you can get a pick-up truck in the US pretty easily. So the idea that if you have emissions standards and somehow you won’t have utes is just a fantasy.”

But under initial Corporate Average Fuel Economy (or CAFE) rules, pick-ups were largely exempt. It’s all online.

The Washington Post reported in 2023: “To protect American commerce, work trucks and light trucks were subject to less-strict CAFE standards than family sedans.”

As recently as 2021, according to an analysis from The Australian, nearly half of Ford F-Series pick-up trucks were excluded from US fuel standards. Bowen’s US emissions defence is dead.

So is his argument that the rubbish Chinese-made electric LDV eT60 ute – which costs more than $90,000 in Australia, double the diesel version’s price – is cheaper in NZ thanks to Labor-like efficiency rules.

“The Honourable Member asked me about the LDV eT60 electric ute,” Bowen said last week in parliament.

“I’m going to refer him to an article in the Drive newspaper, which says: ‘LDV eT60 electric ute now cheaper than its diesel twin, but only in New Zealand’.

“Why is it cheaper in New Zealand but not in Australia? New Zealand has vehicle efficiency standards. Australia does not.”

Let’s check out that October 2023 article then. It says nothing about the price drop being to do with efficiency standards. Rather, the LDV eT60 simply scored a huge $NZ23,000 dealer discount on top of a $NZ7015 “Clean Car Rebate”.

Why the discount? Because the thing won’t sell. In a subsequent Stuff.co.nz piece, LDV confirmed that “the current inventory of heavily discounted eT60s in the country is the last we will see of the model, with no plans to renew supply.

“Between January and September of this year, just 53 eT60s were registered in New Zealand.”

Look it up, Chris. It’s all there.

A personal favourite Bowenism is his repeated claim that forcing car-makers to fill showrooms with EVs is about offering variety. “This is ultimately about choice,” he said in 2022. “Freedom of choice.”

Yep. You’ll have a huge choice of cars that you don’t like and won’t buy. Dealerships will be like supermarkets forced to stock 80 per cent vegan snacks. Take your choice, shoppers. Pick anything you want, so long as you don’t want it.

Anyway, I must be going. A text just lobbed saying Peter FitzSimons wrote a column last week about motor racing.

He knows very little about cricket, but Pete knows absolutely nothing about cars. This may take some time. See you in a few months

Just brilliant.

ACT pays the price for Drumgold’s trial slur against Reynolds
By janet albrechtsen and stephen rice
From Nation
1 hour ago
5 minute read

The ACT government has apologised to former Liberal minister Linda Reynolds and paid substantial damages over accusations by former chief prosecutor Shane Drumgold during Bruce Lehrmann’s rape case that the senator had engaged in “disturbing conduct” that included political interference in the police investigation.

Senator Reynolds launched defamation action in December in the wake of findings by the ­Sofronoff board of inquiry that Mr Drumgold’s allegations against her were baseless and “grossly unethical”.

The settlement is believed to be the fifth successful legal action by the former defence minister over allegations against her, with a further case against Brittany Higgins and her partner, David Sharaz, over comments they made on social media to be resolved.

Senator Reynolds will come face to face with her former employee on Tuesday with two days of mediation talks scheduled in Perth to try to avert a possible six-week trial in July.

She is suing Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz in separate defamation proceedings, with both being dealt with concurrently. It is the first visit back to Australia for Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz since they left for a new life in France last year.

Senator Reynolds told The Australian that since the conclusion of Mr Lehrmann’s criminal trial and Ms Higgins’ $2.4m compensation settlement with the commonwealth, she had “set about vindicating my reputation, which I consider has been wrongly damaged”.

“The ACT has accepted the findings of the board of inquiry, specifically that allegations made about my conduct during the criminal trial were defamatory.”

The ACT government “unreservedly retracts those allegations … (and) sincerely apologises for the damage, distress and embarrassment it has caused to Senator Reynolds”, the ACT Director-General of the Justice and Community Safety said in a statement.

Senator Reynolds declined to provide a figure for the settlement but The Australian understands that the ACT paid her costs and a substantial sum by way of damages for defamatory comments by the former DPP.

The defamation claim focused on a letter Mr Drumgold wrote to ACT Chief Police Officer Neil Gaughan in November 2022 making allegations about political interference in the investigation and trial of Mr Lehrmann.

Mr Drumgold also claimed Senator Reynolds had coached Mr Lehrmann’s defence team and attempted to solicit transcripts of the trial.

The then-ACT director of public prosecutions gave the letter to The Guardian newspaper, a move that helped spark the Sofronoff inquiry and ultimately brought Mr Drumgold’s own career to an end.

At the trial, Mr Drumgold told the jury that “political forces” explained the delay in Ms Higgins’s complaint to the police, and that “it is abundantly clear from the evidence and ­actions of Senator Reynolds during this trial that those political forces were still a factor”.

Mr Sofronoff found that “there was not a single piece of evidence that anyone had applied pressure upon Ms Higgins that could legitimately be described as ‘strong political forces’ ”.

In his cross-examination of Senator Reynolds, Mr Drumgold claimed she “arranged” for her partner to attend court and that he had been discussing Ms Higgins’s evidence with her.

There was no evidence of this and it was “tantamount to an allegation of an attempt to pervert the course of justice”, Mr Sofronoff said.

“It is a fundamental principle of ethical legal practice that suggestions to a witness should not be made unless they are supported by reliable information.

“Mr Drumgold was examined about his understanding of this ethical principle.

“His ignorance deeply disturbed me … He fails to understand the difference between putting forward to a witness an allegation of misconduct as a fact and asking a witness whether or not something is a fact.”

Mr Drumgold had also attempted to discredit Senator Reynolds by questioning her about a text she had sent to Mr Whybrow requesting a copy of the trial transcript to be sent to her lawyer.

“Mr Drumgold had no basis upon which to put that suggestion, which was intended to impute impropriety in Senator Reynolds in the eyes of the jurors,” Mr Sofronoff said.

Ms Higgins had issued legal proceedings against Senator Reynolds and she had been advised by her lawyer to get the trial transcript in order to provide her with advice.

“A phone call to the lawyer would have revealed the truth about that matter to Mr Drumgold,” Mr Sofronoff said.

The same could be said about the presence in court of Senator Reynolds’s partner, Mr Sofronoff observed.

Relatives and friends of witnesses frequently attended cases to observe proceedings. In this case, some friends and supporters of Ms Higgins attended.

“The suggestion that Senator Reynolds as well as her partner were engaging in potentially criminal conduct was an improper one and should not have been made,” Mr Sofronoff said. “Likewise, it was improper to put to Senator Reynolds that she was ‘politically invested’ in the outcome of the trial. There was not only no basis for this but the nat­ure of the political investment, why it might be important politically for there to be an acquittal, was never identified.”

Mr Sofronoff said he accepted Mr Drumgold’s submission that “he acted out of ignorance but I must say that I am taken aback that a senior counsel holding the office of DPP should be so ignorant of this fundamental principle”.

“The suggestions made by Mr Drumgold had no basis at all and should not have been made,” he said.

“They were intended to, and might have, affected the outcome of the trial adversely to Mr Lehrmann and the conduct was, therefore, grossly unethical.”

Mr Sofronoff found that Mr Drumgold “advanced nothing resembling evidence to support the serious allegations of impropriety that he levelled against the police, defence and Senator Reynolds”.

“This inquiry has thoroughly examined the allegations in Mr Drumgold’s letter. Each allegation has been exposed to be baseless.

“Late in giving his oral evidence, Mr Drumgold finally resiled from his scandalous allegations. The allegation of political interference was particularly wicked because it was an allegation that had a tendency to lessen the community’s confidence in the system of administration of justice and was made without the slightest evidence to support it.”

Senator Reynolds will be represented at the Perth mediation on Tuesday by five lawyers, headed by barrister Martin Bennett, while Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz between them will have seven, with Ms Higgins’ team led by silk Nick Owens SC and her lawyer Leon Zwier.

Siracusa.
I made my way back through the narrow streets of the Graziella district once the home of Siracusa’s fishermen, it’s low rise and apparently based on the Arab model ie without any planning, dead ends and streets so narrow it would be impossible even to drive a donkey cart (Arabs ruled Siracusa for 200 years betwen the 9th and 11th centuries)
The church I was looking for was Sant Pietro’s ‘ the oldest church in Syracusa’, having found it I paid my €2 and entered, the big group of Italians ahead of me declined, they were hoping for first Sunday of the month is free.
The church dates from 326AD but had been extensively remodelled five times, by the Byzantines, the Normans, the Aragonese etc.
The Baroque layer has been removed, and an 8thC fresco revealed, there are apparently two additional layers of frescoes below this last clearly recognisable remnant.
It escaped a mosque conversion during the Arab occupation but what use it was put to is unknown.
Probably lucky as reconquistadors in Spain tended to remove church to mosques and rebuild.
It was used as an auditorium for some time in recent history but having never been deconsecrated was restored to it’s proper use in 2016, though not for regular masses.
Lots of little placards in the space with useful information, in English.
The information on the internet is sparse and sometimes, incorrect.
Worth a visit.
not bad

Faulty Alert.

JC
How does a New Zealander end up in Italy in the 1960s developing sports cars
Bruce McLaren would have been able to answer that question.